by J. R. Rain
More footsteps. Just outside of the door.
I tore my gaze away, gasping, and dropped Ira’s lifeless body to the debris-strewn floor. I moved quickly over to the hole in the wall, took a deep breath, and jumped.
Chapter Forty-four
Separating Chino and Orange is Chino State Park, which really isn’t much of a park. Mostly it’s a long stretch of barren hills. The hills are full of coyotes, rabbits, and the occasional mountain lion. And tonight, at least, one giant vampire bat.
I alighted on the roundish summit of the highest hill. From here I could see the lights of North Orange County twinkling beautifully. I folded my wings in and hunkered down on the lip of a rocky overhang.
The wind was strong up here, buffeting me steadily, slapping my wings gently against my side. Something small scurried in the grass nearby. That something popped its little head up and looked at me. A squirrel. It studied me for a moment, cocking its head, and then scurried off in a blink.
Well, excuse me.
The cool night wind carried with it the heady scent of juniper and sage, and I sat silently on that ledge and stared down into Orange County and remembered the feeling of the man’s neck breaking in my hands.
Grass rustled in the wind. My wings continued flapping. Grains of sand sprinkled against my thick hide. A hazy gauze of clouds crawled in front of the moon, nudged along by the high winds.
In my mind’s eye, I summoned the leaping flame, summoned the woman within. I opened my eyes a few seconds later and found myself squatting over the ledge, my long dark hair whipping in the wind, my elbows tucked against my sides.
I buried my face in my hands and wanted to cry, but I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t cry because something had changed within me tonight, something so damn frightening I could barely acknowledge it.
But I had to acknowledge it.
Tonight, as I had held Ira’s broken body close to me, I had loved every minute of it. Every fucking second of it. It had been such a thrill killing him.
Fuck.
Double fuck.
The scariest part of tonight was that his killing had felt incomplete. Foreplay, without the pay-off. I had wanted to drink from that broken neck. Desperately. Passionately. Endlessly. Draining every drop of blood.
Sweet Jesus, help me.
I reached down and picked up a handful of cool desert sand. I let the fine granules sift through my fingers and catch on the wind, to be carried off to distant lands and far shores, even if those distant lands were just Orange County and those far shores were heated pools.
I reached up with both hands and covered my head and closed my eyes and listened to the wind and the critters and the swishing grass, and stayed liked that for a long, long time....
Chapter Forty-five
I killed a man tonight.
There was a long pause, then Fang wrote: Are you sure you want to tell me about this here?
Big Brother?
Big something. You’ve stirred things up enough that someone, somewhere, might be watching and listening.
I doubt it, I wrote.
Your sixth sense?
Something like that.
You don’t feel like anyone’s watching?
No, I wrote. Not yet. Maybe someday I will have to be more careful.
But not now?
No.
Can we be careful for my benefit? he wrote.
Sure. We can pretend I killed a man tonight.
That’s better. Pretend is better. Why did you pretend to kill him?
Because he was a bad man.
You can’t kill all the bad men, Moon Dance. What did he do that was so bad?
I told Fang about it, writing up the case quickly, hitting just the high notes. Two seconds after I hit “Send”, Fang was already writing me back.
Someone had to die, Moon Dance. Better him than your client.
We were both silent for a long, long time. I tried to imagine what Fang was doing at this moment. Probably sitting back and studying my words. Probably drinking from a bottle of beer, although he had never mentioned if he drank beer or not. Call it a hunch. I imagined Fang taking a long pull on his beer, maybe crossing one leg over the other, maybe reaching down and scratching his crotch, as guys are wont to do.
He wrote, Does your client know about the killing?
Not yet.
Where is she now?
With me in bed, sleeping.
You sleep together?
Get your mind out of the gutter. This is the first time she has slept so deeply since I have been protecting her.
People are more psychic than they realize. Perhaps a part of her knows she is finally safe.
But I had to kill a man to keep her safe.
Better him than her.
Tonight I had bought a pack of cigarettes. I opened the package and tapped one out and lit it with a lighter. The tip flared and the acrid smell of burning paper and tobacco reached my nose nearly instantly. I loved the initial scent of a freshly lit cigarette, even if I wasn’t smoking it. I looked down at the burning cancer stick. It was my first cigarette since before I was pregnant. I had given up smokes completely, being a good preggo. I had thought I had given them up for good, but with the fear of cancer removed, well, what the hell? Why not? I just wouldn’t smoke them around my kids. Or if I was about to kiss a man.
I’ve never killed before, I wrote.
How do you feel?
I sucked on the cigarette and thought about that. I feel nothing.
No guilt?
No. Not right now, but it might hit me later.
How did you feel when you were killing him?
Why do you ask?
It is commonly believed that vampires enjoy the kill, that vampires sort of get-off on taking another’s life.
I took another hit, inhaling deeply, and came clean. I enjoyed it so fucking much that it scares the shit out of me.
Because you might want to do it again?
Exactly.
