Fallen Angel of Mine (19 page)

"Is it the best?"

I pursed my lips. "Well, in my
experience, the biggest rush comes with love or lust."

"Yes. I imagine sex would be very
tasty." Her throaty Spanish accent made it sound all the more
sensual. Then again, she could make peeling potatoes sound alluring
with that accent.

I licked my lips and cleared my throat
as the room suddenly became much hotter. She looked so innocent but
sounded oh-so sexy.

She bit her lower lip and smiled. "Why
do you look at me so strange?"

I tore my eyes from her full lips and
did my best to recover. "Uh, I've just never heard it put that way
before." I would have tugged at the collar to my shirt but realized
I wasn't wearing one. I almost pulled the sheets over my exposed
nipples.

"If you are hungry, would you like to
feed?" She held out her arm, wrist up. "From me?"

The demon inside me clapped
its hands, jumping up and down with glee while the responsible nerd
wagged a finger. I didn't need the nerd to point me in the right
direction. "I, um, it wouldn't be right of me." Elyssa would kill
me for feeding off someone with such great, err, teeth.
Yeah, she has great teeth all right.

She scooted closer to me,
her dark eyes giving me a look I'd seen before. Puppy dog
eyes.
Kiss me
eyes.
Her shorts barely reached halfway down her flawless copper thighs,
and the purple tank top she wore pressed against small breasts and
a flat stomach, showing me curves my libido wanted to ride like a
sexual roller coaster.

"Lina," I said, placing a hand on her
warm shoulder. "I can't."

"But you are so interesting, Justin. I
only want to see what it feels like."

"I have a girlfriend."

Her eyes tightened for a
moment before relaxing once again. "I am not asking for sex. If the
foreseeance is true, Justin, the world needs you, and I want to
give you what you need." She scooted even closer and my blood
temperature spiked to volcanic temperatures. "Do you not
need
it?"

Need it?
What I really needed was for the tidal wave of testosterone in
my bloodstream to calm down before it lobotomized the brain in my
head and put the other one in charge. The hunger for essence howled
like a mad wind through a hollow space in my belly, clawing at my
insides until I felt myself hovering on the edge of sanity. I had
to do something or it was likely I’d really lose control. Lina
might as well be offering an alcoholic the key to the liquor store.
I trembled, a junkie staring at a mountain of cocaine.

Before my raving teenage hormones
washed all reason from my mind, I sent out a tendril and latched it
onto the halo of golden light around Lina's body. As I did, I
sensed curiosity, longing, and no shortage of lustful feminine
need. With every ounce of effort I had, I homed in on the
curiosity, thinking it might be the safest emotion to equalize with
my own. Anything to keep lust from overwhelming her. A slight
trickle of warm essence rewarded me and our mutual lust faded into
the background.

Her dark eyes shimmered in the
lamplight and she smiled. "I feel connected to you. It is so
strange to look into your eyes and know a part of you is inside me,
taking what it needs. What it wants."

Another wave of lust coursed through my
body. I beat it back down by thinking about Elyssa and her fierce
violet eyes as I touched her soft cheek. Before things spiraled out
of control, I had to tell Lina about my girlfriend. So I gave her
an abbreviated version of mine and Elyssa's history, and told her
about the nightmare. Talking about the woman I loved dimmed the
lust I felt for Lina to almost nothing, and made feeding easier. I
wanted nothing more than to feel Elyssa's soft lips pressed against
mine. No other woman compared.

Tears sparkled in Lina's eyes by the
time I was done, and it was all I could do to keep the bitter taste
of sadness and disappointment from fouling our
connection.

"How romantic," she said in her cute
accent. "But so tragic as well. You will stop her father from doing
such a terrible thing to her, yes?"

"I think it might be too late. I think
she's already been mind-wiped."

"The dream told you this?"

I shrugged. "I've learned ignoring
dreams of this kind are dangerous. I absolutely have to get back
home. I have to save her and figure out a way to make her father
accept me."

"And you think answers about what
happened at Thunder Rock would help?"

I nodded. "The ambush caused him to
hate spawn. I have to prove they had nothing to do with it. From
what I understand, he didn't have a beef with them before the
massacre went down."

"You should take the arch
at
La Casona
in
Bogota. It is very expensive, but maybe we can find a way to pay
for it. You can reunite with your girlfriend if her memory of you
is still there."

Taking another arch was not what I
wanted to do. But it seemed the fastest way home. "How do I get to
Bogota from here?"

"It is almost twenty hours by bus.
Maybe more."

"You don't happen to have any flying
carpets do you?" I asked, remembering when I'd seen the novelty
items floating around the Grotto.

She laughed. "I do not know of
any."

"Isn't there a faster way to get to
Bogota? This town is full of sorcerers, for goodness
sake."

"I am sorry, Justin, but I do not know
of a magical way to get from here to Bogota."

I groaned. On the upside, my demon
tummy was feeling better so I cut myself off from Lina. Her eyes
popped wide.

"You just pulled out, didn't
you?"

My face went hot at her choice of
words. "I disconnected."

"You are already full?"

"Full enough. I'll get by." I leaned
back against the headboard. "When does the bus leave?"

"The buses leave all day, but it is two
hours from here to the town with the bus depot. We will take you
there whenever you wish."

"I want to leave tomorrow."

Her eyes grew sad. She placed a hand on
mine and squeezed. "I wish you could stay longer. You are the most
exciting thing to happen to me."

I laughed. "Exciting is not always a
good thing. Just ask my friend Shelton."

"Who is he?"

"A sorcerer. I think I've made his life
more interesting than he wants."

Lina yawned wide. Smiled sheepishly. "I
think I will go to bed, Justin. Sleep well."

