by Maria Lima
The extra clothes made him miserable, though. My brother was no more used to this climate than I was, despite having lived here a great deal longer than I ever had. His natural body temperature hovered somewhere slightly above a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, something to do with his shifter metabolism. Surviving Texas summers had always been brutal for him. He'd stayed, though, unlike me who, although technically living here for the past thirty years, I'd spent many of my post-high school years traveling, mostly in places with a milder climate, even before I'd left for what was then a more permanent move to London. Tucker, on the other hand, preferred being a homebody, content to be where Gigi planted her flag, whether deep in the Texas Hill Country or now, in British Columbia, where the weather, no doubt, was more suited for his nature. He'd come back to Rio Seco for me. Greater love hath no sibling ... or something along those lines. I liked to kid him it was because Gigi made him, but I know he'd volunteered.
"Marco Polo? Are you that bored?” I stopped and took a swig out of my giant insulated Bill Miller Bar-B-Q mug. These were the best to-go cups ever. Thank goodness I had a good supply of them, even if I tended to stop at the San Antonio barbecue chain for the giant iced tea mugs instead of the food. I'd packed the container with crushed ice and water earlier, knowing the tricks of staying cooler in the Texas heat. When I was done, I passed the mug to Tucker.
"Bored? How could I be bored when I'm spending time with my favorite sister in the sweltering heat during the middle of the day?” Tucker echoed my own swig, gulping down cold liquid. “Oh yeah,” he continued, “all this when I could still be in my cozy bed doing things that don't involve tramping through flora that want to take a bite out of you."
"Once again, I repeat: I really don't want to hear about your sex life, brother mine,” I said. “And ‘favorite'? My overheated ass. Only sister."
"I was talking about sleep, sister dear,” he answered with a laugh and a brotherly poke to my side. “But you go right ahead with thinking whatever you want. A little embarrassment isn't half enough punishment for you pulling me out of my extremely cozy bed two days in a row."
I shrugged and continued to walk forward, playing at nonchalant. “You didn't have to come."
"I suppose not,” he said. “But someone's got to—"
"Keep an eye on me?” I tossed the words over my shoulder and sped up my pace a little.
Tucker laughed, wiped his brow again and picked up a tree branch he'd been using as a walking stick-cum-something to poke into the underbrush with.
"You know I could search better by myself.” Tucker caught up to me and handed me back my mug. I hooked it back onto the belt clip.
"Yeah, well, good luck with that.” I nodded in the direction of the rest of the searchers, each of them with a variation of grim determination on their faces.
"Yeah, well.” He looked over at the group and then back out in front of us. “If we don't find anything now, I can come back later ... after dark. We can both come back ... with reinforcements."
I looked at my watch. “It's just gone noon. Do you think it's worth coming back? We're bound to cover a lot of territory between now and sunset."
He nodded and started to walk again, towards the unwritten finish line: the county road that bisected the state conservancy. On the other side of the road was land that had been under conservancy purview since 1956: two thousand acres of near pristine Texas Hill Country flora and fauna. We weren't extending the search there since most of the property was game fenced and patrolled regularly by state game wardens.
This was the second day of the search and there was no sign of the missing teens at all. No one had seen hide nor hair of the kids or the three-wheelers, nor Jimmy Stahl's pickup, since they'd headed out day before yesterday. The search teams had already hit up the most logical choices and with the help of the local landowners, the easy-access ranches were also a bust.
Personally, I still figured that we were all barking up the wrong cactus. Four teenagers, at least two of whom were legal to drive? I was betting they'd gone partying in Austin or San Antonio and had overdone it and were crashing at some friend's place. Hell, I'd done much of the same at their age and been too damned embarrassed to call home. Either that or they'd run off, but that was less likely, since three of the four were honor students and were looking forward to graduation in about six weeks.
"I think we still need to try,” Tucker finally said. “Niko told me they did a fairly thorough search of the ranch property last night. They didn't quite come out to the property line because some of these search folks had camped out in the area. Too risky."
"Camped out, huh?"
