A/N: Just as a little heads-up, it's going to get a teensy bit horror-tinged in here. It may be a little off-putting; it may also be lame. You decide. There's also a Kansas reference lurking about that I couldn't resist throwing in. Anyway, thank you all for bearing with me so far! I hope you'll enjoy the fact that our heroes are getting closer and closer to their impending doom, be that positive or not. I also hope I haven't included any major (or minor) research fail.
Chapter Twenty
1 "Did you know that Tijuana is the birthplace of the Caesar Salad?" Charlie said, sounding like the least enthusiastic tour guide in the history of humanity. They were driving on the Agua Caliente Boulevard, toward Las Torres, a.k.a. the Plaza Aguacaliente & Grand Hotel Tijuana. The car was an 1983 red Audi Quattro that Barbie had acquired by paying for it with cash. This, in turn, resulted from her pawning off some tacky but expensive jewellery before they crossed the border. Getting across the border itself had been a little bit tense, but after some debate, they'd decided to brazenly drive up to border control, despite having no passports. Everyone except for Nessie had thought that this was a terrible idea. Everyone except for Nessie had been thoroughly mistaken. No-one even looked at their documents. Huh. It probably would've helped if they'd actually researched border-crossing from San Diego into Mexico.
Now, Charlie was driving toward the hotel, Jacob by his side, whilst Barbie and Nessie were on the backseat. Poor Charlie. He hated this bull, as he called it. He truly hated it. He hated being forced to stick around by decree of supernatural bullies (his term, not Jacob's), he'd hated changing into civilian clothes Barbie had bought for him, he'd hated lying to the police patrol that had stopped them on the road, and he hated chauffeuring around people he thought of as monsters and murderers. The thing was, he didn't have a choice – none of them did. The only difference was that, just like Bella, Charlie seemed to be completely and utterly immune to Nessie's graceful charms. Nessie herself hadn't been too pleased, but had accepted that of course her grandpa loved and worshipped her, even if something was clearly wrong with him.
"Is that so?" Barbie replied, not even trying to mask her boredom and contempt. God, all those insults Jacob liked to fling at her aside, as a person, she was just plain awful. What an ally to be stuck with! Eugh.
"Yeah. Guy named Caesar Cardini, immigrant from Italy, came to Tijuana to escape Prohibition in the US. After Fourth of Juli, 1924, his kitchen was depleted, and he basically threw in all he had together. Voilà! Caesar Salad."
"How interesting. Please tell me more about the irrelevant inception of an insipid dish that I can't ever eat."
"Shut your trap, Barbs. Nobody cares what you think," Jacob said, yawning, and pointed at the two huge, silvery skyscrapers ahead. "We're here."
"I've always wanted to vacation in Mexico for free," Charlie said flatly, slowing the car down. "Oh, well. Let's get this over with. Maybe I'll be lucky and get eaten."
"That won't happen, Grampa," Nessie said sweetly, innocently, oblivious of his mean-spirited sarcasm. No, he didn't want to be here, but this was his granddaughter. It couldn't hurt to be a little more friendly, even if his stupid, blockheaded mind made it impossible for him to see. "I won't let them. They'll be our friends; you'll see. They'll all be our friends."
"Comforting," Charlie said, and harrumphed.
"How many of them are there? Creepula ever tell you?" Jacob glanced over his shoulder at Barbie, to see her pull a grimace of disgust.
"The last time he was here, about five years ago, he said there were at least ten. But that was five years ago," she said coldly. "Conjecturing will get us nowhere. In any case, every extra help is better than what we have now."
There was a knot in Jacob's throat. He shot a glance at Charlie, but then looked out the window at the traffic and merry crowds hurrying to and fro. This was a big city, a lively city, a cultural metropolis that was ever-growing. Now Jacob and his little party had arrived to bring death and destruction to the unsuspecting locals and tourists. Awesome. "Do you think we have time to make more? Vampires, I mean." He ignored Charlie's appalled stare.
"No," Barbie said. "I don't even know if I'm physically capable of turning someone, and even if, the transformation takes at least two days, and after that, they're deaf and blind for weeks if not months. Demetri might be put off for a day at best, probably only a few hours. They'll be here later today."
"That doesn't mean they'll attack blindly. Didn't go so well for either side last time."
Barbie huffed. "Of course they're not gonna attack blindly, Jacob. It doesn't matter, anyway. If we get the one we want, and we have the upper hand, then we can beat them, whoever they're sending for us. My point is, we can't just turn people on a dime without making preparations first, and they wouldn't be able to do anything useful, anyway, even if it took our pursuers a whole month to get here."
"Don't kill the bad men, Aunt Rose," Nessie said, her little voice beseeching. It made Jacob's breath hitch in his throat. The poor little thing. She was so good. She was so much better than those assholes trying to get their filthy hands on her. Why didn't Leah understand? There was nothing about Nessie that was hard to love. Everyone should love her. She deserved it. She needed it. One day, they would all see. They would all see.
