Page 2

CHAPTER 2

Carolina

Del Oro

A callused hand fastened over Carolina’s mouth. Her eyes shot open. The instincts she’d been honing since the age of ten flared to life. She slid her hand upward, reaching for the dagger hidden beneath her pillow, then stilled when she heard her nickname spoken in a feather-soft voice.

“Lina.”

She squinted through the darkness. Blinked hard.

He was home. Finally.

Carolina’s grandfather had been gone for over a week. Hunting the foul monster that had killed Se?ora Costas near the river that wove through the valley. La se?ora shouldn’t have been out there. She shouldn’t have left her home and family after the sun went down, but her husband was ill, and people believed she was desperate to bring him water from Orilla del Río.

The area was sacred, a long-retired cemetery from generations before that overlooked Del Oro. People still traversed the overgrown path to pray for their loved ones and, because of that, most believed the waters nearby were blessed by the dead. Going there had been a fatal decision.

Abuelo and his men had mounted their horses the moment her family said she was missing. Her body had been found, drained of blood. Carolina’s abuelo and his men galloped toward the forest where the sedientos came from without hesitation. Sedientos, that was what the people of el pueblo had come to call them. The thirsty ones.

Since he was home, and waking her from sleep, that must mean they had found the vampiro and sliced into the fiend’s heart as it deserved.

Carolina’s eagerness could no longer be contained. She had to know about the hunt. Had to hear everything Abuelo did. What did the sediento look like up close? she wanted to ask. Was it as frightening as the last one that had scaled over the thick walls surrounding el pueblo?

There were varying kinds of monsters. Some looked perfectly human. Others slightly less so—their nails too long and sharp, their teeth too. But some sedientos looked like corpses escaped from the grave. They all shared two things in common, though: blood-red eyes that glowed in the dark when the light hit them just right and a wicked thirst for human life.

She started to speak, but Abuelo’s hand was sealing her lips shut. Carolina raised a single dark brow. Her grandfather grinned. His graying mustache quirked upward like a second smile.

“Shh,” he mouthed. He jerked his chin in the direction of Carolina’s slumbering cousin in the next bed over. Nena was rather unpleasant when roused too early from her beauty sleep. Even if that untimely awakening was due to their grandfather’s return.

Abuelo’s hand slipped away from Carolina’s mouth, and he stepped back.

“Come,” he whispered.

Eagerly, Carolina threw off her bedsheets, grabbed her boots, and tiptoed barefoot after him. Abuelo was a large man, tall and strapping, just like her papá. But Papá’s footsteps could be heard from anywhere within the casa. He stomped about as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and didn’t care who took notice, whereas Abuelo moved here and there quiet as a tumbleweed. Carolina envied him for it. She wasn’t so graceful. She’d often been likened to one of the newborn calves in their pastures. The ones that trampled over flowers and barreled through brambles just to get to their mothers. But she tried her best to move like her abuelo because she wanted to be like him. Patient. Nimble. Strong. Courageous. The best damn sediento hunter in Del Oro.

They slinked down the stairs and turned right, snaking their way through the long corridor toward the rear of the casa. The hand-painted tile was cool underfoot. All was quiet, save for the comforting sound of her great-uncle’s snores coming from his bedroom nearby.

That was the thing when one lived in a great rancho with their family and their family’s family—even in the silence, there was noise.

When they made it to the kitchen, Abuelo stopped before the exit.

“Boots on,” he whispered.

She nodded, a smile burning her cheeks. She couldn’t help it. Anytime Abuelo woke her up in the middle of the night, it was either to train or to teach her about weapons and how best to slay vampiros. This midnight meeting was something they started the day after Carolina turned ten.

Each of her five older brothers had started training to be hunters at that age. Carolina just assumed she would too. But when she ran outside into the courtyard to join her papá and hermanos, Papá had vehemently denied her.

“This is not your place,” he had said simply and walked away. As if that was all the answer she needed.

Carolina had been destroyed. She idolized her father. She loved watching the people who guarded el pueblo ride and hunt for monsters. She pleaded with him to let her join the guard. But he silenced her with a stern look and sent her inside to help her mamá with the cooking. As she stomped through the hallway toward the kitchen, she decided she would prove him wrong.

