Read Online Vampire Miami by Philip Tucker - Free Book Online

music
was hypnotizing. People were making out, finding recesses like her
own to get to know each other better. It had been such a long day.
But she couldn’t let herself sleep, fought to stay alert. It was
too dangerous.
    After a while, she pulled out her Omni once
more. Found comfort in its brilliant screen. She searched for the
term “freedom fight” and found a long series of videos, articles,
information. She checked a video. Couldn’t hear the audio over the
music, but saw enough to quickly close the feed down. Two men
battering each other to death in a huge auditorium, a large crowd
watching from the seats. She scanned the Wikipedia article. Read
enough to realize that they were lethal fights held here in Miami
at the old sports arena. If you won three fights, you could walk
free of the city. Each fight was to the death. Though it was banned
in the US, the fights were recorded and promoted online. Selah felt
sick.
    A message beeped. Jairo. Homesick and tired, she
decided to accept the request. His face appeared on her screen,
earnest and serious. He immediately threw up his hands and said
something inaudible. She turned on the subtitles again.
    “Finally!” he’d said. He mouthed something. “Are
you OK?”
    Selah shook her head. Jairo hadn’t been her very
best friend back home, but he had been a friend. She thought he
liked her, but whatever. That didn’t matter right now.
    “We are all thinking of you,” the subtitles
read. “Missing you like crazy.”
    Her eyes teared up again. God , she
thought angrily, all I do is cry . She blinked the tears away
and tried for a brave smile. Typed out, “Course you do.”
    “Where are you? Are you really on the Beach?”
The admiration and fear on his face made her sit up a little.
    “Yes,” she typed out. “At a club called
Magnum.”
    “You don’t waste any time,” he said. “What’s it
like?”
    “Crazy,” she replied. “Here, check it out.”
    She had an Alpha connection after all. She put
the Omni on 360-degree recording mode and set it on the table
before her. Leaned forward at the last moment and sent the feed to
not only Jairo but her Garden as well. Let the world see where she
was.
    The Omni didn’t change, but anybody tapping into
her feed would be able to move their point of view around and look
at anything they wanted. Zoom in, listen, whatever. She sat back,
crossed her arms. Stared at the Omni. Let Jairo and Scott and
Alessandra get a taste of just where she’d ended up. She felt
absurdly abandoned by them, as if they’d chosen to leave her alone
here. Incoming messages began to beep on the top right of the
screen. She wasn’t surprised. Let them add on to the hundreds
already queued on her Connection Wall. She’d check them later.
    Selah looked past the Omni into the depths of
the lounge. It was like a marine grotto, all shifting sea greens
and shadows. She didn’t want to see what half the people were
doing, but she knew Scott would be all over that action like the
sick puppy he was. She searched for black eyes. Didn’t see any.
Curious, morbidly so, she examined the couples who were hidden in
the larger chairs, in the corners. Were they just making out, or
…? She tried to see. Would a vampire feed in public? The
word didn’t come as easily to her mind as it had before. Not after
that dance. Just the thought set her heart racing.
    A couple of large men appeared in the doorway to
the room. They were alert, clearly not here to have fun. Selah
scooted back, and then as they entered the lounge and began to make
their way purposefully toward her corner, she snatched up her Omni
and shoved it in her pocket. One of them was the bouncer from out
front, while the second was a lean Hispanic dude wearing sunglasses
looked at everybody with a harsh, sour-looking face. They knifed
through the lounge, indifferently kicking legs out of their way,
and Selah shrank even further back into her chair. They were coming
right at her.
    She looked around