"Why not, angel?" Barbie said tenderly. Through the rear-view mirror, Jacob saw her caress Nessie's lush brown curls. He felt ill. What right did she have to lay her corpse-hands on the most precious individual that could ever exist?
"Because now I know that I can change them. I can turn them into good men. They'll be my friends, too." Nessie was smiling, and it shone more brightly than the sun. "Everyone will be my friend, and soon. You'll see. You all will see."
2 "Once upon a time in Mexico," Leah said, and chuckled wryly. They were on the road again, and it wouldn't take too long until they reached the border. She voiced concerns about the possibility that authorities might perhaps be on the lookout for them, but Creepula had smugly informed her that this would so not be a problem due to his overwhelming awesomeness. Yeah, fine, he hadn't put it like that exactly, but he might as well have, the self-satisfied little jerk.
"You know," she said, glancing at him through the rear-view mirror, "I was there when you told us your cute little transformation story, and how that evil Mexican lady duped you, etc. etc. Was that all bull? Because you seem way, way too well-informed on current events to actually be bitter about what happened back then."
He only shrugged casually. "What can I say? I lived with that woman for about eighty years. That leaves an impression. I like to stay in touch."
"I think what he really means to say," Demetri added, eyes strictly on the road, since there was a lot of traffic and the weather was foul, "is that the real reason he vacated himself from the hotspot of those southern wars was this: he found out that we were about to put a stop to them."
"That, too," Jasper said, completely unfazed, "and a heartfelt thank-you to my buddy Peter and his insipid girlfriend Charlotte for spotting you people – a complete coincidence, by the way – and reporting back to me." He snickered. "To think that I almost killed that raisin-headed moron Peter had crushed on. If I had, I'd probably be dead now."
"Yay for you," Leah said flatly, and looked out the window. She traced the pattern of the raindrops on the glass with her fingertips. "They had a head-start anyway and will be able to set up shop before we reach them – Jacob and the others. We can't simply burst onto the scene and attack them. What do we do?"
Demetri took his sweet time to reply, "Evaluate the situation. I'll know exactly where they are the moment we get within twenty miles of them. We drive into town, get the lay of the land, and go from there. I would try reasoning with them, first, naturally, but it won't do any good. There are some situations you simply can't talk your way out of."
"Can I make a suggestion?" That was Bella. She didn't sound as dead as she had yesterday. Must've been a really good heart-to-heart she'd had with Creepula. Either that or…nope. Leah was not going to think about that. Ever. So not happening. "Let me call Jacob. If there's still any of his old self alive, he'll listen to me more than any of you."
"Leah is his cousin and pack-member," Demetri countered, doubtful and, if Leah wasn't terribly mistaken, very much annoyed.
Bella said, "True, but he is imprinted on Renesmee, and Renesmee is half me. He used to love me, and that had nothing to do with anything supernatural. Those were real emotions. Maybe that's the only way we can get through to him at all. We won't convince him to surrender, but at least we can lull him into a false sense of security. I know what I have to tell him in order to make him believe we wish for a peaceful resolution."
Wow, that was cold. It was a good and helpful suggestion, yes, and sentimentality would get them nowhere, but the way she said all this was so detached, so unaffected, so horribly uncaring. Again, maybe Leah was only projecting and reading way too much into this because she despised Bella, but she didn't think so. Well, at least Bella was now offering some useful advice, even if her functioning brain was a by-product of her violently killing several innocent people – egged on and aided by Creepula, of course.
Jared. Embry. The wolf kids. The dead police officers. Charlie, who was as good as dead. All the unknown people who would die before all this was over. All the-
Leah gnashed her teeth together and focussed on her breathing. Now was not the time for this. She needed to keep her marbles. She really needed to keep her eye fixed on the bigger picture. Re-name-me first, revenge later. "If we're gonna try to manipulate Jacob in any shape or form, Bell-Bell here should be the one to do it; I agree."
"All right," Demetri said, after mulling this over for a moment. "Don't do anything without my approval, though. I've hunted dhampirs and rogue vampires before; you have not. The smallest mistake might have catastrophic results and a death-toll in the thousands."
"You're the boss," Jasper said merrily. "Still, I'd advise you to listen to my expertise regarding Tijuana. I've been there. I was a major player in those wars. I know who's in charge of the sandbox…well, at least until now." He snickered again. "She'll be furious at being usurped by a mongrel child."
"What makes you think that she hasn't been added to the collective?" Bella said. There was a slightly snide undertone to her otherwise monotonous voice. Hm. Fancy that.
"It's just a hunch," Jasper said, casual and carefree as always. "I know that woman. If anyone has a knack for survival, it's her."
"Her power might have helped a little," Demetri added.
"Yes, that, too," Jasper said. Through the mirror, Leah could see him smirking.
She balled her hands into fists, actually relishing the feeling of her fingernails biting into her palms. "We'll just have to wait and see," she said in clipped tones, and forced herself to stare out the window again. There really wasn't much else to do, anyway, and fur-sploding in a car on the road would probably not be a very constructive contribution to the conversation.
