Blood and Sand (32 page)

He was frowning, staring at her hard, as if he was memorizing her face. “It does make sense. Even if I don’t like it.”

She forced out a wobbly smile. “Be scared. Live anyway.”

Baojia drew her back toward the pillows and she could feel him start to slow down. “Rest with me. Sleep. I’m sorry I asked you to share all this tonight. It’s already been upsetting enough.”

“It’s okay.” Strangely, it was. Lying at his side, Natalie felt peace. She felt safe with him, safer than she’d felt in many, many years. “It happened a long time ago. I can remember the good things now.”

“I’m sorry you don’t speak with your father,” he whispered. “You should have been a comfort to each other.”

“The dad I grew up with left at fifteen when my mom was killed. He never really came back from that kitchen after he went in. I escaped as soon as I could. Southern California was as far away as I could handle.”

“And you’d never consider going back?”
ackescaped a

“To Oakland?” She shook her head, remembering the streets of her hometown like she’d been there yesterday. “No, I don’t want to. I don’t want to live with ghosts. Dad moved back, eventually. But I couldn’t.”

“What about somewhere else? Somewhere north?”

She paused, trying to measure his intent. “What are you saying?”

“I promised to keep you safe, Natalie.”

“So I’m just supposed to follow you?” Her heart rate began to pick up again. Was it fear? Excitement? A combination of both? “I’m just supposed to leave my whole life here and follow—”

“Who said you would follow me?” he offered casually. His voice was drowsy as dawn approached. “I could follow you. There’s a possibility that a move to Northern California or the Pacific Northwest would be an option for me. Even welcome.”

“But—”

“I’m just asking you to think about it.”

Think about it. She could do that. Sure, she’d only known him for a few weeks, so why didn’t that seem insane?

“I’ll think about it.” She settled down at his side as he squeezed her shoulders, her eyes already feeling heavy. “But if I can’t—”

“Natalie, when I offered my loyalty, it was not with conditions. Now sleep.”

“But—”

“Sleep.”

The events of the night started to ambush her, and she felt her eyes droop. “Bossy.”

“You love it.”

Natalie sighed and closed her eyes. “Yeah, George. I think I might.”

The girl was named Rosa and she was frightened, looking to Cirilda for reassurance as Baojia and Natalie questioned her. Baojia’s Spanish was better than hers, but with over a hundred years to practice, she’d be kind of annoyed if it wasn’t.

“Where did you come from?” he asked.

“It’s a small town near Ensenada,” Rosa said. “No one has ever heard of it.”

Natalie saw his nose twitch and knew he was scenting the girl’s blood, even though he’d taken hers at nightfall.

“Do you remember what happened?”

She shook her head, then frowned. “Maybe a little? I remember walking at night to my grandmother’s house. I was taking her and my mother food because my grandmother has been sick. So I cooked dinner for my brothers and then took some food to my mother and grandmother.”

“But you didn’t get there?”

“I woke up in a room. I could hear very loud music, like the radio, but much louder. And it was coming from above me.”

“The club in Ensenada,” Natalie murmured in English. “There had to have been a basement of some kind where they kept the girls.”

Baojia nodded, then turned back to the girl. “Did they feed you, Rosa?”

“Yes. They didn’t beat me or hurt me. I was fed twice a day, along with the others.”

Natalie and Baojia exchanged a look. “How many others?”

“Six. They were all in the truck with me when we went out to the desert last night. Along with some others.” Tears filled her eyes. “What happened to them? It sounded like there were animals. Are they dead?” The girl began to sniff.

“Yes, they are probably dead,” Baojia replied as Natalie slapped his arm. “What? arre w” He switched to English. “They are. I’m not going to lie to her.”

“She’s crying!”

“I will not give her some kind of false hope.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “And if she’s taken Elixir, then she is probably dying, too. Just more slowly.”

