by J. R. Rain
If you are reading these words, it is also likely the Red Rider lives on, killing the magical among us. I am not asking you to take up my mantle. But should you find yourself in the vicinity of the Red Rider, please do not hesitate to blot the earth of this disease.
With that, I leave you with love and smiles. I see the sun has set and you are calm now in your home. I like seeing you calm. God bless you, little one.
Chapter Eighteen
I found myself crying harder than I expected to, and it took me many minutes to get the tears under control. That a man had given up everything for me, my one-time father... oh, geez.
More tears flowed and, at one point, Anthony was hugging me while Tammy stood in the doorway. She had, undoubtedly, read every word with me, seeing it through my eyes. My daughter was, of course, the ultimate snoop. In this case, although the letter was deeply personal, I did not mind that she had seen what I had seen.
“It’s okay, Mommy,” Anthony was saying, over and over, sounding much younger than his fifteen years.
Tammy said nothing, but I saw the tears in her own eyes. She was wearing sweats and a Supergirl shirt. I’d asked earlier what the difference was between the Supergirl and Superman logo was, and, with a full eye roll that surely hurt, informed me that there was no difference. Duh. And added, “You’re such a dork.”
“Well, it’s a legitimate question,” I had asked. “Like, legit.”
“Did mom just say ‘legit’?” Anthony had asked, sauntering by with a sandwich in hand. Correction, three sandwiches in hand, all smashed together. Jelly and mayo oozed between slices of bologna, peanut butter and bananas. Sweet Moses, I had not just seen that.
The memory comes and goes as she stood in the doorway, crying quietly herself. She knew everything I knew about my own sire. I asked if she was okay, and she nodded, wiped her eyes, and asked if I was okay. I answered honestly. I didn’t know.
Anthony never did ask what was wrong. But when he saw that his work here was done, that his mother was under some semblance of control, he headed back into the living room, and continued his video game.
I carefully rolled up the scroll and re-tied the leather strap. I opened the top drawer in my desk and set it in inside, just behind my pens. The scroll was, quite literally, the story of a life. An important life. Jeffcock, despite how outrageous the name was, had been my father. A very good father at that. A loving and kind and hardworking father who let a little girl enjoy the magic of the world, without judgment or punishment, a father who had seen his world get turned upside down.
The scroll was also another story. It was the story of me, as a young girl, in another world and another time. It was a story I knew I would re-read over and over again, especially the scenes of playing in the woods, connecting with nature, and of me happy and content, pure and full of joy. I wonder... yes, I wonder if I would ever be that happy again? I doubted it. I had been magical and alive and connected, and all was right in the world.
Until the Red Rider appeared and took me away.
And he didn’t just take me away, did he? A part of me suspects I had been consumed alive, one bite at a time. By the world’s greatest monster.
The greatest monster of all.
Well, fuck him and the devil horse he rode in on.
I was going to find him, and I was going to destroy him. I was going to continue my father’s search, whether he wanted me to or not.
And I suspected he did.
I had once been a federal agent, but I was a different kind of agent now, wasn’t I?
Indeed. I was an agent for the Angel of Death.
And I had The Devil Killer.
The sword of all swords.
Fuck the Red Rider.
I was coming for him.
Chapter Nineteen
I needed to clear my head, which was why I was boxing.
These days, Jacky only emerged from his back office to watch me spar or hit the heavy bag. Rarely did he speak, although he mumbled to himself, with the occasional, “Keep your hands up” outburst. A quick dip into his mind revealed confusion and chaos and a love for boxing, exactly in that order. His love for the sport gave him clarity. While in there (his head, that is), I did a little maintenance. I walled up some static, chaotic thoughts that I knew to be associated with dementia, brought on by real brain trauma from years of fighting. Decades, actually. I also gave him a gentle suggestion that all was well.
Once done, he spoke a little clearer and sometimes walked over to me and other boxers and showed them how to deliver a quick jab, of which he did expertly. Sadly, the dark aura around him had grown since the last time I’d seen him. But not wildly so, which meant he still had some time here on the planet, although not a lot of it.
He mostly remembered my name, although sometimes he called me Sal and asked how the old gang was. I dipped into his brain and saw a group of Irish ruffians patrolling a street corner. Not a real gang. In fact, they were the opposite. They were there to keep the streets safe from the real gangs. And there was a much younger Jacky, full of spunk and spit, ready to take on all comers, afraid of no one and nothing. Sal, I saw, had been his good friend... a friend who had died decades ago, according to a flashing, fleeting memory. I told Jacky the old gang was good, keeping the streets safe, and that he owed me a dinner. Yeah, I saw that in his memory too... a dinner gone unpaid to Sal, a dinner Jacky regretted never paying up on. Jacky had smiled and wiped his tears, then shook his head, blinked, and seemed to come back to his senses.
“Hands up, Sam!”
“Yes, sir.”
At present, Jacky had gone back to his office and I was shadowboxing alone when a real shadow emerged from the floor and rose up before me. The shadow shifted and wavered and I realized it was little more than paper-thin. I paused and dropped my hands. Sweat poured off me, which was undoubtedly a credit to the sheer amount of water I drank. Undead or not, immortal or not, a body needed freakin’ water. Cells needed water. Everything needed water. No, I didn’t crave water, but I gave it water, whether it wanted it or not.