Papá might have dismissed her, but Abuelo was never one to turn away his grandchildren.

“I have something for you,” he whispered, breaking up her thoughts. “I’m sorry I missed your birthday.”

She shook her head. “You had important work to do. And no one felt like celebrating when Se?ora Costas was taken so viciously and suddenly.” El pueblo was small. Three hundred people lived within the town at most. Every loss was felt within the community because everyone knew and cared for each other as best they could.

“But you only turn eighteen once,” Abuelo said. “I don’t want you thinking I forgot about you, Lina.”

Her heart warmed. “Did you bring me a new pistol?”

She used some old hunk of metal to practice her aim and only when storms came into the valley to conceal the blasts from her papá.

“Better than that,” he said. “Now put your boots on before the rest of the house awakes.”

Carolina squealed ever so slightly and shoved her feet into the worn-soft leathers.

He pushed open the back door and peeked outside. The sound of crickets chirping floated into the quiet kitchen. The cool autumn breeze caressed her cheeks, practically begging for her to step into the midnight air. She closed her eyes and sighed at the fresh scent of grass and earth. Of moisture still dripping from nearby leaves after yesterday’s rain.

They weren’t supposed to be outside the casa after sundown. No one in el pueblo usually risked stepping beyond the stuccoed walls of their homes for fear of exactly what had happened to Se?ora Costas. But Carolina was with her abuelo, who was the best vampiro hunter of the Fuenteses. And she could hold her own. She’d been throwing daggers into bullseyes and proficient with a rapier since she was twelve. Certainly better than her brothers Manuel and Sergio.

“The coast is clear.” Abuelo winked. “Follow me.”

They swept out of the great house and into the shadows. Warm light flickered from the torches that lined the fences. Carolina’s home was an immense estate and the heart of Del Oro. If there was a funeral or fiesta to be had, it took place there. The Fuentes family had lived and worked the lands for generations, and they shared the fruits of their labor.

Every inch of the hacienda held memories for Carolina. There was the large marble fountain she and Nena sat in when the heat of summer became too great to bear. Next to the grain shed grew a scraggly bush, half-dead after she tumbled off the shed rooftop and fell onto it. The chicken coop, where she once hid for an entire day to avoid the wrath of her brothers and their friends after she had thrown rotten eggs at them, still stood. Each memory made her giggle or wince, but she loved them all equally, and she never wished to leave this place or let go of those feelings.

A cow mooed from one of the pastures beyond. Carolina’s family’s rancho spread for acres and acres on end. Stopping only at the stone walls that marked as a border between their lands and the forest. Raising cattle was their livelihood. No one in the entire country of Abundancia bred better steers than the Fuenteses. Even their family crest bore the image of a bull skull—a symbol of strength, determination, and honor.

She followed Abuelo through her mamá’s prized garden and past the stables, which were large enough to hold an army’s worth of horses. Not that an army would ever come so far north. The only guests Del Oro received were traders come to barter for leathers and the occasional drifter.

Carolina stopped suddenly when she rounded the back of the barn. Bales of hay had been set in various positions with wooden sticks jutting out of them at odd angles. A single box with a shiny bow practically gleamed from a wooden crate.

Abuelo grabbed it. “For my eldest granddaughter,” he said, his voice full of pride. “Your abuela would be delighted to see the woman you’ve become. You have her same spunk, you know?”

She’d often been told how much she acted like her late grandmother, who she was named after. How they had a fierceness about them that was unrivaled, which made her immensely pleased. Because Carolina favored her grandfather’s side, the Fuenteses, in every other way. She had their same stubborn nose and jaw. Their same pretty black hair and skin that browned in the sun. But she’d inherited their same temper too.

Smiling, Carolina took the gift her abuelo offered. Her brows pinched together. She tried to keep her expression neutral, but the box didn’t hold the weight of a new pistol. Slowly, she removed the lid.

“A rope?” She met her grandfather’s gaze.

He chuckled. “Do not look so offended, Lina. A reata is un vaquero’s greatest ally.”

