by J. R. Rain
We next went through friends, jobs, boyfriends, and girlfriends. There was no connection anywhere. No friends of friends. Nothing. His name, I learned, was Jon.
“Maybe we sat next to each other on an airplane trip,” he offered. “Or shared a seat on a train.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe our eyes met across a crowded room, and we’ve never forgotten each other.”
“Romantic, but no.”
“Maybe I know you from another life,” he suggested.
Okay, that hit me. Another life. Another time. Another place. And something in the here and now was tugging at me, reminding me that I knew him. Great. “Maybe,” I said.
“But there’s no way to know for sure,” he said. “And that sucks.”
“Totally,” I said, then, feeling defeated, motioned to his laptop. “So, what are you working on, Hemingway?”
“A novel.”
“What kind of novel?”
“A murder mystery.”
I snapped my fingers. “Maybe I’ve read one of your books.”
“Did you just snap your fingers?”
I giggled a little. “Yes.” God, he was so easy to get along with. “What’s your name?”
“John Grisham.”
I stared at him, knowing my mouth had dropped open stupidly. “Really.”
“No, that was a joke.”
I shook my head and looked back at Tammy who was happily slurping from her drink and kicking her feet, watching us, listening to us. Even from across the room. Weird kids, I thought.
Hey, she shot back.
I smiled and gave her a small wave. She stuck her tongue out at me.
“Your kid?” he asked.
“My monster.”
“She’s cute for a monster,” he said.
I like him, thought Tammy.
Shh, I hissed silently. And stop being so nosy.
“So what do you do?” he asked.
“I’m a private investigator.”
“Serious?”
“Serious as my mortgage payment.”
“I used to be a private eye,” he said.
I snapped my head up. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s where I know you.”
“I doubt it. I worked in L.A. and mostly I worked alone.”
“Damn.”
He grinned. “Double damn.”
“So, you write books under Jon?”
“No, I use a pen name.”
I raised my eyebrows. Maybe I had read his books after all. “What’s your pen name?”
He looked at me for a long moment. “No,” he finally said.
“No, what?”
“No, I won’t tell you.”
My heart sank even as my frustration rose. “I could make you tell me.”
“Because you’re a mad mom in a minivan?”
“Because I have my ways,” I said. “Why won’t you tell me your pen name?”
“Because this is more fun.”
“To walk off into the sunset and we’ll always wonder?”
“Something like that. Except I’m going to get into my SUV and drive over to my sister’s house for dinner.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Yes, I do.”
He laughed some more and began gathering his bags, and as he did so, I noticed the time on his watch was two hours fast.
“Your watch is off,” I said.
He frowned and looked down. “Off?”
“It’s two hours fast.”
He looked again. “No, it’s the right time.” He looked at me as I’d lost my marbles. Maybe I had. I looked at the time on my iPhone. Yup, his was two hours off. I showed him the time difference.
He leaned over and looked. “Weirdness.”
Then, when he had everything packed, he turned to me and said, “Well, it was certainly fun meeting you, whoever you are.”
“Don’t you want my name?”
“No.”
“Rot in hell,” I said, and crossed my arms.
He laughed loudly, throwing back his head. When he was done, he slung his cool satchel over his shoulder. “Till we meet again.”
“Bastard.”
He smiled and nodded and left through the side doors. As he passed Tammy, he gave her a small wave. She smiled and waved back.
Once outside, he looked back at me through the big glass window. He winked, adjusted his bag, and, no, he didn’t disappear or fade away. He walked beyond the window and out of sight. No doubt to his SUV.
Whoever the hell he was.
The End
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Dark Side of the Moon
The kids were away, and I wanted to fly.
And I mean really fly.
Maybe I was inspired by my kids going to Space Camp. Mary Lou’s kids were supposed to go, but they had the mumps, so Tammy and Anthony got to go in their places.
So here I was, alone. Free.
For some time now, a very simple question had been in the back of my mind: Just how high could I fly?
It was a legitimate question, one that not even Fang could answer. Yes, Fang was back in my life now, kind of. Feelings were raw, open and unexplored. We were both hurt. We were both confused. For the most part, Fang was not the same Fang I remembered. He was colder now, more calculating, more confident. He was also closed off to me, and so that beautiful telepathic bond we’d once shared was gone. But we had, of course, a different kind of bond.
A supernatural bond. A vampiric bond.
Fang was, in fact, the only other vampire I associated with, now that Hanner was gone.
But that’s another story, for another time.
For now, I wanted to fly, as high as I possibly could.
I wanted to test my abilities, test my limitations, and explore myself fully.
It was crazy. I knew that.
I should be at home, doing laundry, or working a case. Not flying high above the treetops. Hell, in the very least, I should be powering through my DVR recordings. I had a whole month of Nashville episodes waiting for me. No, I didn’t watch many of the vampire shows. They often got it wrong, or focused on issues that were foreign to me. I didn’t sparkle or keep a diary. And I wasn’t like those other vampires who were played by beautiful, young actors. My God, I had kids. A dead husband. A sister who was still traumatized by the events of last month. She was getting better, yes. She was coming out of shock, slowly but surely. But for a few weeks there, she wanted nothing to do with me. She only wanted to be around her family: her kids and her husband.
