The Spinoza Trilogy

by Rain, J. R.

  Traffic on Los Feliz was sick, but I knew some short cuts, and after winding my way through some back streets that bordered some truly impressive homes, I soon pulled up in front of the mansion. The same mansion I had been in just a few days earlier.

  Where I had seen a woman who had looked like Evelyn Drake’s younger sister or cousin.

  Only I was now certain she hadn’t been Evelyn’s younger sister.

  I was certain it was her.

  Evelyn Drake.

  Back from the dead.

  Chapter Eighteen

  So how does one hide a crossbow in plain site?

  Very carefully. The crossbow in question was smaller than most, designed to shoot shorter bolts. It had come into my possession last month after I had dealt with an author who not only wrote about the undead, but was also one of them. Method acting, as my theater friends would call it. Method writing, perhaps?

  So I grabbed the emergency blanket I always kept folded on the back seat and wrapped it around the crossbow. At least no one would be calling the cops on the crazy guy walking up to the mansion carrying a medieval weapon.

  At the door, I took in some air, listened to the all-pervasive silence, and then rapped loudly on the frosted glass.

  I gripped the crossbow under the blanket while I waited.

  * * *

  Did I come here to kill a vampire? Hell, no. Was I protecting myself in case something very strange was going on? Hell, yes. And things only seemed to be getting stranger by the minute.

  I heard footsteps well before anyone got to the door. That’s what happens when you have a massive home covered in polished marble flooring. The footsteps grew louder, appearing just behind the door, where they paused. No doubt I was being peeped at through the peep hole. I must have passed the peep test because a moment later the door clicked open.

  “Mt. Spinoza,” said Mrs. Perkins. She tried to sound surprised but I knew a fake surprise when I heard one. A sort of unnatural rise in octave. Prior to life as a private eye, I had spent years investigating insurance claims—and frauds, too. I knew bullshit when I heard it. “What brings you back here?” she asked.

  “I’d like to speak with you inside,” I said, “if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Her eyes briefly darted up...up to where I knew a woman was hiding—and with this being daylight—no doubt sleeping. Her gaze settled back on me and she nodded reluctantly. “Okay, but please be quick about it. I have...some errands to run.”

  I said I would, and she let me inside. I followed behind her, my blanketed arm behind my back. For now, she hadn’t noticed it.

  She led me deeper into the mansion.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We were soon in the same wide-open living room.

  She motioned for me take a seat on the couch, with my back to the hallway. She asked if I wanted a drink and I said no. She said she wanted some hot tea and I said fine. I recalled it had been 98 degrees outside and suspected I might have been hoodwinked.

  When she left the room, I immediately switched positions to an overstuffed chair-and-a-half that gave me a good view of anything approaching from the hallway. I also felt more comfortable with my back against a wall.

  Vampires, I suspected, were sneaky.

  My heart rate increased considerably while I waited. I adjusted my grip on the crossbow, which now rested in my lap, partially hidden by the chair’s overstuffed pillow. From my position in the living room, I couldn’t see the upstairs landing.

  Mrs. Perkins returned five minutes later, carrying a steaming cup of tea.

  “Now,” she said, as she sat on the couch across from me. “How can I help you, Mr. Spinoza?” She didn’t seem to notice that I had switched spots. If anything, she seemed very distracted.

  I heard movement upstairs. Something heavy fell. I looked up at the sound, but Mrs. Perkins ignored it completely. Her demeanor was different this time around. Gone was the sour old lady, replaced now by something overly friendly.

  And that’s when I noticed the white cloth wrapped around her neck; in particular, what appeared to be a splotch of blood.

  “What happened to your neck, Mrs. Perkins?” I asked.

  The question seemed to shock her. She jerked a little and sat up straighter. She reached for her neck but never quite touched it. “Oh, that?” Her strange, pleasant demeanor never wavered. “Oh, that was just a minor...thing I had removed at the doctor’s the other day.”

  I motioned to her arms, both of which were wrapped up in a similar white cloth. “And you had other...things removed from your arms as well?”

  She smiled serenely. “It’s horrible getting old, Mr. Spinoza.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  I found myself scanning the room...in particular, the two exits. One seemed to head off into what appeared to be a library, and the other went down the hallway. I suspected there were a few offshoots from the hallway, an opening to the kitchen, no doubt, and the stairway leading up to the second floor.

  “Who’s upstairs, Mrs. Perkins?” I asked.

  Her slender form tensed a little; her fingers clawed the arm of the couch. “What do you mean, dear?”

  “I mean, who’s that I hear walking around upstairs?”

  “Oh, I have a guest.”

  “Who?”

  “Isn’t that a personal question, Mr. Spinoza?”

  “Perhaps you could tell the police then.”

  “Oh, I’m sure the police would have no interest in—”

  “And you can also show them the wounds on your neck and arms—”

  “Please, Mr. Spinoza, there’s no need for that.”

  And that’s when a woman’s voice resonated from somewhere down the hallway. “I would suggest,” and the voice, growing louder as the speaker drew closer, “that you leave my mother alone.”

