We Shall Rise (14 page)

This obsession with the purity of blood had divided immortals and made enemies of those who should have been allies. Despite their differences, they were all truly the same yet they were destroying each other and all for what? Power? An illusory goal that has led to so much unnecessary slaughter and now she feared they had reached the point of no return. Blood would decide this war now.

Reysa’s cell phone buzzed. Alejandro had called to check in and make sure she was okay. Somehow he always knew when she needed his calming voice to comfort her. It was such a special gift he had; yet his own kind banished him because he was too different. He could shift into any cat instead of just the jaguars that were his tribe. This mutation should have seen has a blessing. A unique gift to be celebrated and admired, but rather Alejandro was seen as damaged. He wasn’t a true jaguar. The other cat clans rejected him as well. He wasn’t really one of them either. He didn’t belong. As soon as his parents were killed, his protectors lost, Alejandro was forced to leave the only home he had ever known at fourteen years of age. Like all of them, he survived.

Alejandro’s voice eased Reysa’s unsteady nerves. He updated her on his trip with Broderick to deliver the gruesome remains to the demons’ clan just outside of Phoenix, Arizona so they could be buried appropriately. Christian had volunteered to notify the neighboring lycans as it was likely this young pup was one of theirs. That poor boy was just a teenager. He hadn’t begun to live before his life ended by his own hands. There was no doubt that the lycan was infected. If it was not mescah, then it was something else as lethal.

After the call with Alejandro ended, Reysa forced herself to leave this empty alley and the death that marred this place behind. The focus had to be on keeping her family and friends safe. She could not afford any distractions including the gorgeous vampire that was temporarily living in her home. Kaden was a kind of trouble her life could not afford right now. There were duties and obligations that had to override any feelings she might have. The time was not right for a complicated relationship with a temperamental pureblood vampire with a penchant for trouble.

Reysa took a deep breath, gathering the strength to tell Kaden that this thing between them must end before they allow it to begin. There was too much at stake. Sacrifices had to be made and if her happiness was one of them, she could live with that as long as those she loved survived this war.

Reysa marched into The Lore hoping for a few more hours of quiet so she could concentrate on a strategy to keep her family safe. It was just late morning–too early for the club to be open and the perfect time for her to catch up on work she had neglected in her quest to find Yasmine. Yas. She was still missing and they were no closer to finding her than they were a month ago.

Reysa’s head began to throb and it got worse as she sensed him. Kaden was here. The last thing she wanted was to see him right now. She wasn’t ready to tell him the goodbye she knew she needed to say. It would be better to get it over with now. The more time passed the worse it would be, or rather, the more likely she would change her mind and give in to the desire her body begged her to seek.

She took a few steps and heard what sounded like a woman’s voice. Kaden was here with another woman? He was in her club with another woman? Rat bastard! Reysa knew her emotions were illogical, considering she was just about to dump him, but to know he was with someone else in her club left her skin boiling with rage. She stormed into the club, straight towards the bar where she sensed Kaden and his date. He noticed her immediately and smiled brightly until he caught a glimpse of the rage she was barely suppressing.

“Reysa, what’s wrong?” he asked as he cautiously approached her. Her eyes barely glanced in his direction as they remained focused on the woman at the bar.

He had never seen Reysa so angry, so jealous. Kaden tried to hide his smile as he realized that Reysa did not realize that was Corinne at the bar.

“Reysa!” Kaden called out to her again as he reached for her arm. She snatched it away hard as if his touch was venomous.

Corinne finally snapped her head up and faced the simmering wrath of Reysa. “I know you,” Corinne slurred. “You’re Kaden’s girly-friend.”

Reysa’s anger quickly cooled off as she realized the other woman was just Kaden’s aunt who had obviously had too much to drink. Reysa tried to hide her embarrassment at her unusual display of jealousy, but Kaden’s annoyingly cute grin was a clear indication that he recognized her jealousy. Great. That would just make ending this thing between them even harder.

“What are you doing here, Kaden?” Reysa barked. She knew she should have corrected the “girly friend” assumption Corinne made, but her overreaction to seeing them together made it pointless for her to deny that she and Kaden were something. It was easier not to give it a label. One label in particular scared her too much to acknowledge. She couldn’t allow that. Her family and friends had to come first. They would not become casualties of this war because she was too distracted satisfying her own selfish needs.