She didn’t blame me for her kidnapping. She blamed the situation that I had found myself in, the situation she had been drawn into.
Mostly, she was in shock. Her world had been irrevocably rocked, shaken. The poor thing had thought she would die. Or, in the least, turned into a creature like me. Then, of course, she had been there when my ex-husband had been killed.
Yeah, that had not been a good night for Mary Lou.
I’d told her that I was there for her if she needed me. She didn’t, not now. She needed her family—mumps and all—and I understood that.
I continued flying, gaining altitude. It was colder up here. I didn’t mind the cold. Hell, I enjoyed the cold. My God, I lived in perpetual cold!
Anyway, the temperature was dropping to near freezing. Near freezing didn’t bother me much either. So, I continued up, higher than I ever had before. Higher and higher. My breath didn’t form vapor puffs before me, as the creature I became didn’t need to breathe much.
I liked flying because it gave me a chance to reflect on my life—where I had been and where I was going.
I finally realized something: I had accepted Danny’s death.
My kids were another story. They had, of course, lost their father, and my heart broke for them every time I looked into their faces.
At first, I listened to their crying at night. I had often caught Antho
ny crying alone in the bathroom, of all places. With the door locked, he had let it all out. Tammy was inconsolable in that dramatic way that adolescent girls had. She didn’t hide what she felt like Anthony tried to. He was trying to be such a little man. And he had been. I had let them weep. They had to weep. It had been a while since Danny’s death and now I hoped their trip would distract them. They had been excited to go.
When alone, I cried, too. Once, and then let it go. Danny was a bastard in the end, and a lot of my love and compassion was long gone. But I wept for the young Danny I had fallen in love with, the young Danny I had married and started a family with...and then, that was all the tears I had shed. No, he didn’t deserve what had happened to him; the poor sap hadn’t realized he was being used as a pawn. That he had aligned with Hanner to take me down should have been reason enough to not cry at all. But Danny was an idiot and he had been scared. Of me. He based many of his decisions on fear, which was never a good idea.
No, I chose to remember the Danny who had proposed to me with a mood ring as a stand-in because he was too poor to afford a real engagement ring. I still had that mood ring in my jewelry box. I’d often considered ditching it; now I wouldn’t. I hadn’t kept much of our sentimental stuff, but I would keep that.
Mostly, my heart broke for my kids. I couldn’t imagine what they were going through. Worse was the secrecy of it all. Yes, not only had their father been killed—murdered—but they were being asked to cover up his death.
To pretend it hadn’t happen.
To pretend that their father had simply disappeared.
He hadn’t disappeared. He was entombed in a cavern, along with two vampires, both dead.
I flew faster now. Faster and higher.
Indeed, I was more upset over my kids—and what they were presently going through—than with Danny’s death. Did that make me a bad person? Maybe, maybe not. I grieved for Danny, yes, but I wept for my children.
They hadn’t asked for any of this. Neither had I, for that matter. Still, they were just kids. Jesus, how were they going to move on? How were they going to heal?
I didn’t know, but I knew they had to.
I had to trust that I was doing the right thing for them, even though I was asking the world of them, to keep their father’s death a secret. At least, for now.
My kids are special, I thought as the wind thundered over my perfectly aerodynamic body. They can make it through this.
I knew that most mothers thought their kids were special. But my kids weren’t like most kids. In fact, they weren’t like any kids.
Indeed, my son had all the strength of a vampire, without actually being one...and my daughter was growing more telepathic and more psychic every day.
We’re the Addams Family, I thought. Only cuter.
Higher I flew, higher and faster. I never got tired when I flew. The creature I became seemed to have endless energy. Supernatural energy.
I noted that the temperature was dropping rapidly, but the dropping temperature didn’t affect me. The creature that may or may not have been summoned from another realm, another dimension, did not get cold or fatigued. As best I could tell, the creature had armor-like skin. Scales, perhaps. A true dragon. In fact, creatures such as this—creatures such as me—were surely the source of dragon legends.
I knew what I was doing was crazy. I had even done the research. I knew how fast I had to fly to break free of the Earth’s gravity.
26,000 miles an hour.
I didn’t know how fast I could actually fly, of course. My guess was maybe a thousand miles an hour. Maybe more, maybe less.
Then again, I had never tried to fly at top speed, whatever that might be.
Well, I was about to find out.
Crazy, I thought, even as I beat my wings faster and faster. Hummingbird fast. A blur of wingtips that I could see out of the corners of my eyes.
Nuts, just nuts.
No way could I fly that fast.
No way.
But maybe.
Just maybe.
Of course, I knew there was a very strong probability that I would die. That something very bad could happen as I tried to escape Earth’s atmosphere.
Except, I knew that this creature’s hide was thicker and stronger than the tiles that protected the various space shuttles. Also, this creature didn’t need to breathe. The vacuum of space, I suspected, would pose little problem in that area.
