Book Three
Newborn Armies
1. ABDUCTION
Maria hadn't seen her father in 10 years. She was 16 now and hardly remembered him at all. It wasn't until her mother gasped his name and dropped a dish that shattered to pieces that she realized who the stranger was that stood in their doorway.
"Benito!" Her mother cried the name. He did not look at her but only stared past her at Maria. He had a look of satisfaction on his face. He pushed past her mother and took Maria by the hand and began to lead her out of her home in Dallas. "Benito! No!" Her mother screamed after them. She tried to follow but could not keep up.
Maria was too frightened to speak. Her father's grip was ice cold and unbreakable. "Papa, where are we going?" Maria asked the man. He did not answer her. Finally fed up with her slow, clumsy pace, he lifted her up into his arms and began to run. Maria studied the contrast in the color of their skin. She knew that her father was of Spanish decent but his pale skin was shockingly white. She had taken after her mother's Mexican features and hard a dark tan with dark brown eyes and long black hair.
Maria was relieved when her father finally stopped running. Benito lowered her to the ground but still held tightly to her hand. He led her into what looked like a camp ground. Maria saw other men standing around, watching her but the way they looked at her made her feel uncomfortable. Benito stopped in front of a cage-like car. It looked like it had been used in a circus to transport tigers.
He opened the cage door and said "Get in."
Maria hesitated but felt as though she had no choice. She climbed into the cart obediently and her father closed and locked the gate behind her. She now saw that all the men from the campsite were gathered around and staring at her. Some seemed to be smiling but their smiles were frightening.
"I want you all to meet my daughter, Maria." Benito spoke. "As I'm sure you can all see, she is quite lovely and you can only imagine how much better she'll be after the change. Now I'm proud of you all for our victory over Houston, but it was sloppy! Too many of you newborns turned on each other. We need to be better at this! I don't want to have to keep replacing you. Now that we are planning on taking on Monterrey, I want to give you all some incentive. The man who kills the most vampires in Monterrey without killing anyone in our own coven will get Maria as a prize. I will change her myself because none of you have learned to control your thirst."
"I'll take on Monterrey all by myself if I can just get a taste of her blood!" an obnoxious man in the back yelled. "She smells delicious!" Maria couldn't see it from where she was but he was salivating.
"Shut up, Diego." Another man, much closer to her, yelled back over his shoulder. "You couldn't even take on a donkey in Monterrey."
Diego was angered by the insult and started to move forward but Benito interrupted his movement. "Diego calm down." He ordered. "This is exactly what I'm talking about. You can't lose control of yourself just because Ramiro insults you." Then he turned his attention to the man in the front. "Ramiro, give him a break."
Ramiro never broke his gaze on Maria. She was lovely, and he wanted her. When the tears started flowing over her cheeks he wanted her even more. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Did her father really say the word 'vampire'? Was he actually talking about changing her into one? Did these wild men really wish to drink her blood? The horror of it all was nauseating. How could her father be so cruel as to use her as a prize, a reward?
The men began discussing tactics and ambushing but she couldn't keep up. She was exhausted from the journey and so emotionally beat. She laid her head onto the wooden floor boards of her cage and cried herself to sleep.
When she awoke it was pitch black. Everything was so silent and still that she thought that she had been abandoned. But the silence was broken when she heard a snicker behind her. She turned around and could barely see Diego at the back side of her cage. He was grinning at her.
"Hello Maria." He whispered, barely loud enough for her to hear him. "Would you like to come out of the cage?"
Maria was cautious. This was the same man who had expressed desires to drink her blood. Perhaps if he let her out though, she could run away from all of them. She timidly nodded yes and that made Diego's smile grow even wider. Instead of going to the front where the door was like Maria expected him to, he placed his hands on two of the iron bars and bent them apart just wide enough for her to crawly through. His massive strength surprised Maria but she stuck to her plan. Diego held out a hand for her to take and she accepted it.
