VAMPIRES &

WEREWOLVES

Four Supernatural Novels

MOON DANCE

VAMPIRE MOON

VAMPIRE LOVE STORY

THE WEREWOLF WHISPERER

J.R. RAIN

H.T. NIGHT

Vampires & Werewolves

Copyright © 2011 by J.R. Rain and H.T. Night

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Susanna at:

susannakubernus@gmail.com

www.photogravity.de

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 these authors.

Dedication

To Scott and Diana.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Moon Dance

Vampire Moon

Vampire Love Story

The Werewolf Whisperer

About the Authors

MOON DANCE

Vampire for Hire #1

Copyright © 2009 by J.R. Rain

All rights reserved.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to mothers everywhere:

Our amazing, selfless, unsung heroes.

Love you, ma.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Eve Paludan, Liisa Lee (and all her i’s) and Sandy Johnston for their generous assistance with this book.

Moon Dance

1.

I was folding laundry in the dark and watching Judge Judy rip this guy a new asshole when the doorbell rang.

I flipped down a pair of Oakley wrap-around sunglasses and, still holding a pair of little Anthony’s cotton briefs in one hand, opened the front door.

The light, still painfully bright, poured in from outside. I squinted behind my shades and could just made out the image of a UPS deliveryman.

And, oh, what an image it was.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, a hunky guy with tan legs and beefy arms materialized through the screen door before me. He grinned at me easily, showing off a perfect row of white teeth. Spiky yellow hair protruded from under his brown cap. The guy should have been a model, or at least my new best friend.

“Mrs. Moon?” he asked. His eyes seemed particularly searching and hungry, and I wondered if I had stepped onto the set of a porno movie. Interestingly, a sort of warning bell sounded in my head. Warning bells are tricky to discern, and I automatically assumed this one was telling me to stay away from Mr. Beefy, or risk damaging my already rocky marriage.

“You got her,” I said easily, ignoring the warning bells.

“I’ve got a package here for you.”

“You don’t say.”

“I’ll need for you to sign the delivery log.” He held up an electronic gizmo-thingy that must have been the aforementioned delivery log.

“I’m sure you do,” I said, and opened the screen door and stuck a hand out. He looked at my very pale hand, paused, and then placed the electronic thing-a-majig in it. As I signed it, using a plastic-tipped pen, my signature appeared in the display box as an arthritic mess. The deliveryman watched me intently through the screen door. I don’t like to be watched intently. In fact, I prefer to be ignored and forgotten.

“Do you always wear sunglasses indoors?” he asked casually, but I sensed his hidden question: And what sort of freak are you?

“Only during the day. I find them redundant at night.” I opened the screen door again and exchanged the log doohickey for a small square package. “Thank you,” I said. “Have a good day.”

He nodded and left, and I watched his cute little buns for a moment longer, and then shut the solid oak door completely. Sweet darkness returned to my home. I pulled up the sunglasses and sat down in a particularly worn dining room chair. Someday I was going to get these things re-upholstered.

The package was heavily taped, but a few deft strokes of my painted red nail took care of all that. I opened the lid and peered inside. Shining inside was an ancient golden medallion. An intricate Celtic cross was engraved across the face of it, and embedded within the cross, formed by precisely cut rubies, were three red roses.

In the living room, Judge Judy was calmly explaining to the defendant what an idiot he was. Although I agreed, I turned the TV off, deciding that this medallion needed my full concentration.

After all, it was the same medallion worn by my attacker six years earlier.

2.

There was no return address and no note. Other than the medallion, the box was empty. I left the gleaming artifact in the box and shut the lid. Seeing it again brought back some horrible memories. Memories I have been doing my best to forget.

I put the box in a cabinet beneath the china hutch, and then went back to Judge Judy and putting away the laundry. At 3:30 p.m., I lathered my skin with heaping amounts of sun block, donned a wide gardening hat and carefully stepped outside.

The pain, as always, was intense and searing. Hell, I could have been cooking over an open fire pit. Truly, I had no business being out in the sun, but I had my kids to pick up, dammit.

So I hurried from the front steps and crossed the driveway and into the open garage. My dream was to have a home with an attached garage. But, for now, I had to make the daily sprint.

Once in the garage and out of the direct glare of the spring sun, I could breathe again. I could also smell my burning flesh.

Blech!

Luckily, the Ford Windstar minivan was heavily tinted, and so when I backed up and put the thing into drive, I was doing okay again. Granted, not great, but okay.

I picked up my son and daughter from school, got some cheeseburgers from Burger King and headed home. Yes, I know, bad mom, but after doing chores all day, I definitely was not going to cook.

Once at home, the kids went straight to their room and I went straight to the bathroom where I removed my hat and sunglasses, and used a washcloth to remove the extra sunscreen. Hell, I ought to buy stock in Coppertone. Soon the kids were hard at work saving our world from Haloes and had lapsed into a rare and unsettling silence. Perhaps it was the quiet before the storm.

My only appointment for the day was right on time, and since I work from home, I showed him to my office in the back. His name was Kingsley Fulcrum and he sat across from me in a client chair, filling it to capacity. He was tall and broad shouldered and wore his tailored suit well. His thick black hair, speckled with gray, was jauntily disheveled and worn long over his collar. Kingsley was a striking man and would have been the poster boy for dashing rogues if not for the two scars on his face. Then again, maybe poster boys for rogue did have scars on their faces. Anyway, one was on his left cheek and the other was on his forehead, just above his left eye. Both were round and puffy. And both were recent.

He caught me staring at the scars. I looked away, embarrassed. “How can I help you, Mr. Fulcrum?”

“How long have you been a private investigator, Mrs. Moon?” he asked.

“Six years,” I said.

“What did you do before that?”

“I was a federal agent.”

He didn’t say anything, and I could feel his eyes on me. God, I hate when I can feel eyes on me. The silence hung for longer than I was comfortable with and I answered his unspoken question. “I had an accident and was forced to work at home.”

“May I ask what kind of accident?”

“No.”

He raised his eyebrows and nodded. He might have turned a pale shade of red. “Do you have a list of references?”

“Of course.”

I turned to my computer, brought up the reference file and printed him out the list. He took it and scanned the names briefly. “Mayor Hartley?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“He hired you?”

“He did. I believe that’s the direct line to his personal assistant.”

“Can I ask what sort of help you gave the mayor?”

“No.”

“I understand. Of course you can’t divulge that kind of information.”

“How exactly can I help you, Mr. Fulcrum?” I asked again.

“I need you to find someone.”

“Who?”

“The man who shot me,” he said. “Five times.”

3.

The furious sounds of my kids erupting into an argument suddenly came through my closed office door. In particular, Anthony’s high-pitched shriek. Sigh. The storm broke.

I gave Kingsley an embarrassed smile. “Could you please hold on?”

“Duty calls,” he said, smiling. Nice smile.

I marched through my single story home and into the small bedroom my children shared. Anthony was on top of Tammy. Tammy was holding the remote control away from her body with one hand and fending off her little brother with the other. I came in just in time to witness him sinking his teeth into her hand. She yelped and bopped him over the ear with the remote control. He had just gathered himself to make a full-scale leap onto her back, when I stepped into the room and grabbed each by their collar and separated them. I felt as if I had separated two ravenous wolverines. Anthony’s fingers clawed for his sister’s throat. I wondered if they realized they were both hovering a few inches off the floor. When they had both calmed down, I set them down on their feet. Their collars were ruined.

“Anthony, we do not bite in this household. Tammy, give me the remote control.”

“But Mom,” said Anthony, in that shriekingly high-pitched voice that he used to irritate me. “I was watching ‘Pokemon’ and she turned the channel.”

“We each get one half hour after school,” Tammy said smugly. “And you were well into my half hour.”

“But you were on the phone talking to Richaaard.”

“Tammy, give your brother the remote control. He gets to finish his TV show. You lost your dibs by talking to Richaaard.” They both laughed. “I have a client in my office. If I hear any more loud voices, you will both be auctioned off on eBay. I could use the extra money.”

I left them and headed back to the office. Kingsley was perusing my bookshelves. He looked at me before I had a chance to say anything and raised his eyebrows.

“You have an interest in the occult,” he said, fingering a hardback book. “In particular, vampirism.”

“Yeah, well, we all need a hobby,” I said.

“An interesting hobby, that,” he said.

I sat behind my desk. It was time to change the subject. “So you want me to find the man who shot you five times. Anything else?”

He moved away from my book shelves and sat across from me again. He raised a fairly bushy eyebrow. On him, the bushy eyebrow somehow worked.

“Anything else?” he asked, grinning. “No, I think that will be quite enough.”

And then it hit me. I thought I recognized the name and face. “You were on the news a few months back,” I said suddenly.

He nodded once. “Aye, that was me. Shot five times in the head for all the world to see. Not my proudest moment.”

Did he just say aye? I had a strange sense that I had suddenly gone back in time. How far back, I didn’t know, but further enough back where men said aye.

“You were ambushed and shot. I can’t imagine it would have been anyone’s proudest moment. But you survived, and that’s all that matters, right?”

“For now,” he said. “Next on the list would be to find the man who shot me.” He sat forward. “Everything you need is at your disposal. Nothing of mine is off limits. Speak to anyone you need to, although I ask you to be discreet.”

“Discretion is sometimes not possible.”

“Then I trust you to use your best judgment.”

Good answer. He took out a business card and wrote something on the back. “That’s my cell number. Please call me if you need anything.” He wrote something under his number. “And that’s the name and number of the acting homicide detective working my case. His name is Sherbet, and although I found him to be forthcoming and professional, I didn’t like his conclusions.”

“Which were?”

“He tends to think my attack was nothing but a random shooting.”

“And you disagree?”

“Wholeheartedly.”

We discussed my retainer and he wrote me a check. The check was bigger than we discussed.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” said Kingsley as he stood and tucked his expensive fountain pen inside his expensive jacket, “but are you ill?”

I’ve heard the question a thousand times.

“No, why?” I asked brightly.

“You seem pale.”

“Oh, that’s my Irish complexion, lad,” I said, and winked.

He stared at me a moment longer, and then returned my wink and left.

4.

When Kingsley was gone I punched his name into my web browser.

Dozens of online newspaper articles came up, and from these I garnered that Kingsley was a rather successful defense attorney, known for doing whatever it took to get his clients off the hook, often on seemingly inane technicalities. He was apparently worth his weight in gold.

I thought of his beefy shoulders.

A lot of weight. Muscular weight.

Down girl.

I continued scanning the headlines until I found the one I wanted. It was on a web page for a local LA TV station. I clicked on a video link. Thank God for high speed internet. A small media window appeared on my screen, and shortly thereafter I watched a clip that had first appeared on local TV news. The clip had gone national, due to its sensationally horrific visuals.

A reporter appeared first in the screen, a young Hispanic woman looking quite grave. Over her shoulder was a picture of the Fullerton Municipal Courthouse. The next shot was a grainy image from the courthouse security camera itself. In the frame were two men and two women, all dressed impeccably, all looking important. They were crossing in front of the courthouse itself. In football terms, they formed a sort of moving huddle, although I rarely think of things in football terms and understand little of the stupid sport.

I immediately recognized the tall one with the wavy black hair as Kingsley Fulcrum, looking rugged and dashing.

Down girl.

As the group approaches the courthouse steps, a smallish man steps out from behind the trunk of a white birch. Three of the four great defenders pay the man little mind. The one who does, a blond-haired woman with glasses and big hips, looks up and frowns. She probably frowns because the little man is reaching rather menacingly inside his coat pocket. His thick mane of black hair is disheveled, and somehow even his thick mustache looks disheveled, too. The woman, still frowning, turns back to the group.

And what happens next still sends shivers down my spine.

From inside his tweed jacket, the little man removes a short pistol. We now know it’s a .22. At the time, no one sees him remove the pistol. The short man, perhaps ten feet away from the group of four, takes careful aim, and fires.

Kingsley’s head snaps back. The bullet enters over his left eye.

I lean forward, staring at my computer screen, rapt, suddenly wishing I had a bowl of popcorn, or at least a bag of peanut M&Ms. That is, until I remembered that I can no longer eat either.

Anyway, Kingsley’s cohorts immediately scatter like chickens before a hawk. The shorter man even ducks and rolls dramatically as if he’s recently seen duty in the Middle East and his military instincts are kicking in.

Kingsley is shot again. This time in the neck, where a small red dot appears above his collar. Blood quickly flows down his shirt. Instead of collapsing, instead of dying after being shot point blank in the head and neck, Kingsley actually turns and looks at the man.

As if the man had simply called his name.

As if the man had not shot him twice.

What transpires next would be comical if it wasn’t so heinous. Kingsley proceeds to duck behind a nearby tree. The shooter, intent on killing Kingsley, bypasses going around a park bench and instead jumps over it. Smoothly. Landing squarely on his feet while squeezing off a few more rounds that appear to hit Kingsley in the neck and face. Meanwhile, the big attorney ducks and weaves behind the tree. This goes on for seemingly an eternity, but in reality just a few seconds. A sick game of tag, except Kingsley’s getting tagged with real bullets.

And still the attorney does not go down.

Doesn’t even collapse.

The shooter seemingly realizes he’s wasting his time and dashes away from the tree, disappearing from the screen. No one has come to Kingsley’s rescue. The other attorneys are long gone. Kingsley is left to fend for himself, his only protection the tree, which has been torn and shredded by the impacting stray bullets.

Witnesses would later report that the shooter left in a Ford pickup. No one tried to stop him, and I really didn’t blame them.

I paused the picture on Kingsley. Blood is frozen on his cheeks and forehead, even on his open, outstretched palms. His face is a picture of confusion and horror and shock. In just twenty-three seconds, his life had been utterly turned upside down. Of course, in those very same twenty-three seconds most people would have died.

But not Kingsley. I wondered why.

5.

I was at the Fullerton police station, sitting across from a homicide detective named Sherbet. It was the late evening, and most of the staff had left for the day.

“You’re keeping me from my kid,” he said. Sherbet was wearing a long-sleeved shirt folded up at the elbows, revealing heavily muscled forearms covered in dark hair. The dark hair was mixed with a smattering of gray. I thought it looked sexy as hell. His tie was loosened, and he looked irritable, to say the least.

“I apologize,” I said. “This was the only time I could make it today.”

“I’m glad I can work around your busy schedule, Mrs. Moon. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you in any way.”

His office was simple and uncluttered. No pictures on the wall. Just a desk, a computer, a filing cabinet and some visitor’s chairs. His desk had a few picture frames, but they were turned toward him. From my angle, I could only see the price tags.

I gave him my most winning smile. “I certainly appreciate your time, detective.” I had on plenty of blush, so that my cheeks appeared human.

The smile worked. He blushed himself. “Yeah, well, let’s make this quick. My kid’s playing a basketball game tonight, and I wouldn’t want to miss him running up and down the court with no clue what the hell is going on around him.”

“Sounds like a natural.”

“A natural dolt. Wife says I should just leave him alone. The trouble is, if I leave him alone, he tends to want to play Barbies with the neighborhood girls.”

“That worries you?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You think he could turn out gay?”

He shrugged uncomfortably, and said nothing. It was a touchy subject for him, obviously.

“How old is your son?” I asked.

“Eight.”

“Perhaps he’s a little Casanova. Perhaps he sees the benefits of playing with girls, rather than boys.”

“Perhaps,” said Sherbet. “For now, he plays basketball.”

“Even though he’s clueless.”

“Where there’s a will there’s a way.”

“Even if it’s your will and your way?” I asked.

“For now, it’s the only way.” He paused, then looked a little confused. He shook his head like a man realizing he had been mumbling out loud. “How the hell did we get on the subject of my kid’s sexuality?”

“I forget,” I said, shrugging.

He reached over and straightened the folder in front of him. The folder hadn’t been crooked, now it was less uncrooked. “Yeah, well, let’s get down to business. Here’s the file. I made a copy of it for you. It’s against procedures to give you a copy, but you check out okay. Hell, you worked for the federal government. And why the hell you’ve gone private is your own damn business.”

I reached for the file, but he placed a big hand on it. “This is just between you and me. I don’t normally give police files to private dicks.”

“Luckily I’m not your average private dick.”

“A dick with no dick,” he said.

“Clever, detective,” I said.

“Not really.”

“No, not really,” I admitted. “I just really want the file.”

He nodded and lifted his palm, and I promptly stuffed the file into my handbag. “Is there anything you can tell me that’s perhaps not in the file?”

He shook his head, but it was just a knee-jerk reaction. In the process of shaking his head, he was actually deep in thought. “It should all be in there.” He rubbed the dark stubble at his chin. The dark stubble was also mixed with some gray. “You know I always suspected the guy doing the shooting was a client of his. I dunno, call it a hunch. But this attorney’s been around a while, and he’s pissed off a lot of people. Trouble is: who’s got the time to go through all of his past files?”

“Not a busy homicide detective,” I said, playing along.

“Damn straight,” he said.

“Any chance it was just a random shooting?” I asked.

“Sure. Of course. Those happen all the time.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“No,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

The detective was used to this kind of exchange. He worked in a business where if you didn’t ask questions, you didn’t find answers. If my questions bothered him, he didn’t show it, other than he seemed to be impatient to get this show on the road.

“Seemed premeditative. And no robbery attempt. Also seemed to be making a statement, as well.”

“By shooting him in the face?”

“And by shooting him outside the courthouse. His place of work. Makes you think it was business related.”

I nodded. Good point. I decided not to tell the detective he had a good point. Men tend to think all of their points were good, and they sure as hell didn’t need me to boost their already inflated egos.

I’m cynical that way.

He stood from his desk and retrieved a sport jacket from a coat rack. He was a fit man with a cop’s build. He also had a cop’s mustache. He would have looked better without the mustache, but it wasn’t was my place to suggest so. Besides, who better to wear a cop mustache than a cop?

“Now it’s time to go watch my son screw up the game of basketball,” he said.

“Maybe basketball’s not his game.”

“And playing with girls is?”

“It’s not a bad alternative,” I said, then added. “You think there’s a chance you’re reading a little too much into all of this with your son?”

“I’m a cop. I read too much into everything.” He paused and locked his office door, which I found oddly amusing and ironic since his office was located in the heart of a police station. “Take you, for instance.”

I didn’t want to take me for instance. I changed the subject. “I’m sure you’re a very good officer. How long have you been on the force?”

He ignored my question. “I wondered why you insisted on meeting me in the evening.” As he spoke, he placed his hand lightly at the small of my back and steered me through the row of cluttered desks. His hand was unwavering and firm. “When I asked you on the phone the reason behind the late meeting you had mentioned something about being busy with other clients. But when I called your office later that day to tell you that I was going to be delayed, you picked up the phone immediately.” He paused and opened a clear glass door. On the door was etched FPD. “Perhaps you were meeting your clients in the office. Or perhaps you were in-between clients. But when I asked if you had a few minutes you sounded unharried and pleasant. Sure, you said, how can I help you?”

“Well, I pride myself on customer service,” I said.

He was behind me, and I didn’t see him smile. But I sensed that he had done so. In fact, I knew he had smiled. Call it a side effect.

He said, “Now that I see you, I see you have a skin disorder of some type.”

“Why, lieutenant, you certainly know how to make a girl feel warm and fuzzy.”

“And that’s the other thing. When I shook your hand, it felt anything but warm and fuzzy,” he said.

“So what are you getting at?” I asked. We had reached the front offices. We were standing behind the main reception desk. The room was quiet for the time being. Outside the smoky gray doors, I could see Commonwealth Avenue, and across that, Amerige City Park, which sported a nice little league field.

He shrugged and smirked at me. “If I had two guesses, I would say that you were either a vampire, or, like I said, you had a skin condition.”

“What does your heart tell you?” I asked.

He studied me closely. Outside, commuters were working their way through downtown Fullerton. Red taillights burned through the smoky glass. Something passed across his gaze. An understanding of some sort. Or perhaps wonder. Something. But then he grinned and his cop mustache rose like a referee signaling a touchdown.

“A skin disease, of course,” he said. “You need to stay out of the sun.”

“Bingo,” I said. “You’re a hell of a detective.”

And with that I left. Outside, I saw that my hands were shaking. The son-of-a-bitch had me rattled. He was one hell of an intuitive cop.

I hate that.

6.

I was boxing at a sparring club in Fullerton called Jacky’s. The club was geared towards women, but there were always a few men hanging around the club. These men often dressed better than the women. I suspected homosexuality. The club gave kick-boxing and traditional boxing lessons. I preferred the traditional boxing lessons, and always figured that if the time came in a fight that I had to kick, there was only one place my foot was going.

Crotch City.

I come here three times a week after picking the kids up from school and taking them to their grandmother’s home in Brea. Boxing is perhaps one of the most exhausting exercises ever invented, especially when you box in three-minute drills, as I was currently doing, which simulated actual boxing rounds.

My trainer was an Irishman named Jacky. Jacky wore a green bandanna over a full head of graying hair. He was a powerfully built man of medium height, a little fat now, but not soft. He must have been sixty, but looked forty. He was an ex-professional boxer in Ireland, where he had been something of a legend, or that’s what he tells me. His crooked nose had been broken countless times, which might or might not have been the result of boxing matches. Maybe he was just clumsy. Amazingly enough, the man rarely sweat, which was something I could not claim. As my personal trainer, his sole responsibility was to hold out his padded palms and to yell at me. He did both well. All with a thick Irish accent.

