J.R. Rain's Vampire for Hire World_Wolf Moon

by Eve Paludan

  “Whose blood is this?” I asked the question again, not because I didn’t believe—but because I was trying to understand. My hands were not trembling, but my voice was. “Whose?”

  “Again, ‘tis mine, but not in this corporeal form.”

  He stood and the towel fell, exposing his body again, and I saw that it was now young, virile. Only his face was old. Maybe he could have work done, if he wanted it. I looked at up at his craggy face as his eyes began to glow with a golden inner light.

  He rose into the night sky and hovered just beyond the balcony. Then he turned into… there was no other way to describe it… a dragon. His wings seemed to spread impossibly wide as they supported him, and his beautifully shaped dragon head was somewhere between that of an Arabian horse and something more lizard like. His scales, though golden, rippled with prisms of light. When he opened his mouth, I saw crystalline stalactites and stalagmites, a lolling red tongue, and yes, violet smoke whistling from his nostrils. The smoke smelled like frangipani. I took in a big whiff and stored the dragon scents in my werewolf olfactory memory.

  In my head, I heard his voice as clearly as if he’d spoken. “You may have one sip of my dragon’s blood. One. You will need it for our battle against evil.”

  As the magnificent dragon watched me, I took one sip and the taste was sweet, not lurid or cloying as I’d feared. Not bitter with sin, nor hate. It was pure strength.

  Dracul cried out to the night like a pterodactyl in a Spielberg movie. It hurt my ears and thrummed through my body like the reverberating strings of a bass guitar. While I watched, he winged away into the hot, shimmering night above Vegas.

  Chapter 23

  The next morning, I was the last one to get my ass up, though technically, my limbs were out of bed already. At least, they were hanging over the edges of the pull-out bed. I sat up and bumped my head on the ceiling.

  “Ow, what the hell? I’m huge!” I rubbed my banged skull with large, hammy hands. I felt like Alice in Wonderland after she’d consumed the wafer on which was written, “Eat me.” I needed to shrink again. Maybe I could find a bottle marked, “Drink me.”

  Unfortunately, this was no child’s fairy tale. It was my reality.

  The world’s first vampire held out his hand and looked at me expectantly. The Big D had apparently gone for a spray tan and had come back to the hotel suite looking like Sid Caesar. I handed Dracul the Grail, which, sometime during the night, had turned back into the gold flask that he nursed all day and night as if it were a golden teat.

  He clearly heard my thoughts. “I don’t make sport of your food, grave robber. If you want to get along with others, maybe you should embrace what you have in common with them.”

  “How did you become so wise?” I asked.

  “Time,” Dracula answered. “Long ago, I liked the feeling of cold-blooded murder. Slowly, I became bored of the sameness of it when it was without reason. I began to realize that it gave me great satisfaction to rid the world of evil, and that I could pick and choose my marks, stealing power from them by consuming those who deserved my wrath for what they had wrought upon the weak and the meek. I wasn’t so much vengeful as I was just doing a little light housekeeping.”

  I tried to digest this all.

  “Cat got your tongue, eh?”

  I nodded.

  He put the Grail flask in his pocket and regarded me. “You’ve grown so much since last night. Are you sure you only had one sip of dragon’s blood?”

  “Positive.”

  “Maybe it works differently for werewolves. Interesting.”

  “What do you mean ‘interesting’? Was I your experiment?” That was not something I wanted to find out when I was suddenly about ten feet tall.

  “In the name of science, someone always has to be the first,” he said.

  Sam slipped into the hotel suite with coffee for the three of us. “I do not suffer idiots gladly.” She kicked the door closed. “They spelled my name on my cup as ‘Siddhartha,’ which I find very passive-aggressive. Who doesn’t know how to spell Samantha?”

  To be fair, she wasn’t alone. I took the cup that had ‘Cling-free’ on it and Dracula picked up the one labeled ‘Dratula.’ He shook his head at the audacity of humans and poured a shot of dragon blood into his coffee from his ever-filling flask.

  “Are you able to drink coffee now?” I asked Sam.

