by Eve Paludan
“You shush,” I said, turning around my big head and giving him the stink eye. “It hasn’t even started yet.”
I turned back to Sam, who had a smirk on her face as if she were proud of me.
The curtain opened, the house lights were killed, the stage lights went up and everyone applauded. Some slick guy stepped forward and put his arm around Jolie and her red-and-white electric guitar. I guessed the guy was the master of ceremonies. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was human.
Suddenly, I realized something unexpected.
The dancers were not in the spotlight, but my keen werewolf eyes spotted Sam’s sister wearing a blonde wig and dressed as one of the dancers. I sniffed. It was her.
“Hello, Mary Lou.”
“Goodbye, Hart,” Sam replied as she recognized her sister. We bumped fists.
Both Fang and Dracula raised their eyebrows. I had to admit, it was a lot to take in that Mary Lou was in on this caper.
“What in the hell is she thinking?” Sam whispered.
I really hoped that Mary Lou was wearing a flak jacket.
Dracula nudged Sam. “Let the spirit loose.”
Sam unzipped her purse and whispered down into it, “You’re on, Danny. So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.”
Now, we just had to hope he didn’t blow it.
Danny’s wispy form stared at Sam for several moments, and then rose up toward the ceiling, just as some laser special effects kicked in. That was great timing because he blended right in with the light show.
Fang touched my arm with his cold hand. “Kingsley, what the hell is going on? What’s Mary Lou doing up there? And what is Danny’s ghost doing?”
“Quiet,” Sam whispered. “Something is about to go down.”
A come-to-Jesus look came over Fang’s face. “Wait. I know what this is with Danny,” Fang said, looking like he was about to cry. “Sam, please, don’t let him take—”
“Calm down,” I said. I put my huge hairy arm around Fang, as much to keep him from making a run for the stage as to comfort him. I couldn’t let the Secret Service shoot my bro if they were trigger-happy around the President. Even if they had regular bullets instead of silver ones, I didn’t want to have to explain Fang’s existence to anyone. Or bail him out of jail and be stuck acting as his defense lawyer. I had recently figured out just who he was—an escaped murderer from a mental hospital—but I would keep ‘Aaron Parker’s’ true identity a secret. Even if that meant taking it with me into eternity.
“Let me go,” Fang said miserably. “I love her. I don’t know why, but I do.”
“Before you were a vampire, she was your guardian angel,” I explained.
“No,” Fang said. “No!”
“Yeah, for sure,” I whispered.
“Who even told you that about Jolie being a guardian angel?” Sam asked. Her eyebrows went north.
“A guy who says his name is ‘Call me Ishmael’ gave me hints. He spoke in riddles, really.” This time, I was able to get the words out. Apparently, it was the right time for me to reveal this.
“Oh, great,” Sam said. “I can’t believe he’s hanging around you now.”
“He popped into my car while you were inside Fang’s club, drinking blood.”
“Shh,” the man behind said us again.
“Listen, Mister Shush,” I said, turning around. “We’ve got a life-and-undeath situation going on here. So, you can either zip it and listen to our private conversation, or I’ll flag down the Secret Service and tell them you plan to do something to the President. And they would believe me. At least long enough to see you spending the rest of the show having your body cavities searched. Stop interrupting us.”
The man sat back in his seat, scared, and pressed his lips together. He even made a gesture that he was zipping it.
“That’s better.” I turned back to my friends.
“Why isn’t she my guardian angel anymore?” Fang asked.
“Because you’re a vampire,” Dracula explained. “Instead of a guardian angel, you have an entity in you.”
“Does she even know she is… or was… an angel?” Fang asked.
“No,” I said. “Morrie wiped her memory.” I paused. “I think Jolie was trying to save you from becoming a vampire and somehow, she got caught up in all of this.”
“This is terrible,” Fang said.
“I know. Sit tight.” I held onto him with all my strength.
“I’m going with her,” Fang said.
“You can’t,” Dracula said. “You have an entity in you. You can’t go where she’s going.”