“C’mon, push yourself. You’re dropping your fists, lass!”

Dropping one’s fists was a big no-no in Jacky’s world, on par with his hatred for anything un-Irish.

So I raised my fists. Again.

During these forty-five minute workouts with Jacky, I hated that little Irish bastard with all my heart.

“You’re dropping your hands!” he screamed again.

“Screw you.”

“In your dreams, lass. Get them hands up!”

It went on like this for some time. Occasionally the kickboxers would glance over at us. Once I slipped on my own sweat, and Jacky thankfully paused and called for one of his towel boys who hustled over and wiped down the mat.

“You sweat like a man,” said Jacky, as we waited. “I like that.”

“Oh?” I said, patting myself down with my own towel. “You like the sweat of men?”

He glared at me. “My wife sweats. It’s exciting.”

“Probably because you don’t. She has to make up for the two of you.”

“I don’t know why I open up to you,” he said.

“You call this opening up?” I asked. “Talking about sweat and boffing your wife?”

“Consider yourself privileged,” he said.

We went back to boxing. We did two more three-minute rounds. Near the end of the last round, I was having a hell of a time keeping my gloved fists up, and Jacky didn’t let me hear the end of it.

When we were done, Jacky leaned his bulk against the taut ropes. He removed the padded gloves from his hands. The gloves were frayed and beaten.

“Second pair of gloves in a month,” he said, looking at them with something close to astonishment.

“I’ll buy you some more,” I said.

“You’re a freak,” he said. He studied his hands. They were red and appeared to be swelling before our very eyes. “You hit harder than any man I’ve ever coached or faced. Your hand speed is off the charts. Good Christ, your form and accuracy is perfect.”

“Except that I drop my hands.”

“Not always,” he said sheepishly. “I’ve got to tell you something so that you think I’m earning my keep.”

I reached over and kissed his smooth forehead. “I know,” I said.

“You’re a freak,” he said again, blushing.

“You have no idea.”

“I pity any poor bastard who crosses your path.”

“So do I.”

He held out his hands. “Now, I need to soak these in ice.”

“Sorry about that.”

“You kidding? It’s an honor working with you. I tell everyone about you. No one believes me. I tell them I’ve got a woman here that could take on their best male contenders. They never believe me.”

Around us the sparring gym was a beehive of activity. Both boxing rings were now being used by kick boxers. Women and men were pounding the hell out of the half dozen punching bags, and the rhythmic rattling of the speed bags sounded from everywhere.

“You know I don’t like you talking about me, Jacky.”

“I know. I know. They don’t believe me anyway. You could box professionally with one hand behind your back.”

“I don’t like attention.”

“I know you don’t. I’ll quit bragging about you.”

“Thank you, Jacky.”

“The last thing I want is you pissed-off at me.”

I box for self-defense. I box for exercise. Sometimes I box because it’s nice to have a man care so vehemently whether or not my fists were up.

I kissed his forehead again and walked out.

7.

I drove north along Harbor Blvd, through downtown Fullerton and made a left onto Berkeley Street. I parked in the visitor parking in front of the Fullerton Municipal Courthouse, turned off my car, and sat there.

While I sat there, I drank water from a bottle. Water is one of the few drinks my body will accept. That and wine, although the alcohol in wine has no effect on me.

Yeah, I know. Bummer.

My hands were still feeling heavy from the boxing workout. I flexed my fingers. I couldn’t help but notice my forearms rippling with taut muscle. I like that. I worked hard for that, and it was something I didn’t take for granted.

I sat in the minivan and watched the entrance to the courthouse. There was little activity at this late hour. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to find here but I like to get a look and feel for all aspects of a case. Makes me feel involved and informed.

And, hell, you never know what might turn up.

Two security guards patrolled the front of the building. So where had they been at the time of Kingsley’s shooting? Probably patrolling the back of the building.

Behind me was a wooded area; above that were condominiums. A bluejay swooped low over my hood and disappeared into the branches of a pine tree. A squirrel suddenly dashed along the pine tree’s limb. The jay appeared again, and dove down after the squirrel.

Can’t we all just get along?

When the guards disappeared around a corner, I got out of the van and made my way to the court’s main entrance. My legs were still shaky from the workout; my hands heavy and useless, like twin balloons filled with sand.

The courthouses consisted of two massive edifices that faced each other. Between them was a sort of grassy knoll, full of trees and stone benches. The benches were empty. The sun was low in a darkening sky.

I like darkening skies.

Shortly, I found the infamous birch tree. The tree was smallish, barely wide enough to conceal even me, let alone a big man with broad shoulders. As a shield, it was useless, as the additional bullets in Kingsley’s head attested. To have relied on it for one’s sole protection of a gun-wielding madman was horrifying to contemplate. So I did contemplate it. I felt Kingsley’s fear, recalled his desperate attempts to dodge the flying bullets. Comical and horrific. Ghastly and amusing. Like a kid’s game of cowboys and Indians gone horribly wrong.

I circled the tree and found four fairly fresh holes in the trunk. The bullets had, of course, been dug out and added to the evidence. Now the holes were nothing more than dark splotches within the white bark. The tree and Kingsley had one thing in common: both were forever scarred by bullets from the same gun.

The attack had been brazen. The fact that the shooter had gotten away clean was probably a fluke. The shooter himself probably expected to get caught, or gunned down himself. But instead he walked away, and disappeared in a truck that no one seemed to remember the license plate of. The shooter was still out there, his job left unfinished. Probably wondering what more he had to do to kill Kingsley.

A hell of a good question.

According to the doctor’s reports cited in a supplementary draft within the police report, all bullets had missed vital parts of Kingsley’s brain. In fact, the defense attorney’s only side effect was a minor loss in creativity. Of course, for a defense attorney, a lack of creativity could prove disastrous.

Someone wanted Kingsley dead, and someone wanted it done outside the courthouse, a place where many criminals had walked free because of Kingsley’s ability to manipulate the law. This fact was not lost on me.

Detective Sherbet had only made a cursory investigation into the possibility that the shooting was related to one of Kingsley’s current or past cases. Sherbet had not dug very deeply.

It was my job to dig. Which was why I make the big bucks.

I turned and left the way I had come.

8.

“So how often do you, like, feed?” asked Mary Lou.

Mary Lou was my sister. Only recently had she discovered that I was, like, a creature of the night. Although I come from a big family, she was the only one I had confided in, mostly because we were the closest in age and had grown up best friends. We were sitting side-by-side at a brass-topped counter in a bar called Hero’s in downtown Fullerton.

I said, “Often. Especially when I see a particular fine sweep of milky white neck. Like yours for instance.”

“Ha ha,” she said. Mary Lou was drinking a lemon drop martini. I was drinking house Chardonnay. Since I couldn’t taste the Chardonnay, why order the good stuff? And Chardonnay rarely had a reaction on my system, and it made me feel normal, sort of, to drink something in public with my sister.

Mary Lou was wearing a blue sweater and jeans. Today was casual day at the insurance office. This was apparently something that was viewed as good. She often talked about casual day; in fact, often days before the actual casual event.

“Seriously, Sam. How often?” she asked again.

I didn’t say anything. I swallowed some wine. It tasted like water. My tastebuds were dead, my tongue good for only talking and kissing, and lately not even kissing. I looked over at Mary Lou. She was six years older than me, a little heavier, but then again she ate a normal diet of food.

“Once a day,” I said, shrugging. “I get hungry like you. My stomach growls and I get light headed. Typical hunger symptoms.”

“But you can only drink blood.”

“You mind saying that a little louder?” I said. “I don’t think the guy in the booth behind us quite heard.”

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly.

“We’re supposed to keep this quiet, remember?”

“I know.”

“You haven’t told anyone?” I asked her again.

“No. I swear. You know I won’t tell.”

“I know.”

The bartender came by and looked at my nearly finished glass of wine. I nodded, shrugging. What the hell, might as well spend my well-earned money on something useless, like wine.

“Have you tried eating other food?” asked Mary Lou.

“Yes.”

“What happens?” she asked.

“Stomach cramps. Extreme symptoms of food poisoning. I throw it back up within minutes. Not a pretty picture.”

“But you can drink wine,” she said.

“It’s the only thing I’ve found so far that I can drink,” I said. “And sometimes not even that. Needs to be relatively pure.”

“So no red wine.”

“No red wine,” I said.

My sister, with her healthy tan, put her hand on my hand. As she did so, she flinched imperceptively from the cold of my own flesh. She squeezed my fingers. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Sis.”

“I am, too,” I said.

“Can I ask you some more questions?” she asked.

“Were you just warming me up?”

“Yes and no.”

“Fine,” I said. “What else you got for me?”

“Does the blood, you know, have to be human blood?”

“Any mammalian blood will do,” I said.

“Where do you get the blood?”

“I buy it.”

“From where?” she asked.

“I have a contract with a butchery in Norco. I buy it by the month-load. It’s in my freezer in the garage.”

“The one with the padlock?” she asked. I think her own blood drained from her face.

“Yes,” I answered.

“What happens if you don’t drink blood?”

“Probably shrivel up and die.”

“Do you want to change the subject?” she asked gently.

She knew my moods better than anyone, even my husband. “Please.”

Mary Lou grinned. She caught the attention of the bartender and pointed to her martini. He nodded. The bartender was cute, a fact not lost on Mary Lou.

“So what case are you currently working on?” she asked, stealing glances at the man’s posterior.

“You done checking out the bartender?”

She reddened. “Yes.”

So I told her about my case. She remembered seeing it on TV.

“Any leads yet?” she asked, breathless. Mary Lou tended to think that what I did for a living was more exciting than it actually was. Her drink came but she ignored it.

“No,” I said. “Just hunches.”

“But your hunches are better than most anyone’s.”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s a side effect.”

“A good side effect.”

I nodded. “Hey, if I have to give up raspberry cheesecakes, I might as well get something out of the deal.”

“Like highly attuned hunches.”

“That’s one of them,” I said.

“What else?” she asked.

“I thought we were changing the subject.”

“C’mon, I’ve never known...someone like you.”

“Don’t you mean something?”

“No,” she said. “That’s not what I mean. You’re a good mother, a good wife, and a good sister. You are much more than a thing. So tell me, what are the other side effects?”

“You saying all that just to butter me up?”

“Yes and no,” she said, grinning. “So tell me. Now.”

I laughed. “Okay, you win. I have enhanced strength and speed.”

She nodded. “What else?”

“I seem to be disease and sickness free.”

“What about shape-changing?”

“Shape-changing?”

“Yes.”

Having my sister ask if I could shape-change struck me as so ridiculous that I burst out laughing. Mary Lou watched me briefly, then caught on because she always catches on. Soon we were both giggling hysterically, and we had the attention of everyone in the bar. I hate having people’s attention, but I needed the laugh. Needed it bad.

“No,” I said finally, wiping the tears from my eyes. “I can’t shape-change. Then again, I’ve never tried.”

“Then maybe you can,” she said finally, after catching her own breath.

“Honestly, I’ve never thought about it. There’s just been too much other crap to deal with, and this...condition of mine doesn’t exactly come with a handbook.”

“So you learn as you go,” said Mary Lou.

“Yes,” I said. “Sort of like The Greatest American Hero.”

“Yeah, like him.”

We drank some more. My stomach was beginning to hurt. I pushed the wine aside.

“You ever going to tell me what happened to you?” Mary Lou’s words were forming slower. The martinis had something to do with that. “How you became, you know, what you are?”

I looked away. “Someday, Mary Lou.”

“But not today.”

“No,” I said. “Not today.”

Mary Lou turned in her stool and faced me. Her big, round eyes were glassy. Her nose was more slender than mine, but we resembled each other in every other way. We were sisters through and through.

“So how do you do it?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Look so normal. Act so normal. Be so normal. Hell, life’s hard enough as it is without something like this coming out of left field and knocking you upside your ass. How do you do it?”

“I do it because I have to,” I said. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Because you love your kids.”

“Sometimes it’s the only reason,” I said.

“What about Danny?”

I didn’t tell her about Danny. Not yet. I didn’t tell her that my husband seemed revolted by the sight of me, that he turned his lips away lately when we kissed, that he seemed to avoid touching me at all costs. I didn’t tell her that I was sure he was cheating on me and my marriage was all but over.

“Yeah,” I said, looking away. “I do it for Danny, too.”

9.

The shower was as hot as I could stand it, which would have been too hot for most people. Some of my sensitivity had left my skin, and as a result I needed hotter and hotter showers. My husband, long ago, gave up taking showers with me. Apparently he had an aversion to the smell of his own cooking flesh.

My muscles were sore and the water helped. I was thirty-seven years old, but I looked twenty-seven, or perhaps even younger. There wasn’t a wrinkle on my pallid face. My skin was taut. Usually ice cold, but taut. My muscles were hard, but that could have been because I never stopped working out. After all, there is only so much one can lose of one’s self, and so I was determined to maintain some normalcy. Working out reminded me of who I was and what I was trying to be.

My body was still sore from boxing, but the soreness was almost gone. I heal fast nowadays, amazingly fast. Just your average, run-of-the-mill freak show.

I stood with my back to the spray and let my mind go blank. I stood there for God knew how long until an image of Kingsley and his bloody and confused face drifted into my thoughts. It had been such an angry attack. Full of pent-up rage. Kingsley had pissed off someone badly. Very badly. At one point in the shooting, the shooter had actually paused and looked at Kingsley with what had been thunderstruck awe, at least that’s how I interpreted the grainy image. The look seemed to say: How many times do I have to shoot you before you die?

I had already soaped up and washed and conditioned my hair. There was nothing left to do, and now I was only wasting water. Sighing, I turned off the shower. Rare heat rose from my skin, a pleasant change for once. My skin was raw and red, and I was in my own little piece of heaven. The kids were with their sitter, and tonight I was going out with my husband. We tried to do that more and more lately. Or, rather, I tried to do that more and more lately. He reluctantly agreed.

Early on, after my transformation, Danny had been a saint. Someone he loved (me) was hurting and confused, and he had come to my rescue like no other.

Together we had devised schemes to let the world know I was different. It was his idea to tell the world I had developed xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare, and usually fatal, skin condition. With xeroderma pigmentosum, even brief exposure to sunlight can cause irreparable damage that could lead to blindness and fatal skin cancers. People eventually accepted this about me—even my own family. Yes, I hated lying, but the way I saw it, I had little choice.

Danny helped me change careers, and helped me set up my home-based private investigation business. He also explained to the kids that mommy would often be sleeping during the day and to not bother me. Finally, he helped set me up with my feed supply with the local butchery.

Danny had been a dream. But that had been then; this was now.

So tonight we were going to dinner. I would order my steak raw and do my best to participate with him. He would avert his eyes, as usual. Not a typical relationship by any means. But a relationship, nonetheless.

I found myself looking forward to tonight. I had recently read a book about how to be a better wife, how to understand your man, how to show your love in the little ways. It’s amazing how we all forget what’s necessary to keep a loving relationship intact. Well, I was determined to show him my appreciation.

Of course, most marriages didn’t deal with the issues I have, but we would make it through, somehow.

I was still dripping and toweling off when the phone rang. I dashed out of the connecting bathroom and into the bedroom and picked up the phone on the bedside table.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi, doll.”

“Danny!”

There was a pause, and I knew instinctively that I was going to get bad news. Call it my enhanced intuition, or call it whatever you want.

“I can’t make it tonight,” he said.

“But Danny....”

“We’re backed-up at the office. I have a court case later this week, and we’re not ready. I hope you understand.”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I’ve got to get going. Don’t wait up.”

That was our little joke now. Of course, being a creature of the night, all I could do lately was wait up.

He hung up the phone.

10.

It was evening.

I was pacing inside the foyer of my house. The muscles along my neck were tense and stiff. Outside, through the partly open curtain, I could see the upper curve of the setting sun.

I continued to pace. Breathing was always difficult at this time of day. I was making a conscious effort to inhale and exhale, to fill my lungs as completely as I could.

In and out.

Slowly.

Keep calm, Samantha Moon. You’ll be all right.

Nevertheless, a sense of panic threatened to overcome me. The source of the panic was the sun. Or, rather, the presence of the sun. Because I did not, and could not, feel fully alive until that son-of-a-bitch disappeared behind the horizon.

I checked the curtain again. The sun was still burning away in all its glory.

Crap! Had the earth stopped in mid-orbit? Was I doomed to feel half-alive for the rest of my life?

Panic. Pure unabated panic.

I breathed.

Deeply.

Consciously.

I leaned against the door frame and closed my eyes, willing myself to relax. I reached up and rubbed my neck muscles. I continued to breathe, continued to fight the panic.

And then, after seemingly an eternity, it happened. A sense of peace and joy began in my solar plexus and spread slowly in a wave of warmth to all my extremities. My mind buzzed with happiness, pure unabated happiness, and with it the unbridled potential of the coming night. It was a natural high. Or perhaps an unnatural high. I opened my eyes and looked out the window. The sun was gone.

As I knew it would be.

* * *

The kids were with Mary Lou and her family at Chuck E. Cheese’s. I owed Mary Lou big. Danny was working late, preparing for his big court date. So what else was new?

I had not yet realized just how much my life was unraveling. It occurred to me then, as I was driving south along the 57 Freeway, that I might have to give up detecting if Danny was going to continue working so late. In the past, he would be home with the kids. Now, he rarely got home in time to see them off to bed.

The thought of not working horrified me. Like they say, idle hands are the devil’s tools. By keeping myself busy, I was able to forget some of what I had become, and to keep the nightmare of my reality at bay.

But something had to give here, and it wasn’t going to be Danny. He had made it clear long ago that this was my problem.

My windows were down. The spring evening was warm and dry. I couldn’t remember the last time we had rain. I liked the rain. Perhaps I liked the rain because I lived in Southern California. Rain here was like the elusive lover who keeps you begging for more. Perhaps if I lived up north I would not like the rain so much. I didn’t know. I’d never lived anywhere else.

I took the 22 East and headed toward the city of Orange. At Main Street I exited and drove past the big mall, and turned left onto Parker Avenue and into the parking lot of the biggest building in the area.

I took the elevator to the seventh floor. In the lobby, I was greeted by a pretty brunette receptionist. Greeted might have been too generous. Frankly, she didn’t look very much like a happy camper. She was a young girl of about twenty-five, with straight brown hair that seemed to shine like silk. My hair once shone like silk; now it hung limply. Her pink sweater knit dress was snug and form-fitting, highlighting unnaturally large breasts. Did nothing for me, but then again, I am not a man. I sensed much animosity coming from her. Waves of it. I think I knew why. She was working late, and I was part of the reason she was working late.

I gave her my most winning smile. Easy on the teeth. The nameplate on her desk read: Sara Benson.

“Hi, Sara. I’m Samantha Moon, here to see Mr. Fulcrum.”

“Mr. Fulcrum is waiting for you, Mrs. Moon. I’ll show you to his office.”

As she did so, I said, “I understand you’re going to help me tonight?”

“You understand correctly.”

“I would just like to express my gratitude. I’m sure you would rather be anywhere else but here.”

“You have no idea,” she said, and stopped before a door. “He’s in here.”

11.

Kingsley occupied a spacious corner suite, filled with lots of dark wood shelving and legal reference books. Had the blinds not been shut he would have had a grand panoramic view of Santa Ana and Orange. Thick stacks of rubberbanded folders were piled everywhere, and in one corner was a discreet wet bar. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s was sitting not-so-discreetly on the counter.

“Generally, the Jack Daniel’s stays behind the bar during office hours,” said Kingsley, moving around from behind his desk and shaking my hand, which he might have held a bit longer than protocol required. Then added, “You keep strange hours, Mrs. Moon.”

I removed my hand from his grip. “And you heal surprisingly well.”

The scar above his eye was almost gone. Indeed, it even appeared to have moved a little—to the left, perhaps—but then again Mom always told me I had an overactive imagination. He saw me looking at it and promptly turned his head.

“Touché,” he said. “A drink to the freaks?”

“This freak is working. No drinking.” Drinking didn’t effect me, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Do you mind if I have one?”

“You mean another one?” I asked. I could it smell it on his breath.

“You are quite the detective,” he said.

“Oh yeah, that was a hard one.”

He grinned and swept past me toward the bar. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

The closest place to make myself comfortable was a client chair that was currently occupied by a giant box. “Would you prefer I sit on a pile of folders or on top of this box?” I asked, perhaps a little snottily.

Behind me, at the bar, Kingsley had started to pour himself another drink. “Forgive me. We’ve been so busy lately; the place is a mess. Let me get that for you.”

“Don’t bother,” I said, setting the heavy box on the floor.

Now back behind his desk, drink in hand, Kingsley watched me carefully. He took a sip from the highball glass. The bourbon sparkled amber in the half-light. I love half-light. I watched him watching me. Something was up. Finally, he said, “That box is filled with four fifty-pound plates,” he said. “Two hundred pounds. And if you throw in the other crap in the box, that’s well over two hundred pounds.”

“I’m not following,” I said, although I suspected I knew what he was getting at.

“It was a test,” he said smugly. “And you passed. Or failed. Depending how you look at it.”