Did you feed from him?
No. I didn’t have time. But I think I would have. I paused, then added: And now tonight feels incomplete.
Because you didn’t feed?
Right.
You hunted your prey...and then lost him to the hyenas.
I shuddered at the imagery. Something like that.
Can you control yourself, Moon Dance?
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me nod. Yes, the feeling passed as soon as I left the cell.
A good thing it passed.
I nodded again. I knew what Fang meant. If the hunger hadn’t passed, if it still gripped me, there was a very good chance that something else—or someone else—would be very dead tonight.
Do you think of me differently, Fang?
Do you think of yourself differently?
I finished the cigarette, stubbed it out in the glass ashtray on the night stand next to me. I’ve never killed before. Anyone or anything. I always had that to fall back on. Now I don’t.
Now you’re a killer.
Yes.
You killed a bad man who, if given a chance, would have hurt or killed your client.
Yes.
So, in effect, you acted in self-defense of your client.
You could say that.
You had asked him politely to leave her alone, and what did he do?
He threatened me and my children.
So, in effect, you also protected your children.
I’m not sure how serious his threats were.
The man was on Death Row, Moon Dance.
But I still killed him in cold blood, Fang.
That is something you will have to live with, Moon Dance. Can you live with it?
I guess I have to.
An eternity is a long time to carry guilt, Moon Dance.
Our fingers were both silent. I contemplated another cigarette, then decided against it. Now Fang was busy writing something, and so I waited for his response. A minute later, it came.
&nb
sp; You did what you had to do. You acted in the best interest of yourself, your kids and your client. You rid the world of an animal who made it his life’s goal to destroy other people’s lives. You ask me, you had a pretty good night’s work.
We were silent for a long time. I gazed out the sliding glass window at the rising moon. I turned back to my laptop.
Get some sleep, Fang.
You know I’m a night owl, Moon Dance.
Yeah, I know.
See you in a week?
My heart pounded once, twice in my chest.
Yes, in a week.
I can’t wait, Moon Dance.
I bit my lip. Neither can I.
Chapter Forty-six
I was boxing with Jacky.
It was late afternoon and I was tired and my hands kept dropping. Jacky hated when my hands dropped and he let me know it. I was working on a punching bag while he stood behind it, absorbing my blows. Each punch seemed to knock the little Irishman off balance a little more. I had learned not to hit the bag with all my strength, or even half my strength, as such blows would send the little man rebounding off the bag as if it had been an electrified fence.
Even in the late afternoon, with the sun not fully set and my strength nowhere near where it could be, my punches had a lot of pop behind them.
I’m such a freak.
And as Jacky worked me in three minute drills—equivalent to boxing rounds—I was pouring sweat. I sometimes wondered what my sweat would look like under a microscope. Was it the same as anyone else’s sweat? Was my DNA vastly different? Would a lab technician, studying my little squigglies under the lens, shit his pants if he saw what I was really made up of?
And what was I made up of? Who knows.
Still, it gave me an idea. A very interesting idea. Hmm....
“Hands up, wee girl. Hands—”
I hit the bag hard, so hard that it rebounded back into Jacky’s face and caused him, I think, to bite his lip. Oops. He cursed and held on tight, but at least he shut the hell up about my damn hands.
Easy girl. He’s just doing his job.
I was in a mood. A foul mood. I needed to punch something and punch it hard, but I didn’t want to hurt Jacky. A conundrum, for sure.
And as I wrapped up the fourteenth round, finishing in a flurry of punches that made Jacky, no doubt, regret taking me on as a client, Detective Sherbet stepped into the gym. The heavy-set detective looked around, blinking hard, eyes adjusting to the gloom, spotted me, and then motioned for me to come over. I told Jacky I would be back, and the little Irishman, wiping the blood from his lip, seemed only too relieved to be rid of me for a few minutes.
I grabbed a towel and soon the detective and I were sitting on a bench in the far corner of the gym. I was sweating profusely and continuously drying myself. Sherbet was wearing slacks and a nice shirt. There was a fresh jelly stain near one of the buttons. The buttons were doing all they could to contain his girth.
“You sweat a lot for a girl,” he said.
“I’ve heard that before.”
Sherbet grinned. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“I’ve heard that before, too. So how did you find me, Detective?”
“I happen to be an ace investigator. That, and Monica told me.”
I nodded. “And to what do I owe the honor?”
Sherbet was looking at me closely, and perhaps a little oddly. If I had to put a name to it, I would say he was looking at me suspiciously.
He said, “Ira Lang is dead.”
“What a shame.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m too tired to seem surprised,” I said. “There’s a reason for all this sweat, you know.”
“Don’t you care how he died?”
“No.”
“His neck was broken.”
I made a noncommittal sound. Sherbet interlaced his fingers and formed a sort of human cup with the palms of his hands. He tapped the tips of his thumbs together. Nearby, somebody was kicking a heavy bag with a lot of power.
“It happened last night, in his cell.”