The amorphous shadow took on some shape, but not a lot of it. It had once been humanoid. Maybe. It wasn’t a ghost either, as its body was not composed of the electrified static energy that I see everywhere, the energy that ghosts can draw to themselves to give shape. No, this was not a ghost nor anything I was familiar with. The red eyes, of course, I had seen before. At the home of my sire... my one-time father. Was it one of the entities I’d seen crawling over the walls of his home and hiding in its shadows, those entities that fled from the floating candelabras? I didn’t know, but it looked damned close.
Whatever it was, it hovered a few inches from the ground, its red eyes unblinking. Had I not been so tough, I might have run in terror. But I’d fought the devil, his demons, and his three-headed dog. A strange shadow with glowing red eyes put only a small amount of fear in me.
“What are you?” I asked, certain no one could overhear me.
Jacky’s gym was big, occupying the bottom floor of one of Fullerton’s oldest buildings, and I was in a far corner, alone. There had been a bank here once, I was told. It had also been nearly robbed, with both robbers being shot and killed, or so Jacky had told me. Interestingly, two spirits—both male, both wearing fedoras—often watched the ladies box. Unfortunately, whoever they were, they were little more than scattered energy, with only hints of their former selves. Their souls, their true souls, were long gone. These were nothing but memories. Still, enough of them were still here that I’d always meant to ask about their story. Were they just common robbers? Or were they part of a big Prohibition gang? I sensed their story was important, but I never knew why I sensed it. Luckily, they were always here.
“I am nothing,” came a voice that was more felt than heard. Indeed, I could see the vibrations of the sound reverberate around it, emanating out like cracking waves.
“You are something, or I wouldn’t be able to see or hear you.” I lowered my voice and continued
slowly bobbing and weaving, casually punching the air around me. The movements were mostly to cover the fact that I appeared to be talking to myself.
“I do not know what I am.”
“Were you alive once?” I asked.
“I suspect so, which is why I often take this shape.”
“What shape do you take other times?”
“No shape at all, Samantha Moon.”
I paused in my sparring. “You know me?” I asked, my voice rising a little. Some heads turned my direction and I cracked my neck and shook out my arms and legs and mumbled some lame pep talk. The heads turned away as the shape drew closer, wavering and flapping on winds unseen and unfelt.
“You are the master’s offspring.”
“Kinda sorta,” I said under my breath. I didn’t think telepathic communication would work since I didn’t think the thing in front of me had a head. “But yeah, close enough.”
“The master is dead?”
“That, I can confirm.”
The shadow wavered and rippled in front of me. Sometimes, his red eyes winked in and out of existence, then back again, and I realized, amazingly, the thing was blinking.
“He left my brothers and sisters bound to his home.”
“And why were your brothers and sisters bound to his home? And what the hell does that even mean?”
But the thing didn’t answer immediately, and I resumed shadow punching, picking up my pace, soon punching in a blur while a free standing, paper-thin poster of death fluttered and wavered nearby.
“I do not remember, Samantha Moon.”
“But you remember my name.”
“I only just heard it, but that, too, will soon be forgotten.”
“You have been dead a long time,” I said.
“I suspect so.”
“You never moved on to heaven or hell.”
“No, Samantha Moon.”
“Were you dark masters?”
“I... don’t know. The concept feels familiar.”
I nodded, wondering if these were one-time, low-level dark masters who’d escaped the devil upon death, and had been running ever since. Not all dark masters made it safely into the Void: take my own dumbass ex-husband for example.
“Why did the master bind your friends to his house, and how did you escape?”
The thing before me rose and fell on the currents of space, or non-space, and watched me for a long minute or so. I watched it watching me, wondering why the hell it would need to blink, and figuring it was probably only acting out a distant, perhaps forgotten memory.
It occurred to me then that I, Samantha Moon, lived in the cracks and fissures of space and time, those nooks and crannies that lie outside the standard cycles. So did this thing before me. So did Kingsley—who, by the way, I had a date with tonight. So did, really, everyone I knew. We were all outliers, strangers in a familiar land. I was just absorbing this revelation when the shadow spoke.
“He kept us safe. I recall him saying that. Yes, he said it once or twice. Or maybe more. He said he was keeping us safe from the fires of hell.”
“Why does he keep enchanted candles in the house?” I asked under my breath, nodding at a woman who grabbed a spare yoga mat from nearby. She didn’t smile back. A quick dip in her mind and... yup, she’d heard me talking to myself and thought I was a big weirdo. I encouraged her to forget I was even here and to not be so damn judgmental in the future. I wasn’t sure how long that last suggestion would stick.
“We have a tendency to gravitate toward humans. We love humans. We want to... I dunno... be part of them, live with them, become one with them.”
I nodded. “Possess them.”
The thing nodded eagerly. “Yesss.”
“But you’ve forgotten why or what your purpose here on earth was.”
“We have forgotten most things, Samantha Moon.”