I said nothing. I couldn’t say anything. Instead, I found myself looking at his fading scars. Not too long ago I had stepped on a thick piece of glass; the wound had healed completely in a few hours. Unlike mine, Kingsley’s face had a healthy rosy glow. And he had arrived at my home in the middle of the day and had not worn extra protection from the sun. He was not like me, and yet he had survived five bullet shots to the head.

“Well,” I said, “I would have been in trouble had it been too much over two hundred pounds.”

He pounced. “You only work nights, Mrs. Moon. You wear an exorbitant amount of sunscreen. Your windows, I noticed, were all completely covered. You lift two hundred pounds without a moment’s hesitation. Your skin is icy to the touch. And you have the complexion of an avalanche victim.”

“Okay, that last one was just mean,” I said.

“Sorry, but true.”

“So what are you getting at?”

He leaned back and folded his hands over his flat stomach. “You’re a vampire, Mrs. Moon.”

I laughed. So did he. Mine was a nervous laugh; his not so much. As I gathered my thoughts for a firm rebuttal, I found myself taking a second glance around his office. Behind his desk on the wall, was a beautiful picture of the full moon taken by a high-powered telescopic lens. There was a silver moon globe next to his monitor. Half moon bookends, which, if placed together, would form a full moon. On his desk was a picture of a woman, a very beautiful woman, with a full moon rising over her shoulder.

“You’re obsessed with moons,” I said.

“Which is why I picked you out of the phone book,” he said, grinning. “Couldn’t help myself, Mrs. Moon.”

We were both silent. I watched him carefully. His mouth was open slightly. He was breathing heavily, his wet tongue pushed up against his incisors. His face looked healthy, vigorous and...feral.

“You’re a werewolf,” I said finally.

He grinned, wolf-like.

12.

Kingsley moved over to the window, pulled aside the blinds, and peered out into the night. With his back to me, I could appreciate the breadth and width of his shoulders.

“Could you imagine in your wildest dream,” he said finally, “of ever having this conversation?”

“Never.”

“And yet neither one of us has denied the other’s accusations.”

“Nor have we admitted to them,” I added.

We were silent again, and I listened to the faint hum of traffic outside the window. I spied some of the reassuring darkness through the open slats. I was in uncharted territory here, and so I decided to roll with the situation.

“For simplicity’s sake,” he said, his back still to me, “let’s assume we are vampires and werewolves. Where does that leave us?”

“Obviously I must kill you,” I said.

“I hope you’re kidding.”

“I am.”

“Good, because I don’t die easily,” he said. “And certainly not without a fight.”

“I just love a good fight,” I said.

He ignored me. “So,” he said, turning away from the window and crossing his arms across his massive chest. “How do you want to handle this?”

“Handle what?”

He threw back his head and laughed. It was a very animalistic gesture. He could have just as easily been a coyote—or a wolf—howling at the moon. “This new wrinkle in our working relationship,” he said.

“As far as I’m concerned you are still my client and I’m still your detective. Nothing has changed.”

“Nothing?”

“Other than the fact that you claim to be a werewolf.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Mr. Fulcrum, werewolves are fairytales.”

“And vampires aren’t?”

I laughed. Or tried to. “I’m not a vampire. I just have a condition.”

“A condition that requires you to stay out of the sun,” he said, incredulously. “A condition that requires you to drink blood. A condition that has turned you whiter than a ghost. A condition that has given you superhuman strength.”

“I never said it was a common condition. I’m still looking into it.”

He grinned. “It’s called vampirism, my dear, and it’s time for you to own it.”

“Own it?”

“Isn’t that what the kids say these days?” he said.

“Just how old are you, Mr. Fulcrum?”

“Never mind that,” he said. “The question on the table is a simple one: do you believe I’m a werewolf?”

“No,” I said.

“Do you believe you are a vampire?” he asked.

I hesitated. “No.”

“Fine,” he said. “Is your husband cheating on you?”

“Why would you say that?” I asked.

“I assume he is,” said Kingsley. “I assume he’s terrified of you and he doesn’t know what to do about it yet, especially with the kids in the picture.”

“Shut up, Kingsley.”

“And since you’re not denying it, I will also go as far as to assume he’s a son-of-a-bitch for abandoning you in the hour of your greatest need.”

“Please, shut up.”

“I also know something else, Mrs. Moon. He will take the kids from you and there isn’t a single goddamn thing you can do about it.”

Something came over me, something hot and furious. I flashed out of the client chair and was on Kingsley before he could even uncross his arms. My left hand went straight for his throat, slamming him hard against the wall. Too hard. The back of his head crashed through the drywall. Teeth bared, I looked up into his face—and the asshole was actually grinning at me, with half his head still in the wall. His hair and shoulders were covered in plaster dust.

“Shut the hell up!” I screeched.

“Sure. You got it. Whatever you say.”

We stood like that for a long time, my hand clamped over his throat, his head pushed back into the wall.

“Can you set me down now?” he asked in a raspy voice.

“Down?” I said, confused, my voice still raspy in my throat.

“Yeah,” he said, pointing. “Down.”

I followed his finger and saw that his feet were dangling six inches above the floor. I gasped and dropped him as his head popped out of the wall.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I was mad.”

Kingsley rubbed his neck. “Remind me next time not to piss you off,” he said, dusting off his shoulders and opening his office door. “Oh, and I’m sorry to inform you, Mrs. Moon, that you are very much a vampire.”

Eyes glowing amber, he winked at me and left.

13.

Sara and I spent the next three hours sorting through files and since Sara was a little on the grumpy side, I did what any rational person would do under similar circumstances. I ordered Chinese. When it arrived she perked up a little. Some people needed alcohol to loosen up, apparently Sara needed fried wontons.

We ate at her desk. Or, rather, I pretended to eat at her desk. We ate mostly in silence.

Interestingly, according to the pictures on Sara’s desk, she seemed to know how to let loose just fine. There were pictures of her in a bikini on some tropical isle, of her hiking along a heavily forested mountain trail, of her viciously spiking a volleyball, of her dressed as a pirate in an office Halloween party, complete with massive gold hoops, eye patch and mustache. In the background was Kingsley dressed as a werewolf. I almost laughed.

“You played volleyball?” I asked.

“Yes, at Pepperdine. I tried out for the Olympics.”

“What happened?”

“Almost made the team. Maybe next time.”

“Maybe next time,” I said. “Is Kingsley a good boss?”

She shrugged. “He’s kind enough. Gives big bonuses.”

“What more could you want?” I asked cheerily.

She shrugged and turned her attention to her food. I tried another approach. “Do you like your job?”

She shrugged again and I decided to let my attempt at idle conversation drop. Maybe she needed more fried wontons.

While we ate, we worked from a long list of all of Kingsley’s closed files from the past six years. Seven hundred and seventy-six in all. Kingsley was a busy boy. From these files, I removed all those Kingsley had personally litigated. Now we were down to three hundred and fifty-three. Still too many to work with. From those, I removed all violent crime; in particular, murder defense cases. Now we were down to twelve files.

I told Sara I would need copies of all twelve files. She promptly rolled her eyes.

While we made copies, Sara decided to open up a little to me. Okay, maybe she hadn’t decided so much as gave in to my constant barrage of questions. Anyway, I gleaned that she had come here to Kingsley’s firm straight from college. Initially, she had loved working for her boss, but lately not so much.

“Why?” I asked, hoping for more than just a shrug. I had the Chinese restaurant’s number in my pocket should I need an emergency order of fried wontons.

Turns out I didn’t need the number. Rather heatedly, Sara told me in detail the story of the rapist who had been freed because Kingsley had discovered evidence of tampering at the crime scene. She finished up with: “Yes, Mr. Fulcrum’s a good man. But he’s a better defense attorney. And that’s the problem.”

I was sensing much hostility here. We were standing at the copier, working efficiently together, passing folders back and forth to each other as we copied them. Sara was very pretty and very young. Any man’s dream, no doubt. She was taller than me and her breasts appeared fake, but in Southern California that’s the norm and not the exception. She, herself, did not seem fake. She seemed genuine and troubled, and I suddenly knew why.

“You dated Kingsley,” I said.

She looked up, startled. “Why? Did he say something to you?”

“No. Just a hunch.”

She passed me another folder. I removed the brackets and flipped through it, looking for papers of unusual sizes, or POUS’s, that would jam the copier. As she spoke, she crossed her arms under her large chest and leaned a hip against the copy machine. “Yeah, we dated for a while. So?”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Ask him. He broke it off.”

“Why?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” she said.

“It’s a compulsion,” I said. “I should probably see a shrink about it.”

Her eyes brightened a little and she nearly smiled, but then she got a handle on herself and remembered she didn’t like me. “He said things were moving too fast for him. That he had lost his wife not too long ago and he wasn’t ready for something serious.”

“When did his wife die?” I asked.

“A few years ago. I don’t know.” She shrugged. She didn’t know, and she clearly didn’t care.

“Are you still angry with him?” I asked.

She shrugged and looked away and clammed up the rest of the night. Yeah, I think she was still angry.

We finished copying all twelve files, many of which were nearly a foot thick. Maybe within one I would find a suspect or a clue or something. At any rate, the files would give me something to do during the wee hours of the night, especially since I had recently finished Danielle Steel’s latest novel, Love Bites, about two vampires in love. Cute, and uncannily dead on.

So Sara and I loaded up the files into a box and as I carried the entire thing out to the elevator, the young assistant watched me with open-mouthed admiration. I get that a lot.

“Jesus, you’re strong,” she said as we stepped into the elevator.

“It’s the Pilates,” I said. “You should try them.”

“I will,” she said. “Oh, and I’m supposed to remind you that these files are confidential.”

“I’ll guard them with my life.”

Outside, in the crisp night air, Sara said, “I sure hope you find out who shot Knighty.” She caught the indiscretion and turned beat red, her face glowing brightly under the dull parking lot lamps. “I mean, Mr. Fulcrum.”

I smiled at her slip. “I do, too.”

She thanked me for the Chinese food, seemed to want to tell me something else, thought better of it, then dashed off to her car. I watched her get in and back out and drive away. Just as I shoved the box into the minivan, the fine hairs at the back of my neck sprang to life. I paused and slowly turned my head. My vision is better at night. Not great, but better. I was alone in the parking lot. Check that; there was an old Mercedes parked in a parking lot across the street. A man was sitting there, and he was watching me with binoculars.

I slammed the minivan’s door and moved purposely through the parking lot, crossed the sidewalk, stepped down the curb and headed across the street.

He waited a second or two, watching me steadily, then reached down and gunned his vehicle to life. His headlights flared to life, and before I was halfway across the street, he reversed his Mercedes and tore recklessly through the parking lot. As he exited at the far end, turning right onto Parker Avenue and disappearing down a side street, I was certain of two things:

One: he had no plates. Two: those weren’t binoculars.

They were night-vision goggles.

14.

With the files in my backseat and thoughts of the night vision goggles on my mind, I called Mary Lou around 10:30 to thank her for watching my kids.

“I’m still watching them,” she said sleepily.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Danny never showed up,” she said.

“Did he at least call?” I asked.

“No.”

I was on the 57 freeway, but instead of getting off at my exit on Yorba Linda Blvd, I continued on to Mary Lou’s house two exits down. Yeah, it’s nice to have family close by, especially when you have kids.

“I’m so sorry,” I said when she opened the door. “I didn’t mean to stick you with the kids all night.”

“Not your fault. I love them, anyway. Tell me you at least made some headway on your case.”

“Some headway,” I admitted. I left out the part about Kingsley being a werewolf but did mention the guy in the parking lot.

“Maybe he was just some creep,” said Mary Lou, frowning. “I mean you are, after all, a hot piece of ass.”

“Always nice to hear from your sister,” I said.

“I say don’t let it worry you.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I can take of myself.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s what worries me.”

With the kids in the backseat sleeping, I called Danny’s office. He wasn’t there; I left a voice mail message. Next I called his cell phone and he answered just before it went to voice mail. He sounded out of breath. Something was wrong here and warning bells sounded loud and clear in my head. I did my best to ignore them, although I couldn’t ignore the fact that I had suddenly gotten sick to my stomach.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Working late,” he answered huskily.

“You doing push ups?” I said, trying to smile.

“Just ran up a flight of stairs. Bathroom on this floor isn’t working.”

“You didn’t pick up your work phone.”

“You know I never pick up after hours.”

“You used to,” I said.

“Well, honey, that was before I became so goddamn busy. Can I call you later?”

“Even better, why don’t you come home.”

“I’ll be home soon.”

He clicked off and I was left staring down at my cell phone. If it was possible, he seemed to have been breathing even harder by the end of the conversation.

* * *

It was past midnight, and I had worked my way through more than half of the twelve files when Danny finally came home. He stopped by the study and gave me a little wave. He looked tired. His dark hair was slightly disheveled. His tie was off. The muted light revealed the deepening lines around his mouth and eyes. His eyes, once clear blue and gorgeous, were hooded and solemn. His full lips were made for kissing, but not me, not anymore. He was a handsome man, and not a very happy one.

“Sorry about not picking up the kids,” he said. He didn’t sound very sorry. He didn’t sound like he gave a shit at all. “I should have called your sister.”

“That’s okay. I’ll make it up to her,” I said. There was lipstick on his earlobe. He probably didn’t think to check his earlobe.

He said, “I’m taking a shower, then hitting the hay. Another big day tomorrow.”

“I bet.”

He stood there a moment longer, leaning against the door frame. He seemed to want to say something. Maybe he wanted to tell me about the lipstick.

Then he slid away, but before he was gone, I caught a hint of something in his eyes. Guilt. Pain. Confusion. It was all there. I didn’t think I needed any heightened sixth sense to know that my husband of fourteen and a half years had fallen out of love with me. We all change, I suppose. Some of us more than others.

After he was done showering, I listened to the box springs creak as he eased into bed and I set down my pen and silently cried into my hands.

15.

I was running along Harbor Blvd at 3:00 a.m. I had finished reading through the files and needed some time to think. Luckily, I had all night to do so. Being a vampire is for me a nightly battle in dealing with loneliness.

I was dressed in full jogging gear, sweats and sweatshirt. No reflective shoes. I had been pulled over once too often by cops who had advised against a woman running so late at night. I wondered if they would give the same advice to a vampire. Anyway, I kept to the shadows, avoiding the cops and everyone else.

I kept up a healthy pace. In fact, my healthy pace was nearly a flat-out sprint. An un-godly pace that I could keep up for hours on end, and sometimes I did. Sure, my muscles hurt afterward, forcing me to soak in my hot tub. But I love the speed.

Harbor Blvd sped past me. I breathed easily. The air was suffused with mist and dew. My arms pumped rhythmically at my side, adding balance to my churning legs. Harbor was empty of all traffic and life. I made a right down Chapman, headed past the high school and junior college. Streets swept past me, I dodged smoothly around lamp poles, bus benches, and metal box thingies that had something to do with traffic lights. I think. Anyway, there seemed to be a lot of those metal box thingies.

I didn’t need water and I didn’t need to pause for air. It was an unusual sense of freedom. To run without exhaustion. The city was quiet and silent. The wind passed rapidly over my ears.

I was a physical anomaly. Enhanced beyond all reason. My husband once called me a super hero after seeing an example of my strength and marveling at it.

There was a half moon hanging in the sky. I thought of Kingsley and his obsession with moons. It stood to reason that a werewolf would be obsessed with moons. I ran smoothly past an open-all-night donut shop. The young Asian donut maker looked up, startled, but just missed me. The smell of donuts was inviting, albeit nauseating.

A werewolf?

I shook my head and chuckled at the absurdity of it. But there it was, staring me in the face. Or, rather, he had stared me in the face. So what was happening around here? Since when was Orange County a haven for the undead? I wondered what else was out there. Surely if there were werewolves and vampires there might be other creatures that went bump in the night, right? Maybe a ghoul or two? Goblins perhaps? Maybe my trainer Jacky was really an old, cantankerous leprechaun.

I smiled.

Thinking of Kingsley warmed my heart. This concerned me. I was a married woman. A married woman should not feel such warmth toward another man, even if the other man was a werewolf.

That is, not if she wanted to stay married. And I really, really wanted to stay married.

Perhaps I felt connected to Kingsley, bonded by our supernatural circumstances. We had much in common. Two outcasts. Two creatures ruled by the night, in one way or another.

A car was coming. I ducked down a side street and moved along a row of old homes. Heavy branches arched overhead. With my enhanced night vision, I deftly avoided irregularities in the sidewalk—cracks and upheavals—places where tree roots had pushed up against the concrete. To my eye, the night was composed of billions and billions of dancing silver particles. These silver particles illuminated the darkness into a sort of surreal molten glow, touching everything.

I turned down another street, then another. Wind howled over my ears. I entered a tougher part of town, running along a residential street called Bear. Bear opens up to a bigger street called Lemon. I didn’t give a crap how tough Bear Street was.

Yet another side benefit: unlimited courage.

My warning bells sounded, starting first as a low buzz in my ears. The buzzing is always followed by an increase in heart rhythm, a physical pounding in my chest. I knew the feeling well enough to trust it by now, and I immediately began looking for trouble. And as I rounded another corner, there it was.

Three men stepped out of the shadows in front of me. I slowed, then finally stopped. As I did so, four more men stepped out from behind a low-rider truck parked on the street. Next to the house was an empty, dark school yard. As if reading their collective minds, I had a fleeting prognostication of my immediate future: an image of the seven men dragging me into the school yard. Then having their way with me. Then leaving me for dead.

A good thing the future isn’t written in stone.

I smiled at them. “Hello, boys.”

16.

Four of the seven were Latinos, with the remaining three being Caucasian, Asian and African-American. A veritable melting pot of gang violence. I studied each face. Most were damp with sweat. Eyes wide with anticipation and sexual energy. Details stood out to me like phosphorescent black and white photos, touched by ghostly silver light. One was terrified, jerking his head this way and that, like a chicken on crack. All of them around same age—perhaps thirty—save for one who was as old as fifty. A few had bed-head, as if they had been recently roused from a drunken stupor.

I could smell alcohol on their breaths and sweat on their skin. The sweat was pungent and laced with everything from fear and excitement, to hostility and sexual frustration. None of it smelled good. If mean had a scent, this would be it.

A smallish Latino stepped forward. A switchblade sprang open at his side, locked into place. For my benefit, he let the faint light of the moon gleam off its polished surface. He was perhaps thirty-five and wore long denim shorts and a plaid shirt. He was surprisingly handsome for a rapist.

“If you scream, I’m going to hurt you.” His accent was thick.

“Gee, what a romantic thing to say,” I said.

“Shut up, bitch.”

I kept my eyes on him. I didn’t need to look at the others. I could feel them, sense them, smell them. I said, “Now what would your mothers all think of you now? Ganging up on a single woman in the middle of the night. Tsk, tsk. Really, I think you should all be ashamed.”

The little Latino looked at me blankly, then said simply: “Get her.”

Movement from behind. I turned and punched, extending my arm straight from my body. Jacky would have been proud. My fist caught the guy in the throat. He dropped to the ground, flopping and gagging and holding his neck. Probably hurt like hell. I didn’t care.

I surveyed the others, who had all stopped in their tracks. “So what was the plan, boys? You were all going to get a fuck in? The very definition of sloppy seconds—hell, sloppy thirds and fourths and fifths. Then what? Slit my throat? Leave me for dead? Let some school janitor find me stuffed in a dumpster? You would deny my children their mother for one night of cheap thrills?”

No one said anything. They looked toward their leader, the slick Latino with the switch. Most likely not all of them spoke English.

“I’ll give you once chance to run,” I said. “Before I kill all of you.”

They didn’t run. Some continued looking at their leader. Most were looking at the man rolling on the ground, holding his throat. Switchblade was watching me with a mixture of curiosity, lust and hatred.

Then he pounced, slashing the blade up. Had he hit home, I would have been cleaved from groin to throat.

He didn’t hit home.

I turned my body and the blade missed. I caught his over-extended arm at the elbow and twisted. The elbow burst at the joint. He dropped the knife. I picked him up by the throat. Screaming and gagging, he swung wildly at me with his good arm, connecting a glancing blow off the side of my head. I simply squeezed harder and his flailing stopped.

His face was turning purple; I liked that.

I raised him high and swung him around so that the others could see. They gaped unbelievingly.

“You may run now,” I said.

And they did. Scattering like chickens before the hawk. They disappeared into the night, around hedges and into dark doorways. Two of them just continued running down the middle of the street. All of them were gone, save for one, the fifty-year-old. He was pointing a gun at my head.

“Put my nephew down,” he said.

“It’s always nice to see gang raping and murdering kept in the family,” I said.

I put his nephew down. Sort of. I hurled the kid with all my strength into his uncle. The gun went off, a massive explosion that rattled my senses and stung the hell out of my hyper-sensitive ears.

When the smoke cleared so to speak, the old man was looking down with bewildered horror.

Switchblade was lying sprawled on the concrete sidewalk, blood pumping from a wound in his chest. Spreading fast over the concrete. A black oil slick in the night.

Blood.

Something awakened within me. Something not very nice.

The older man looked from me to Switchblade, then at the gun in his hand. A look of horror crossed his features and tears sprang from his eyes. Then he fled into the shadows with the others, looking back once over his shoulder before disappearing over someone’s backyard fence.

