La Posada --Chapter 12 --PG-13

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librarian_7
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La Posada --Chapter 12 --PG-13

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Disclaimer: I don't own Josef. He thinks he owns freshie Lucky, but I do.

La Posada

Chapter 12

The salad was beautiful. Fat blackberries nestled among crisp field greens with toasted almonds, chunks of goat cheese, and strips of grilled chicken. The citrus-y balsamic vinaigrette was perfectly balanced to suit the dish, but Lucky found herself uninterested in doing more than picking idly at it. Her usual tactic of losing herself in a book to take her mind off eating didn’t seem to be working. Fact of the matter was, she missed Sam. There’d been a lot of buzz and chatter in the dining room today, more than usual, and she knew that any other day, Sam would have been sliding into a chair opposite her with a lazy grin, telling her all the gossip. She missed having someone to talk to. It seemed the only person now who wanted to talk to her was Marla, and that was a real non-starter as far as cordial conversation went.

She could just hear it now. “So, Marla, want to lie to me about Josef some more? Do tell.” Yeah, right.

Determined to put it all out of mind and make another assault on that salad, Lucky put down her book. Her blood tests were getting progressively better, and if she could only force herself to eat a bit better—and a bit more—she really should be able to get back home soon. She raked a force through the greens and speared a blackberry. One blackberry shouldn’t be so hard. Then maybe a bite of grilled chicken. Why did they make these salads so vast?

Lucky was still staring down dubiously at her plate when she realized the chatter had stopped, every voice cutting off at once.

Carmencita Diaz, her long belled sleeves not quite concealing the white bandages on her wrists, had returned to the Posada. She’d changed, Lucky thought. The placid air of entitlement, the arrogant self-confidence, had vanished. Her circle of cronies had gone, and while many of those women were present, not one rose and rushed to her side. Lucky watched as Carmencita looked at her hostess, her face uncertain, hesitating at the door of the dining room.

Sometime in the days she’d been gone, Carmencita’s previous hostess had left the Posada. Lucky blinked, with a sudden thought that she hoped the woman had left. It was possible a failure like that might have cost the woman far more than her job. Lucky put that idea out of her mind. Apparently now the task of keeping Carmencita alive, and on the road to health, had fallen to Marla. She couldn’t think of a better person for the responsibility. Dear Marla really needed to take care of another problem child.

Marla urged the girl forward to a small table not far from where Lucky sat. After Marla had settled her in and bustled away, Carmencita looked around the room at the others staring silently at her. No one seemed to want to meet her eyes, and one by one they turned back to their meals, a low hum of whispering voices rising in a gradual crescendo.

Lucky grimaced. She’d never liked Carmencita, but she hated to see anyone look so stricken. She sighed, picked up her salad, tucked her book under her arm, grabbed her iced tea, and went to Carmencita’s table.

“Mind if I join you?” Lucky smiled crookedly. “Please say it’s okay, because otherwise I’m really going to look like a jackass.”

Carmencita looked a little stunned, but nodded.

Lucky made as much of a production as possible of sitting down and arranging her napkin and plate. She had no idea what to say to the other woman. Somehow, “I’m sorry your vamp got killed, but hey, at least your suicide attempt was unsuccessful,” seemed a trifle insensitive, even if it was accurate. Josef would probably come up with something even snarkier, but she’d somehow neglected to wear her “What Would Josef Do” bracelet this morning. Finally, she surveyed the room, intercepting several covert glances in their direction, and snorted. “Don’t pay any attention to them,” she said. “You know how freshies can be. Especially when they get bored, and this place…well.”

Carmencita nodded, a ghost of a smile touching her expression. “Needlepoint classes. Don Diego wanted me to take needlepoint classes,” she said, then snapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh.” Her sudden pain was unmistakable.

Lucky felt her own heart constrict at the expression and on impulse, she reached out to touch Carmencita’s hand. “Let’s get out of here,” she offered. “We can always get them to bring some food to my room, if you’re hungry.”

“Why are you being nice to me now?” Carmencita asked. “We barely talked, before.”

