Rainy Nights: Three Mysteries

by J. R. Rain

  As Storm turned reluctantly away from her neck, I shot him with the crossbow.

  Had he been any further away, I’m certain I would have missed. But, in this case, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Or a vampire in a coffin.

  As it was, the small arrow whipped through the air and plunged deep into his chest, exactly where I assumed its heart was.

  What happened next still gives me nightmares to this day.

  James P. Storm leaped back, staring down at the bolt protruding from his chest. He gripped the fletchings and pulled.

  The bolt came out, along with a geyser of black blood that splattered the small room and turned immediately into steam. Indeed, the bloody hole in his chest gushed steam as well.

  He stumbled backward and collapsed against some shelving, and as he hissed and steamed and bled, I ran over to Veronica and dragged her across the floor and out the door. I ripped off my jacket, wadded it up, and used it to plug the gaping wound in her neck.

  With the jacket pressed firmly against her, I watched in horror and fascination as James P. Storm continued to hiss and steam. He looked at me confusedly, opened his mouth to say something, and then pitched forward onto his face.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was sitting in Detective Sparks office at the Central Station on Vallejo Street.

  He and I had gone over and over the events at Borders Books and Music. He didn’t like my answers and had only grudgingly started to wrap his mind around the fact that something very strange had indeed gone on in his city.

  He rubbed his eyes and drank some more coffee and stared at me for a long minute.

  “So you really think this thing was a vampire?” he asked.

  “I think this thing was a monster. But call it what you want.”

  “A monster?” he said.

  “It killed her parents and tried to kill her. It had its face buried in her neck and was drinking her blood. And when I shot it with the arrow, it turned to dust before my very eyes. What would you call that?”

  “A long night of drinking.”

  “No one was drinking, detective.”

  “The Crime Lab analyzed the remains. Human DNA. They’re telling me that these remains are at least a hundred and fifty years old. They’re still testing them.”

  I said nothing. What the hell was there to say to that?

  Sparks said, “And you shot him with a silver arrow?”

  “Yup.”

  “And he just started smoking?”

  “Like a chimney.”

  “He say anything?”

  “I think he was too busy smoking and dying,” I said.

  We were silent some more. Veronica was in the hospital. Apparently, she was going to make it. Gladys and her husband were on their way up to be with her. At least Veronica had someone.

  “So what am I supposed to do with all of this?” asked Sparks. He waved at the reports on his desk.

  “You’ll think of something,” I said. “It’s why you make the big bucks.”

  “They don’t pay me enough for this shit.”

  “So am I free to go?”

  He nodded wearily. “I’ll be in touch, Spinoza. We know where to find you.”

  “Lucky me,” I said.

  And left.

  * * *

  It was late evening, and I was sleeping fitfully in my office when someone knocked on the door.

  I had been dreaming of my son, of course. Once again, we were in the forest and I was holding his hand, only this time his hand wasn’t charred. This time it was healthy and alive and soft and warm, and my little boy was looking at me with joy and love in his bright eyes.

  This is different, I remembered thinking in my dream. Something is different.

  My son nodded and swung my hand and I sensed great peace from him. He nodded again and laughed and squeezed my hand. I sensed something else. I sensed that he wanted me to move on. I had been about to ask him how when the knock came again.

  My hand went automatically under my arm, gripping my pistol. I was a little jumpy these days after my run-in with the vampire.

  “It’s open,” I said, reluctant as hell to release the image of my healthy and happy son.

  Veronica opened the door and stepped inside. She was wearing tight jeans and a tank top. A far cry different than the loose-fitting boy jeans she had been wearing a week earlier at Borders. Her dark hair was still cut boyishly short and even from here I could see the red scarring around her neck. Her torn throat had needed a lot of stitches. I didn’t see any stitches now. She seemed pale and sickly and not as confident as she had been in her pictures. No surprise there, since she had nearly had her throat torn out.

  “Can I talk to you?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  She shut the door behind her, turned, and sat across from me in one of my client chairs. I released my grip on the pistol.

  “I wanted to thank you for saving my life,” she said. Her voice sounded stronger than she looked.

  Despite myself, my old shyness returned. I forced myself to power through it.

  “Well, it was drinking your blood,” I said. “It was the least I could do.”

  “Where did you learn to shoot a crossbow like that?”

  “Maybe I was Robin Hood in a past life.”

  She grinned, and seemed about to rub her neck, but stopped herself.

  I asked, “So he really was a vampire?”

  “Of course.”

  She said it so matter-of-factly that my next question died in my mouth. I was left stumbling over words until I finally said, “So how many of them are out there?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t think many. The ones who are really old and smart rarely kill anymore. They find other ways to get blood.”

  “So, um, how many have you killed?”

  “Just three. Storm would have been the fourth.”

  “And he’s the one who killed your parents.”

  “I hated him for so long.” She paused, composed herself. “I spent the past three years hunting him.”

  “How did you find him?”

  “I’m a hell of a detective,” she said.

  “Maybe you could work for me someday.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Anyway, if you meet the right people and make the right friends, yeah, there’s a whole scene out there.”

