by J. R. Rain
She was a female, I’d come to discover. The sister to a powerful body-hopping demon that I had somehow managed to banish from an accursed family.
Now, from deeper in the Occult Reading Room, which, really, was just a few rows packed floor to ceiling with mostly oversized, darkish books, I heard something slowly, calmly, disturbingly calling out my name.
“Sssister,” it said in a dry, raspy voice that seemed to be many voices speaking as one, voices that could have just as easily been my imagination. “Sssister Sssamantha...come to us...waiting...waiting...”
“Ignore them, Samantha. They have no power over you.”
“But she does,” I said, tapping my chest.
“No. Not if you don’t let her.”
“But she already does,” I said. “I can’t eat normally, or go in the sun, or breathe or die or...”
He placed a hand on my shoulder. “I never said you had an ideal situation, Samantha. But she has not won, nor will she.”
I nodded and wanted to cry. His touch did something to me...so comforting, so warm, so gentle...but I kept it together.
“I have two questions...” I finally said.
He waited, and this time I plunged forward, ignoring the beseeching whisperings from deeper in the room.
“Will my son...?”
Except I actually couldn’t plunge forward. Not with Archibald Maximus looking at me so kindly, and not with the emotions that raged through me...from fear to fragile hope.
“Your son’s condition was unexpected,” said Archibald, perhaps tapping into my thoughts. “But, remember, your son did consume the ruby medallion. He will neither revert back into vampirism, nor can he be turned into a vampire.”
“But is he immortal?”
“Immortality must stand the test of time.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Not really, Sam. What it means, I do not know, and, I suspect, no one knows what will become of your son. But one thing is certain: he will never need to drink blood, nor will he ever shy away from the sun. The curse of vampirism has been lifted.”
“But what is he?” I asked.
The Librarian’s gentle blue eyes twinkled. He looked so much older than his smooth, handsome, nerdy face implied. “I suspect something very special, Sam. Now, I believe you have a second question about Russell?”
“Yes, how—never mind.”
“Thoughts are vibrations, Sam,” he said, answering anyway. “I don’t so much read your mind, as read your vibrations.”
“Of course,” I said. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Everyone could, if they knew how.”
“Then teach me.”
“You are far better at it then you realize.”
“Fat lot of good that does me.” I gave him a small grin. I liked the Librarian, whoever he was. “Okay, here goes: can another human being be bonded to me?”
“In short, yes.”
“Without them knowing it?”
“They know it, Sam. They allowed it. But, perhaps, they did not understand the full extent of the connection...and neither did you.”
“Full extent of the connection?” I said, phrasing it as a question, mostly because I hadn’t a clue what I was talking about.
“It means, he’s devoted to you completely, and if coitus was involved, then the connection might be even deeper.”
“Oh, don’t get all puritanical on me now,” I said. “You know very well we had sex.”
“I might be many things,” said Archibald, nodding slowly. “But one of them is not crude.”
“Fine, whatever...just tell me what to do.”
“You don’t enjoy his devotion?”
“No...not like this. Not against his will.”
“His will has allowed it.”
“It’s not right,” I said.
“Good,” said Archibald, and I suspect his last few questions had been a test of some sort. “Then you must release him, Sam.”
“And how do I do that?”
“There’s no correct way, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The connection between two people is deeply personal and intimate. You will need to find your own way through this.”
“Great,” I said. “Who makes this stuff up, anyway?”
Maximus grinned and leaned against the counter. “Oh, just us nerds.”
Chapter Fourteen
I recognized the girl.
Granted, this time she was lying on a slab of cold steel in the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office. With me were Detective Sanchez and Dr. Mueller. The detective and I stood to one side of the mostly-covered body, while the medical examiner stood on the other.
Dr. Mueller wore a white lab coat that was mostly clean. There was a very faint splatter near his lapel. It was a fresh splatter...and it made my stomach growl.
Such a monster.
With that thought, Sanchez glanced over at me, alarm in his eyes. Our communication was open, as we had intended it. Sanchez and I had determined beforehand that a private, inner dialogue between ourselves wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Don’t worry, I thought to him now, I can control myself.
You had me worried there.
Trust me, drinking from stiffs in the morgue isn’t my idea of fine dining.
That’s disturbing on many levels.
Welcome to my world.
Sanchez didn’t respond, but the look of extreme concern in his eyes said it all. Yes, I was a freak...so freaky that an armed LAPD homicide cop was nervous.
Not nervous, he countered. Just...alarmed.
Bullshit.
Okay, fine. You scare the shit out of me. In fact, I haven’t been the same since we last met. I’ve been a nervous wreck and...
He paused, but I picked up his stray thought.
And you’ve been reading up about vampires? I asked.
Well, yes. Wouldn’t you if you were in my shoes? I have to know more. I’m...so intrigued...and scared...but mostly intrigued. It’s just so bizarre. I don’t want you to remove my memory, Sam. I’ll keep your secret. Just like Sherbet does. I need to know what I’m up against out here.