3 There was no prison cell. There were no restrictions. Irina was free to move around the complex as she pleased, and there was a very good reason for this: she couldn't find the exit, and whenever she turned a corner that she wasn't supposed to turn, she was compelled to head in the other direction. No, she had absolutely no clue who the vampire responsible for this was, but that was the only viable explanation: someone with the power of extreme misdirection resided within these walls. It was the only security they needed, in the end. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't go where you weren't supposed to go, and no matter how far you walked, you always ended up where they wanted you to be.
Therefore, after a few hours of wandering around and winding up in the exact same spot every single time, she just stayed in the room she'd been assigned. It was nice, sporting a very comfortable couch and two armchairs, a fully-stocked bookcase, and a gramophone. This whole place was like a little, self-contained, parallel universe where time stood still and out of which there could be no escape. She decided to make the best of it and just wait and see what those people planned to do with her. The introduction to Aro had been brief, but very memorable. She still wasn't sure whether his mesmerising personality was a power or not, but she knew about his thought-and-memory-reading ability. Maybe those two were connected. Maybe she was just overthinking things. It made no difference. She was here; she wasn't going anywhere unless they let her.
About an hour or so after she'd settled down on the sofa (unnecessary, but decorative, and sitting down was a habit, after all) with a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, there was a knock on her door. She put the book down and shot to her feet, saying, "Come in," almost adding 'I'm decent'.
It was Aro. He beamed at her as he stepped inside. His eyes wandered to the hardcover lying on the couch. "Symbolism in your choice of literature?"
She shrugged and crossed her arms. "It's just a book I really enjoy by an author I love." It still was inexplicably hard to look away from him, even though she now knew what to expect. "Thank you, by the way, for giving me a nice room with such a great selection of books."
He laughed softly. "Reading is an ever-green, especially among people who live forever. I was just joking just now, my dear. Dumas has his place in all the guest chambers for a reason. His novels are simply divine."
"Am I a guest?" she said, when what she really wanted to ask was whether she was included in his list of people who got to live forever – as far as 'forever' went, anyway. Everything ended at some point, even time.
The slightest frown wrinkled his forehead. "Of course. You're free to go anywhere you like within the stronghold."
That answered her question even better than the truth would have. She nodded, started twirling a strand of her hair around her fingers, and looked down at her booted feet. "Caius wanted to kill me, but Demetri convinced him to send me here, instead. I'm pretty sure you had a hand in that decision."
"Ah, yes. My brother and his unfortunate tendency to make rash decisions," he said, and sighed with unmistakeable exasperation. "When I talked to our mutual friend, Demetri, and he told me how well you managed to resist the mind-control of a dhampir that powerful, I was more than intrigued. Others in your position have not been so fortunate in the past, and neither have those who were exposed to the dhampir in question. I must say, your resistance, your mere capacity for resistance" – He uttered an incredulous little laugh and, as she could see from the corner of her eye, shook his head – "is truly fascinating. I've seen your mind, darling girl, and I am so intrigued by the fact that your hatred of the Cullens and your love for those you have lost are enough to almost override the mind-control."
"Almost," she said, and found herself facing him again. Among vampires, he objectively looked regular, ordinary. It wasn't all about the looks, though – not by far. Whoever thought that pure looks decided on the appeal of a person was shallower than a petri dish.
"Almost. You're still faring better than anyone I've ever encountered. Now, that might be a flaw in the dhampir's power and less your own accomplishment; I'm aware of that. That's the reason you've been brought here, Irina. We – I want to find out what exactly makes you" – Again, his smile broadened, reaching his eyes, lighting up his whole face – "tick."
Despite herself, she took a little step back, so that her calves bumped against the couch. "What exactly does that mean?"
"What does that one narrative rule say? Show, don't tell," he said, and held out his arm. "Please join me, and I'll gladly fill you in on the details."
She hadn't actually slept for a very long time, but this whole situation had a weird, dreamlike quality to it that she could've done without. "Okay," she said, made herself approach him, and placed her hand on the crook of his arm. "Okay."
"Okay," he echoed in a way that was either sunny or mocking; she couldn't quite tell. "Let's go find out what you're really made of."
4 They walked into the lobby brazenly, Nessie leading the charge, Barbie holding her hand. Nessie had told them to trust her, and they had no choice but to do so. What else were they going to do, anyway? There was no Plan B. The guy at the reception they approached was very much human, but there was something strange about his eyes: his pupils were either weirdly huge, or his irises were really pitch black. It looked so damn weird, and yet, no-one seemed to be noticing anything off. Okay, the dude wasn't exactly an albino, but no-one had eyes that black – no-one.