“But I don’t want to be a cowboy. I want to be a hunter. I want to elevate the Fuentes name in Abundancia.” Mostly she wanted to show her papá how wrong he was for not believing in her. Being the best sediento hunter to live would surely do that.

“The kind of weapon doesn’t bring us triumph, Lina. The ferocity of the person who wields it does. Believing in yourself and what you are capable of is sometimes enough on its own, no?”

She blinked down at the reata. “I don’t think a rope is any match for a bullet regardless of who uses it. And it’s far less fun.”

“One does not kill sedientos for fun, Lina. We are here to protect humans, livestock, whatever lives and breathes within the great valley of Del Oro. We only pursue vampiros when those fiends pose a threat.”

She laughed bitterly. “We just scattered Se?ora Costas’s ashes! And last month four of Don Francisco’s ranch hands were laid to waste. Two months before that, Lorenzo was taken from us. They weren’t mere threats, Abuelito, they were assassinations. We should be going after those monsters, not waiting for them to come for us. We should find their home and burn it to the ground.”

Abuelo’s mustache twitched. “I used to think that too, but you will learn with age that some evil cannot be destroyed. Not without destroying some of the good we’ve built, too.”

“What does that even mean?” she questioned.

He shifted his weight. “Do you want to learn how to use this lasso, or do you want to talk my head off all evening?”

Carolina smirked. “Can’t I do both?”

“Not if you want to impress your papá and the other—” Abuelo’s head snapped in the direction of the stables.

“What is it?” Carolina asked. She hadn’t heard anything.

Abuelo held up a hand to silence her.

A horse whinnied. Her family’s dogs began to bark from their shelter in the chicken yard.

Reaching for his rapier, Abuelo started forward. Carolina moved too.

“No,” Abuelo said. “Go and get your papá. Hurry.”

Carolina’s pulse quickened. “What is it? A coyote? A skunk?”

“Go, Carolina,” he hissed.

She flinched. Abuelo rarely, if ever, used her real name. Whatever it was, she had to tell her father quick. She started to run toward the main house, her gift still clutched tight to her chest. Something dashed through the shadows to the left of her. Carolina stumbled to a halt. She scrutinized the gardens but saw nothing.

A long howl rumbled through the air, and more dogs from el pueblo joined in. A warning that something terribly dangerous neared.

An icy gust tickled her skin. Her long hair fluttered ever so slightly. Chills rippled down her spine when she heard the crunch of dead leaves directly behind her. Slowly, Carolina turned toward the source of the noise. Standing before her in the shadows was a figure so disturbing her eyes prickled with tears.

The creature appeared almost human. But where there should be fingernails sat a bed of dagger-like claws. Where teeth should be sprouted elongated fangs. It was naked and slightly bent over as if it were in pain. In the moonlight, the monster’s skin appeared ashen, practically blue. And the eyes. The pit in her stomach grew. Its eyes glowed blood-red.

Sediento, Carolina thought. One that has given in completely to its thirst, at that.

But how? How did un vampiro get through the hacienda walls?

Shit. She’d let her little brothers play in the chicken yard that afternoon. Had they left a side gate open?

The vampiro lunged forward so fast, she didn’t have time to dive out of the way. Pointed claws dug into her shoulders. Carolina cried out. The agony was instant, the pain overwhelming. She tried to jerk herself free, but the sharp tips only dug deeper through her muscles and into bone. Carolina kicked out. Hitting the monster’s shin with the point of her boot.

The sediento snarled. It opened its maw. Beads of inky saliva dripped down its chin.

Disgust roiled through her. And then rage took over.

This pinche prick won’t best me on my own land!

She threw up her hands, smacking the vampiro in the jaw with the gift box that remained in her grasp. She swung again, landing another blow. The vampiro’s claws burrowed deeper into her flesh. Carolina screamed in torment. But she did not stop hitting. She could not lose to the first beast she ever fought. Her father would never let her join the guard if she did. Most likely because she’d be dead.

A rope circled the sediento’s neck. The monster flew back, hissing and snapping its teeth together, fighting against the leather braid holding it at bay.

Carolina’s hands fell to her sides, horrible pain pulsed up and down her arms. Blood dripped onto the dirt. Her blood. And lotsof it.

