by J. R. Rain
"I gave you a part of me. "
"What part?"
Looking into those round eyes, those red lips, those chubby cheeks. . . cheeks that were rapidly turning sharper and sharper. . . I just couldn't do it. I couldn't tell him that he fed from my wrist.
Not yet, I thought. Someday. Perhaps someday soon. Not now. Baby steps.
Instead, I tapped my heart. "I gave you love, baby. All the love I had in the world. "
"And it made me stronger?"
"It made you strong like me. "
"Wow. "
"But this is our secret, okay?"
"Why?"
"Because we're a little different than other people. "
"Can I still go in the sun?"
"Yes," I said.
"But how are we different?"
"Well, we are stronger than most people. "
"Oh, cool. "
"But it's our secret, okay? The way Superman keeps his identity secret. "
"And Batman and Spider-Man!"
"Yes, exactly. "
"Oh, my gosh! Are we like. . . superheroes?"
I thought about that. I thought of my son taking care of the school bullies. I thought of myself taking care of Johnny and his gang.
I nodded. "Yeah, a little bit. "
"Oh, cool!" He paused and cocked his head a little. "But will I ever be normal again?"
His question hit me by surprise. Maybe I was dreading hearing it. Maybe I had hoped he would never ask it. I looked at him, then looked away. I rubbed my hands together, then ran my fingers through my hair. My son, I knew, would never be normal again. Ever. I was suddenly overwhelmed with what I had done to him.
"Why are you crying, Mommy?"
"I'm sorry, baby. "
"Sorry for what?"
So innocent. So sweet. He didn't deserve this. Shit. I started rocking in my seat as my son watched me with wide, concerned eyes. He started patting me on the arm the way he does when he's nervous.
"I'm sorry, Mommy. I'm sorry I made you cry. I didn't mean to. "
I covered my face and did my best to hide my tears, the deep pain that seemed to want to burst from my chest. I held it in. Or tried to.
"I'm so sorry, baby. "
"It's okay, Mommy. "
And he kept telling me it would be okay, over and over, as I rocked in my seat, weeping into my hands.
Chapter Thirty-two
On the way home from Cold Stone creamery, I was certain we had picked up a tail.
It was a white cargo van with tinted windows. It had pulled out behind us as we exited the Cold Stone parking lot, then had dropped back four or five car lengths.
Where it held steady.
Until we were about halfway to my house, when it peeled away suddenly. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except that my inner alarm system had begun buzzing steadily.
A block later, another van appeared behind me. A blue cargo van. Tinted windows. Again five car lengths behind. They were using a tag-team system. I was sure of it. If done right, it's a system that's nearly impossible to detect by the mark.
Except when your mark is a vampire with a highly sensitive inner alarm system. Except when your mark is an ex-federal agent trained to pick up tails.
I made a few random turns, and it kept pace. Anthony turned and looked at me curiously but didn't say anything. Mommy was weird, after all.
I led the van to a quieter street, one with only a single lane, and soon it was directly behind me. I didn't recognize the guy behind the wheel.
Soon, we stopped at a stop sign. Another thing I'd learned to do: reading license plates in my rearview mirror.
Backward.
* * *
At home, I ran the plate.
The owner was A-1 Retro Services out of New Jersey. No address. I did a Google search on A-1 Retro Services and got nothing.
This might seem like a dead end, but it wasn't. It was proof that I had, indeed been followed. In particular, by someone who knew how to stay anonymous. Not hard to do, actually, but it did take some creative accounting.
I stared down at my screen, drummed my fingers, let the information soak in. Ultimately, the question remained: why was I being followed?
I thought about that as I sat back in my office chair and listened to Anthony playing something called Skylanders on his Xbox. Tammy was still at school. I'd arranged with her best friend's mom to pick her up as well. These days, there were only so many times I could dash out the door and into the sunlight.
Either my condition was getting progressively worse, or I was becoming more monstrous.
Or maybe they were one and the same.
My inner alarm hadn't stopped jangling since we'd gotten home; now, it was just one long, continuous buzz inside my inner ear. Enough to rattle me and keep me on edge.
It's not uncommon for a P. I. to be followed. Granted, it certainly doesn't happen as much as it might in movies or books, but it can happen. The last time I'd been followed was seven months ago, by a handsome, blond-haired vampire hunter with issues. He was last seen heading west on a Carnival Cruise ship to Hawaii, courtesy of yours truly.
So who was out there now? Who was watching me? And why?
The two vans had been driven by experienced surveillance drivers, working in tandem with each other. Now, private eyes piss a lot of people off. Especially cheating husbands and wives.
Except cheating husbands and wives did not use an advanced tag-team surveillance technique.
Down the hallway, in his bedroom, my son laughed loudly. Maybe I shouldn't let him play video games. Maybe a good mother would have punished her son for being suspended from school.
But I just couldn't justify punishing him for helping a girl. Punishing him for doing something right.
The inner alarm continued to buzz, so much so that I nearly yelled, "Stop!"
Instead, I got up and paced.
After a few laps, I realized the warning bells were only getting louder.
Jesus, what was happening? What was going to happen?
