by J. R. Rain
MOON ANGEL
Vampire for Hire #14
by
J.R. RAIN
(Third in the Devil’s Triangle Trilogy)
Acclaim for the novels of J.R. Rain:
“Be prepared to lose sleep!”
—James Rollins, bestselling author of Subterranean and The Sixth Extinction
“I love this!”
—Piers Anthony, bestselling author of A Spell for Chameleon and Five Portraits
“J.R. Rain delivers a blend of action and wit that always entertains. Quick with the one-liners, but his characters are fully fleshed out (even the undead ones) and you’ll come back again and again.”
—Scott Nicholson, bestselling author of The Red Church and After: Whiteout
“Dark Horse is the best book I’ve read in a long time!”
—Gemma Halliday, bestselling author of Spying in High Heels and Lethal Bond
“Moon Dance is absolutely brilliant!”
—Lisa Tenzin-Dolma, bestselling author of Understanding the Planetary Myths and The Heartbeat at Your Feet
“Powerful stuff!”
—Aiden James, bestselling author of Immortal Plague and Witches of Denmark
“Moon Dance is a must read. If you like Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter, be prepared to love J.R. Rain’s Samantha Moon, vampire private investigator.”
—Eve Paludan, bestselling author of Witchy Business and Bigfoot Island
Other Books by J.R. Rain
STANDALONE NOVELS
Winter Wind
Bound By Blood
Silent Echo
The Body Departed
The Grail Quest
Elvis Has Not Left the Building
The Lost Ark
The Journey (with Piers Anthony)
The Worm Returns (with Piers Anthony)
Lavabull (with Piers Anthony)
Jack and the Giants (with Piers Anthony)
Dolfin Tayle (with Piers Anthony)
Dragon Assassin (with Piers Anthony)
Glimmer (with Eve Paludan)
Lost Eden (with Elizabeth Basque)
Judas Silver (with Elizabeth Basque)
The Vampire Club (with Scott Nicholson)
Cursed (with Scott Nicholson)
The Black Fang Betrayal (with multiple authors)
The Pure Cold Light in the Sky (coming soon)
Robotica (coming soon)
Mr. Invisible (coming soon)
The Girl Who Hunts Monsters (coming soon)
Jekyll & Hyde (coming soon)
All the Way Back Home (coming soon)
VAMPIRE FOR HIRE SERIES
Moon Dance
Vampire Moon
American Vampire
Moon Child
Christmas Moon
Vampire Dawn
Vampire Games
Moon Island
Moon River
Vampire Sun
Moon Dragon
Moon Shadow
Vampire Fire
Midnight Moon
Moon Angel
Vampire Sire (coming soon)
Moon Master (coming soon)
JIM KNIGHTHORSE SERIES
Dark Horse
The Mummy Case
Hail Mary
Clean Slate
Night Run (coming soon)
Hold Tight (coming soon)
THE WITCHES SERIES
The Witch and the Gentleman
The Witch and the Englishman
The Witch and the Huntsman (with Rod Kierkegaard)
The Witch and the Wolfman (coming soon)
The Witch and the Hangman (coming soon)
THE PSI SERIES
Hear No Evil (with A.K. Alexander)
See No Evil (with A.K. Alexander)
Speak No Evil (with A.K. Alexander)
Touch No Evil (coming soon)
Kiss No Evil (coming soon)
NICK CAINE SERIES
Temple of the Jaguar (with Aiden James)
Treasure of the Deep (with Aiden James)
Pyramid of the Gods (with Aiden James)
SAMANTHA MOON CASE FILES
Moon Bayou (with Rod Kierkegaard)
Blood Moon (coming soon)
THE WATSON FILES
Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Shakespeare (with Chanel Smith)
Sherlock Holmes and the Lost Da Vinci (coming soon)
ICE WOLF SERIES
Ice Wolf (with H.P. Mallory)
She Wolf (coming soon)
ALAN QUATERMAIN ADVENTURES
The Spear (with Randy Keys)
The Garden (coming soon)
DEAD DETECTIVE SERIES
The Dead Detective (with Rod Kierkegaard)
Deadbeat Dad (with Rod Kierkegaard)
THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERHEROINE
The Accidental Superheroine (with Kris Carey)
My Big Fat Accidental Superheroine Wedding (with Kris Carey)
SAMANTHA MOON ORIGINS
New Moon Rising (coming soon)
Pale Moon Calling (coming soon)
ALEXIS SILVER SERIES
Silver Light (coming soon)
WINTER SOLTSICE SERIES
Convergence (coming soon)
THE SPINOZA TRILOGY
The Vampire With the Dragon Tattoo
The Vampire Who Played Dead
The Vampire in the Iron Mask
THE ALADDIN TRILOGY
Aladdin Relighted (with Piers Anthony)
Aladdin Sins Bad (with Piers Anthony)
Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman (with Piers Anthony)
THE WALKING PLAGUE TRILOGY
Zombie Patrol (with Elizabeth Basque)
Zombie Rage (with Elizabeth Basque)
Zombie Mountain (with Elizabeth Basque)
THE SPIDER TRILOGY
Bad Blood (with Scott Nicholson & H.T. Night)
Spider Web (with Scott Nicholson)
Spider Bite (with Scott Nicholson)
SHORT STORY SINGLES
Skeleton Jim
Moon Love
The Vampire on the Train
Vampire Requiem
Ghosts of Christmas Present (with Rod Kierkegaard)
Easy Rider
Dark Side of the Moon
Blue Moon
Vampire Gold
Halloween Moon
Vampire Dreams
Vampire Blues
Vampire Nights
Teeth
The Bleeder
Vampire Rain
The Santa Call
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Moonlight & Monsters
Dark Rain: Stories
Blood Rain: Stories
Black Rain: Stories
Red Rain: Over 40 Bestselling Stories
ANTHOLOGIES
Darkscapes
The Indomitable Ten
The Sands of Time
Chronology
Primetime
Naughty or Nice
POETRY
Vampire Alley
As J.K. Drew - Young Adult Author
STANDALONE NOVELS
The Emerald River
The Angel and the Gift
Forever Silent
Dare to Enter a Distant World
The Enchantress (with Randy Keys)
Spirit Mountain (with Alexandra Swan)
YOUR CHOICE ADVENTURES
Deep Sea Danger
The Legend of Eagle Eye Mountain
Playoff Pressure
THE ROBOT TWINS
The Mystery of the Walking Statue
The Secret of Stonehead Island (with Randy Keys)
The Mystery of the Lightning Cave (coming soon)
KID QUEST ADVENTURES
The Secret of the Sphinx
The T
reasure of Oak Island (coming soon)
Moon Angel
Published by Rain Press
Copyright © 2017 by J.R. Rain
All rights reserved.
Ebook Kindle Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedication
To Mr. Hogue.
Moon Angel
Chapter One
“But how are we going to find her, Sam?” asked Allison.
“They’re connected, somehow,” I said. “She let him in.”
My words hung in the air. I saw my friends look at each other.
“Possession?” asked Kingsley.
Both of my friends knew the devil had been here yesterday—the devil and his three-headed dog. They also knew my son, who was presently standing in the hallway and holding his sister’s cell phone, which had been left behind, had shifted into what we lovingly, teasingly and admiringly called the Fire Warrior—a giant, fiery, interdimensional being. My son had, of course, taken care of one of the devil dog’s heads by lopping it right off. The devil, who had apparently come for my son, had, instead, turned his sights to my daughter; at least, that was what I had pieced together.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to my daughter’s mind, nor my son’s. But shortly thereafter, as witnessed by me, Tammy had seemed a little too quick to defend the devil, and a little moodier than normal. She’d been oddly quiet too, and my every instinct told me that she had made a connection with the devil. That dirty piece-of-shit devil.