“Then I want her to stay.”
“Not an option,” I said. “She’s my client. I’m going to do what she hired me for.”
“What’s going to happen?” Fang asked.
“You’ll see. Just let her sing,” I said.
“No.” Fang struggled against my grip, but I held on.
“Let her go, Fang,” Sam said.
Fang’s eyes filled with tears. Damn it. I could feel his emotional pain radiating into me. He struggled to escape me. I held him down in his seat, even though he was damn strong.
Dracula snapped at Fang, “Be noble!”
That must have been the right thing to say, because, to Fang’s credit, from then on, he was.
Chapter 30
“Good evening, Mr. President and Mrs.—”
A cheer went up and polite applause as well, which covered up the effusive greeting to the president and his wife. When people quieted down, the man on stage continued.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! I am the manager of Jolie Hart, the talented and rising star you’re about to meet. When she sings her debut song for you, I’m sure you’ll agree just how lucky you are to be here tonight. My name is Morris Pike, and I’ve been in the talent business for a long time. It is my solemn promise that you’re going to have a night to remember!”
To my surprise, I realized the MC was none other than Morrie, the demon vampire. I had never seen him, but of course, Sam and Fang had.
As he yammered on in an elaborate lie about how he had discovered Jolie Hart at Sprinkles Cupcakes in Beverly Hills, I took the opportunity to get a better look at him. Morris Pike was fair-haired and square-jawed and his eyes had a beguiling inner light. When he opened his mouth to introduce Jolie, his voice was like butter melting on toast. That smooth. Only the glint of stage lights on his sparkling incisors gave a hint of his vampirism. That, and the growing fire in his pupils.
I’d thought Morrie would be super creepy-looking, as demons are expected to appear. Movies, books and other pop culture media had left their impression on me, just as they had with what I’d expected of Dracula. However, Morrie was a human-looking man who was charismatically handsome, like a younger Brad Pitt. If anything, he was even fitter than Pitt in his Thelma and Louise years. Morrie’s tux accentuated his tall, athletic body and his hands were long and artistic looking with manicured nails.
I considered my own werewolf nails that I had to file down twice a week with a steel rasp.
I realized my mind was drifting when I got a text from Dracula, who was sitting on the other side of Sam.
Sam’s phone, and Fang’s phone, too, vibrated with Dracula’s text message and we all read it at the same time: If Jolie sings the outro forward, the key will be turned to open the portal to Hell and not only will she disappear into the maw with Morrie, but so will the President and the First Lady.
We all snapped our necks to look at him and he nodded. He was convinced of this.
Morrie was droning on and, as a growing dread arose in me, I texted back to all of us: I get it about the Prez and his lady, but what does the guy downstairs even want with Jolie Hart?
Dracula texted back to all of us: He doesn’t have an angelic choir like they do upstairs. She will be his first singer. No one in Hell sings. Yet.
“Without further ado,” Morrie was saying, “I present to you the lovely Jolie
Hart and the Ba-Da-Boom Dancers.”
The stage lights went up, and the music started. I realized that though Mary Lou and the other dancers were wearing glitzy costumes that looked like they wore no tops, but were actually flesh-colored stockings over their chests. When they danced, there was bounce. A lot of bounce.
Yep, good old Mary Lou, Sam’s big sister, was dancing with some showgirls with lots of bounce, but she was the best at it. I tried not to be a hound dog about it, but even Sam’s face was the tiniest bit envious of Mary Lou’s spunk. And of the ba-da-boom in her boom-booms. Where Sam was compact and curvy, Mary Lou was—
Sam hit me on the shoulder. I wish she’d quit reading my mind. That wasn’t actually the best part, though.
During a long instrumental intro, lovingly played on her classic 70s red-and-white Fender Stratocaster as well as sung by her voice, Jolie began to have a fiery halo around her. A growing halo of flames illuminated her entire body and head, arms, every part of her, down to the graceful fingers that caressed the guitar strings.
