SIX

The knock on Sola’s bedroom door was soft, but she came awake like a heavy fist was trying to splinter the thin wood. “Vovó!”

A shaft of illumination pierced the darkness, making her think of a lightsaber. “There is people here, Sola. Come, get up and get dressed.”

Sola reached for the gun on her bedside table as she looked at the digital clock. Three a.m.? “Where? Who—do not open—”

“I am cooking now. Come.”

Cooking? “Vovó, who is—”

The door closed firmly, and Sola was up-and-out less than a second later, the fact that she had finally crashed fully dressed a stroke of luck. Out in the cramped hall, she flipped the safety off of her nine and kept the weapon behind her back as she padded down the cheap carpeting.

The smell of sautéing onions was so out of context that she decided this was a dream. Yup, she was going to round this corner here and walk into her grandmother’s kitchen and see a non sequitur at their table for two. Lady Gaga or Leonardo DiCaprio or, hell, Leonardo da Vinci—

Sola stopped dead. Across the linoleum, sitting on the pair of cane chairs, were two men she’d been convinced she would never see again.

Her first thought, as identical sets of eyes swung in her direction, was that the chairs were not going to hold all that weight for long—but Assail’s cousins solved that problem by rising to their feet. As they bowed low in her direction, it was bizarre—but also what she was used to them doing whenever she walked into a room.

Dream, she told herself. This was a figment of her imagination.

“You,” her grandmother ordered to the one on the right. “You go and get chair for my Sola. Go.”

The six-five stretch of muscle and banked aggression trotted off into the living room like a retriever sent for a tennis ball, returning with an armchair instead of something lighter. Then again, if you’d asked him to pick up a quart of milk, he’d probably bring the whole Publix back to you.

“ ’Scuse me,” he said as he came up behind her.

As Sola moved out of his way, she wondered how her grandmother could so calmly be dicing red and yellow peppers.

“I need to wake up,” Sola muttered. “Right now.”

“Sola, the coffee.” Her grandmother nodded to the machine. “You start.”

She gave things a minute to wakey-wakey, and when the scene wasn’t replaced by her rolling over and cracking an eyelid, she decided she had to go with it for the time being.

“What are you doing here?” she asked the twins as they resettled in those structurally unreliable chairs.

It was nearly impossible to tell them apart, but the distinction was made as the one on the left spoke up.

“We have come for you.”

That would be Ehric. Evale, the armchair-retriever, would never have volunteered to speak. He was as frugal as Scrooge with his words.

“Assail,” she whispered.

“Coffee,” her grandmother demanded.

She fell in line with the order, Sola’s hands shook as she reengaged her gun’s safety, tucked it away at the small of her back, and went to get the Maxwell House. After she had made quick work with the Krups, she took a seat on the armchair.

“Tell me,” she said. “Where is he.”

---

Ehric was a male first and foremost. So as the human woman sat down on the chair his brother had provided unto her, he could not help but catalog her beauty. She was not frilly nor silly. No, no, his cousin, Assail, would not have picked one of those. Sola’s eyes were direct upon his own, her body tense as if she were ready to spring—not away from conflict, but toward it.

And there was a gun holstered at her waistband.

Ehric smiled a little, but that didn’t last. It never did with him.

She was blond now, and he resolved that his cousin would not approve of the change. It was not an unpleasing shade, not brassy or frizzed, but it did not suit her dark eyes or the memories of her natural brown. The hair was shorter now, too, cut around her ears and shorn up close to her neck.

It was a wise choice if she were looking to disguise herself.

But no, Assail would prefer her as she had been a year ago, and at least her face was, as always, strong-featured yet smooth of skin and sensual of lip. And her simple clothes were the same, too, the leggings black and the hooded sweatshirt navy blue with no logo or image upon it.

Her lithe, long body beneath the soft folds was something he refused to let himself assess, out of respect not just for his cousin, but for her. Ehric liked her. He always had.