“How did you escape the master’s house?”
“His spell weakened over time. I am the strongest of my brothers and sisters. They were too afraid to break it, but I was not.”
“What is it you want from me?” I asked. I nearly called it Thing #1.
“I seek the release of my brothers and sisters,” he said.
“So that you may possess humans later? I don’t think so.”
The thing shook its head vigorously. “I do not know why I say these words, or what they really mean, but I know we are not ready to possess, nor can we possess. No, Samantha Moon, we seek release.”
“And then what?”
“There is no ‘then what,’ There is only release.”
I thought about the thing’s request. I also considered why my one-time father had bound the entities. I said, “Go back to the home and I will consider your request.”
“Very well.”
“Wait. How did you find me?”
“I’ve been following you, ever since your departure.”
“Okay, that’s not creepy at all. Okay, go.”
It said nothing, but bowed low, and kept on bowing until it had merged with the floor. I had only a brief flash of it moving off into the corners and up the wall and scurrying from wall to wall, until it found an air conditioning duct and disappeared.
I resumed shadow boxing, although the term had taken on a whole new meaning for me.
Chapter Twenty
Before my date with Kingsley, I had managed to pull together another meeting, one that had literally fallen into my lap. Sometimes a case—even a very strange case involving a witch killer that spanned centuries—caught a break. This was such a break.
Before heading to the gym, I’d reached out to a man of interest. A man I was certain I would not hear back from for many months. A man who wasn’t just any man, but the man who had ended the life of my one-time father. Rand the vampire hunter was not only in Southern California, but he was free for a quick drink.
Which we were having now.
Like I said... a break.
I’d showered and changed at the gym’s locker room and briefly wondered how I looked. Luckily, there was no one else in the locker room to catch sight—or not catch sight—of the freak who didn’t show up in the oversized mirror. I assumed I looked presentable, shrugged, and headed out to Rockin Taco, literally next door to Jacky’s gym. Like I said, sometimes I catch a break. I wasn’t complaining.
A dueling piano bar might not be the first place one would imagine a vampire and a vampire hunter to meet. Then again, maybe it was the perfect place. Maybe the dueling nature of the pianos perfectly symbolized the dueling nature of my own love/hate relationship with Rand. Or maybe I just liked the cute piano players.
Indeed, as our drinks were served, the raucous crowd and energetic pianists (yes, I can hear Anthony laughing at that one), were having a great time. Although the brick walls looked like they might not survive the next earthquake, the massive wooden bar itself appeared to have been carved from a single giant redwood. How they got that sucker in here, I hadn’t a clue. Maybe they’d built the bar around the fallen tree. It was a working theory.
Admittedly, I wasn’t sure how I felt about Rand. Truth was—if that crazy scroll written by the crazy vampire was to be believed—he had ended the life of the man who had been my father 500 years ago. I should hate Rand. Hell, the man had almost ended my life, too. Amazingly, we had gone on to become friends, including an adventure in Europe that I didn’t talk about much.
Anyway, Rand was as I remembered: blond-haired and hunky. My first memory of him had been, of course, when he had delivered the ruby medallion to my front door. I would learn later that it had been a sort of recon mission for him. At the time, I had only remembered him in his too-tight tan shorts, walking away from my house after delivering the package. There was a good chance I might have made a double-entendre joke or two about his package and signing the log. Not my best material, but at least I had entertained myself. Anyway, he had been impersonating a UPS driver at the time. Recon mission or not, he had delivered something very special
to me. Something that, quite frankly, had saved the life of my son... and set my son on a path of no return, so to speak. My son, who had been briefly transformed into a vampire. My son, who had entertained his own dark master, even for just a short time. My son, who would grow into what could only be described as a superhero.
Says the woman sporting wing tattoos.
Tattoos that were oh-so-much more than tattoos.
And all because of Rand’s special delivery that day. He didn’t have to hand-deliver that ruby medallion, but he had... and had inadvertently set in motion a chain of events that had changed my life—and that of my son’s life—forever.
Our drinks had just been delivered. Old-school Budweiser in the can for him and house zinfandel for me. Although my food ring is nice, I still feel mild discomfort when I stray too far from the vampiric basics, aside from blood. And the basics were white wine and water, both of which went down smooth, without a rumbling in the tummy, and I liked that.
Ring or no ring, the alcohol had no effect on me, which was sometimes a damned shame. I liked letting loose every now and then. A good buzz was... nice.
“First things first, Rand,” I said.
“Still hunting vampires?” I asked.
“I am.”
“And how do you feel about a vampire sitting across from you now?”
“Kinda like those dueling pianists sitting across from each other.”
“We’re not dueling,” I said. “At least, I don’t think we are.”
“No, we’re not. But sitting with you now... goes against my nature.”
“And what is your nature?” I asked.
He picked up his pale lager, took a sip. “It is hard to put into words, Sam.”
“Try.” I was admittedly curious after reading my one-time father’s words on the subject.
“It is a... compulsion. How do you explain a compulsion?”
“You’re doing fine. Keep going.”
“There is within me a need to give balance to the world.”
“What is out of balance?”