by J. R. Rain
Would this kill me? I didn’t know, but I was about to find out.
My last thought before I struck the wall were: I love you Tammy and Anthony...if I don’t make it, I’ll see you on the other side.
The gray wall appeared directly before me. I could see the fine details of thick cinder blocks and heavy bricks. I lowered my head and turned my body slightly and struck the building with such force that I suspected the whole damn building shuddered.
* * *
I sat up in a pile of rubble.
My thick wings were draped around me like a heavy, dusty blanket. Chunks of wall continued to fall and clatter behind me. I should have been dead many times over. I should have been flattened outside on the wall itself. I should have been many things...but here I sat, in a prison cell, surrounded by massive chunks of cement, bent re-bar, and bricks that looked better suited for a medieval dungeon.
As I sat up, and as the dust still settled around me, I closed my eyes and saw the single flame in my forethoughts. I next saw the woman in the flame, standing there impatiently, and quickly I felt the familiar rush towards her....
And when I opened my eyes, there I was. My old self again—completely naked in a maximum secure prison in a cell on Death Row.
Outside, through the massive hole in the prison wall, I heard dozens of men shouting and a cacophony of running feet. A moment later, a siren wailed, so loud that it hurt even my ears.
I stood slowly. Dust and debris slid off my flesh.
Had I guessed right? Was this the right cell? Had my sixth sense led me to the man I wanted?
My eyes needed no time to adjust to the darkness.
There, huddled at the far end of the single cot, was Ira Lang, staring at me with wild, disbelieving eyes. Believe it, buddy boy. Ira was a royal mess. His face and forehead were nearly covered in bandages, and if it weren’t for his signature bald head, with its deep grooves and odd lumps, I might have wondered if I had the right room. His face, what little of it I could see puffing out between the bandages, was horribly swollen and disfigured. A multitude of pins and bolts and screws were holding the whole thing together.
What a waste, I thought, of all that work.
There was no way of knowing what Ira was thinking. Hell, what could he be thinking? One moment he was lying in bed, no doubt plotting his ex-wife’s death, or perhaps sleeping, and dreaming of her death, and the next a massive hole appears in his jail cell, filled by a hulking, nightmarish creature. A creature who then turned into a woman. A woman he loathed.
I didn’t know what he thought, nor did I care.
I brushed off some dirt and smaller chunks of concrete from my shoulder and shook out cement dust from my hair. A small, grayish cloud briefly hovered around me, and then drifted to the floor.
People were shouting within the prison itself, their voices echoing along what I assumed was a long hallway just beyond. Lights were still out. No one could see me. No one, but Ira.
Now he was blinking at me hard. He then sat forward a little, straining to see through the dark and dust. He breathed raspily through his misshapen and swollen mouth.
Footsteps pounded from somewhere nearby. Sirens blasted from seemingly everywhere. A spotlight flashed through the opening, catching some of the swirling dust.
Ira’s eyes widened some more. “You!” he suddenly hissed. His swollen lips never moved, and the sound itself seemed to come from somewhere in his throat. “How the fuck did you get in here?”
I said nothing. There was nothing to say. Things were about to end badly for Ira and there was no reason to joke or elaborate or waste time.
I stood there, waiting, naked as the day I was born. I was certain most of my body was silhouetted by the lights coming in through the large opening in the wall behind me. How much Ira could see of me, I didn’t know, nor did I care.
I don’t think he cared either.
He reached underneath his flimsy bed mattress, and then hurled himself at me. As he did so, I spotted something flashing in his hands. Growling with what could have been demonic rage, he drove the metal object—which turned out to be a sharpened spoon wired to a wooden stick—as hard as he could at my chest. Whether or not the shank qualified as a stake, I didn’t know, nor did I want to find out. I caught his slashing wrist as he slammed into me hard. I stumbled back a foot or two and nearly tripped on a block of cement, but mostly I held my ground. Ira brought his knee up hard into my stomach. Air burst from my lungs. He redoubled his effort with the shank, and I might have squeezed his wrist a little too hard, because I felt bones crunching. As Ira screamed, I spun him around and reached up with one hand and grabbed his already broken jaw and turned his head as hard and fast as I could. I nearly ripped his head off. His neck broke instantly, sickeningly, the vertebrae tearing through his skin and his orange prison jumpsuit like jagged shards of broken glass. Ira shuddered violently, and then went limp. His head fell grotesquely to one side.
More sirens. More running feet. Now lights were turning on in the prison itself.
They were coming for me. At any moment, someone was going to burst into this cell. I had to leave now. But I didn’t. Not yet. Instead, I found myself staring down at Ira’s broken neck. I wanted to drink from him so bad that I was willing to risk getting caught. I was willing to give it all up for one drink of fresh blood.
More footsteps. Just outside of the door.
I tore my gaze away, gasping, and dropped Ira’s lifeless body to the debris-strewn floor. I moved quickly over to the hole in the wall, took a deep breath, and jumped.
Chapter Forty-three
Separating Chino and Orange is Chino State Park, which really isn’t much of a park. Mostly it’s a long stretch of barren hills. The hills are full of coyotes, rabbits, and the occasional mountain lion. And tonight, at least, one giant vampire bat.