Not sure how to answer, Lucky shrugged. “Seems to me you’re in a tough spot. And I’ve been a little lonely. I thought we might help each other.”

“I thought Sam Logan was your great good friend.” There was more suspicion in the statement than Lucky wanted to hear, but she supposed Carmencita had a point.

“He was a friend.” She looked down, pleating her napkin between her fingers. “But he’s not here anymore.”

“I thought—was he ready to go home?” Carmencita asked, puzzled.

“No, but—it’s complicated. Things got—it’s just complicated.”

The other woman studied her for a moment, then nodded. “Things get that way. Too often.” She threw her napkin on the table. “Thanks. Let’s get out of here.”

Lucky had to admire the way Carmencita left the dining room—head up, her former arrogance replaced with a quieter dignity. She wavered once, out of physical weakness, and Lucky was there to steady her.

Sinking onto the couch in Lucky’s room, Carmencita looked around with an appraising eye. “This is,” she said, “one of the nicer rooms I have seen here.”

“Really?” was the careless reply. “I supposed they were all pretty much the same.”

Carmencita narrowed her eyes, as though studying some aspect of the view. “You’re kidding, right? Everything with the vampires—it’s all about status and displays of power, you know. My old room, I thought it was the best here, but now, I think this one, this one is a little better. The one I’m in now, it’s not so nice. No patio, no—the mountains are very pretty from here, aren’t they?”

“Yes. My—my patron is very generous with me.”

“I had thought, the way you dress, that he was perhaps not so powerful. Lucky, I know it’s rude of me to ask, but who is your vampire?”

The other freshie crossed her arms defensively. “It’s not that important, surely. He likes a low profile.”

“But he must be,” Carmencita stopped herself, waving a hand. “Forgive me. I should not ask. I just—I was worried you would be nothing but questions. And then gossip. I have caused enough talk, and I was told that was a bad thing. And here am I…all questions myself.” She paused, slipping off her shoes and carefully tucking up her feet under her on the couch. When she continued, her softly accented voice was more tentative than Lucky had heard it before. “You want to hear my story? It’s good to have someone who understands.”

Lucky sat down in the chair facing her. “I know what you mean. Even here, not everyone understands.” She hesitated a moment. “Sometimes I think almost no one understands.”

Carmencita nodded. “You speak as though you care for him, like he is important to you. It is right, that we should love our vampires, you know.”

“It’s impossible for me to imagine a world without him,” Lucky allowed. “I tried, when I heard your news…I can’t do it.”

“Until a few days ago, I would have said the same thing myself. You have to understand, it was the way of my family for generations, to serve Don Diego. It was all that we knew, all that we ever expected to know.”

“I’d heard you were hereditary—in a hereditary contract, I mean, but I never understood how that worked.”

“Ah. How it worked. Well.” Carmencita paused to gather her thoughts, trying to decide where to start. “I have known Don Diego all my life, you know. He was our padrone, he visited our house many times when I was a child, and we went to many gatherings in his home. I remember he held me on his knee, when I was very small. He favored me even then, and he told me that I was a pretty child, and when I grew up into a pretty woman, he would hold me again. I threw my arms around his neck, and asked him if I would be his sweetheart then. He laughed, and told me I was already his.”

“Did you know, at that age? What he was?” Lucky leaned forward, intrigued.

“Oh, no, of course not. He was just—Don Diego.”

“And you didn’t notice that he never aged?”

Carmencita shook her head. “You know how it is—to a child, everything is eternal, and every adult is impossibly ancient.”

“That’s true enough. So, when did they tell you?”

“It was right at the time of my quinceañera. My fifteenth birthday party. I had the grandest one of the year. Even my cousin, who had hers two months earlier, was completely outshone. She hated me for that for a long time. But you know later, we became sisters, and it was not so important.

“I remember, Mama and my grandmama explained it all to me. We sat down, in our living room, on the good sofa, one of them on either side of me, holding my hands, so that I would not fear. So that I knew from the time I was fifteen, that I was chosen.”

“He fed on you, from fifteen?”

