The Temptation Of Demetrio Vigil Part 27

"Where is she?"

"She'll be here as soon as she wakes up. We have her in the next room. I wanted to have a moment to chat with you alone first."

"What did you do to us, while we were unconscious?"

"My goodness, you ask a lot of questions. Don't worry, I didn't defile you. No one did. If that happens with us, and I would really very much like that," he stopped to caress my arm with his fingertips, in a way that made me shudder with horror. "I want you awake for it so you can say my name."

"You won't get away with this," I told him.

"Oh, but you see, that's where you're wrong. I already have."

At that moment, the door opened, and a flood of light poured in from the dank hallway beyond. It looked like we were in an old trailer of some kind. Two men stood on either side of Kelsey, who looked like she'd been roughed up a bit.

"Maria!" she cried when she saw me. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I told her. "Are you?"

"I'm okay."

"Shut up, females," said Hilario now. "You're giving me a headache."

We did as he said, because in that kind of situation it was the best decision you could make. The men came into the room, carrying a lantern of some kind. I realized that the light wasn't coming from any fixtures in the hallway, because this was actually an abandoned home, without electricity. As they came closer, I saw that one was Ulysses, from the trailer. The other was Logan.

"How?" I asked Logan. "How is this you? What are you? Why are you doing this?"

Logan looked at Hilario as though requesting permission to answer me, and Hilario cut him down with a curt shake of his head. Logan and Ulysses dumped Kelsey on the bed next to me, and retreated to the wall near the window, to stand guard. I noticed Logan had a gun in his waistband. Kelsey and I scooted as close to each other as we could, not that this was going to help in the even that we were shot, but instinct is instinct.

"Here is the short version of the story for you, Maria," said Hilario, getting up to pace nervously back and forth, back and forth, in a way that very much reminded me of the coyote he sometimes materialized as. "My brother is too soft. He is a sellout, and a traitor. He left the gang, or he tried to, and that was a no-no. You don't have a lot of rules in the gang, but you have rules. You don't snitch, and you don't leave. We don't let you leave. But he thought he was better than we were, and he wanted to get himself out. Thought he was going to do good in life."

"He did," I screamed. "He graduated with honors and he got a college scholars.h.i.+p. He was on his way."

"Shut up!" roared Hilario, stalking in a strange way now, s.h.i.+fting shape before our very eyes. His shoulders grew hunched, and his arms became thinner, and longer, and the bones made a terrible din of crunching and crackling, as he became a coyote. Even so, he was able to keep talking, through his coyote's mouth, the voice deep and horrible now, snarling and guttural.

"I wasn't going to let that happen, you understand. I wasn't going to let him go free like that, and risk having him turn me in, rat on me. He knew that. We were having that talk the night it happened. And then, when it happened, wouldn't you know, it was the same old thing again, with him getting the better deal. He always had it easier."

Kelsey and I backed up as far as we possibly could on the bed, and she was shaking as much as I was.

"I studied, after I died. I wanted to know everything there was to know about revenants, about the system, and how to manipulate it. I found out about the system of Kindreds, and about Kindred Primaries. This intrigued me. And I found out that there were spells you could do, divination ceremonies, deals that could be made, to find out information like that, and that's how I found out about you."

"You knew about me?"

"I've known about you longer than he has." His eyes glowed with pride.

"I don't understand."

"It's not my doing that you drive past his haunting grounds twice a week, Maria. The Maker has a way of throwing souls together and hoping they figure it out. But the two of you, without my help, you would have never figured it out. Too stupid."

"You caused my crash."

"Of course I did." He seemed insulted that I might have ever thought otherwise.

"But why?"

"Because, I knew we'd eventually end up right where I wanted us."

"And where is that?"

"Here, of course." He shape-s.h.i.+fted again, this time into something even more horrible than a coyote. I heard the bones of his body as they crunched and grew and shrunk and reformed in the shape of something I can only describe as a demon, hairless and spiny, with a long, barbed tail. The voice, when it came, was even worse now than it had been before.

"Here," he growled.

I didn't ask anything more, because I didn't like the looks of the way he licked his chops and his yellow-green eyes glowed at us.

"Your date, Logan here, is my friend. He's always been my friend."

"Is he like you, a spirit?" I asked.

"No. He's human. He's one of the minions of humans who do what we ask of them."

"Gladly, your highness," Logan said.

Hilario continued. "I found Logan because he called me. There are some among you who seek to be a.s.sociated with us, or with even darker souls. They reach out in their own ways, through their own magic, and I was lucky enough to find him just in time to get him to ask you out last year."

"But for what?" I asked. "For what?"

"The answer to that question is very simple, Maria," growled the beast. "You are the bait. My brother's soul is the prize."