I looked at Dr. Mueller, who was staring at us from over his bifocals and waiting with, what I gathered, was extreme patience. I suspected that when you worked with corpses all day, you developed eternal patience.
Can we maybe talk about this later? I said to Sanchez.
Yes, of course. Sorry.
Meanwhile, during our conversation, Sanchez and I had been idly scanning the body. My line of work didn’t call for me viewing a lot of corpses. Neither did my job back when I was a federal agent for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or the Office of the Inspector General. Back then, I mostly cracked down on fraud and waste and abuse in the various HUD programs. No, not very glamorous, but there were a lot of jerk-offs out there who were more than willing to scam the poor out of their life savings. Mortgage fraud and low-income housing went hand-in-hand, and I was proud to say that I had helped take my share of scumbags off the street.
So, with that said...no, not a lot of bodies in my chosen field. But I had also been recruited to help on other cases. The federal government did that sometimes. Grabbed agents from various departments to work bigger, more complicated cases. Or more important cases.
Yes, I had seen my fair share of examining rooms and corpses.
These days, death meant little to me.
I knew that was the result of the vampire in me, the killer in me, the predator in me...or her in me. She was trying to steal my humanity, my sympathy, to make me more like her, and less like the rest of the world.
Like the good Librarian had said, she didn’t have power over me.
Go away, I thought, wondering how much of me she could hear. Go far fucking away.
No, I had never heard her before, nor had I seen her or experienced her in any way, other than my enhanced powers and cursed affliction, all courtesy of her.
&
nbsp; However, I had seen firsthand the evil that bubbled up to the surface when Kingsley had transformed into his hybrid form. Not to mention, just a few months ago, I had conversed and fought with perhaps the most powerful entity of all.
Her brother, in fact.
As I thought these thoughts, and as the good doctor waited for us patiently, I was very aware that Sanchez was staring at me again.
Not so cool anymore, is it? I asked.
Detective Sanchez said nothing, just glanced at me some more, then we both turned our full attention to the victim under the blanket. The stench of cleaning agents was strong in the air, scented ammonia and bleach being the predominant odors. Mostly, though, I detected another smell. The decay of rotting flesh. The victim wasn’t in advanced decay, and so her stench wasn’t very strong, but I could smell it clearly. Perhaps most disturbingly, it didn’t bother me. Not at all. Perhaps most disturbingly, I thought I liked it.
Something is seriously wrong with me.
“Jesus,” whispered Sanchez next to me, clearly picking up on my thoughts.
Scratch that last, I communicated silently to him. I’m dealing with something here...something in me. Something I may or may not explain to you.
He nodded, although he looked shaken, and not because we were standing over a body.
“Did you witness the autopsy?” I asked Sanchez aloud.
He nodded. “I did.”
If the autopsy had bothered him, he didn’t outwardly show it. Still, I sensed the mild revulsion ripple through him, and as it did so, I caught a brief glimpse of memory as he’d watched them use a bone saw around her scalp and lift out her brain.
He shuddered again. I didn’t shudder. I was intrigued.
Lord help me.
I looked at the medical examiner, who was watching me with an eternal calm that might have made Half Dome in Yosemite envious. I said to him, “And what were your conclusions, Doctor?”
“She bled to death.”
“May I see the wound in her neck?” I asked. There was a chance—a very small chance—that I might have asked this question a bit too eagerly. Sanchez glanced over at me again. I was making the poor guy nervous. Hell, I was making me nervous.
The doctor nodded and reached down and pulled back the sheet. The woman’s face—a face I recognized from two nights ago, although that woman had been in a very different form—in spirit—was stapled back in place below her jawline. Her pretty face had been peeled back during the autopsy to expose the skull. Now, her face had been positioned mostly back into place, although it was slightly askew. I glanced at where some of the curled, unattached skin hung loose.
Fascinating.
Except, of course, I knew that I wasn’t fascinated. She was fascinated...the thing that lived within me.
Freaky bitch.
The pathologist had us step around to his side of the examining table, which would have been the right side of the woman’s neck. Yes, there was the gaping wound. I could see bruising and red, raw, hanging flesh. I noted the arched openings. Bite wounds.
“Looks human,” I said.
“We believe so. We recovered human saliva along the opening, as well. The carotid artery was bitten clean through. She lost, precisely, half of her blood. Enough to bleed to death.”
“One problem,” said Sanchez, hovering somewhere above me. “We only found evidence of about a quarter of her blood.”
“So, she bled elsewhere,” I said, playing devil’s advocate. Or, perhaps, the devil in me was just playing advocate.
Sanchez shook his head. “There’s evidence that the attack took place on the trail, where she was also found. We didn’t see any evidence that she was moved. We believe she bled to death where she was attacked.”
“Except we’re missing a quarter of her blood.”
“Yes.”
I glanced at the pathologist. “Are we being recorded?”
“No, the cameras are turned off. They’re only turned on if someone wishes to view an autopsy from an adjacent room.”
“From the safety of a TV monitor.”
