by J. R. Rain
“Yes, serious,” Allison and I said together. We stopped laughing almost on cue, even though Allison might have snorted once more for good measure.
I turned left from Sunset and headed up Los Feliz Boulevard, following my recently added navigational device. No, this old van did not come with navigation, but this one worked easily enough...that is, if it would quit falling from its mount, which it did now as I made my left turn. I caught it and returned it to its spot before I had completed the turn.
“If you two are done making fun of my affliction, maybe we should discuss a game plan.”
I turned left into one of the Griffith Park entrances, stopped the van and killed the engine.
“Good idea,” I said. “Oh, and we’re here.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
We sat in the minivan.
Technically, the park was closed, but there was nothing to keep us out either. The park was, after all, an entire hillside...a chain of hillsides, in fact.
“She told me to come alone,” I said.
“And what did you say?” asked Kingsley.
“I told her to go fuck herself.”
“That’s my girl,” said Kingsley. “So, where is this place?”
“The river—which is now an aqueduct—flows not too far from here. It’s popular with bikers and joggers.”
“And vampires,” said Allison.
“And how do we get to their underground lair?” asked Kingsley
I nearly asked the big guy to quit calling it a lair, except that’s exactly what it was. A breeding ground for the undead. A nest, perhaps.
“There’s a cave opening close to here,” I said. “She described it to me.”
In fact, as I spoke those words, I told the gang to hold on while I closed my eyes and cast my thoughts out. Unlike Allison, who needed something personal, I needed no such aid. At any point, in any place, I could close my eyes and cast my mind out, scanning my immediate surroundings within a few hundred feet. And, yes, that net seemed to be growing wider these days, but not by much. Still a couple of hundred feet, give or take.
My sweeping, all-seeing internal eye didn’t have any problems with the dark either. The night was bright and alive and I could have just as easily been a dark demigod looking down at his realm.
Or the world’s weirdest mom trying to save her sister.
Either way, I confirmed that the park was empty of anything human. It was also empty of most things animal, except for a few stray cats and a squirrel that seemed to be dancing the jig on a nearby tree branch. I next searched for the landmark Hanner had described: a red post off to the side of the main river path. There, found it. Next, I mentally hung a left and continued on to a pile of boulders—and found them exactly where Hanner had said they would be. I also found the small opening into the rocks—an opening that might pose a problem for Kingsley, and slipped inside it, but not very far. I had reached the limits of my abilities. One thing was certain, though, the cave entrance was not guarded.
A moment later, I returned to my body, waited a moment to get reoriented, and then reported my findings. Mostly, I reported them for Kingsley’s benefit, as I knew Allison had internally followed my traveling, swooping mind.
“I’ll fit,” said Kingsley.
“How can you be so sure?”
He tapped his thick skull. “Mind over matter.”
“Fine,” I said, “so what’s the game plan?”
“Get your sister,” said Kingsley, “and get the hell out of there.”
“What about Danny?” I asked.
Kingsley turned and looked at me, and as he did so, his eyes flared amber. Not the flame I sometimes saw in other vampires’ eyes. No, this was the glint of something wild, feral, untamed. Something animalistic.
“Well, I can’t just leave him there,” I said.
“He’s part of this, Sam. You told me so yourself. That they turned on him is his own fault.”
“He’s my kids’ father...”
“He made his own bed, Samantha,” said Kingsley.
As he said those words, I wondered about that. I wondered if Danny had, indeed, made his bed, or if someone had made it for him, so to speak. Well, I would learn the truth soon enough. One thing was certain, there was no way in hell he had willingly allowed his finger to be cut off.
I didn’t mention Fang, although Allison was well aware of my plans to save him, too. Kingsley already didn’t like Fang much, and vice versa. Both saw the other as a threat, and if Kingsley was already having a problem with me helping my ex, well, I knew for damn sure he would put his overgrown paw down in regard to Fang.
He doesn’t like Fang, came Allison’s thoughts.
You can read his mind, too? I asked, surprised.
Not really. Kingsley is a master at shielding his thoughts, but I can read his body language and some latent feelings he’s had. If you are going to save Fang, and possibly even your ex, you can count him out.
And what about you? I asked her.
Oh, you can always count me in, silly.
Fang has the diamond medallion, I thought, referring to the one artifact that could return me to a mostly-normal life.
I know, Sam. Is that the only reason why you want to save him?
I didn’t have to think long about the answer. No, I thought back to her, I’m pretty sure I love him.
That’s what I thought, Sam.
“Are you two done?” asked Kingsley.
“We’re done,” I said.
“Good,” he said, “because I have an idea about how we can save your sister...and maybe even your lying, cheating ex-hubby, too.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
The trail from the parking lot soon wound along the Los Angeles River.
No, not a traditional river, but it had been once, before man, concrete and zoning commissions debased, muzzled and graffitied it. As we followed a dirt path that led along the flowing water, which sparkled to my eyes, but probably not so much to Allison’s—Kingsley was a different story—I scanned ahead, verifying that we were not being followed or stepping into a trap. We were okay on both fronts.
