Page 140 of Envious Of Fire
Lazarus’s face hardens, shows little emotion, eyes blank and stony as he stares his brother down from across the park.
Kyle’s heart races, terrified of the vampire.
And Drake continues to act unsettlingly flippant. “Do you guys know why Laz is so edgy?” he asks, turning to Kyle and to Elias, smirking. “Unlike me and Kyle, my brotherneedsblood. When you drink enough, your body changes, and soon, human food doesn’t sustain you. Only the blood. I suggested once that we rob a bank,” he carries on, now turning his eyes toward his less-than-amused brother. “Not a regular one. A blood bank. At a hospital. To feed my family. But you know … it’s too boring, too safe … and Uncle Salazo prefers when his meal squirms.”
There’s a blast of air, grass spreading, dust taking flight, and the next instant, Lazarus is in front of his brother, gripping his throat with frightening power, silencing him.
And Drake keeps talking. “I’m just a bottleneck to your full potential, bro,” he chokes out through his squeezed throat. “Go back to Cali, do it the old way, boys and girls on the beach, the tourists, the stoned surfers … I wouldn’t be in your way.”
“Go into that church and bring me the pet.”
“You could even live in a condo. We’ve still got a hookup. I can visit you from time to time. Why do our lives have to be so hard? Why do we settle for smelly caves full of junk? We could all have what we want. Bro, you could live in an honest house, a real, honest house on the beach …”
“Get the pet and come home, now.”
“That’s not our—” His brother squeezes tighter. “—home.”
Kyle steps forward, despite Elias putting his arm out, trying to shield him. “Let go. That’s your brother you’re strangling.”
“You’ve made your point,” says Lazarus to Drake, ignoringKyle outright, like he’s not there. “We’ll make adjustments for your needs. We’ll even allow your new friends to come and go as they please, unharmed. The only price, brother, the one and only price, is that fucking pet you’re housing in that church.”
“I can smell him,” comes another voice.
From the alleyway between the bakery and the corner store across the road, someone approaches. Bald, beady eyes, his long arms swallowed in the sleeves of his flowing red robe. His feet move so stealthily beneath his robe, it looks as if he’s floating across the street as he slowly approaches, the fingertips of his hands tapping upon one another, like an alien super-villain with an evil scheme in the oven.
Elias, who has never seen Salazo before, is flooded with debilitating nightmares at the sight of him. It’s painful to Kyle to feel his proud boyfriend’s confidence crumble so quickly.
“Inside the foul building,” says Salazo in his odd voice and fake dialect, stopping some distance away, warily gazing at the church with his unblinking eyes. “My golden boy.”
Not letting go of his brother’s neck, Lazarus turns his scary eyes onto Kyle. “You know, even after your grievances against me and my family, I am still more than willing to bring you into our numbers. You showed great promise in a short time.”
“This is how you convince me?” asks Kyle with a gesture at Drake. “The way you treat your own brother?”
“I can still see the exhilaration in your face when you drank my blood,” he goes on. “The power pulsing in your veins … in yoursoul, as you took flight over the sands with me … I saw the life in your eyes. Have you ever felt it before? You loved it.”
“Not when I realized the cost,” Kyle retorts.
Lazarus flicks his eyes away. “So it’s some pious reason that makes you hold back? Boring. Let me tell you, life experience is what you lack here. You’ll see after many more years of life how fruitless it is to cling to such flimsy ideals as right and wrong.Out there in the wilds, there is no such thing as virtue. Only predator and prey. Blood, life, quick deaths. That is the most honest that one will ever be with themselves, when one finally gives up the ridiculous, tired game of civility and suppressing oneself for the sake of making others happy. Such tedium.”
“We cannot get my pet back,” worries Salazo from the side as his spindly fingers drum along his lips. “He’s in the church.”
Lazarus lets out a ghastly sigh. “It’s just a fucking building, Salazo, a pile of wood and stone and glass. No spiritual power compels us not to enter it.”
“No,” hisses Salazo, shaking his head. “I do not trust it.”
“Fuck it,” grunts Lazarus, tossing his brother aside by the neck, then heading for the church.
But he only makes it a single step.
Then lets out a laugh.
Kyle turns toward the church—and is horrified to find the chief at the front window with a rifle aimed at Lazarus.
“Do you see this?” asks Lazarus, peering back at Drake, at Salazo closer to the road. “I am tempted to call it adorable. The last time I was shot with a gun … when was it? A decade ago? Didn’t feel a thing. I don’t even remember the human’s name, but I felt such great satisfaction when I tore his head off and put it on a spike. It took nineteen days for the head to rot.”
“It could be a holy gun,” whispers Salazo, nervous.
Lazarus smirks. “Blessed by the Pope? I’m so honored.”
