Vampire Miami (3 page)

She’d expected it to be dark within, to step
into a primitive cave of sorts. Instead, the large lobby was
illuminated by soft yellow light that came from a couple of table
lamps plugged into the wall and set on the old reception desk. Mama
B and Cholly turned to face her, and beyond them, two men with
shotguns stood from where they’d been playing chess. Beyond
them
was a passage out into a central courtyard, and she
could hear music—and laughter—from within. She smelled something
cooking. Something hearty like vegetable soup with dumplings. Her
stomach growled. The armed men stared at her, and while she wanted
to examine their guns, it was Mama B’s eyes that drew her gaze.

“Good,” said Mama B. “Now listen up. Here are
the rules you got to live by if you’re going to live here. Rule
number one. Don’t go outside alone, and don’t go outside without a
gun. I’m not saying everybody’s an animal, but you’re young,
pretty, and sooner or later somebody’s going to get ideas if they
see you walking around. Rule number two: that door closes at
sundown and it does not open, not for you, not for me, not for
anybody. Let me make that clear right here, right now. You get
stuck outside after dark, you’re on your own. We lock down at
sunset, and we only open at dawn, and there are absolutely no
exceptions, not even if it breaks my heart to hear you out there.
You understand, child?”

Selah’s gaze skittered from Mama B’s punishing
intensity to Cholly and then to the two men. They were both older,
thirties maybe, and had hard faces. No disagreement there.

“Sure,” said Selah. Taking a breath, she raised
her chin. “But I thought you said we didn’t have to worry about
vampires.”

“We’d be fools to pretend they don’t exist. They
keep to their favorite haunts, and they haven’t bothered us yet,
but if they ever choose to do so, they’ll find us ready. Mostly
it’s drug addicts and criminals that try to get in. Folks outside
know we’ve got food and valuable things, and every couple of weeks
somebody will try to pry open a shutter and get inside. Be ready
for that. Be smart. You hear the alarm bell, you run into the
center courtyard. Understood?”

Selah felt dazed. It was too much. She found
herself nodding, but the words hadn’t sunk in. Alarm bell? Monthly
attacks? Getting raped if she went outside?

Mama B gave her an encouraging smile. “Good.
Mind those rules. They’ll save your life. Now, this here is Tyler
Whitmer and Burnel Smith.” The two guards nodded. “When you’re
older, maybe you’ll get to stand watch too. For now, let’s get you
to your room so we can talk proper.” She turned and walked on,
squeezing one of the guard’s arms with more affection than she’d
shown Selah, and passed into the courtyard beyond. Cholly gave her
a helpless smile of contrition and followed, leaving Selah alone
with the guards in the lobby.

She looked behind her at the steel doors. They
were serious, thick steel bolted tightly together. A truck would
have trouble ramming through them. She felt reassured, and hugged
herself as she trailed after Cholly, ignoring the stares from the
two men who lowered themselves back into their chairs to resume
their game.

The building was shaped like a hollow box,
apartments ringing the central yard, which had been turned into a
small garden. Selah tried not to stare, but failed. Music filled
the air, live music she realized, somebody on guitar and another on
accordion, playing from an open hallway somewhere above them. The
smell of soup mixed with the rich and fecund stench of a pile of
manure, and a group of five goats stood together to one side,
looking bored. Chickens pecked underfoot, and a tapestry of dinner
smells wafted from doors all around her. People were hanging out,
and all of them watched her, staring down from above or turning to
look as she passed. Four open fires burned in carefully constructed
pits in each corner of the yard, and everywhere faces were alive
with curiosity as they examined her.

They were mostly black people, with a number of
Hispanics here and there. A few white faces, but not many. A large
group of old people sat in a circle of beach chairs watching a game
of dominoes, faces wrinkled with sadness and pain, eyes soft in the
firelight, sympathy writ large on their features. Kids, plenty of
little kids, some half naked, stared curiously at her, momentarily
frozen, their games forgotten. The music stopped for a moment as
the players noticed the disturbance, and then mercifully picked up
once more.