I didn't know.
Although my psychic abilities had grown, I still could not predict the future. And as I paced my living room, I paused twice to glance out the big living room window that overlooked the front lawn and the cul-de-sac leading up to my house. The cul-de-sac was empty. The street beyond was empty, other than two teenagers sitting on a neighbor's fence, talking and texting.
Random cars were parked here and there.
No sign of any cargo vans.
The buzzing between my ears sounded like a swarm of gnats circling my head. I nearly swatted at them, like King Kong swatting at airplanes on top of the Empire State Building.
I forced myself to sit on my couch, forced myself to take deep breaths, to calm down. I focused on my breathing.
There. Easy now. Calm down.
And from this state of semi-tranquility, I closed my eyes and was able to cast my thoughts out like a net. An ever-widening net that trawled through my house, through the different rooms, and out into the back yard -
Where I saw two men creeping through my back yard.
They were both armed with crossbows.
I gasped and snapped back into my body, just as glass broke from down the hallway.
Anthony's room.
Chapter Thirty-three
I stumbled off the couch, disoriented and dizzy, braced myself on a wall, then hurtled through my small house.
"Anthony!" I screamed.
I was in my son's room in a blink, and what I saw took a second or two to absorb. The bedroom window was broken. The sound of running feet. My son standing there in the center of his room, breathing hard, fists clenched.
"It's okay, Mommy. They're gone now. "
I looked my son over wildly, then hurried over to the broken window. Our house abuts the Pep Boys parking lot, separated by our backyard f
ence. From inside the house, I could just see a white van peeling away from the fence, zigzagging briefly.
Sweet Jesus.
I considered pursuing, but there was no way in hell was I leaving my son. I noted the broken glass wasn't inside the bedroom, as I had expected. The glass was outside, littering the dry grass, sparkling there under the last of the setting sun. A sun that was even now burning me alive.
I fought through it, grimacing, trying to piece together what had happened. The glass was broken out, which meant. . .
And then I saw it, a few feet away. Anthony's Xbox controller was lying in the grass, too, broken into two or three pieces.
He had thrown it. Through the window. I looked back at my son. But he wasn't looking at me. He simply stood in the center of the room, fists clenched, looking out through the broken window.
"What happened, Anthony?"
"There were two of them," he said calmly. He did not sound like my little boy. He sounded years older. "I saw them climb over the wall. One of them looked in the window. "
"And you threw your controller at him. " My voice, still shocked, was now full of something close to awe. "Through the window?"
He nodded. "It hit him in the face. He screamed and fell down. When he got up, he was bleeding bad. I think some glass was in his face. Maybe his nose was broken. "
Holy shit.
"Then both of them ran off again. They jumped the wall, and that's when you came in. "
My God.
"You need to get out of the sun, Mommy. "
My son took my hand and led me away, out of his room and into the hallway. I could smell my own burning flesh. If I looked hard enough, I might even see steam rising off my skin.
I said, gasping, "Are you okay, honey?"
"Of course, Mommy. "
I pulled my son in close and held him tight. Two men with crossbows. Vampire hunters. Here at my house. Following me.
"Who were those men, Mommy?"
"Bad men. "
"Were they robbers?"
I nodded but didn't say anything. I pulled him in closer, and we stood like that in the hallway, holding each other tight, while the cool wind came in through the broken window, rattled the blinds, and eventually found us huddling together in the hallway.
Chapter Thirty-four
Have you pissed anyone off lately, Moon Dance?
It was nearly midnight, and, after working with a 24-hour glass service, I had contacted Fang and gotten him up to speed.
No more than usual, I wrote.
And you're sure one of them wasn't our vampire hunter from last year?
I shook my head, although I was alone in the room. I'm fairly certain. Randolph the vampire hunter worked alone, and this was a two-man crew. Besides, Randolph and I are on good terms.
Meaning what?
Meaning, I'm not very high on his kill list.
Randolph the vampire hunter doesn't sound very catchy.
Maybe not, but he's effective.
I still say you shoulda dropped his ass in the ocean. Why leave it to chance that he might return?
A judgment call.
A judgment call you might regret, he wrote, paused, then added: Sorry, Moon Dance. I'm just very, very protective of you, and two creeps showing up at your house with fucking crossbows scares the shit out of me. I mean, what if they had gotten a shot off at you, or your son?
It was nearly too horrible to contemplate, so I didn't. Fang sensed this and changed the subject a little.
Have you talked to Anthony about, well, everything?
Mostly. I told him that we were different. I told him that we were stronger than most people. He said something about being superheroes, and I went with that for now.
Except that might do more damage than good, Moon Dance.
For now, it's enough that he knows he's different and needs to keep it secret.
Baby steps, wrote Fang, obviously reading my mind.
Yes, baby steps. Also. . .
But I couldn't finish the thought. I stopped writing, but Fang, privy to my thoughts, had picked up on it. He finished it for me, writing: Also, you're tired of hiding who you are.
Yes.
Will you tell your daughter?
I think so. Yes.
How do you think they will take it?
I don't know, Fang. I only hope they don't hate me.