"He thinks you're good!" I cried. "He refuses to believe you'd do this."

"Of course he does," chuckled the beast, as it seemed to be calming down now, and taking the form once again of the man. "It's all part of the fun."

"He's your own brother! How can you do this?"

"Because I enjoy it."

"All so that you make him fail?" I asked. "Even though you fail, too, in the process? Does that even make sense to you?"

He came in close then, and kissed me on the lips. I resisted, and spit his acrid taste off when he was done. Kelsey somehow curled her legs into her chest, and unleashed them with a stunning blow to Hilario's chin, knocking him down, to protect me.

He rose up, furious, with bright red blood dripping from his lower lip, and took a knife from his pocket, unsheathed it with slow, cold deliberation and a devilish smile. The blade gleamed like the ones that had been used in the ceremony, with snaking, moving lettering along the blade.

"You shouldn't have done that, BFF," he told her. "You do realize you're the disposable one here, don't you blondie?"

"No!" I screamed, as he came close to her, and, grabbing her hair in his free hand, yanked her head back and held the blade to her throat. "She was only trying to help me. Take me. Not her. She hasn't done anything to you."

"My brother won't come for Kelsey," Hilario hissed in her face. "Pretty as you are, delicious as you look, he doesn't care about you. And that hurts you, doesn't it? I see what Maria doesn't. You're jealous. You hate that she gets more boys than you do."

Kelsey's face was such a ma.s.s of fear and pain that it physically hurt me to look at her.

Hilario laughed in her face. "It's Maria my brother wants. I could cut you right here, right now, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to my plan."

"Please," she stammered, terrified.

"I'm so sorry I got you into this," I told her, crying.

Hilario watched her squirm for a few more moments, before abruptly dropping her, sheathing the blade once more, and standing up to face me with a wild grin.

"I'll wait to take care of your friend, later, after you've gone to sleep. I wouldn't want you so traumatized that you won't help him when he finally arrives, and be part of the plan."

"You don't have to be this way," I told him. "I saw how you were when you were little. You had a heart. You felt things. You can't let them take that from you. That's still inside of you, somewhere. The Maker believes in you."

"Listen to her lecture me," he said to the other men, and they laughed with him. He turned back to me, and oozed closer.

"You see," he said. "Here's what Demetrio can't understand, because he's a moron. Heaven never held much interest for me. I was always a lot happier with the thought of h.e.l.l. h.e.l.l is a lot more fun. I would have gone right away, except that it would have been a lot harder to get to my brother from there. He betrayed the gang, and he has to be made to pay. You don't betray your brothers."

"Look who's talking!" I screamed.

"My brothers are the ones who are loyal," he hissed, close to me. "Not the traitors. And my brothers, they party hearty in h.e.l.l. I'll be happy to go, but I have some work to finish here first."

With that, he produced the handkerchief, and once more put it over my nose and mouth, as Kelsey screamed. The world faded, and I was gone, falling into a deep, dark, blank, horrible sleep.

I woke awash in nausea, to the sound of rain on a metal roof. The curtains in the rancid bedroom where I was help captive were drawn, but I saw that outside it was daylight. I felt a small relief because of this, knowing that Hilario and his friends had less strength now, and praying that Demetrio would know I was here, and that he would help me.

I was still on the mattress, and my wrists and ankles were still bound tightly. It felt as though I had no circulation in my hands and feet anymore. I was thirsty, and hungry, and I needed to pee. Kelsey was gone again, and I was alone in the room now. I struggled to maneuver myself to the edge of the bed, and wriggled to get myself to my feet. My high-heeled pumps were long gone, I had no idea where, and the carpet felt like a dry, hard Brillo pad under my feet. I looked about me wildly, hoping to find something. My phone. My purse. But none of it was here. I wondered what my mother thought. There must have been people out looking for us by then. I wondered how long I'd been gone.

Because my ankles were restrained, I could not walk. I barely was able to maintain my balance standing upright. I tried a few pathetic hops, with the aim of getting myself to the door and trying to saw the bindings off my wrists with the help of the doork.n.o.b or the edge of the lopsided dresser - but all I managed to do was fall, with a loud whump, to the floor. It was filthy, with dead c.o.c.kroaches on it, and, to my horror, a few live ones, too. I screamed.

I heard footsteps coming - or, I should say, I felt them. I braced myself, dreading whatever was going to come next. I heard the door open, and I heard a person breathing, and moving slowly, looking for me. From where they stood, they would not have been able to see me because of the position of the bed.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," called Logan's voice, in sinister imitation of a child's game.

"I fell," I said.

"Peek a boo," he said next, as I saw his head round the edge of the bed, smiling horribly, "I see..."