  “No. I just buy it to smell it.”

  I laughed. “I totally get that.”

  Sam looked at me as I again banged my head on the ceiling. “Kingsley, you have got to stay out of the all-you-can-eat buffets.”

  Chapter 24

  Sam wanted to do things differently than I wanted to do them. I did my OCD werewolf thing where I tried to extrapolate every possible scenario and outcome. Every time, it came down to one thing.

  “We have to have a person backstage to protect Jolie,” I said. “We need to be in close proximity, but hidden from Morrie and his ilk. I recommend the overhead catwalk for the lighting as a hiding place.”

  Sam replied, “That might be a problem. If you get on the catwalk, it may not hold your weight. It may just come down on Jolie’s head.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “I wasn’t saying you’re fat. I’m saying you’re big. I’ll get up on the catwalk. You guys take a seat in one of the front rows if we can get tickets.”

  “I’ve already pre-paid the tickets,” Dracula said. “My name got us V.I.P. seats.”

  “Thanks!” I was already paying for the suite, so it was nice that Dracula picked up the tab for the concert tickets.

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. “As for Kingsley’s size problem, simply wait.”

  I waited. By late Sunday afternoon, my exponential jump in size had receded to my former buff self—I got on my knees in the bathroom to thank the powers-that-be for restoring me to my usual size. I never wanted to grow so big that I couldn’t embrace Samantha Moon for fear of crushing her.

  Whew. Never again would I drink from the Grail of dragon’s blood. Dracula is a dragon. I was still trying to process that new knowledge. How had I ever assumed that Sam’s primitive bat form was the only one that a vampire could transform into?

  Eventually, everything was ready for tonight, including keeping Fang close to Jolie Hart. He texted us that he was on the security roster and he and Dracula exchanged texts, too.

  Finally, we were just killing time until the concert. Sam had called her kids at lunchtime and was now bowling on the Wii with Dracula. He was really good at it, much better than me. He kept bowling perfect games. So did she. There came a point where I just wouldn’t play their vampire games anymore. I don’t like losing bets with an old man and a girl. Samantha had already won five hundred bucks from Dracula at Wii tennis and he was better than me at all the games, so… yeah, I just chilled as best as I could and tried not to tear up things.

  I was getting cranky. Werewolf cranky. I was about twenty itchy, sweaty hours from the full moon. I wished I could go home now, but there was no way that I was going to leave my Samantha unprotected.

  I kept pacing the hotel suite, in agony over what we had to do to Fang. There was just no way we couldn’t send Jolie back where she belonged. I knew it was the right thing to do. I just didn’t want to do it because Fang’s loss would be for eternity.

  “You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet with your pacing,” Sam said.

  “Let’s go,” I insisted. “I’m going to explode if I don’t kick some vampire ass, begging your pardon as I don’t mean either of you. Or Fang.”

  Dracula and Sam nodded at each other.

  “It’s late enough,” Dracula said.

  Sam agreed. “Okay, boys. It’s show time.”

  The three of us headed downstairs for the concert venue. We were still too early, though. The doors weren’t open yet and worse, the place had about a hundred men-in-black security goons milling around. Just the sight of them was enough to make me want to rethink things.<
br />
  I put a hand on Sam’s arm. “I want to talk to you. Privately.”

  “I’ll watch the door,” Dracula said.

  I nodded my thanks.

  “Who do you think all those guys in black are?” I asked Sam.

  “Possibly Secret Service,” Sam said as we ducked into Numb Bar Frozen Cocktails and ordered a couple of virgin cocktails that were whisked to us as fast as my two twenties disappeared.

  “The President of the United States is going to watch Jolie sing?”

  “Looks like it.” Sam shook her head. “What else could go wrong?”

  At that moment, her phone rang. I knew the ringtone was the one she used for her daughter because it was Debbie Reynolds singing “Tammy.” Sam put it on speakerphone, not that I had trouble hearing with my sharp werewolf ears.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam asked her teen daughter.

  “Mom, I know you told me not to read adults’ minds, but—”

  “Tammy, you know I’m on an investigation. Are you calling to tattle on an adult?”

