Chapter 1

Mom was waiting. Had she even moved? Sitting there at the table with her tea—always her tea—and listening to the gravelly radio play something classical. Sounded familiar; probably something she had played back in Spain. She was in the same chair as that morning. Same mug for her tea, even.

No; there was the difference: the violin sitting on the table in front of her. Chinrest still strapped across its back and keeping the fine old wood away from the hard table. She must have been playing.

Aleda tossed her backpack at the stairs. The metal lock, still hooked to one zipper, thumped loudly against the wood. Damn it. Well, thank goodness for hair pins, anyway.

To be perfectly honest, the tea was starting to sound like a good idea. It was so damned cold outside, she’d nearly frozen to death in the ten minutes it took her to walk from the high school to this stupid house. There was no way September should be this freaking cold, damn it. Sure as hell Andalusia wasn’t this cold in September.

The water was still hot in the teapot. There were clean mugs in the cupboard and the box of tea bags still sat open on the counter; thus, tea was brewed.

Mom watched her with some interest. Looked like she had something up her sleeve. What was she waiting for? Ah, well, might as well succumb to the inevitable.

Aleda settled into a chair on the other side of the table and blew on her tea. If Mom had something to say, she should say it already. No reason to speak first and let her win.

“How was school?” Mom asked. That’s not what she wanted to say, though.

“School was alright.” Aside from having her zippers locked together in homeroom. “What’s for dinner?”

“Chicken and asparagus.”

Ugh. She finished her tea quickly and dropped the mug in the sink.

“Don’t look at me like that. Asparagus is good for you.”

Aleda wrinkled her nose in response and looked through the mail. Nothing good there—just a few credit card offers and assorted junk—so she abandoned the stack and headed instead for the refrigerator.

“I’m hungry.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

Damn. There went one idea.

“…I got a call from Fioralba today,” Mom said from the table.

Ah. There it was.

Aleda grinned. She hadn’t heard from her aunt since the move. “Aunt Firi? How is she?”

 “As good as always,” Mom said. “And apparently she’s made a new friend.”

That twinkling look in her eyes was suspicious…

Might as well ask. “Yeah? Who?”

“Oh, you know. A very nice young man… friend of the family…” Mom paused, took an extra-long sip from her dwindling tea. “Works in the department of motor vehicles…”

“Dep… Really? You mean…?”

Mom finally let loose the grin she had been holding back. “We’ve had your license transferred over to Delaware. Your Papá should be getting everything soon.”

Aleda couldn’t help herself; she squealed with delight. Oh, sure, her parents had gotten all their new identification papers and whatever delivered way back a month ago, when they first moved. They had cousins to take care of all that. But she was only seventeen. Not a cousin yet. She had thought she would have to wait and do everything the slow and obnoxious way. Drivers’ Ed? No thank you.

“When?” she asked eagerly. “Today?”

Mom laughed. “Maybe. We’ll see.” She laughed again when she saw the expression on her daughter’s face. “Don’t worry, honey. Fioralba’s good at … ‘convincing’ … her young men.” Mom paused thoughtfully. “Although from what she tells me, it’s not exactly a burden. Apparently he’s very good at…”

“Mom!” For goodness sakes, she did not need to hear that about her aunt! She made for the stairs, snatching up her backpack as she went. “I have homework!”

“Okay, honey. Dinner’s at six!”

 

 

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Alejandro pushed his front door open roughly. His wife looked up at the noise and hurried over to him when she saw his face. He had already thrown his coat at the couch and started to undo his collar.

“What’s wrong?” Aria asked. Her eyes were wide.

“We must hunt tonight.” He didn’t even pause.

She trailed him to their bedroom. “Alejandro, querido, what happened?”

“I got a call today.” He tossed his tie onto the bed. “Guess what I was told.”

Aria picked up his tie nervously, fussing with it before hanging it with the rest. She waited.

He took a deep breath. “Talia Kavanagh is in town. She is scouting from Elkton to Wilmington.”

“But… that’s good.” Aria had a puzzled expression on her face.

Alejandro finished off the last of the buttons of his dress shirt, nearly tearing them off in his agitation. “If Talia is in town,” he told her, “Then there is a reason that she is in town. That was the call.”

“What…”

“Twenty nests.” He yanked a drawer open with enough force to make it rattle. He stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, hands braced against the edges of the cheap wood. “Twenty nests,” he said a little more quietly. “Between Elkton and Wilmington. That is what she found.”

Aria sighed. It always came back to this. Eighteen years later, and it always came back to this. She put a hand on his shoulder and wished he would look at her.

“I know it’s not going to be like it was in Málaga,” she said gently. “I know. But we couldn’t stay there forever. You know that, right?”

“It was safe in Málaga. Our family was in Málaga.”

“Our family is here, too,” she reminded him.