But the rest of whatever he was going to say was cut off now, as he was tackled by a moving blur that came flying across the room from the doorway. I couldn't turn my head to get a better look, as I was facedown on the floor, and was working hard just to keep my face up and out of the track of a c.o.c.kroach. I heard fighting now, rough motions and cursing, and solid thumps of fist on flesh. It horrified me to listen to it, and I tried to escape by remembering the beach in Miami, and the vacation I'd had with my mother, so long ago. It was only a week, maybe, at the most, and yet felt like years.

Soon, I felt hands on my back, and a familiar tingling rush of electricity, the good kind. I smelled sunlight on warm, dry earth.

"Demetrio!" I cried, trying to turn my head to see him, hoping I wasn't being tricked by my own mind.

"Shh, mamita, stay quiet."

He sawed at the bindings until they popped, and a wave of blood flowed from my arms to my fingertips in a painful but refres.h.i.+ng tingle. He repeated this process with my ankles, then lifted me, as though I weighed nothing, onto his shoulder.

"Thank G.o.d you're here," I breathed into his neck.

"Shh, not now. Talk later."

He sprinted from the room, and down a hall, and out the front door, carrying me across a fallow, frozen field, and leaving me in the bottom of a dry irrigation ditch.

"Stay down. Don't move. Don't scream. Nothing. I'm going back for Kelsey. Wait here."

"He said he was going to kill her," I told him, remembering now.

Demetrio flew to me, and put his face, deadly serious, directly in front of mine. "I told you to be quiet. I need your cooperation. Now. Life or death, Maria. You feel me?"

I did as he said, my heart thundering in my chest. It was an overcast, rainy day, and I had no coat. I was s.h.i.+vering head to toe, and wanted to peek up and get a sense of where I was, but I knew better than to defy his command right now. Right now, he knew more than I did. I had to accept it.

Demetrio returned a few minutes later, with Kelsey on his shoulder. She did not look well. In fact, she was pale, b.l.o.o.d.y, and unconscious as he set her down next to me with a grave look upon his face.

"What's wrong with her?" I cried, hysterically, trying to locate the wound. I found it. Her neck had been cut. Her eyes were dull, half-closed.

"No!" I screamed.

"Maria, be quiet," he blurted, furious with me. "If you love her, if you care about her, be quiet. Now."

I held my knees to my chest, and began to rock back and forth, having never been so horrified by a thing in all my life. This couldn't be happening. I'd gotten her into this, and now she was dead.

Demetrio stood over her, his arms outstretched, and turned his face skyward, the rain pelting him. He chanted something I couldn't understand, and spun slowly in place. As he did so, dark clouds gathered above him, moving in from every direction, churning in the sky the way they did during a tornado. Lightning began to strike nearby. First, it hit a tree twenty yards off. Then, a rock five yards off. I shrieked from the noise, and placed my hands over my ears, horrified, terrified, and then, as I watched, lightning struck Demetrio, and held him, and he did not collapse or burn. He absorbed it. For several seconds this went on, and his whole body glowed with power. When the bolt retreated back to the sky, he retained a blue electric glow to his skin.

"OmiG.o.d, omiG.o.d, omiG.o.d," I repeated over and over.

Demetrio knelt next to Kelsey's corpse now, and he moved his hands along her body, much as he'd done with Buddy and me the first day we met, except that this time, the electricity fell from his fingers and palms like a tiny rain, onto her skin. In each place that a drop fell, it was absorbed in a bull's-eye pattern, sinking in, and pinkening the white ghostly skin as it went. As his hands floated over her neck, his face grew pained, and sweat sprouted on his face. He looked sick, entranced, lost to me. His eyes rolled back in his head, and the whites showed. I was terrified, panicked, but amazed - because her neck wound, a deep and hideous fatal gash, closed up beneath his hands, and her skin went from dead to alive.

Kelsey's unmoving chest suddenly burst to life, and she gasped and sputtered, and turned onto her side and spit up, bits of coagulated blood coming from her mouth. Demetrio, meanwhile, fell to the ground at her side, spent, but alive, breathing hard, and weak.

Kelsey finished spitting, and sat up, completely confused.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"I don't know," I told her as I threw myself at her, and embraced her. "Alive. You're alive."

She seemed to be trying to remember something, and her hands came up to her neck, the fingertips feeling along the place where the cut had been.

"He sliced me open," she said. "I felt it, my own blood, it was so warm, it felt like someone had poured hot tea down the front of my dress."

She looked at the dress now, and saw it covered in blood. She felt the neck harder, and her eyes searched mine for an answer.

Speechless, I pointed at Demetrio.

Kelsey watched as he slowly recovered, and pulled himself to sitting, tired and dazed.

"He said you wouldn't care enough to come for me," she told him.

"Who said that?"