I was left alone with Switchblade. His right hand was trying to cover the wound; instead, it just flopped pathetically.

“Well,” I said to him, kneeling down, “nice set of friends you have.”

And as I squatted next to him, the flopping stopped and he looked at me with dead eyes. I checked for a pulse. There was none.

Aroused by the gunshot, house lights began turning on one by one. I looked down at the body again.

So much blood....

17.

We were alone in an alley behind some apartments.

The early morning sky was still black, save for the faint light from the half moon. I was nestled between a Dumpster and three black bags of trash filled with things foul. A small wind meandered down the alley. The plastic bags rustled. My hair lifted and fell—and so did the hair on the dead guy.

After my runs, I usually feed on cow blood. The cow blood is mixed with all sorts of impurities and foul crap. I often gag. Sort of my own private Fear Factor with no fifty grand reward at the end of the hour.

Before me lay Switchblade, the punk who had no doubt organized the gang bang. I had ferreted him away before anyone could investigate the shooting and now he lay at my feet, dead and broken.

I looked down at his chest, where blood had stained his flannel shirt nearly black.

Blood....

I ripped open his flannel shirt, buttons pinging everywhere. His chest was awash in a sea of caked red. The hole in his chest was a dark moon in a vermilion sky.

His blood would contain alcohol, as he had been drinking. I didn’t care. The blood would be pure enough. Straight from the source. The ideal way to feed. Then again, ideal was relative. Ideally I would be feasting on turkey lasagna.

I dipped my head down, placed my lips over the massive wound in his chest, and drank....

* * *

I returned the body to the same house, left it where it had fallen. I drifted back into the darkness of the school grounds, where I knew in my heart they were going to drag me off to be raped.

It was still early morning, still dark. No one was out on the streets. Curious neighbors had gone back to sleep; there were no police investigating the sound of a gunshot. Apparently gunshots here were a common enough occurrence to not arouse that much suspicion.

The attackers themselves were long gone. They were scared shitless, no doubt. One of their own had been shot by one of their own. Each would awaken this morning with a very bad hang over, and pray to God this had all been a very bad dream.

Instead of their prayers being answered, they were going to awaken to find the body. What happened next, I didn’t really know or care. I doubted a group of men would even attempt to identify me, lest they reveal the nature of their true intentions the night before.

At any rate, using a half empty can of beer from the nearby dumpster, I had cleaned the wound of my lip imprints. Let the medical examiner try to figure out why someone had sloshed beer all over the gunshot wound.

As I stood there in the darkness, with a curious phantasmagoric mist nipping at my ankles, I remembered the taste of his blood again.

God, he had tasted so good. So damn good—and pure. The difference between good chocolate and bad chocolate. The difference between good wine and bad wine. Good blood and bad blood.

All the difference in the world.

I left the school grounds and the neighborhood as a slow wave of purple blossomed along the eastern horizon. I hated the slow wave of purple that blossomed along the eastern horizon. The sun was coming, and I needed to get home ASAP.

Already I could feel my strength ebbing.

Since my belly was full of Switchblade’s blood, I did not want to cramp up and so I kept my jog slow and steady. On the way home, as the guilt set in over what I had just done, I held fast to one thought in particular as if it were a buoy in a storm:

I did not kill him; he was already dead....

I did not kill him; he was already dead....

18.

The kids were playing in their room and Danny was working late. Tonight was Open House at the elementary school, and he had promised to make it home on time.

The words “we’ll see” had crossed my mind.

I had spent the past two hours helping Anthony with his math homework. Math didn’t come easily to him and he fought me the entire time. Vampire or not, I was drained.

All in all, I just couldn’t believe the amount of work his third grade teacher assigned each week, and it was all I could do to keep up. Didn’t schools realize mothers want to spend quality time with their children in the evenings?

So now I was in my office, still grumbling. It was early evening and raining hard. Occasionally the rain, slammed by a gust of wind, splattered against my office window. The first rain in months. The weatherman had been beside himself.

I liked the rain. It touched everything and everyone. Nothing was spared. It made even a freak like me feel connected to the world.

So with the rain pattering against the window and the children playing somewhat contentedly in their room, I eventually worked my way through all of Kingsley’s files. Only one looked promising, and it set the alarms off in my head. I’ve learned to listen to these alarms.

The case was no different than many of Kingsley’s other cases. His client, one Hewlett Jackson, was accused of murdering his lover’s husband. But thanks to Kingsley’s adroit handling of the case, Jackson was freed on a technicality. Turns out the search warrant had expired and thus all evidence gathered had been deemed inadmissible in court. And when the verdict was read, the victim’s brother had to be physically restrained. According to the file, the victim’s brother had not lunged at the alleged killer; no, he had lunged at Kingsley.

There was something to that.

And that’s all I had. A distraught man who felt his murdered brother had not been given proper justice. Not much, but it was a start.

I sat back in my chair and stared at the file. The rain was coming down harder, rattling the window. I listened to it, allowed it to fill some of the emptiness in my heart, and found some peace. I checked my watch. Open House was in an hour and still no sign of Danny.

I pushed him out of my thoughts and logged onto the internet; in particular, one of my many investigation data bases. There had been no mention of the brother’s name in the file, but with a few deft keystrokes I had all the information I needed.

The murder had made the local paper. The article mentioned the surviving family members. Parents were dead, but there had been two surviving siblings. Rick Horton and Janet Maurice. Just as I wrote the two names down, the house phone rang. My heart sank.

I picked it up.

“Hi, dollface.”

“Tell me you’re on your way home,” I said.

There was a pause. He sucked in some air. “Tell the kids I’m sorry.”

“No,” I said. “You tell them.”

“Don’t.”

I did. I called the kids over and put them on the phone one at a time. When they were gone, I came back on the line.

“You shouldn’t drag the children into this, Samantha,” he said.

“Drag them into what, pray tell?”

He sighed. When he was done sighing, I heard a voice whisper to him from somewhere. A female voice.

“Who’s that whispering to you?” I asked.

“Don’t wait up.”

“Who’s that—”

But he disconnected the line.

19.

We were late for Open House.

I had a hell of a time getting the kids ready, and had long ago abandoned any notion of making dinner. We popped into a Burger King drive-thru along the way.

“Tell me what you guys want,” I said, speaking over my shoulder. We were third in line at the drive-thru. The kids were wearing some of their best clothes, and I was already worried about stains.

I looked in the rearview mirror. The kids were separated by an invisible line that ran between their two back seats. Crossing the line was grounds for punishment. At the moment, Tammy was hovering on the brink of that line, making faces at Anthony, taunting him, sticking her tongue out, driving him into a seething rage. I almost laughed at the scene, but had to do something.

“Tammy, your tongue just crossed the line. No TV or Game Boy tonight.”

Anthony said, “Yes!” Then pointed at his sister. “Ha!”

Tammy squealed. “But, Mom, that’s not fair! It was just my tongue!”

“Tongues count. Plus, you know better than to tease your little brother.” We moved up in line. “What do you two want to eat?”

Tammy said she didn’t want anything. Anthony gave me his usual order: hamburger, plain. I ordered Tammy some chicken fingers.

“I don’t want chicken fingers.”

“You like chicken fingers.”

“But I’m not hungry.”

“Then you don’t have to eat them, but if you waste them, the money’s coming out of your allowance. Anthony, don’t tease your sister.”

Anthony was doing a little victory dance in the back seat, which rocked the entire minivan. His sister had been successfully punished and he had escaped unscathed. It was a triumphant moment for younger brothers everywhere.

And just when he thought I wasn’t looking, just when he thought the coast was clear, he gave his sister the middle finger. Tammy squealed. I burst out laughing. And by the time we left the drive-thru, both of them had lost two days of TV privileges.

And as I pulled out of the Burger King parking lot, Anthony wailed, “There’s mustard on my hamburger!”

“Christ,” I muttered, and made a U-turn and headed back through the drive-thru.

20.

After Open House, the three of us were sitting together on the couch watching reruns of Sponge Bob. Sadly enough, I had seen this episode before. Danny still wasn’t home, nor did I really expect him to be any time soon.

Open House had gone well enough. Anthony was passing all his classes, but just barely. His teacher felt he spent too much time trying to be the class clown. Tammy, a few years older, was apparently boy crazy. Although her grades were just about excellent, her teacher complained she was a distraction to the other students; mostly to the male variety.

Apparently, my kids liked attention, and I wondered if I was giving them enough of it at home.

“What’s that smell?” I asked.

“Whoever smelt it dealt it,” said Anthony, giggling.

“Probably you,” said Tammy to her brother. “You’re always cutting them.”

“So do you!”

“Do not! I’m a girl. Girl’s don’t cut anything.”

“Yeah, right!” shouted Anthony.

“I don’t smell anything, Mommy,” said Tammy, ignoring her brother.

I proceeded to sniff armpits and feet. As I smelled, they both giggled, and Anthony tried to smell my own feet.

“It’s you, Mommy,” he shouted, giggling. “Your feet stink!”

“Do not,” I said. “Girls’ feet don’t stink.”

“You’re not a girl.”

“Oh, really?”

“Then what is she, lame brain?” asked Tammy.

“She’s a lady,” said Anthony.

“Thank you, Anthony,” I said, hugging his warm body. “Lady is good.”

“And ladies have stinky feet,” he added.

“Okay, now you just blew it,” I said, and tickled the hell out of him. He cowered in the corner of the couch, kicking pillows at me, and then Tammy jumped on my back to defend her little brother and soon we were all on the floor, poking fingers at any and all exposed flesh, a big tickling free-for-all.

Later, as we lay gasping on the floor as Sponge Bob and his infamous square pants completed another fun-filled romp at the bottom of the ocean, Anthony asked, “Mommy, why are you always...cold?”

“Mommy is sick,” I said. And, in a way, I was very sick.

“Are you going to die soon?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Mommy won’t die for a very long time.”

“Good!” he said.

“But can we catch what you have?” asked Tammy, always the careful one.

“No,” I said. “You can’t.”

I suddenly wrinkled my nose. The smell was back. From my angle on the floor, I could just see under the couch. And there, in all its glory, was one of Anthony’s rolled up socks. A very smelly rolled up sock. I used a pencil and pulled it out, where it hung from the tip like radioactive waste.

“Look familiar, Anthony?” I asked.

He mumbled an apology and I told him to throw it in the wash, and as he got up to do so, Tammy and I made farting noises with each step he took.

Bad move.

He turned and threw the sock back at us and we spent the next few minutes playing hot potato with it, laughing until our stomachs hurt.

21.

After my attack six years ago, about the same time I first went online, I made a cyber friend.

I was exploring through the new and interesting world of chatrooms. I landed in a room called Creatures of the Night. The room was comical to a degree, for there seemed to be a running script of a vampire appearing in a castle and sucking the life out of its inhabitants. There were many rapid postings, and it was difficult to keep up. Still, one thing was obvious: everyone here loved vampires with all their heart and soul. And many wanted to be vampires.

A private message box had next appeared on my screen. Someone named Fang950 was trying to contact me. He said Hi and I responded back. Over the course of the next few hours, which flew rapidly by, I found myself opening up to the this Fang950. It was exhilarating. I told him everything. Everything. All my deepest secrets. I didn’t care if he believed me or not. I didn’t know him from squat. But he listened, and he asked questions and he did not judge me. He was the perfect outlet to my angst. And no one knew about him but me. No one. He was all mine.

It was late, and it was still raining. I had gone to the open house alone. Danny had yet to come home. I had already fed for the night and was sitting in my office in a bit of a stupor. I always felt sluggish after feeding, not to mention bloated and sick to my stomach.

A private message window popped up on my computer screen, followed by the sound of splashing water. It was Fang.

You there, Moon Dance? he wrote, referring to my screen name, the only name he knew me by.

Yes, Fang, what’s up?

Nothing new. How about you?

There was never anything new with Fang. He told me little about himself. I knew only that he lived in Missouri and that he was twenty-eight.

So I spent the next few minutes catching him up on my new case. I left out names of course, but Fang was computer savvy. If he was interested enough he would find out about the story himself.

What does your gut tell you about the file? he asked.

My gut tells me I’m onto something, I answered.

Too bad your gut can’t be more specific.

Yes, too bad, I wrote. But it’s helped me solve cases before, though. I’ve developed quite a reputation here. But I feel like I’m cheating.

Cheating?

I thought about that a little, then wrote: Well, other P.I.’s don’t have the benefit of a heightened sixth sense, or whatever you want to call it.

But other P.I.’s work in the day, he wrote. You are handicapped by working nights.

It’s not much of a handicap. I can get around it.

Nonetheless. Remember, you help people. That’s the important thing. Whether or not you’re cheating doesn’t matter. It’s the end result, right? Didn’t you once say you turn down more cases than you accept?

I wrote, Yes.

Which cases do you turn down? he asked.

Cheating spouses mostly.

Which cases do you accept?

The bigger cases. Murder cases. Missing person cases.

How do your clients find you?

Police referrals mostly, I wrote. If the police can’t solve the crime, they will sometimes send the clients my way. I have developed a reputation for finding answers.

You do good work. You are like a super hero. You help those who have nowhere else to turn for answers. You give them the answers.

There it was again. Super hero.

The rain continued. I heard Danny come in, but he didn’t bother to stop by my office in the back of the house. Instead, I heard him head straight into the shower. To shower her off him, no doubt.

But sometimes the answers should remain hidden, I wrote a few minutes later, distracted by Danny’s appearance.

Sometimes not, wrote Fang. Either way, your clients have closure.

I nodded to myself, then wrote, Closure is a gift.

He wrote, Yes. You give them that gift. So you think this distraught brother took a few shots at your client?

I’m thinking it’s likely. I paused in my typing, then added, Do you believe that I am a vampire, Fang?

You have asked me this a hundred times, he answered.

And I have conveniently forgotten your answers a hundred times.

Yes, he wrote. I believe you are a vampire.

Why do you believe I am a vampire?

Because you told me you are.

And you believe that?

Yes.

I took in some air, then typed: I sucked the blood from a dead man last night.

There was a long pause before he wrote: Did you kill him, Moon Dance?

No, I didn’t. He was already dead, part of a gang that attacked me. He was accidentally shot by someone in his gang. The shot had been intended for me.

OMG, are you okay?!

I loved Fang, whoever the hell he was. I wrote, Yes, thank you. It was nothing. The bangers didn’t know with whom they were dealing.

Of course they didn’t, how could they? So what happened to the dead guy?

I sucked his blood until I couldn’t swallow another drop.

There was a long pause. Rain ticked on the window.

How did that make you feel? he asked.

At the time? Refreshed. Whole. Complete. Rejuvenated.

He tasted that good, huh?

Even better, I wrote.

How do you feel now? he asked.

Horrified.

Does it worry you that he tasted so good?

Not really, I wrote. But I do realize now how much I’m missing. Cow blood is disgusting.

I bet. Can you still control yourself, Moon Dance?

Yes. I’ve never lost control of myself. As long as I’m satiated each night on the blood stored in my refrigerator.

What would happen if you ran out of blood?

I don’t want to think about it, I wrote. It’s never happened, nor do I plan on it happening.

Sounds like a plan, he wrote.

I laughed a little and sat back in my chair and drank some water. I typed, I met a werewolf.

No shit?

No shit, I wrote.

What’s a werewolf like?

I don’t really know just yet. Mysterious. Obsessed with the moon.

Stands to reason.

He’s a practicing attorney, I wrote. And a very good one.

Well, we all need a day gig.

Or a night gig, I added.

Haha. Well, Moon Dance, it’s late. Let me know how it goes with the werewolf. When will be the next full moon?

A few days. I already checked.

Have there been any unsolved murders resembling animals attacks? he asked.

Not to my knowledge.

Might want to stay alert for that, he said.

True, I wrote.

Goodnight, Moon Dance.

Goodnight, Fang.

22.

I was driving south on the 57 Freeway when my cell phone rang. It was Kingsley.

“Have you heard the news?” he asked excitedly.

“That you’re a werewolf?” I suggested.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, dear girl. Not over the phone lines. You never know who might be listening.”

“Big Brother? Aliens? Homeland Security?”

“Hewlett Jackson’s dead.”

I blinked. “Your client.”

“Now my ex-client.”

“Murder?” I asked.

“Yes. Shot.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Five times in the head.”

“Close. Nine.”

“Appears our killer wasn’t going to take any chances this time.”

“Find them,” said Kingsley.

“That’s my job,” I said.

“You have any leads?”

“One.”

“Just one?”

“That’s all I need,” I said.

“I see,” he said. “Well, the police say you’re the best. So I trust you.”

There was some static, followed by a long pause. Too long.

“You there?” I asked.

“I’m here,” he said, then added, “Tomorrow’s a full moon, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “So, can I watch?”

“Watch?” he asked.

“You know, the transformation.”

“No,” he said. “And you’re a sick girl.”

“Not sick,” I said. “Just were-curious.”

He snorted and I could almost see him shaking his great, shaggy head. He said, “So I heard they found a corpse in Fullerton,” he said, pausing. “Drained of blood.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” I said. “Not over the phone. But if it puts you at ease,no, I didn’t kill him.”

“Good.”

More static. More pausing. With some people, gaps in the conversation can feel uncomfortable. With Kingsley, gaps felt natural. Then again, we were immortal. Technically, we could wait forever.

Kingsley un-gapped the conversation. “So where you headed at this late hour?”

“It’s early for me, and I’m following up on my one lead.”

“Tell me about your lead.”

So I did.

When I was finished, Kingsley said, “Yeah, I remember him. Rick Horton. His brother was dead and the only suspect was walking free because of a police screw up.”

“Why, Kingsley, if I didn’t know you better I would almost say you sound sympathetic.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Tell me about the incident in the court,” I said.

“He lunged at me, but it was sort of a half-ass effort. Mostly he called me a stream of obscenities.”

“You must be used to them.”

“Like they say, sticks and stones,” he said. “He didn’t seem the type for violence, though.”

“Some never do.”

“True,” he said. “You know where he lives?”

“I’ve got his address. I still happen to have friends in high places.”

“Good, let me know how it goes.”

“Have fun tomorrow night,” I said. “Arr Arr Arrrooooo!”

“Not funny,” he said, but laughed anyway.

I disconnected the line, giggling.

23.

I took the 22 East, then headed south on the 55 and exited on Seventeenth Street. Rick Horton lived in an upscale neighborhood in the city of Tustin, about ten miles south of Fullerton. I continued following the Yahoo driving directions until I pulled up in front of a two-story Gothic revival. A house fit for a vampire.

From its triangular arches, to its cast-iron roof crestings, from its diamond-patterned slate shingles, to its multiple stacked chimneys, the Horton house was as creepy and menacing and haunted-looking as any house in Orange County. It was set well back from the road on a corner lot, surrounded by a massive ivy-covered brick and mortar fence. The fence was topped with the kind of iron spikes that would have made Vlad the Impaler proud. The entire house was composed of a sort of squared building stone.

I used the call box by the front gate. A man answered. I gave him my name and told him I was a private investigator and that I would like to speak to Rick Horton. There was a moment of silence, then the gate clicked open. I pushed it open all the way and followed a red brick path through a neat St. Augustine lawn. All in all, this brooding and romantic Victorian-era home seemed a little out of place in Tustin, California.

Just as I stepped up onto the entry porch, the door swung open. A small man with wire-rim glasses leaned through the open door. “Please come in,” he said. “I’m Rick Horton.”

I did and found myself in the main hall. To my right was a curving stairway. The ceiling was vaulted and there were many lit candles. The house was probably dark as hell during the day, perfect for a slumbering vampire.

I followed the little man through an arched doorway and into a drawing room. I’ve only been in a few formal drawing rooms, and, unlike the name suggests, there wasn’t a single drawing in the place. Instead, it was covered in landscape oils. I was asked to sit on a dusty Chippendale camelback sofa, which I did. The sofa faced a three-sided bay window with diamond-pane glass. The window overlooked the front lawn and a marble fountain. The fountain was of a mermaid spouting water. She easily had double-D breasts, which were probably a distinct disadvantage for real mermaids. Just outside the window three classic fluted Doric columns supported a wide veranda.

He sat opposite me in a leather chair-and-a-half, which was perfect for cuddling. I wasn’t in the cuddling mood. Rick Horton wore single gold studs in each ear. He seemed about twenty years too old to be wearing single gold studs. Call me old-fashioned. He was dressed in green-plaid pajamas, with matching top and bottom. He had the air of a recluse. Maybe he was a famous author or something.

“Do you have a license I can see?” he asked. As he spoke, he looked a bit confused and out of sorts, blinking rapidly as if I were shining a high-powered light into his eyes.

I held out my license and he studied it briefly. I hated the picture. I looked deathly ill: face white, hair back, cheeks sallow. I looked like a vampire. The make-up I had been wearing that day seemed to have evaporated with the camera’s flash. The picture was also a little blurry, the lines of my face amorphous.

He sat back. “So what can I do for you, Ms. Moon?”

It was actually Mrs., but you choose your battles. “I’m looking into a shooting.”

“Oh? Who was shot?”

“My client; shot five times in the face.” Horton didn’t budge. Not even a facial twitch. “And I think you shot him, Mr. Horton.”

That was a conversation killer. Somewhere in the house a grandfather clock ticked away, echoing along the empty hallways, filling the heavy silence.