Thing was, most people just went about their business and simply overlooked small weird shit that might upset the apple cart. That was an instinctual survival tactic, as far as Jacob was concerned. Ignorance is bliss and all that. In this case, all they saw was a friendly hotel employee who had unusually dark eyes. They didn't know that the guy was being mind-controlled by a very powerful vampire, as were all who worked here. Jacob didn't have the luxury of not knowing. He didn't have the luxury of walking away, either. Bummer for him. Boo-hoo. He knew that feeling sorry for himself didn't change a goddamn thing, but knowing what was waiting for him still made him wish he could just go home, crawl into bed, and sleep until the world stopped turning. Yeah, it was self-pity. No, he wasn't even going to try to switch it off. It was about the only original character trait he still had left, and good or bad, he would do his best to hang on to that.
"Good day, ma'am," Reception Dude greeted cheerily in flawless English, as Barbie approached the desk and picked Nessie up into her ridiculous marble arms. Something about her must scream 'American' to him, which Jacob could hardly blame him for. "How can I help you?"
Jacob was standing right behind Barbie (trying not to breathe in the overwhelming cotton-candy smell of her stupid hair) and couldn't see her face, but was pretty sure she was flashing what she thought was her most radiant smile. It probably wouldn't work on this mind-morphed sucker (and it had to be his irises that were this creepily black; if it were his pupils, he'd be fucking blind), but oh well. Couldn't blame an undead, racist, classist snob for trying.
"Yes," Barbie crooned. "We want the presidential suite."
Reception Dude blinked at her in confusion. His smile wavered. "I'm sorry, but the presidential suite is taken. If you don't have a reservation, we still have a number of beautiful suites that-"
"No. It'll be the presidential one, thank you."
The poor guy looked even more confused. He opened his mouth to protest, no doubt, but Nessie was quicker.
"You want the best room for me because you love me," she said, and it…
…it wasn't exactly like the weird scream that had saved their bacon back at the Cullen house, but it wasn't better – not really. To be honest, it was a whole lot worse. Her voice wasn't just the soft, high, trilling child's music anymore that Jacob was used to (and loved). It had a weird, deep, distorted, metallic undertone swinging alongside it, almost hidden, hard to pinpoint, but real enough to make his hackles stand on end and his eyes water. He bit his tongue so hard, he tasted blood. Next to him, Charlie flinched heavily, leaned his head into his hands, and groaned. Even Barbie winced a little. Reception Dude's unnaturally black eyes went even wider; a tear ran from one of them, down his cheek. His tan face blanched. His mouth dropped open. His whole body twitched jerkily. Drool pooled in the corner of his mouth and started dripping down his chin. The strangest, ugliest, most inhuman whimper strangled its way out his throat as he stared blindly at nothing. Wow, that was…was anybody else seeing this? If they did, then their cover would be blown, they'd be…
Jacob stopped himself mid-thought. There was silence. The entire lobby was silent. He looked around. Nobody was moving. Nobody was saying anything. They all – employees as well as guests – were just standing there, eyes wide, mouths open, tears running down their cheeks and drool down their chins, twitching, sucking in short, shaky breaths. Some were…oh mother of God, some of them were actually peeing themselves, like sick puppies. A woman just walking through the doors into the lobby halted mid-stride and vomited dark-red goop all over her beige coat, before stumbling inside, dazed and visibly disoriented.
What the fuck.
Jacob's entire skin broke out in gooseflesh. An ice-cold chill crept down his spine. His mouth went dry. His intestines were in knots. Had it just gotten ten degrees colder in there? Holy hell. What was he supposed to do? Could he do anything? This was…there were no words, no rational explanation, no guidelines, no coherent thoughts, no-
As if on cue, everybody present turned around to stare at Nessie. They snapped to attention. Their eyes went first blank and then completely white – pupils and irises included.
"Presidential suite," Receptionist Dude said blankly, and held out a key card. "All yours. Everything is all yours."
"All yours," the rest of the people present murmured in unison.
In Barbie's arms, Nessie twisted in order to be able to look at Jacob and give him a beautiful, triumphant smile. "I told you to trust me," she said, and giggled. "Not they're all my friends."
5 "They're here," Demetri told Leah and the others, and pointed at a specific spot on the map he'd spread out on their car's hood. He was aware of the fact that there were more modern ways of showcasing this, but he liked maps, and he was determined to use them until they went out of print. Hopefully, that day would never come.
"Why do you even need a map?" Bella said.
They had passed the border easily – there'd been surprisingly little traffic today – and were now by the side of the road on their way into Tijuana.
"Because I can tell you where someone is after I track them, but I need to know the specifics of the place, too," Demetri said, not looking at her but frowning at the map in question.
Jasper whistled softly. "Figures," he said. Naturally, everyone looked at him – Bella impassively, the other two with impatience. "It's the Grand Hotel. Coolest place to be for three reasons: one, it's a good hotel; two, it's smack in the middle of the city; three, it's vampire-controlled."
Well, that explained a lot. Demetri raised his thin eyebrows at him. "Do they know that?"
"They do because Rosalie knows." Jasper shrugged. "I would apologise for spilling sensitive information, but I didn't know Bella was gonna give birth to a mind-warping Lovecraftian abomination that might use the place as its HQ – not when I shared this little titbit with the in-laws."
