Vampires Need Not…Apply? (Accidentally Yours #4)(62)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

The vehicle pulled up to the imposing, arched entrance of the sandstone-colored adobe home.

“This way. Everyone is waiting in the summit room,” said a soldier in a Scottish accent. He wore his red hair in a long braid and was dressed in black military garb. He didn’t wear any insignia but seemed to be in charge. “And I ken put that in the vault fer ya.” He reached for Antonio’s bag, which contained the tablet and his notebooks.

Antonio held on; knowing the Maaskab were after it, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to let the tablet go. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Gabrán. They call me, Gabrán.” The man’s voice was filled to the brim with don’t-fuck-with-me tone. Antonio approved and handed over the bag.

They followed Gabrán inside, down several long hallways, through the estate and finally to a set of enormous, hand-carved double doors. A loud ruckus radiated from the other side.

Antonio heard Penelope’s voice. “Shhh. They’re here.”

Gabrán opened the door and there, standing around a giant stone slab table was a group of very odd-looking circus types—a tall man with long silver hair down to his ankles, wearing a giant jade headdress; another man with a large round belly, wearing nothing but a pair of white underpants; another woman had an enormous beehive atop her head; and a few others who were ready to attend a costume party. If it weren’t for Penelope and Kinich standing at the head of the table—who he’d already met, along with Fate—Antonio would have believed that these were not in fact deities, but people who’d escaped from the insane asylum.

“Is that a burro with a sombrero standing in the corner?” Antonio asked the cold-faced soldier holding open the door.

“’Tis,” was his only reply.

Diablos. Qué locos. “After you, Ms. O’Hare.” Antonio gestured to the woman, who now wore a plain baby-blue sweater and a denim skirt his Kirstie had given her. She looked like she should be attending classes at college, not orchestrating an epic blackmail of the gods to free her “king.” Of course, nothing ever appeared as it should in this world.

“Maggie, call me Maggie.” She smiled at Antonio, though he was in no mood to smile back.

“Hello, Maggie. I’m Penelope Trudeau and this is—”

“I know who you are.” Maggie’s eyes swept the rooms as she held out her palm, signaling for silence. “Kinich, Belch, K’ak, Fate, Bees, Akna, A.C., and that lady—I forget her name.”

“How do you know who we are?” Kinich asked.

“I’ve been trapped inside that portal since 1934,” Maggie replied. “And though you could not see me, I saw just about everything from the realm where I was trapped.”

Belch chimed in, “Did you see this?” He sprang from his chair and showed everyone his backside.

“Yes! We’ve all seen it!” everyone screamed.

With a satisfied grin, Belch sat back down in his throne and returned to his jumbo martini glass—the kind most people used as a decoration to hold candy and such.

Penelope cleared her throat. “My apologies, Maggie. Please continue. Why have you requested an audience?”

Maggie’s dark eyes shuffled around the faces in the room. “As I explained on the phone, Cimil has betrayed you, all of you. Not only am I here to set the record straight and demand justice, I’m here to ensure you free my mate, Chaam.”

A collective gasp erupted.

“Then you’ve wasted your time, woman,” replied Kinich. “He will never be freed. He is evil.”

“Yes. He is. But it’s not Chaam’s fault, nor does he wish to be; that’s why”—Maggie looked right at Antonio—“Ixtab is going to cure him.”

Hisses and objections filled the room.

Maggie slapped her hand on the rough stone table. “Enough! My patience ran out decades ago. You will listen to everything I have to say. You will free Chaam and you will punish Cimil.”

“If you’ve been spying on us, you…pest, then you are aware we do not take orders from mortals,” Fate pointed out, cleaning her nails with an arrowhead she’d plucked from her quiver.

“Then you won’t see Ixtab, Guy, and the others again,” Maggie said.

“Silly mortal, we have the tablet.” Fate sighed her words as if she were much too important for this conversation.

Gods, what a snotty woman. How had Ixtab put up with her for seventy millennia? He’d only been in Fate’s presence a collective hour at best, and already he wanted to lock her in a closet. In fact, her snobby attitude was the reason he’d rejected Fate’s repeated pleas to assist him in his lab when he had met her in New York. Sorry, but he liked his women with a little humility. He liked Ixtab.

Maggie shook her head. “You’re all idiots. The tablet can’t free your men; while they are trapped inside another dimension, it’s a Maaskab spell that holds them there. You must free Chaam and make the trade with the Maaskab if you want them back. But you must cure Chaam before you do it or he’ll return to his evil ways. Ixtab is the only one who can help him, and I’m the only one who knows how to get her back.” She looked at Antonio. “Like I said on the plane, you’re welcome to rebuild your equipment and try, Mr. Acero, although I can guarantee, you will fail. There is only one way to invoke the tablet’s powers.”

Antonio’s mind ran with that statement. He remembered the portal opening at the precise moment Ixtab had entered the room with his father. Was there another variable?

“We will not free Chaam,” Kinich declared.

“Fine. Then our conversation is over. And so is everything else. You! Your baby.” She pointed at Penelope. “Everything! Because I can guarantee that this path you’re on, the path that Cimil created, is leading us all to a very, very bad place.” Maggie turned to leave.

“Wait,” Antonio said to Maggie and then looked at each of the gods. “Ixtab is your sister. Isn’t she worth a few minutes of your goddamned precious time?”

Penelope gently stroked Kinich’s arm. “He’s right, my love. Let’s hear Maggie out.”

Kinich grumbled, but accepted.

Penelope moved to the side and gestured toward the large throne at the head of the table. “Sit, Maggie. We’re all ears.”

Maggie looked around the table, and Antonio couldn’t help but wonder what sort of insane story she was about to tell. For the record, prior to meeting Ixtab, he’d thought his world was pretty damned strange. On the outside, he looked like a rich playboy from a privileged Spanish family, who owned the most prestigious wineries in Spain. In reality, his father was a monster who killed women for sustenance, including Antonio’s own mother. Antonio’s public and private lives couldn’t be more contradictory or bizarre. That’s what he believed, anyway, until he became a vampire—the least eventful part of this story—who loathed the thought of drinking blood before finding out evil Mayan priests made a tasty snack. Add that Ixtab, the Goddess of Suicide—a damned ridiculous title for such a lovely creature—was the love of his life and trapped with his demonic father in another dimension. Sí. Pretty f**king strange. Yet somehow, he knew they were only getting started as Maggie cleared her throat and lifted her chin.