Natalie wanted to throw up. This girl, this innocent girl walking to her grandmother’s house, had been taken, held captive and fed poison. Solely to make her blood more intoxicating to the vampires who wanted to hunt her. These monsters had to be stopped. And they had to find some kind of help for her.

Baojia continued while Cirilda comforted Rosa. “So, they took you and held you somewhere with loud music. Did you see anyone else? Anyone besides the other girls?”

“Well, there was one man who came in at night, but he never spoke. And…” Her forehead furrowed in concentration. “I don’t remember him clearly, but I think he came in every night. I can’t remember him now. How strange.”

A vampire. Was it Ivan? Carlos? One of the other, nameless monsters that Ivan employed? It didn’t even matter. They weren’t getting her back, that was for sure.

“Then I remember waking up in the truck heading out to the desert. It was like a delivery truck. And it dropped us off. Some of the girls were crying, trying to ask the driver to take them back, but I could tell he wouldn’t, so I didn’t bother. Then you found me.” She smiled at Natalie.

“We’re going to make sure you’re safe, Rosa,” Natalie said. “We’ll get you back to your family.”

Baojia’s hand darted out to Rosa’s and the girl’s eyes swirled, then winked shut before he turned to Natalie. “What are you saying? Don’t say that.”

She frowned. “We’re going to get rid of these guys and then send her back, right? I mean, she’s innocent. She doesn’t even know anything about vampires.”

“She has taken Elixir, Natalie. She’s walking poison.”

Tulio grunted from the corner. “And an appetizing one, too. Any vampire who smelled that blood would want to have a taste.”

Temper raised its head. “So what? Are you going to kill her when she’s not useful anymore?” She rose to her feet.

Baojia grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Of course we’re not going to kill her.”

“I would if it were up to me,” Tulio muttered. Cirilda sneered and said something that sounded insulting in her own tongue. Tulio shrugged. “According to you, she’ll die anyway.”

“Then we have to find a way to help her,” Natalie said. “There has to be something we can do.”

She sat when Baojia pulled her down. “We’ll figure something out. According to Dez, they’ve been trying to find the right doctor to study this formula. Hopefully someone immortal with experience in medieval alchemy. Maybe having a live… patient will help whoever they find. But she can’t go back. Not as she is right now. You can ask your friends—she’ll die within months without treatment.”

Natalie sat, irritated with Tulio’s callous regard for the girl and heartbroken over the situation. “It’s not her fault.”

“Of course it isn’t,” he said. “But would you have her spread it to others? What if this is a blood-borne disease and anyone who touches her blood or comes in contact with it is also infected? What if they also spread it? Not only vampires, but humans are in danger until we know more.”

She n
odded. “Fine. But what are we going to do with her? You think it’ou blood-s a good idea to take her to Gio and Beatrice’s House of a Thousand Vampires?”

“Probably not.”

“We will keep her,” Cirilda spoke in heavily accented English.

“I knew you could speak English!” Natalie almost shouted while Cirilda smirked.

“Woman, you do not consult with me on this?” Tulio asked gruffly.

“We’ll take her and keep her until you can find a more permanent solution,” Cirilda said, ignoring Tulio. “She’ll be safe here. And he won’t touch her blood. He only likes mine anyway.”

“He only drinks from you? Is that safe?” She blurted out the question before her brain caught up with her mouth. “Sorry, none of my business.”

Cirilda stood and walked toward Tulio, patting his cheek as she left the room. “Don’t let his face fool you. He is an old, old man. I’ll get some clean clothes for the girl and some food for you. You should eat before you leave.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The road was black and empty on the way to Los Angeles as Natalie and Baojia tossed ideas back and forth.

“You mentioned something about a priest who might know some of the missing girls,” she said. “Was it Father Andrade?”

“Yes, how do you—?”

“The first time I worked with my friend Manuel it was on a drug-mule case and he was a source.” He saw her eyes drift to the window. “That was a good story. Well, not good, but it had good results.”