"Good night, Lina. And
thanks."

She kissed me on the cheek and slipped
out of the room. I lay back down, rubbing my cheek and doing my
best not to think about Elyssa and what my nightmare
meant.

After breakfast the next
morning, Alejandro, Lina, and I piled into the pickup truck. Their
grandfather,
Senor
Eduardo, waved goodbye from the front porch as Alejandro drove
around the unpaved circular driveway. A narrow dirt road bordered
by a dense canopy of trees and underbrush connected their home to
the main road in town.

"There is a spot about sixty kilometers
from town where you can use my cell phone to call home," Alejandro
said, showing me what looked like an ordinary cell phone as opposed
to the ones made by Orange and MagicSoft. "We should have a signal
by then."

But as we reached the end of the long
driveway, a beat up old van appeared from the right and honked its
horn at us.

"What's going on?" I asked, an uneasy
feeling bubbling up in my stomach.

Alejandro stopped the truck and looked
at the other vehicle. "I don't know. Wait here while I
check."

He hopped out and walked toward the
van. Two figures got out. Men with staffs. Arcanes. They spoke for
a moment before Alejandro turned around and came back. The two men
didn't seem angry or threatening, but the mere fact they'd stopped
us couldn't mean anything good.

"They want you to meet with the
council," Alejandro said when he came back.

I looked around. "Who, me?"

He nodded. "I told them you only wish
to go home, but they insisted."

I growled. "How did they know I was
here?"

"Several people saw you driving through
town with Grandfather. From there it probably took five minutes
before everyone else knew."

"But what makes them think I'm not just
some average Joe passing through?"

"Old Bella told them you were the one
the minute she heard about you."

"Who?"

"She's the one who foresaw your coming
all those years ago."

"Fine, fine! Can we just get it over
with?" It took all my willpower not to just jump out of the truck
and dash through the woods. But where would I go? I had no idea
where the bus depot was, and I'd run myself ragged in the middle of
nowhere, knowing my luck. On the other hand, one of the crazies who
did these foreseeance things was here. My curiosity was definitely
piqued. Maybe this Old Bella woman could enlighten me.

Alejandro signaled the other sorcerers,
who hopped back into their van. We followed them less than two
blocks before parking in front of a large one-story building
standing next to a grocery store. A group of chickens strutted
around in front, clucking and pecking at the dirt.

We entered the building, revealing a
large room filled with foldout chairs arranged in a haphazard
circle. A large yellow cooler sat atop a stout wooden table along
with an assortment of food, mainly rice and beans with fried eggs
on top—exactly what I'd just eaten for breakfast. I hoped they had
good ventilation in this room after everyone chowed down on all
those beans.

A little old woman sat at the other end
of the room. Old Bella, I presumed. I walked over to her and took a
neighboring seat. She took my hands in both of hers and kissed me
on both cheeks.

After I recovered from the surprise of
her Colombian greeting, I remembered what I'd wanted to say. I
smiled. "Look, I know you think I'm someone important and all, but
I really need to get home. My girlfriend is in danger, and there's
a big crap storm about to take a dump on my hometown. Maybe you can
clarify a few things now, or friend me on Facebook and we'll
chat."

The old woman smiled and nodded. Her
wrinkly hand gripped mine and she said something in
Spanish.

Just great. I motioned Alejandro over.
"Can you tell me what she's saying?"

He listened for a moment. "She says
you're a handsome young man and if she was younger, she would marry
you in a second and teach you things only an older woman
can."

I blushed—I didn't know why after all
the scandalous comments and actions I'd endured from Stacey and
Elyssa—and smiled stupidly at her. I looked to Alejandro. "Will you
tell Bella I really can't stick around?"

"Sure, if you want. But she speaks
English."

"Then why'd she answer me in
Spanish?"

A confused look came over Alejandro's
face for a moment before he laughed and shook his head. "This is
Grandma Lola. She's not a sorceress, but she likes to sit in on the
meetings." He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at a short,
dark-haired girl who couldn't have been more than twenty. "That's
Old Bella."

"You people really need your eyes
checked if you call her old." I shook my head and, after kissing
Grandma Lola goodbye on the cheeks, strode across the room to the
girl—young woman, whatever. I noticed her violet irises the moment
she looked at me. "You're a dhampyr?"

A smile brightened her pretty face as
she gripped one of my hands in both of hers. "Exactly, my dear. It
is so wonderful to finally see this day come." Her accent sounded
different from the others—not entirely Spanish, and every bit as
fluent in English as Alejandro.

She stood on tiptoes and graced my
cheeks with the touch of her lips. I decided it must be a Colombian
thing and wasn't sure if I should return the favor or not. "Uh, I
didn't realize dhampyrs could foresee stuff. I thought future
vision was something Arcanes do."

"It's all magic, young man. I am the
daughter of a sorceress who, unfortunately, was turned by vampires.
She took her own life nearly a century ago to rid herself of the
curse. I followed in her professional footsteps and practice the
arcane arts."

"My mom's a sorceress too," I said,
ignoring the sharp stab in my abdomen at the mere thought of my
traitorous matriarch. "One of my friends told me I should study
magic."

She reached up, pressed a hand to my
forehead, and closed her eyes for a moment. "Yes, I can see
potential in you."

"How can you tell? Is it like
midi-chlorians?"

"Midi what?" Her expression turned
bemused.

"Never mind. Do I have a lot of
potential? Or crappy?" My nerves knotted. What if my magic mojo was
poop?

"Potential is very hard to measure,
young man. And it is like a muscle. The more you use it, the
greater it grows. That is not to say some people don't have a
natural advantage. Some are better at conducting large amounts of
raw power while others have less strength, but finer control.
Neither is better, simply different."