Page 35 of My Master
The woman turned around, blood staining her lips and around her mouth, she glided in front of the man and kissed him on the mouth before taking her place behind him. The man, Caesareon, Antonio had assumed by then, licked the traces of blood that she had left on his lips.
“Wolves,” he commanded his voice deep and sinister. “Bring me every human here—alive.”
More balls of fur blurred against the screen, moving so fast that their figures could barely be made out. A minute later, they were back, each with a person, gripped by the collar, in their muzzles.
“Very good.” Caesareon smiled. A few of the humans had fainted from fear, others were staring wide eyed, but the majority of them were spitting curses and yelling foul names. Caesareon looked particularly pleased about this. He half turned, to the side where Isis was standing, covering the side of his face so that the camera wouldn’t see it, but not before Antonio caught a glimpse of the way the blacks of his pupils swallowed the iris. “Kill them, Isis,” he demanded. “Satisfy your hunger, show them who is at the top of the food chain. Kill them now.”
Isis obeyed.
Antonio wanted to cover his eyes against the sight but he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Isis had stepped in front of the first human, she bent down, and much like the other vampire, ripped out his throat with her fangs, only Isis latched herself onto the human’s neck, sucking in the liquid until he stopped writhing beneath her and died. After taking the blood of the first, she took no more. She ripped the head from the second human, along with other body parts and tossed them around the room, spraying blood over the floors.
Pretty soon, men and women, supernaturals of all kinds, were ripping off heads and staking them in the receptionist area. Antonio couldn’t believe it. Had Isis gone truly evil? Was she still doing this to save them?
“No!” Esmeralda shielded her eyes from the scene she had just witnessed with one hand, with the other she pushed the laptop away, nearly causing it to topple over.
Antonio was at a loss for words.
“It appears,” Victoria said icily, “that your friend is now an accomplice to slaughter and we can no longer work with you in our investigation.”
“No!” Ezzy yelled again, uncovering her eyes to reveal tear streaked cheeks. “That’s not Isis! I don’t care what that video shows, it’s not Isis!!!”
Victoria sighed and shook her head sadly. When she looked at Esmeralda, there was pity in her eyes. “This video is solid evidence. Maybe Isis was never a victim, as you thought. Maybe she has been working with him this entire time.”
“Yeah, and maybe pigs can grow wings and shoot bacon out of their butts!” Esmeralda snapped. Antonio tried to hold onto her but she just pushed him off and pointed her finger inches from Victoria’s nose. “You don’t know Isis like I do! That wasn’t her. I don’t know who it was, or why anyone would do such a thing, but that’s not my best friend. It’s someone else.”
“Doubt it,” Terrance said from behind her. “Figure changing demons are a rarity that I’m guessing even Caesareon cannot afford.”
Esmeralda shot him a look of menace. “Don’t act like you know everything! What doyouknow about it?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I know more about rare demons that you do, fleshling.”
“And I’m telling you that I know more about Isis than any of you, and I’m telling you that that wasn’t her! She would never hurt anybody, do you understand?”
Victoria made a noise that was somewhere between a snort and a sigh. She turned to a few officers and without preamble barked her orders at them. “Please see to it that these four civilians are escorted off of the premises.” She turned to Esmeralda. “From what I’ve gathered these past few hours—is that you don’t know your best friend any more than we do.”
Esmeralda let out a pained cry in the back of her throat then turned on her heel and walked off. Maria tried guiding her out of there. Marco Santiago put his hand on the small of Antonio’s back and led him outside as well.
Esmeralda ducked under the caution tape, tearing off her hair net and gloves as she did so—they followed suit—, and ran over to one of the police vans and began kicking the side of it. “I…hate…cops!!!” She started punching the side of the van as well and Antonio noticed, with much surprise, that dents were starting to form on the side of it.
“Ezzy, stop!” He rushed over to her and pulled her back by the arm. She resisted and turned to him andhissed. He thought he saw her eyes flash vampire red but passed the idea off as insane, she was human; her eyes couldn’t change colors. Just as he thought this, her shoulders sagged in defeat and her eyes went to a lifeless blue.
“Just take me home, Antonio.” Tears ran down her face and fell off her chin.
Obediently, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and led her away. Maria and his father followed silently. Together, they hailed a cab and went home. Esmeralda fell asleep on the way over, leaning onto Antonio’s shoulder.
“The poor thing has been through a great deal,” his father said, staring at her sleeping form.
Antonio didn’t feel the need to back talk his father or to come up with a discourteous reply. He just looked the man in the eye and for once, the silence between them seemed to be all the communication that they needed in order to understand each other.
In the black eyes of Marco Santiago, Antonio saw the sadness. How could he have been so blind before so as not to see it there? Of course his father would be sad. He had lost his wife and son to death, his eldest was estranged, and was on the verge of losing another son to madness. He was desperately trying to make everything in his life right again and Antonio wouldn’t give him a chance.
I will change,Antonio promised himself.I will change for the sake of my father, for the sake of Maria and I swear I will change for the sake of Esmeralda.He smiled and shrugged at his dad then fixated his gaze on the road ahead.
Because she needs me now more than ever.
* * *
Esmeralda was still sleepingby the time they pulled up to the house. Antonio gripped her by the backs of the knees and her back and carried her to the front door. Funny, he hadn’t remembered her being this heavy. Maybe he was just tired.