I alighted on the roundish summit of the highest hill. From here I could see the lights of North Orange County twinkling beautifully. I folded my wings in and hunkered down on the lip of a rocky overhang.
The wind was strong up here, buffeting me steadily, slapping my wings gently against my side. Something small scurried in the grass nearby. That something popped its little head up and looked at me. A squirrel. It studied me for a moment, cocking its head, and then scurried off in a blink.
Well, excuse me.
The cool night wind carried with it the heady scent of juniper and sage, and I sat silently on that ledge and stared down into Orange County and remembered the feeling of the man’s neck breaking in my hands.
Grass rustled in the wind. My wings continued flapping. Grains of sand sprinkled against my thick hide. A hazy gauze of clouds crawled in front of the moon, nudged along by the high winds.
In my mind’s eye, I summoned the leaping flame, summoned the woman within. I opened my eyes a few seconds later and found myself squatting over the ledge, my long dark hair whipping in the wind, my elbows tucked against my sides.
I buried my face in my hands and wanted to cry, but I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t cry because something had changed within me tonight, something so damn frightening I could barely acknowledge it.
But I had to acknowledge it.
Tonight, as I had held Ira’s broken body close to me, I had loved every minute of it. Every fucking second of it. It had been such a thrill killing him.
Fuck.
Double fuck.
The scariest part of tonight was that his killing had felt incomplete. Foreplay, without the pay-off. I had wanted to drink from that broken neck. Desperately. Passionately. Endlessly. Draining every drop of blood.
Sweet Jesus, help me.
I reached down and picked up a handful of cool desert sand. I let the fine granules sift through my fingers and catch on the wind, to be carried off to distant lands and far shores, even if those distant lands were just Orange County and those far shores were heated pools.
I reached up with both hands and covered my head and closed my eyes and listened to the w
ind and the critters and the swishing grass, and stayed liked that for a long, long time....
Chapter Forty-four
I killed a man tonight.
There was a long pause, then Fang wrote: Are you sure you want to tell me about this here?
Big Brother?
Big something. You’ve stirred things up enough that someone, somewhere, might be watching and listening.
I doubt it, I wrote.
Your sixth sense?
Something like that.
You don’t feel like anyone’s watching?
No, I wrote. Not yet. Maybe someday I will have to be more careful.
But not now?
No.
Can we be careful for my benefit? he wrote.
Sure. We can pretend I killed a man tonight.
That’s better. Pretend is better. Why did you pretend to kill him?
Because he was a bad man.
You can’t kill all the bad men, Moon Dance. What did he do that was so bad?
I told Fang about it, writing up the case quickly, hitting just the high notes. Two seconds after I hit “Send”, Fang was already writing me back.
Someone had to die, Moon Dance. Better him than your client.
We were both silent for a long, long time. I tried to imagine what Fang was doing at this moment. Probably sitting back and studying my words. Probably drinking from a bottle of beer, although he had never mentioned if he drank beer or not. Call it a hunch. I imagined Fang taking a long pull on his beer, maybe crossing one leg over the other, maybe reaching down and scratching his crotch, as guys are wont to do.
He wrote, Does your client know about the killing?
Not yet.
Where is she now?
With me in bed, sleeping.
You sleep together?
Get your mind out of the gutter. This is the first time she has slept so deeply since I have been protecting her.
People are more psychic than they realize. Perhaps a part of her knows she is finally safe.
But I had to kill a man to keep her safe.
Better him than her.
Tonight I had bought a pack of cigarettes. I opened the package and tapped one out and lit it with a lighter. The tip flared and the acrid smell of burning paper and tobacco reached my nose nearly instantly. I loved the initial scent of a freshly lit cigarette, even if I wasn’t smoking it. I looked down at the burning cancer stick. It was my first cigarette since before I was pregnant. I had given up smokes completely, being a good preggo. I had thought I had given them up for good, but with the fear of cancer removed, well, what the hell? Why not? I just wouldn’t smoke them around my kids. Or if I was about to kiss a man.
I’ve never killed before, I wrote.
How do you feel?
I sucked on the cigarette and thought about that. I feel nothing.
No guilt?
No. Not right now, but it might hit me later.
How did you feel when you were killing him?
Why do you ask?
It is commonly believed that vampires enjoy the kill, that vampires sort of get-off on taking another’s life.
I took another hit, inhaling deeply, and came clean. I enjoyed it so fucking much that it scares the shit out of me.
Because you might want to do it again?
Exactly.
Did you feed from him?
No. I didn’t have time. But I think I would have. I paused, then added: And now tonight feels incomplete.
Because you didn’t feed?
Right.
You hunted your prey...and then lost him to the hyenas.
I shuddered at the imagery. Something like that.
Can you control yourself, Moon Dance?
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me nod. Yes, the feeling passed as soon as I left the cell.
A good thing it passed.
I nodded again. I knew what Fang meant. If the hunger hadn’t passed, if it still gripped me, there was a very good chance that something else—or someone else—would be very dead tonight.