“You come into my house and accuse me of murder?” he said.

“Attempted murder,” I said. “My client did not die, which is how he was able to hire me in the first place.”

“Who’s your client?”

His attempt at moral outrage was laughable. His heart just didn’t seem into it.

“Kingsley Fulcrum,” I said.

“Yes, of course, the defense attorney. It was on the news. Watched him hide behind a tree. It was very amusing. I wished he had died. But I didn’t shoot him.”

I analyzed his every word and mannerism on both a conscious and subconscious level. I waited for that psychic-something to kick in, that extra-sensory perception that gives me my edge over mere mortals, that clarity of truth that tells me on an intuitive level that he’s our man. Frustratingly, I got nothing; just the fuzziness of uncertainty. His words had the ring of truth. And yet he still felt dirty to me. There was something wrong here.

“Did you hire someone to shoot Kingsley?” I asked.

“Maybe I should have an attorney present.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“Maybe you’re wired.”

“I’m not wired.” Weird, but not wired.

He shrugged and sat back. “I can’t express to you how happy I was to see that son-of-a-bitch get what he deserved. Trust me, if I had shot him I would be proud to say I had. But, alas, I cannot claim credit for what I didn’t do.”

“Did you hire someone to kill him, Mr. Horton?”

“If I had, would I tell you?”

“Most likely not, but never hurts to ask. Sometimes a reaction to a question speaks volumes.” More than he realized.

“Fine. To answer your question: I did not hire someone to kill Kingsley Fulcrum.”

“Where were you on the day he was shot?”

“What day was it?”

I told him.

“I was here, as usual. My father left me a sizable inheritance. I don’t work. Mostly I read and watch TV. I’m not what you would call a go-getter.”

“You have no alibi?”

“None.”

“Do you own a .22 pistol?”

He jerked his head up. Bingo. “I think this interview is over, Ms. Moon. I did not shoot Mr. Fulcrum. If the police wish to question me further, then they can do so in the presence of my attorney. Good night.”

I stood to leave, then paused. “Hewlett Jackson was found dead today, shot nine times in the head.”

Horton inhaled and the faintest glimmer of a smile touched his lips. The look on his face was one of profound relief. “Like I said, the police can interview me with my attorney present.”

I found my way out of the creepy old house. I love creepy old houses. Must be the vampire in me.

24.

You there, Fang?

I’m here, Moon Dance.

I visited a suspect tonight, I wrote. When I instant message, I tend to get right to the point.

The one you thought might be the shooter?

Yeah, that one, but now I’m not so sure he was the shooter.

Fang paused, then wrote: Doesn’t feel right?

I’m not sure.

You’re getting mixed signals.

Yes, I wrote. Fang was damn intuitive himself, and often very accurate in his assessments of my situations. I loved that about him. But he feels dirty, though.

Well, maybe he’s connected somehow.

Maybe. When I mentioned the gun, I got the reaction I was looking for.

There you go. Maybe his gun was used, but he wasn’t the killer.

Maybe.

There was a much longer pause. Typically, Fang and I chatted through the internet as fast as two people would talk. Perhaps even faster.

I have a woman here, he wrote. She wants my attention.

I grinned, then wrote: Have fun.

I plan to. Talk to you soon.

* * *

It was time for my feeding.

I checked on my children; both were sound asleep. I even looked in on Danny. He once slept only in boxers. Now he sleeps in full sweats and a tee-shirt. His explanation was simple: He didn’t like brushing up against my cold flesh.

Screw my cold flesh. I never asked for this.

I walked quietly through the dark house. I didn’t bother with the lights because a) I didn’t need them and b) I didn’t want to disturb the others. Danny recently commented that the thought of me wandering through the house at night creeped him out. Yeah, he said creeped. My own husband.

Screw him, too.

In the kitchen, I paused before the pantry. After a moment’s hesitation, I opened the cupboard and reached for what I knew would be there: A box of Hostess Ding Dongs. I opened the box flap. Inside, two rows of silver disks flashed back at me. There was something very beautiful about the simplicity of the paper-thin tinfoil wrappings.

As I removed three of them, saliva filled my mouth. My heart began to race.

I sat at the kitchen table and unwrapped the first Ding Dong, wadding the foil wrapping tightly into a little silver ball. Before me, the chocolate puck gleamed dully in the moonlight. My stomach churned, seemed to turn in on itself, roiling like an ocean wave.

The first bite was small and exploratory. Christ, the chocolate tasted so damn good I could have had an orgasm. Maybe I did. Rich and complex and probably fake, the cocoa flavor lingered long after the first bite has been swallowed.

There was no turning back now.

I quickly ate the first Ding Dong and tore into the second. When I finished it, the third. Finally, I sat back in the wooden chair and felt like a royal glutton. Granted, most of my tastebuds were gone, but chocolate somehow made it through loud and clear.

Outside, through an opening in the curtained window over the sink, the sky was awash with moonlight. Tomorrow was a full moon. Tonight it was almost there, but not quite. I wondered if the almost-but-not-quite full moon had any affect on Kingsley. Maybe a few extra whiskers here and there. Teeth and nails a bit longer than usual.

I giggled about that and considered calling and teasing him, but it was two in the morning. Life is lonely at two in the morning.

My stomach gurgled.

Here it comes, I thought.

I wondered again how long Kingsley had been a werewolf. I also realized he never really admitted to being one. Perhaps he was some variant of a werewolf. Perhaps a were-something else. Maybe a were-kitty.

I shifted in the chair to ease the pain growing in my stomach. Some serious cramping was setting in.

How old was he? Where was he from?

I suddenly lurched forward, gasping. I heaved myself out of the chair and over to the kitchen sink. I turned on the faucet just as the Ding Dongs came up with a vengeance, gushing north along my esophagus with alarming ferocity.

When done, I wiped my mouth and sat on the kitchen floor. I checked my watch. I had kept the Ding Dongs down for all of ninety-three seconds.

I wanted to cry.

25.

I don’t sleep in a coffin.

I sleep in my bed, under the covers, with the blinds drawn. I go to bed the moment the kids head off to school, and wake up a couple of hours before they get out. Ideally, I could sleep through the entire cycle of the day, but I’m a mom with kids and ideally is out the window.

My sleep is deep and usually dreamless. It’s also rejuvenating in ways that I can’t fully comprehend. Prior to closing my eyes, usually minutes after my children have left for the day, I am nearly catatonic with fatigue. So much so that I sometimes wonder if I am dying—or perhaps nearly dead—and the deep sleep itself revives me, rejuvenates me, rebuilds me in supernatural ways that I will never understand.

And the moment my head hits the pillow I’m out cold. That is, until my alarm goes off at its loudest setting. I awaken grudgingly and exhausted, fully aware that I should still be sleeping, and that I should never, ever be seeing the light of day. Nevertheless, I do get up. I do face the light of day, and I keep trying to be the best mom I can.

My sleep is usually dreamless. But not always. Sometimes I dream that I am a great bird. I fly slowly, deliberately, my powerful wings outstretched, flapping slowly. I never seem to be in a hurry.

Sometimes I dream of my kids, that I infect them with my sickness and they become like me: Hungry for blood, shunned by society, living a secret life of fear and confusion and pain. I usually wake up crying.

Today, I did not wake up crying. Today, I woke up with a smile on my face. Yes, I was still exhausted and could have used a few more hours of sleep, but nonetheless I woke up with a happy heart.

Today, I dreamed of a man. A great hulking creature of a man with the broadest shoulders I’d ever seem and a mane of hair as thick as any wild animal. A man whose eyes glowed amber under the moonlight and whose grin was more wolf than human. In the dream, Kingsley had been stalking me in the deep dark woods. Sometimes he was half-man, and sometimes he was all wolf. The biggest wolf I’d ever seen.

In the dream, I was hiding from him, but it was a game, and I had no fear of the man-wolf. I was hiding behind the trunk of a massive pine tree as he searched the forest for me.

We seemed to do this forever, playing, and I had a sense that we could do this forever, if we so desired. That nothing could stop us. Ever. Finally, I stepped out from behind the tree and just stood there on the wooded path. Kingsley, the man, came to me, hunger in his amber eyes. I had forgotten about such hunger. Pushed it aside. I had assumed such a look would be forever lost to me, replaced only by Danny’s disgust and horror.

But not with Kingsley. He hungered for me.

More important: He accepted me.

Then he was upon me, pouncing, taking me up in his great arms and lowering his face to mine. And as he did so, something flashed out of the corner of my eye. The golden amulet, the same one worn by my attacker years ago. I tried to ask Kingsley about the amulet but he lowered his face to mine and took me completely and wholly to a place I had never thought I would go again.

And that’s when I awoke, smiling.

Wow.

A minute later when I had regained my senses, I got out of bed and, averting my eyes from the light sneaking in through the blinds, made my way into the living room. There, under the china hutch, I found the box and opened it. Inside was the medallion with the three ruby roses.

I reached in and turned it over. There was blood on it. A tiny speckle that I had missed.

Why had Kingsley refused to discuss the medallion in my dream? Then again, how could he have even known about the medallion?

Then again, I reminded myself, it was just a dream.

Better yet, why are you dreaming of another man? You are a married woman. Dreams like that could lead to trouble.

A lot of trouble.

I returned the medallion to the box, closed the lid and smiled again.

It had been, after all, a hell of a dream.

26.

Before I became a full-time creature of the night, I was a federal agent for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. Although its acronym was not as sexy-sounding as the FBI, my ex-partner and I busted our fair share of bad guys; in particular, real estate scam artist and loan swindlers and those who preyed on the poor.

Anyway, Chad Helling and I had been partners for just over two years when I had been forced to quit and find a night job. He understood. Or, rather, he understood the given reason.

He and I were still close, and through him I used the federal government’s resources for all they were worth. In exchange, I did some pro bono investigating work for him.

Chad answered his cell on the third ring. “Hey, sunshine.”

“Sunshine?” I asked.

“Sorry. Poor choice of words. What’s up?”

“I need some help,” I said.

“What else is new?”

I ignored that. “The name’s Rick Horton out of Tustin. I need to know if he has a twenty-two caliber pistol registered to his name.”

“Anything else?”

“No, that’s it.”

“You got it, Sunshine.”

“Asshole,” I said, but he had already hung up.

It was late evening. I tried Kingsley at his office number, but was not surprised to discover that Kingsley had called in sick since this was the night of the full moon. I tried his home number. It was answered immediately.

“Tonight’s the big night,” I said. “Arooo!”

“Who’s this?” asked a stuffy voice.

Whoops!

“I’m, uh, Samantha Moon. May I speak to Kingsley?”

A pause on the other end. I thought I heard a noise from somewhere in the background. Perhaps my imagination was playing tricks on me, but, son-of-a-bitch, I thought I had heard the howl of a dog.

Or a wolf.

“Master Kingsley is...indisposed at this time. I’ll tell him you rang.”

Master Kingsley?

“Please do,” I said, trying to match the upper crust voice. I think I warbled perhaps a little too long on do. The line was disconnected, and not by me.

Almost immediately my cell vibrated in my hand. I looked at the face-plate. It was my ex-partner.

“Yup, a twenty-two caliber pistol is registered to one Rick Horton,” said Special Agent Chad Helling. “If you knew that why did you need me?”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. “I surmised.”

“That was a hell of a surmise. We could use someone like you at HUD. Too bad you keep such strange hours.”

“Thanks, Chad. I owe you one.”

“Or two; I’ve lost track.”

27.

It was 6:30 p.m., and the kids were playing at a neighbor’s house.

I was in my study going over my notes and reviewing the internet video feed of Kingsley’s shooting. Despite myself I laughed as I watched Kingsley ducking and dodging the bullets. Although immortal, each shot must have hurt like hell, and, at the time, the bullets had done serious enough damage to render him almost useless.

I paused on the clearest image of the shooter, which was still pretty grainy. Unfortunately, due to the poor quality of the image, it was impossible to tell if the shooter had been Rick Horton. Whoever it had been was wearing a generic warm-up jacket and a red ball cap. Seemed obvious to me that the shooter was wearing a fake mustache, too, but I couldn’t be sure. It just seemed too prominent, and in one frame it even stuck out at an odd angle, as if the glue had come undone. This, too, was noted in the police file.

I now knew Horton owned a .22, and a .22 was used in the crime. Where did that get me? Not much, but at least it was a start.

I felt uneasy, unrested, undead.

Shrugging my shoulders, which at this time of the day suddenly seemed twice as heavy, I absently rubbed—or sought—an ache in my neck that seemed always to move just beyond my fingertips. Like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands. Since my attack, since my change, my body ached in places and in ways I had never thought possible.

Maybe this is what it feels like to be dead.

I next found an article on the internet about the murder of Hewlett Jackson, Kingsley’s one-time client who had taken nine shots to the face. And, not being a werewolf, he promptly died. Hewlett’s body had been found in a parking lot, still inside his car, shot outside a seedy bar I was unfortunately familiar with. There had been no robbery, just a blatant killing.

Interestingly, no one yet had made a connection with Jackson’s murder to Kingsley’s attack.

Maybe I was barking up the wrong tree.

Did werewolves bark?

I sat back in my chair and stared up at the painted ceiling. The cobwebs in one corner of the room were swaying gently, though I felt no breeze. I should probably clean those someday. The sun was due to set in a few minutes. Its lingering presence in the sky was the reason behind my current uneasiness and shortness of breath and general foul temperament.

I used to worship the sun. Now it was my enemy.

Or, like Superman, my kryptonite.

I drummed my short fingers on the desk. My nails were thick and somewhat pointed. The nails themselves were impossible to cut. They shaped themselves and seemed to hold steady at that length.

I wondered again if Horton had hired a killer.

But that didn’t feel right. No hitman worth his salt would have made such a blatant and dangerous attempt in broad daylight. In front of video cameras. In front of a goddamn courthouse. No. The shooter was making a point; most important, the shooter had not cared about getting caught. I was sure of that. Oh, he cared just enough to wear some silly disguise, but I truly felt in my heart that the shooter had not expected to actually escape.

But the shooter had escaped.

There was a knock on my front door. I swung my feet around and stood. My legs were a little shaky. The shakiness was due to the lingering presence of the sun. I moved slowly through the house, to the front door.

And standing there in my doorway was Detective Sherbet of the Fullerton Police Department. He was holding a bag of donuts.

28.

We sat in the living room.

I was in my grandmother’s rocking chair and he was on the sofa across from me. The sun was still minutes from setting, and I felt vulnerable. My mind was firing at a slower rate. My body was sluggish. In fact, I felt mortal. I forced myself to focus on the detective sitting before me.

Sherbet held out the bag of donuts. “Place on Orangethorpe makes them fresh this time everyday.”

I glanced inside the open bag and my stomach turned. “You are perpetuating the stereotype of policemen and donuts,” I said.

“Hell, I am the reason for that stereotype.” He chuckled to himself. “Lord knows how many of these I’ve eaten. Can’t be too bad for you. I’m sixty-seven and still going strong.”

I looked away when he took a healthy bite into his donut.

“You don’t look too well, Mrs. Moon. Is it too early in the day for you? I tried coming when the sun set, you know, with your skin condition and all. Now what sort of condition do you have?”

I told him.

“Yeah, right, that one,” he said. “Well, I looked into it.”

“Really?”

“Oh, I’m not trying to snoop on you, Mrs. Moon, I assure you. I just love learning new things. Always been that way.”

I nodded; he was snooping on me.

He continued, “Anyway, apparently it’s a very rare condition. Usually shows up first in children, not so much in adults....” He let his voice trail off.

“Well, I’m a late bloomer. Always been that way.” I wasn’t feeling too chatty. Warning bells were sounding in my head—only my head felt too dull to sort through them. “What can I do for you, detective?”

“Oh, just wondering how your case is coming along. Actually, our case is coming along.” He chuckled again.

“Our case is moving along fine,” I said.

“Any leads?”

“Not yet.” I’m always hesitant to share any information to cops. At least, not until I’m ready. When I needed Sherbet, I’d come to him. Not the other way around.

He finished the donut and licked his fingers; he fished around in the bag—which must have gotten his fingers sticky all over again—and removed a cinnamon cake. He seemed pleased with his selection and promptly took a healthy bite.

I was sucking air carefully. My lungs felt somehow smaller. I was having a hell of a hard time getting a decent breath.

His eyes flicked over at me. “You okay, Mrs. Moon?”

“Yes; it’s just a little bright for me.”

“Your shades are down. We are practically sitting in the dark.”

I motioned toward the weak sunlight peaking through a crack in the curtains. “Any sunlight at all can be harmful.”

“You have a sensitive condition.”

“Very.”

“There was a murder in Fullerton a week ago,” he said, biting into the cinnamon donut. He wasn’t looking at me. “Kid was drained of his blood, or at least most of it. The thing is, the medical examiner doesn’t know where the blood went.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the kid was lying there on the sidewalk, shot to death, and there wasn’t an ounce of blood around him—or even in him, for that matter.” This time he didn’t chuckle.

“Maybe he, you know, bled elsewhere.”

“Maybe.” Sherbet took another sizable bite. Cinnamon drifted down, glittering in the angled sunlight coming in through the blinds. “No one knows who shot him. No one heard anything. So I keep at it. You know, just doing my job. I find out that the victim is a known banger, has a long rap sheet, name of Gilberto. I talk to Gilberto’s friends, discover they had a party the night of his murder. But that’s all I get from them. I figure the victim must have been shot after their little party.” He paused. “And then we find this.”

The detective licked his fingers and reached inside his Members Only jacket and pulled out a photograph of a hand gun. “Kids found it in the bushes a few streets down the road. We test the gun, discover it’s the same gun that did the banger. We also lift some prints from it. Turns out the prints belong to Gilberto’s uncle. Guy’s name is Elias. So I shake down Elias the other night, and he says he shot the gun in self-defense.”

Detective Sherbet peered inside the donut bag carefully. The room was still and quiet. Sherbet’s face was half-hidden in shadows. The bag crinkled as his hand groped for the next donut. “So I push Elias some more, really come down on him. Believe it or not, I can be a real hardass if I want to be.”

Actually, I believed it.

He continued. “And he tells me the whole story. I follow up on the story with the others who were there that night. The story checks out.” He paused and studied me carefully. The whites of his eyes shone brightly in the dark. “The story goes like this. They were partying. A woman shows up. Jogging, believe it or not, in the dead of night. Anyway, I get a teenage punk to admit that they were going to gang rape her. But things go wrong, horribly wrong.”

I said nothing.

“Turns out they cornered a tigress.” He chuckled softly and went to town on a chocolate old-fashioned. He worked his way along the outer rim of the donut. “She showed them hell. A real G.I. Jane.”

I almost laughed. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it sounded funny.

He continued. “She apparently picks this Gilberto scumbag up by the throat. A two hundred and fifty pound man. Picks him up with one hand. And that’s when the story gets a little fuzzy. At some point around that time a gun goes off, and Gilberto takes a bullet in the chest. The others flee like the scattering rats they are. One of them, hiding in the bushes, watches the woman carry off Gilberto’s corpse into the dead of night.”

We were silent. I could almost hear his tired digestive system going to work on the donuts.

“Hell of a campfire story, if you ask me,” he said. He wadded up the paper bag. “What do you think about all of that?”

“Hard to believe.”

He chuckled. “Exactly. Group of guys out having fun, drunk and fist-fighting and things turn ugly and a gun goes off, and one of them turns up dead. Happens all the time. Sometimes the group will even put their heads together and come up with a wild story.”

He held the wadded-up donut bag in both hands. He rested his chin on top of his hands and stared at me. “But I have never heard of a story more wild than this.”

I continued saying nothing.

“You ever jog alone at night, Mrs. Moon?”

“Yes.”

We sat quietly. “Now, as far as I can tell, this girl committed no crime. She was acting in self-defense, and I can guarantee you she taught these boys a lesson. I’ve never seen a group of men so fucking spooked in my life. Still, I would kind of like to know what she did with that body. I mean it went missing for a few hours, then reappeared later that morning. Minus a lot of blood. You have any thoughts on that, Mrs. Moon?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

He stood up and gave me his card. “Well, thanks for chatting with an old man. I expect to see more of you.”

“Lucky you.”

He stepped over to the front door. “Oh, and Mrs. Moon...were you jogging that night?”

“Which night was that?”

He told me.

“Yes,” I said.

“And you didn’t see anything?”

“Nothing that would help you, detective.”

“Great, thank you.”

He shook my hand, holding it carefully in both of his. His hands were so very warm. He nodded once and then left my home.

So very warm....

29.

I drove slowly past the massive Gothic home, peering through the wrought iron fortification. The house was dark and still. I continued by the brooding structure, parked around the corner and killed the minivan’s engine.

Other than a handful of trash cans mixed between some parked cars, the street was empty, as it should be at 2:00 a.m., the vampire’s hour.

Whatever that means.

A small wind scuttled a red Carl’s Jr. hamburger wrapper along the gutter. Hamburgers are not on my short list of acceptable foods, although raw hamburger meat has been known to sometimes—sometimes—stay down. Where it went, of course, I had no idea.

New topic.

The brick fence that ran along the east side of Horton’s home was almost entirely covered in ivy. Streetlamps were few and far between, and none on this particular corner. Better for me.

