"Bienvenido a Mexico"
The skeleton ushers me forward but my foot doesn't hit the pedal. He seems to shift between man and bone. It's never the same man. It's an old man, a young man, a child, and a teen. Asian, black, white, and Spanish. Thankful notices it too as she squeezes my hand.
The vehicle moves on its own. I gaze at the rearview mirror, Anansi seats in the backseat but his body goes limp. Turning into a raveled doll with button eyes. "What the..."
As the car comes to a street littered with confetti. "This isn't the holidays..." says Thankful. "Who is La Dama Falsa?" I keep hearing the name but I nothing of knowledge in terms of appearance. "Thankful, baby, you have to tell me who La Dama Falsa is. What happened when you were a servant?"
She looks at me, her lips straight.
________
I was eight. Vampires get a lot through betting. so, I guess you can figure out how I got into bullshit. First, I went to school with Deidre, who at the moment I'm questioning to be my husband. However, I don't have a ring.
It was the summer and we were taking school pictures. He's part of the She Clan. My madre didn't approve of me messing with a black vampire. But I stuck and did it anyway. I say sneaking but back then. I thought I could help him.
We were released from class to go out the backdoor to the blacktop. I was fairly new, I plunk flowers from the small garden pot under the tree nearby. As I'm plunking a daisy, a ball hits me in the head. I didn't think too much of it given I was close to the basketball court. a tall boy came running up to me to apologize, his hair white and feathery. "Sorry." He says, "You ok?"
"Yeah," I rub the ache away. I'm looking into his eyes, two different colors, brown on the left and green on the right. "I like your eyes."
"Thanks. Hey, you wanna play ball with us?" He balances the ball on a fingertip and spins it around. "And don't say girls can't play. I'll show you if you want."
Cassis Eeligion Téger and Akika Shudderi Téger, twins. In total, the clan is about forty-two strong. I'm a vampire but I don't come from a big house. Cassis took up a lot of sports but he enjoyed basketball the most. Akika was more of the disciplinary. I called him a mama's boy. A sentence from him usually started with or ended with 'That's what mama said' or 'Mama said this...'
Most kids at school thought he was a dick or someone who didn't speak to a lot of people. His calm demeanor was welcoming, I had a crush on him during kindergarten. I thought I was in love until I met Childhood.
She's a big vamp. Childhood called them, her polite fangs, for they were thin yet sharp. Her boys and girls were thicker. "Ms. Hood, why are your fangs so small?" I asked, her daughter Penelope stood beside me and punched me in the arm. "Don't disrespect my mama!"
"I'm not!" Childhood chuckled and waved her hand between the two of us. "It's alright. Well, Thankful. I'm not much of a biter. As my son says, I ain't got no grip."
"Why not?" Her fangs were smaller than usual. some would think, that's normal but it's not. My father is a criminal and he's all gums. The DOHRCC barged in with guns and found illegal human blood during the search. They tackled my papa to the ground and ripped his teeth out. He couldn't feed, my mother fed him blood through straws and spoons. He started growing desperate, pointed back teeth that grow when a vampire is famished. "Did they defang you?"
"Yes... when I was small." she smiled although she didn't have to. I found it uneasy, how someone who is in pain could smile. She wasn't elderly, according to her kids. It was magic that made them look older whenever they wanted but at the time... Childhood said she was just 14. She used a walker with wheels.
After a while, I started talking to her son Deidre. At first, we didn't like each other. He was a slob, I didn't want anything to do with him and Akika wasn't talkative. But one day, he was on the side of the building crying.
"What's wrong?" I asked walking up to him. He whimpered, I looked around the blacktop to see if I could see one of his brothers. For a big family, they were all really close. All my brother did was kick me and steal from me. I didn't consider Tomas the oldest, he was too much of a baby. I disclaimed him, how my mother could call him a son was beyond me.
I knew if I called his brothers or sister, they would come rushing. Looking at his arms, he had bite marks from his shoulders to his wrist. "Go away!" he barked. "You're nosey as fuck!"
I furrowed, Deidre was always mean to me and never understood why. "What's your problem! I'm just trying to help!"
"I don't want your fucking help!" his voice deepened. He continued sulking, hugging his knees and wetting his pale brown face with tears. "Deidre--" I reached out to pat his head. He smacked my hand away. "Everyone else I try to tell doesn't believe me because my brother is a fucking liar. He's using magic to make mom ignore me!"
"He's a cannibal?" Baby vamps that feed on themselves have a condition. "I'll tell your mother! Promise."