“These girls, they’re a little like drug mules if you think about it.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” She turned back to him, frowning. “So, Father Andrade? You want someone to go to the mission? I know who he is. I could go down during the day and—”

“Too close to Ivan’s club. Even during the day, he could have people watching and they might know who you are. If Brigid’s husband comes, he’d be the best person.”

“I still think if it was during the day—”
 

“No, Natalie.”

He saw her eyes narrow, but she changed the subject. “Brigid’s husband was a priest?”

Baojia nodded. “He’s left the Church—well, the priesthood, I guess—and works mostly with Brigid now. But I’ve been told he still maintains a close relationship with the Vatican. He’s an earth vampire. I don’t know him that well, but I know he has a huge clan. From what I can tell, he and Brigid have been quietly investigating Elixir ever since it showed up in Dublin, where they live. They have a lot of contacts and if Father Andrade knows something, he’d be more likely to confide in someone connected to the Church.”

She was silent again, and Baojia could almost hear her brain spinning as she stared out the window. Finally, she said, “I wonder how long Rosa was kept.”

“I was wondering the same thing. Does it take time to work into a human’s system? How much do they give them? Does Elixir make the blood more appealing the longer they’ve been on it?”

Her eyes were lit with wild curiosity. “And why? What’s the point of all this? Pure amusement? Or are they inviting people who might not know what the drug does? Political enemies? People they want to weaken? How would they convince them to come? How much do Ivan’s people even know about it? You said yourself you’d only heard rumors.”

It was a question that had been swirling around ever since they’d made the connection between the missing girls and the Elixir. “It’s entirely possible that they know very little about the lasting effects of the drug. I had heard rumors, but only about the benefits. No one mentioned the downsides.”

“Big surprise there.”

“And Paula doesn’t seem to know anything about it. Rory?” he muttered. “I don’t know what to think about Rory. When did the first bodies show up in the desert around here?”

“According to what I could find, the first ones were found on the south side of the border about three months ago. No one made any connection between them at first. It seemed random. Then a month later, they started showing up on the American side. It was a cop down in El Centro who tipped me off. I did some investigating on my own before I made the connection with Juarez.”

“I don’t know if there is any
real
connection with Juarez, Natalie. The more we find out, the more I think that Ivan or whoever is orchestrating this is using that situation as a convenient scapegoat to cover his actions. He makes it
look
like Juarez and no one will see what’s really going on. That’s why they’re dumping the bodies how they are.”

“Why not make them disappear? There’s no need to dump the bodies. Where they’re hunting, they could easily bury them and they’d never be found.”

“But they’d still be missing. If too many girls just disappeared, someone might listen to their families. If they’re murdered…”

She nodded. “They could be the victim of random violence because they worked in the city. Or they could be the victim of whoever is killing in Juarez and moving west.”

“Or victims of smugglers who took advantage of them,” he added. “Isn’t that what the police think now? If I were Ivan and wanted to cover my tracks, I’d copycat a human killer. Everyone would be looking the other direction, including his bosses in Mexico City.”

“But why?” she asked again. “Is this some horrible game? Or is there a plan behind it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t recognize the vampire I killed. I’d never seen him before. He could have been a new vampire of Ivan’s, but I think Tulio is right. These are strangers he’s brought in. The one I killed was stronger because of the Elixir, but normally, I don’t think he would have been a challenge. He didn’t feel old.”

He saw a slight shudder pass over her frame. He wondered if she was bothered by him killing the air vampire or whether her more primitive survival instincts were finally kicking in. They would. The longer she remained in his world, the more they would have to. He didn’t live in the kind of polite society where trials and jails happened. And neither did Natalie. She just didn’t realize it yet. He was trying to break her in to the idea slowly, but he honestly couldn’t see her returning to her old life. She knew too much. She had already been flirting at the edges of vampire attention, being close friends with Beatrice and Dez. She was fully on the radar now.