by J. R. Rain
THE VAMPIRE IN THE IRON MASK
by
J.R. RAIN
The Spinoza Trilogy #3
Acclaim for the novels of J.R. Rain:
“Be prepared to lose sleep!”
—James Rollins, international bestselling author of The Devil Colony
“I love this!”
—Piers Anthony, international bestselling author of A Spell for Chameleon
“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 Liquid Fear
“Dark Horse is the best book I’ve read in a long time!”
—Gemma Halliday, bestselling author of Play Nice
“Moon Dance is absolutely brilliant!”
—Lisa Tenzin-Dolma, author of Understanding the Planetary Myths
“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, author of Letters from David
“Impossible to put down. J.R. Rain’s Moon Dance is a fabulous urban fantasy replete with multifarious and unusual characters, a perfectly synchronized plot, vibrant dialogue and sterling witticism all wrapped in a voice that is as beautiful as it is rich and vividly intense as it is relaxed.”
—April Vine, author of The Midnight Rose
Other Books by J.R. Rain
STANDALONE NOVELS
The Lost Ark
Elvis Has Not Left the Building
The Body Departed
Silent Echo
Winter Wind
SHORT STORY SINGLES
The Bleeder
VAMPIRE FOR HIRE
Moon Dance
Vampire Moon
American Vampire
Moon Child
Christmas Moon
Vampire Dawn
Vampire Games
Moon Island
Moon River
Vampire Sun
Moon Dragon
SAMANTHA MOON SHORT STORIES
Teeth
Vampire Nights
Vampires Blues
Vampire Dreams
Halloween Moon
Vampire Gold
Blue Moon
Dark Side of the Moon
JIM KNIGHTHORSE SERIES
Dark Horse
The Mummy Case
Hail Mary
Clean Slate
Night Run
JIM KNIGHTHORSE SHORT STORIES
Easy Rider
THE WITCHES TRILOGY
The Witch and the Gentleman
The Witch and the Englishman
The Witch and the Huntsman
THE SPINOZA TRILOGY
The Vampire With the Dragon Tattoo
The Vampire Who Played Dead
The Vampire in the Iron Mask
THE AVALON DUOLOGY
The Grail Quest
The Grail Knight
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
The Bleeder and Other Stories
The Santa Call and Other Stories
Vampire Rain and Other Stories
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
Bound By Blood
SCREENPLAYS
Dark Quests
Co-Authored Books
COLLABORATIONS
Cursed! (with Scott Nicholson)
Ghost College (with Scott Nicholson)
The Vampire Club (with Scott Nicholson)
Dragon Assassin (with Piers Anthony)
Dolfin Tayle (with Piers Anthony)
Jack and the Giants (with Piers Anthony)
Judas Silver (with Elizabeth Basque)
Lost Eden (with Elizabeth Basque)
Deal With the Devil (with Elizabeth Basque)
NICK CAINE ADVENTURES
with Aiden James
Temple of the Jaguar
Treasure of the Deep
Pyramid of the Gods
THE ALADDIN TRILOGY
with Piers Anthony
Aladdin Relighted
Aladdin Sins Bad
Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman
THE WALKING PLAGUE TRILOGY
with Elizabeth Basque
Zombie Patrol
Zombie Rage
Zombie Mountain
THE SPIDER TRILOGY
with Scott Nicholson and H.T. Night
Bad Blood
Spider Web
Spider Bite
THE PSI TRILOGY
with A.K. Alexander
Hear No Evil
See No Evil
Speak No Evil
THE ABNORM CHRONICLES
with Eve Paludan
Glimmer
The Vampire in the Iron Mask
Published by J.R. Rain
Copyright © 2012 by J.R. Rain
Ebook 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 C.J. Urban and J.T. Cross. New writers. Great writers. Even better friends.
Acknowledgments
Once again, a big thank you to Eve Paludan and Sandy Johnston.
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.
“I know someone who needs help,” said the faint voice.
“Would that someone be you?”
Hesitation. “No.”
“What kind of help?” I asked.
“You’re not going to believe me if I tell you.”
I nearly chuckled. Nearly. These days, I didn’t chuckle much. If at all. And if I had a nickel for every time someone told me I wouldn’t believe their story, I would have, well, a shitload of nickels. What people didn’t understand was that private investigators had heard it all before. Dozens of times.
