by J. R. Rain
Smart boy.
“I get the hint,” he said, laughing. “You want me to stay away. And thank you for not killing me.”
There was a lot of activity on the deck of the cruise ship, so I circled the control tower, and set the hunter on the roof of the cabin. Whether anyone saw a black shape descend from the sky remained to be seen.
Randolf scrambled to his feet, no worse for wear. As I hovered above, as he held down his baseball cap against the downdraft of my wings, his astonishing blue eyes caught the starlight. He really was kind of hunky—even to a creature of the night.
He called up to me, “Have a safe flight home, Samantha Moon. Oh, and any idea where I’m headed?”
I had no idea.
I circled once and headed back home.
55.
Kingsley looked far more robust and pink than when I had last seen him.
We were at Mulberry Street Cafe in downtown Fullerton, sitting next to the window. It was raining again and the sidewalk was mostly empty of pedestrians. The rain had a trickle-down effect, if you will. Mulberry’s was quieter than normal.
Kingsley was wearing a long black duster, and leather Sole gloves, which he removed upon sitting. His dark slacks were darker where the rain had permeated. His face had a rosy red hue and his hair was perfectly combed. He was clean shaven and smelled of good cologne. He was everything a man should be. Gone were the tufts of hair along the back of his hand.
Pablo the headwaiter knew me well. He looked slyly at Kingsley, perhaps recalling that my husband was usually the man sitting across from me. The waiter was discreet enough not to say anything. He took our drink orders and slipped away.
“I’m impressed,” said Kingsley, glancing out the window. “Whenever I come here they seat me in the back of beyond.”
“They happen to like me here.”
“Pretty girls get all the breaks.”
“You think I’m pretty?”
“Yeah,” said Kingsley. “I do.”
“Even for a vampire?”
“Even for a vampire.”
Our drinks came. Chardonnay for me and bourbon and water for the counselor. Kingsley ordered shrimp tortellini and I had the usual. Steak, rare.
“You can eat steak?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “But I can suck the blood out of the carcass.”
“Should make for an interesting show.”
“Yes, well, it’s the only way I can participate in the human dining experience.”
“Well, you’re not missing much, “said Kingsley. “Food nowadays is entirely processed, fattening and just plain horrible for you.”
“Does it still taste good?”
“Wonderful.”
“Asshole.”
He laughed. I drank some of my wine. Kingsley, no doubt due to his massive size, often garnered curious glances from both men and women. I think, perhaps, he was the strongest-looking man I had ever seen.
“Are we human, Kingsley?” I asked suddenly.
He had been raising his glass to his lips. It stopped about halfway. “Yes,” he said, then raised it all the way and took a sip. He added, “But are we mortals? No.”
“Then what makes us immortal? Why don’t we die like everyone else? What keeps us alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Surely you must have a theory.”
He sighed. “Just a working hypothesis.”
“Let’s have it.”
“I think it’s safe to say that you and I hover on the brink of the natural and the supernatural. So therefore both natural and unnatural laws apply simultaneously. I believe we are both human...and perhaps something greater.”
“Sounds lofty.”
“Do you suspect we’re something less?” he asked.
I thought about that. “No. We are certainly not less.”
The waiter came by and dropped off some bread. I didn’t touch it, but Kingsley dug in. “You mind?” he asked.
“Knock yourself out,” I said. “So what are we, then? Some supernatural evolutionary hybrid?”
He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Maybe we are super humans.”
“Maybe.”
“But during the day I certainly don’t feel super. I feel horrible.”
“Because our bodies are still governed by some physical laws, along with...other laws. Mystical laws perhaps, laws unstudied and unknown to modern science.” He looked at me and shrugged. “Who put these laws into place is anyone’s guess. But they’re there nonetheless. For instance, one such law dictates I will turn into a wolf every full moon cycle; another dictates you drink only blood.”
Kingsley spread liberal amounts of honey butter over his bread. He seemed particularly ravenous. Maybe it was the animal in him.
“Perhaps we are the result of a powerful curse,” I suggested.
“Perhaps.”
“That makes sense to me, to some degree.”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure anyone really knows.”
I suspected someone out there might know something. Be it vampire, werewolf or something else, something greater perhaps.
I said, “The curse angle could be why holy water debilitates a vampire.”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“So to sum up,” I said. “We are both natural and supernatural, abiding by laws known only to our kinds.”
“And even much of that is open to speculation. For all I know you are part of one long, drug-induced dream I’m still having in the sixties.”
Our food came. Kingsley watched me cut a slice of meat from the raw steak, swirl the slice in the splatter of blood, raise the dripping piece to my lips, and suck it dry.
“Sort of sexy,” he said. “In a ghoulish way.”
I shook my head, then told him about my adventures with the vampire hunter.
He slapped his knee when I was finished. “A Carnival cruise ship?”