  “Scene?”

  “Vampire scene.”

  “Of course.”

  She leveled her stare at me. Her eyes, I saw, were lightly bloodshot. “But you took care of him for me.”

  “Spinoza the Vampire Slayer,” I said. “So he’s really dead?”

  “Of course, you saw him turn to dust. That’s what happens to them when they die.”

  I nodded. “Of course. Silly of me to ask.”

  Veronica’s neck was surprisingly healed. Just a big red blemish. She saw me looking at her neck. Now she reached up and touched it self-consciously.

  “It’s hideous,” she said.

  “It’s not that bad,” I lied.

  “You’re a bad liar. The doctors tell me that it’s healing surprisingly fast.”

  “Ah, youth,” I said.

  “Sure. Youth.” She smiled again and stood. She reached out a pale hand across my desk. “I just wanted to thank you, Mr. Spinoza, for saving my life. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you, and a monster would still be out there killing innocent people.”

  “All in a day’s work,” I said, and shook her shockingly cold hand. I nearly winced at her icy flesh.

  She saw my reaction and released my hand. “They’re always cold now, since the attack.”

  “I, um, hadn’t noticed.”

  “You’re a bad liar, Mr. Spinoza.”

  I told her to call me if she ever needed any help or needed a job, and she assured me she would. At the door, she looked back at me and seemed about to say something, but decided not to.

  As she turned to leave, I saw a fresh tattoo above her low-r
iding jeans. It was a tattoo of a black dragon.

  I sat back in my chair and put my feet up on my desk and laced my hands behind my head, certain that I had just seen my second vampire.

  The End

  Spinoza returns in:

  The Vampire Who Played Dead

  Spinoza Trilogy #2

  Amazon Kindle * Amazon UK * Paperback * Audio Book

  Return to the Table of Contents

  Also available:

  Temple of the Jaguar

  Nick Caine Series #1

  by J.R. Rain

  and Aiden James

  Chapter One

  I found the ceremonial blade in the unmarked grave of some poor sap who had seen better days.

  We’d been digging all day in this remote section of the rain forest, sweat pouring down our bare torsos, hands blistering despite the gloves. It was the golden reflection that first caught my eye—that wonderful golden flash that brings a smile to all of us who call ourselves looters. Although, I prefer the term ‘creative archaeologists’.

  I used the trowel to scrape away the remaining dirt, revealing more of the blade, which consisted of a jade hilt, an emerald capstone, and six inches of pure gold. And if I wasn’t so tough, I could have cried right there.

  “That will fetch a pretty penny,” said Ishi from behind me in his native Tawankan tongue. Actually, in his native tongue, this was translated to mean that the knife could be exchanged for many shiny coins.

  “Yes, Ishi,” I said. “Many shiny coins.”

  I reached down between the ribs, plucked the knife by its hilt and hauled it out, letting the smattering of sunlight refract off its near-perfect finish. That drop of clear liquid on its golden blade was either a tear or sweat. Maybe I’m not so tough after all.

  Ishi helped me out of the hip-deep grave, which I was only too glad to leave behind. Any grave robber worth his salt is always happy to leave a grave behind.

  We sat back in the shade of a mangrove tree and I lit a cigarette and studied the knife, rolling it back and forth in the little sunlight that made its way to the jungle floor. The crimson glow of the cigarette tip reflected deeply within the blade. It was a rare find, indeed.

  “He was a warrior,” said Ishi, squatting next to me and drinking from a water jug. “Perhaps a very highly-esteemed warrior. The knife was for his protection.”

  I thought about that, then stood and moved over to the exposed grave. I unbuckled my pickaxe and dropped it down into the pit. I returned a moment later and sat down next to the Indian youth. “Can’t leave the old chap without any protection.”

  Ishi was smiling. “You are not like the others.”

  “We all steal,” I said, inhaling on the cigarette.

  “But you steal with a conscience.”

  “I know. It’s a terrible thing.”

  “At least you have not angered the spirits.”

  “Yes,” I said, “there’s always that. C’mon, let’s re-bury this poor bastard and get the hell out of here.”

  * * *

  As Ishi drove through the thick jungle on a road that really wasn’t much of a road, I checked my voice mail on my looting hotline. One new message. Oh, fun. It was from a woman named Marie Da Vinci. She wanted to speak with me ASAP. Unless my ass was on the line, I rarely did anything ASAP, which is one of the reasons I became a self-employed looter. It was either that or open a smoothie shop in a strip mall.

  I listened to the message again. The voice was strong but firm, breathy and sexy. She wanted to meet me today at four, in the outdoor cafe at the Copan Rio Hotel, of which I happened to live on the fifth floor.

  After a moment’s contemplation, I dialed the number. It rang twice, and then went straight to voice mail. I heard the same sultry voice. I left a message: I would meet her at the hotel restaurant at four. I clicked off the phone.

  “Hot date?” asked Ishi. Actually, this was translated to mean: a formal assembly between two possible mates for the continuation of one’s paternal bloodline.

  “Yeah,” I said, “something like that.”

  “Does she know you’re a thief?”