“Not our relatives. Not my grandfather, and not my sister.”

Aria moved away from him and sat on the edge of their bed. “We couldn’t stay there forever,” she repeated. “We had already stayed too long.”

He picked a sweater at random from the drawer and pulled it over his head, then kicked off his shoes. A pair of jeans was fished out of another drawer and replaced his slacks. Still he did not answer her.

“Alejandro, we’re hunters.” She stood up and walked to him again. “We have to hunt.”

“Yes, we do. Tonight, and every night after. I will not allow my only child to live in a place with so many nests.” With that, he walked out of the bedroom and down the short hall.

Aria watched him go. “We can’t protect her forever,” she said, to herself as much as anyone.

He walked past the bedroom door again a few moments later, this time carrying the coat that he had flung at the couch on his way in. She raised an eyebrow at him, and his face cracked into a wry smile. Not as good as putting it away properly the first time, but at least he was learning. She met him in the hallway.

“Well, aside from that…” She did her best to smile. “How was work?”

“Work was good,” he said. He looked at his wife and felt his tension melt away. “The company is very grateful for their new computer temp. I will have to be careful, or they will want me all to themselves.”

Aria pouted and fussed with his sweater. “I want you all to myself.”

He put his hands over hers and smiled faintly. “I know, I wish I could be here all the time, too. But we must eat, after all.” He walked through the undersized living room towards the kitchen. Something smelled good. “How was your day?”

“It was okay,” she told him. “I spent most of the day getting the rest of our things unpacked. There’s not going to be much for me to do after that, though. I was thinking of joining the PTA at Aleda’s school, at least until I find some students.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding,” Aleda said. She’d heard Papá come in. “Hola, Papá.”

“Hello, my little angel. But I have told you to practice your English.”

“¿Por qué?” She was just as fluent as Mom.

“Aleda…”

“Alright, alright! Only English. Got it.”

Papá smiled wanly. “That is better. How was school?”

 “Fine.” She shrugged. “We’re having chicken and asparagus for dinner,” she told him. Maybe she could get an ally.

Papá laughed and came out into the living room to hug her properly. “Poor girl. I do not know why you do not like it, your mother cooks wonderful asparagus.”

Mom ducked her head out into the small dining area. “Thank you dear,” she said. “Oh! I have to check on the chicken.”

Aleda turned to her father hopefully. He bit back a smile. “Yes, little angel? Did you need something?”

Aleda pouted. “Papá!”

He grinned, producing a thick envelope from behind his back. “Yes, it came. My boss, Mr. Newell, gave it to me this morning. This is for you.”

Finally! She squealed and grabbed the envelope, ripping it open. Several documents tumbled out onto the small patch of wood floor… as well as one plastic card. “My license! Oh, Papá, can I go try out the car?”

“Later, yes. But I think your mother would not be very happy if we missed dinner.”

Damn it. Well, it had been worth a shot. Papá walked back into the kitchen to say something to Mom. She had better put her new license away; she had a place all ready for it in her purse. The rest of her papers would go with Mom and Papá’s. When she got back downstairs they were still in the middle of completely failing to actually ‘say’ anything.

“Hi,” She said, a little loudly. Mom turned and winked, and Aleda had to resist the urge to roll her eyes yet again. Papá straightened and made a point of checking the chicken again.

“Is dinner ready yet?” Aleda asked. If it wasn’t, it smelled like it.

“Almost, honey. Can you set the table, please?”

Already on it. Hell, the quicker they ate the quicker she could choke down that damned asparagus and get it over with. The cramped quarters made her life unnecessarily more difficult for a short time while three people tried to navigate themselves and the food around each other, but soon enough both dishes and people had managed to get themselves to the table.

 

 

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The sun dropped swiftly towards the horizon. Having run out of chicken, Aleda chewed nervously on her fork. It was about time, after all. So what if she’d never asked to go before. Papá was always talking about how bad it was over here. Not like Málaga, where there was hardly any point to go out anyway, seventeen years old or not. And after all, she wouldn’t be seventeen forever.

She swallowed. “Mom?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I was wondering something…”

“What is it, sweetie?”

 “Well, um…” Aleda swallowed again, nervously. “I was wondering if, since I’m going to be eighteen soon, less than eight months, maybe I could… can I come with you tonight?”

Papá jammed a fork into his chicken and left it there. She glanced at him. No nervousness. Mom would never let her go if she was going to be nervous. Almost eighteen, time to act like an adult. Mom studied her face for a moment, surprised.

“Well, I don’t know, sweetie. It’s a new neighborhood, and you don’t really know the area yet. You never came with us back in Málaga.”

“Aria…”

“I know, I—I guess I figured now’s a good a time as any, and it’s time I started. And if I decide I don’t like it, there’s still time to send in my college applications.”

