Vampires Need Not...Apply

Chapter Diez

Two blocks from Helena’s building, Ixtab sighed with relief. She’d staggered into the alley and had found a worthy country-club member. He’d been passed out behind a Dumpster with one eye cracked open. That was enough for her to see his soul. Ah. Black aura. Bingo!

A few seconds longer and Ixtab would have been down for the count. But why had she filled up without touching anyone? And that damned taste in her mouth wouldn’t go away.

As she strolled down the sidewalk bustling with people heading out for their evening fun, her cell vibrated and then played the Death March. She dug it out from her enormous straw handbag—the one with plastic daisies on the outside and stuffed to the gills with Tic Tacs, a spare veil, and the knitted bootees she planned to gift wrap later.

“Hey, Penelope.”

“Any news?”

What should she say? If this situation was heartbreaking to watch from the sidelines, it had to be a thousand times worse for the stars of this drama. Gods, she wished she could simply fix Kinich. But she couldn’t. “I’m sorry. He’s still working on it. Just give him a few more days.”

“That’s what you said yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.”

“That’s because he still goes monkey balls every time he smells your blood,” Ixtab explained.

“He won’t kill me, Ixtab. I know he won’t. He loves me too much. Maybe if we let him have a nibble?”

Patience, patience…

Oh, hell. I can’t hold it! “Would you like a wooden or a plastic barrel for your trip down Niagara Falls, today, Miss Evel Knievel?”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. I just think it’s amazing. For most humans, elevated pregnancy hormones make them more cautious and protective. But you, you turn into a goddamned daredevil!” Ixtab said.

Awkward silence.

“Evel Knievel rode a motorcycle, not a barrel,” Penelope said quietly.

“Oh. What. Ever! The point is you have more than yourself to think about now.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here in New York. I need to see him. I need to fix this. Not for me, but for the baby, too. It deserves a chance to have its real father.”

“No! Dammit. It deserves to live, which it won’t if you go anywhere near Kinich. Besides, you’re forgetting that he doesn’t want to see you. He doesn’t want to risk hurting you and the baby.”

Long pause. “You’re right,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I know you’re right.” Long pause. “Can’t I talk to him on the phone? Can’t he at least say it to my face? Or ear. Crap. Whatever!”

I tried that. He said hearing your voice would send him into a frenzy. “What’s the point? He’s only going to tell you what I’ve already said. Give him time, Penelope, and I’m sure—” Sobs broke out on the other end of the phone.

Normally, crying humans didn’t bother Ixtab much, but for some reason, it really got under her skin when Penelope did it.

Maybe you really care for her?

What? Me?

Ha. Never.

Okay. Maybe a little. Ixtab tapped her foot on the cold concrete. Okay. A lot. “Fine. I’ll go to his apartment and get him on the phone, but don’t come near his place.”

“I’m staying upstairs with you at Helena’s,” Penelope said.

“That’s too close.”

“Ixtab, stop. You’re not my mother.”

Clearly not. Ixtab was far from being an angel. “You’re absolutely right. If she were here now, she’d…” What kind of punishment would an angel dole out? “She’d… poke you in the eye! Uh-huh! That’s right.”

Penelope made a little caah “whatever” sound.

“You know, Penelope, I consider you like a sister. Only a less annoying, mortal-ish version with a heart. And a conscience. But clearly the Creator didn’t pluck you from the brainy branch. Did he? Kinich. Is. A. Vampire. One who would like nothing more than to gobble you up like a ten-year-old holding a hand-dipped waffle cone filled with birthday cake, M&M’s, and topped with vanilla ice cream. And video tokens. Well, maybe they wouldn’t eat the tokens, but you get the gist.”

“Ixtab, I can’t help it. My brain says stay away, but everything else says to go to him, that it will all work out if I trust him, if I trust our love. I didn’t do that before when I should have, and it only made things worse.”

“Getting anywhere near my brother is a death sentence, Penelope. I’m seventy thousand years old, and you’ll simply need to trust that I know what I’m talking about.”

“Ixtab, you don’t under—”

“But I do. I do—Wait. Why are we even having this conversation? You know, I could never understand people with a death wish. Seriously. You’d never see other animals pulling this crap, but you humans…oy vey. Would a dog base jump off the Empire State Building? How about a chipmunk? You’d never see those furry little bastards doing stupid crap like free-climbing El Capitan, and they’re goddamned nuts. And evil. Oh yes, evil. Which makes Alvin and his sweater-wearing, pop-star buddies all the more disturbing. I digress. Point is, humans who don’t value the gift of life really irk me.”

“I know I’m being an idiot,” Penelope said, “but I can’t think of anything other than Kinich. It’s driving me insane. And in my heart, I know he wouldn’t kill me. It—it doesn’t make sense, Ixy.”

Ixy? Did she just give me my first nickname? Ixtab suddenly felt warm and gooey inside.

“Why would the universe,” Penelope continued, “and fate go through so much to bring us together only for him to kill me? We’re meant to do this—this saving-the-world thing together. Two parts of one soul, Ixtab. You said so yourself. We are mates. And…” She sighed deeply. “I can’t breathe without him. I’m afraid that one day soon, I won’t be able to get out of bed. Or see this through for me or the baby. My soul can’t keep going like this—all broken.”

Dammit. Failure wasn’t an option. Ixtab would have to put Penelope on life support, aka daily cleansing.

“Please, Ixtab. Will you get him to call me?”

“Yes. I’ll go to him now. But stay away from his apartment. Go straight to Helena’s.”

She pressed End and headed back.

