Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,75
to their beds to sun salves to help protect those who couldn’t tolerate it. The elixirs they bottled delivered on their promises, for there was no snake oil in these pretty containers. Only the Turner women knew the secrets hidden in each glass jar. A secret alchemy of blood and spices.
“Does it really matter?” Bea complained, but still placed one of the creams on its proper shelf.
“It’s how it’s been for the past three hundred years.”
“So does that mean it always has to be?” Bea replied.
“Why you all of a sudden trying to change things up? Don’t act brand-new just cause we’re in a different city.” Sora swept behind her and rearranged them. “No one wants to have to do this for you.”
“I do my work,” Bea snapped back.
“Biting folks Mama instructs you to don’t count,” Cookie challenged.
“None of you want to collect,” Bea replied.
“You’re stretching the truth. I will collect.” Sora pivoted to face her. “I just prefer to tend to the blood vault. I’ll do it when I have to.”
“And I like biting handsome men.” Cookie swayed and twirled. “Like Jamal Watkins from Detroit. Never been a better kisser than him. Should’ve turned him. He’d be my eternal partner now, and I’d have my own house and my own firebird. Maybe even a baby girl. Oof.”
“Bea, you’re the best at it,” Annie Ruth added. “Have the sharpest teeth of us all.” She flashed a crooked smile, exposing a set of perfectly pointed incisors. “And that weird tongue.”
“And Mama’s favorite.” May’s face twisted as she gazed up from her book.
“She loves me most!” Baby Bird protested with a stomp.
“You’re too old for a tantrum.” Cookie yanked one of her long twists. “But, of course, you’re right. She does.”
“None of this is true.” Bea whipped around. Accusatory brown faces glared back at her. “Mama doesn’t have favorites.”
But they were correct that Mama took Bea most often to collect. Each of her sisters had a gift bestowed upon them by Mama after their hearts stopped. She’d kissed them, leaving behind a unique talent she’d handpicked. Cookie could charm any person out of their fortune or a kiss. With a mere sniff of her nose, Sora identified any talents hidden within someone’s blood. If Annie Ruth hummed a certain type of song, she might make one dance until their death. At her command, May could reduce a person to laughter or tears with a look or the touch of her hand. And the littlest of them all, Baby Bird, remembered every detail, even those that happened before she’d been born.
“I’m not leaving this city without an eternal partner,” Cookie announced.
A tiny whisper echoed inside Bea: Me neither.
“I’ve made a decision. I’m ready for my own firebird and my own house. It’s time for me to be on my own.” Cookie smiled triumphantly.
“Does Mama know? Did you ask her?” Annie Ruth replied. “She’s not going to say yes.”
“You don’t know that,” Cookie said.
“If you’d stop being so picky.” Sora swatted at her.
“If you ain’t the pot … You complain about every man you meet,” Annie Ruth said.
“They’re never that interesting. Men rarely are until they’re at least two hundred years old.” Cookie hissed at her. “I just need to find someone like Daddy to turn.”
“There are no mortals here,” Sora challenged. “I can’t even smell them. This place is full of other immortal folks.”
“Maybe I’ll get a vampire, then.” Cookie pranced around, mimicking how white vampires walked as if they owned every place their ancient feet touched.
Baby Bird gasped. Bea bit her bottom lip. That would never be allowed.
“Mama doesn’t want us mixing with them. You know the history.” May climbed out of her chair like a house cat stretching. She nudged Cookie and Bea to the side so she could add price ribbons to the bottles.
“We all know she doesn’t like it. Mama won’t let us forget.” Bea dusted the shelves to make the ever-watchful Cookie happy.
Each one took turns mocking the serious tone Mama adopted whenever she recounted how their bloodline had become Eternal—white vampire slavers biting their enslaved for sport—and how the ancestors sent the firebirds to save them from this worsening fate, transforming them into a different sort of immortal being: an Eternal.
“If you marry a vampire, you won’t be able to have daughters. You have to marry a mortal like Daddy and then turn him after the last child. It’s the only way,” Bea reminded. “Or marry an Eternal man and have no children.”