That was understandable. Demetri had to give him that much. "I wasn't pointing fingers. I just wonder if your friend is now being controlled by the dhampir instead of controlling an entire hotel's worth of people."
"Well, we'll just have to go there and find out, won't we?"
Leah gave Jasper a withering look. "Are you unable to take anything seriously? We're talking about dozens of lives being at stake, here. This isn't a joke."
"And my compassion will make a difference to their plight how, exactly?" Jasper shot back, very much unimpressed. He tilted his head to the side and returned Leah's angry glare with utter dispassion. "Feeling sorry for someone never changed anything, so I won't bother. I'd rather think of a useful solution. You want to cry for those poor widdle humans being either killed or mind-warped? Go ahead. Cry for them. I'm sure that if you cry hard enough, at some point the clouds will break and a heavenly light will shine down upon your righteous countenance."
Leah's expression went from angry to disbelieving to disgusted in a matter of seconds. She snorted and shook her head. Red blotches appeared high up on her prominent cheekbones. "You unimaginable bastard."
"Please, let's not do this now," Demetri said, briefly placing a hand on Leah's shoulder, willing her to keep her cool. They could not afford a fallout now. He turned to Jasper. "And you, keep your opinions to yourself, if you know that they'll only provoke an argument."
"I'm just tired of getting judged all the time based on nothing but my species," Jasper returned nonchalantly, shrugging, crossing his arms. This earned him a fervent nod of approval from Bella.
"You – you have the nerve to accuse me of being racist?" Leah snapped, jabbing a finger in Jasper's direction. Her face was now completely flushed, her eyes narrowed. She was trembling slightly. "You people do nothing but insult us, call us dogs and mongrels, treat us like dirt, like cannon fodder, and you have the fucking nerve-" She interrupted herself, bit her lower lip, shook her head, and waved off. "Fuck this bullshit. Let's get this crappy gig over with, because I am so close to being done!" She really was, wasn't she?
Demetri took her by the shoulders and gently, but firmly turned her around, so that she'd face him. "I know this is awful, and I know that he's not helping, but we need to keep it together until this is all over – all of us."
She glared at him. "Tell that to Captain Psychopath over there!"
"I am. I'm saying this to all of you, and to myself. We need to stick together and ignore our differences, or this mission is doomed to failure. Please, don't let that happen." This last bit he was saying purely to her, because in the end, it all did hinge on her ability not to lose control over her hatred.
For another minute, she just kept glowering at him with narrowed eyes and tightly pressed-together lips, but then, she relaxed, rolled her eyes, and blew out a heavy breath. "Fine. I'm good. Can we move on, now? It's no fun breathing in all these exhaust fumes."
Letting go of her shoulders, Demetri said, "Thank you, and yes, we can. I suggest we take up residence in a regular house and then try to find out just how bad the situation at the Grand Hotel is."
"I suggest we find my friend, first, and see if she's being mind-controlled by Renesfail or not," Jasper said, good-natured and completely indifferent to all the tension. It was in equal parts vile and admirable, really. At least he was having a good time. He cracked a smile. "If anyone can convince a family to lend us their house and keep quiet about it, it's her."
"We'll manage either way, with or without that woman," Bella said, staring at him without blinking.
"There's only one way to find out," Demetri hurried to say, because he'd be damned if he let another discussion break out this quickly. They were already sitting on the metaphorical powder-keg; adding fuel to the fire wasn't exactly smart in this kind of scenario. "Are you fed enough to work your way out of a potential trap?"
"Yes, sir, I am." Jasper glanced at Bella, who nodded. "We both are, as a matter of fact."
Demetri nodded and pulled his sleeves over his hands, before crossing his arms. "Good. Then I suppose it's time you gave your friend a call."
6 As she was led through a maze of hallways and staircases and doors, past all kinds of vampires in grey suits and regular civilian clothes, Irina didn't even try to keep up. It was hopeless. Even if Aro were only leading her around two corners, she wouldn't be able to find her way back unless she was allowed to. She was pretty sure she'd only end up right in front of her guest room (prison cell?) again. The only option she had right now was to roll with it. Pitching a fit wouldn't work, moping would be useless. It was better to just keep calm and carry on, wayward daughter. There might even be peace when she was done.
"There's no need to be frightened," he told her, and she really had to fight not to just give in to the reassuring warm tone of his voice. "I don't want to see you dead, dear Irina. What I want is to finally find a cure for your affliction. If there is one, I am convinced that the key to finding it lies with you."
"May I ask how long you've been trying?" Her own voice sounded firmer and more confident than she felt, but this was a useless victory, since he could see right through the façade with one little touch.
"Oh, for about two thousand years, now. Unfortunately, all our previous efforts have been for naught."
They turned another corner to a corridor that was at least a hundred metres long and housed ten heavy metal doors on each side. Ahead was a dead end. There was only one door there, which wasn't simply locked, but secured by two thick iron bars locked across it. He slowed down, and so did she.