He didn’t smile. Death was serious business. “Something like that. The smells can be a bit overwhelming at times.”
That I was enjoying the smells, I kept to myself...and to Sanchez, who glanced at me again. I stepped closer to the medical examiner.
Can you hear me, doctor? I thought.
He cocked his head slightly, then nodded.
I’d learned last year that vampires can control others. To what extent, I didn’t know. Truthfully, I didn’t want to know. But something within me—the devil within me, I suspected—enjoyed controlling others. Needed to control others.
But I needed to now.
And I was enjoying every moment of it.
Good, I thought. You are to destroy any evidence that links her death to a human. Your official report will state she died of an animal attack. We’ll call it a rabid coyote. Understood?
The good doctor stared at me from over his bifocals, then nodded.
Delete all computerized files and destroy all written reports. Additionally, erase the cameras.
The doctor nodded again, and soon, Detective Sanchez and I stepped out of the laboratory and into the air-conditioned hallway.
To say that Sanchez was looking at me warily would be an understatement. “What happened in there?”
“We have to keep this on the down-low. You can appreciate that.”
“No, I mean...all that creepy shit. You really enjoy death that much?”
“No,” I said, answering truthfully. “She does.”
“And who’s she?”
“Another place, another time.”
Chapter Fifteen
We were sitting in Sanchez’s squad car in one of Griffith Park’s many entrances. I noted we were parked in a handicap spot.
Sanchez picked up on my observation, and said, “I’ll move if it’s needed.”
“Good to know,” I said.
We were one of a dozen or so other cars. A family of four was currently gathering blankets and an old-fashioned picnic basket. Their two young kids were kicking rocks at each other while the dad was texting, oblivious. The mother, of course, was doing everything, stowing the gear away and telling the kids to knock it off.
Typical. Moms are the true heroes of the world.
I want to wring the dad’s neck and tell him to pitch in. To get off his goddamn phone and do something.
Then again, I was in a foul mood. Who wouldn’t be? After all, for the first time since becoming a vampire—or whatever it was that I was—I’d really felt the influence of the thing living within me. Her desires were merging into my desires...and I didn’t like it. I hated it, in fact.
And it scared the shit out of me.
Worse, I knew that she liked that it scared me...that she craved my fear, in fact. She fed off it. I suspected my fear made her stronger, braver, more audacious.
“Are you catching any of this?” I asked Sanchez.
“All of it, and I’m sorry. I mean, I don’t know what the hell happened to you—or is happening to you—but it sounds pretty shitty.”
“You have no idea.”
“And this thing inside of you. Does it possess you?”
I looked at the handsome detective who filled the driver’s seat completely. His hands were hooked over the lower half of the steering wheel. Big hands, squarish nails. The nails looked thick and healthy. All of him looked thick and healthy. Finally, I shook my head. “It’s complicated.”
“Try me, Sam. I’m a big boy.”
I thought of burdening the detective with who I was, and what was happening to me. Why burden him and not Russell? What was the difference? I thought about that as the detective and I sat together in the dark car, at the base of a park where two innocent women had been slaughtered by a vampire, or a wannabe vampire.
The difference, I knew, was simple: Russell had never asked for any of this. The detective had a job to do, and part of his j
ob included finding answers to two homicides. The answers just happened to be supernatural in nature.
Russell deserved answers, too. Since his girlfriend happened to be supernatural in nature, too.
“I know of Russell Baker,” said the detective, picking up my thoughts.
“You follow boxing?”
“I do. He’s a champion in the making.” Sanchez studied me some more. “And I see he’s bound to you in some way.”
I chuckled. “You’re getting pretty good at this mindreading thing.”
“What can I say, I’m a natural. So what does it mean, bound to you?”
“I don’t know yet, Detective. I’m still figuring that part out.”
“Sorry, I ask a lot of questions.”
“You’re a homicide cop. It comes with the territory. And if I were you, I would be asking a lot of questions, too.”
“If you were me, would you be afraid?”
“Are you afraid of me, Detective?”
“Back there, in the autopsy lab...yeah, I was a little.”
“It’s not me, Detective. It’s her.”
“Which comes back to my question: are you possessed, Sam?”
I almost laughed. “Now that’s a question I bet you don’t ask every day.”
He smiled and waited. I felt suddenly sad and empty and lost. His eyes held compassion, but also wariness. That a grown man...that such a huge hunk of a grown man with a gun and his training and his muscles, would be wary of me, just made me realize all over again just how much of a monster I’d become.
“Not a monster, Sam. I just don’t understand what’s going on with you. Tell me about the thing within you.”
“She’s a highly evolved dark master.”
“What does that mean?”
“Think of a highly evolved master—like Christ or Buddha. But she would be the opposite.”
“She is evil.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “Although I’m not sure what evil means, exactly. I do know that she enjoys death. She enjoys taking life. She feeds on the fear of others. She enjoys creating fear. She enjoys, for instance, that you are wary of me. She wants me to exploit that. I can feel it within me. She hungers to control, to feed, to consume.”