"You can't..." Deidre murmurs. He looks up from his knees and screams as he turns to me. Deidre reaches for my socks and pulls me forward. "QUIT IT, ALEIGHA!" I fall on top of Deidre, flipping me over and crawling from under me. He jerks me back by my shirt, "SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOU"
"You're right," for a small boy his voice didn't go with his age. Pink eyes glowing with greed. He flashes his thick teeth, "I'm not your brother."
We knew something was wrong with Aleigha. We couldn't place what it was. Aleigha has Pediophobia, fear of dolls. He woke up with bite wounds and blood from his nose.
And a voodoo doll next to him.
_________
Thankful shakes my hand for attention. Her eyes wild, "I know what La Dama is. Deidre, it's a doll!" The car is controlling itself, I take my hands off the wheel. "Remember in kindergarten, Aleigha woke up with dolls but he couldn't find the other one. She looks like a Mexican doll!"
The car curves and goes down an alley. A circle of fog engulfs the car, I feel like we're back in Cabo San Lucas. The road is dirt, abandoned houses along the road with incomprehensible writing. "It's not Spanish... it looks like demonic symbols." notes Thankful. I know Satan and that's not his writing, "It's not demonic... that's vampiric lingo." Vampiric lingo is a symbolic language. I wouldn't expect her to know, I barely know any of it.
We drive up a winding road, dead trees looming over. The sky a menacing dark blue with the clouds in a ring in the distance. "do you know where you are?" I ask, I expect her to recognize this if she was around Toda. She glances at me then faces the road again, drawing her lips tight. "Thankful--"
"My name is Sence, Deidre."
"Really?" now she wants to play the name game. "Now you want to tell me?"
"Thankful is Toda's daughter!" I'm worn out. I'm confused. I'm sick and tired. "She's on top of the car. Thankful is dead!"
"How long has she--"
"This entire time! She needs help, she's not against us... she wants her mother dead." As I'm looking forward, ahead drop in front of the window. Two large white eyes, a skeleton head with a dark and red formal dress on. My head hits the seat, "Explain." The figure's jaw unhinges revealing fangs. "I'm Sence and I've been switching bodies with Thankful. Do you remember a girl in school that helped you?"
"That's my Thankful." I've been telling myself she's been here but she's switching out? I look at the figure, her hand touches the glass. "Thankful?" Reaching out, my fingers match her print. "What happened?"
Sence looks at me then at Thankful's bones. "She was with you and Aleigha and she got taken first. Toda was using her own daughter for the circus. She ran away and got caught by the adoption service. Toda took her daughter back..."
"Who are you?"
"Her twin..." she lowers her head and shifts in the passenger seat. "That was she got put into this mess... because I didn't want to do it."
My anger is through the roof, I ball up my fist and strike Sence in the jaw. Thankful outside makes cooing sounds, gently tapping on the glass. I grab Sence by her collar and put her up against the window. "TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!"
Her bloody nose drips down her lip. I don't care if she's hurt. "Headcount..." she breathes, "Undead vampire. Refuses to die. Has a bunch of souls inside of him."
"Headcount?"
She sniffs, "To put it simply. He's playing a video game. He's putting souls into different dead people and controlling them to act a certain way. The Name Game. It's about Power!"
Nigga, a video game as in The Sims? That's fucking ridiculous. Who in the hell has the power to hold souls inside of them, control them, and put them into different bodies?
"Toda!" I pick her up and slam her against the door again. "She's our mother, I'm Thankful's twin. I'm the oldest, she wanted me to be in the circus. There are two definitions of a pedophile."
"So, you're saying your mother is a pedophile?" There is no second meaning to that shit. Pedophilia comes from philia means to 'love something'. "Childhood had a lot of kids. She was a pedophile!"
"Philia means fetish!" I just want her to die. "Childhood was a child prostitute and a serial killer! She's the most powerful fucking maul! Headcount wanted her soul but she didn't come to him."
I released her. My mind is telling me to punch her again until her breath leaves. "This is all about my mom?" My mother is old. All her discoveries from when she was tormented as a child, we live off of that. The bone marrow, she found that out after losing a leg and arm.
Cassis and Akika are the firstborn. They should be the ones doing this not my brother.
"Mama runs the pedophile circus." utters Thankful. "Childhood escaped from the first circus."
"What was the name of the first circus?" I look out my front windshield. "Cirque Butterfly." she crawls down the window. I hadn't even noticed the car stopped. Thankful stands in front of the car and points to the mansion in the distance. "Come on, we have to walk from here."
Why can't I recall her death? What is going on with my head? It's about ready to split.