Besides, I suspected that this hideously beautiful creature that I had transformed into would be just fine in space. How I knew this, I didn’t know. Then again, how I turned into a giant flying beast, I didn’t know either.
But I somehow knew that this creature could easily handle the rigors of space. Even more, that it was perfectly adapted for space. Which begged the question again: where exactly did it originate from? I didn’t know, but I hoped to someday find out.
I figured that for a creature who could come in and out of our reality, hop from dimension to dimension, world to world at a moment’s notice, and take a quick jaunt to the moon, shouldn’t pose a problem.
Or so I hoped.
I was now higher than I’d ever been before. My guess, maybe 50,000 feet up, higher than most commercial jets flew.
This is insane, I thought.
It was, of course, all the more insane because I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have any precedent, nothing to base the outcome on.
Just my gut.
Or rather, the creature’s gut.
Which got me thinking: did it need to eat? If so, what did it eat?
Who are you? I suddenly thought.
There was, of course, no response. Who or what or even where this creature was summoned from, I didn’t know, but I suspected the Highly Evolved Dark Masters—those entities that fueled creatures like vampires and werewolves—would know. More important, they had something to do with it. And it occurred to me then, as I flew higher and higher and as the Earth slipped farther and farther below me, that the creature itself had taken a sort of back seat to allow me in.
He’s here, I thought. Watching me, observing me, wondering what I will do next with his body.
Was he a sentient creature? As in, could he rationally think? Was he intelligently aware?
Can you hear me? I asked it.
No answer. Still, I thought he was there, listening, alert, curious. All were aspects, of course, of a thinking, intelligent, sentient being.
He’s not a monster, I thought. Then directed my thoughts to him: You’re not a monster.
There was no reply, nor did I expect there would be. To date, I had transformed into this winged nightmare countless times. Never once had we communicated. To be fair, I’d only recently learned that it was being summoned to here from another reality. What reality? Where?
Crazy, I thought. Everything is just so damn crazy.
And yet, this winged creature that I had become projected a sense of serenity, greatness, and perfection in its own way. It maneuvered beautifully, flew powerfully, and had instantly given me access to how to do it all.
I saw the logic to that. Had I been anything other than an expert, I might just have damaged this beautiful creature. Perhaps worse than damage...possibly even destroy it.
So, I had instantly, instinctively known how to fly, to maneuver, to land, and everything necessary to stay airborne and safe.
And to keep him safe.
But how did it all work?
After all, I summoned him often with little notice. Was he, say, flying serenely over whatever faraway world he lived in, happy as a giant winged clam, when he was suddenly summoned here?
Summoned by me?
That didn’t seem right.
Is that what happens? I asked now, as I angled up through the heavens—as the wind buffeted me, slipped over me.
Still, no response. Nor did I expect there to be.
And where was the demoness who lived within me? Did all three of us share this current winged body? And for
that matter, where did my cute little 5’3” body go?
Good question, I thought.
The higher I got, the more powerful I seemed to get, too. Wind thundered over me, a constant howl. I was no longer a mother, a sister or a private investigator. I was a flying machine, a thing that matched wits with the heavens...and won.
Can we do this? I asked the creature within me, the creature who had taken a back seat to me and let me drive.
There was no response...and if there had been, I probably wouldn’t have heard it, anyway.
Response or nor response, I felt as if I could continue on...for eternity.
It’s him, I suddenly thought. He’s giving me these feelings.
Also, I was sure it was a him. After all, I had gotten a masculine impression from him.
So, you’re a boy monster? I asked.
Still no response.
Still, I flew.
I beat my wings—his wings. I beat them steadily, powerfully, confidently. And faster. Always faster and faster.
In fact, I felt I should beat them harder and harder. I was being propelled. By him. He was prompting me.
As I beat my wings faster than I’d ever done before, I became aware of one thing and one thing only: I could fly as fast as I wanted. There was no limit to this winged creature who defied space and time and gravity, this beautifully horrific entity that was not of this earth.
Faster. I had to go faster.
I thought of my kids, my family, my job. I had cases on my desk that needed attention. What was I doing? This was crazy. I was crazy. Except...except that I knew it wasn’t so crazy. Ever since I knew I could fly, I wanted to fly to the moon.
I wanted to test the boundaries of what I was, and what I could do.
And yes, I was a little crazy, too.
True, sometimes I really thought I had gone insane. Some days, I was certain I was babbling incoherently in a funny farm, surrounded by padded walls.
Are you there? I suddenly thought
I’m here, Samantha. The voice was deep, hesitant, and almost shy.
No, I thought, it’s neither of those.
The voice was...distant. As in, it came from deep within my thoughts. Deeper than anything I had yet encountered.
No, that wasn’t true. I had delved deep into Russell Baker’s subconscious, hadn’t I? Yes, I had. His real self had been buried deep beneath what could only be called an “enchantment.” Or rather, an inadvertent enchantment. But that was another story for another time.