The Blood Talisman (20 page)

They had been aboard yet another
hopeless flight. Selene didn’t know where Ram was getting his
information from but it all turned out to be empty hope.

The wheels of the small jet plane hit
the pavement of a small airport outside of Cancun. They could see
the party lights from the city as they passed over it in the
distance. Ram and his company of vamps had gotten
excited.

“
I love Cancun. Lots of
good meals,” one of them had commented.

It made Selene sick to listen to them
brag constantly about their kills.

One of Ram’s vampire associates sat
near Selene on the plane and had been staring at her the whole
flight.

“She’s off limits, Chris,” Ram said to
him, as the man inched uncomfortably closer to her.

“I can’t wait to get me one of those
hot twenty-somethings from Cancun. It’s been a long flight.” Chris
sighed.

The stewardess announced the exiting
procedures of the plane and they all slowly unbuckled their
seatbelts. Ram and his vampire friends left quickly Alex remained
behind. He sat in the farthest corner seat of the plane, drawing on
a sketchpad. Selene quietly snuck up to him and sat in the
adjoining seat. She peered over at his drawing. It was a picture of
a leafless tree beside a rustic looking barn. He had drawn in
clouds and rain in the distance.

“Is that a picture from home?” Selene
asked.

“Yea. This was just near where I grew
up. It’s where I first met Amalia. She was climbing this tree for
sport. She was always doing active things like that when she was
little. I was asleep in the loft in that barn and when she fell, I
awoke to her crying out for help and I carried her up to my
grandparents’ house. She never left my side after that. We were
inseparable,” he explained.

He closed the sketchpad and stared
outside to where they were. He seemed lost in his thoughts
again.

“We will find him and you will have her
back,” Selene said, lowering her head as she promised once again to
kill her father. She reached out for his hand but he quickly pulled
it away. He put away his drawing pad and placed it in his carry-on
book bag full of comic books and muscle men magazines. He zipped
the bag back up and stood up, placing it on his shoulder. Selene
stood up with him and caught his arm before he walked away from
her.

He turned and looked down at her hand
on his arm. He almost seemed angry at her for placing her hand
there.

“What’s wrong between us?” Selene
asked.

He pulled his arm away from her hand
and she obliged by letting go.

“Nothing. I’m just trying to stay
focused on what we need to do,” he answered.

“What
we
need to do? All ya’ll have to do
is find him. I have to kill my own father. I’m the one that should
be moping and drawing pictures from my past in the corner,” Selene
reminded him angrily.

“Look, I’m sorry Selene. I don’t know
how to deal with all of this. It’s a little overwhelming. I mean,
this time last year I was celebrating my wedding anniversary with
my wife through Skype and looking out for children with bombs
strapped to their chests waiting to blow up our whole
unit.”

“Well excuse the fuck outta me. I’ve
been dealing with wolves and vamps and immortality for... oh, I
don’t know… all eternity. I’m as immortal as my father. We’ve lived
a lot of years and fought a lot of wars together and apart, and now
with each other. You think this is easy for me because I’ve always
dealt with it? We should be dealing with this together. We should
be together through this. I’m trying to help you and you keep
pushing me away.”

He dropped the book bag to the floor of
the plane and stepped in closer to her. He placed one hand on her
waist and the other on her face. They were inches from each other.
Their noses were barely touching. She rubbed her hands up to his
shoulders, attempting to pull him in even closer for a
kiss.

“I want to but, I can’t,” he whispered
to her face.

“Yes you can,” she whispered back and
kissed his lips softly.

He kissed her back for a few moments
but soon pulled back and strode away with his book bag in tow. She
was left alone and confused on the plane. He had come back to her
as quickly as he left again. She didn’t know how to reach him
anymore. She knew he needed to feed and she thought that might
bring him back to her. Ram was keeping him weak on purpose. She was
tired of Ram’s personal agenda. She’d had enough.

She got to the door of the terminal
and looked around in the airport. It was small and dusty. The bar
was filled with drunken Mexicans and shady people buying plane
tickets. The bar was the plane terminal and the plane terminal was
the bar. Alex sat at a corner table, drawing in his notepad and Ram
and his vampire associates were getting drunk at a pair of
conjoined tables. The smoke in the bar was so thick that everyone
looked fuzzier than normal.

She strutted across the bar to Ram’s
table of cronies and stood there, staring at them
precariously.

“
Can we help you?” one of
them said.

“
I need to speak to you,”
she said directly at Ram. “Alone.”

He excused himself from the table as
the others booed at her insistence. He grabbed her by the arm,
pulling her to the side forcefully. Alex rose up from his notepad
and stared until Ram let go of her arm.

“
What are we doing?” she
asked.

“
Do I really need to answer
that?” he said.

“
Why all these normal,
everyday star-on-the-map places? My father would never come to
Mexico, for Christ’s sake.”

“
Where do you suggest we go
then?”

Selene thought for a moment as Ram
looked down to her in contempt. Only one other would remotely know
where her father might be. Only one other stood to gain from
finding him. Ram was still obviously working with Sol.

She gasped and said, “My brother.
You’re still working with Sol. You’re an ass and you’re wrong.
Nobody knows him better than I do.”

“
Where do you suggest we go
then?”

