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"I feel you, man," Yonnie said carefully. "Awful ironic how we also both wound
up in the same situation you dancing on the edge, me dancing on the edge, the
rules real fuzzy, about to be smoked at any time. Just a case of which side
gets us first."
"Don't bite her, man," Carlos said, letting out a weary breath.
"I'm not going to bite her. Damn."
Carlos closed his eyes and inhaled slowly before speaking. "That is a lie." He
opened his eyes and they were pure silver, but no beam hunted Yonnie. "You are
talking to me, remember? You want to bite her so bad that just thinking about
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it makes your dick hard. Now I'm only going to say this once, she has no
immunity. Her system is like a human's red blood carrier, no silver tracer to
back the vamp plague up." Carlos dropped his voice as he came closer to
Yonnie. "I'm her big brother and therefore her silver carrier. If you get any
vampire bullshit into her system, I will silver hot yours."
"Damn, man, and I thought we was boyz!" Yonnie walked away and began pacing.
"What am I gonna do, Carlos?" His voice became strident and all amusement was
gone from his tone. "She's . . . like . . . different than all the others.
First off, she's about me. You hear me, man? Just about me. For once, I'm not
coming behind some old baggage from her previous life. You know what that
feels like, brother."
Carlos did understand, but his face remained impassive as Yonnie paced.
"None of them, especially Tara, cared about me to this bonedeep level. I
haven't even touched Val yet . . . and she's got this pure love-jones that's "
"Intoxicating," Carlos said flatly, remembering Damali.
"Yeah . . ." Yonnie closed his eyes and allowed a brief shudder to claim him.
"You know what I'm saying."
"That's why," Carlos said, his voice calmer, "I know that if you get with her,
you'll bite her. Problem is, she won't wake up in the morning . . . worst yet,
if you can't pass the daylight bite, you'll have her banished to the Darkness.
Man, as much as she turns you on, I can't sanction it. I just can't."
"Can't you do something?" Yonnie said, arms outstretched. "Like, give her some
kinda silver seal, something, I don't know?"
"I know I can do a lot of shit, man," Carlos said with a half-smile. "But I do
not know how to make a silver dental dam, if that's what you're asking."
"Kiss my ass," Yonnie said, walking away peeved. He spit out his toothpick and
dragged his fingers through his Afro. "I really care about her, man."
"You just met her."
"Don't discount my shit like that, Rivera. Don't."
"All right, my bad," Carlos said, holding up his hands. "I just want you to
think about this and to care about her enough not to throw caution to the
wind. She's really good people, Yonnie. Really good, ya know?"
"Yeah, I do," Yonnie said quietly, now staring at the house with his hands
behind his back. "You know what she said to me when I was on my way to
council?" He didn't wait for Carlos to respond, but pressed on as though
speaking to himself. "She said, 'Be valiant, be victorious.' " He shook his
head and chuckled sadly. "Funny thing is, she really makes me want to be
that."
"That ain't funny," Carlos said, causing his friend to look at him. "That's
real. Now you're being real. So, as boyz who go way back, let me be honest and
tell you the truth about me and Damali." Carlos let out a long breath. "I had
to wait for her for five years."
Yonnie winced.
"Yeah," Carlos said. "If you're dealing with a sister with wings, and you're
bad to the bone, you've got one of three choices wait for her, and do what
you've gotta do on an extremely discreet basis; ruin her, which you and I both
know is unacceptable and a punk move at best; or walk."
"Guess I'll be headed to Tijuana this morning."
Carlos chuckled. "Sheeit, that's where I used to go."
Yonnie pounded his fist. "It was worth it though, right? The wait."
"She turned twenty-one on me at midnight in Hell, man, in a demon firefight
with Fallon Nuit, and I wasn't even a councilman." Carlos looked back at the
house, the memory full in his mind. "She was trailing Neteru ripening blazing
it, but all those people in that house were about to get slaughtered. And she
looked up at me, a vampire then, man . . . with those big brown eyes, blade in
her hand, and begged me in her eyes to save her family."
"Tell me you hit it, man, and then saved the family." Yonnie closed his eyes
and leaned his head back, laughing to keep from crying.
"No," Carlos said. "It woulda been her first time, and to ruin her in Hell
with her family in body parts come on, brother!"
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"Aw'ight, what's the very insane moral to this story?" Yonnie stared at him,
not amused in the least as Carlos started laughing.
"I got fucked up by demon legions. Disemboweled, arm tore out the socket, face
crushed, jaw busted, and flung topside in the time before daywalkers, into the
sun in the desert."
"Oh, this is getting more romantic by the minute." Yonnie spit and Carlos
laughed hard, landing a hand on his shoulder.
"Then I crawled my bloody dying ass into a cave, after a very foolish coyote
thought I was carrion "
"Eeiiw, stop! That's nasty, Rivera!"
"Uh-huh, but I was trying to live. I had a love-jones for my wife so bad I
didn't care. I got in a cave, laid up until I knitted back together, and the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]