I stepped out of the minivan and into the cool night air. The darkness was comforting. Perhaps I needed the darkness more than it needed me, but I liked to think that I enriched and added flavor to the night. I liked to believe I gave the night some purpose, a sort of symbiotic relationship.

It was 2:00 a.m., the vampire’s hour, and I was feeling good.

I approached the vine-covered wall and did a cursory look around. No one was out. The street was empty. The wall before me was ten feet high and topped with iron spikes. Spikes, stakes, ice picks, railroad spikes, of course, all made me nervous. Hell, I’ve been known to shudder at the sight of a toothpick.

With a small crowbar tucked into a loop on my jeans, I paused briefly beneath the brick fence and then jumped. High. Soaring through the air.

I landed on top and grabbed hold of an iron spike in each hand. Early on in my vampirism, I discovered I could dunk a basketball. Basketball rims were typically about ten feet high. The kids at the local park had been impressed beyond words. So was I. We had, of course, been playing at night.

Careful of the iron spikes, I squatted there on top of the wall like an oversized—albeit cute—frog. In true amphibian-like fashion, I jumped over the spikes and landed smoothly on the far side of the wall, hands flat on the cement.

I dashed around to the back of the house, and promptly pulled up short, coming face to face, or face to muzzle, with two startled Doberman pinchers. Both were huge and beautiful, sleek and powerful. Both blended perfectly with the night.

Their surprise at seeing me turned quickly to fear. No doubt they caught a whiff of me. Whimpering, they turned and dashed off. Had they owned tails, those would have been tucked between their hind legs; as it were, their round nubs shuddered like frightened little moles poking up through the dark earth. The dogs disappeared within some thick shrubbery near a tool shed.

I had that effect on dogs, and animals in general, who seem to sort of see right through my human disguise. I guess they didn’t like what they saw. Too bad. I love dogs.

Horton’s house might have an alarm. Hell, in Southern California many lesser homes had some form of security. Although I suspected the Dobermans were the extent of the backyard security, I wasn’t taking any chances with the downstairs French doors. Instead, I focused on the second floor balcony with its sliding glass door, leading, by my reckoning, to a guest bedroom.

I reached up, gripped the edge of the balcony’s wooden floor. In one fluid motion, I pulled myself up and over the railing and landed squarely in the center of the balcony, which shuddered slightly. Next, I used the pry bar to jimmy open the sliding glass door’s lock. Luckily, nothing broke. This time. I was getting better at this.

I stepped into the house.

30.

It was indeed the guest room.

The bed, however, was currently empty of guests. A massive Peruvian tapestry hung behind the bed, evoking a simple scene of village life. Moonlight shone through the open drapes, splashing silver over everything. I loved moonlight. Sunlight was overrated.

The air was musky. Newly-stirred dust motes drifted into the moonbeams. Being a trained investigator, I surmised this room hadn’t been used in quite some time.

I stepped through into a dark hallway. Well, dark for others, that is. For me, the hallway crackled with molten streams of quicksilver energy, turning everything into distinct shades of gray. Better than any flashlight.

The hallway segued into a wooden railing. Beyond, was a view of the downstairs living room.

And that’s when I met the Cat From Hell.

It was sitting on the railing in perfect repose, forepaws together, tail swishing, ears back, its reflective yellow eyes bright spheres of hate. It growled from deep within its chest cavity; we stared at each other for about twenty seconds, just two creatures of the night crossing paths.

Apparently, it wasn’t feeling the same sort of kinship.

Like an umbrella, its fur sprang open. Pop. Then it screeched bloody hell, and in one quick movement, slashed me across my face. It leaped from the railing, darted down the hallway, hung a right and disappeared down a flight of stairs.

I touched my cheek. The little shit. The wound was already scabbing. I knew within minutes it would be gone altogether.

Still. The little shit.

I waited motionless, certain someone would come to investigate the devil cat. But no one came.

I continued on, and at end of the hall I peaked into an open door. There, sleeping as peaceful as can be, was Rick Horton. From the doorway, I studied his massive room and noted the various antique furnishings, especially the massive, ornate mirror. The room itself was immaculate; everything in its place. Because of that, it was the last place I would have wanted to sleep. A bedroom needed to be lived in.

Rick Horton slept on an undraped four-poster bed. Instead, coats, sweaters and slacks hung neatly from hangers along the horizontal canopy board, perhaps an extension of his closet. Beneath the bed was a cardboard box. The box was slightly askew and not in accordance with the rigorous precision of the room, as if it had been recently shoved under the bed.

I walked quietly to his bedside. Little did Horton realize that an honest-to-God vampire was leaning over him in his sleep, peering down at the smooth slope of his pale neck, where a fat artery pulsed invitingly. I could easily overpower him, tear open the flesh and start drinking. It would be so easy, and warm blood tasted... so... goddamn... good.

I sighed and turned my attention to the box, sliding it silently from beneath the bed. Horton never stirred, although I wondered if his sub-conscious was somehow aware of me. Perhaps at this very moment he was fleeing a beautiful vampire in his dreams. Okay, maybe not beautiful, but certainly damn cute with a curvy little body. I wondered fleetingly if the vampire in his dreams catches him. If so, what does she do with him?

I exited the room and made my way back through the long hallway and found a cavernous study. I didn’t risk turning on the light. Instead, I pulled open the curtains and allowed for some moonlight, and sat down in a brass-studded executive chair behind a black lacquer desk. I opened the box.

Inside were folders and papers. I removed the first folder, flipped it open and was greeted almost immediately with my own agency’s business card stapled to a sheet of paper. Written on the paper was my physical description. I was pleased to say that I was referred to as being thin and pretty. There was more. A meticulously written recap of our conversation. Most disturbing was a description of my minivan and my license plate number. He had watched me leave.

The second file was much thicker. Inside was a vast array of facts and photographs of Hewlett Jackson, Kingsley’s now-murdered client. Hewlett was a young black man, good-looking. There were some pictures of him coming and going from a residence, pictures of him leaving a white Ford Mustang, of him sitting in a park with a female companion, or him drinking late at night with friends at an outdoor restaurant. Careful notes were made of times and places of Hewlett’s movements and activities.

One particular time and place was circled in red ink. Most interesting was that it was the exact time and place Hewlett was found murdered.

The last file contained similar information on Kingsley Fulcrum. I read the entire file with much interest, then closed the box, exited the study and returned the whole shebang back under Horton’s bed. I even made sure the box was slightly askew.

I stared down at the man who had lost his brother within this last year. I felt pity for him. But Rick Horton had decided to take justice into his own hands. And that’s where my pity ended.

And, according to his notes, I was next on his list.

I could kill him now and never worry that he might make an unwanted appearance with my children present. But I do not kill people, especially people defenseless in their sleep. Better to let the law handle this.

I slipped away into the night.

31.

It was early afternoon, and I felt like crap, and I would continue to feel like crap until the sun disappeared in a few hours. We were at Hero’s again, where very few people knew our names, but at least the bartender remembered our drinks.

“A glass of chardonnay and a martini?” he asked, giving us a warm smile. He had cute dimples around his mouth. Thick lips, too. Thick, juicy lips.

“You bet,” Mary Lou said, beaming. He winked and moved down the bar to pour our drinks, and Mary Lou continued smiling at his back, or perhaps at his backside. “Isn’t he just amazing? What a memory!”

“Down girl. It’s his job to remember,” I said. “He does well to remember.”

He returned with our drinks. Mary Lou handed him her credit card, although she probably would have preferred to slip it inside the waistband of his Jockey shorts. She sipped carefully from her glass and finally looked over at me. “So what’s the latest news with your case?”

“Are you done undressing our bartender with your eyes?”

“Not yet. Wait. Okay, now I am.”

“You’re a married woman, with kids,” I said.

“I know. Your point?”

“Married women shouldn’t be undressing bartenders with their eyes.”

“Show me that in the rule book.”

“There is no rule book.”

She looked at me. “Exactly. Now tell me about your case.”

I gave her an update, and to her credit she forgot about the bartender and his buns and focused on me.

“Well, Horton’s obviously your guy. What a fucking creep.” She shuddered slightly.

“Do you talk this way around your kids?”

“No, just you. I let it all out around you.”

“Lucky me,” I said.

“And you were next on his list?” she asked.

“You know, to silence the pesky private eye.”

“You are kind of pesky, aren’t you?”

“The peskier the better.”

“So what’re you going to do?” she asked.

I sipped some wine. I tasted nothing, literally, but at least I didn’t double over with stomach cramps. Sipping from the wine glass gave me some semblance of normalcy. “I’m going to have a talk with Detective Sherbet this evening.”

“But what can he do?” asked my sister. “He can’t just barge in there and arrest the guy without probable cause.”

“You’ve been watching too much TV, but you’re right. Not without a search warrant. And one needs evidence to obtain a search warrant.”

“So breaking into this guy’s house and finding evidence hidden under his bed won’t fly with a judge, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“So what will you do?” she asked.

“The detective and I will figure something out.”

“Will you tell this detective about your break-in?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Will he like it?”

“Probably not.”

We were silent, and I decided now was the time to tell her about the attempted rape and the death of the gang banger—and about the sucking of blood. So I did. The story took a few minutes, during which Mary Lou said nothing although I noted she had quickly finished her drink.

“That was very reckless of you,” she said when I was done.

“I know.”

“And you really drank his blood?”

“Yes.”

She was silent. I was silent. The noises of the bar came floating to my ears, the chink of glasses being washed in the sink, the sound of laughter behind me, the snapping opening of the cash register drawer.

“What if this somehow causes you to lose control, Samantha?”

“I love my kids too much to lose control.”

“Then you took a foolish chance by drinking that man’s blood.”

“Yes, I did. But the situation had gotten quickly out of control. Before I knew it, I was holding a corpse.”

“You should not be jogging so late.”

I drank my wine. Sometimes Mary Lou was impossible to talk to.

“When is there a better time? I’m a goddamn vampire.”

“The early evening.”

“In the early evening I have the kids and work.”

“Then why do you need to jog at all?”

“Because it helps me stay sane.”

We were alone at this end of the counter. As we spoke, my eyes constantly scanned the crowd, making sure we had no eavesdroppers. “I walk a fine line, Mary Lou. Everything around me is threatening to crumble away. Something like exercise is within my control. I need control right now.”

“Maybe you need help.”

We had gone through this before. “There’s no one to help me.”

“Maybe you need to speak to a therapist, someone, anyone.”

“You think this is in my head?”

“No. It’s real. I know that.”

“The moment I tell a therapist that I’m a vampire, they’ll lock me up and take away my kids. Is that what you want?”

She didn’t answer immediately.

“Is that what you want, Mary Lou?”

“No, it’s not what I want, but I also think your kids are not living a very healthy and normal life.” She sighed and reached out and held my hand. “You are a good mother, I know that. I know your kids mean everything to you, but I think they are in an unhealthy environment.”

“I see it as a different environment,” I said, then studied her concerned face. “Wait. Do you worry for their safety?”

She said nothing.

“Do you worry that I will have a craving and drink from my own children?”

Nothing.

“You do, don’t you?”

She sucked in some air. “No, of course not. But if you keep behaving recklessly you might, you know, someday lose sight of who you are. Sam, you’ve fought for so long to keep things together. I don’t want to see your life crumble around you just because you found the taste of one man’s blood particular good.”

I studied her and she looked away. I suddenly had an insight. “You’ve been talking to Danny, haven’t you?”

She reddened. “Yes. He called me the other night to apologize for not picking up the kids. He’s worried about the kids.”

“Oh, really? And he shows this by coming home at midnight?”

She shrugged. “He worries that you will have a negative influence on their lives. I told him that was ridiculous. No mother loves her kids more than you.”

We were silent. It was just before dusk, and I was irritable and cranky and tired. I wanted to sleep.

“He’s screwing someone else,” I said.

“You know for sure?”

“No. But I’m going to find out.”

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

“So am I. But it was bound to happen, right? Who wants to be married to a freak?”

“You’re not a freak,” she said, and then cracked a smile. “Well, okay, maybe a little freaky.”

I laughed. She reached out and took my hand. I reveled in the warmth.

She said, “So what are you going to do, Sam?”

“Follow him,” I said. “I am, after all, an ace detective.”

32.

The sun had just set, and I was in Detective Sherbet’s office. I felt good. Most important, I felt cognizant and lucid.

I sat in the visitor’s chair in front of his desk and noticed for the first time that Sherbet was a handsome man. His arms were heavily muscled and tan, with dark hair circling his forearms. I didn’t usually go for arm hair on men, but on Sherbet it seemed fitting and a little exciting. He seemed like a man’s man, powerful and virile. No wonder it galled him to think his kid might be gay.

“So how did the basketball game go the other day?” I asked.

There was a greasy bag of donuts sitting on top of a very full trash can. The scent of donut oil was foul, and slightly upsetting to my stomach. I fought through it.

“Kid was horrible. He actually took a shot at the wrong basket. Hell, he almost even made it. I nearly cheered. The coach benched him after that.”

“Did your boy have fun?”

“No. He was miserable.”

“Did you have fun?”

“No. I was embarrassed.”

“So what are you going to do? Keep forcing him to play?”

“You sound like my wife.”

“Your wife sounds like she might be the only reasonable parent in your household.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with that kid.”

“Just love him.”

“I do.”

Our section of the police station was empty and quiet. The detective had his hands clasped over his rotund belly. Although his stomach could have been flatter, the roundness sort of added to his manhood, pronouncing him as a real man who wasn’t afraid to eat.

“You’re looking at my fat belly,” he said.

“I would call it rotund,” I said.

“Rotund? Are you trying to get on my good side?”

“Maybe.”

He rubbed a hand over the curving sweep of his belly, then played with one of the clear plastic buttons. His face turned somber. “Samantha, I know you were assaulted six years ago, here in Fullerton. It’s in your record. You were found in Hillcrest Park, half-dead. Your throat torn open. Although there was little blood at the scene, you had almost bled to death. At first it was believed that you might have been attacked by an animal, a dog or coyote. But later you told investigators that it had been a man. He was never found.”

“Detective, I don’t want to talk about—”

“Now, I understand you might not want to talk about it, but there’s something strange going on here in my town, my backyard, so to speak. My beat. I would appreciate if maybe someday you could help me understand.”

“Someday,” I said. “Just not today.”

“Okay, fine. On to item number two. What do you have on the Fulcrum case?”

Relieved to be talking about anything else, I told him everything I knew about Horton. When I got to the part about breaking and entering Horton’s home, I said, “Are you going to arrest me?”

“Not yet. Keep going.”

“Horton had files on Hewitt Jackson and Kingsley Fulcrum, not to mention a new file on me. In these files are detailed information on Jackson’s and Fulcrum’s movements. A date and time was circled on Jackson. In fact, it was the exact date and time he was murdered.”

Detective Sherbet’s eyes widened a little. For Sherbet, this was the next best thing to him jumping up and down and yelling yippee! “Then he’s our man.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“You think so? Hell, he had everything but the smoking gun. And he might still have that, as well, once we serve a search warrant.”

“He just doesn’t feel right.”

“Is that your gut talking?”

“Yes.”

“Well, my gut says he’s our man.”

“How are you going to convince a judge to issue a warrant?”

He sat back, laced his fingers behind his thick head of salt and pepper hair. “Good question. Any ideas?”

“You’re the homicide detective.”

He thought about that. “How about a trash run?”

“As in dig through his trash?” I said.

“Sure. It’s public domain. We find something incriminating we can convince a judge to issue a warrant.”

I blinked. “We?”

“Yes, I’m not going to dig through his trash alone.”

“The trash went out last night,” I said. “I saw the barrels.”

“It’s settled then. Next Thursday we go out to Horton’s place and dig through his trash.”

“Sounds like a date.”

“Let’s just hope we find something.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll find something,” I said. “Let’s just hope we find the right something.”

33.

The kids were in karate class together, so I used the opportunity to work-out at Jacky’s. It was late evening, and the sun had set. I was feeling strong and healthy. At the moment, Jacky was taping my fists. We were both silent. I think he sensed I was in one of my moods. Occasionally, he would look up into my face, then quickly avert his eyes.

“I’m not going to bite you, Jacky.”

“You think I’m afraid of you?” he asked. “Well, I am.”

I rubbed his shining head with my already-taped right hand.

In fact, I was having a hard time letting go of my conversation with Mary Lou. I was trying to comprehend the fact that she had been secretly speaking to Danny. Discussing what an unfit mother I was.

“Whatever’s eating at you,” said Jacky, “take it out on the punching bag. That’s my motto.”

And so I did. Pummeling the thing until I was dripping sweat. We worked in three minute drills, with Jacky screaming at me to keep my hands up. I would finish each round in a flurry of punches, rapid-fire body shots to the punching bag. During one of these flurries, I caught Jacky’s expression as he steadied the punching bag. It was one of profound pain. The punches were reverberating through the bag and into him. The Irishman was taking a beating, but he seemed to love it.

At the end of the sixth round I dropped my hands to my side. The gloves felt like bags of cement. Jacky staggered away to get some water.

I leaned my forehead against the punching bag. I was still thinking about Danny. It seemed to me that he was building a case against me. Of course, building a case against me couldn’t be easier. Hell, in my current condition, even I knew I was an unfit mother. But I was doing my best and I loved my kids with all my heart. You could never replace that. Ever.

At the far end of the gym, I noticed a tall boxer working out with one of Jacky’s long-time trainers. The boxer was young and blond and very muscular. His punches were rapid and precision-like. His muscles stood out on his hot skin.

Jacky came back, holding a little Dixie cup full of water. The cup was shaking in his hands.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about those Dixie cups,” I said. “We pay good money to join your gym, and the best you can give us are these paper thimbles in return?”

“Ah, lass, you pay for the atmosphere.”

I nodded toward the young, hotshot boxer. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Desmond Beacon. A boxing champion in the Marines, went undefeated. He’s turning pro.”

“I want to box him.”

Jacky’s eyes brightened briefly—perhaps with excitement—and then he came back down to earth and shook his head. “Look, kid, I know I built your hopes up and all that, but that ain’t going to happen. Maybe we could arrange a fight with another broad.”

“Broad?” I said. “Maybe I should box you.” I looked again at the ex-Marine. “I want to fight him.”

“No, lass. I’m sorry.”

“So he kicks my ass. At least it’ll give me something else to think about.”

Jacky looked at me and sighed. “Your day that shitty, huh?”

I thought of Danny cheating—or possibly cheating—and I thought of possibly losing my kids. “Yeah,” I said. “Hell of a shitty day.”

He sighed again and said, “Hold on.” He went over to the Wonder Kid and his trainer, spoke briefly, pointed at yours truly. Desmond Beacon shook his head, said something, and they all laughed. All of them, that is, except Jacky. He got into the tall Marine’s face. By got into his face, I mean, Jacky looked up from the man’s chest. I had no doubt that Jacky could have taken the Marine in his day. But his day was long past him. They stared each other down for another ten seconds and then the Marine turned away, dismissing Jacky with a contemptuous smirk.

“What was that all about?” I asked when Jacky had hobbled back.

“Fucking prick,” said Jacky. “I have a mind to kick his ass.”

“What did he say?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“He doesn’t want to fight me?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It’s because I’m a woman.”

“He said something about that,” said Jacky, looking back at the Marine, who had gone back to shadow boxing. “Actually, he said something about doing something else to you, but I ain’t gonna repeat it to you.”

“Is that when you stuck up for me?”

“The kid’s disrespectful. Someone needs to show him a lesson.”

“I agree.”

“Samantha...I get nervous when I see that look in your eye.”

But I wasn’t listening. I was already marching over to the six foot four Desmond Beacon, who was shadow boxing near the ring. When he saw me coming he stopped, nudged his trainer, and grinned. A wolfish sort of grin. When I got to him, I looked him in the eye, smiled sweetly, and promptly kicked him square in the balls.

Hope he’s wearing a cup.

His eyes bulged and a look of confusion swept across his face and then he dropped to a knee, groaning and turning red.

Guess not.

His little trainer shrieked like a monkey. He grabbed my shoulder and tried flinging me around, but I don’t fling easily and he lost his balance. Instead, he settled for getting in my face. “What the hell are you doing, Missy? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

“Just maybe,” I said. I pushed the trainer aside and looked down at the boxer kneeling before me. I felt like a queen. “Will you fight me now?”

Desmond Beacon looked up. His face had gone from red to green.

“You bet your ass,” he croaked.

34.

Jacky and I were in a corner of the ring.

The little Irishman was doing some last minute adjustments to my head gear. The headgear felt big and clunky. I didn’t think I needed it, but having it on seemed to make the others happy. The Marine, in the opposite corner, was also wearing head gear. I assumed he, too, felt the gear was unnecessary.

I stared down at Jacky’s bald head as he now worked on my gloves. From this angle I could just make out some old boxing scars above his brow. Many, many old boxing scars. There was a wicked little gleam in Jacky’s eye whenever he looked up at me; he was breathing hard and fast, face red with excitement.

“Remember what I always tell you,” he said, “keep your gloves up.”

“Keep them up? Or down? I get confused.”

But Jacky wasn’t listening. In fact, he had this sort of dreamy look on his face. Perhaps he had regressed back to the backroom fighting halls of 1950s Belfast, when he was a young prize fighter with something to prove. His fighting days were long gone and I had a feeling I was his outlet, but that was okay. I wanted to fight. I wanted an honest-to-God slugfest. Sometimes you just need to beat the crap out of something.