So far.
Crickets chirped endlessly, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. A small hum filled the air, too; mosquitoes were alive and well along the banks of the tamed river. Beyond, the drone of traffic along the I-5. Many people didn’t realize just how hilly Los Angeles was. We were surrounded by such hills now, each dotted with bright lights from bigger homes.
A friend of mine, Spinoza, had his office near here, in Echo Park. So did another friend of mine, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Elvis Presley, despite the obvious facial reconstruction.
We probably could have used both their help now. But they were mortals with guns. These were vampires with teeth. Vamps with teeth trumped guns.
I had another friend out here, too, a private eye who had recently passed from lung cancer complicated by AIDS. I’d met him long ago while working with the federal government. We’d both been involved with a missing girl case, a case on which many government agencies and local police and private eyes had found themselves working. We never did find the girl, but I had met James Coleman. His good friend, a stoic Nigerian named Numi, had been kind enough to send me an email about his passing. I would miss James. He had been a troubled guy, but a great investigator.
I took my thoughts off James and put them onto my poor sister, who didn’t deserve any of this. God, she was going to be so pissed off at me. And, yes, I was already assuming that we would save her, that she was going to get out of this alive, and that I was going to have to spend the next five years apologizing for getting her involved in this mess.
Nothing wrong with thinking positive, Sam, came Allison’s words.
I nodded as we continued along. I led the way, periodically pausing and scouting ahead, occasionally pushing aside an errant tree branch or stepping over thicker bushes crowding the trail.
Soon, I found the red post in the ground, mostly
hidden by thick creosote, huckleberry and something that could have been an overgrown fern. The path beyond was mostly nonexistent.
“Here?” asked Kingsley, his eyes shining like twin suns. God, we were such freaks, all of us.
“This is it,” I said, and led the way. Behind me, despite his best efforts to stay quiet, he crashed through the forest like an oversized bear drunk on fermented blueberries.
The trail narrowed further, and I forced myself through the thickets and brambles, snagging my jeans and light jacket. I heard Allison behind me struggling a bit, and behind her, cursing under his voice, was Kingsley. We were a motley, ragtag bunch, an unlikely trio to take down a coven of vampires, or whatever they were called.
Covens are for witches, Sam, came Allison’s words. And Kingsley looks like he could take down a whole forest.
Are you always in my head? I asked, finally spying the clump of boulders through the pines and spruces ahead.
These days, yes. We’re very connected, Sam.
Lucky you, I thought, and sent her a mental wink.
And just like that, the tangle of branches and leaves and thorns and roots gave way to an open space, and a big pile of rocks.
“Here we are,” I said. “The entrance.”
Chapter Forty
The opening was smaller than Kingsley had hoped.
“This could pose a problem,” he said, which, of course, is exactly what I had said.
Kingsley, who’d scampered up onto the rocks with surprising agility, looking more like a hulking, hairy mountain goat than anything else, peered down into the dark hole that was surrounded by piles of boulders. That anyone consistently used this hole as an entry point to anything was beyond me. That my own flesh and blood sister had recently been forced down into this hole was unfathomable.
Poor Mary Lou.
Once again, I wished desperately that I could reach out to her in some way, but my sister and I were not in telepathic contact with each other, and neither were Danny or Fang; at least, in Fang’s case, not anymore.
What have you done, Fang?
The opening was not obvious, even if a hiker had managed to work his way to this spot, which I suspected few had, and those who had might not live long enough to talk about it. Indeed, the boulders were surprisingly free of graffiti, which was a rarity anywhere in Los Angeles.
The three of us had climbed onto them and were presently looking down into a small opening. I could have been Alice looking down into the rabbit’s hole. Except there were no rabbits down there, nor even a hallucinogenic Wonderland. No, nothing but murderous vampires.
And my sister. And Danny. And Fang.
Lord help us all.
Anyway, I could see through the darkness to a dirt floor below. I could also see imprints of shoes. Fresh imprints, too. Women’s running shoes included. If I had to guess, those were Mary Lou’s running shoes.
Seeing them now, and knowing she was close by, sent a fresh wave of panic through me.
I reported what I saw to the others, knowing that the entrance would lead down into a natural tunnel system.
“Tight squeeze,” said Allison, “even for us girls.”
She was right. How a grown man, no, a werewolf man, could expect to drop down into the hole, I didn’t know.
“Yes, this is a very big problem,” he said again.
“No,” said Allison, “you are the big problem.”
Believe it or not, I might have detected some flirtation in Allison’s voice. Yes, she’d always had a crush on the big oaf. Anyway, Kingsley grunted at that, then reached down into the hole, grabbed hold of the edge of one of the flatter rocks, and did something that surprised even me. He pulled the sucker out. The huge rock—which was a borderline boulder—flipped out and tumbled down the pile, landing with a heavy thud in the dirt below.
We all looked down into the now-much-bigger hole.
“It’s not a problem anymore,” he said a little smugly.
Allison literally melted. “That was very impressive.”