Five minutes later, Ixtab stepped off the elevator and heard a wail that turned into a nasty gurgle. The noise came straight from Kinich’s apartment. “Oh, fancy fudge.”

She bolted through the door and found Kinich hunched over a pair of twitching legs. “Kinich! No!”

She tackled him to the floor and felt a spark of pent-up, evil energy release from her body. Christ almighty!

Kinich’s eyes blackened and his lower lip quivered as he stared straight up at her. He seemed just as shocked as she was.

She looked over her shoulder, horrified to see the victim. Antonio? Oh, gods. Please no. He was unconscious and bleeding from the neck.

She launched off of Kinich and scrambled to Antonio. “No. No. No!” She ripped off her veil and reached for his neck, pausing for a moment. Dammit, she had to stop the bleeding, but if she touched him without getting her mind straight, he’d likely die anyway.

She closed her eyes and urged her cells to open, to pull the flow of energy inward instead of readying to release.

Nothing.

Antonio’s breathing shallowed, and his blood ran freely onto the floor.

“Oh, hell.” Maybe she’d be able to pull the bad energy back out before he woke up.

Good fucking luck with that. Once transplanted, dark energy always seemed to stick better to its new home and was ten times harder to pull out.

Doesn’t matter; there is no other choice.

She compressed the wound with the veil. Ixtab gasped and felt her entire body surge with a powerful light that circulated between them. In and out. In and out. It was as if…

Our lights are dancing together.

What the…?

She looked over at Kinich. “Dammit, sunshine. Get your ass on the phone and call that vampy doctor.”

“What doctor,” he grumbled, still immobile on the floor.

“There’s a magnet on your fridge. Didn’t you see it?” Helena had mentioned in their last phone call that she’d put them in all the apartments for the newly undead. “Move!”

She looked back down at Antonio, feeling mesmerized by the intertwining of their souls and by his exquisite male beauty. She brushed back his dark brown hair. “Don’t die on me, Klaus Van Mad Scientist. Don’t you dare die on me.” Gods be damned she didn’t know what was happening, but she’d never touched a mortal like this. She wasn’t draining his darkness or killing him. They were simply… touching.

She sighed and soaked him in. His eyelashes—so thick and dark—the masculine dip in his chin, the strong stubble-covered jaw. “You need to help us save the world,” she whispered in his ear. Perhaps you will save me, too…

Again she glanced over her shoulder. Kinich wasn’t in the kitchen. He was standing in the open window, readying to jump.

No! Dammit! She’d dosed him with darkness. He was trying to kill himself.

She bolted across the room just as Kinich launched.

“Nooo!” She leaped forward and caught him by one thick ankle. Her entire body jerked violently outside with Kinich’s weight. She caught the ledge with her shellacked pink fingernails and dug in hard, her body dangling precariously from the frosty ledge. Damn, her brother was heavy.

Ixtab grunted as a few onlookers from the street below screamed. Thank the gods it was nighttime and the building had few exterior lights or the entire city would be able to see him.

“Let me go.” He fought and squirmed.

Oh, hell. This was not happening. She clenched her eyes shut. Reverse for fuck sake. Reverse! She needed Kinich to want to live. Antonio was bleeding to death, and if forced to choose between him or her brother, it would be Antonio. Didn’t matter that her brother meant everything to her, that besides Francisco, Kinich was the only being on the planet who’d treated her like someone important or that Kinich had never turned his back on her. Not even after she nearly lost her mind from killing the man she’d loved so deeply that it had left her soul twisted and mangled.

But that water had flowed past the dreary-goddess bridge thousands of moons ago. This water had yet to pass and was coming fast and furious and its name was Antonio Acero, the keystone to opening the portal. And her bond with the Universe would always dictate she put humanity first.

Goddammit. The tears squeezed from her body like a lemon in a press as her muscles strained under his weight. She’d been given many gifts, but the gift of strength? Not a chance.

I hate you, Universe! Don’t do this to me! Don’t you dare make me choose! she mentally scorned with every flicker of her immortal soul. Please, please, reverse.

“Aaah!!Teen uk’al k’iinam. Teen uk’al yah. Teen uk’al k’iinam. Teen uk’al yah. Teen uk’al k’iinam. Teen uk’al yah…”

Kinich’s body went limp. Had it worked?

Ixtab gritted her teeth and pulled up, but two hundred and fifty–plus pounds of pure ex–Sun God was more than her frame could support.

His heel slipped a centimeter. She flexed her nails and penetrated his skin, but she was losing her grip. How long could she hold on? And every second lost was another ounce of blood loss closer to death for Antonio.

Her eyes flipped down. Would a vampire survive the fall? She had seen them survive far worse over thousands of years. She’d also seen a few die from lesser injuries.

“Kinich, can you hear me? Goddammit, you have to grab on to something.” There was a small ledge below that led to a window in the downstairs apartment.

Kinich didn’t respond.

She yanked one more time, but it was useless, too heavy. “Kinich, I don’t know if you can hear me, brother, but I love you. You’re the only family I’ve ever had, and for this I will never forget you. But if I don’t save Antonio, the portal will not open, Guy and Niccolo will remain trapped, and the Maaskab will exterminate us all—your precious Penelope and baby included. I have to choose. I have to. And my heart chooses you, but my duty chooses…”

Sobbing, she clenched her eyes shut and released his ankle.

“Nooo!”

At that exact moment, Ixtab looked up only to see Penelope’s face witness Kinich’s fall to earth.

Oh, Gods. No. No…

There simply weren’t enough souls, evil or good, to cleanse the pain and darkness she witnessed in Penelope’s eyes.