Her scent was so strong now that her skin was touching his. The thirst was more than Diego could handle. He had planned on carrying her away and drinking her blood in a more private location but he never was one for self control. He pulled her wrist to his face and licked his tongue against her skin. He could feel the vibrations of her blood pulsing through her veins. She now saw the danger and tried to pull her hand back but it was too late. Diego's lips were pulled back over his teeth and he was ready to quench his thirst.
Suddenly another figure knocked him out of the way. Diego's grip was so tight on Maria's hand that her wrist snapped as he was forced to pull away from her. She screamed out in pain and held her broken wrist to her chest. In Diego's place now stood Ramiro. He was the one to push Diego away. Ramiro looked at her with concern but before he could offer her any help Diego was up again and attacking Ramiro. The fight was faster than Maria's eyes would allow her to follow.
After a few blurred moments in the dark she finally saw her father standing between the two men with a hand on each of their chests. He was trying to break up the fight.
"What is the meaning of this?" Benito demanded. "Didn't we just talk about being more unified?"
"Ramiro started it!" Diego accused. "He attacked me!"
"Only because you were trying to get to Maria!" Ramiro argued back.
Benito stiffened. He turned to look at his daughter and saw the bent iron bars and the way she cradled her wrist. He turned to Diego and smacked him across the face with the back of his hand. There was enough force behind it to crush a boulder and it knocked Diego to the ground. "Do not defy me, Diego!" Benito shouted down at him. "I have laid out the rules of this competition and you will obey them!"
Diego recoiled from his leader and said nothing. Benito left the two where they stood and went over to Maria's cage. He reached through the bars for her hand but she did not give it to him.
"Let me see it!" He demanded impatiently. Out of fear, she put her hand forth for him to examine. He touched it and she winced at the pain. When he finished his examination he looked at her and said "Well it is broken but you will not have to live with the pain for much longer. When I change you it will heal."
"I don't want to be changed." Maria whimpered in a little voice.
Benito's expression was still hard. "I'm afraid what you want doesn't really matter right now." He then placed his hands on the bent bars and pushed them back into place. Then he turned away from her and went back to his men. "If any of you so much as touch a hair on her head I will see to it that you suffer a slow and painful death. No one touches Maria but me. If you want her, then you know what you have to do. We leave for Monterrey tomorrow. You can prove to me whether or not you deserve her then." Benito turned to Ramiro. "Ramiro, I want you to stand watch over Maria. Make sure this doesn't happen again." Then he walked away.
Ramiro stood in front of Maria's cage and watched as the congregation began to break down and wander away. Without turning to look at her, Ramiro asked if she was alright.
"It hurts." Maria said, still cradling her wrist.
"I'm sorry." He sounded sincere. "Is there anything I can get for you?"
Maria tried to take her focus off of the sharp pain in her wrist and concentrate on her other needs. "I'm cold and I'm hungry."
Ramiro walked around the cage never straying too far and picked up twigs and branches. He put them in a pile in front of the cage and pulled a match from his pocket. He lit the fire and as it grew he would add more wood to it. The warmth from the fire was comforting to Maria.
"Some of the others will be back with food soon, even for you." Ramiro now stood perfectly still again.
Maria wondered what he meant 'even for you'. Just then a few of Benito's men walked into the camp but they carried people with them. The people were crying and screaming but their efforts were futile. No one was around to hear them except for the hungry army of vampires. One of them brought a satchel to Ramiro and then went back to group of people. The crown gathered together again at the center of the camp.
Ramiro turned to Maria and pushed the satchel through the bars. "Your food is in there." But Maria was no longer hungry. She was overcome with nausea when she saw the vampires begin to rip into the flesh of the humans. She heard their sickening cries stifled by new gurgling sounds. She suddenly wished that the fire was not there to allow her to see the horrific scene being played out in front of her. She began to lose consciousness but the last image to burn into her mind was that of her father, face aglow from the fire, lips dripping with blood, and eyes burning a bright crimson flame.