It was a fire that seemed not to burn her and indeed, she was so into her music that she seemed unaware that anyone was here with her. She closed her eyes, and it felt like she was personally playing this haunting melody to everyone. Even Samantha Moon had her hand over her heart, so moved was she at the sound of the strings. I don’t know how she did it, but Jolie made that guitar and her voice sing like a hundred Celtic harps. It was, perhaps, the most beautiful instrumental intro in the entire history of music.
As the notes from the electric guitar and her voice wrapped around me like a lover, I had to shake myself so as not to be bewitched by the sweet music that she had, somehow, brought with her from Heaven to this undeserving place. There was no way that I was letting Jolie be taken to Hell.
The flames leapt higher around Jolie. To the audience, the flames would look like special effects. Yet, it was the real thing—the flames were springing from Morrie and his ilk, as they sought to claim Jolie for Hell’s first choir.
I just hoped Jolie would do the thing that Danny had told us would reverse the curse.
Eventually, the long intro was over and Jolie—who had sung in my garden to bunnies and birds—opened her mouth and sang the main lyrics, which I had not previously heard.
She sang of a sacred stairway, a stairway she climbed with a lover who was taking her to the heights, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Jolie opened her eyes wide and looked right at Fang as the chords tore from her throat like a whole angelic choir. She aimed all of that emotion—all of that true love and beauty—at Fang.
Crystalline tears ran down his face, but he made not one sound, only listened to more of the song that told how she was lost in Los Angeles and how a tall, dark, vampire found her lying naked in the street and took her home and washed her, dressed her, fed her, caressed her, and spoke to her with the utmost compassion. In the song, he told her that she was like him. At first, she had cried to learn she was a vampire, but then found herself surrounded by love, and passion, and hope for a love that would last for all eternity.
The magical, mystical, bewitching music, sung by an angel as chords from her throat, was the most amazing sound I’d ever heard. Jolie was belting her heart out with her song that would make history in Las Vegas and beyond.
She was singing it for the President and the First Lady, but that didn’t matter. She was singing for a bunch of other mortals, but that that didn’t matter either. What mattered right then was that she was singing it for Fang, who loved her more than anyone.
My heart was breaking for Fang. I couldn’t even imagine that he was really going to let her go into the light. If it were even possible, could I let Sam go that way? That was a question that I never wanted to know the answer to.
I looked at Fang’s shimmering eyes, but he only had eyes for Jolie. His hands were stretched out toward her like he was at a prayer meeting—I knew that they were telepathically communicating. There was not a dry eye in the house, except for Morrie’s. He stood in the wings, his eyes glittering, ready to pounce on her when she finished singing and take her down the portal to the evilest being in the universe. In the same moment, I knew Morrie or his thugs would make a grab for Sam and try to kill her.
The audience was enraptured by the song. She had a range that ran from Barry White to Mariah Carey. Every chord was sung in perfect harmony, as if her supernatural throat was strung with a thousand vocal cords from every great singer who had ever lived. And every one in Heaven, too.
I cried. I couldn’t do anything but cry. Not only did I cry because Jolie Hart’s song was so beautiful, but because the world would only hear her sing it once.
Chapter 31
When Jolie got to the part just before the outro—the very intense climax of the song—I nudged Sam on one side of me and Dracula on the other. Sam nudged Fang and as a unit, we stood and began to move toward the stage. A woman screamed, and I moved to protect Sam as a shot rang out at the same split second.
“Kingsley! It’s silver!” she cried, and she went down.
My heart almost stopped, but I had a job to do. So did Jolie.
Jolie Hart kept on singing. Not the version of the song ending that she had practiced for me in my garden, but something altogether different. I felt myself fall over Sam in slow motion. She was unconscious and bleeding from her chest. A silver bullet it truly was, and I only had seconds, if that.
I did the only thing I could think to do. Not caring about the number of people around me who might see, not caring about anything but saving Sam, I burst from my clothes and turned into the werewolf. I plunged my teeth deep into Sam’s chest, hunting for the silver bullet that had ripped into her. My teeth would hurt, but it was better than the alternative. Using nothing but my teeth, I tore the bullet from her bleeding flesh. With the burning, poison silver bullet in my mouth, I turned again back into my human form.
