Vampire Miami Read Online Free

lowered themselves back into their chairs to resume
their game.
    The building was shaped like a hollow box,
apartments ringing the central yard, which had been turned into a
small garden. Selah tried not to stare, but failed. Music filled
the air, live music she realized, somebody on guitar and another on
accordion, playing from an open hallway somewhere above them. The
smell of soup mixed with the rich and fecund stench of a pile of
manure, and a group of five goats stood together to one side,
looking bored. Chickens pecked underfoot, and a tapestry of dinner
smells wafted from doors all around her. People were hanging out,
and all of them watched her, staring down from above or turning to
look as she passed. Four open fires burned in carefully constructed
pits in each corner of the yard, and everywhere faces were alive
with curiosity as they examined her.
    They were mostly black people, with a number of
Hispanics here and there. A few white faces, but not many. A large
group of old people sat in a circle of beach chairs watching a game
of dominoes, faces wrinkled with sadness and pain, eyes soft in the
firelight, sympathy writ large on their features. Kids, plenty of
little kids, some half naked, stared curiously at her, momentarily
frozen, their games forgotten. The music stopped for a moment as
the players noticed the disturbance, and then mercifully picked up
once more.
    Mama B was important. That much was obvious.
People called out greetings, came up to talk to her, but she simply
nodded or excused herself, head down, great iron dreadlocks
extending stiff behind her. She made her way along the edge of the
yard, past an herb garden and up to the dark mouth of a stairwell,
Cholly faithfully following behind. Selah trailed in her wake,
attempting to take in everything at once, mouth a thin line,
overwhelmed and trying not to show it. She heard voices pick up
behind her, and the smell of food made her stomach cramp. Despair
swamped her. This was where she was going to spend the rest of her
life? With every passing moment she realized with greater clarity
that she had had no idea what she was doing when she’d requested to
be deported. None at all.
    She looked down at her Omni, still clutched in
her hand. She’d been on a Beta connection since Ft. Lauderdale, but
now she saw that the speed had dropped to Charlie level. That was
almost too much, and she fled into the darkness of the stairwell as
the horror of it all overwhelmed her.
    She staggered up some steps and leaned against
the wall, trying to hold back her sobs. She thought of New York, of
her father, of her friends. Thought of her room back home, her
clothes, her old life. Already it was all going on without her.
Already she’d been forgotten, cut off from the world. She stood in
the dark, back to the courtyard and trembled, fists buried under
her chin, eyes squeezed shut, fat tears running down her cheeks.
What had she done? She was here, irrevocably here, and there was no
going back.
    Footsteps came down the steps in the dark. Selah
looked up, expecting Mama B, but no. High heels. The person was
cursing in a rich whisper of Spanish, the voice confident and
exasperated. Selah shrank back against the wall but the girl still
nearly ran into her as she turned the corner.
    “ Pero dios, que haces aqui en el oscuro? ” The voice sharp, annoyed.
    “I’m sorry,” said Selah. She felt miserable. She
couldn’t even hide in a stairwell.
    “Who is that?” Selah heard the sound of a purse
opening, then the rasp of a lighter and consequent flame.
Yellow-orange light, and Selah saw the woman’s face. She was
beautiful, features striking, hair a gorgeous mane of black, full
and rich and smooth and straight. Not as old as she’d thought,
either, just a couple of years more than Selah.
    “Who are you?” asked the girl again, voice
demanding.
    “Selah,” she said. “I’m with … Mama B.”
    “Ah,” said the girl, “her baby. What are you
doing hiding in