I kept saying nothing. Sweat continued to drip, and I continued to mop my brow. I didn’t look at Sherbet.
The detective said, “There was an explosion of some type, which blasted a hole into his cell. Crazy, I know, but someone broke into his cell.”
“You’re not making sense, Detective.”
“None of it makes sense, Sam. Whatever broke into his cell appears to have killed him, as well. Nearly ripped his head clean off.”
I listened to a woman hi-yah-ing! with her trainer, grunting the word with each kick or punch. I wanted to hi-yah her face.
“Prison officials don’t know what to make of it. The explosion rocked the whole building. Everyone felt it, even those a few buildings away felt it. But there was no evidence of an explosion. It was as if a massive cannonball had been launched at the wall.”
“Detective, if I didn’t know better, I would say you’ve been sneaking in some of the hard stuff during your lunch breaks.”
He mostly ignored me, although he might have cracked a smile. “They’re keeping it out of the press. They have to. Something like this can’t get out. Besides, what do they report?”
“So Ira is really dead?”
“Yes.”
“And this story of yours is real?”
“So far, it’s not much of a story. The warden and his men have no clue what happened.”
“And there were no witnesses?”
“Oh, there was a witness.”
“What did he see?”
“A guard working the tower heard the explosion. Everyone did. He started looking for the source and found the gaping hole in the Death Row wing. A moment later, he sees what he claims is a naked woman jump from the opening.” I burst out laughing, but Sherbet ignored me and continued on. “The guard had been in the process of reporting the hole to the warden when the woman jumped out of Ira’s cell. The guard was a fraction of a second too late getting back to his light. The woman disappeared and the last he reports is something quite large and black flew directly over the tower. The woman was never found.”
“Was she seen on video?”
“The video they have shows the wall caving in from an unknown impact. An invisible impact. Nothing else can be seen. Nothing inside, since the angle was wrong. And not the woman or whatever the guard had seen flying overhead.”
“Did he say what the woman looked like?” I asked.
“He did. Slender. Long black hair. Pale skin. Did a swan dive out of the hole in the wall.”
“Any DNA evidence left behind at the scene?”
“None so far, but they’re working on it.”
I nodded. “And how do you know all of this?”
“Warden is a friend of mine. Ira was my business. And I’m an acquaintance of yours, a woman who had physically assaulted Ira just a week and a half earlier.”
“I’m just an acquaintance? I’m hurt.”
Sherbet had been watching me closely during this whole exchange. I had been watching two women sparring in the center ring. Both women looked like they would have trouble punching through a wet paper towel. One of them actually turned and ran, squealing.
“There was something else on the video.”
Uh, oh. “Please tell me you didn’t bring another portable DVD player,” I said.
Sherbet chuckled. “No. I learned my lesson with that damned thing. I’ll summarize for you. Just after the explosion, the video captured something else. Granted, the camera was only partially facing the wall—and at this time, the spotlight wasn’t yet on the hole in the wall—but we can see what appears to be broken bricks and rocks rising in the air and falling on their own.”
“Maybe the prison is haunted,” I said.
“If I had to guess, I would say it looked like someone—or something—was getting up from the floor. And the chunks of wall were falling away from the body.”
&nbs
p; “An invisible body,” I reminded.
That stopped him. He ducked his head and rubbed his face and groaned a little. He turned and looked at me a moment later, and the poor guy looked truly tortured. The confident detective was gone, replaced by a man who was truly searching for answers.
“What do you make of all that, Sam?” he asked.
“I think someone invisible might have killed Ira,” I said.
“Maybe. Is there anything else you would like to add?”
“It’s a wild story, Detective,” I said, standing. “You boys might want to keep it to yourselves. You wouldn’t want the rest of the world thinking that invisible assassins are killing prisoners at Chino State Prison.”
I hated lying to the detective, but I had been lying for so long now about my condition it truly came as second nature for me. Still, I hated to see the confused anguish on his face.
Sherbet nodded and looked at his empty hands. I think he was wishing a big fat donut was in one of those hands. Or both hands. The detective nodded some more, this time to himself, I think, and then stood. As he stood, his knees popped so loudly that a girl walking by snapped her head around and looked at us.
The detective looked down at me and said, “I still have questions for you, Sam.”
“And I’m still here, Detective.”
He nodded and left, limping slightly.
Chapter Forty-seven
Monica and I were in my hotel room, sitting crossed-legged in the center of the bed, holding hands. I had just told her that her husband of thirteen years, a husband who had twice tried to kill her and who, in fact, succeeded in killing her father, was dead. I left out the facts of his death. I told her only that her ex-husband had died suddenly.
Very suddenly, I thought.
Amazingly, Monica broke down. She cried hard for a long, long time. Sometimes I wondered if she even knew why she was crying. I suspected that emotions—many different emotions—were sweeping through her, purging her, one set of emotions blending into another, causing more and more tears, until at last she had cried herself out, and now we sat holding hands in the center of the bed.