Allison was nodding. “A mindlink.”
“Somehow, the devil enticed her,” said Kingsley. “Or awakened something within her.”
“Awakened what?” I snapped.
Kingsley knew he was treading on dangerous ground, but he plowed forward anyway. “Something that’s within all of us: darkness. The devil, I’m willing to bet, knows how to coax such darkness out of people.”
What sort of darkness had been in Tammy? What could the devil have possibly coaxed out? I didn’t know, but I knew my daughter had seen into the minds of some terrible, no-good, very bad people. And these were just everyday people she passed on the streets, or crossed paths with in stores, or in school. I knew the odds of her coming across a vile and terrible person increased with each day of her existence. And she had the uncanny ability to easily and swiftly pop into and out of such minds. She rarely talked about what she saw, but I suspected she had seen some crazy shit—my own family and friends included. Tammy would put on a brave face, but a few times, I had seen the confusion, the fear, the sense of innocence lost.
She was only sixteen. Had she been forever traumatized? Hell, even good people had their own inner demons. Tammy had seen it all. And she continued seeing it, day after day. Yes, there was darkness in her. There had to be. Some of what she had seen scared her, confused her, tempted her, and the devil had awakened it now.
After all, that’s what the bastard did. He encouraged darkness. He encouraged misdeeds. The bastard took an active, gleeful role in promoting the very darkness that caused belief in him. Job security, I guess.
And now, the piece of shit had set his eyes on my kids—in particular, Tammy. Anyone would have been interested in Tammy. Hell, what law enforcement agency, from the local PD to the most secretive shadow agencies in the government, wouldn’t have use for her? They all would, and that scared the shit out of me.
Then again, what CIA covert operation wouldn’t want Allison by its side, blasting through doors? Or Talos, the ultimate drone, scouting enemy terrain? Yes, they all would. But my daughter... oh, yes, she would be particularly prized. To know what the enemy was thinking was priceless.
I paced some more, running my fingernails through my hair. Yes, the devil saw her potential and formed a mindlink with her because he could. An idea hit me. “Allie, can you still do remote viewing?”
“I can,” she began, then shook her head. “But I’ve only done it on the phone, when talking to my clients and I’ve been taking so much time off.”
Her customers were, of course, those who called her psychic hotline. And, yes, she had been taking time off to hunt her own brand of bad guys with her witchy trifecta.
“Good idea, Sam,” said Kingsley, who had been at this supernatural game longer than we had. “Allie, you need only to establish a connection yourself. Sam, grab something important to Tammy. A shirt, shoes, something.”
Anthony held up Tammy’s phone. “Her most important possession on Earth.”
We could all only agree.
Allison took it and held it loosely in her hands. Back in the day, I would have had a peek inside her mind. But now... nothing, thanks to Millicent, a one-time friend of mine in a past life who now didn’t trust me with the trifecta’s innermost secrets. Fine, whatever. They could have their damn secrets.
“I can sort of feel her, Sam,” reported Allison after what seemed like minutes, but had, in reality, been only a few seconds. “I mean, I can feel her attachment to this phone, as if it were a living thing. I can see thread-like strands crisscrossing the phone, strands that attach to her.”
“The strands,” I said, “how far do they reach?”
She blinked at me. “I don’t know.”
“All the way to her?” asked Kingsley.
“Let me see what I can see,” said Allison, and now, she turned her head a little. “They reach all the way to her, Sam. I can feel her. Yes, she wishes she had her phone now. But the devil told her to leave it.”
“Do you see her?” I asked. “Is she okay? Is she afraid? Is she with someone?”
“Hold on.”
Shit, I held on the best I could, but I was fucking losing it. So, I held on to Kingsley, who held me, too, and we stood like that in my little foyer while Allison held the phone and turned her head this way and that. Finally, she opened her eyes, and looked at me.
“She’s in Santa Ana.”
