Hard Times (A Sam Harlan Novel Book 2) (25 page)

That caught his attention. His eyes widened, then he spat out, “You lie. She’s
dead
. I killed her. You saw.”

I turned to Tommy, who stared at Olivia as if she were the only one in the room. “We just had some words with her,” I said. “She’s
really
unhappy with you.”

Santiago shook his head. “You can’t distract me with lies, little man.”

“I’m not lying,” I said. “It’s Halloween. The thinnest time between the living and dead.”

He stared at me, his eyes boring into mine, and I felt the weight of his vampire essence trying to push into my mind. For a moment I thought it would work, but I pushed back against the weight of his years, his experience, and the evil within, and the moment passed.

He rocked back, startled, and blinked his charred eyelids. “I loved her,” he said, in the first sign of humanity. “A long time ago.” He coughed, then wheezed, and there was the sound of fluid rattling in his lungs.

“Didn’t stop you from killing her,” I pointed out. “How can you kill what you love?”

He shook his head. “We
all
kill what we love. I found my Maria, but it was too late. She was old, and sick, and would not accept the gift.” He dropped his hand and placed it on Leticia’s breast, giving it a firm squeeze and causing her to smile lazily. “Then I met her daughter. She is a fine woman. She will make an excellent child.”

“And the girls?” I asked.

The tip of his tongue flicked over his ash-covered lip and his eyes were full of desire. “They are so full, so
ripe
. I
must
have them.”

“You killed Maria,” I said, “a woman you loved, and took her daughter and granddaughters? What about Juan? Or Franco? I would ask about Elias, but I already know what happened to
him
.”

There was a noise from the kitchen and Franco emerged. He still wore his black polo and tan slacks from the restaurant. He took in the room, his eyes glassy. “Did I hear my name?” he asked, his voice plaintive.

“Go back to the kitchen,” Santiago ordered, never taking his eyes from mine.

Franco blinked several times. A quick wave of emotion swept across his face, first anger, then panic, until his face went slack again. “I’ll go to the kitchen,” he said listlessly.

He turned to leave, then paused. “Something’s wrong,” he mumbled. He turned back to the room. “You’re not supposed to be here.” He pointed at Santiago, shaking his finger at the vampire. “You’re
not
supposed to be here.”

Santiago turned his head, ever so slightly, and said again firmly, his voice clipped, “
Go back to the kitchen.
”

Franco stared dumbly, then shook his head. His face reddened and he bared his teeth. “You don’t belong here,” he growled.

There was a sudden tension in the air, like standing near a high-power line. The hairs on my arms stood up and my stomach twisted in knots. Santiago was losing his grip on Franco, either from the injuries he’d suffered at the motel or because we were distracting him.

“Franco,” I said, keeping my voice neutral, “have you seen Elias?”

Franco turned to me and a flush slowly crept up his face. “Elias?” His eyes, which had been as empty as the night, became hard and full of fury. “Where’s Elias? What happened to him?”

I nodded at Santiago. “He killed him. He twisted Elias’s neck and broke it like you would a chicken’s. He’s probably going to kill you next. Then he’ll turn your mom and sisters into a monster, like him.”

Franco took a step forward and Santiago broke eye contact with me. Before I could blink, Santiago crossed the distance between them and grabbed Franco’s neck, twisting it until there was a sickening crunch.

His temporary distraction was the break I had been looking for. I raised the Kimber and cut loose, hoping against hope that I would get lucky and put some silver into the fiend. Next to me, Tommy joined in, the wham-wham of his Glock joining the roar of my .45.

Santiago moved like lightning, easily dodging the silver bullets that plowed through the air over the Mendoza women’s heads, and slammed into the walls of the house, blowing holes in the drywall.

We kept firing as he came to our left, around the couch. This was the part of the plan I most feared. Tommy was brave and tough, but he was just a man, without any advantage. As Santiago rounded the couch he caught Tommy across the chest with his hand and sent him flying back against the wall, next to the door. Tommy hit the drywall so hard he left a man-shaped dent before collapsing to the floor and going still.

I kept firing, praying that Tommy was only unconscious, and emptied my Kimber. It was too late. The last bullet missed Santiago by inches, and I felt a stab of pain in my fingers and heard cracking as he knocked the gun from my hand, breaking my fingers.