“Yes, headed for Hawaii, I think.”
“Then let’s hope he stays there.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s hope, although he was kind of cute.”
“Oh, God.”
I reached down into my purse and pulled out the medallion. It was wrapped in a white handkerchief. I unwrapped it for him.
“What’s that?” Kingsley asked.
“It was worn by my attacker six years ago.”
“Your attacker?”
“The vampire who rendered me into what I am now.”
“How did you get it?”
I told him about the vampire hunter, his dead brother, and the UPS package. When I was finished, Kingsley motioned toward the medallion. “Do you mind?”
“Knock yourself out.”
He picked it up carefully, turned it over in his hand. The gold and ruby roses reflected brightly even in the muted light.
“So why did he give you this?” asked Kingsley.
“I think he was sort of feeling me out, seeing what he was up against. To him, the medallion had no meaning.”
“And to you it does?”
I told Kingsley about my dreams. I left out the part where he ravaged me in the woods.
“Those are just dreams, Samantha,” he said, studying the heavy piece, turning it over in his big hands. “I’ve never seen this before.”
“But could you look into it for me?” I asked.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Do you mind if I take it?”
“Go ahead.”
He pocketed the medallion. We continued eating. Outside, a couple sharing an umbrella stopped and examined the menu in the window. She looked at him and nodded. He shrugged. They stepped inside. Compromising at its best.
“Sometimes I think God has forgotten about me,” I said.
“I know the feeling.”
“That, in fact, I have somehow stumbled upon the loophole of life.”
“Loophole?”
“Like you being a defense attorney,” I said. “You look for an ambig
uity in the law, an omission of some sort, something that allows you to evade compliance.”
He nodded, “And being a creature of the night is the ambiguity of life?”
“Yeah. I’m the omission.”
“Well, that’s certainly one way of looking at it.”
“What’s another way?”
“To make the most of the life we’re given,” he said. “To see life—even for the undead—as a great gift. Imagine the possibilities, Samantha? Imagine the good you can do? Life is precious. Even for those who exist in loopholes.”
I nodded, thinking of Fang. “Someone told me something like that recently.”
“It’s good advice,” said Kingsley. “In fact, it’s good advice for everyone.”
“So we are like everyone?”
“No,” he said, reaching across the table and taking my hand. His was so damn warm...mine must have felt like a cold, wet, limp noodle in his own. Self-conscious, I almost pulled my hand away, but he held it even tighter, and that warmed my cold, bitter heart.
He said, “No, Sam. We are not like everyone else. I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and you’re a blood-sucking fiend. Granted, a very cute, blood-sucking fiend.”
56.
On a Wednesday night I broke back into Rick Horton’s Gothic revival.
I found the same box under the same bed. The file on me now contained a photograph of my home and a picture of me getting into my van. The picture was taken with a telephoto lens from a great distance away. I studied the picture closely; I so rarely saw myself these days. My face was, of course, blurry, but my body looked strong and hard. A diet of blood will do that to you. The picture was taken during the day, and I could see the sunscreen gleaming off my lathered cheeks. My hair was hidden in a wide straw hat. I had probably been on my way to pick up the kids from school.
In another file, the same one I had seen the first time I broke in, I found a computer print-out that chronicled in excruciating detail the day in the life of Hewlett Jackson, Kingsley’s now-murdered client. The paper had notes written in the margins. One of the handwritten notes said: “Not at work. No access.” Another note said: “Not in front of his children.”
Yeah, this would do nicely.
I pocketed it and returned the box under the bed. In the backyard, with his ferocious guard dogs cowering in the bushes, I wadded up the note in my gloved hands and carefully stuffed it in an empty cereal box in Horton’s trash can.
Tomorrow was trash day.
* * *
The next night, Sherbet and I were in the same parking structure being guarded by the same rent-a-cop. The same two vehicles were in the same two parking slots. The only difference tonight was that there was no rain.
I extracted the wadded up piece of incriminating evidence from the cereal box and made a big show of it.
Sherbet took the crinkled paper from my hand and studied it closely. He then squinted at me sideways, studying me closely, suspicious as hell. I innocently showed him the cereal box where I had found the note. Finally, after some internal debate, a slow smile spread over his face.
“I think we’ve got our man,” he said.
“I do, too.”
“And you had nothing to do with this note?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, detective.”
“Let’s go,” he said. And go we did.
57.
I was leaving the hotel suite to see my children for the first time in a week when my cell phone rang. It was Sherbet.
“You did good work, Mrs. Moon.”
“What do you mean?”
“Based on the evidence in the trash can a judge granted us a search warrant. We went through the house yesterday and today we arrested Rick Horton. We found enough incriminating evidence to convict two men for murder.”
“I’m not sure that analogy makes sense.”
“It doesn’t have to. You know what I mean.” He paused. “You are a hell of a detective.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“So why don’t you sound happy?” he asked.