  And as the last words were spoken, a very lovely, pale-faced woman stepped into the living room.

  It was, of course, Evelyn Drake.

  Chapter Twenty

  She looked sick and weak.

  My first impression was that I was looking at someone who should probably be in the hospital, or lying in bed.

  Or in a grave.

  She didn’t stand entirely straight, as if the weight of something was dragging her down. I also noticed she was supporting herself by resting a long-fingered hand on an elegant couch table sporting a vase with flowers. Dead flowers.

  She looked like the perfect candidate to be gasping for air but, as far as I could tell, she wasn’t having any problems breathing. Did vampires even breathe?

  I didn’t know. In fact, I didn’t know much about the undead at all, and I was seriously beginning to regret my decision to come here at all.

  After all, the woman in front of me was the same woman I had seen in the autopsy report. The same woman whose body had been covered in knife wounds.

  Seventy-two of them, in fact.

  Her feet were bare. She was wearing a dark robe. Silk, I think. Her hair was slightly mussed. She had been sleeping, roused, no doubt, by her mother. A little pit stop on her way to making tea.

  Evelyn Drake was pretty in an undead, goth sort of way. Her cheek bones were prominent. Her lips full, her eyes round and seemingly all-seeing. Her blondish hair was matted in places and I figured even vampires get bedhead.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” I said.

  “Now, that’s not a very nice thing to say to a woman,” she said.

  She stepped into the room, feeling her way over the furniture, which supported her weight. She stumbled slightly over the spot where the carpet met the marble flooring.

  The skin showing around her robe was so white that I found myself staring. Her thighs and arms and neck...like pure alabaster. Her lips were red, but not exorbitantly so. I had an image of those lips covered in blood as she fed.

  She smiled as if she had read my thoughts.

  “How long have you been living here?” I asked, unnerved. I had read somewhere that vampires
could read minds. And so I did all I could to not think of the crossbow hidden under the blanket. In fact, I imagined I was holding a puppy. It’s just a puppy. A puppy, dammit.

  She said, “Since my rather...premature burial.”

  Although obviously weakened, her movements were oddly fluid. As if I were being approached by a ballerina. A very pale and hungry-looking ballerina.

  “So, you’ve been living here secretly for, what, over a year and a half?”

  “It’s no bother, really,” said Mrs. Perkins nervously. “It’s such a joy to have her back. We missed her so much. She stays in her room all day, sleeping. She’s such a hard working dear. And when we go to bed at night she leaves for work. Works all night, and sometimes she’s just coming home when we awaken. Always so tired and dirty.” The mother looked at her daughter with so much love in her eyes that my heart nearly broke. Evelyn was now about halfway across the room.

  “Your daughter was killed, Mrs. Perkins,” I said. “An autopsy was performed on her. She was buried.”

  “Ooh, we don’t talk about that,” said Mrs. Perkins, clearly living in denial. “Mistakes are made.”

  “Mother and I have an agreement to keep my presence a secret,” said Evelyn, still approaching me. She looked weak, almost helpless, but there was something in her eye that scared the shit out of me. It was the look of a killer. A predator. A hungry predator. “In return, she gets to see her daughter.”

  I looked at her mother’s wounded neck and arms. “And you get to feed.”

  “Mother loves her baby girl,” said Evelyn.

  My stomach turned. I tried to picture a daughter drinking blood from her own mother and it was too disturbing an image to hold for long.

  “And what of your own children?” I asked Evelyn.

  “My children have moved on, Mr. Spinoza,” she said, glancing at my card that was still on the coffee table. “They think mummy is dead and we’ll just leave it like that. My kids were always...in the way. And just a little too tempting.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Young blood...is particularly fresh.”

  She looked at her mother who was watching this whole exchange with a frozen smile. Her cheek muscles twitched as she held the smile.

  “You kill people,” I said.

  She grinned. “I kill lots of people, Mr. Spinoza. It’s kind of what I do.”

  “What are you?” I asked.

  “What do you think I am?”

  “A bitch. A user. And a parasite.”

  The mother looked at me sharply. “I will not have such language—”

  And that’s when Evelyn Drake lunged forward, leaping—

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I didn’t want to kill her.

  Especially not in front of her own mother. It was all so fucked up.

  But she didn’t give me much choice.

  Her strength was alarming, especially when she had appeared so visibly weakened. Or perhaps that had all been an act to catch me off guard.

  With her mother screaming behind her, Evelyn’s hand went straight for my throat and squeezed with such force that my neck would have snapped or been crushed within seconds.

  The angle of her body was such that I didn’t have to even adjust the crossbow. As darkness rapidly approached the corners of my vision, I fired the weapon.

  The first thing that I notice was a loosening of her grip. The next thing I noticed was the strangled sounds I heard...of course, those strangled sounds were my own feeble attempts to breathe.

  The next thing I noticed was the woman on the ground, kicking and clawing her chest. It was a site I’ll never forget. Steam hissed from between her fingers. Her screaming mother dove on her, pulling at the silver shaft that protruded from her chest.