The next moments were a blur of Santiago’s fists against my face, my jaw, and my ribs. It was like being shot repeatedly by cannons, each blow landing with a ferocity that shocked me almost as much as the pain that followed.

I tried to take a breath, to scream, but couldn’t manage so much as a gasp. The rain of his fists pummeled me senseless.

Any hope of defeating the vampire barehanded were dashed immediately. It was like fighting a tornado. The flurry of swings was ferocious and I jerked my head as Santiago’s fist cracked against my jaw, dislocating it. I tried again to scream, but it was too late. His next blow struck my cracked ribs and there was a snap as they broke.

I thought I knew the pain of a physical beating. I thought because Stacie had wiped the floor with me in Arcanum, I knew what to expect.

I was
so
wrong.

For a moment, I forgot the plan. My heart pounded in my chest, a mad thump-thumping as Santiago attempted to beat me to death. I prayed I would drift away, that I would finally lose consciousness and the pain would end. When Santiago stopped, I collapsed to the ground, thankful it was finally over.

I’m going to die.

Unfortunately, Santiago wasn’t finished with me.

Santiago picked me
up, balled his hand into a fist, and punched me in the stomach. I gagged on my own vomit. I couldn’t get catch my breath and my lungs burned from lack of oxygen.

For a moment, I thought his fists had ruptured something in my innards.

He held me as easily as one would hold a child and regarded me thoughtfully. “You came for me,” he said. “You came knowing you would die.” He raised an eyebrow, and I saw through tears that his eyes had gone solid black. “Pitiful little man. I have known your kind. Foolish. Misguided.
Pathetic
.”

He swung me around so I could see the women on the couch. Olivia and Elena sat, bodies rigid, and watched our exchange, unable to look away. Leticia’s eyes were wide and she leaned forward on the couch, her body arched in some kind of sexual anticipation.

She’s enjoying all this. The death. The beating. It turns her on.

The sheer wrongness of Leticia’s response sank in. A woman who delighted in the death of her children and the murdering of innocents was something I couldn’t wrap my head around. It wasn’t right that a woman should feel such things, even if she was on the verge of becoming a vampire. The crazy thought struck me that if I died from Santiago’s blows, at least I wouldn’t have to live in world with such … evil.

As Santiago cocked his fist and wound up for another blow, a perverse thought occurred to me. Perhaps I deserved to die for killing my wife and daughter. I smiled, which sent a stabbing bolt of pain up my jaw. I could taste the coppery rich blood in my mouth, and it burbled between my lips and down my trench coat.

Santiago stopped, his fist ready to bash my brains in. “What madness is this?”

I wanted to beg for mercy, to plead with him for release so that I might live, but instead I spat a thick glob of blood on the floor and said, “Hit me, you stupid, ugly sonofabitch.”

His lips curled back in his ruined face and he snarled, a wet and bloody sound that sent a wave of terror up my spine, then his fist started accelerating. It seemed to take forever, moving as slow as molasses, but the next strike was delivered with all his vampire strength and speed. It was a killing blow and Santiago meant to end me.

I guess the plan didn’t work.

There was a flash of pure white behind me, blinding in intensity, and I heard Callie scream in a voice that rolled like thunder, “Stop!”

Santiago howled in outrage and pulled me close, using my body as a human shield. He stank of burnt flesh, a sickly odor that rankled my nose, but he held so tightly that I couldn’t pull away.

I had a moment where I could see the Mendoza women on the couch behind Santiago. His control of them had slipped, and Olivia and Elena huddled under the relentless light from Callie’s crucifix, while Leticia shook her head and struggled to stand, her face twisted with fury.

That was when the crucifixes on the walls blazed to life.

All of them.

It was like standing in the center of the sun, even though I could still see every detail in the room. The crucifixes on every wall became a reflection of Callie’s faith, from the small ceramic crucifix by the stairs to the carved wooden crucifixes that hung from the wall next to the kitchen.

I heard whimpering and realized it came from me.

Santiago had nowhere to turn. Even using me as a shield, the light was falling upon his blackened skin.