All of her muscles coiled. "What is this place?" Her voice was hardly above a whisper.
"This," he said casually, and motioned at each side of the corridor with a quick move of his right hand, "is where we keep the more volatile specimens of our little collection of perilous oddities." From the corner of her eye, she saw him give her a pointed, expectant glance. "Would you like to see the prime item in my possession – the most precious one?"
This couldn't be good. Feebly, she nodded. What else was she supposed to do, anyway? He didn't strike her as a man who took no for an answer, and in this case, there was nothing she could do about it. If he wanted to show her something, then that was exactly what was going to happen. "Sure." Why even try to be eloquent? There was no use for any kind of charade.
"Good," he said, placed his free hand atop hers, and patted it once, before setting into motion again.
She followed uneasily. The silence in this place was dense and syrupy, almost palpable. They hadn't walked ten paces before she realised that in here, the sound of their steps did not echo. As she didn't need to speak, she didn't breathe. Something told her not to, as if this corridor and whatever waited behind those doors were contagious, somehow – toxic.
They stopped dead ahead of the last door, the one that was triple-locked. There was a little, quadrangular window in the thick metal, but it was closed. Behind that was dead silence. The air felt colder, but it wasn't just that. It felt…old. Ancient. Used. Dead. If she'd been physically capable of doing so, Irina would have shuddered.
"Are you ready?" he said, his voice trembling a little. It was still sonorous, even though it had a weirdly muffled quality to it, as if he were speaking to her through water.
She forced herself to nod once.
"Wonderful." He smiled with unmitigated glee, let go of her arm, pulled the little metal covering from the small screen, stepped away, and motioned for her to look inside. "Please."
She didn't want to. Every cell in her body was screaming for her to turn around on her heels and run as fast as she could, as far away from here as she could. It was almost physically painful to make herself take that one step, lean in, and peer through the thick glass. When she saw what was inside, she gasped (oh God she'd breathed in that foul dead air!), staggered backwards, and slapped her hands to her mouth. It couldn't be. It just couldn't. They couldn't have. How could they…no. No! She turned around and started to stumble away from that horrible place-
"Irina."
Despite herself, she stopped, shut her eyes, pressed her lips together, clenched her fists. She was paralysed, frozen, unable to move to think to speak to breathe. It was just too horrible. All of this was just too damn horrible.
"Irina," he said calmly, sounding kind, but how could that be true? How could that be true? "I must ask you to turn around and come back."
"Please don't make me," she whispered, eyes still shut.
"I really have no desire to force you to do anything," he said, very polite and almost compassionate. She heard his steps approaching her, felt his hand on her shoulder. "But I will not let this experiment go to waste before it's even properly begun. Too much depends on it. We need to get through this, you and I, for the greater good. It's all for the greater good. Please, come with me." When she just stayed there, frozen up, he sighed. "There's no need to be afraid. I'll be there the entire time. Besides, it can't get any worse than it already is."
"It can always get worse."
"Still, you can't run away from what needs to be done – none of us can," he said, his voice still strangely echo-less, but warm and inviting. "Please. Come with me."
It was as if she wasn't even in control anymore. She turned around robotically, took the hand he offered her, and meekly allowed him to lead her back to the door. Maybe it would have been better if Caius had won the argument and killed her. Of course it would have been better. Anything, anything at all was better than this – even death. Especially death.
7 "I have a bad feeling about this," Leah told Demetri, as they lazily ambled through the crowds at the Plaza Río shopping mall. "We're doing this song and dance routine to meet up with a person who might be a demon-spawn minion or simply a vindictive psycho, and all we've got for backup is Jasper?"
"I can totally hear you, you know?" Jasper piped up cheerily from a few feet behind, Bella by his side.
"I don't care." Leah glanced at Demetri again, who was to her right. "Do you really believe this is our best bet?"
"Yes," he said simply. "It'll be a very public place, so an ambush is unlikely-"
"Unless everyone's brains have already been eaten by the death-baby."
He smiled a little and swerved to avoid colliding with a heavily pregnant lady who was carrying way too many shopping bags. "There's always that, but I can tell you right now that the death-baby herself is firmly entrenched at the Grand Hotel. Any and all minions she might send could be distracted by Jasper, which would at least give us a chance to retreat. Should this woman not be infected, she will want to do whatever she can to help us dethrone the usurper."
"Win-win, then," Leah said dryly.
"Yes," he said. "Win-win."
Something displayed in one of the shop windows caught her eye. Without even thinking about it, she grabbed his elbow as she came to a halt. "That," she said, and pointed at the window. "If you want me to go that place and risk being the lone wolf surrounded by murderous leeches, then I need that. If I am going out, at least I'll be dressed to kill."
"Very well," he said, after a few seconds, "and let me compliment you on your good eye."