“Focus on your jabs, doll.”

“Don’t call me doll, and I’ll focus on whatever I want. This isn’t a real fight. I’m just going to beat the crap out of him and then pick up my kids.”

Jacky pushed me away and held me at arm’s length. “Don’t get too cocky, kid. You’re strong as hell, and to be honest, a little freaky, but this guy knows the fundamentals. I’m not sure you realize what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into.”

“We’ll see.”

Jacky held up a white towel. “I’m throwing this in if things turn ugly.”

“For me or him?”

“Either.”

* * *

“Ding ding,” said Jacky.

Desmond Beacon stood nearly a foot taller than me. In the center of the ring we touched gloves. Now that the pain was gone from his groin, he didn’t look so eager to fight a woman—especially now that we had a few female onlookers.

So, to get him back into the spirit of things, I hit him with a quick jab that landed on his chin and snapped his head back. When his head settled back into place, there was a suitable look of irritation in his eyes.

Behind me, Jacky screamed, “Yes, yes!”

Desmond now bounced on his toes and worked his neck, and suddenly flicked his glove out at me much quicker than I was prepared for. I tried to dodge right, but there was no escaping it. His glove hit me square in the jaw and I staggered backwards and promptly landed on my ass, skidding to a halt near the ropes.

“Sammy, you okay?” Jacky’s worried, ruddy face peered down at me through the lowest rung of rope.

I got up. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t like this, Sammy. He’s too good.”

“Don’t call me Sammy.”

“Then what the hell do you want me to call you?”

“Just Sam.”

We touched gloves again. Desmond wasn’t smiling. In fact, he didn’t seem to be enjoying any of this. I think he was hoping I would’ve gone away by now. We circled each other. I was wary of his hand speed. His face was expressionless, although his cheeks were pinched together because of the headgear. He kept his gloves up like a good boy. His fist shot out again, another jab. I blocked it with my own glove, but the force of the punch knocked my own glove back into my forehead. Luckily the head gear is thickest at the forehead. He jabbed again. I blocked it and side-stepped. He was waiting for me to side-step. His next punch rung my bell, and I staggered backward again.

I caught a glimpse of Jacky. Or, rather, two Jackys. The old Irishman looked stricken. His interest in seeing a real fight had long ago dissipated. He was holding the white towel up. I shook my head at him, and he reluctantly lowered it.

Back in the ring, Desmond looked a little surprised to see me still on my feet. We circled each other some more. It seemed apparent to me that the Marine and his manager, and perhaps even Jacky, had agreed that I would only receive jabs. Harmless enough, and not too brutal. Wouldn’t bode well for Jacky’s female clientèle to watch a woman get pulverized by a semi-professional male boxer.

Now even more people were watching. A small crowd of mostly women were standing around the sparring ring, all dripping sweat, their workouts finished or abandoned. They were talking amongst themselves and watching me closely. I didn’t like close scrutiny, but I needed to pound something, and the Marine was the biggest thing in the gym.

I focused entirely on the Marine. Sweat dripped steadily down his cheeks and into his headgear. The muscles in his right shoulder flexed and I took a step back just as his lightning-fast jab swished through the air. Focus on the shoulder. The deltoid muscles flinched again and I moved back again and avoided the next punch as well. We circled, and he stopped bouncing on his feet and lowered his hands. The moment he lowered his hands, I delivered a combination of left jab and overhead right. Both landed. I am quick when I want to be and strong when I want to be, and I wanted to be both now. The punches staggered him backward and he landed against the ropes. A chorus of cheers erupted from the milling crowd of sweating women. The Marine pushed himself off the ropes and approached me, fists raised. He was looking at the crowd of women out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t know what to do. He was in a hell of spot. He didn’t want to hurt a woman, yet here was a woman in front of him who was hurting him. I decided to make that decision for him, and came at him like a bull. I faked a left jab and then came hard over his gloves with a straight right that hit him square on the nose. His knees buckled. I hit him again. He gathered himself and quit looking at the crowd. Good. Now he danced around the ring like he meant it. Good. He lifted his gloves and delivered a powerful combination that I used my gloves and arms to absorb. His punches hurt. He was throwing them hard. He didn’t give a damn who was watching him now or how bad this might have looked. He was tired of some woman taking potshots at him.

Except I wasn’t some woman.

Even with the sun still out in the late afternoon sky, my reflexes were better than average. But only slightly better. I still felt weak and sluggish—and that damn sun couldn’t set fast enough.

The Marine suddenly threw a wild punch that veered off my shoulder and I used that opening to deliver a rocking uppercut. I caught him under the chin and his head snapped up. He might have even lifted off the mat. Either way, he landed hard on his back. The crowd went wild. Alright, maybe not wild, but definitely a few cheers. The Marine got up and we touched gloves in the middle of the ring again. His eyes seemed a little unsteady. The big boy had taken a few hard blows to the head from a very healthy vampire. He raised his fists, did a little boxing dance, and sort of refocused himself.

And came out swinging.

Holy crap! Hell hath no fury like a man embarrassed by a woman. His punches were powerful and numerous; some landed, but most missed entirely. I soon found myself backed up against the ropes. Spit and sweat and blood flung from the Marine. His arms were a blur of punches. I heard gasps behind me. Surely this looked horrible to Jacky’s female clientèle: a woman being beaten to a pulp by a hulking Marine. I’m sure Jacky was about to throw in the towel, when it happened.

I didn’t see it happen, granted.

But I felt it.

The late afternoon soon had finally set, and I felt alive.

So damn alive.

I slipped under his onslaught and backed into a corner. He was about to follow me in but must have seen something in my eyes and paused. He should have kept pausing. Instead, he charged ahead. As he came at me, I timed my punch perfectly. A hard right to the jaw.

Too hard.

Never had I hit something so squarely and so hard. I floored him. No. I lifted him off his feet and over the surrounding ropes. He landed in a heap on the padded floor. Women screamed and rushed over to him. I saw Jacky run over to the Marine, too. He looked at me, horror on his face.

What had I done?

I stood dumbly in the center of the ring as the Marine lay on his back, unmoving.

35.

I almost killed a man today.

Tell me about it.

So I wrote it up for Fang. As usual, he read like a demon on crack, and posted his reply almost instantly.

The Marine might be re-thinking his boxing career.

I suddenly felt indignant, perhaps to mask my guilt. Good. He was a pig, and boxing’s certainly no way to make a living. Getting your brains beaten to a pulp day in and day out.

I see, so by knocking him out of the ring, you actually did a service to him.

Yes. He could think of it as career counseling.

Through the school of hard knocks.

Haha.

I think you are trying to assuage your guilt, Moon Dance, to justify your actions.

Okay, fine. I feel horrible! You happy?

No. At least you can admit your guilt.

He didn’t deserve what I did to him.

Probably not. Then again, he sounded like he might have needed to be taught a lesson. Did you really kick him in the balls?

Argh! I’m horrible!

Yes, wrote Fang. You were today.

You don’t let me off easy, do you?

Do you want me to let you off easy?

No, I wrote, thinking about it. I want you to always be dead honest with me. It’s why I keep you around.

Gee, thanks. So what happened to the Marine?

They took him away in an ambulance. The paramedic said it looked like a concussion. I sent him flowers and a card apologizing.

Perhaps you should find other outlets for your anger, wrote Fang.

Perhaps.

You might have to be a little more, um, discreet with your gifts. You don’t want to keep attracting unwanted attention.

I think you’re right. I paused. But why call it a gift, Fang?

It’s how you choose to view it, Moon Dance. You could focus on either the negative or the positive. As in all of life.

Thank you, Tony Robbins.

No, I’m not Tony Robbins but I’m certainly as tall.

Really? What else do you look like? I wrote, eager for more information.

As usual, he ignored any personal questions. Let’s take a look at these gifts of yours. You have enhanced strength, night vision, speed and endurance. Not to mention the ability to shape-change.

Whoa! I wrote, sitting back. No one’s ever said anything about shape-changing.

You’ve never shape-changed, Moon Dance?

Ever recall me mentioning turning into a bat?

There was a long pause, then he wrote: Most texts, resources and personal accounts are unanimous about this. You should be able to shape-change. Into what exactly, is open to debate.

I found myself laughing at my computer desk. Well, if your resources can tell me how to shape-change, then I’ll give it a shot.

I’ll look into it. Maybe you should look into it, too.

How?

Another pause: Maybe you need to look into yourself.

The doorbell rang. The babysitter was here.

Goodnight, Fang.

Goodnight, Moon Dance.

36.

It was late and I was restless.

Earlier in the day, I’d dreamed of Kingsley again, and now I couldn’t get the big son-of-a-bitch out of my thoughts. In my dream, we were in the woods again, but this time we weren’t playing a game. This time he had captured me early on and I was on my back. I distinctly remembered the pine needles poking into my bare back and the sound of small animals scurrying away in the woods. Scurrying away in fear. Kingsley was in his half man/half wolf mode, dark shaggy hair hanging from his huge shoulders, down his long arms. A tuft of it sticking up along the ridge of his spine like a hairy stegosaurus. He was on all fours and he was above me. I was pinned beneath him, distinctly aware that he was far too strong for me to push off. I was submitting to him. Body and soul.

In my dream, he was still wearing the medallion, hanging freely from his thick neck, suspended just inches above my face. Whenever I opened my mouth to ask about the medallion, he simply shook his great head and I knew I was not to discuss it, and so I didn’t, although I wanted to. Badly.

Then he lowered his face to mine, a face that was still magnificently human and handsome, although in bad need of a shave. His breath was hot on my neck, my ears, through my hair. He was touching me with his lips or tongue, I didn’t know which, nor did I care. I only knew I had not felt this good in a long, long time.

Then the alarm went off, and I could have cried.

A hell of a dream, I thought. I think you might like the big guy.

Ya think?

The question was: what did I do about it? I didn’t know. Even though I knew in my heart my marriage was over, I still felt guilty for having feelings for another man.

You shouldn’t. Your husband is long gone. You can’t keep living like this, and nor can he.

But the moment I quit living like this—the moment my husband and I officially separated—would be the moment my kids are taken away from me, and I can’t have that.

I can’t have that.

So quit thinking about Kingsley.

Easier said than done.

It was late, and I was restless and I couldn’t for the life of me keep Kingsley out of my thoughts. Damn him. What right did he have kissing a lonely and hurting woman? What right did he have of putting me through this?

I nearly laughed. It had, of course, been just a dream.

37.

“You home?” I asked.

“Of course I’m home,” said Kingsley, “it’s two-thirty in the goddamn morning.”

“Don’t sound so dramatic.”

“Dramatic? If anything I sound tired.”

“I’m coming over. Where do you live?”

There was a long pause. I wondered if Kingsley had fallen back to sleep. Then a thought occurred to me, maybe he had a woman with him. If so, I didn’t care. I wanted to talk, and not with a mortal. Either way, last night had been the full moon, so tonight Kingsley should be his old self.

“Okay,” he said, and gave me directions. “Oh, and remind me when you get here that there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“That makes two of us.”

Kingsley lived in Yorba Linda, just a few cities over. At a quarter to three, I drove east down Bastanchury Blvd. The night was still and quiet. To my left were empty rolling hills. Beyond was the county dump, well hidden from curious eyes and sensitive noses.

Here on Bastanchury was some of the best Orange County had to offer. Beautiful homes slightly removed from the hustle and bustle of the county.

I turned left into a long driveway, drove through a tangle of shrubbery along a crushed seashell drive. The seashell drive, reflecting the near full moon, was as bright as a yellow brick road to my eyes. The driveway continued for perhaps an eighth of a mile, until it curved before a massive estate house.

I parked in front of the portico, and briefly admired the huge structure. It was a Colonial revival, complete with two flanker structures on either end. Nearly the entire facade was covered in dark clapboard, and the windows were enclosed with paneled shutters. All in all, a fitting home for a werewolf.

Shortly after I rang the bell, a porch light turned on and a very tall and dour man appeared at the door, who looked down at me from a hawkish nose. He was frowning. Probably wasn’t in his job description to be receiving guests at 3:00 a.m. There was something disjointed and odd about the man. It took me a second to realize what it was. One ear was clearly larger than the other.

“This way,” he said. “Master Kingsley is waiting in the conservatory.”

“With Professor Plum and the candlestick?” I asked.

Big Ear was not amused.

38.

Kingsley was lounging on a leather sofa with a drink in hand.

He looked like hell: scruffy beard, hair in disarray, serious bags under his eyes.

“Um, you look good,” I said.

“Like hell I do.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

The conservatory was octagon-shaped and faced the expansive backyard which spread out into the hills beyond like a vast estate. Through the French window, I could make out an alabaster fountain gurgling away, depicting a naked nymph blowing water through her cupped hands. The sculptor went a little crazy with her breasts. Men and breasts. Sheesh.

“Would you like a drink?” Kingsley asked.

“Sure. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

Kingsley motioned to his butler. A moment later, a drink appeared before me.

“Thank you, Jeeves,” I said.

Kingsley grinned. “His name is Franklin.”

“Franklin the butler?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t have quite the same ring.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Kingsley said, “but he’s a good butler, and can pour a hell of a drink.”

“It’s true,” said Franklin. “I almost never spill.” His enunciation was clear and precise with a slightly lilting accent that could have been English. When he spoke, his face appeared completely still, as if the muscles were inert, or deactivated. I couldn’t help but notice an ugly scar that ran along his chin and extended back to his hairline, as if Franklin had at one time or another lost his entire head.

Kingsley said, “Thank you, Franklin. That will be all. Sorry to rouse you out of your sleep in the dead of night.”

“I am made to serve.”

“And you do it so well. Off you go. Good night.”

Franklin the Butler nodded and left. Curious, I watched him go. His strides were long and loping, as if his legs were disproportionate to his body.

“Franklin is an interesting fellow,” I said when he was gone.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Must have survived a hell of an accident, scarred like that.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Where did you find him?”

“He was recommended by a friend.”

I sipped the alcohol. It had no flavor at all, and no effect. The ice rattled in the tumbler.

“What do you know of vampire shape-shifting?” I asked suddenly.

Kingsley blinked, then thought about it. “Not a whole hell of a lot, I’m afraid. Why?”

“It’s been coming up lately.”

“I see.”

“So, can vampires turn into, you know, things?”

He laughed, “They can indeed turn into...things.”

My heart slammed in my chest. “What sort of things?” I asked.

“You really don’t know, do you?”

“Would I be asking if I did?”

“And you’ve never tried shape-changing?”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“You could always try jumping off a tree branch and see what happens.”

“And think like a fruit bat?”

“Is that the gay bat?”

“You’re not helping.”

“That’s just it. I don’t know how to help. My own transformation sort of takes place uninvitingly.”

“I understand. So back to the question: what sort of things can vampires turn into?”

“Vampires turn into...something big and black.” He paused and grimaced as if he had just bitten into something sour. “Something ugly and hideous. Something with massive leathery wings. A sort of hybrid between man and bat.”

“You’ve seen one?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“And?”

“And that’s all I know.”

“Who was the vampire?”

“I’d rather not discuss it right now.”

“Why?”

He inhaled. His handsome face was mostly hidden in shadows, although that posed little problems for me. I could see the fine lines of his nose and jaw.

“Because he killed my wife.”

I breathed. “I’m sorry, Kingsley.”

“Hey, it’s in the past.”

“I ask too many questions. It’s the investigator in me. I don’t know how to turn it off sometimes.”

“You didn’t know.”

I wanted to ask him more about his wife. Why was she killed? Was she a werewolf, too? If not, then how did they make their marriage work? How long had they been married? And kids? Moreover, who was this vampire? But I held my tongue, which was something I didn’t do well. Therefore, I found myself thinking of flying around the city of Fullerton like a super-sized bat out of hell. The image was too crazy. I mean, I’m a mother of two. I went to a PTA meeting last week. I washed twelve loads of laundry over the weekend. Real people don’t turn into giant bats, right?

“So basically,” I said after a suitable time, “I turn into a monster.”

He eased off the sofa and headed to the bar. He poured himself another drink.

“You’re not the only one,” he said. “Once a month Franklin keeps me locked up in a special room where I won’t hurt myself or others.” He swirled the contents of his glass. Some of the contents splashed over the rim. He didn’t seem to notice or care. “Only monsters need to be locked up.”

“But you have taken measures to control the monster within you. In my book, that makes you very much not a monster”

“By practicing safe-transformation?” he asked.

I laughed. “Precisely.”

As he sat, I noticed a particularly thick tuft of hair at the back of his hand. The hair hadn’t been there a few days before. I slipped out of my chair and to his side. I took his hand in my own and ran my fingers through the fur.

“Just what are you doing?” he asked. He didn’t move. I could feel his pulse in his wrist. His pulse was quickening. I pulled on the fur.

“It’s real,” I said.

“Of course it’s real.”

“You really are a werewolf.”

“Yes.”

“Can I call you Wolfy?

“No.”

A glint of amber reflected in his irises. I could have been looking into the eyes of a wolf staring back at me from the deep shadows of a dark forest.

The forest. My dream. His hot breath. His hotter lips.

I looked away. God, his stare was hypnotic. No wonder he won so many court cases. What juror could resist those eyes? I noticed then that the couch had a light sprinkling of what appeared to be dog hair. The hair was now on my clothing.

“You’re shedding,” I said.

“Yes, I tend to do that.”

“How old are you Kingsley?”

“You will not be denied tonight, will you, Samantha?”

I shrugged. “Perhaps by understanding more about you, I can understand more about me, about who I am and where I’m going.”

“Fine,” he said. “I’m seventy-nine.”

“Is that in dog years?”

“I’m going to bed,” he said.

“Wait. What did you need to talk to me about?”

He nodded solemnly. “There’s someone looking for you, Samantha.”

“Who?”

“A vampire hunter.”

“A...what?”

“A vampire hunter, and he wants you dead.”

I choked on my drink. “Why?”

“Because you’re a vampire and killing vampires is what he does.”

“How does he kill vampires?”

“A crossbow, I think. Apparently arrow bolts have the same affect on vampires as stakes.”

“When did you find this out?”

“Tonight.”

“How did you find out?”

“I’m privy to such information. Through associates. From others like me.”

“Werewolves.”

“Yes.”

I thought about that, and then told him about the man from the other night with the night-vision goggles. Kingsley shrugged.

“It could have been him. Perhaps he’s been following you.”

“No one’s been following me.”

“How do you know?”

“I watch for tails. It’s a habit of mine.”

“A good habit,” he agreed.

“Speaking of tails—”

“I’m going to bed,” he said again.

“Wait. What do you propose I do about this vampire hunter?” I asked.

“Kill or be killed. That’s where I come in. Let me help you get rid of this guy.”

“No,” I said. “I’m a big girl and this is my problem.”

“He’s a trained killer.”

“And I’ve been trained to protect myself.”

He didn’t like it, but said no more. We sat together on the couch, our shoulders touching.

“Why are you with him, Samantha?”

I knew who he was talking about. Danny. “It’s none of your business why.”

“Yes,” he said, “it is.”

“How so?”

“Because I think I’m falling in love with you.”

39.

It was late.

The kids were with my sister, and I was alone in a parking lot, hidden behind some bushes and beneath an overhanging willow. The digital clock on the car radio read 11:22 p.m. Too late for an attorney and his secretary to be working cases.

The engine was off, and the windows were cracked open. Even vampires need to breathe. Actually, I wondered about that. I held my breath, timing myself. A minute passed. Two minutes. Three. Four. Five. I let out my breath. Well, hell. You learn something new everyday.

Just what dark voodoo was keeping me alive then? Didn’t my brain and blood need oxygen, too? Maybe I just didn’t need as much, and the only reason I seemed to breathe on a regular basis was that my automatic nervous system didn’t know enough to shut off. I felt my heart. It was beating, very slowly. I timed the beating. Ten beats a minute. Ah, hell. I should be dead a hundred times over.

But I wasn’t. I was very much alive. But how, dammit?

Maybe it was better not to think about it.

I was alive. Perhaps I should have died six years ago, but I didn’t. Something kept me alive, and for that I was thankful. Now, not only could I watch my kids grow up but I would probably outlive my grandchildren and their children’s children.

Jesus.

I ask again: what the hell kind of dark magic is keeping me alive?

Danny’s firm is a small firm. He owned it with a partner, where it occupied the entire second floor of a very plain professional building. Danny specialized in auto accidents. A classic ambulance chaser. He made good money at it, but sold his soul.

I used to give him crap about it long ago, until I realized he actually enjoyed the work. He enjoyed sticking it to the insurance companies. Now he enjoyed sticking it to his secretary.

The night was cool. Trees above me swished gently. The partial moon appeared and disappeared through a smattering of clouds.

There seemed to be a hint of light coming from one of the building’s upstairs windows, but it was difficult to tell as the blinds were shut. I sipped from a water bottle. The water was lukewarm. I discovered that I liked lukewarm water, which was a refreshing change from the nightly dosage of chilled hemoglobin.

I thought of the vampire hunter. For the past few days I had been watching my tail, and was confident no one was following me.

