A Queen Among Darkness: Chapter Five - Valeria

As I stand in the booth of the villa’s firing range, I load another cartridge into my Beretta, aim, and fire several shots, each one delivering a successful grouping hitting the centre of the target and the centre of the head. I haven’t even been home a full day and already my father and Mateo have me in a foul mood, so I’m taking my anger out on some targets. I’ve already gone through six cartridges and I’m not feeling my mood improve.

“Mija?” I hear my mother call. I glance back to see my mother across the grass walking over to me. “What’s bothering you?” She gently asks, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“What makes you think something is bothering me?” I ask as I fire another shot.

“You only ever spend this much time practising your shots when something is bothering you,” she says with a knowing smile. Leave it to a mother to know her daughter so well. “This is about your father, isn’t it?”

“And Mateo,” I spit.

“I know you tend to butt heads with them, but what they do, they do for the good of mankind,” she says, squeezing my shoulder.

I put my Beretta down and face my mother with an incredulous look on my face. “How can you say that with a straight face?”

“Valeria…”

“No. You can’t honestly tell me that keeping people in cages and torturing them for days or weeks or even months is for the good of mankind. It serves no purpose than to allow some sick pendejos to get their rocks off. I know Mateo is your son, he’s my brother, but what he’s doing is wrong. We are meant to be better than these monsters. We’re meant to be saving humans from them, but we’re not saving anyone by doing this, you have to know that,” I say indignantly.

“I know it seems that way…” she begins to say.

I pull away and stare at my mother in disgust, “It doesn’t seem that way, it is that way. Your son has sexually assaulted prisoners. Tell me what good that does anyone?” I spit in contempt, watching my mother flinch at my words.

“He’s just misguided, that’s all,” she says in defence of my brother.

“He’s not misguided, he’s sick in the head. You have raised a monster, how–” My words are cut off as my mother’s hand connects with the side of my face, causing my head to whip to the side as the sting of her slap radiates through my cheek.

“That is your brother; your flesh and blood you are speaking of. You will not say such horrible things, do you understand me?” She says assiduously. I slowly look at my mother and like always, push down everything I want to say so deep it hurts. “Do you understand me, Valeria?” She says as she looks deep in my eyes.

“I understand perfectly,” I say in an emotionless voice.

My mother steps closer and gently caresses the cheek she just slapped, “There are many monsters in this world, mija. If we turn on each other then we let them win. We can survive anything as long as we stick together as a family. Family is what matters most,” she says softly, her words rotting my eardrums with their bullshit. She really is going to preach the importance of family after bitch slapping me? Surprised she didn’t pull out a chancla from somewhere and start hitting me with it, or maybe that’s too beneath her these days.

“So you just want me to sit back and do nothing while my father orders children to be killed and my brother rapes people?” I say with disdain.

Her expression turns impassive as she lowers her hand from my cheek, “You know what I think the real issue is? You’re upset you’ve been single for so long. I’m sure you’d feel much better if you could just find a nice young woman you could settle down with,” she says with a Stepford smile. Wonderful, moving from one shitty topic to the next. Someone tell me what I was actually missing about this place.

“I am perfectly happy being on my own. Besides, the job doesn’t leave a lot of time for a love life,” I point out.

“I was dedicated to the cause my whole life and I still managed to meet your father and have you and your brother,” she smiles.

“You found him because you worked together,” I point out.

“Then perhaps you should be looking for someone within the organisation. It would be perfect! She’d understood you, and you could go on missions together as your father and I did. Any woman would be lucky to have you,” she says affectionately.

With my father I always know I’m getting a hard ass. With my brother I always know I’m getting a sociopath, but mum? It’s fucked up how easily she can go from laying a hand on me to singing my praises and planning my wedding. Again I have to wonder, are they the crazy ones, or am I? I mean, don’t they say if you’re complaining about everyone around you then chances are you’re the problem?

“I appreciate where you’re coming from, but I don’t want to date another venatrix. I want someone I can have a life with outside of all this death and mayhem,” I say as I switch out the cartridge in my gun.

“But then you’d be living a lie,” she says with concern.

“Sometimes a lie is better.”

“Do you resent your life that much?” She says with a hurt expression on her face.

I sigh and resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I don’t resent my life. I believe in our cause; I just also believe in mercy and compassion. If I have to go out on a mission and kill several supernaturals, I want to come home to someone who I don’t have to talk about that stuff with. Someone I can just relax with and forget about all this stuff. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know. I wish I didn’t know vampires and werewolves and a million other things were real. I wish I could be ignorant like other humans, but I’m not. So is it so wrong that I want one aspect of my life to be a life devoid of supernatural bullshit?” I ask tiredly.