“I am very happy. One less killer walking our streets.”
We were silent. Sherbet took in some air. “You don’t think we got the right guy, do you?”
“I was hired to find out who shot Kingsley Fulcrum,” I said. “Did you get Horton’s phone records?”
“Of course.”
“Could you fax them to me.”
“Why?”
“Just humor me.”
There was a long pause. Static crackled over the phone line. Finally, I heard him sigh deeply. “Where do I fax them?”
I gave him the number to the courtesy fax machine at the hotel’s business center.
“How many months back do you want?” he asked.
“Four months.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “The case is closed.”
“I know,” I said. “But this detective never sleeps.”
“Well, not at night, at least. And Mrs. Moon?”
“Yes?”
“Someday we’re going to discuss the eyewitnesses that claim to have seen a man rappel down from your balcony.”
“Sure.”
“And we’re definitely going to discuss the kid who worked at Vons who reported seeing a winged creature carry off a man.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t have any idea what the fuck is going on, but we will talk again.”
“I understand,” I said. “And detective?”
“Yes?”
“You might have a better idea than you think.”
He paused, then hung up.
58.
It was the first time I had been back to my home in over a week.
The house itself sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, with a chain link fence around the front yard. Early on I had hated that ugly chain link fence and wanted it torn down. Danny argued against it stating it might prove useful. He was right. The fence kept my young children away from the street, corralled puppies and kittens, bikes and loose balls, and was perfect for stringing Christmas lights along. It was also used as a sort of giant pegboard. We attached posters, artwork and ribbons to it. Advertised their lemonade stands and the birth of any puppies or kittens. I missed that damn fence.
Last year, Danny made us get rid of our dog and cat. The kids were traumatized for months. I think Danny secretly feared I would kill our family pets and feed from them, although he never admitted his concerns to me.
Anyway, now the fence was bare and there were no children playing in the yard. No balls, and certainly no puppies or kittens. Danny’s Escalade was parked dead center of the driveway. Usually he parked to the far left half to give my minivan room on the right. He didn’t have to worry about that now.
I parked on the street, headed up to the house. The sun was still out and I felt weak as hell, but that wouldn’t stop me.
Danny yanked open the door as soon as I reached the cement porch. He stared down at me gravely. He couldn’t have seemed less happy to see me. He was as handsome as ever, but that was lost on me now. I only saw his fear and disgust.
“I only have a few minutes, Samantha. These meetings are terribly inconvenient for me.”
“Then leave,” I said.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
He stepped in front of me. “For the protection of my children, that’s why.”
I pushed him aside and entered my house. “Where are they?”
“In their room. You have only a few minutes, Sam. The babysitter will be arriving and I am leaving on my date.”
I tried to ignore his hurtful words. Mostly, I tried to keep calm and my voice from shaking. “We had agreed on two hours, Danny.”
“Things change, Sam,” he said dismissively, and I caught the undercurrent of his words. Things change...and so do humans. Into vampires.
He led the way forward and rapped on the children’s door. “Kids,” he said stiffly.
Danny never had a way with our kids. They were always treated like junior assistants, interns or paralegals. “Your mother is here. Come along.”
The bedroom door burst open. Little Anthony, with his mess of black curls, flung himself into my arms. Tammy followed a half second later. Their combined weight nearly toppled me over. Squatting, I held their squirming bodies in my arms. Anthony pulled away and I saw that he was still clutching his Game Boy. Neither hell nor high water would separate him from his Game Boy.
“When are you coming back, Mommy?” Anthony asked.
Before I could answer, Danny stepped in. “I told you, son, that your mother is not coming back. That she is sick and she needs to stay away.”
I almost dropped the kids in my haste to stand and confront Danny. “Sick? You told them I was sick?”
He pulled me away into a corner of the living room, out of range of the children. “You are sick, Samantha. Very sick. And if I had my way I would report you and have you committed—for your safety and the safety of everyone around you.”
“Danny,” I said carefully. “I am not sick. I am a person like you. I have a problem that I am dealing with. The problem does not control me. I control it.”
“Look, whatever. It’s easier for the children to accept that you are sick. I’m going to have to demand that you play along with this, Sam.”
I stared at him some more, then headed back to the kids. The three of us sat together on the edge of Tammy’s bed while they both chattered in unison. They wanted assurance that I would not die, and I guaranteed them that I would never, ever die. Danny rolled his eyes; I ignored him.
And much too soon, I was back in my minivan driving away, crying.
59.
My sister came by my hotel suite, bearing with her a bottle of merlot.
Now we were sitting on my bed, legs tucked under us, sipping from our glasses. Mary Lou was on her second glass and already buzzed. I was nowhere near being buzzed. In fact, my last buzz had been when I sucked the blood out of the gang-banger.
“So your case is over?” said Mary Lou.