"Yeah, normally, he'd have probably asked them to leave, but under the circumstances..."
"Yeah, low profile,” I said. “Do you know how far they got? I, um, kind of left before—"
"So I heard,” my brother replied drily. “More trouble in ye olde marriage bed?"
"Hardly,” I retorted. “Because (a) so not married and (b) we never got to the bed part.” Okay, Keira, a little too much information there?
My brother stopped in his tracks and turned to me. “Huh, wow, I was kind of joking, but I'm guessing this is not a joke now?"
"Not,” I repeated. I let my voice trail off and took a deep breath. Now was a good a time as any, I supposed.
Tucker's amused interest immediately gave way to his best brotherly “what's wrong?” stare.
I looked around before I spoke. The other searchers were yards away, walking two-by-two, most of them busy talking to each other. They were all out of earshot. No one seemed to be paying any attention to Tucker and me.
"So,” I began, my voice cracking a little. “I have to ask you something. It's a little personal, but..."
"So ask."
I inhaled, my nose catching the slightly musky scent that always accompanied my shapeshifter siblings. Behind the closer musk was hot dryness of the dusty ground cut by the sharp green of the mesquite. I wasn't sure how to broach this subject with Tucker, but I knew he was the one that could relate ... exactly.
"Does Niko sleep every day? I mean, coma sleep, like pass out at dawn and be dead for all practical purposes until dusk?"
"No.” Tucker's brow furrowed. “Keira, are you telling me that Adam's doing that? That's not good."
"I know, I know,” I said. “That's why ... he hasn't been completely comatose all the time. Not really and not until fairly recently. When I first started staying there, Adam usually slept about five or six hours—that is, when he slept all the way through a day. He'd do that every few days or so.” I looked down to the ground. “Mostly, he slept like that when, um, activities were ... you know.” I shrugged and put my hands in my pockets and looked at the ground.
Tucker chuckled. “So I'm guessing—"
"Don't, Tucker. Don't go there.” I was already embarrassed enough. It was one thing to be blasé and worldly when talking about one's sex life in abstract, but discussing specifics with my brother? No. I couldn't do that. Maybe when I was older and wiser or something. Not now.
"Most of the time,” I continued, “Adam would be asleep for a few hours, and often up and around during the day. We mostly keep ... kept, to his house in the daytime. It's easy to avoid direct sunlight when you keep the blinds and curtains drawn.” I looked at Tucker again. He looked back, his expression neutral, but concerned.
"The past few weeks, Adam's been sleeping every day, practically from dawn until dusk. At first, I thought it was some sort of seasonal thing. You know, more sun, summer coming, whatever."
Tucker took my hand, squeezed it a little. “I don't think so.” I could hear the worry in his voice.
"Then Niko isn't..."
"No, he's still keeping to the same routine. Days we kind of laze around, sometimes sleeping, sometimes not. Nights he's outside, doing work-type stuff. Patrolling the ranch. Checking the stock, meeting with Adam, that kind of thing."
"Damn."
I squeezed Tucker's hand and l
et it go. He knew I wanted to talk, but I wasn't sure how candid I wanted to be. Some things seemed to need privacy even from my brother. Normally, I could talk to Tucker about mostly anything. This, though, seemed more like ... shit. I don't know what. The kind of thing that you'd talk about with your best girlfriend I suppose ... or maybe Dear Abby. Personal girl things that most brothers would so not want to hear about.
Dear Abby,
My boyfriend won't suck my blood. I've offered, I've cajoled. I've even begged, even though begging is totally humiliating and degrading because I'm so afraid that if he doesn't, he's going to die. Oh, and did I mention he's a vampire? No, really, the undead kind.
Signed,
Confused in Texas.
Dear Confused:
What The Fuck!?
Okay, so writing Dear Abby was out of the question.
What the hell. I took a deep breath. Adam would have to deal. Privacy be damned.
"I think Adam is getting weaker,” I said, my hands instinctively curling into fists, as if the words galvanized me to prepare to fight. “You know he's still not hunting, right? The conversation last night in his office? Plus, we haven't had sex in a couple of weeks."
