Vampire Miami (15 page)

She cruised past the still-active Miami airport,
a plane roaring overhead as it came in off the waters and touched
down. She stood for a while, staring through the chain-link fence.
The vast expanse seemed to be dark but for one terminal, but that
was enough. People were working through the night, building
something here for the vampires. Moving Miami in whatever direction
they needed.

She drove through a large community in the far
northwest of the city. A long series of streets that were clearly
lived in, the streets clean, the homes locked down for security but
all of them inhabited. Signs identified it as the city of Hialeah.
People here weren’t bottled up in isolated condos, but were instead
living close, packed tightly, men sitting on chairs on the roofs,
rifles in their arms. They stared at her, stood as she rolled
through. Called out challenges in Spanish to which she couldn’t
respond. She turned the bike around and drove right back out.

At last, dawn began to warm the eastern horizon.
Selah had spent the last hour cruising up to different parts of the
Wall along the western edge of the city. It had been built along
the length of a major highway that all the signs identified as the
826. Endless roads and avenues died at its base, endless onramps
shattered and broken down by the army to prevent access. Where vast
stretches of the city were still, the Wall was alive with soldiers,
bright lights scanning the ground before it, shadowy figures
patrolling its top. The US took its role seriously. It had to, for
the Treaty to work. Selah studied it carefully. No way through.

She cruised home as the first high clouds were
touched with the softest of butter yellows, as the rising sun
turned the eastern sky from cobalt blue to dove gray, as tints of
salmon pinks and russets burnished the horizon. She felt exhausted,
at peace, her mind and heart still. Sorrow rode with her, a deep
but accepting pain that she had brought this all upon her head. She
wouldn’t use the word
unfair
again. There was no fairness in
the world. There was only what happened to you and how you chose to
respond.

Down the streets, then up, a final left. That
same old bus. She almost felt a pang of fondness at the sight of
it. A final two blocks, and then she slowed down. Two black cars
were pulled up before the Palisades, large and expensive SUVs that
gleamed even in the soft light of dawn. Six men stood before the
entrance to the building, and she saw with a shock that the steel
door had been torn right off and lay discarded on the ground. A
small group of people stood in defiance within the entrance,
shotguns pointed at the ground, faces furious. They stopped
speaking at the sound of her bike. Were staring at her where she’d
stopped, some fifteen yards shy of the cars.

Oh, shit
, she thought.
They’re already
here.

Mama B stood at the front of the group. She
looked furious and helpless both. It seemed Selah wasn’t going to
get a chance to say goodbye after all. Everybody stared at her, and
Mama B was the first to move.

“Selah?” She began walking forward, but one of
the strangers held out his hand, ordering her to stop. Hector. He
looked the worse for wear, but he was standing. Mama B smacked his
hand away, but then stopped as the guy behind Hector raised his
handgun. The two Palisades guards raised their shotguns, and Mama B
rounded on the strangers in all her wrath, iron dreads shaking as
she raised her chin and opened her mouth to berate them.

“Stop,” called Selah. She kicked the kickstand
back, and then climbed off the bike. She was sore, exhausted. Ran
her hands over her hair, took a final breath. “Stop. I’m here. I’ll
come with you.”

“The hell you will,” said Mama B. “You are going
nowhere before we get this all sorted out, because I
know
these men have made a mistake, and I don’t care what they wave in
my face. I am not going to let them march away with my baby
girl.”

Hector rubbed at his jaw and stared
speculatively at Selah. He turned back to Mama B. “Sure. We don’t
have to press it right now. Why bother? We’ll just go. Then
tonight, when the sun goes down, I’ll tell my boss when he wakes
what happened. He’ll be upset. He’ll come down here himself, maybe
bring a friend or two. You want that to happen?”

Selah saw the crowd wilt back. Vampires. In the
Palisades. Nobody wanted that. Even Mama B seemed to have no
response, opening her mouth and then closing it again.

