Vampires Need Not…Apply? (Accidentally Yours #4)(51)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“I was busy,” she replied.

“You were ha**ng s*x with him?”

I wish. “Not that kind of busy,” Ixtab grumbled.

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Did you at least get him back to work?”

“That won’t be an issue. There’s another problem,” Ixtab said.

“Let me put you on speaker.” There was a pause and then Penelope asked, “There. Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” Ixtab rolled her eyes. “I can hear you…”

“Good. Kinich is with me. We’re listening.”

Where should she start? “Well, first of all, Antonio didn’t go to Spain to run away from me.”

“Oh! That’s great!” Penelope responded.

“He came here because his father is dying.”

“Oh no. That’s horrible.”

“But he hates his father, so he’s not sad about it,” Ixtab added.

“Is that horrible or good? Because it sounds like a little of both,” Penelope said.

“I’m not sure,” Ixtab said, “which is the reason we need to talk.” Pause. “Kinich, are you listening?”

Ixtab heard a rustling in the background and then a “Heeeey!” from Kinich that sounded like someone had taken away his favorite toy.

“Sorry,” said Penelope, “he was kissing my tummy. He’s listening now.”

Resist. Resist hating them for their sickly, sweet cuteness… “I overheard a conversation between Antonio and his father. They were yelling about him taking the souls of his children, and I most definitely heard the word species thrown in there along with the name el Trauco. What the hell is el Trauco?”

There was a long silence before Penelope chimed in. “El Trauco is a mystical creature from Chile that preys on innocent young women and impregnates them.”

“How did you know that?” Ixtab asked.

“I’ve got an iPhone. Hello. Sometimes you deities are so old-school.”

Ixtab pulled her phone from her cheek and stared at the device. Oh yeah. I guess I could have Wiki’d that. I am pretty lame.

Then her mind began to jam the improbable into place, forcing the pieces of the jigsaw to fit together. Gasp! This couldn’t be. This just couldn’t be. Hate you dramawhore Universe! Hate, hate, hate you!!

Feeling the blood pool to her feet, she scarcely managed to eke out, “I’ll call you later.” Ixtab hung up and flopped faceup on the bed. There was no way! No way!

Yes way.

It was the only explanation that made sense. The darkness, the missing women, the look-alikes, and finally, Antonio’s obsession with the tablet.

Poor, poor Antonio. All this time, this is what he’d been up against? Gods, why hadn’t he told her? And now that she knew, what would she do about it?

First, you need to find out how. Yes, how? Because never in a million years would Ixtab have seen this coming. It was simply… impossible.

* * *

Ixtab followed the foul stench of death and decay through the house back to study and to what had to be Antonio’s father’s hidden bedroom, or lair as some creepy creatures liked to call it. It reeked of everything in this world she despised—the absence of joy or life—and the malevolent energy was so powerful that it doubled her over the moment she touched the faux bookshelf slash hidden door. Or maybe it was the pain of her past catching up with her. Or perhaps the disappointment she felt, because if her assumptions were true, then Antonio’s arrival into her life had nothing to do with destiny or fate or the Universe giving her another chance. It would simply be the result of a terrible oversight by the gods.

Feeling that her heart might actually burst from sadness, she trembled as her hand gripped the wooden shelf and pulled. Gods dammit, please don’t be him. Please don’t be him…

The hidden door creaked open and the obscure room, with its thick, black velvet curtains and mahogany furniture, looked more like a dreary tomb.

“Quién es usted?” The old man, who wore a burgundy bathrobe with gold trim, sat up in his bed.

Ixtab’s heart nearly shriveled up into a ball of despair and anger. Yes, his face was thin and his eyes a dull, hazy gray, but the resemblance to Francisco—and Antonio and Franco, for that matter—was undeniable.

But how? How? On the very godsdamned day she’d finally put the past behind her? On the very day she’d realized she no longer had to be the Goddess of Suicide, but could be something more, something better—the bringer of happiness. Noooo! She refused to believe it. Re. Fused! Why did the Universe insist on punishing her?

Ixtab’s knees began to tremble violently and adrenaline coursed through her humanlike body, making her feel like she might actually explode from the shock.

How…?

“Mind explaining why the hell you’re not dead?” Gods, how she wanted to hurt him. How could this be?

He narrowed his cataract-covered eyes. “I recognize your voice. It is very, very familiar. Who are you?”

“Who am I? Who am I? I’ve spent two hundred years mourning your death, punishing myself for killing you! And you ask, ‘Who am I?’ ” Oh, gods. Now she would never remove the veil. She felt so… so ridiculous!

“Ixtab,” he whispered. “Is that you?”

“You bet your ass it’s me! And how the hell didn’t I know?”

How had he gotten past her radar?

He slowly rose from the bed and wobbled his way toward her. “Please, let me see your face. I’ve dreamt of you for so long.”

“Stop! Just stop! Don’t pull that crap on me! Wait. Maybe I should just kill you. Again!” She reached for him, but he did not move away, causing her to pause.

“Go ahead,” he said. “You would be doing this old incubus a favor.”

Well, in that case, she wouldn’t touch him. There’d be no favors for this despicable, disgusting vile creature. Not today.

“Please, touch me,” he said, his voice sounding like a rickety, old fence. “If I die, I will move on to my next body,”

Ding, ding, ding!!! Five-alarm goddess bells screamed in her head. “We got rid of your kind centuries ago. How? How is this possible?” she asked.

It had taken the gods a few decades to exterminate the incubi, but they’d done it. So they thought. The key had been finding and destroying the incubi’s portals into the human world—which ironically turned out to be a handful of sulfuric hot springs near present-day Las Vegas.