"Why the hell not?"
At first I didn't know whether Tucker meant the hunting or the sex. I was about to say something when he held up a hand, his friendly glare turning into a serious frown.
"Keira, I may joke about it but I really don't want to pry into your sex life, nor in Adam's decisions, but something is wrong. Niko's been working like a fiend setting up hunts, making sure the over-populated herds are scoped out, marked and tagged so none of the vampires would have to take any of the endangered stock. I don't care what Adam said about losing control or whatever. It's not like the vampires are roaming around willy-nilly and grabbing any which prey."
"I know, I know. That's just it, Tucker. Adam won't hunt. He's still drinking that godawful wine substitute with the animal blood extracts. I was going to talk to him this morning, when he got back from the office, but he looked so tired, I figured I'd wait. I mean—he slipped on the stairs."
"Huh.” Tucker looked thoughtful. “That's a bit unusual."
"Yeah. Vampires tend not to be clumsy—ever,” I agreed. “I don't know, chalk it up to whatever, but I ignored it. Then, I tried, well, you know ... then we had an argument. Tucker, I think he's afraid."
"Of what?"
"Remember last October, after Boris tried to kill him and Niko? He—both of them, actually—took blood from me. Adam said then it's like an addiction. I think he's afraid that he'll slide back into it, not stop with hunting deer, but start hunting humans again."
I tried to keep my voice steady. It wasn't easy. No matter how close I grew to Adam, we couldn't agree on something so substantially fundamental to the both of us.
I'd grown up in a family of hunters: my brothers, my father were all shapeshifters who hunted prey for food. Not human prey—the four-legged kind. No one in my family saw anything wrong with following your nature, your need, least of all me.
It wasn't that Adam would have to kill humans for food. That part of the legend, like many designed to frighten the peasants, was patently untrue. Not that they couldn't kill, but on the whole, vampires didn't need much blood to survive. A little while after I'd moved in, Adam gave me the Vampire Basics class—you know, “No, we don't sleep in coffins. No, holy items don't necessarily bother us,” etc. Certainly opened my eyes. I don't suppose I was all that surprised, though. My own family members weren't exactly textbook cases. Tucker was no more like the Wolf Man of Hollywood legend than my mother was a faery princess ... although, with her, who really knew? The less said about that branch of my bloodline, the better.
When Adam allowed Niko to open up the hunting, I figured that would solve the problem. But it didn't ... because Adam wasn't hunting. He was still trying to survive on substitutes, worried that his need would grow too strong to ignore and, like the time he was imprisoned in the death camps during World War II, he'd lose control and end up killing.
I knew he was wrong. Hunting was a basic instinctual need for vampires; blood was the source of their nutrition, the necessary ingredient that allowed them to survive. The idea of living animal blood taken from the local deer population made sense to me. Drinking blood extracts that obviously weren't working, didn't. Problem was, no matter how many times we argued, how many times I offered my own blood, he'd continued to ignore it.
"Keira?"
"Sorry,” I said. “I'm at my wits’ end. I can tell he's growing weaker and he won't admit it. I've offered him my blood—several times. Flat out, he refuses, and he won't even have sex anymore. He fears one act will lead to the next.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I'm afraid he's going to die.” I closed my eyes, not wanting to meet my brother's gaze, not wanting to see the quiet sympathy I knew would be there. I didn't want to start crying.
"Big fucking deal."
My eyes flew open at Tucker's blunt words. “What? What happened to tea and sympathy?"
"Is that what you wanted, sis? Because if you did, I'm definitely the wrong person at this point. I thought you were looking for real advice."
I swallowed my initial retort. He was right. If I'd wanted the “poor baby” routine, I could have easily gone over to Bea's and couched all of this in general terms. Christ, why was I being this stupid? It wasn't like me to be all wimpy lovelorn whatever. I was stronger than this. Yeah, but you've never really fallen for anybody like this before. You've never had to deal with someone actually possibly dying. I tried to silence my all-too-honest inner voice.
