He winced. He would rather not be reminded.
“I need human blood to feel full, Fernanda. That is how thisworks. I’ve told you this a dozen times.” Fernanda’s attention span rarely lasted long. And where her brother was concerned, it seemed to be even shorter. Lalo sighed. “If sedientos don’t consume human life eventually, we start truly dying. And dying hurts like hell.”
“Then you must find a human who is willing to…”
“No,” he said firmly. “When we consume human blood, we take time from their life, remember? Every ounce I drink could steal days or weeks from them, and I won’t do it.”
His ears still rang from the shrieks of those he had attacked in the cantina when the bloodlust grew too strong. He could taste the humans’ fear and hear the hissing of vampiros as they tried to fend him off. It made him sick. And yet, he was desperate for more. The thirst coiling around his veins was like a parasite squirming inside him. Clawing at his senses. Burning his throat. Urging him to give in. He couldn’t let that happen. He knew if he did, he might be lost to his sister forever.
But feeding on animals would not suffice for long. By Lalo’s calculations and from the scribblings of another vampiro who resisted the thirst, he gave himself less than a month before his body gave out and he became the true monster Maricela had warned him of.
He turned away from Fernanda and glared out the small window. His spine straightened. Through the intermittent breaks between the trees, he could see a vast valley. Small adobe homes littered the open space, warm light glowing from their windows. At the center of the valley, sprouted un pueblo of squat buildings with a few larger structures. A church was one, most likely. The town hall. Perhaps a school. His brow furrowed. The entire pueblo was encircled by a tall barrier made of thick stone.
The carriage bumped over a rough patch, causing the siblings to jostle back and forth. Lalo was about to complain, but Fernanda gasped.
She jerked the curtain open farther. “Is that Del Oro?”
Del Oro, the town where Alma Rosario had been found dead centuries ago. Her murder was the first of its kind in Abundancia as far as Lalo could tell. It was by pure luck that he’d discovered her obituary in the library catacombs, since those records weren’t often kept back then. And it was only there because the poor woman’s death had been featured in a paper that highlighted conspiracy theories and tales of the macabre.
Woman found drained of blood,the article stated.Small pueblo plagued by fanged beasts.
The next editorial in the paper was about little creatures that stole away people’s teeth. Lalo imagined not too many scholars read that sort of fluff. But he had been desperate to understand the monster who had taken his parents from him. He needed to prove to everyone that he hadn’t simply been in shock, as the officials claimed.
Fernanda crossed her arms. “El pueblo is tiny. What do people even do here?”
“Sí. It is much quainter than what we are used to.” Their home city of Los Campos was a lively place full of the very rich and the very poor. Lalo and his sister had grown up with anything a person could want—meat at every meal, the best private schools one could afford, new shoes the second the heels of the last got scuffed. Their parents may not have offered all the love a child needed, but they had tried their best to make up for it in possessions. Not that Lalo needed much. Books, tailoredsuits, a trip to the barber once a week. Sometimes twice, if they hadn’t trimmed his hair to his liking. He was a simple man, in his opinion.
Fernanda squinted. “Why is Del Oro so heavily guarded?”
Lalo peeked out the window. Along with the border wall, at one entrance, sat two people mounted on horses.
He scanned through his memories of the little information he had been able to glean about the town. Del Oro was founded in the late 1500s by the Fuentes family. They were haciendados mostly, running ranchos and trading with pueblos and marketers nearby.
“One article claimed that el pueblo was nearly decimated by fanged beasts. But that was generations in the past. Certainly that couldn’t be why the wall around the main hub of the town was built. Perhaps it’s meant to keep out bandidos,” he offered. Since the current mayor, Señor Luis Fuentes, had taken office, reports of “animal” attacks had decreased. There was no official statement about vampiros in any article Lalo found, but he understood what an “animal” attack might mean. That had been exactly what the officers in Los Campos had called his parents’ slayings.
The carriage shuddered as the wooden wheels moved from dirt to stone. The only home he could rent on such short notice with a hint of privacy was at the top of a hill that overlooked the town. At the edge of the forest, it had not been lived in for many years because the tenants had gone missing. But the woman who brokered the lease agreement assured Lalo it was still “livable.” Whatever that meant.
Fernanda smirked as she entered Lalo’s quarters. “You couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
His new room was immaculate. Everything was in order. Just the way he preferred it.
“I was bored,” he said in his preferred monotone fashion.
Fernanda snorted. “Only you would try to cure boredom by dusting books.”
“They aren’t just any books. They are the possible key to my salvation.” He had snuck in a few of his favorite novels as well. Lalo knew he shouldn’t waste any extra space inside the trunk he brought when they fled, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t have the heart to leave everything he loved behind.
“Have you found anything new?” she asked, hope dancing in her eyes.
Fernanda had gone into town to purchase supplies and see if she could learn anything useful about the pueblo. She’d come back with some texts she said were about the town history from the tiny library that also stood as the courier office.
“Nope.” He flicked one of the borrowed books shut. “There wasn’t a single sentence about vampiros inside these.”
She shrugged. “It was the best I could find. The woman at the counter kept making the sign of protection when I walked in. People are absolutely aghast that we’re renting a home so far outside the walls. One asked if we had a death wish like the Alicantes who built the home.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Did you ask why they have barriers surrounding el pueblo?”
“Unfortunately not. I was too busy making eyes at the most beautiful girl walking by.” Fernanda swept past Lalo and ploppedonto his perfectly made bed. She glanced around, her brows quirked with displeasure. “It is a tomb in here.”
