Fallen Angel of Mine (26 page)

Diego laughed so hard, his face turned
red and tears streamed down his face. He reached for his radio and
barked something into it. The radio crackled with a response. "You
promise to do everything I say if I bring your mommy?" he said, a
cruel teasing edge to his voice.

"I promise," I croaked, moaning and
fluttering my eyelids for effect. "Momma, bring me my snuggy
blanket!"

"Good heavens, he's delirious," the
doctor said. "I need to operate on this man and playing games with
him isn't helping."

"You shut up!" Diego shouted. He knelt
and gripped my face, his rough callused hands scratching my skin.
"You do what you promise or Jose pound your balls to dust,
amigo."

"Yes, yes, please," I said in a rasping
desperate voice, not faking it at all. Consciousness was fading
fast.

Someone pushed open the door and a
woman appeared, her forehead furrowed in confusion. She made a
querulous sound as though she couldn't believe they needed
her.

Finally!

I extended a tendril of my essence and
latched onto her deliciously shimmering halo as her footsteps
tapped closer to the cell. It took every ounce of willpower not to
suck her dry as fast as I could. Instead, I let the energy trickle
in ever so slightly. The demonic hunger jerked and tugged like a
newborn calf sucking desperately for milk and the faucet opened a
bit wider.

"Mommy is here,
gringo
. She bring your
blanket and teddy bear too." He and Jose snorted with laughter.
Tears of mirth spilled down their cheeks. "Now, you do what Franco
say, promise? Or we take Mommy away and shoot her."

Hate surged in me at his
words.

I cracked open an eyelid. A
grandmotherly woman hovered over me, worry adding more wrinkles to
her forehead. She said something to the short guy, but he only
yelled back at her. She cringed. I strained to control the flow of
energy, but it slipped further and further from my grasp. The
woman's eyes widened. Glazed. A deep sensual moan escaped her lips.
Her tongue worked an erotic circuit around thin, cracked lips. She
pressed both hands against ample hips, working up and down in slow
rhythm with her moans.

Little Diego's thin face wrinkled into
a perplexed expression. The doctor's mouth dropped open. I couldn't
see that ball-sack, Jose, but I imagined he was just as puzzled.
This probably wasn't the mother-son reunion they'd
expected.

I felt the shards of agony in my ribs
subside and the click of bones as they knitted and popped into
place. The pulsating misery in my ragged throat eased to a euphoric
numbness. Energy flooded my veins. The woman pressed her body
against Diego, grabbing at his belt, desperately trying to tear his
pants off. He resisted, but she was a swarthy woman and he was such
a little man. Jose giggled hysterically, his voice high-pitched as
a schoolboy on helium.

The doctor's astounded gaze shifted
back to me and his eyes shot wide. "What the bloody
hell?"

I smiled the most evil smile I could
muster and climbed menacingly to my feet. Gripped the shackle on my
leg and tore it off. Jose's eyes widened. He swung his arm at me.
His fist smacked into my face and crunched like it'd hit a brick
wall. He stared with disbelief at his broken hand and
wailed.

My inner demon burst from its cage with
a roar. I grabbed his throat. Slammed him against the wall so hard
his eyes popped out of their sockets and bloody snot spurted from
his nose.

Diego screamed. Demonic anger burned
through my veins like lava. I jerked the little man from the
lustful attentions of my stand-in mother and slung him down fifty
feet of hallway so hard he cracked the cinderblocks at the far end.
It took several seconds before his body peeled off the wall and
slumped to the floor.

The doctor backed into my cell as I
faced him. "Please, I'm as much a prisoner as you are. They force
me to work here."

I cut the connection to the woman
before I drained her essence dry. I caught her as she fainted away
and settled her on the floor well away from the mess that had been
Jose.

Resisting the urge to grab the doctor
by his shirt, I asked, "Where am I?"

"Bloody hell." The doctor's fearful
eyes moved to Jose's gruesomely disfigured face.