The light was blinding, but it was missing the dramatic effect it had at the motel. While it was a dazzling display of Callie’s faith, Santiago’s skin remained in the same burnt state as before, neither improving nor bursting into flame.

He realized it at the same time I did, and he started to laugh. He was still laughing as I removed the wooden stake from my trench coat with my left hand and thrust it up, into his heart, with all my remaining strength.

The light stopped in a heartbeat and Santiago dropped me to the floor. I staggered back, ready to collapse, but Callie’s reassuring hand against my back held me steady.

Santiago’s eyes widened in shock, and he turned his gaze to the wooden stake that had impaled his heart. Then a sputter of flame erupted from his chest. His blackened lips opened in a silent scream, and fire blazed from his mouth like dragon’s breath before he fell back onto the floor.

His legs kicked uselessly and he beat his arms against the carpet in a vain attempt to put out the fire. It only made the flame burn hotter.

He flopped back and forth on the woven rug between the front door and the couch and tried to speak, perhaps to scream, but in less than a handful of seconds, Ignacio Santiago was nothing but a greasy pile of burnt ash, the only thing left of all his years and all his evil.

* * *

The dark current slammed into me as the vampire’s essence wormed through my body.

Jesus! It burns!

It wound its way through the deepest parts of my soul and joined the blackness already there, settling in, entwined with my own spirit. I screamed at the pain until my voice went hoarse and my lungs gave out, but mine wasn’t the only voice shrieking in that room.

Leticia gasped at the pile of greasy ash, then threw back her head and screamed in absolute fury, a sound from deep within that tore at her throat, then she came for me.

She was fast, but not nearly as fast as a vampire. Still, she managed to rake her carefully painted nails across my face and it was enough to temporarily blind me.

I didn’t need to see Leticia, because I felt her kick me in the groin. My testicles lit up in white-hot agony. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe, I just went down hard and lay there, all thought erased from my mind, choking on my own tongue and trying to force myself up by will alone as Leticia screamed in rage.

The world shrank to the pain in my crotch and I forgot about my other wounds. When my vision finally cleared, I looked up just in time to see Leticia strike at Callie.

Callie held her pump shotgun with her left hand and her crucifix in her right. Leticia kept clawing at Callie’s face and Callie was lashing out with the shotgun, using it to keep distance between them and stopping Leticia from raking her face. It was a
good
strategy, because Callie was still weak from the motel attack, but it wasn’t a
winning
strategy.

“Shoot her!” I screamed. “Shoot that fucking bitch!”

Callie yanked on the shotgun, pulling it back, then barely managed to block another blow from Leticia’s nails. “I can’t kill her!” Callie screamed back. “She’s a human being!”

“She won’t be for long,” I said. “He gave her the gift.”

My eyes were glued to the pair as Leticia continued her assault, which is why I didn’t notice that Elena had stood from the couch and was moving, grabbing the burnt stake from the pile of ash that used to be Santiago. I was as shocked as everyone when Elena came at her mother from behind and jammed the point of the stake into Leticia’s neck.

Leticia jerked and spun around, her hands going to the stake, trying to stop the spurts of arterial blood that sprayed from her neck.

I couldn’t see Elena’s face because Leticia stood in the way, but I saw Callie’s. She watched in horror as Elena stabbed her mother in the other side of the neck, more than a dozen quick strokes, like the needle in a sewing machine.

The blows were quick and precise and the blood spurted in time with Leticia’s heartbeat. Her eyes went wide and she mouthed a silent curse at her daughter, then her eyes rolled back in her head and she sank to the floor, her clothes drenched from the blood now rushing down her neck in crimson waves.

I turned and found Olivia watching, her face pale. She was crying, her cheeks covered with tears, and her body was rigid, her fingers clawing at the fabric of the couch. She looked like she was about to jump from the couch, but she continued staring as her mother bled out on the living room floor.

“Don’t look,” I said, for all the good it did.

Olivia took in the horror of it, and I knew that no amount of urging would erase the memory she now held.

I struggled to my feet, then stepped around Leticia’s body and put my hand on Elena’s shoulder. She jumped, turning to me with eyes that never quite focused, then she turned back to her mother. “I had to do it,” she whispered. “After everything she did. I
had
to.”