Selah approached. “There’s no need. I’ll go.”
Her grandmother looked at her then, and her expression broke the
last of her calm peace, her moonlight detachment. How could she
bring so much pain to somebody she loved? Even now, with this last
threat, she could see Mama B’s resolve.
Defy them. Don’t go.
We’ll back you up
. Selah smiled, trying to hold back the tears,
and shook her head.

“I love you, Grandma,” she managed. Tears were
in her grandmother’s eyes now too. Hector coughed impatiently.
Selah realized that three of the men were pointing their guns at
her. Worried, no doubt, that she would move again as she had at the
club.

“Oh, honey,” said Mama B, “what have you gone
and done?” Such sorrow.

“My fault, Grandma,” said Selah. “My fault. I’m
sorry.” She wanted to say so much more, but as always, she couldn’t
force her emotions into words. Couldn’t come close.

Hector, it seemed, wasn’t going to give her a
chance. “All right, enough already. Selah, get in the car. If you
try anything, I’ll shoot your grandmother.”

Speed or no speed, Selah nearly threw herself at
him for that. Wanted to scratch his eyes out, those eyes that were
so pleased with themselves, that smirk surrounded by his ridiculous
goatee.

She didn’t have a chance to. Mama B smacked him
hard across the ear with the flat of her hand. Hector let out a
startled yell and nearly fell to the ground, staggering under the
force of the blow, and then wheeled around, furious, to stare at
Selah’s grandmother.

“Watch your mouth,” said Mama B, completely
unfazed, anger plain on her proud features. “If you think you can
say whatever you like around decent folks, you got another thing
coming.”

Hector couldn’t believe it. His mouth worked
several times as if he were strangling on his own anger. She put
her hands on her hips and almost leaned forward, overpowering his
stare with the force of her personality. Selah almost felt sorry
for Hector. He clearly had no idea with whom he was dealing.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he managed at
last. “I could have you shot for doing that.”

“Then quit whining and do it.” Mama B continued
to glare at him, then looked at the other men. “You come down here
to haul off a sweet little girl, waving your guns and scaring folks
like you’ve forgotten you’re human, human just like the rest of us.
If you want respect, it’ll take more than a couple of guns to earn
it. You may think you’re hot stuff, but as far as we’re concerned,
you’re nothing more than pathetic kidnappers with no spine or soul.
So get the hell out of here before I wallop you again.”

Hector was going red in the face. He looked at
his men, who were equal parts amused and taken aback. Selah could
see him thinking furiously. If he ordered them to shoot Mama, he’d
lose even more face. He put his hand on the gun at his hip, and
pain constricted Selah’s heart. But Mama never flinched. She just
glared at him, and finally, Hector spun around and began moving
back to the car.

“Let’s go already,” he snarled. “Enough with
wasting time here. Let’s go before I start actually shooting people
for being too stupid for their own good.” He looked over at Selah.
“You. In the car. Now.”

Selah moved forward. She wanted to hug her
grandmother, just once, but that might push Hector over the edge.
Instead, she moved toward the back door of the front car. Helpless
fury was in her grandmother’s eyes. She was shaking her head in
denial, but that was more than Selah could take. She got into the
back. A man got in on each side, guns pointed at her as if she were
a dangerous animal. Hector got into the passenger seat, and another
man climbed behind the wheel.

The car engine rumbled to life and they began to
drive down the street. Selah stared out the window, but too quickly
her grandmother and the others slid out of view. Nobody waved,
nobody did anything. There was nothing they could do. Any act would
be met with overwhelming retaliation.

Selah sank back. It was a new car, the new-car
smell still heavy in the air. Nobody spoke. The tension was thick,
the guns still pointed at her side. She tried not to look at them,
at the people around her. She simply looked up, at the smooth gray
felt that covered the ceiling.

Thankfully, nobody spoke. They drove in silence,
only the hiss of the AC and the tires rumbling over the ruinous
roads. Out onto Biscayne Boulevard, but then they headed south,
toward downtown. Eventually, Selah lowered her eyes and looked past
the men at the city outside. Downtown. It was barely past the early
gray of dawn. At first they wended their way carefully around the
abandoned cars, but then they reached a sort of unofficial city
limit beyond which no cars were left stranded. They weren’t even
pushed onto the sidewalks. Just empty, open road. Towers arose
before them, residential complexes thirty, forty floors high. They
drove past the large Miami Arena.
Where the Freedom Fights take
place,
thought Selah, shuddering at the sight of the vast
curved edifice like a great white shell.