This time I grabbed his shirt. "I asked
you a question."

Sweat dribbled down the man's pale
face. "Y-y-you're on a cocaine plantation filled with mercenaries
and enslaved locals."

I let go of him and left the cell. "I'm
getting out of here."

He ran after me. "There must be over a
hundred armed men out there. How the bloody hell are you going to
get past them?"

I bared my teeth into a snarl and
punched a hole in the concrete. A fine white dust drifted from the
hole. "Do you really think guns will stop me?"

The doctor gulped. "Will you take me
with you?"

I regarded him for a moment, wondering
if he really was a prisoner, finally deciding it didn't matter. I
needed help getting out of here. "Do you have a map or any idea
where to go?"

"I know the perfect place. The leader
of this god-forsaken hellhole has an airstrip less than a mile
away. One of his courier jets is waiting there. I imagine someone
of your abilities could persuade the pilot to ferry us out of
here."

It sounded like a good plan.

Something outside popped, followed by a
crackling noise like fireworks shooting off or the noisiest bowl of
Rice Krispies ever. An explosion shook the ground and I knew
something bigger than a kid with bottle rockets was wreaking havoc
outside.

"Are explosions like that normal around
here?"

The doctor's eyes grew wide with
terror. "It sounds like a bloody turf war again."

"Turf war?"

"Rival cartels fight all the time,
although I've never heard an explosion like that."

I walked to the steel door at the end
of the hall and tugged on it. It latched from the other side.
"Watch out," I said and slammed the bottom of my foot against it.
With a metallic screech, the door flew free. A man's scream cut off
abruptly the moment the steel clanged against something hard in the
next room. A limp hand poking from behind the warped door dropped a
blood-stained romance novel to the floor. The unfortunate guard had
apparently been sitting in a chair opposite the door. A rifle
leaned against the wall to the right of the squashed man. I picked
it up and examined it for a moment before deciding my zero
experience with guns would only lead to shooting myself in the
foot. I offered it to the doctor.

He waved it away. "I don't think I
could kill anyone."

"At least carry the stupid thing. Wave
it around—just not toward me."

He took it reluctantly. As we passed
through an area that looked like a barracks, he snatched a pistol
from a peg on the wall and dropped the rifle. I looked more closely
at the pistol and realized it looked a lot like the dart gun
Franco's man had had nailed me with earlier. A cartridge held extra
darts and slid into the handle.

"I won't be afraid to shoot people with
this," the doctor said, pushing up his glasses and doing his best
to imitate the nerdy version of Rambo.

Ceiling fans hummed on the rafters
overhead and air conditioners set into windowsills blasted away
with all they had. Even so, the snap, crackle, and pop of gunshots
rose above the clatter. We emerged from the barracks and into the
humid night air. About a hundred yards away stood a three-story
mansion protected by a towering wall. Palm trees jutted above the
adobe walls. Towering behind them stood the third story of the
palatial abode. The lights were off inside but occasional muzzle
flashes lit the interior.

Bullets pinged off the side of the
barracks as we stood gawking like a couple of idiots. The doctor
shrieked and hit the dirt. I ducked behind the low concrete wall
next to the barracks and risked a peek for an escape route,
preferably bullet free. Tall lampposts lined the perimeter of the
house. Scattered street lamps around the rutted dirt roads managed
to keep the place lit enough my night vision didn't kick
in.

My sensitive hearing caught the sound
of boots on gravel. I stayed low as a group of men in jungle camo
ran past us toward the mansion, their automatic rifles swinging in
white-knuckled grips.

"Are you like Franco and Marcel?" the
doctor asked in a low voice. Sweat funneled down the worry lines in
his face.

I cast him a confused glance. "What do
you mean?"

"Those two are insanely strong. A rival
gang member shot Franco in the leg not long after they kidnapped
me. He didn't even ask for my help. The bullet hole healed up
within minutes."