“Corinne and I needed a drink so we decided to have our own little party.”

“You should have asked first,” Reysa reprimanded. “If the wrong person caught you here after hours, you would have been attacked. We take security seriously.”

“Then you shouldn’t have locks that are so easy to pick. Corinne was able to open the side door in about a minute.”

Reysa walked over to Corinne who looked like she didn’t have the strength to get up. “It’s good to see you again, Corinne.”

“You, too.” Corinne jumped up from her seat and leapt into Reysa’s arms crying on her shoulder. Apparently she had more strength in her than Reysa realized. “I’m sorry I picked your lock and I’m sorry I drank your scotch, and I’m sorry I’m crying all over your shirt.”

Kaden was almost too amused by Reysa’s horrified expression to help her, but he grabbed Corinne by the waist and pried her off Reysa. He plopped her back on the stool and she collapsed face down on the bar. “Corinne was a bit upset so I thought she could use a drink… or a bottle. She had a little more than was probably a good idea.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a vampire get this drunk.”

“Me either actually. I’ve had my moments, but not this bad. Corinne is an emotional drunk. The effects won’t last long. She’ll snap out of this soon. I hope.” Reysa walked over to the bar and poured herself a shot of Grey Goose. “You never drink, so what’s going on, Rey?”

Reysa sat the drink on the bar after barely taking a sip. She hated alcohol. Drinking would not solve anything. She needed to be strong for her people and not some useless drunk.

“I can’t get my mind off this war that’s brewing. I have to find a way to keep my people safe. I fear some of them may want to join the battle. I don’t want to bury my friends. I want us to stay out of the fray, but it’s not possible. It’s already reached my doors.”

Reysa told Kaden about the murdered demons and the lycan youth’s drug induced state that caused him to commit such violence. Kaden listened closely showing no signs of emotion as Reysa expressed her fears about the immortal war that would inevitably destroy so many innocent lives all for nothing.

“War would be suicide for both sides,” Kaden warned.

“Yes, but I don’t think either side sees it that way. The non-purists feel they are fighting for their freedom from oppression. That’s a reason to die. I understand their pain. You don’t know what it’s like being treated as if you are garbage just because of genetics that you had no ability to control. I’ve spent my whole life being hated by my vampire brethren because my blood is unclean and by humans because I’m black. I am not even good enough in the eyes of humans because of my skin color. My whole life has been surrounded by discrimination except for The Lore. Here we accept each other completely, but outside these gates, when we have to face the rest of the world we are just inferior. To the purists, we are tainted blood, mutants, and lesser beings. To humans, we are handicapped, we are the wrong skin color, and we are always less. Years and years of degradation would drive anyone to a madness heightened by a need for vengeance.”

Kaden understood more than she realized. He may be a pureblood accepted by other vampires, but he was not accepted in his own home. His father despised him from the moment of his birth. Kaden’s hate growing stronger every day until it finally exploded in a blaze of fire that killed Daughton Gaspard. He knew this rage all too well and if these feelings were surfacing across all creatures of the night, a destructive darkness would sweep upon their world leaving nothing but death in its wake. No one would be safe. “Does that mean you support the non-purists?”

Reysa closed her eyes. How could she make him understand? “I understand them. I know their pain. I have shared their pain. I want the oppression to end, but not this way. Not by war, not by violence. I grew up surrounded by human wars and displays of violence all in the so called name of some social good, but it was all a ploy for one side to enslave another. It was never about equality. It was about revenge. The victims became the victimizers. One oppressive regime replaced with another equally oppressive regime. The innocents always paid the most expensive price and never received any of the spoils from the war. You can’t murder your way to freedom and equality. I want all immortals to be treated equally. I’m willing to stand up and fight for it, but by peaceful means.”

“Immortals don’t understand peace.”

“Neither do humans. I witnessed that in Kigali.”