8 They spent a few useless hours in the mall, since there was really nothing to do until the time for their epic rendezvous rolled around. Leah found something edible at the food court; the vampires behaved – nothing to write home about. Jasper and Bella were fine, only having fuelled up the previous day, but Demetri's eyes – a vampire's fuel gauge, as Leah liked to call it – were so dark, he didn't even need contact lenses. As evening came and she and Bella were about to go into the restrooms to change into something appropriate, she asked him if he was okay, and he said he was. All right, then. It was his life, and he was a grown man. He knew what he was doing. It was his business, not hers.
Still, as she locked herself in one of the stalls and started shimmying out of her jeans, she couldn't help but wonder if his dogged insistence on doing his job in detriment of everything else, his insistence on keeping his promises wasn't really taking too much of a toll. If he were human, she'd tell him that he would be of no use to anyone if he got the vapours because he'd forgotten to take proper care of himself. He wasn't human, though. No, he was a vampire. He couldn't die of starvation. What he could do, however, was flip out and go on a murder-spree. That was definitely within the realm of possibilities.
It wasn't just that, though. She'd meant it when she'd told him that he was a good guy. They didn't know each other for very long, but from all that she had witnessed (especially that night in the storage locker), she could tell. Yes, sure, that might all be an act, but she didn't think so. From what she gathered, he really didn't want anyone to die, and he really didn't want to be personally responsible for anyone's death.
Leah herself had killed vampires. Killing vampires was her business. It was her duty. Hell, it was fused into her genetic make-up. Was it wrong to kill a vampire? No, not if that meant eliminating a people-eating monster. All the ones she'd killed had been murderers. She'd been totally justified in eliminating them.
Yeah.
It had been horrible. In the heat of battle, she hadn't cared, but in the aftermath? The faces of those leeches wouldn't leave her alone. Blonde tall girl in red blouse. Skinny kid in a soccer jersey. Short lady. Chubby boy. Pixie-haircut girl. They'd been undead parasitic monsters, yes, yes, but they had been people – sentient, sapient forms of life. It had been either her or them, and Leah had killed them in order to survive. They were gone because of her. They had ceased to exist. Sometimes, even after all these months, she still caught herself thinking about those vamps, idly imagining what their lives had been like when they'd still been human.
Sometimes, she still dreamed about them.
Killing was an awful business, and no amount of justification or rationalisation made it any better. If you took a life, you gave a bit of your own, and that was fact. She was pretty sure that if any vampire felt the same way about killing, it was Demetri. No, they hadn't known each other for long, but from all he'd said and done, from how he interacted with Jasper and Bella, from everything, she could tell. She might still be wrong, of course, but she liked to think that she was not. She liked to believe in the good that she saw in someone, no matter who that someone might be – even if he was a vampire.
When she was done dressing up, she stuffed her everyday-clothes into the now empty plastic bag, left the stall, and scrutinised herself in the mirror. The result wasn't too shabby. She was wearing a strapless, dark-green dress with a sweetheart neckline that was pretty snug and went halfway down her thighs. To go along, she'd bought a pair of black pumps and a not-too-sparkly necklace – costume jewellery, of course. No need to be wasteful. That would just be tacky. Thankfully, her neck-wound had all but closed over the course of the day and was hardly visible anymore. After taking a deep breath (and trying not to feel silly), she stepped out of the restroom, where the others were waiting.
Of course, the first one to comment was Creepula. He – still in his t-shirt and sports jacket combo – looked her up and down, nodded, and whistled lowly. Then, he gave her the thumbs-up. "You clean up nice."
"And you can go straight to hell," she replied sweetly, briefly looking over Bella's beige cocktail dress and approving. Then, Leah turned to her only friend in the ensemble. His face expressed nothing. "Appropriate?"
He looked at her for a second, before doing that sleeves-over-hands-pulling thing he loved so much, and nodded curtly. "Very. I suggest we blend into the crowd close to the club and wait in public until the right time has come. Is everyone in agreement?"
Everyone was in agreement. Dolled up and ready to hit the town, they set out.
9 Soon enough, midnight was there, and the quartet took a cab to a very crowded club called Las Pulgas – the flees.
"If you make a single pun about that name and anything related to wolves, I will castrate you," Leah told Jasper, as they stepped out of the cool night air and into the sweaty gloom of the club. It was a big place with a pretty huge dancefloor and a stage, on which a rock band was giving their best. The music was loud, but it was decent, too, and the crowd was dancing and cheering and drinking and basically just having an innocent good time.
"I would never!" Jasper yelled right into her ear, louder than he had to, despite the impressive level of noise going on in there.
"Let's get the lay of the land," Demetri said into her other ear, knowing the other two leeches could hear him just fine. "You two go that way" – He pointed right and ahead – "Leah and I will go that way. It'll look less conspicuous and will be less threatening to the vampires in the crowd."
"There are…" Leah trailed off, blinked, breathed, focussed. Oh, yes, there were at least five of them, spread out between the clubbers, pretending to party, watching. One – a short-ish, twenty-something looking young man – had already spotted them. "Hey, Jasper, friend of yours?"
"Not yet! I'll go look for the friend I do know! Come along, Miss Swan! Let's go mingle." He took Bella's hand and pulled her away, into the crowd.