“Try me,” I said.
“Jesus, maybe this is a bad idea. I’ll probably get fired—or worse.”
“Probably,” I said.
“That’s not very encouraging.”
“If you think you’ll get fired for telling me something—or anyone anything—then trust your instincts.”
“Good point,” said the voice.
I wai
ted. The computer screen chose that moment to go into screensaver mode as the computer’s logo slowly bounced within the screen. I watched it idly, but my thoughts were on the side of the road, where I had been flung from the burning car so many years ago.
“Yes,” said the voice in my ear about twenty seconds later. “Yes, I’m willing to risk my job. Hell, I could even be willing to risk my life, but that could just be paranoia talking.”
“Tell me about it.”
The caller took in a lot of air, and then said, “I work at Medievaland in Orange County. Have you heard of it?”
“Jousting tournaments, eating with your hands, and waitresses dressed like wenches,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s the place.”
“Never heard of it,” I said.
The voice laughed lightly. “Anyway, we put on nightly shows. I work as a squire in the show, which means I run around in fake chainmail tights and look like an idiot.”
Now I laughed, perhaps for the first time in a long, long time.
“I know,” he said. “Ridiculous. But what the hell. A job is a job, plus I get to work around horses and I love horses. Anyway, we do this bit where we bring out a prisoner wearing an iron mask.”
“An iron mask?”
“Yeah, like in the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.”
“Or the Alexandre Dumas novel.”
“I don’t know about the novel,” the voice said. “Anyway, I’ve worked there for two months and realized that I didn’t know who played the part of the guy wearing the iron mask. I mean, they just wheel him out, then wheel him back, and we never see who he is.”
He paused, perhaps for effect. I waited, not so much for effect. I looked at the picture of my son on the desk. My deceased son.
“I want to know who the guy in the iron mask is,” he finally said.
“Have you asked around?”
“Yes, and no one seems to know.”
“You’re right,” I said.
“Right about what?”
“I don’t believe you.”
I nearly hung up. For some reason, I paused just long enough for him to stop me. To convince me to stop. And he did.
“Wait. Hear me out.” I heard the urgency in his voice.
“Okay,” I said.
“Something’s going on,” he continued. “Something weird. No one’s talking to me. And no one seems to know who the guy in the iron mask is.”
“Probably an extra on the show,” I said, always the voice of reason.
“That’s what I figured, until I saw them wheel him away the other night.”
“Which night?”
“Two nights ago.”
“Go on.”
“I was backstage in the prop room grabbing another sword for my knight—the things always break. Anyway, the skit with the prisoner in the iron mask had just ended and I watched them roll him backstage. I’ll admit, my interest was piqued, if only to settle my own curiosity.”
I waited. Admittedly, my interest was piqued, too. And who said the word “piqued” these days, anyway? I thought about that as I waited.
Finally, the voice said, “The first thing I noticed was that they never took him out of the iron mask.”
“What do you mean?”
“They just kept on rolling him down a side hall, and then into one of the service tunnels, which leads to, from what I understand, a basement of sorts under the arena.”
“They never took the guy out of the mask?”
“No.”
An oddly cold chill coursed through me as I processed this. “You’ve never been below the restaurant?”
“No.”
“And no one else knows who the guy in the iron mask is?”
“No one. At least, not the other squires. We don’t hang out much with the knights.”
“And you tried looking into this yourself?”
“I did.”
“And what happened?”
“I was told that if I was ever seen near the elevator again, I would be fired.”
“So why are you calling me?” I asked.
“I want you to find out who the man in the iron mask is.”
“Why?” I asked.
This time there was a lot of silence, and I found myself shaking my head. In this business, you never knew who was going to call you. The homeless man continued weeping. In my mind’s eye, I saw my son’s burned flesh. His burned and smoking flesh.
Finally, the guy on the phone spoke. “Because I think the man in the iron mask needs help.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think—and this is the part where I know I sound crazy—that he might really be a prisoner.”
“Not crazy,” I said. “Batshit crazy.”
I heard him breathing on his end of the line. Breathing hard. Raspy. He’d gotten himself worked up. Finally, he said, “Do you want the job?”