That got a smile out of Mom. “You have a point. I was actually wondering when you’d start asking. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” Aleda insisted. “I’ll stay out of the way, I promise. Please?”

“I guess so. But I want you to just stand back, don’t get involved, at least for tonight.”

Aleda threw her arms around her. “Thank you! Thank you, thank you!”

Mom smiled. “Better go get changed, then.” Aleda nodded and dashed upstairs. “Remember,” she called after her daughter, “Comfortable shoes!”

“So where are we going?” Aleda kicked at a loose pebble on the sidewalk.

“The shopping center, just down the street,” Mom said. She reached out to readjust her daughter’s coat; Aleda batted her hand away. She was already seventeen—she could zip her own damned coat. “Stay close to me. Your papá is going on ahead to scout things out.”

“I thought he was a merc.”

Mom half-grinned. “He is, honey. But we need somebody to look around for us.”

“If we’re going to the shopping center, can I get a coffee?”

Mom laughed. “Not until afterwards. If anything happens, you’ll need your hands free.”

If anything happens? What was that supposed to mean?

There was the shopping center up ahead, just off the main road. It only took just a few minutes to walk there, yet in that time the sun sank fully past the horizon. Shadow engulfed the streets; the breeze turned cold.

Papá walked up ahead, reaching the shopping center first. Aleda wasn’t sure he was too happy about her coming along on this hunt. He hadn’t said a word to her or even so much as looked at her since they left the house, although she had overheard some faint whispering between her parents before they’d left. She wondered what was wrong.

There were a lot of people out, still. Too many. They joined the crowd. She had no idea what to look for. It didn’t matter—Mom and Papá knew. Keep moving.

There were too many people.

Papá went into one of the stores, and she didn’t see him come out. He had to act like everybody else. He couldn’t very well run in and out as if he were looking for someone.

Time passed. Aleda walked through the shopping center with Mom, never stopping for long, never buying anything. They looked like any mother and daughter out for new shoes or ice cream. They found Papá in the next store, but he shook his head. Nothing yet. Aleda didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Some nights, there was nothing, but they always had to try. Always had to hunt.

Mom moved away, out of the store. There were too many people in the way; Aleda grabbed her hand. Almost out of the crowd, almost to the door.

She yelped and let go of Mom’s hand. Four angry marks bloomed on her palm. Mom looked back at her. It was close. Aleda stepped back, rubbing her hand anxiously, while Mom scanned the crowd.

Four angry marks: four fingernails. Look at her hands. Sharp claws now extended from Mom’s delicate fingertips. It was very close. They had to find it before somebody saw, though it was hard to see among this many souls. Where is the darkness?

Found.

There, by the women’s dress shoes. Aleda could see him. There was something wrong. His eyes were wrong. Dead. Nobody else noticed. Mom moved to him, looked at some shoes, smiled. Back at the shoes, smile again. He would follow now. Leave the store, not too quickly. Where would she lead him? Out of the way, must stay out of the way. But she could not look away.

She nervously followed her out the store, around the side. Headed towards the dark. Dead eyes followed her. Aleda paled and shrank away when he passed her. The darkness. It poured from him like fog. She didn’t know what she had expected, but his presence almost overwhelmed her. Swiftly, smoothly, he followed Mom.

Where had she gone? She couldn’t find Mom. She had gone behind the store. Quickly, follow. Follow Mom. Have to stay out of the way but have to see. There, next to the back door. Looking through her purse. Her back faced approaching death. Should she shout? Surely she couldn’t see—but Mom knew what she was doing.

Right?

Almost there. He reached out…

Mom spun. Cast aside the purse, ducked his grasping hand. Her leg shot out to sweep him off his feet. A lunge. He was gone before he had a chance to look surprised.

Mom stood. Claws were gone now, leaving only bloodstained fingertips. Picked up her purse. Aleda could only stare at her in awe. For a moment she would have sworn she could see a glint of light in her eyes. Only the reflection of a streetlight.

“Are you alright, honey?”

Aleda nodded, mute.

“Here, let me see your hand.”

She gave Mom her hand, wincing a little to see a few drops of blood escaping from the cuts. Sharp claws, indeed. Her hand stung. Mom smiled reassuringly at her. “It’s not bad,” Mom said. “Do you want me to fix it?”

Another mute nod.

Mom turned her own hand over and opened a shallow cut in her palm with a briefly sharp nail. Turned it over again and pressed it against Aleda’s hand, with a whisper. As always, Aleda could not tell what was said.

Now her hand tingled. She looked at it. The cuts were gone, the last traces of red blood disappearing into the skin. Mom looked at her carefully, worriedly. The first hunt could be upsetting. Aleda just wanted to go home.

“Maybe we should call it a night,” Mom said. “Let’s find Papá. Do you still want that coffee?”

Aleda shook her head. “No, thanks,” she said quietly. “Let’s just go home.”