Page 28 of Fratelli: Eternal Bloodlines

“I dunno… boss, I swear I?—”

“My sister is hurt!” said Russell. “That’s what Charmaine said. We want to see her! Now!” Russell demanded. “Now got damn it!”

“Who is Charmaine?” asked Lucio.

Earlier—

The girls chose the hotel’s breakfast buffet and found a corner to sit. Charmaine kept watch, uneasy about the stares and not feeling safe. Nzinga surprised them by eating normally, despite her swollen jaw. And they did their best to eat as well.

“Are all the women who went to the forest with Greenlee dead?” Charmaine asked, slowly chewing her food. “I thought the guardians were heroes. Why did they kill them?”

Nzinga stopped mid-chew. She pushed her plate away and sat back. “We were judged, deemed unworthy.”

Sonya kept looking down into her shirt for tattoos to reappear. “I can’t believe they’re gone,” she mumbled.

“What do we do now?” Charmaine asked. “And are we safe with all these people staring?”

“This is the safest place on the strip. But to answer your question, you’re not safe. You’re Guardians. Mortals sense your aura. It makes you stand out, like movie stars. Ever seen a celebrity in person and thought they didn’t look like you imagined? Because on screen they were too perfect. It’s how nature interacts with you. Right now, to the average person, you are too perfect. That flawless look you carry puzzles and entices people. You rarely see that kind of vitality naturally.”

Charmaine nodded. “Do the guardians speak to you? Do they have plans for us?”

“Will they speak to us?” Sonya added.

“You don’t understand. What you’ve become means there’s no ‘us.’ You’re one with them—forever,” Nzinga replied.

“No. I’m still me. I feel strange, and Sonya has headaches. Of course, her body is different… but I’m not different,” Charmaine’s voice trailed off.

“You don’t hear them? You aren’t filled with ancient knowledge?” Nzinga asked. “Enlightened?”

“No,” Sonya said. “Nothing.”

“Well…” Charmaine began.

“Well, what?” Sonya asked.

“If they’re dormant, that makes no sense.” Nzinga seem to lose her appetite. She shoved her plate away, her voice pitched high with distress. “That can’t be true! I don’t know why they would be silent. Especially now. Especially here.”

“I hear something. Earlier, outside the hotel, I felt watched. Then I saw him, a man in a hoodie and gloves, staring from across the street. A voice, my voice but not mine, told me to go inside.”

Nzinga nodded with relief. “He couldn’t enter Circus Circus. When you leave, there will be more with him and they will follow. This voice. It must be Liora.”

“Wow, so the vamps know we’re here?” Sonya sighed.

“It could be anything, but if the man wore gloves and a hood in the daylight, it’s possibly a vamp of lower ranking. They are curious hunters. They won’t approach during the daylight, but at night it is a different story. At night, they become more feral. They don’t know who or what you are yet,” said Nzinga.

“Do we get Dolly and get out of here?” asked Charmaine.

“We follow Greenlee’s plan,” Nzinga said.

“But you said the Guardians killed her!” Sonya exclaimed.

“I don’t know if she’s dead. The Guardians have all our knowledge. If they didn’t want us to follow the plan, they’d let us know. Remember the headache?” Nzinga asked.

Sonya shuddered at the memory of the pain. She didn’t want that anymore. “You got a point.”

“What was her plan?” Charmaine asked. “Can we hurry? More people are staring.”

“Char! No one is staring at you. Good grief!” Sonya snapped.

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