Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page B

carpet stain. Trust me, my clan is in deep shit.”
    “You’re part of a clan?” Domingo says, excited. “That’s cool! You got a crest tattoo? Is it hand-poked?”
    “Jesus,” Atl says. “Are you some sort of fanboy?”
    Domingo shakes his head. “No.”
    “Why are you here?”
    “I like your dog,” he says. It is a stupid answer. He doesn’t have anything better. He wonders if she’ll go with him to the arcade. He went there once and drank beer while he tried to shoot green monsters. It would be cool. Maybe she is too old for arcades. He wonders what she does for fun.
    “It will bite your hand off if you pet it,” she warns him. “I’ll give you a cup of tea and you leave afterwards, alright?”
    “Sure. How come you drink tea?”
    She doesn’t reply. Domingo is about to apologize for being crass, but he isn’t up to date on tlahuelpocmimi diets. Except for the kid part.
    A knock on the door makes them both turn their heads.
    “Health and Sanitation.”
    “Open it. Don’t tell them I’m here,” she whispers, moving so quickly to his side it makes him gasp.
    She goes towards the window and jumps out. Domingo rushes after her, pokes his head out, and sees Atl climbing up the side of the building, her shoulders hunched and looking birdlike once more. She disappears onto the roof.
    Domingo opens the door.
    Three men waltz in, faces grim.
    “We have a report there’s a vampire here,” one of them says.
    Domingo, with the experience of a master liar and a complete indifference to authority, shrugs. “I don’t know. The guy that’s renting me the place didn’t say nothing about vampires.”
    “Look around. You, I’m going to check you, give me your hand.”
    Domingo obeys. The guy presses a little white plastic stick against his wrist. It beeps.
    “You’re alone?” the guy asks him.
    “Yep.” Domingo takes out a chocolate bar and starts eating it. The dog is sitting still, eyeing the men.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Sleeping.”
    Domingo can hear the other two men opening doors, muttering between themselves.
    “It’s all empty,” one of the other men says. “There’s not even clothes in the closet. Just a mattress in there.”
    “You live here?” asks the first guy, who hasn’t moved from Domingo’s side, carefully cataloguing him.
    “Yeah. For now. I move around. Been working for a rag-and-bone man lately. I used to wash windshields and before that I juggled balls for the drivers at the stop lights, but this guy I worked with beat me up and I’ve got the rag-and-bone gig now.”
    “Just a damn street kid,” says the man, and Domingo thinks he must have an earpiece on or something, because he sure as hell isn’t speaking to Domingo.
    The men leave as quickly as they’ve come. He locks the door, sits on the rug and waits. Atl doesn’t fly in — not technically — but she seems to jump in with a certain grace and flexibility that is birdlike.
    “Thanks,” she says. The feathers disappear, leaving only pitch-black hair behind.
    “How’d you do that?”
    “What?”
    “The bird thing.”
    “It’s natural. We all do it after we hit puberty.”
    She goes into her room. Domingo stands at the entrance, watching her pull up floor boards with her bare hands, taking stuff from under there and tossing it into a backpack. She rips the mattress open and begins to throw some money and papers in the bag.
    “It’s been nice meeting you. I’ve got to find another place now.”
    “What sort of trouble are you in? What do those guys want?”
    “Those guys aren’t the trouble,” she says. “That’s just sanitation. But if they got word there is a vampire here, that means the others aren’t far behind.”
    “Who are the others?”
    Atl gives him a narrow look. “One month ago my aunt’s head was delivered in a cooler to our home. I left Ciudad Juarez and headed here before I also ended in a cooler.”
    “Who killed her?”
    “A rival clan. It’s part of our territory