  “Sort of, but you need to know something important about Aunt Mary Lou.” There was a hint of desperation in her voice.

  “What’s up?”

  “Aunt Mary Lou packed a bag and left.”

  “She’s supposed to be watching you guys this weekend!” Sam’s voice rose in pitch.

  “Chill, Mom. Just listen. Uncle Geek has us involved in a game tournament.”

  “Don’t call him that,” Sam said. “It’s disrespectful.”

  “Sorry. He just ordered Domino’s, we’re playing games and there are little prizes and everything. We’re beta testing his new suite of retro arcade games. He’s such a cool uncle. Anyway, me, Anthony, and the crazy cousins are fine. The problem isn’t with us. It’s where Aunt Mary Lou went.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “Las Vegas. I read her mind when she was packing. That was two hours ago. She was going to the airport, so she’s probably there already.”

  “Oh, no!” Sam said. “What hotel?”

  “I don’t know. Her mind was all mixed up like she was nervous. I heard something in her head about that singer, Jolie Hart, who was over at Aunt Mary Lou’s house. When the kids were asleep, apparently, Aunt Mary Lou talked to Miss Hart about something they were gonna do to prevent something bad from happening. I couldn’t call you earlier because Anthony stole my phone charger and my phone was dead.”

  “Good grief,” I said.

  Behind us, someone hit a jackpot, yelling while the machine made its ding-ding sounds of coins falling, even though only a paper ticket was spitting out.

  “Mom, are you in Vegas, too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not gonna give you the third degree for not telling me and Anthony where you went. Just find Aunt Mary Lou and stop her from whatever she thinks she’s going to do. It felt dangerous.”

  “What’s she gonna do?” Sam asked.

  “I dunno. Call her. She won’t answer my calls. Love you! Oh, and by the way, Anthony is a big dork with skid marks on his boxers.” With that, Tammy hung up.

  “How is my sister even mixed up in this?” Sam asked.

  I swallowed hard. “Um…”

  “Spit it out, Kingsley.”

  “She’s playing private investigator,” I said.

  “Not funny in the least. Try again.”

  I insisted, “She was in the process of taking the test and getting her P.I. license. And she’s getting good with her gun. I helped her shop for it.”

  “Wait a minute. My sister has a gun?”

  “She’s got some guns… on her, yes,” I quipped.

  “I’m going to ignore that comment about my sister’s chest.”

  “Yeah, it was uncalled for. Sorry.”

  Sam stood very still. “When were you going to tell me about Mary Lou becoming a P.I.?”

  “She was going to tell you when she got her license. It was going to be her surprise to you.”

  Sam groaned. “She has three kids and works in a safe insurance office in Placentia. How could this happen?”

  “I sort of told her that her experience as a claims adjuster counted as experience toward her P.I. license. I advised her about the certification requirements and how to meet them.”

  Sam’s lips pressed into a tight, unattractive line. “I know you meant well, but I’m very pissed off at you right now.”

  I said, “Your approval means the world to Mary Lou. She did this for you.”

  “She did this for herself. For her revenge. Now, let’s find her and stop her from getting herself killed.”

  Sam called her sister, but the call went to voicemail.

  “Don’t do it, Mary Lou,” Sam said. “Stay as far away from vampires as you can. You don’t have to impress me by doing this. I love you, sis.”

  Sam hung up. She looked like she was going to freak out.

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  “Use your werewolf nose to sniff out my sister.”

  There were thousands of people in Caesars Palace. “I’ll try. What perfume does she wear when she goes out?”

  “You know perfumes?”

  “Some, not all. I have a huge olfactory memory and the gals at Nordstrom’s always lavish free samples on me.”

  Sam shook her head. “She wears Jean Naté.”

  “By Revlon?” I asked.

  “No,” Sam said, “the older one by Charles of the Ritz. She collects vintage scents on eBay, but that’s her signature scent.”

  “It’s lemony, spicy. Floral notes. A little cedar. A little lavender. I know it well,” I said.

  “How do you know this?” Sam asked.