Do you think of me differently, Fang?
Do you think of yourself differently?
I finished the cigarette, stubbed it out in the glass ashtray on the night stand next to me. I’ve never killed before. Anyone or anything. I always had that to fall back on. Now I don’t.
Now you’re a killer.
Yes.
You killed a bad man who, if given a chance, would have hurt or killed your client.
Yes.
So, in effect, you acted in self-defense of your client.
You could say that.
You had asked him politely to leave her alone, and what did he do?
He threatened me and my children.
So, in effect, you also protected your children.
I’m not sure how serious his threats were.
The man was on Death Row, Moon Dance.
But I still killed him in cold blood, Fang.
That is something you will have to live with, Moon Dance. Can you live with it?
I guess I have to.
An eternity is a long time to carry guilt, Moon Dance.
Our fingers were both silent. I contemplated another cigarette, then decided against it. Now Fang was busy writing something, and so I waited for his response. A minute later, it came.
You did what you had to do. You acted in the best interest of yourself, your kids and your client. You rid the world of an animal who made it his life’s goal to destroy other people’s lives. You ask me, you had a pretty good night’s work.
We were silent for a long time. I gazed out the sliding glass window at the rising moon. I turned back to my laptop.
Get some sleep, Fang.
You know I’m a night owl, Moon Dance.
Yeah, I know.
See you in a week?
My heart pounded once, twice in my chest.
Yes, in a week.
I can’t wait, Moon Dance.
I bit my lip. Neither can I.
Chapter Forty-five
I was boxing with Jacky.
It was late afternoon and I was tired and my hands kept dropping. Jacky hated when my hands dropped and he let me know it. I was working on a punching bag while he stood behind it, absorbing my blows. Each punch seemed to knock the little Irishman off balance a little more. I had learned not to hit the bag with all my strength, or even half my strength, as such blows would send the little man rebounding off the bag as if it had been an electrified fence.
Even in the late afternoon, with the sun not fully set and my strength nowhere near where it could be, my punches had a lot of pop behind them.
I’m such a freak.
And as Jacky worked me in three minute drills—equivalent to boxing rounds—I was pouring sweat. I sometimes wondered what my sweat would look like under a microscope. Was it the same as anyone else’s sweat? Was my DNA vastly different? Would a lab technician, studying my little squigglies under the lens, shit his pants if he saw what I was really made up of?
And what was I made up of? Who knows.
Still, it gave me an idea. A very interesting idea. Hmm....
“Hands up, wee girl. Hands—”
I hit the bag hard, so hard that it rebounded back into Jacky’s face and caused him, I think, to bite his lip. Oops. He cursed and held on tight, but at least he shut the hell up about my damn hands.
Easy girl. He’s just doing his job.
I was in a mood. A foul mood. I needed to punch something and punch it hard, but I didn’t want to hurt Jacky. A conundrum, for sure.
And as I wrapped up the fourteenth round, finishing in a flurry of punches that made Jacky, no doubt, regret taking me on as a client, Detective Sherbet stepped into the gym. The heavy-set detective looked around, blinking hard, eyes adjusting to the gloom, spotted me, and then motioned for me to come over. I told Jacky I would be back, and the little Irishman, wiping the blood from his lip, seemed only too relieved to be rid of me for a few minutes.
I grabbed a towel and soon the detective and I were sitting on a bench in the far corner of the gym. I was sweating profusely and continuously drying myself. Sherbet was wearing slacks and a nice shirt. There was a fresh jelly stain near one of the buttons. The buttons were doing all they could to contain his girth.
“You sweat a lot for a girl,” he said.
“I’ve heard that before.”
Sherbet grinned. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“I’ve heard that before, too. So how did you find me, Detective?”
“I happen to be an ace investigator. That, and Monica told me.”
I nodded. “And to what do I owe the honor?”
Sherbet was looking at me closely, and perhaps a little oddly. If I had to put a name to it, I would say he was looking at me suspiciously.
He said, “Ira Lang is dead.”
“What a shame.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m too tired to seem surprised,” I said. “There’s a reason for all this sweat, you know.”
“Don’t you care how he died?”
“No.”
“His neck was broken.”
I made a noncommittal sound. Sherbet interlaced his fingers and formed a sort of human cup with the palms of his hands. He tapped the tips of his thumbs together. Nearby, somebody was kicking a heavy bag with a lot of power.
“It happened last night, in his cell.”
I kept saying nothing. Sweat continued to drip, and I continued to mop my brow. I didn’t look at Sherbet.
The detective said, “There was an explosion of some type, which blasted a hole into his cell. Crazy, I know, but someone broke into his cell.”
“You’re not making sense, Detective.”
“None of it makes sense, Sam. Whatever broke into his cell appears to have killed him, as well. Nearly ripped his head clean off.”
I listened to a woman hi-yah-ing! with her trainer, grunting the word with each kick or punch. I wanted to hi-yah her face.
“Prison officials don’t know what to make of it. The explosion rocked the whole building. Everyone felt it, even those a few buildings away felt it. But there was no evidence of an explosion. It was as if a massive cannonball had been launched at the wall.”