Vampires Need Not…Apply? (Accidentally Yours #4)(21)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Ixtab was about to go kamikaze on this crowd. “This isn’t a normal mortal. If he dies, we all die. Just do it and get it over with.”

Viktor’s eyes flipped her the middle finger.

Like she cared. She’d been “blessed” with the “gift” of suicide, which pretty much meant she’d been given the middle finger by life itself.

“And are you going to take personal accountability? Are you?” Viktor asked Ixtab. “Will you teach him about the Pact and how not to kill innocent mortals, Ixtab? We just got rid of evil vampires. I don’t want to be responsible for making new ones. I like my neighborhood Obscuro-free.”

Ixtab rolled her eyes. “Why do all vampires have to be on vacay, and I get stuck with Mr. Vampy Rogers who wants a beautiful neighborhood?”

“Yes or no, Ixtab?” he prodded.

Ixtab nodded. “Yes! Yes! You idiot! Save him!”

Viktor’s attention moved to Antonio who lay on the floor with a bandage wrapped around his neck. The bleeding had slowed, but the wound was severe, and to Ixtab’s estimation, he wouldn’t last much longer. “He needs to drink my blood before his heart stops.”

“No. I do not want to be like him. I don’t want to be a monster,” a low voice mumbled.

All eyes moved to Antonio.

* * *

Trapped in a nightmare of pain, Antonio’s mind flickered on and off again like a waning lightbulb dangling from the ceiling of a third world interrogation room. Each time his awareness illuminated, the ugliness of his reality—the pain of having his throat ripped open—was more terrifying than death.

Vampires were real? This was what the voices said. No. A dream. A crazy dream.

“Antonio,” a soft voice cut through the darkness, “you can’t give up; we need you.” A soft and soothing warm hand stroked his wrist, and the feeling of pure levity embraced him. The scent of vanilla and daisies filled the air. “That’s right. Let go of those thoughts of death. Give them to me.”

The woman then spoke to someone else in the room—a man with a deep voice and a European accent. “Turn him now, he’s slipping away,” she begged.

“He does not want to be a vampire. You heard him. He called me a monster,” the accented man replied.

“My father… I…” I don’t want to be a monster like my father, Antonio thought, but could not manage to say the words.

“See! He’s trying to say he doesn’t want to die. He wants to see his father.”

“That’s not what he said,” the man argued.

“Oh. Crapola!” she hissed. “Can we just get this over with? It’s for the greater good.”

God, he loved this woman’s voice. It was like sweet, warm nectar dribbled in his ears.

“Spoken like a deity,” the man said. “You’re a bunch of sick bastards, you know that don’t you? The man does not want immortality, so find another way to open the portal.”

“Please,” the woman whispered in Antonio’s ear, stroking his cheek. “Do it for me.”

“No compelling!” The strange man scowled.

“I’m not!” she barked and then returned to touching Antonio’s cheek—it felt so heavenly, soothing.

“Antonio, this is important,” she said. “You must say yes.”

Antonio suddenly wanted to. And just like that first time he’d heard her voice in the hospital, he didn’t want to separate from her. She was like a drug.

His mind whirled and sputtered, dancing in and out of conscious thought. Dream and reality mingled into an inseparable murky soup. “I wish I could see you. Just once,” he mumbled. “Are you as beautiful as you sound?”

She snickered. “Entire armies have fallen to their deaths for a peek.”

“And you will not leave me? Ever?” he whispered.

Emptiness filled a long stretch of time, and then, “I will not leave you.”

The word yes bubbled from his lips.

“Ha! You heard him! Do it!” the woman cheered.

The strange man groaned. “All right, I hope you know what you’re in for.” Hot, salty liquid poured into Antonio’s mouth and slid down his throat. It spread like a raging wildfire through his veins. Antonio peered through the lavalike pain scalding his throat into the haze. A pair of luminescent eyes gazed back.

“Relax, mad scientist. Let go. I’ll be waiting for you on the other side,” she whispered.

Antonio felt the life slip from his body and hurtle toward the stars. It was as if gravity had relinquished the claim on his soul and sent it to unite with the cosmos. He let out one final breath and slid into oblivion.

Chapter Doce

After two days of sitting beside Antonio’s dead body, Ixtab had reached her threshold of despair and went out to cleanse the negative energy flowing in her veins. Not every vampire transformation ended successfully, and the thought of Antonio dying brought her right back to the night of Francisco’s deathbed when she’d helplessly watched his body succumb to the poison he’d ingested. It had been too much to bear then, and it was too much watching a near replica die once more. Ixtab’s cells burst at the seams with sadness, and unfortunately, she couldn’t find sufficient country-club members at that hour, so she had to go after a few less-charismatic creatures. Park services were going to have about one hundred trees to replant in the spring.

Exhausted and needing to lie down, Ixtab made her way to the penthouse. Voices poured into the hallway, bantering back and forth as she stepped off the elevator.

Zac. It was Zac. What the hell is he doing here? she wondered, listening through the door.

“Penelope,” he said, “you are being ridiculous. Kinich does not care for you like I do. I would never toss you aside like that.”

“I love Kinich, and that’s not going to change.”

“Did he tell you his bond broke?”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“When he was in Sedona, that night he became a vampire, I spent hours with him. He told me his bond with the Universe had broken. He has been free for some time now, no longer a slave to humanity’s well-being.”

“So, what are you saying?” Penelope asked.

“I’m saying that again and again, even before he became a vampire, he had the choice to stay with you, to put you first, but he didn’t. He tossed you aside.”

“Yes. It’s true; he put humankind first before his own wants and needs, but that makes him a hero,” she argued.