  “Believe me, I’m very much into what women smell like. I could smell women all day long. I remember each one by their smell. Even you.”

  “What do I smell like?”

  “I’ll tell you when it’s more appropriate.” I flared out my nostrils and took a whiff. “She’s in the building, Sam.”

  Chapter 25

  We were desperate to find Mary Lou.

  Dracula, Sam and I ran around Caesars Palace with Secret Service people milling around, clearing rooms, and kicking people out of elevators so they could use them. I was following my nose and, apparently, Mary Lou had been places with Jolie. They had been shopping. They had eaten out. They’d had spray tans and gotten their hair and makeup done. I smelled Fang, too, his earthy, male vampire scent lingering where he’d discreetly tailed the ladies—he’d apparently waited outside all the shops so Mary Lou wouldn’t see him.

  The Big D had left the door of the concert hall because he was annoyed by some people in line and didn’t want to kill them.

  “Sam,” Dracula said. “It occurs to me that your sister is at risk, too. Not just Jolie Hart.”

  “You will not take my sister and make her into a vampire.”

  Dracula didn’t react with the anger I expected. “Why would I do that? I already have you, Samantha Moon.”

  “With all due respect, Dracul, I’m owned by no one.”

  “My point was,” Dracula said, “Morrie and his demons—if they know who Mary Lou is—could kidnap her and ransom her back in exchange for you.”

  Sam looked terrified at that possibility.

  “Diabolical,” I said.

  “That’s what I would do,” said the old vampire, “except that today, I am on your side.”

  “Thank you.” She squeezed his arm.

  “You will owe me after tonight, Samantha Moon.”

  “You’ll have to talk to my entity about that.”

  “Sam, when this is done, I want to know everything about the connection between the Big D and the entity inside of you,” I said innocently.

  Both Sam and Dracula gave me dirty looks. Sam even hissed at me. Or her entity did.

  “Fine,” I said. “I won’t ask again. Apparently, it’s too personal.”

  “It is,” Sam said.

  Dracula looked at her. “No, the w
olf is right. He should know.”

  Sam didn’t look happy about that, but eventually, she nodded.

  Dracula turned to me. “Kingsley, my soul mate is the entity that lives inside of Sam. Anything that happens to Sam happens to her, too. As much as you are here protecting Samantha, I have my own concerns. We cannot let anything happen to the entity. It is my eternal lover in Sam. So remember, if you let anything happen to Samantha Moon, or to the entity inside her, I will render you into finely masticated morsels of dog meat and spit them over the four corners of the Earth to shrivel in the sun and let the buzzards eat you.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “I bet you wish you hadn’t asked now,” Sam said to me.

  Chapter 26

  Now that we were getting close to the moment to act, Danny the ghost had perked up considerably. He was buzzing around Samantha Moon in circles, like Tinkerhell. Yes, Tinkerhell.

  As he flew in circles around Samantha like a demented fairy on meth, a strange greenish glow about his particle form seemed untoward for the circumstances. Although werewolves can’t see auras—or at least, I can’t—something seemed different about his amorphous form. Not malicious, per se, but mercenary.

  “Danny, I need to talk to you alone,” I said when I suddenly realized what his gleeful excitement was all about. And it wasn’t good.

  “What can’t you say in front of me?” Sam asked, perturbed.

  “It’s better if you don’t know,” I replied.

  Dracula frowned at me.

  “You either,” I said. “Neither of you can hear what Danny and I are going to talk about.”

  “He can’t even talk anymore,” Sam protested.

  “We’ll figure something out.” I stopped at a men’s room. I angled my head at the spirit of Danny. “In my office. Now.”

  I went in the men’s room so that Sam and Dracula wouldn’t be able to hear me talking unless they came in. Danny passed through the door, following me inside. I turned the lock to ensure that no one else who had a body could enter.

  After I made sure we were alone, I turned the water all the way to hot on every sink and let it begin to steam up the long mirror that ran the length of the sinks. I looked at Danny’s wavering particles in the mirror. His deep-set sockets and what passed for eyes glowed green. Oh, how that made my stomach lurch.