Just as she sang the last note of the outro, I spat that silver bullet straight into the heart of Jolie Hart.
She gasped as it struck her, and she fell in one movement. The last note of the outro hung in the air for a moment, and then faded. When the note died away, she sank to the stage, and a stairway appeared.
The stairway was a column of light that split the atmosphere to fracture the stage and shimmer there like a special effect. But it was real. And it would only last seconds.
The spirit of Jolie Hart arose from her formerly undead but now truly dead body.
Already healing, Sam opened her eyes. “Thanks, Kingsley.” Pushing clear of me, she jumped to her feet, her eyes on the stage. “Get down, Mary Lou!”
She leaped forward in a blur, throwing herself at Mary Lou to squash her to the stage floor just in time. The Secret Service let loose with a hail of bullets. At least they weren’t silver.
In the middle of the stage, none of that mattered. Jolie’s spirit hung there next to the staircase, apparently unsure of what to do next. Then I saw Danny’s spirit coming down from his hiding place near the lights. He floated down beside Jolie’s newly dead form and her spirit turned to watch as Danny floated in the direction of the light. He extended a hand that beckoned her to follow.
For a moment, Jolie seemed to hesitate, looking back at Fang. Then Danny’s spirit wrapped a ghostly hand around hers. Together, they stepped toward the staircase and climbed it, walking upward until they vanished into the light. Then, the stairway vanished.
Whatever fragile peace there had been for a few moments disappeared as the house lights went on. It was pandemonium as dancers ran for the wings and took cover. The Secret Service swarmed the stage from the front, and Marines swarmed the stage from the back. Morrie must have realized just how much trouble he was in because he ran like hell.
However, he wasn’t quick enough to escape me. I again turned into the werewolf, springing forward with all my power. I plucked Morrie off his feet by his neck. He screamed and wiggled in my jaws, but no, I didn’t kill him yet. Not in front of mortals. No
t in front of the First Lady. I had my code of honor, too.
I didn’t get a chance to kill Morrie, though, because Dracula intervened. In an instant, he turned to his dragon form. In a movement too fast to follow, he snatched Morrie from me and flew upward, crashing through the ceiling of the concert hall. Sam turned to her primordial bat form and grabbed her sister in her talons, rising up through the hole that the dragon had made.
They had a point. It was time to go. I grabbed Fang as gently as I could in my jaws and jumped as high as I could. Out through the hole and over the roof.
So much had happened at once. It was such a cluster. And yet, it was so beautiful to hear Jolie Hart sing that final part of the song, a cappella, without words, just voices, thousands of beautiful voices. Only her voice could have become the key that opened the portal to Heaven and closed up the gate to Hell. But she’d done it. She’d given us the means to return her to Heaven, thwart Morrie’s plans, and keep Samantha from being killed for her entity.
Where the minions of the underworld went was anyone’s guess. If there were any, I never saw one. Just Morrie, acting on his own. The fool!
After all our worries, the spirit of Danny had not blown it. He had led the entity-free, undead vampire spirit of Jolie Hart into a stairway of light, to Heaven, where she would once again be an angel singing with the others like her. Hopefully, they could restore her memory. Or not, whichever would be happier for her. I hated to think that she would forget Fang, whose incredible love had inspired that wondrous song.
In the meantime, I ran faster than I ever had. Sam and Dracula could fly out of sight, but I had to run ahead of the police cars, their sirens screaming somewhere behind me. I jumped into alleys, Fang still held gently in my mouth. Finally, finally, I lost them and doubled back to return to the hotel. I made a giant leap up to our hotel balcony and let Fang down gently before I returned to my man form.
We all regrouped in the hotel suite in our human-ish forms. Sam disposed of our bloody clothes by flying them out to the desert and dropping them in Lake Mead and then flying back in a matter of minutes.