“Santa Ana?” And then, it hit me. Yesterday, Tammy had mentioned Santa Ana. In particular, she had mentioned the jogger who had been forced to work as a prostitute in Santa Ana.
A jogger who had been possessed by the devil.
I grabbed my keys. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Two
Tammy didn’t particularly like the devil.
She knew what he had made that handsome biker do a few months ago. She had seen it all in her mother’s memories: the man stepping backward onto the train track and his body veritably exploding into a bloody mist, complete with flying chunks of meat. Tammy thought she used the word “veritably” correctly, but she would have to look it up later. She liked looking up words. Words helped her explain what she saw in people’s minds, and what she saw often confused her, although the confusion seemed to be getting less and less these days. After all, the question was: what had she not seen at this point?
Going through a rundown of what she had seen would almost certainly guarantee to put her in a bad mood, or to depress her so much that all she would want to do was eat. She had to be careful with that, she knew. She turned to eating to feel good, and she thought it might turn into a problem. Then again, eating really did help her feel good, so who cared what other people thought?
Now, as she made her way along busy Bristol Avenue in downtown Santa Ana, she could feel the devil nearby. No, not really feel him. She could see the devil nearby. In her mind. Hear him too. Or hear her, since the devil was still possessing the body of the female jogger. But the female jogger wasn’t jogging now, was she?
Nope, not at all. As Tammy walked, she mentally looked on in fascination, and then decided she’d seen enough. Maybe even too much.
Yes, definitely too much.
The devil was making the woman perform tricks in nearby cars. Tammy knew that tricks meant sex for money, and it revolted her, but yet, like all things that she saw, it fascinated her up to a point.
The woman had
worshiped the devil. Tammy could see that. Tammy could see pretty deeply into the woman’s mind, too, especially now that the woman, she was sure, was right around the corner, in a truck, doing things for money against her will, because the devil controlled her every action.
The devil, as far as Tammy could tell, was a real douche.
Now, as she walked along the street at night, knowing that she was garnering the looks of the wayward males in the area, many of whom were drunk or high and mostly harmless, she could see more into the woman, who, deep down, was scared. She was horrified, too. She was certain she had gotten a venereal disease, and she hated the devil. She hated the devil for making her do this. She was also, perversely, honored that the devil had chosen her. But the part that felt honored was drowning quickly in a sea of nastiness. The woman knew she was in trouble. She knew she had lost control of her body by letting in the devil. She had let him in willingly, too, through a blood sacrifice that involved small animals and her own blood.
Tammy could hear her screaming in her own head. But she was trapped, buried beneath the weight of that which possessed her. She sensed Tammy watching her and she shifted her attention toward her, begging Tammy to help her—and Tammy jumped out of her mind. She had seen enough.
Tammy wasn’t entirely sure why she came out tonight, or why she had slipped inside Kingsley’s mind—yet again—but this time, to give him the suggestion to sleep. Tammy hadn’t thought it could work, but it did work. All the big guy needed was a simple suggestion, placed deep enough into his subconscious, and that suggestion bubbled up to the surface as a real need to sleep. He hadn’t been sleepy before. In fact, he had been working pretty hard on notes for his new case, a case that had bored her to no end, which was why she had mostly stayed out of his head.
Until she heard the devil beckoning.
Tammy knew she could keep him out of her head, if she wanted to. The cool thing about all this mind reading was that she had taught herself how to protect her own mind in ways that she knew, without a doubt, that no one, but no one could have access to it. For instance, she knew how to seal up her mind, wall it off, block it. But the devil had figured a way to connect with her anyway. To call to her. It wasn’t much, but she heard it. And it had all happened yesterday. She suspected that once she had slipped inside the devil’s mind, a sort of trap had been sprung. Kind of like opening an email virus. But she knew how minds worked, and how to access them, and she knew, roughly, where the connection lay in her mind. She also knew that she could remove it when she wanted to. Or so she hoped.