“Lina!” Abuelo roared. Her eyes snapped to just behind the vampiro, to where Abuelo stood, his prized reata wrapped tight around his right hand on one end and the sediento’s throat on the other. Abuelo had saved her and not a moment too soon. He took out his rapier, made solely from obsidian, and pierced the snarling monster deep into its heart. The vampiro’s eyes went wide, glowing a deep crimson, before the monster crumpled into a heap on the dirt.

Moonlight illuminated the sediento’s face.

Carolina sucked in a breath as realization took hold. “Lorenzo?”

Her cousin had been only seventeen when he went missing months ago. His body had never been discovered. Carolina’s great-aunt still held out hope that he would find his way home, but not like this. Not when bloodlust had completely overtaken him.

Abuelo raised his pistol, aiming right at Carolina’s head.

Her eyes widened.

“Duck!” he yelled.

She dropped flat on her belly as a blast rung through the skies. Carolina whirled around in time to see a second sediento stumble. The monster grasped at its chest before toppling onto its back.

“Holy hells,” she panted.

Abuelo knelt beside her. “We’ve got to cover your wounds. The blood will draw more sanguijuelas in.” He tore at the bottom of her nightdress. His fingers shook as he wrapped layers of cloth tightly around her limbs.

His focus shifted to something behind the barn.

“Lina.” Abuelo’s voice had gone stone-cold. He rose slowly. “Get ready.”

Carolina turned her attention to where her grandfather stared. Five more monsters barreled toward them. She shoved herself to her feet as Abuelo fired his weapon. Hitting most of his marks but not all. He took down one. Two. Three.

The terrible click of an empty chamber sounded in her ears.

“You need to reload!” she shouted.

“Here!” he said. He threw his rapier toward her. She caught it by the hilt, gritting her teeth against the fiery pain pulsing in her shoulders.

“Two on the left,” Abuelo said calmly as he pulled wooden bullets from his bandolier. “Four on our right.”

Four?

Carolina spun to see. She wished she hadn’t.

“Remember what I taught you, mija. You must pierce the blessed blade straight through its heart. It’ll sever whatever ties the vampiro’s spirit to the Land of the Living. If that won’t do, cut off the head. But don’t let those fangs touch you. Their bite dulls the senses.”

Carolina nodded and readied her stance.

Abuelo pulled back the hammer and let the wooden bullets fly.

One down. Two. Three.

He missed a shot as the fourth sediento leapt high into the air, dodging his fire.

Voices rang out from the hacienda. Footfalls pounded from just beyond. Candlelight filled the windows. There were frantic shouts from men, someone yelling to get her papá, Don Luis. The alarm bells clanged in the tower. Papá would be furious. There hadn’t been any sort of attack this close to their home in ages.

Abuelo pulled back the trigger. The monster that he’d missed let out a piercing screech when a bullet lodged into its chest.

But the other two vampiros had suddenly disappeared.

“Where are they?” she panted.

An icy draft slithered across the back of her neck. Without hesitation, Carolina wheeled around and slashed her rapier through the air. The blade slipped through stony flesh. Just enough to stun the vampiro. She thrust forward, as Abuelo had taught her, and found her mark deep within the monster’s heart.

The blood-red eyes of the beast turned a dull brown. For a second, for a fraction of a moment, Carolina could swear she saw something human within. Sorrow. Relief. Regret. But then it fell to the earth flat on its face.

She grinned. She’d killed her very first sediento.

“I did it!” Carolina turned to see her grandfather’s smiling face.

“Well done, Lina,” he said.

Carolina’s eyes widened. She screamed in horror as the last vampiro jumped onto Abuelo’s back. Before she could gather her thoughts, before she could even act, the sediento sank its fangs deep into her abuelo’s neck.

“No!” Carolina wailed.

Abuelo fell to his knees, his eyes rolling back into his head as the monster clamped down harder.

Carolina ran toward them. She thrashed her rapier over the monster’s face. The vampiro jerked away from Abuelo with a bone-chilling hiss, tearing loose muscles and veins. She lunged forward and pierced the beast with her blade. A gargled cry escaped its gray lips before the sediento tumbled away.