I thought about it—and thought about my past few crazy cases, both of which involved creatures of the night—and said, “What the hell. Crazy is right up my alley.”
Chapter Two
Roxi and I were sitting on her balcony.
We were looking out over Los Feliz, which is a sort of borough in Los Angeles, except they don’t call them boroughs here, and I can never pronounce Los Feliz right anyway. Whenever I try to pronounce it right, I get corrected, and if I try to pronounce it another way, emphasizing the ‘e’ in Feliz, I get corrected again. I’ve decided there might just be something wrong with me.
“How do you pronounce Los Feliz?” I asked Roxi again, who was now my girlfriend of a couple of years, God bless her patient heart.
“Not the way you pronounce it,” she said. She was sipping on a glass of chardonnay with her feet crossed over the balcony railing. Three stories below, a steady stream of people swept up and down Vermont Avenue. Toward, undoubtedly, a slew of trendy restaurants.
“No one pronounces it the way I pronounce it,” I said. “Apparently, I’m the only one in Los Feliz who can’t pronounce Los Feliz.”
“Los Feliz,” she corrected, emphasizing the ‘e’ in a way I thought I just had. “And you’re not the only one who can’t pronounce it. People who just move here can’t pronounce it; that is, until they learn how to pronounce.”
I sighed in a manner that suggested I gave up, which I don’t often do for anything, especially cases.
Roxi grinned and reached out and touched my thigh in a way that always sent a shiver through me. And just as the feeling coursed through me, I fought it back. What right did I have to feel shivers, or pleasure of any kind?
I didn’t. Not now. Not ever.
Roxi must have sensed me recoil, even if slightly, and gently withdrew her hand. How and why she stayed with me was still a perplexing puzzle that I had quit trying to understand nearly two years ago. If I hurt her feelings by recoiling, she didn’t show it. She knew me better than most—perhaps better than anyone. She knew I was damaged goods, and she knew what she had gotten herself into. Instead, she took a sip from her chardonnay, re-crossed her legs and asked what case I was working on.
And so I told her about the mystery man in the iron mask, who made nightly appearances in the Medievaland shows, and who was, apparently, carted off to a subterranean chamber beneath the arena.
“You’re kidding,” said Roxi.
“Do I ever kid?” I asked.
“Good point. Okay, so this guy is strapped to, what, a sort of upright gurney, à la Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal Lecter?”
“That’s how I envision it,” I said.
“And it’s all part of the show?” she asked.
“Apparently.”
“But your client doesn’t think so?”
“Right,” I said.
“Does he know how crazy he sounds?”
“I think he does.”
“And?”
“And he still wants to hire me anyway.”
“Is it ethical to take his money if he’s crazy?”
; “I haven’t taken it yet.”
“You’re going to check out the scene first,” said Roxi.
“Right.”
Below me, I watched a car bump into the back of another car at the Los Feliz Blvd and Vermont intersection. The bump was minor. The first car barely moved, if at all. If anything, it was all brake squeal and no bark. Still, the driver of the first car got out. An older guy wearing a sweater around his shoulders, he jawed in a manner which suggested anger. Or even hate, although I couldn’t hear what was being said. I had been in an accident a few years ago. Two of them, in fact. Two accidents, two deaths. My wife in the first, my son in the second.
Two for two, I thought, and wished all over again it had been me.
“And this guy in the iron mask...your client doesn’t know who he is?”
“Apparently, no one does. At least, no one who’s talking.”
“And he sees the guy being wheeled to an elevator that leads below the arena?”
“Yes.”
“Still strapped to the gurney?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, that’s weird,” said Roxi. Roxi was about my age, but looked younger. Guys ten years older than me still looked younger than me. Going through what I went through had a tendency to age a guy...and drive him to the brink of a massive, catastrophic depression. Roxi helped me steer clear of such a depression. Roxi was a bright light in what would have been, I was sure, an unbearable existence.
“You can’t just go in there and ask about the guy in the iron mask,” said Roxi.
“No.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I’ll poke around,” I said. Below, the older guy was now taking pictures with his camera phone.
“You’re good at poking around,” said Roxi, and I was sure that was the wine talking.
But I let her flirtatious comment go, as usual. Maybe another day, another lifetime ago, I might have flirted back, but my days of flirting were over.