"No, Tucker, please,” I said quickly. “Sorry. I'm..."
"Confused, yeah, I know,” Tucker said. He put his walking stick down and folded me in his arms. “C'mon, Keira, you know I only want you to be happy."
I hugged him back, grateful for the solid strength of him.
We stood there for a few moments, letting ourselves be silent. “Thanks,” I whispered. Tucker kissed the top of my head, gave me a squeeze and then let me go. He kept hold of my arms, his large hands around my biceps, his gaze searching mine.
"Keira, I love you, but I have to be honest with you. Adam's afraid, big fucking deal. So he can get over it and learn to survive."
I pulled away from Tucker and crossed my arms. “Well, then, you bloody well tell him, brother mine, because I'm certainly not having any freaking luck."
"He's a stubborn man, li'l sis. He can't not be and still be in charge of his pack."
"I know. Thing is, there's not really anything you can do. For that matter, anything I can do. Ever try to outstubborn a vampire?"
He laughed, the booming sound ringing across the clearing. I quickly glanced over but most of the searchers were barely in eyesight range, much less in earshot. Thank goodness for that, I'd forgotten we were totally out in the middle of the outdoors with witnesses. I hoped if anyone had seen my mini-meltdown, they'd ignore it.
"C'mon, Keira, can Adam be any more stubborn than a 1200-year-old hellhound or the hellhound's equally stubborn sister?"
He had a point. I wasn't sure how many years Adam had been on this planet, but my not-so-precocious brother Tucker Kelly had plenty of his own history behind him. My own lifespan, so far, paled in comparison, but I'd learned survival first in the faery mounds, then amongst six half-brothers and the rest of the local clan. My father's great-granny was the proverbial iron-fisted lace and velvet-gloved matriarch. My brothers treated me like any kid sister. I'd learned to be obstinate from an early age.
"Okay, okay, I concede the point,” I said. “Adam may have won this round, but I bet we can come up with something. I am not going to let him die."
"Good, now let's get back to the searching,” Tucker said. “I'd be willing to let the other searchers continue by themselves while you and I go back to the ranch, but we can't assume these folks won't overlook something, like we can't assume those kids are okay. Especially since Ignacio's brother still hasn't tu
rned up either. This place is close to the Pursell place. If something happened to him, he—or his body—may be out here somewhere."
Tucker was right. We knew after last night that neither the missing kids nor Alex (or their bodies) were on Wild Moon property and even if I didn't know how much land Adam's security team had covered, if they'd found something, I would know about it.
Tucker and I had checked in with Bea and Ignacio before starting this morning. Ignacio was happily helping by busing tables and washing dishes, content in the fact that we were looking for his brother. That kind of faith wasn't something I knew or understood. I hadn't had the heart, in the face of his earnest gaze, to tell him how much I'd fallen down on the job. At least now, though, I could honestly say we were really looking.
I glanced over at the other searchers, most of them local ranchers, their wives, some teens and a smattering of merchants and other Rio Seco county residents. Weren't many of us around since so much land had been bought up by outsiders. Still a scant hundred or so ranch families left in the widespread county, some others who either worked up near Boerne or commuted to one of the other larger, yet small towns to work in the Wal-Mart or the H-E-B stores.
As much as I tried to avoid the obvious, Rio Seco was a dying town, a dying county. Soon, we'd have to give up and let the inevitable happen and become a place where tourists came to live. It wasn't that I was against tourists, or folks who wanted to buy land here. For me, Rio Seco was Sanctuary. It was the place that had come to mean safety and love when I was a child and once again was where I could simply be Keira Kelly, who hangs out with her best friend Bea Ruiz, alone and happy to be that way.
Not so alone these days, not with Adam, with Tucker still there and, by concatenation, Niko, who wasn't exactly a fan of mine, but tolerated me more than he had when I'd first met him. We could continue to close ranks, both Tucker and I removing ourselves to the Wild Moon permanently and leaving the town and county to the incomers, but I wasn't quite ready to do that yet. No matter how many days I stayed at the ranch, this was still my town, my turf ... or at least close enough.
