The evening was a quilt, warm and stifling, laid out on the suburban street at dusk. The yellow light of a lamp cast a shadow in the living room where Elena Vasquez, the city's most famous vampire killer, slept with her family. Her mother, Maria, rocked quietly in her chair, the whir of the needles a gentle background to the queasy swelling in Elena's belly. Maria's age-scabbed, wrinkled hands, creased with decades of unselfish devotion, moved in practiced habit, her eyes aglow with a love that had weathered every stormy maelstrom of Elena's rocky life.
Her younger brother Tomás, two years younger, curled up on the couch, his head bent over his phone. He was nineteen and all angles and coiled tension, his impenetrable head and open heart a source of pride to Elena even now, because she still saw traces of the boy who had always followed behind her. Her father, Javier, whistled to a tune he'd sung years ago from the kitchen, chopping onions that sweetly infused the air. Javier, wide shoulders, calloused hands, the family rock, his iron-plated sense of solidity a refuge from the poison Elena inhaled every night. A swift healing slash of normalcy, a nervous bubble of peace in the violence-tainted life of Elena.
Peace, Elena was sure, was an illusion.
The air chilled, the cold spreading like poison through the room, nipping at the hairs at the back of Elena's neck. Her fists were tightly clenched around the stake hidden under the pillow at her waist, threat running through her nerve endings. She glared at the window, but the curtains didn't stir, the night outside an endless blackness. The light of the lamp capered and danced wildly across walls in mad, insane designs, and a thrill of limitless energy coursed through the boards, as if the house itself were in thrall, enjoying the peril.
"Elena, mija, you're strung out," Maria told her, her own voice firm but with an edge of worry, her knitting needles frozen halfway through a stitch. Her dark, close-set eyes swept Elena's face like a bird. "You work too hard. You need to take it easy."
"I'm fine, Mamá," Elena smiled, but her voice cracked and her eyes flicked to the door, her muscles drawn tight as a bowstring. The humming increased, a nasty undertone that made her clench her teeth.
The lights began dancing again, this time more wildly, dropping for a moment into darkness before the weak light struggled against some hidden force. Tomás sat on his bed, scowling, his phone having been knocked from his lap. "What the hell? Another damn power surge?" His otherwise loud, arrogant voice shook with terror, his own confidence as a young man shaken by the inexplicable.
Javier pushed his head into the kitchen doorway, half-onion clutched in one hand and knife in the other, furrowed brow screwed tight with concern. "Probaby nothing," he said, steady voice calming secret, but the flash to fiery windows that sped from him when he nodded, flashing back eyes. "The grid's been patchy all week."
But Elena was quick-witted. Her heart pounded, a fear throbbed, with the hum growing the snarl growl, the roll of tempestuous thunder. The air grew thick, hardened, against her breast, each harsh gasp taut. "Everybody, be quiet," she commanded, voice as cold as steel, slicing through tautness strained. She stood up, stake in hand, her gaze raking the darkness, each nerve thrumming with the feeling of danger.
And the front door burst open.
Splinters stung like shrapnel, wood ripping with a crackling that echoed through the house, a violent desecration of their sanctuary. A figure materialized out of the splintered wreckage, her shape lit by moonlight, a dark smudge on the night. Seraphina, the notorious vampire queen, kingly and tall, with proud features, a red dress like flowing blood upon the ground, its fold embracing the dirty light like flames. She had porcelain skin, unsullied by years, its glow far from weakened, and a cold, cruel smile, harboring future suffering. Fueled by hunger, her brown eyes fell to Elena's, holding her in thrall. "Evening," the voice growled through Seraphina, the silk knife blade of it smooth, deadly, cut through by cold complacency. "You actually thought you'd be able to hide out and I'd never track you down?"
Elena fought, stake clutched in her fist, her movements driven by training and by a brutal need to protect herself, but Seraphina was quicker than something unnatural, a red and dark blur.
She had closed in during the space of a blink, cold fingers around the slayer's throat, the coldness like ice against Elena's skin. Elena contorted, her body writhing, but Seraphina's hold was a vice, unbreakable, a grasp that squeezed the air from her lungs. The vampiress flung her against the wall with a crack of her arm, the jolt resonating through her very bones, leaving her gasping for air, and sending the stake hurtling to the floor. "Elena!" Maria screamed, her knitting needles whirling on the floor, her cry a raw, searing wail that tore Elena's heart asunder.
Maria sprang out of bed, her fear overbalanced by love for her mother, but before she'd taken a step towards Elena, Seraphina's magic changed. With a disdainful wave of her wrist, the vampire thrust Maria back into the rocking chair, holding her with some unknown grip, the wood creaking in agony. Maria's rigid, white-eyed gaze confronted Elena's, a soundless shriek that sliced through Elena's soul. Tomás sprang out of the chair, wielding the lamp as a bludgeon, boyish pride rising in a final effort to save his family.
"Leave her alone!" he bellowed, shaking voice, as he hurled the lamp across the room. But Seraphina deflected it in mid-air in a swift motion. Amused, she threw him to the floor. "Sit," she commanded, as if scolding a disobedient dog. Javier emerged from the kitchen, knife in hand, his face a white mask of rage and terror, a guardian of his family.
"Leave my children alone!" he thundered, his voice a crash and a bass, but Seraphina effortlessly dodged his attack, then clutched at his wrist and snapped it with a flick of her own, as the sword fell from his grasp onto the floor. She pinned him up against the wall, her hands deep in his flesh, pinching out pricks of blood that shone softly with a sickly glow, a painful reminder of what she was capable of. "A lively family, to put it mildly," Seraphina spat, words dripping with loathing, eyes flashing with animal laughter as she looked at her prisoners. "A shame to ruin this pretty little scene."
"Leave them be, you monster!" Elena screamed, springing up from her chair, breast rising and falling, eyes blazing with fury tempered with love and urgency.
She lunged at Seraphina again, fists flailing in anger, but Seraphina was too powerful. With a quick motion of her hand, the vampiress summoned coils of living, writhing serpents to bind Elena, wrapping themselves around her arms and legs in an icy, cruel grasp. Darkness hurled her to her knees, at the mercy of her family, trembling with rage. "Oh, no, sweetie," Seraphina's voice was heavy with twisted ecstasy, a dirty slash across her pale face, her smile.
"You can't be the hero this time. Tonight, you just watch."