She gives me a sympathetic smile, “When you put it like that, I suppose not. We know and see things that most humans couldn’t even fathom, and it’s hard being burdened by that knowledge. We carry that burden so other humans don’t have to, so I can understand wanting a life separate from that, and if that is what your heart wants, then I hope you find someone who can give that to you,” she says sincerely as she tucks my hair behind my ear.

“Thank you, mamá,” I say with a kind smile.

Not sure whether to be thankful or not, but our emotional yoyo of a conversation is interrupted when an alarm starts blaring all around the villa and amber lights start flashing. Shit. That means there’s been a breakout. How the fuck did that happen?

“Go, I’ll handle the lockdown,” orders my mother. I nod and grab my Beretta as my mother runs to the house and I run towards the prison. This is what I’m talking about. If we just killed these creatures and got it over with instead of keeping them around to cut up like sashimi, we wouldn’t have something like this happening, but does anyone listen to me? No, I just get slapped.

I storm into the prison and see no one at their post. I draw my gun, wishing I had something other than silver bullets on me, and quietly make my way down the stairs to the dungeon. As I make it to the bottom I look around to see nearly a dozen guards knocked unconscious, every cell open, and a gaping hole in the wall. Fucking me. Every single prisoner has been set free. I’m not even sure how many people were down here; I can only hope they’re too weak to get too far.

I cautiously walk down the corridor and through the large hole and as I do that tugging feeling in my gut starts up again. I don’t know what that is, but it is extremely annoying and distracting. I pass through the hole, out to the grassy grounds of the villa just as I see a dark-skinned man seem to vanish into thin air. The only other person left is a woman who looks like she’s been the subject of my brother’s sick games. Part of me feels bad for her, but she’s still a monster that I can’t let free.

I hold my position and aim my gun squarely at the back of her head, “Don’t fucking move,” I warn. But does she listen to me? Of course not, because they never fucking do. Slowly she turns around to face me and I’m momentarily stunned. I don’t normally say this, but for an evil monster, she’s incredibly stunning. 5’10 with a voluptuous body, and olive skin that is hidden under ghastly cuts, burns and stained with blood. She looks at me as if in a trance with beautiful warm brown eyes that shine in a way I’ve never seen before. She has perfectly arched brows, gorgeous full lips and soft brown hair that reaches her shoulder blades, though it definitely looks like it could use a wash. She’s wearing a figure-hugging black shirt with open buttons at the top showing the most incredible breasts I’ve ever seen – at least clothed – and high-waisted light skinny jeans with no shoes. The state of her clothes tells me she’s at least been here a few days and that instantly makes me feel bad for her.

“Look, I really don’t want to hurt you, but I am leaving one way or another,” she says calmly. I detect a French accent that – against my will – makes my body tingle. Fine, I admit she’s beautiful, but she’s still a fucking monster.

“You must be crazy if you think I’m just going to let you walk away,” I say confidently, trying to keep my eyes on hers, which was probably not a good idea. Her eyes look so tired.

“Then shoot me,” she instructs casually. I try not to show the surprise on my face at her words. I should shoot her, it’s what I’m trained to do. So why can’t I bring myself to do it? That stupid tugging in my gut is getting worse and I really wish it would stop. “You didn’t even have to warn me that you were behind me, you could have just gone for the kill and gotten it over with. Why didn’t you?” She asks curiously.

Well, that’s a good fucking question. Why the hell didn’t I just put a bullet in the back of her head? I’ve done it a hundred other times, so why not now?

Of their own accord my feet bring me a step closer, but I keep my gun pointed firmly at her, even though something about the action now suddenly makes my skin crawl. “Didn’t want to risk wasting a bullet,” I say, thinking of the first excuse to come to mind, “Besides, I’d like to know how you managed to break out since that should have been impossible.” There, that’s a reasonable excuse. Hopefully, one my father will accept when he blows up at me for hesitating for the first time in my life.

“I don’t think you actually want to shoot me, and I don’t think you even know why. So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to leave, and we can just pretend this never happened,” she says in a soft voice. Is she reading me or reading my mind? Fuck, she’s probably a bruja. She could be putting a spell on me for all I know and that’s why I hesitated. I fucking despise brujas.

“Take a single step, and I will shoot you,” I threaten.

“Let’s see which one of us is right then,” she says calmly, turning around and stepping forward. As she does I notice half of her body begin to disappear.

Oh hell no, she is not getting away that easily. I quickly slide my gun into the back of my pants and take a run at her jumping onto her back and falling forward with her. Instead of landing on grass, we land on dirt and a quick glance around is enough to tell me we’re not in Kansas anymore.