Kingsley looked at her, his eyes glowing wildly, blinked, and then shrugged. He might have just realized my best friend was smitten with him. “Yeah, well, I’m a bit of a monster.”
“Well, it was just so...very impressive.”
Cool your jets, I shot to her telepathically, and to Kingsley, I said, “It was also loud as hell…so much for the element of surprise.”
“I thought we agreed that we weren’t going to surprise anyone,” said Kingsley, slightly annoyed at my reprimand.
“Well, not anymore,” I said, and shot Lady Goo-Goo Eyes another hard stare, and then I leaped down into the tunnel entrance. “Come on,” I said up to them, stepping aside, and soon my friends, one after the other, landed next to me.
Chapter Forty-one
We were all in.
Although Kingsley and I could see just fine, Allison, despite her newfound witchy gifts and her ability to remote view, could not see in the dark. Which is why, presently, she was using the flashlight app on her Galaxy Note.
Kingsley, I couldn’t help but notice, filled the narrow tunnel completely. In fact, he had to turn his massive shoulders slightly to stand reasonably comfortably. Even still, he hunched forward a little and looked, in general, miserable. Like a caged beast, perhaps.
The walls of the tunnels were mostly natural, but the ceiling, I saw, had clearly been carved out by someone. When this had been done, I wouldn’t know, and, since none of us were archaeologists, we probably would never know. In fact, I wasn’t even entirely sure vampires had hacked their way through this tunnel system. It could have been hobos or even a WWII bunker, for all I knew.
Of course, the only thing that mattered was who—or what—was using the caverns now.
And that would be vampires, and according to Allison, there were at least three of them.
Under the glow of Allison’s cell phone app, I closed my eyes a final time and cast my thoughts out, down through the narrow tunnel, sweeping around a procession of ghosts—a host of lost spirits haunting the tunnels themselves...and into the caverns beyond, which were well within my range.
Once in the caverns, I noted the many torches flickering along the rock walls. No, vampires didn’t need light, but light wasn’t a bad thing, either. Perhaps these vamps wanted some additional light, perhaps the light was even for their human guests. I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care.
Next, I saw the first chamber. The room was decorated with a ragtag collection of furniture: old lounge chairs, garish couches and stools. Actually, the furniture looked like something from an old nightclub, which it very well might have been. How, exactly, the furniture had made it down here, I hadn’t a clue, although I suspected there might be another entrance somewhere. I didn’t know.
Anyway, on a purple camelback couch with an exaggerated hump sat a very old man who wasn’t a man at all. He was a vampire, in fact, and I recognized him from Allison’s own scan of the cavern. Of course, I recognized him from elsewhere, too. He was a vampire with a death wish. A vampire who, quite frankly, didn’t want to be a vampire anymore, and had been willing to kidnap a boy—a boy he’d thought was my son—to force me to give him the ruby medallion, which would have reversed his vampirism, thus rendering him mortal. His plan hadn’t worked, and now here he was, sitting casually on the couch, looking like an old creep at a nightclub, wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt, legs crossed. He appeared to be waiting for someone. Who that someone was, I could only guess.
I expanded my awareness out and into the next room, where I saw my ex-husband still secured to the desk. But this time, he wasn’t alone. This time, Detective Hanner of the Fullerton Police Department was standing next to him, her hand on his head...and there was my sister, sitting in a straight-back chair, guarded by, of all people, Fang, who stood next to her.
Her arms were tied behind her back, her head was covered by a burlap sack. Her chest shuddered with each sob. Bile rose in my throat at her terror. My
sister!
Hanner was holding a long blade away from her body, a blade that Danny kept his widened eyes on closely. My ex-husband, who had once been a loving and caring father, who had actually once even been a good husband before life—and the afterlife—had become too much for him, was scared shitless. I knew Danny and I knew that look. It was a look he’d given me many times after my turning.
Hanner’s head was bowed slightly as she held the knife in one hand, the other still resting on Danny’s head. And then, it occurred to me what she was doing.
She was scouting ahead, too. Or, rather, she was performing a sort of reverse surveillance. As Danny continued watching her, as blood dripped from his right hand, and as my sister continued weeping nearby, Hanner slowly raised her head and looked up...
And seemingly, directly at me.
She lifted her hand from Danny’s head and waggled her finger at me slowly. She was admonishing me, and I suspected I knew why. If she could see me as I could see her, she had seen Kingsley and Allison with me, as well. I hadn’t come alone, as I had been instructed.
And then she did the unthinkable.
She gave me a soulless smile—and plunged the knife deep into Danny’s chest.
Chapter Forty-two
I screamed and shot back into my body.
I was about to hurl myself down the hallway, as fast as I could, and into the caverns. In fact, it was only the hulking Kingsley in front of me who literally blocked my path that kept me from doing so.
“What happened?” Kingsley said, as I fought to get past him.
Allison answered for me, as all I could see was white-hot fury.
“Hanner stabbed Danny,” I heard her say. “I saw it, too.”
I was beyond thought or control. “I have to get to him. I have to get to him now!”
“We will, Sam.”