Mama B was important. That much was obvious.
People called out greetings, came up to talk to her, but she simply
nodded or excused herself, head down, great iron dreadlocks
extending stiff behind her. She made her way along the edge of the
yard, past an herb garden and up to the dark mouth of a stairwell,
Cholly faithfully following behind. Selah trailed in her wake,
attempting to take in everything at once, mouth a thin line,
overwhelmed and trying not to show it. She heard voices pick up
behind her, and the smell of food made her stomach cramp. Despair
swamped her. This was where she was going to spend the rest of her
life? With every passing moment she realized with greater clarity
that she had had no idea what she was doing when she’d requested to
be deported. None at all.

She looked down at her Omni, still clutched in
her hand. She’d been on a Beta connection since Ft. Lauderdale, but
now she saw that the speed had dropped to Charlie level. That was
almost too much, and she fled into the darkness of the stairwell as
the horror of it all overwhelmed her.

She staggered up some steps and leaned against
the wall, trying to hold back her sobs. She thought of New York, of
her father, of her friends. Thought of her room back home, her
clothes, her old life. Already it was all going on without her.
Already she’d been forgotten, cut off from the world. She stood in
the dark, back to the courtyard and trembled, fists buried under
her chin, eyes squeezed shut, fat tears running down her cheeks.
What had she done? She was here, irrevocably here, and there was no
going back.

Footsteps came down the steps in the dark. Selah
looked up, expecting Mama B, but no. High heels. The person was
cursing in a rich whisper of Spanish, the voice confident and
exasperated. Selah shrank back against the wall but the girl still
nearly ran into her as she turned the corner.

“
Pero dios, que haces aqui en el oscuro?
” The voice sharp, annoyed.

“I’m sorry,” said Selah. She felt miserable. She
couldn’t even hide in a stairwell.

“Who is that?” Selah heard the sound of a purse
opening, then the rasp of a lighter and consequent flame.
Yellow-orange light, and Selah saw the woman’s face. She was
beautiful, features striking, hair a gorgeous mane of black, full
and rich and smooth and straight. Not as old as she’d thought,
either, just a couple of years more than Selah.

“Who are you?” asked the girl again, voice
demanding.

“Selah,” she said. “I’m with … Mama B.”

“Ah,” said the girl, “her baby. What are you
doing hiding in here?”

Selah pushed off the wall. Almost said
I’m no
baby
but stopped herself in time. “I was catching my breath, is
all. What’s it to you?”

The girl smiled, a flash of white teeth, and
then the flame died away. “Nothing,
chica.
You just arrived?
You must be terrified, but it’s not all bad. Trust me, all right?
I’ll find you when I get back and we can talk.”

“Get back? Where are you going?”

Selah sensed the girl’s amusement. “There’s a
big world out there, and it don’t stop just because Mama B wants
that door locked. I’ll tell you about it soon. Now I gotta run if
I’m going to get some food before I head out. Don’t want to miss my
ride.” A hand found her shoulder, gave it a squeeze, and then the
girl was moving down and past her.

“Wait, what’s your name?”

“Maria Elena,” said the girl, stopping at the
bottom step to look back up. They held each other’s gaze and then
Maria Elena smiled a brilliant smile and turned the corner and was
gone. Selah stared after her and noticed three small kids who’d
gathered just outside the stairwell were now watching her. She made
a fierce face at them, and they scattered, laughing. Feeling
better, she turned and climbed the steps after Mama B.

Selah stepped out onto the first floor and
glanced over the railing at the central courtyard below where the
children had moved on to teasing the goats. She didn’t look down
for long. Cholly stood a few doors down. He looked, as ever,
infuriatingly apologetic.

“This here’s your place,” he said, nodding to
the door beside him.

“Thanks.” Selah said. She walked up and Cholly
stepped aside.

“You’re gonna be all right,” he said.

“Yeah? I don’t know about that.” She tried to
smile bravely up at him, but the compassion in his large eyes
nearly undid her tenuous self-control.

“Sure you will. There are rules here, different
from what you know, but there are rules everywhere. You just got to
adapt. We live pretty good, things considering. We’re doing better
than last year, and we did better last year than the year before.
Soon you’ll find a way to contribute, and you’ll help us grow.
You’ll make friends. You’re gonna be all right.”