  “My baby! My baby!” She worked the bolt with both hands as the vampire writhed and twisted and screamed.

  Gasping, I found my feet, and just as the mother pulled free the bloody crossbow bolt, which dripped blood and meat, the woman on the floor lay still.

  Mrs. Perkins threw herself on her daughter, wailing and begging her to come back to her.

  And that’s when I turned my head and heaved until my stomach was empty.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I was in my office drinking a latte from Starbucks. Starbucks has a new scone, called a petite vanilla bean. Being petite, I got three of them. They were damned good.

  Too good.

  I had just finished the last of the scones when Detective Hammer and his thick cop mustache came in through my door and set a big bag of greasy donuts on my desk. He looked at my empty Starbucks package.

  “Don’t tell me you had one of those scone things.”

  “A petite vanilla bean. Three of them.”

  “Oh, God. Any room left for a real breakfast?”

  “You mean a real breakfast of donuts?”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “You are propagating the cop stereotype,” I said. “And there’s always room for donuts.”

  He placed a cup holder on my desk filled with two steaming cups of coffee. Coffee had splashed out of the little holes in the plastic lids and had stained the rims. I knocked back the last of my Starbucks, tossed the empty cup in the trash, and started on the fresh coffee Hammer gave me. We both picked our donuts, sat back in our chairs, and took a few bites before Hammer got things started.

  “You work some strange cases,” he said.

  “Lately.”

  “This might be the strangest.”

  “Would be hard to top this one,” I said.

  Hammer finished his first donut with a massive bite. He washed it down with coffee and then dug out a maple bar from the bag.

  “We made some calls,” he said. “Talked to the right people. A very strange conference ensued between the prosecutors, myself and the warden at San Quentin, and ultimately the governor himself. And due to extraordinary circumstances, Edward Drake is now a free man. All charges have been dropped.”

  “It’s hard to keep someone on death row,” I said, “when his victim has been alive and well for a year and a half.”

  “She’s dead now. At least, we think she’s dead, whatever the fuck she is.” He looked at me. “What are you some kind of vampire hunter?”

  “Slayer,” I said. “And, no.”

  “Well, needless to say we got the DNA to confirm the boy’s status as her biological son. The kid will get his full inheritance. So you did do some good.”

  I nodded, happy for the boy, but feeling so weird inside that it was hard to put a finger on how I felt about anything these days. I have now killed two vampires.

  Hell, maybe I was a vampire slayer.

  Jesus.

  I voiced a question that had been gnawing at me. “Did her DNA come back with any, I dunno, abnormalities?”

  “You mean, did she have some weird vampire DNA?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. Nothing. Looks as normal as can be.”

  We were silent some more. The silence was filled with the sounds of masticating donuts. I thought of the young man who hired me. “How much does David know of his mother?”

  “Nothing. As far as he knows, his mother’s body had been recovered, a simple case of misplacement, and we acquired the DNA we needed. As far as the rest of the world knows, Evelyn Drake is dead, and has been dead, as she was supposed to have been two years ago.”

  “And the father lives with the stigma of being a murderer.”

  Hammer shrugged his meaty shoulders. “You can’t win them all, Spinoza. He was given a new identity. A new life. We couldn’t do anything else for him except to say thank you and sorry.”

  “Thank you for trying to kill a bloodsucking killer?”

  Hammer looked a little sick. “Right. Something like that.”

  “Life is weird,” I said.

  “No shit.” He reached in the bag, removed a peanut chocolate cake, and stood. “And now I’m going to go back to work and l
ook for human murderers and psychopaths—and try like hell to forget this ever happened.”

  “Join the club.”

  “I’d rather not,” he said. “Hey, did you ever collect on your tacos?”

  “No,” I said. “But I’m ever hopeful.”

  The End

  Return to the Table of Contents

  THE VAMPIRE

  IN THE IRON MASK

  Spinoza Series #3

  Copyright © 2012 by J.R. Rain

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  To my sweet sister, Bekky.

  Acknowledgments

  Once again, a big thank you to Eve Paludan and Sandy Johnston for all their wonderful help.

  The Vampire in the Iron Mask

  Chapter One

  The voice on the phone was faint.

  “Are you a private eye?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Although we don’t call ourselves that anymore.”

  “What do you call yourselves?” The voice was so faint that I had to shove my cell phone against my ear, which I always hated to do.

  Outside, through my open office window, I heard a homeless man crying alone. There’s nothing sadder than the sound of a homeless man crying alone.

  And just as the thought crossed my mind, I saw myself weeping over my own son’s burned body.

  Yeah, there are some things sadder.

  I said, “We prefer to call ourselves eavesdropping technicians.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No. How can I help you?”

  I usually got lots of calls throughout the day. Most people spent forty minutes telling me how bad their lives were, how bad their relationships were, and how they were certain that so-and-so was cheating on them or stealing from them or screwing them somehow—only for them to tell me they’d get back to me. They generally didn’t get back to me. They generally worked out their problems themselves. And talking to me was, somehow, the catalyst. So I didn’t take most of my calls too seriously. At least, not at first.