Reysa rarely spoke about her childhood and even less about her homeland, Kigali, Rwanda in Central Africa. A land of such great beauty marred by years of violence and devastation. “I loved Rwanda. Everything about that country I adored. It was my home. My father moved us away when I was four and I was completely devastated to leave. No other place quite felt like home to me but there in the land of grassy uplands and hills. It didn’t have the beaches and blue oceans of Zanzibar, but it possessed a natural beauty of its own. When I was older, I started visiting there with Christian every spring. I didn’t have any blood relations there. My father’s family was from Tanzania and they had passed on years before. It didn’t matter. I created my own little family within a small community of immortals in Gitarama. They were mostly charmers and witches, but it didn’t matter. We accepted each other as kin. Unfortunately, the humans never learned to accept one another and their war became ours.”

Reysa explained that the immortals successively avoided the human wars between the Tutsis and Hutus for years. Reysa maintained her citizenship in Rwanda as that country would always be home no matter where she moved. Once the ethnic identity cards were instituted, she was officially classified as part of the Tutsi minority. Her height, milk chocolate skin color and European features due to her mother’s genetics somehow made her special at least while the Belgians were in charge. Most of her charmer friends were as well, but there were a few Hutus in their family. It didn’t matter. Those human classifications were irrelevant to them. They were all creatures of the night, immortals and eternals.

Those classifications mattered greatly to the humans. Once the Belgians turned against the Tutsis and abandoned Rwanda leaving the Hutus in charge, the Tutsi minority became a target of violence.

“The Hutus were treated poorly for years by the European colonists and by many Tutsis. I don’t deny that. Once they took over, there was this cry for vengeance. The Hutus began to oppress the Tutsis. It started out with discrimination based on what types of schools Tutsi children could attend, what kind of jobs Tutsis could hold. Then there was periodic violence against Tutsis and the eventual expulsion of many from the country to neighboring lands in Uganda and Burundi. My family avoided all of that hatred that pervaded town after town. They kept to themselves in their tiny community leaving the humans to fight their own vicious wars against each other. There were times when I would visit and I would be threatened when I walked the streets late at night, but I had no problem defending myself. It never kept me away from my true home. Not until April 1994.”

Reysa had been preparing for another spring visit when she was contacted by her friend, Celestine. The Hutu president, Juvenal Habyarimana, had been assassinated when his plane was shot out of the air after returning from negotiating peace terms with rebel Tutsis, The Rwanda Patriotic Front. Hutus accused the RPF of assassinating the President Habyarimana, while the RPF accused the Hutus who were upset with the terms of the peace accord that required a redistribution of power so that the Hutus would no longer have full control of Rwanda. The truth never mattered. The spark needed to set off the powder keg of destruction had ignited.

“The danger was apparent. Celestine begged me not to come. It wasn’t safe. They were planning to flee to Uganda or Burundi once they helped a few neighboring human families they had befriended. They would call when they arrived safely. She warned it might take them weeks if not a few months, but they would call.” Reysa’s misty eyes faced Kaden’s. “I never got that call. I waited for two months. The news reports were devastating. At first, I wouldn’t pay attention. I kept telling myself that it couldn’t be that bad there. It wasn’t possible to have such destruction in so short a time. At least that’s what I had hoped. It was just unimaginable.”

Reysa stood up and started pacing the floor. “Genocide? Neighbors killing each other. Husbands killing wives. Families turning on each other because of a piece of paper that said you fit within a certain group therefore you must die. It was absurd. I convinced myself that my family was okay. I knew if they were in danger, they would call. They would summon me. They had gifts. They could reach me. I would hear them. I would come. They wouldn’t get caught in the midst of this silly human war. They should have been safe. And I should have trusted my instincts. I could have gotten them to safety in no time. My ability to dematerialize was not as strong then as it is now, but it was good enough. It would have taken time, but I could have rescued them. Yet I waited. I stayed away too long. When I finally went to Gitarma in early June there was nothing left of the home my friends shared. Everything was destroyed. That whole town reeked of death. There were rivers of blood and bodies everywhere. I searched and searched for them, but all I saw was death. Men, women, children, babies, all butchered. Everything I loved about Rwanda was destroyed and replaced with a hideous blood bath. As a vampire, I should have loved the sight of so much blood but it sickened me. It still does.”