Selah studied his wide, honest face, and then
shook her head. “Thanks. I don’t know if I believe you, but it’s
nice for you to say.”

He smiled ruefully, and then patted her
shoulder. “Be easy on Mama. She’s all worked up ‘bout your being
here.”

Selah put her hand on the door handle and then
stopped. “
She’s
worked up? She doesn’t seem to even
care.”

Cholly shrugged and stepped back. “She cares.
She’s just used to showing it by telling people what to do. You’ll
see.”

Selah opened the door and stepped inside. Mama B
was waiting for her in a large armchair, facing the door with her
hands laced over her stomach.

“All right,” said Mama B, “let’s hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“How upset you are. How unfair life is. How much
you blame me for getting deported to Miami. Go on now, get it off
your chest.”

Selah blinked. Her grandmother’s face was hard.
There she sat, larger than life, chin raised, waiting, and suddenly
Selah didn’t know what to say.

“No?” asked Mama B. “I can see the fire in your
eyes, girl. We both know that if I’d stayed with you and your daddy
in Brooklyn, you wouldn’t be here right now. But here you are, and
I bet you’re mad. I don’t blame you. So come on now. Speak your
piece.”

Selah shook her head. “What? No. You got it all
wrong.”

It was Mama B’s turn to look surprised. “What do
you mean, got it all wrong? You saying you’re happy to be
here?”

“No, not that, but just that I don’t blame you
for it.” Selah did her best to ride the old anger as it surfaced.
Mama B had never gotten along with her dad, but when Selah’s mother
had died in a car accident during the War, it had been Mama B’s
confidence and calm and all-enveloping love that had held them all
together. For a time at least. After the War ended, the arguments
had started up again, and Mama B had finally left them both to help
the people trapped in Miami. Selah had been fourteen at the time,
and it just hadn’t made sense: why would somebody quit their family
for a bunch of strangers?

Selah took a deep breath and buried those
memories. “I’m here because I chose to be here. I asked to be
deported and be put in your custody. I wanted to come.”

“Did you, now,” said Mama B. She took a moment
to process that, and Selah watched her move preconceptions and
assumptions around in her mind. “I’m missing some pieces of this
story. Why don’t we start from the beginning. You’re saying you
wanted to come?”

Selah moved forward and sat in a wooden chair
across from Mama B. Her grandma was watching her with sharp
scrutiny, mouth pursed, leaning forward and intent. Selah tried to
marshal her thoughts. “You know how you always said dad’s stories
would never change the world? Well, I think you were wrong. He was
working on an investigation before he disappeared. A big one. He
told me that it went pretty deep, and would cause a lot of trouble
when he published it. Then he disappeared—but he left his Omni
behind in a place he knew only I’d find it. So I read his files. He
was investigating this new drug called Blood Dust. You heard of
it?”

Selah struggled for calm as she spoke. To not
let the pain claw its way out of the box in which it was tightly
hidden. Mama B shook her head, and then Selah realized she wasn’t
answering her question but rather responding to the pain in Selah’s
eyes.

“Oh baby. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Mama B rose
and walked over to envelop her in a hug. “Can you forgive me? I’m a
foolish old woman. Here I thought you were going to show up a
spoiled young girl, mad at the world and mad at me.” Mama B pulled
back and studied Selah’s face. “Instead I find you all grown up.
And you’re telling me you came down here on purpose?” She hugged
Selah tightly once more. It was too much. Selah tried to hold back
the tears, but Mama B’s embrace brought back memories, old memories
of home and better days, which combined with fear and exhaustion
wore down the last of her defenses. Selah felt her eyes burn, and
she pressed her face hard against Mama B’s shoulder. She clenched
her jaw and willed herself not to cry, but her father’s face came
to her and with it all the misery of the past two months. She bit
down on her sobs, but still her shoulders shook each time one
fought to escape her chest.

Mama B held her for as long as she cried, and
then wiped her face and kissed her forehead. “You’re with me now,”
she said, voice stern and loving at the same time. “I’m going to
take care of you. We’re family. We’re all we got. Now tell me what
you were saying about your daddy. What have you learned?”