"We should go, too," Demetri said, very briefly touching her elbow and then immediately withdrawing his hand again.
She meant to say something, but two very big and beefy dudes squeezed themselves between her and Demetri, pushing past without even looking. One of them stepped on her shoe. She bit her tongue and cursed silently. God, like this, they were never going to get anywhere, and they might even get separated, which would be criminally stupid. This wasn't a bad slasher movie where the protagonists made dumb decisions because the plot said so. It was time to stop being squeamish. Rolling her eyes at herself and at him, she took his icy hand and unceremoniously started pulling him through the perspiring masses of partying humans. After a few seconds' worth of hesitation, he closed his fingers around hers. This tip-toeing bullshit was a little ridiculous, wasn't it?
"I'm not contagious," she shouted at him over her shoulder, as they pushed past a table surrounded by jeering and hollering young people, who were spilling drinks all over the place. "I thought you'd realised that when you had to hug me and keep me from scratching my own face off!"
"That's not why-" He hastily interrupted himself and tugged on her arm, spinning her around to face him, pulled her close to himself, and said into her ear, "Dance with me, now!"
The confusion went away quicker than the vertigo, and she had to cling to the lapels of his dark suit jacket in order not to fall on her butt. Then, she tried to make it look normal as she put a hand on his shoulder and took his other, while he lightly placed his free hand on her waist. "What is it?" She only mouthed this, frowning.
"Behind you, mind-controlled humans – several of them. I don't know who by," he said, again directly into her ear. "They might be on the lookout. Let me watch them for a minute. Try to act naturally."
This was all so absurd. She looked him straight in the eye and laughed, unable to help herself. "I'm so sorry," she managed to say after a few seconds, giggling, as he watched her with a puzzled look on his face. "This happens to me all the time. Blown fuse and all."
"You're supposed to look happy, so it's okay," he said, putting his arm around her waist and starting to move to the music.
She did, too.
Wow. They were dancing. They were actually dancing. A dub-step-heavy, guitar-loaded, Spanish rock song was pumping through the sweat-laden air, and here she was, dancing with a vampire, just another drop in a swaying sea of bodies. The crowd was getting larger and there was little to no room to manoeuvre in. Through both their clothes, she could feel the coolness of his skin; her own broke out in gooseflesh.
"You're really cold," she said, apologetic, and feeling exceedingly silly for it. The whole situation was silly, despite the very real danger.
He smiled down at her merrily, visibly contaminated by her panicky giggly-fit – despite her assurances that she was not contagious. It made him look young. It made him look human. That was nice. "And you're really hot." The moment those words were out of his mouth, his eyes grew wide. Then, he squinted, looked up at the ceiling, and made a pained face. "Yes. Well. That sounded, uh…quite different in my head – wittier and less filled with unfortunate connotations. I apologise."
"Why?" she said, giggling again, because this was absurd and juvenile and inappropriate due to the zombified-human situation, due to the potential-trap-by-vampire situation, and mostly because…because. This wasn't supposed to be a fun night out with good friends. This was a mission of life and death, and here she was, laughing. Well, once in Bizarro World, always in Bizarro World. She decided to just roll with it. If you couldn't have a good time at the prospect of enslavement or untimely demise, when could you? "Don't apologise. I am pretty hot."
After giving her the eyebrow for a second, he snorted laughter. "Speaking as someone who is constantly freezing, it's nice to have a furnace to dance with. You've only stepped on my feet twice in the past twenty seconds, too."
"Ha-ha," she said, grimaced, and then cleared her throat. Time for serious business again. "The mind-controlled humans?"
The smile melted right off his face. "Loitering. It seems to be vampiric compulsion, but I can't tell for sure."
"It is," a voice said from her right.
They let go of each other and turned around as quickly as possible, given the circumstances. Jasper and Bella were just standing there, the former smirking like a jackass and the latter deadpan. To Jasper's right stood an averagely-sized, rather voluptuous, dark-haired and pasty young woman with uncannily symmetrical doll-features – a vampire, of course. Of course. Those damn things were everywhere these days. Now that Leah had seen her, it was a marvel she hadn't smelled her, first. This lady stank like she'd taken a long bath in the contents of all jasmine perfumes in the world. It was a little sickening, but at least it cleared the nostrils.
"Found her," Jasper said, jabbing his thumb at the woman.
"Yes, you did," Curvy Vamp said, sticking out the tip of her tongue between her teeth and giving him the lewdest smile Leah had ever had the misfortune of witnessing a person give another. Hoo boy. "Do you remember me, handsome?" Curvy Vamp's eyes were trained on Demetri.
"I do," came the clipped reply from Leah's left. Good on him, not being impressed by someone who made goo-goo eyes at fucking Jasper.
The woman turned her attention to Leah and looked her up and down, making her feel weirdly naked. "I would remember if I'd ever met you, because I can tell just by looking at you that you are truly memorable," she said, and held out her sickly-pale hand. "Hello, by the way. I'm Maria."