“No, no. Of course not. He always says, he doesn’t want to kiss children, stick figures. He wants his women to be women, you know? But after I was fifteen, I began to spend time with him, evenings, weekends. Learning the ways of his house, learning how to behave. He used to send me into a corner, to do my homework. He used to call us the roses in his garden, and said he wished to cultivate us.

“And my mother—I want to tell you about my mother. She served Don Diego for seven years, as he required her, and at the end of that time, he called her to him one day, and asked her if she had served him faithfully and well. She told him that she had served him faithfully, with her whole heart and her blood, but that he would have to judge the quality of that service. And he told her that he was satisfied, and that he would not release her from his service, but that if she was agreeable, he had found a man, a man he thought worthy of one of his treasures. He wanted her to marry this man, and bear him strong sons to carry his name, and beautiful daughters to continue the way of the women of the Diaz family, and sustain Don Diego through the long years of his existence. And she agreed, and that is how my mother met my father, and wed him, and came a virgin to her marriage bed with him.

“When they explained everything to me, they told me that I had a choice, to continue in the tradition of my family, and that if I so chose, I would be richly rewarded, pampered, cared for. If I chose not to follow my mother’s path, then I would bring shame to the family, and be outcast. It was no choice, though, because all my life, my heart had belonged to Don Diego, and to be with him, that was my desire. I would have dishonored my family, I think, for Don Diego, but that was not necessary. I never thought of anything but that my future would be with him, that I would serve him as my mother had, and my sister, and my aunts, and my grandmother, and her grandmother, and all the generations for so long, and that in time my daughters would go to him, and my granddaughters, and their granddaughters. He was forever, and my family was forever.

“And now they tell me he is dead, and I must go to another vampire. I do not know him, and they ask me to trust my life to him, and someday to trust my daughters to him. I cannot do this, even if it shames my family.”

She fell silent, and for a minute, Lucky could not think of a thing to say. Then curiosity got the better of her. “Carmencita. Forgive me if I ask too many questions, but, do you know what vampire has your contract now? Was that who told you you’d caused too much talk?”

The other woman shook herself out of her thoughts. “What? No…I don’t know. When I woke up in the hospital, I was terrified. They had my wrists restrained. And there was a man there.”

“A vampire?”

“I don’t think so. A lawyer, he said.”

“Ah, the other kind of bloodsucker.” Lucky smiled, trying to lighten the mood, but Carmencita looked at her blankly. “Sorry. Bad joke.”

“He didn’t tell me much. Just that I was to get well, and that my future was in doubt, if I made myself more the fool. He told me the present holder of my contract might wish to sell it, or make other arrangements. I protested, that was not possible…he told me not to be stupid. That a freshie of my beauty and experience was worth a great deal. I had not thought, ever, that such a thing was possible. I think he must be powerful, my new vampire. But he does not care so much for me, as Don Diego did. How could he? He does not know me.”

Lucky bit her lip. She knew better than to offer empty reassurances. Maybe once she would have, but not after what she’d learned from Sam. “Did the lawyer tell you anything about him? Anything at all?

“He said I would find out when the time was right. That he was sure if I behaved myself, my vampire would be very pleased with me. Then he stroked my cheek. As though he had some right. What could I do? My hands were tied. I should have spit at him.”

“My God, Carmencita! That’s terrible.” Lucky was appalled. She’d never heard of a freshie contract being negotiable. “What are you going to do?”

Carmencita stared out the window, her eyes bleak, her hands unconsciously stroking the bandages on her wrists. “I don’t know. Stay here until my—my vampire sends for me—I do not even know his name. All I have is the address of his lawyer, and I suppose that is the city of my new home.”

“He’s not in Miami? I’d thought—“

“No,” Carmencita said. “The card the lawyer gave me, the address is in Los Angeles.”
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Re: La Posada --Chapter 12 --PG-13

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Oh My God! :gasp:
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-It never ends well...
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Re: La Posada --Chapter 12 --PG-13

Post by darkstarrising »

OMG is right!! If the new vamp is who I think he is, Carmencita is in for a big (and likely pleasant) surprise!!
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