roof.”
“Enough,” Father Juan chastised them as he began to fill the glasses. He added a healthy measure of water into one of them, and handed it to Jenn. She still wasn’t a wine drinker.
“Let’s seek out these resistance cells,” Jenn said.
“We’re not diplomats,” Jamie argued. “I came here to kill vampires, not start a club.”
Father Juan ignored him. “Jenn is your leader, and this is a wise move. Skye and I will work magicks and try to discern who is safe to approach.”
“We can’t even trust each other, Father.” Jamie’s voice rose. “And meanin’ no disrespect, but you and Skye ain’t found the traitor who keeps telling the suckers our plans.”
“Jamie- kun ,” Eriko murmured. “Please, don’t argue with Father Juan.”
Jamie clamped his jaw shut, the vein in his forehead bulging. He was barely keeping his fury under control.
Father Juan stood. “I’ll ask Brother Manuel to make you all something to eat. You must be hungry.”
“I’m sure Antonio is,” Jamie said. “All that blood splatterin’ about. Like starters for a big dinner.”
“Jamie,” Father Juan reproved.
The priest left, and the team sat for a moment, staring at one another, sipping their wine. After a minute Jamie picked up the remote control for the small television in the corner and clicked it on. A little television would help them unwind. And if they were watching something, they wouldn’t have to talk about what had happened.
A news program came on. “Bienvenidos, España,” said the beautiful blond anchorwoman. Her coanchor, a man with salt-and-pepper hair, sat beside her and smiled at the camera.
“Today the Ministry of Economy and Finance unveiled a new benefits program for our senior citizens. All pensions will be increased by ten percent, effective November fourteenth. This will be accomplished without an increase in taxes, due to reductions in spending on national defense.”
“Yeah, us,” Jamie said. But the Spanish government had never footed the bill for the academy or the hunters it graduated. The Catholic Church had, and as far as Jenn knew, it was still paying.
“In other news,” the male broadcaster said, “there is a new art exposition at the Alhambra called Brothers. It features oils and watercolors by some of the world’s leading vampiric artists. The queen will attend the grand opening, and political heads of state and cebzbrities from stage and screen are flying in to admire the beautiful canvases celebrating the special relationship between humanity and those who walk the night.”
The group groaned in unison.
A segment followed about a drop in violent crime in Madrid. So much of the news was propaganda, lies about the Cursed Ones or banalities in context of all of the fighting and dying.
“This is shite,” Jamie grumbled, and Jenn had to agree. She looked over at Antonio, who was watching, stone-faced. He’d seen it all before—in other times, during other wars. After all this time was he still the idealistic man he had been more than seventy years before, giving his soul to God and his life to the people?
That’s why I fell in love with him , she thought wonderingly. He’s like my grandparents, putting it all on the line to fight for justice. Like Papa Che. God, I miss Papa Che so much.
She had left home and joined the academy because of Papa Che. She realized with a start that Antonio had been born about the same time as her beloved grandfather.
“Antonio, I need to see you,” Father Juan called.
“Ya vengo,” Antonio said in Spanish. I’m coming.
He got up and started to leave the room.
The anchorwoman looked mournfully into the camera, and a logo of a bat carrying a heart appeared behind her. “In news from the United States, you may remember the tragic tale of Brooke Thompson and Simon Morton, the young lovers who were brutally murdered in Brooke’s home in Berkeley, California.”
“Oh, God,” Jenn said, feeling ill.
“Moved by their
Liz Reinhardt, Steph Campbell