Well, I, for one, would think you were the coolest mom ever.
Yeah, well, you're also a freak.
I could almost hear Fang chuckling lightly on his end. On my end, I could hear Anthony snoring lightly and faint music issuing from Tammy's room. The house creaked from somewhere and I nearly bolted to my feet.
Just the house settling. Calm down, Sam.
Easier said than done.
Earlier, Kingsley had offered to come over, but the big guy had an important court hearing in the morning, and I assured him I would be fine. Fang had offered, too, but I politely declined. Truth was, I doubted they would be back. Whoever they were, the element of surprise was gone. If they were going to attack, they were going to do it somewhere else.
And just who were they?
That was the question of the hour.
A minute or two passed before the pencil icon appeared again in the chatbox window, indicating Fang was typing a message, followed by: I've been doing some research into blood dealers, Moon Dance.
Oh?
He shielded his thoughts while he typed out his response. He didn't want me to know his sources, which was fine by me. We all had our secrets.
Apparently, there's a sort of hierarchy to blood.
What do you mean?
Degrees of desirability. For instance, animal blood is the lowest. Deceased human blood is next.
I recalled Detective Hanner's comment about gathering blood from morgues and hospitals. I shuddered.
I wrote, And fresh human blood is the most desirable.
Not quite, Moon Dance.
What do you mean?
There's another source of blood that's even more desirable than human blood. Vampire blood. Apparently, Moon Dance, your blood fetches a pretty penny on the open market.
Jesus.
I suspect Robert Mason is far more dangerous than you realize.
Chapter Thirty-five
We were cuddling in front of an 80-inch Sharp flat screen TV, which was a little like cuddling in front of a portal into the fourth dimension.
The room was also equipped with surround sound speakers which made the sound seem to magically appear as if from nowhere. To this day, I haven't a clue where those speakers are embedded. Most important, the room came equipped, at least part time, with a beast of a man who, despite his size, was a helluva cuddler.
We were cuddling and watching Matt Damon's latest spy thriller when Kingsley turned to me and asked, "Would you like a drink?"
If he was offering wine or water, he would have said wine or water. Drink was Kingsley-speak for a very different kind of red stuff: blood.
I sat up, reached for the remote, and paused the movie.
"It's really a simple yes-or-no question, Sam," he said good-naturedly. Kingsley was wearing a t-shirt and workout pants, and both were filled to capacity. It took a lot of man to fill out an oversized pair of workout pants, but somehow Kingsley managed to do it. He also smelled of Old Spice. Simple. Manly. Yummy.
I turned to him. "May I first ask where you got your drink?"
He rolled his eyes. "Jesus, Sam. I thought we discussed that. "
"No. You gave me a song and dance about vampires using various willing and unwilling donors. So, tell me, was this a willing donor? I think I have a right to know who I'm consuming, don't you think?"
He turned and looked at me, his thick hair following over one shoulder. "Boy, I didn't see this coming. "
Truth was, I didn't either. At least, I hoped it
wouldn't. I knew there was a killer out there supplying blood, and I knew my current boyfriend purchased blood from. . . someone.
"If not tonight," I said. "Then another night. I need to know. "
On the wall before us, Matt Damon used some impressive fight moves - and a lot of editing - to kick the unholy crap out of a spy that looked remarkably like a popular Hollywood star. In the kitchen nearby, I heard Franklin the butler humming to himself. Kingsley's resident freak had a surprisingly sweet voice.
Kingsley said, "I buy the blood from a trusted supplier. "
I couldn't read the mind of another immortal, but I didn't need to be a mind-reader to know who he was talking about. I said, "Detective Hanner. "
His lower jaw dropped a little. For a man who was legendary for keeping his cool, this statement caught him by surprise. And it was all the admission I needed.
"How long has she been supplying you?" I asked.
He cracked his neck a little. Clearly uncomfortable. So much for openness in a relationship. "A number of years, Sam. I normally keep only a small amount on hand. "
"And here's the million-dollar question, babe," I said. "Where does Hanner get her blood?"
"Donors. "
"Willing donors?"
"Jesus, Sam. You're closer friends with her than I am these days. You tell me. "
I shook my head. "You've known her a lot longer. Hell, you're even a customer. "
Kingsley stood in one motion, so quickly that it boggled the mind. One smooth motion. Like a spring being sprung. "Look, Sam. I'm not keeping anything from you. It's just that your kind and my kind don't generally discuss this topic. "
"The topic of blood?"
"Right. "
"It's taboo," I said.
"Sam, we all have skeletons in our closets. Especially us. " By "us," I knew he was talking about creatures of the night. "I have them, you have them. We all have them. We couldn't exist without collecting them. "
"So, what's your point?"
"We don't dig too deeply into each other's lives, Sam. Dig deep enough into mine and you might not like what you find. And if I dig deep enough into yours, even in the short time you've been a vampire, I might not like what I find, either. "
"So you just stick your head in the sand?"
"Sometimes, it's best not to know, Sam. "
I shook my head. "Real people are getting killed out there. Real people with lives and families and hopes and dreams. Slaughtered for blood. It's not right. "