“Well?” she demanded roughly.

When he and his brother had materialized below her lodgings, he’d wondered the best course of their approach—and wished they could make a proper announcement of their presence during the daytime with a rap on the door and human-like greeting at a human-like hour for visitation. At this point, however, he was already counting down how much time there was until dawn’s early light threatened their lives with the sun.

In the end, he had resolved unto a mental intrusion, one for which he felt guilt, but nevertheless had proceeded with. He had not engaged with Marisol. No, he was unsure of their reception with her, and her participation was vital. Her grandmother, Mrs. Carvalho, had been the better choice. With suitable concentration, and inner apology, he had connected with the elder woman’s mind and roused her from her sleep, summoning her unto the terrace so that she would allow them entrance not just into the building, but the home she shared with Marisol.

Indeed, Assail’s female might well have denied them, but never the matriarch. She had a soft spot for them.

“Forgive us for intruding,” Ehric began, “but we are in need of aid.”

Marisol’s voice lowered as if she didn’t want her grandmother to hear. “I am no longer in that line of work. And if your cousin wanted something, he should have called me and saved you the trip.”

“He is not able to travel the now.”

The woman frowned. “Why? Actually, never mind—just ask me what you need to so I can tell you no.”

“We want you to come see Assail.”

The woman looked back and forth between them. “I can’t do that. I won’t do that, I’m sorry. He knows why I had to go—you two know it, too.”

Ehric glared at her, but kept his voice soft. “He was there for you. When you needed…” He glanced in her grandmother’s direction and was reassured by the older woman’s concentration on her foodstuff preparation. “When you required a…friend…Assail came unto you. He did right by you and you need to make good on that debt.”

“I didn’t ask him—” She, too, glanced at her grandmother. “He did what he did by choice. I never asked him to help me—”

“You would be dead now—”

“I saved myself!”

The grandmother shot a look over her shoulder, and that was enough to readjust the volume on their argument.

Ehric sat forward. “You owe him. And we need you to help him.”

As he stared at her, the woman burst up and went to the coffee machine. As it had yet to finish its cycle, she stood before the unit, tapping her foot. When at last it was through, she took all due care with mugs and pouring.

“Do you guys still take it black?” she muttered.

“Yes, we do.”

She brought them over the coffee and sat down once more. Clearing her throat, she said, “I’m really sorry, but I’m never going back to Caldwell.” Now she stared at Mrs. Carvalho pointedly. “You understand. As much as I might be…grateful…to your cousin, I can’t get involved with his business—”

“Why we have come unto you is personal.” Ehric tested the coffee and found it more than acceptable. “He is not well. And it is our hope that you can provide him with—”

“If he’s sick, he needs to go to a doctor—”

“—a reason to keep fighting.”

Marisol stiffened. “Fighting? What are you talking about?”

Ehric had prepared for this inquiry. “Cancer. Assail has got the cancer.”

The lie slid off his tongue as easily as the truth would have choked him. This human had no reason to know that she had been rescued and later bedded by a vampire. And if he told her that Assail was suffering from cocaine-withdrawal dementia, that was not just less likely to elicit sympathy, but he might well have to provide some manner of explanation as humans, evidently, did not respond to sobriety thus.

Cancer was a different story. No matter that vampires could not get the disease; it was a scourge to humans.

“Oh…God,” Marisol whispered.

“He is too proud to ask you for aid, of course.” Ehric had to look away. “But we are his blood. There is naught we will not do to secure what future he may have.”

“I am not…I am not anything to him.”

“In that,” Evale spoke up, “you are misconstrided.”

“Misconstrued,” Ehric amended. “And that is why we are here. We want you to come to his bedside and…inspire him, in the way only you can.”

When she opened her mouth as if to argue, he wearied of the protest and put his hand up. “Please. Do not waste our time or pretend ignorance when you know precisely why you, of all people, would matter to him.”