  “She called me on my looting hotline,” I said. “So I’m thinking yes.”

  Ishi smiled and said to himself, “Looting hotline. Shit.”

  I leaned back in the front seat, closed my eyes and listened to the slapping of branches against the hood and fenders, the call of the distant howler monkeys, the chirping of hundreds of tropical birds.

  Breathy and sexy? Oh boy.

  Chapter Two

  Juan Esteban examined the knife closely, making excitable little noises that didn’t seem all that appropriate for the circumstances.

  He was using a jeweler’s glass, examining every inch of the artifact, and making notes on a small pad. Then he placed the knife carefully on a white cloth and moved over to his logs, pulling one from his shelf and flipping through the pages.

  We were alone in his shop. The shop itself was in Coco, a little town north of the Copan ruins. For all intents and purposes, Juan’s shop looked like a run-down pawnshop. There were a half dozen glass cases cluttering the store, most of them with broken doors, filled with very cheap watches and fake jewelry and rusted pistols from Honduras’s colonial days. I moved around the shop and examined a rifle that actually appeared to be bent, completely useless.

  This wasn’t exactly the famous “black market” people hear about, but Juan usually unloads any of the jewelry or specialty items I may find. The golden dagger would be considered a specialty item.

  “You sell junk,” I told him again.

  “Of course. It keeps the thieves and policia away, although sometimes they are one in the same.”

  I pointed to the bent rifle. “Have you ever sold any of this crap?”

  He chuckled. “Last week a tourist came by. She liked a plastic ring. I told her it was folk art.” He snapped shut his ledger, came back and sat behind his desk. “I’ve only seen one other dagger like this. Appears to be from the Mayan post-preclassic. Ceremonial. Never used for actual battle, of course. A jade hilt and an emerald capstone, and although the gold is low-grade, like most Mayan gold, it is a very rare find and very valuable indeed.”

  “I’m surprised, Juan. You’re not up to your old tricks. By now you’ve usually told me how worthless an artifact is.”

  “You’ve caught me on an off day, and I’ve never been able to take advantage of you, Nick, so I’ve given up trying.”

  “Very admirable of you to admit, Juan. But we both know that’s bullshit. What are you offering?”

  “Two thousand.”

  “American dollars?”

  “Of course.”

  I laughed appropriately. “Fifty thousand dollars, and not a penny less.”

  He sat back, shocked. “You would extort from a friend, my friend?”

  “You were never much of a friend.”

  “Now you insult me. Well, I spit on your mother’s grave, goddammit.”

  I laughed at his showmanship and scooped up the knife. “My mother is alive and well, I think. Maybe I’m not ready to sell just yet. It is, after all, quite beautiful. Maybe it’s also good luck.”

  “Ten thousand, and that’s my final offer.”

  “I don’t think so. You’ll get ten times that from the New York collectors. Call me with a decent offer. Good day.”

  “Twenty thousand and consider it a gift.”

  “Adios, amigo.”

  I left his shop and stepped out onto the empty dirt street. Ishi was sitting in the Jeep with the windows down and his Panama hat pulled over his eyes. He was out like a light. As soon as I opened the door he snapped awake.

  “Well?” he asked, pushing up his hat.

  “We’ll hear from him soon enough.”

  “What did he offer?”

  “Twenty Gs.”

  Ishi whistled. “I would have taken it.”

  “We can get more. A lot more.”

  “Which is why you do the negotiat
ing.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So what good am I?” he asked.

  “You’re here for entertainment purposes.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Drive on, Ishi. Let’s get out of here. I have a date.”

  He shifted gears, and we left the small town in a cloud of dust.

  Chapter Three

  “Nick Caine?”

  I nodded and smiled. Ever the approachable stranger.

  Marie Da Vinci was a pretty woman with an angular face and muscular arms. Probably spent five to six days a week with a personal trainer. There were wet splotches under her breasts; a film of sweat coated her forehead and forearms. Sub-tropical humidity has that effect. She unconsciously pulled her sticky shirt away from her skin and grimaced, as if sweating through her clothes was distasteful.

  She looked good, distasteful and all.

  Having sworn off all women years ago, I was concerned by my immediate attraction to her. I thought: watch yourself, Nick Caine, Looter Extraordinaire.

  I was sitting in an outdoor cafe along the dirt streets of Ruinas, Honduras, just outside the Hotel Rio Copan. Drinking beer from the bottle. Or, as the song says, just wasting away.

  “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice,” she said.

  “Luckily, you caught me before my power nap,” I said.

  She smiled. “May I sit?”

  “Suit yourself.” Ever the courteous gentleman, I kicked out one of the whicker chairs opposite me. It skidded to a stop next to her feet. She brushed the chair with a paper napkin, and then sat on said napkin. The chair promptly creaked whicker-like. The alert Honduran waiter swooped in and asked in broken English if she would like a drink. He assumed correctly that she was both thirsty and a tourist. The copious amounts of sunscreen on her narrow nose and the bright pink blouse were the dead giveaways. In this humidity, the thirst was a given, of course.

  “A glass of water please,” she said.