Selene hesitated. She didn’t want to
make it easy on him but, the more they waited, the further Alex
drifted away, and the more likely it became that Amalia was a
goner. She glanced over at Alex as he drew in his sketchpad. She
thought about where immortality would land him. He hated playing
wolf. He hated changing as it was painful to do so. At the same
time, she couldn’t be selfish. She wouldn’t risk an imbalance of
apocalyptic proportions for her own gain. Sol would. He would risk
everything and everyone for personal gain. For power that he didn’t
know how to use. For power that none of them had been taught to
use.

“
Think about it. My father
sent Sol to the Sudan not only for punishment but because Sol likes
sunny places. My father hates them. He has always liked the older
civilizations. Places where death resides and has resided for
centuries.”

“
What’s older than
Mexico?”

“
No you have to think older
than that. Think ancient.”

“
Greece? That’s a little
obvious, don’t you think?”

“
He has never been the one
to fight death. Just because he is immortal, don’t make him an
advocate for life. He’s prepared for the choice I will make. He
said so himself. I know my father. If he must die at all, he would
want to die at home.”

“
Why tell me this now? Why
didn’t you tell me when we were in Japan or Egypt, for that
matter?”

She glanced over at Alex, still
sketching away.

“
Because I’m tired and I’m
willing to make a deal with you.”

“
Okay.” He nodded. “What
kind of deal?”

“
One night of debauchery in
Mexico, but I get to take Alex and we go our separate ways until
dawn tomorrow. Deal?”

Ram leaned over to her neck and
sniffed her hair. He pushed it back behind her ear with two of his
fingers.

“
What do I get out of this
deal?” he asked.

He leaned in closer to her, his lips
inches from her neck. She stepped back from him and he straightened
his body back upright.

“
How about I don’t boil
your face with my touch and heal you, and then do it over and over
again. I need you but not nearly as much as you need
me.”

“
How do I know you will be
here in the morning?”

She stared over at Alex and said,
“Because I’m doing this all for him. I would give my own life so
that he would be happy and I can no longer see any light in his
eyes. I don’t want him, or you, to be immortal, but since it will
happen anyway, it needs to happen before he loses too much of
himself in grief.”

“
That’s just the soy meat,”
Ram chuckled.

She gave him the evil eye and he
quickly cleared his throat and stopped laughing.

“
That’s another thing. He
will feed tonight, even if I have to kill a hundred animals for him
to get his willpower back.”

“
I’m afraid that the only
thing that will get his strength back that quickly will be a human
meal and neither one of you have what it takes to do what needs to
be done.”

“
That’s where you’re
wrong,” she hissed defiantly.

He stood back and raised his hands at
her sudden change of heart. Maybe being on the road had made her
colder, but she figured that if this war with her brother was to be
won, it would have to be won with brutality. She had been unwilling
to play Ram’s games and stoop to Sol’s level, but this fight to the
finish would be won by them unfairly. She didn’t have the
confidence in herself to constantly look over her shoulder anymore.
She felt defeated within herself. Defeated by Sol and Ram. Defeated
by love. Just defeated. She would be a victim no more.

She walked away from him and joined
Alex at his table. He barely stopped drawing to look up at her as
she sat down.

Ram gathered his followers together
and they all exited the bar, with many beer bottles dangling from
each of their hands. Alex placed his sketchpad back into his book
bag and zipped it up. He stood up to follow them but Selene placed
her hand softly on his chest, stopping him. He looked down at her
hand then back up at her. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her
fingertips.

“
You’re with me tonight.
Just me.”

“
What about your father?”
he asked.

“
We have a new place that
we think he will be, but tonight I plan to get you back to your old
wolfie self.” She patted his chest and got up to walk with him out
of the bar.

He stopped her just before she opened
the door and said, “Thank you.”

She grabbed his hand in hers, shook
it, and said, “I love you. No thanks will ever be
needed.”

She led him out of the bar and into
the dark, dusty night.

Chapter 24

Holding Selene’s hand, Alex walked
through the dusty airport parking lot. His head stayed down, eyes
watching his feet as they shuffled the dirt beneath them. Selene
led them up to a black car parked off by itself. John was leaned up
against it, smoking a Cuban cigar.

“
Why are you here? Ram
agreed that he would leave us alone tonight,” Selene
said.

“
They took all the rentable
motorcycles so that left me with the black car. I don’t mind
driving you. I won’t tell him where you went and what you did,”
John answered.

“
You can’t be trusted,”
Alex said.

“
If you remember, I saved
your life when Ember tried to kill Selene and kidnap
you.”

Alex motioned with his head for Selene
to follow him into the car. He figured John could be useful to
them. Alex had known him for years although he’d been unaware that
he was mixed in with so many bad people. He wandered why he had
gone from multi-talented, good-mannered soldier to
criminal.

They all three got settled into the
car. Selene didn’t want John in the car; she wanted to be alone
with Alex. However, Alex wanted information that he knew only John
could supply him with.

John placed his arm on the passenger
side seat and turned back to look at them both.

“
Where we going to?” he
asked.

“
Let’s just drive until I
say stop. Head north,” Selene answered.

They took off from the parking lot.
John seemed to be compliant with her orders. She guessed that he
was used to taking orders from Ram so taking orders from her ought
to be easy. And she’d be nice about. Nothing like Ram, knocking him
across the floor and slamming him against walls.

“
Why do you do it?” Selene
asked John.

“
Why do I do
what?”

“
Take commands from Ram.
He’s so abusive to you.”

Alex chimed in and said, “Yea, You
used to be this brutal commander that demanded respect and now I
see the way he bosses you around. I can’t help but think you’ve
been his sidekick all along,”