Abruptly, the woman fell into a silence that seemed to compress her body, and he knew he had to give her space to feel most properly her emotions: Further commentary by anyone would just give her opportunities for defense. She, and she alone, was going to decide this course.

As the silence continued, Mrs. Carvalho placed plates before him and his brother, the food upon them so fragrant, he closed his eyes, lowered his chin, and breathed in the aroma.

“You have honored us, Mrs. Carvalho.” He turned to the grandmother, who had gone back to her stove. “We do not deserve such a feast.”

“Eat.” A gnarled finger pointed to the table. “Too thin. You are too thin. I make you more.”

Ah, her tone. Clipped, disapproving, accented with the unfamiliar. But her eyes were a-twinkled, and he knew that even as she kept a physical distance from them, she embraced them both with her food, welcoming them with a love that he had certainly never known.

Orphans, after all, were by definition unfamiliar with a mahmen’s heart and hand in their lives.

Putting his fork to its very best use, he found that the eggs were mixed with marvelous spices, and as he began to consume them, another tantalizing scent wafted up from the stove.

“What kind of cancer?” Marisol asked.

Ehric reached out to the center of the wee table and took a napkin from a holder. After wiping his mouth, he said, “It is of blood origin, and of recent and very virulent duration.”

“Where is he being treated? St. Francis?”

“He has availed himself of private physicians.” She would recognize Doc Jane and Manny, and he’d cross that bridge when they got to it. “The treatment he is receiving is top-notch. There is no better, I can assure you of that.”

“How long…” She cleared her throat. “How long does he have?”

“It is hard to say. But he suffers. Greatly.”

There was a long period of silence, punctuated only by their eating.

“He stopped calling me,” Marisol blurted.

“He has been in touch, then?” Not a surprise. And then Ehric became concerned. “Did he tell you aught?”

“He didn’t speak to me. He just hung up, but it was him, I know it was. And then the calls stopped.”

“Yes.”

More plates arrived, this time with something made from corn. And another thing of potato derivation that he recognized from that which Mrs. Carvalho had frozen for them before she left. The grandmother did not join them. She began to wash her dishes at the sink, and he knew better than to offer to help. Up in Caldwell, during their cohabitations, he and Evale had asked but once to be of any aid in her kitchen endeavors and she had been offended sure as if they had cursed before her.

It was not until he and his twin had finished their second and third servings that Marisol finally spoke.

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I can’t go back there. You have to understand. Even for him, it’s not safe for us up in Caldwell—”

Mrs. Carvalho interjected with sharp words in their native tongue, and the granddaughter bowed her head as if it would not do that she disrespect her elder with any disagreement. Still, Ehric knew by the line of the younger woman’s chin that she would not relent.

“We can keep you safe,” he offered. “Both of you. You have our word of honor that naught will befall either of you.”

The grandmother spoke again, her hands on her hips, her wrinkled face drawn in disapproval.

Marisol got to her feet. “No. It is not safe. Maybe I can FaceTime with him, or something. Or talk to him on the phone. Or—”

As Ehric rose from his chair, Evale followed that lead. “I understand. Forgive us for bothering you.”

“I wish I could help.” Marisol crossed her arms over her chest. “Seriously, if the circumstances were different, I—”

“Madam,” he said unto her grandmother. “You have paid us much grace and respect with this meal. We shall hold on to the strength it gives us and use that gift in your honor.”

Evale murmured an affirmation as both of them bowed to her.

When he straightened, Mrs. Carvalho had her hands tucked up under her bosom. She appeared by turns delighted by the honor they paid her and frustrated by her kin.

Turning to Marisol, Ehric bowed to her as well. “We shall not tarry herein nor bother you again.”

Marisol opened her mouth as if to speak, but he walked away, proceeding to the door. As he let himself out, he held the exit wide for his twin.

“Do not say it,” he muttered as Evale paused in the doorway. “Stay silent.”

As always, his twin was content not to speak.