The boulevard widened, a central island
splitting traffic. Intercoastal waters became visible to the left.
No trash. No shattered windows. Everything looked clean and
orderly.
This is what Miami must’ve looked like before
,
thought Selah. There were few people out, just garbage men and a
few cyclists. She peered at their faces. They were blank, composed.
Nobody looked up as they drove past. The night was over. The
vampires were down for the count. The active cycle had finished.
Time to rest.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Shut your mouth,” said Hector. She wanted to
wallop him from behind like Mama B had, but didn’t dare. Not with
two guns jammed into her ribs. Instead, she crossed her arms and
stared out the windows. The boulevard to their right was lined with
high-rises now, each set back and distinct from the other from a
time when architects vied with each other for recognition. The
driver turned the wheel and they pulled off onto a side street.
They drove down half a block, and then up a circular driveway
before one of the residential towers. A fountain tinkled water
prettily among green copper lily pads, and two men in valet
uniforms stood to attention. The car stopped. The valets stepped
forward and opened the doors. Nobody moved.

Hector turned around and stared at her. “You do
anything, anything at all, I’ll personally make sure everybody in
your grandmother’s building dies. You got that? Don’t try a
thing.”

“How do you live with yourself?” she asked. It
was the best she could do, but she poured all her acid and venom
into her words. He stared at her. Half his face was purpled from
the impact with the wall earlier last night, and already his ear
was swelling where Mama B had hit him.

“Let’s go,” he said to his men, and they all got
out. One valet closed the doors, the other drove the car away. They
stepped into the cavernous lobby, Selah surrounded on all sides.
Everything gleamed coldly, as if they walked through the center of
an iceberg. The air was frigid. Artificial plants blossomed
endlessly from huge terra cotta pots, and the massive walls were
covered in expansive canvases splattered erratically with paint. It
all looked incredibly expensive and tasteless.

Hector paused at the front desk to talk quietly
with the security guard, and then nodded to the others. Four of
their guards detached themselves and walked off down a narrow
hallway. Hector and the other guard escorted her toward the
elevators. Gold-plated doors, of course. Hector pressed the button,
a bell chimed softly, and the doors parted. They entered.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked again.
Hector ignored her. She half expected him to press the PH button,
but instead he pressed number seven. That didn’t seem right. The
elevator smoothly elevated, and she studied the other guard in the
reflective surface of the doors. He was older, his face ragged with
the strain of hard living, once handsome perhaps but cheeks well on
their way to becoming jowls, lower jaw pockmarked, brows heavy and
black, hair clearly dyed to match. No help there.

The doors opened. Beige carpeting, cream walls.
Cappuccino-colored doors. Down the hall to #704. Hector opened the
door and gestured for her to enter. The other guy sat on a small
chair set beside the front door, clearly setting himself on
guard.

Selah stepped inside. It was a large apartment.
Kitchen, huge living room, large windows, two bedrooms leading off
to each side. No furniture.

“You’re going to wait here till tonight. Ramon
is going to be at the door. You try anything funny, he’ll hurt you.
You do anything that inconveniences me, I know where your
grandmother lives. You got it?”

Selah tried to feel brave. “Why do you do this?
Why do you work for them?”

Hector seemed about to dismiss her again, but
then he stopped. “You would never understand,” he said.

“Try me.”

He stared at her, and she saw emotions roil
within his eyes. Anger, perhaps, resentment, maybe even shame. For
the first time she saw him as a human being. Saw him struggle with
the persona he wore. But then he clamped down on it. Shook his
head. “Don’t make me come back here.” He surveyed the room once
more, and stepped into the kitchen. She watched him check each and
every drawer and cabinet, and only then, when he was finally
satisfied, did he leave and close the door behind him. She heard
the lock
snick
shut.