"I'm nothing like them," I said.
"They're vampires."

His brow crumpled. "Surely you must be
joking."

I shook my head. "Afraid not. But don't
worry, I'm not a vampire. I'm demon spawn."

He gulped. "That sounds immeasurably
worse."

"I'd like to think I'm kind of a nice
guy." I glanced down the muddy road ahead. "We need to head for the
jet now. You still coming?"

He looked back as the muzzle flare of
rifles lit the night. Back to me. A resigned look wrinkled his
face. He nodded.

I paused to make sure there
were no more gunmen coming and was just about to lead him across a
wide-open gap between our flimsy wall and a concrete barrier when a
tall figure streaked at inhuman speed out of the back gate in the
adobe wall. I knew who it was by the long black ponytail—Marcel. He
appeared to be heading the same way we were, toward the airstrip. I
did
not
want to
fight him or his boss Franco for a seat on the jet. Thankfully, he
was looking back over his shoulder at the mansion. I blurred into
his path and clotheslined him with an elbow right to the old
noggin. His body left the ground and went parallel to it. I grabbed
him by his neck in mid-air and slammed him viciously to the gravel,
sending out a shockwave of dust. A satisfying punch to the face
insured he was out cold. The doctor peeked from his hiding spot and
shot a dart. It whizzed past my leg and lodged in the vampire's
thigh.

"Whoa, watch it!" I said.

The doctor poked his head back out.
"Sorry."

I glanced down at the unconscious
vampire. "If Marcel is here, Franco must be nearby."

"Indeed he is," said Franco from
somewhere behind me a split second before a gunshot exploded. I
dove left on pure reflex. Rolled to my feet and blurred to the
right. Franco spun with vampiric speed, following my every move,
and fired the gun again. Even if I had a good chance surviving a
bullet wound, simply knowing someone was shooting at me incited an
almost blind panic. I dove at the vampire. Searing heat ran down my
right arm as the bullet whizzed by. I slammed into his midsection.
He hit the ground and slid on his back through gravel and mud while
I rode him like a vampiric boogey board until he ground to a
halt.

Just as I cocked my fist back to punch
him, a dart sprouted in his neck followed by another. I jerked back
as one whizzed by my nose.

"Sorry!" said the doctor as he aimed
with trembling hands.

"Give him another to be safe," I
said.

The doctor pumped two more into him. I
glanced back at Marcel and noticed three more darts sticking out of
his chest. Franco growled and grasped for my throat, but the
tranquilizer kicked in and his beady red eyes rolled up into the
back of his head.

"This is exhilarating and terrifying
all at the same time," the doctor said. He pressed a pair of
fingers to his own neck. "I do believe a myocardial infarction on
my part is rather imminent."

I turned toward the road leading to the
airfield and motioned him on, but my conscience unfolded from the
fetal position, crawled out from its safe place, and tapped me on
the shoulder. I knew not all vampires were pure evil just like not
all demon spawn were the Devil's cabana boys. But these two
vampires were obviously rotten to the core, running a drug farm and
a slave operation. My survival instinct unabashedly tugged me
toward the airstrip, though my chest constricted with shame for
leaving Franco's victims to rot. While the rest of the cartel was
fighting a war, I might be able to save some people.

You have to save Elyssa! You
don't have time to run around saving the world.

But I knew guilt would follow me
forever if I abandoned innocents to these monsters. I groaned and
gave myself a hearty face-palm. "Where do they keep the slaves?" I
asked the doctor.

His already trembling hands shook even
more violently. "Are you bloody insane?" He looked at Franco's
unconscious form. The vampire's fangs protruded from beneath his
lips and I could practically see the doctor's mind make the
transition from disbelief to absolute horror. "My god, it's true,
isn't it?" He stumbled backward and fell on his butt. "Those people
weren't just slaves. And their babies—oh dear lord, the babies." He
blanched and stared blankly into the distance.