Abuelo crumpled. Carolina slid in the dirt and caught him before his head hit the ground. His weight on her injured arms was too much, and she cradled him in her lap.

“Lina,” he whispered, then coughed. “I…”

“Shh,” she whispered, her shaking hand trying to stanch the heavy flow of blood. Her chin quivered. Hot tears pooled in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Abuelito.” Carolina tried to hold back her sobs. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He coughed. “You had your first kill. And you are safe. That is what matters.”

“No. You are what matters.”

Abuelo groaned as he reached for something. “You must practice every day, Lina.” He brought the reata, the reason they were outside, to his chest. “Show your papá what a great fighter you are.”

Carolina shook her head. “ We will show him, Abuelito. We will show him together.”

Black dots filled Carolina’s vision. Her fingers tingled with pinpricks like they’d fallen asleep. She had lost so much of her own blood. She could feel it caking over her skin, her nightdress. Her blood had spurred the other vampiros into a frenzy. Her mistake had brought them here in droves. She should have been better aware of her surroundings. She should have seen Lorenzo coming. No, not Lorenzo. She wouldn’t let that thing have her cousin’s name.

“Father!” Carolina’s papá roared. “Father, no!”

Papá’s large frame collapsed beside her. His dark eyes flicked from Carolina to his father, to Carolina again.

“Are you…” His voice hitched.

“I’m fine.” Her chin wobbled as she moved her hand to show her grandfather’s gaping wound. “But he isn’t.”

Papá dropped his head. “Dammit,” he whispered.

Wails of sorrow echoed around Carolina. Cries for her abuelo, Don José Miguel, rang through the growing dawn.

“What can we do, Apá?” Carolina asked her father. “Is there no way to save him?”

But she already knew the answer. Abuelo had lost too much blood. There was no way to mend the torn veins and flesh.

“You should not have been here!” Papá snapped. “What were you doing outside at this hour, Carolina?”

“I…” What right did he have to be furious with her? He had never believed in her abilities to fight, to hunt. But look what she had done. She’d killed a sediento. Two, actually. Abuelo believed in her. He was the only person that ever did. And now he was dying.

Abuelo’s fingers wrapped around Carolina’s wrist. “This isn’t your fault.”

“No,” Papá whispered. He snatched the reata from Abuelo’s chest and clenched it in his grasp. “It is yours, Father. May you find peace in the Land of the Dead knowing my Carolina might have joined you this day.”

Papá pushed from the ground and shoved through their weeping family.

“Saddle your horses!” he roared to the men standing by. “We must secure the town!”

She watched him go. If she could at that moment, Carolina would have tackled her papá to the ground and boxed his ears for being so wretchedly heartless.

“Lina,” Abuelo rasped.

Carolina’s focus fell to his face. “I’m here.”

A tear snaked down his temple. His lashes fluttered.

“Don’t go,” she whispered. “Please.”

“I love you, mija.”

Carolina sobbed. “I love you, too. I love you so very much, Abuelito.”

A long exhale came from her grandfather. Carolina waited. Her gaze bore into him, begging for him to take another breath. But that inhale never came. His soul was no longer there. Carolina shut her eyes tight and said a prayer to the gods of the Land of the Dead as her family wailed to the heavens above.

“Be kind, Tecuani,” she whispered. “Grant my abuelo passage through the Forest of Souls. Be gentle, Atzin. Grant my abuelo safe travels through the River of Sorrows. Be merciful, Itzmin. Grant my abuelo sure-footedness through the Valley of Remembrances. Be gracious, Tlali. Grant my abuelo steadfastness to move through the Desert of Iniquities. Be caring, Chipahua. Grant my abuelo strength to climb the Mountain of Retributions. Be understanding, Xipil. Grant my abuelo permission to enter the gates to el Cielo.”

She saw her mother crying, her cousins, and the rest of her family that remained. She never wanted them to feel this pain again. And she knew Abuelo wouldn’t either. Death would come for them all, but not at the hands of un vampiro.

“Don’t you worry, Abuelito,” Carolina said through her tears. “I will kill every last sediento if it is the last thing I do.”