Staking out anyone—even your husband—can be boring work. I held up my hand and studied it. My skin was white, almost translucent. Purple veins crisscrossed the back of my hand. My nails were thick and hard. Like my hair, they tended to grow slowly. I touched the center of my palm with my left index finger. The sensation sent a slight shiver up my right arm. Flesh and bone. I was three dimensional. I could feel. I could laugh. I could love my kids.

So why couldn’t I die? And what gave me my unnatural strength?

I turned the rearview mirror my direction.

There was nothing in the mirror. Nothing at all, save for an image of the driver’s seat headrest. My clothing moved as if occupied by the Invisible Woman. Fairly disconcerting. It was as if the mirror refused to acknowledge my existence. I turned it away in disgust.

“Well, I’m here, dammit,” I said to the mirror. “Whether you like it or not.”

Or perhaps I was saying this to Danny. Or the world.

So a creature called a vampire had attacked me one night. It tainted my blood with his. Because of that taint I was forever and irrevocably changed.

It had to do with the blood. I thought of blood now. It was the lifesource. Without it, we die. Well, without a lot of other stuff we die, too. Without your head you die. Without your heart you die.

How could something in my blood change me forever?

Blood connected everything, flowed through everything. Blood infused throughout the entire body.

The blood, I realized, was the key. My blood, my tainted blood, was keeping my body unnaturally alive—and would, apparently, keep it unnaturally alive for all eternity.

My God, I thought.

And then I wondered: was I still a child of God. Or was I rendered into something evil?

I didn’t feel evil.

The street was quiet, but not empty. Across the street, the door to my husband’s building opened. Two figures emerged. One of them was my husband and the other was a woman. I didn’t recognize the woman. He had mentioned acquiring a new secretary a few months back. I hadn’t met her. This girl was tall and angular, with straight, blond hair. She wore a very tight white skirt.

They walked together into the adjoining parking lot. He led her to a little red convertible with its top down. At her door my husband put his arms around her waist and gave her a very long, and very deep kiss. They held that position for well over a half a minute. Then she disentangled herself from him, got in the car and drove away. He watched her leave, then turned toward me, and I held my breath. For one brief second I thought he might have been looking at me. Then he turned away, reached for his keys in his pocket, got into his Escalade and left. To drive home to his wife and kids.

Numb, I stayed where I was, the engine off. I was surprised to discover that my hand had unconsciously reached inside my jacket for a gun that wasn’t there.

40.

Danny and I were lying in bed together.

He was under the covers and I was on top of them. As usual. He was naked and I was completely clothed. As usual. Heat from his recently-showered body emanated from his skin. He had removed the scent of her. What a guy. In the dark, I could see his pale shoulders clearly. I could also see that he was looking away from me, eyes open and staring up.

I rolled from my side onto my back, staring up at the ceiling along with him. The ceiling crackled and swirled with the secret particles of light that only I could see.

“I saw you with her tonight,” I said.

“I know.”

“You haven’t kissed me like that in a long time.”

He said nothing. The particles of light seemed to react to the tension around us, swirling faster, agitated.

I said, “You knew I was there and you kissed her in front of me anyway?”

“I saw you immediately when we stepped outside.”

“So you gave her a particularly long kiss.”

“Yes.”

“Why even bother coming home?”

“My kids are here.”

My voice started shaking, and I could not hide the fear and the hate. I wanted to rise up and pound his goddamn chest, make him hurt as much as he was hurting me.

“Do you love her?”

“I think so. Yes.”

“Do you love me?”

“I don’t know. I used to.” He paused. “I do not think I can love what you have become. I’ve tried. I honestly tried. But....”

“I repulse you.”

“Yes,” he said. “You sicken me and scare the hell out of me, and when I touch you it’s all I can do to not gag.”

“Words every wife wants to hear.”

“I’m sorry, Sam. I really am. I’m sorry that you were attacked. I’m sorry it has come to this. But a marriage is between a man and a woman.”

“I am not a woman?”

“I don’t know what the hell you are. A fucking vampire, I suppose. And what is that?”

“I’m still the same person.”

“No, you’re not. You drink blood in the garage like a ghoul. I have nightmares about you. I dream that you attack me in the middle of the night, that you attack our children—that you just lose it and slaughter us all.”

I was crying now. Sobbing and crying and completely out of control. This was my worst fear, and it had come to pass. The love of my life was leaving me, and I didn’t blame him for one second.

He ignored my crying. In fact, he turned his back to me.

And then I lost it. Just lost it.

In a blink of an eye I was on top of him. Both hands snaked down around his throat, faster than any cobra, faster than he could defend himself. I pinned him to the bed. “You fucking take my kids and I will kill you, you son-of-a bitch. Do you understand? I will hunt you down and kill you and tear you into fucking shreds.”

My voice was hysterical, shrieking, piercing. I saw my hands around his muscular neck—my narrow, pale, strong hands. His own were struggling with mine, trying desperately to pry me loose, but no luck. I didn’t know if he was getting any air, and I suddenly didn’t care. He kicked and convulsed, and still I strangled him, still I cursed and screamed at him. Now my arms shook with the effort. One more second, one more pound of pressure per square inch, and I would have killed him, and I would have enjoyed it. At least, in that moment.

Then I released my hold and he rolled off the bed, falling, coughing and gagging and spitting up. His body wrenched with the effort to breathe.

My heart was racing. “Don’t you ever take my kids away, Danny,” I whispered. “Ever.”

41.

Danny was sitting up against the headboard, his knees drawn up against his chest. A sort of guy version of the fetal position. He was watching me with wary eyes. Who would blame him?

Although the room was dark, I could see the red welts around his neck. He had regained his breath and I had calmed considerably. The fury that overcame me had nothing to do with the vampire in me, and everything to do with the mother in me.

“I have given strict instruction to my attorney to release sealed information concerning your...disease,” he said. His voice was ragged and torn, as if he were speaking through a very old microphone. Or a very damaged throat. “That is, should anything suspicious happen to me.”

“What do you mean?” I was sitting on the edge of the bed. A sick realization came over me. Danny, despite my threats of bodily harm, would have the upper hand in this situation.

“I’ve completely detailed everything about your vampirism. Everything. From your attack six years ago to your account with the butchery in Norco.”

“No one will believe it. They’ll think you’re crazy.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“What does that mean, Danny?”

“I’ve included in the packet two additional items. A video of me holding a mirror up to you while you slept, and a vial of your own tainted blood.”

“Are you insane?” I asked.

“Maybe. But I want the kids, and I want them safe, and I want you to stay away and keep your filthy hands off me—and them.”

We were silent again as I absorbed all of this. I was stuck. Whether or not anyone believed his story or bothered to test the vial of blood was debatable, but one I could not chance. I had known early on that I could never, ever risk being exposed.

“What about the kids?” I asked.

He took a deep breath and drew his knees up higher. “I’m taking the kids, Samantha.”

I needed a clear mind for this. He was leaving, that much I understood, that much I could try to deal with. But to take the kids....

When I spoke again, I was the voice of reason and calm. “Danny, baby, listen to me. We’ve lived like this for six years. I’ve given them nothing but love. I would never harm anyone, not a living soul, especially not my kids. They need their mother.”

He snorted. “After what just happened? My God, Sam, I thought you were going to kill me.”

“I was furious, Danny. You’ve been cheating on me. Hell, you practically flaunted it in my face. Anyone woman—any mother—would have reacted the same way.” I paused. He rubbed his neck and winced. “They need their mother, Danny.”

“I agree, which is why I will allow you to see them every other weekend. Supervised.” He inhaled deeply, raggedly. He knew what he was doing to me, he knew he was killing me, but he continued on. “Don’t fight me on this either, Sam. Don’t make me expose you for the monster that you are, because I will. I will do it to save the kids.”

“Danny, please.”

“I’m sorry. I truly am. You never deserved this to happen to you, and you never asked for it. Neither did I. Neither did the kids. But I am determined to keep them safe. I stuck it out this long, Sam. I did it for the kids. I think they’re both old enough now to understand that mommy and daddy’s relationship isn’t so good anymore.”

In a flash of rare compassion, he reached out and took my hand. I noticed he didn’t recoil in horror, or hold it limply. He held it firmly and compassionately. “This is for the best, Sam. Now you can live...your life, however you need to live it. You don’t have to worry about picking the kids up from school anymore, or about going to parent/ teacher conferences, or about staying up with the kids during the day if one is sick. You can be free to be who you are, to be what you are, whatever that is....”

He kept talking, but I wasn’t sure if I was listening. I could only think of my children growing up without their mother. I could only think of not seeing their faces everyday. Worse, I realized there was nothing I could do short of kidnapping them, and I would never do that because what kind of life would that be? Danny continued talking, extolling the virtues of being on my own, unhindered by the kids and the daily grind of being a mother; he continued stroking my hand, and I knew that my kids were lost to me. Every other weekend seemed an eternity. Suddenly, the daily grind of being a mother never looked better, and every time I tried to state my case the words failed me, because, in my heart, I knew he was right.

I am a monster. I am unnatural. They deserve better.

Bullshit. I’m their mother.

No matter what.

I had always known this day was coming. I had fought against it so hard. I had tried to do everything right and it still wasn’t enough.

“If I promise not to fight you, if I promise to give you the kids to raise with whomever you choose, can I ask you one favor?”

He said nothing. Lying next to me, I could almost see him biting his lower lip, as he always did when in deep thought. This hesitation coming from a man who once proposed to me in a hot air balloon even though he had been terrified of heights.

“Please, Danny, just one favor.”

“Maybe.”

“That I see them every weekend, unsupervised.”

He thought about it long and hard. He let out a long stream of breath. “Okay, Sam, every weekend. But I’m afraid I must insist the meeting be supervised.”

“Thank you, Danny,” I said quietly, my voice full of emotion and pain, unrecognizable even to my own ears. “When will the three of you be leaving?”

And the moment I uttered those words, I realized my mistake. They weren’t going anywhere.

“We are not leaving, Sam. You are leaving, and I want you out by tomorrow night.”

42.

In the late evening, I was standing on the ninth floor balcony of the Embassy Suites Hotel in Brea.

It had been a rough day. My sister had come over to help me move, although there wasn’t really much to move. Mostly she was there for moral support. Danny was there, too, but he wasn’t there for moral support. Instead, he watched over me like a prison warden.

Since it was my last day with the children, I had let them stay home from school. Earlier, I tried explaining to them why mommy was going away. I told them it wasn’t their fault, that mommy and daddy could not live together anymore, that mommy and daddy still loved each other but not in that special way. They both cried. So did I.

At the hotel, Mary Lou helped me unpack, even the packets of chilled blood, which we stored in the suite’s mini-refrigerator. I caught her studying one of the packets. Her face, I noted, had turned white. To her credit, she didn’t say anything about the blood, and I silently thanked her for that.

We sat together on my bed and she rubbed my neck and shoulders and gently stroked my hair. Her touch, her warmth, her compassion gave me strength. She didn’t think I should be alone and wanted to stay the night with me. I thanked her and told her I wanted to be alone. She didn’t like it, but relented, and when she was gone I found myself alone—really alone—for the first time in years.

The suite had a small balcony with two canvas folding chairs and a circular table. I opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony, and was immediately blasted by cold wind. The city was so breath-takingly beautiful from up here. Twinkling lights spread in all directions, as far as the eye could see.

In one swift motion, I pulled myself up onto the balcony’s wall and hung my feet hung over the ledge. I kicked my feet absently like a kid hanging from a swing.

Cars sped by on the little street that separated the hotel from the nearby mall. Its various parking lots were jammed with cars. Malls and Orange County sort of went hand-in-hand.

I was hungry and, at the same time, sick to my stomach. Sometimes those two went hand-in-hand, as well.

Wind pulled and tugged at me, moaning softly over my ears. It was just after 8:00 p.m. It had been a hell of a shitty day, and I hadn’t slept a wink.

The attack six years ago had cost me so much. It had cost me my job, my sunny days, my home, my husband, my kids and my life.

I watched people entering and leaving the big mall, eager to spend their hard earned money at over-priced stores. Even from nine stories up, I could make out details of clothing and facial expressions. Most appeared to be in relatively good moods. Just living the American dream. Nothing better than spending an evening at the mall with the family. Shopping for nice things in nice stores with nice-looking kids. One person, returning a JCPenny bag, didn’t look so happy.

Like a hawk watching field mice, I watched it all from above, sitting on the ledge, feeling increasingly separated from the human race.

I stood suddenly, pulling my feet up, balancing easily on the wide ledge. The wind seemed to pick up, but not enough to threaten to knock me off.

I looked down at the narrow street below, at the bustling mall, the streaming cars, the distant city lights. Sounds and smells came at me, too. The occasional, echoing honk of a car horn in an enclosed parking garage. The murmur of voices. The murmur of children’s voices.

I took a deep, worthless, shuddering breath.

I had nothing to lose, really. My kids had been torn from my life. Hell, my life had been torn from my life.

The ground was far, far below. Nine stories up looks like a hundred and fifty stories up, especially if you are thinking of jumping. And I was thinking of jumping.

I closed my eyes, then leaped off the balcony.

43.

Time seemed to slow.

I arched up and out into the night and stretched my arms to either side. I lifted my face to the stars and felt the wind in my hair and experienced a profound and uncommon silence, as if all noise in the world had suddenly been muted. Slowly, I tilted down into a natural dive.

And then I plummeted.

Only then was I aware that perhaps I should have ditched the clothing. I didn’t want to be a bat trapped in a cardigan sweater.

By all rights I should die in the next few moments. No one should be able to survive such a fall, perhaps not even a vampire.

A flash of yellow light erupted in my head. And within that light was an image of something black. Something with wings. Something large and alien and frightening.

And then the image disappeared.

The world began to accelerate. The floors to the hotel swept past me. Some of the curtained windows were open. One man dressed only in his tighty-whitties turned suddenly, as if he had seen something in his peripheral vision. He had—a falling woman. But I had swept past him before he could complete his full turn.

The image of the winged creature reappeared, but this time taking on greater detail. It was vaguely humanoid with great leathery wings. I felt an immediate and powerful affinity for the creature.

A sliver of sidewalk, once only a silver thread from high above, now rapidly grew into a very real sidewalk. A very real cement sidewalk. Picking up speed, I past a few more floors. Unfortunately for me, the hotel was running out of floors.

I spasmed suddenly.

The ground rose rapidly to greet me.

I had only seconds.

My clothing burst from my body. A huge set of thickly-membraned wings flapped from my arms and legs like a failed parachute.

The ground was upon me.

I changed position, altered my body.

The flapping skin, stretching from my wrists to somewhere around my mid-thigh, caught the wind and snapped taut. My arms shuddered and I held them firm and veered over the sidewalk with just a few feet to spare. I swept up, instinctively knowing just what I had to do.

My right hip slammed into a No Parking sign.

I lost control, tumbled through the air. And as if some ancient memory of flight had been re-born within me, I somehow regained control and righted myself, and flew low and fast over the mall parking lot, skimming over the roofs of a few dozen gleaming SUVs. I lifted my head and gained some altitude, and very quickly I was above the mall.

I was flying.

Flying.

Born from an innate knowledge I didn’t comprehend or question, I skillfully flapped my wings and propelled myself up into the night sky.

44.

I was dreaming, of course.

I had to be. I mean, this really couldn’t be happening to me, right?

Any minute now I was going to wake up and discover that I wasn’t flying five hundred feet above the city of Brea. That I was back in my hotel room, alone, and miserable.

Dream or no dream, I might as well enjoy the ride.

A blast of wind hit me. I lost control and fumbled through the air. I panicked, until my on-board navigational system kicked in again and I adjusted my wings and lowered my shoulder and smoothed out the ride.

As I flew, and as my panicked breathing returned to normal, I looked over to my right arm. Make that wing. The arm appendage was thin and black and deeply corrugated with hard muscle. A thick membrane of leathery skin was attached to my wrist and ran down below my waist.

Below was Randolph Street. I followed it for a few minutes before lowering my right arm, raising my left, and making an arcing turn to starboard. The ability to turn came naturally to me, as if I had been doing this all my life.

Brea was bustling at this hour; it was still early evening, the streets crowded with vehicles. I flew over a section called Downtown Brea, alive with hundreds of people, all moving purposefully from one shop to another. The sky was cloudless, just a smattering of stars. Against this backdrop, my black skin would have been almost invisible to the human eye. Surprisingly, southern California was ideal vampire country.

I decided to experiment.

But first I wanted to see what the hell I looked like. I found a suitable office structure made entirely of glass. I swept past the second floor in hopes of seeing my reflection—and was dismayed to see nothing at all. Same old story.

I swept back up into the sky, flapping hard, gaining elevation. The motion was already fluid and effortless for me. I continued climbing and suddenly wondered how high I dared to go. Already I was many hundreds of feet above the city.

So I continued up, climbing higher and higher.

The sky darkened. The city lights diminished. The wind and cold increased. I felt I could continue forever, tirelessly, across time and space, to other worlds, other stars, other universes. I felt free and alive and for a first time in a long, long time, I did not curse my fate.

I finally stopped ascending and hovered, stretching my arms out, soaring on the currents of space. Orange County shimmered far below. Far off I could see LA and Long Beach. To the south the great black expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

The wind was powerful and relentless. I rocked and absorbed the punishment, battered about like a demon kite. A demon kite with no strings. In this form I knew I could travel the earth. Travel anywhere and everywhere.

I had lost my kids on this day—but gained unlimited freedom. In more ways than one.

I tucked in my wings, the membranes collapsing in upon themselves like twin Geisha fans. I rocketed down like a blood-sucking meteorite. The city lights rapidly approached. Adrenalin rushed through my blood stream. I found myself screaming with delight; or, rather, screeching with delight. Wind pummeled me. I shook and vibrated and kept my eyes barely above a squint. Natural folds along my cheekbones and brow ridges did wonders to keep my vision clear.

Downtown Brea came back into view, seemingly rising up to meet me. The details of the busy street came rapidly into view, and only at the last possible second did I pull up, lifting my head and opening my arms. The sheer gravitational force on me should have been enough to rip my leathery wings from my arms, but they didn’t rip. Instead, they performed wonderfully and I swept down the middle of the crowded street, barely above the roofs of the many SUVs and minivans.

People saw me. Many people. They pointed and turned and spilled their drinks and ice creams. But I was already gone, turning hard to port and disappearing down a side street.

The side street led back to the hotel, where I carefully settled on my balcony. At least, what I hoped was my balcony. I was breathing hard. Apparently, I did need oxygen.

My arms were still long, slender and black. The flying membranes, attached to each side of my body, hung behind me like twin capes. As I stood there on my balcony, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do next, a vague image of me as a human appeared in my mind.

I opened my eyes and looked at my arms. They were aglow with pink flesh. I looked down and was not surprised to see that I was entirely naked.

I was back.

45.

I flew tonight.

I was typing on my laptop, one of the few possessions, outside of clothing and makeup, that I had brought with me. The hotel provided wireless connections, which was one of the reasons I had picked it. That, and because it had nine floors. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I was planning on making my leap, and the taller the hotel the better.

You did!? came Fang’s immediate response.

Yes!

You figured this out on your own?

Yes.

But how?

I told him the sequence of events leading up to my decision to leap from my balcony. Or, rather, my impulse to leap from the balcony.

I am sorry about your marriage, Moon Dance. Maybe someday you can marry me. I promise to be accepting.

I’m not in the mood for jokes, Fang.

No joke.

Then I’m not in the mood to be propositioned.

Sorry. He paused, then typed: What was it like, flying?

Heavenly. Rapturous. Nothing like it in the world. I will definitely be doing that again.

What exactly did you turn into?

Something scary. Something nightmarish.

But you were still you, right? You could think, feel?

Yes, I never left. It was still me, just in the skin of something horrific.

Describe it.

I did, as best as I could. I told Fang that there was really very little of me I could see, other than the image I had in my mind. The image was scary enough.

What am I? I asked him when I was through.

You are a vampire, Moon Dance.

But am I even one of God’s creatures? Am I something evil? Am I even truly alive?

Do you feel alive?

Yes.

Do you feel evil?

I thought about that. I feel like such an aberration, a mistake. Something forgotten. Something to be ignored. Something to fear.

Moon Dance?

Yes?

We all feel that way. You are just different. He paused. Do you believe in a Creator?

I paused, then wrote: I don’t know. I believe in something.

Well, do you think that Something has suddenly decided to ignore you because you were attacked and changed into something different against your own free will?

I don’t know, Fang.

There was a long pause. I don’t. I don’t think a god of creation has suddenly decided to ignore you, Moon Dance. I think, in fact, you have been granted a rare opportunity to do things some people have never thought possible, to express yourself in ways that many people will never, ever experience. You could choose to see this as an opportunity or as a curse. Do you choose to see the good or the bad?

So there is good in me?

More good than most.

So I have not been forgotten?

Who could forget you, Moon Dance?

Thank you, Fang. Thank you for always being here for me.

Always. And Moon Dance?

Yes?

Take care of yourself. There are people out there who love you. A long pause. I waited. And I am one of them.

Thank you, Fang, that means a lot. Goodnight.

Goodnight, Moon Dance.

46.

On a Thursday night just a little past 9:30 p.m., Detective Sherbet picked me up outside the Embassy Suites. A light rain had been falling and I hadn’t bothered with an umbrella.

“Trash night,” he said when I slid in next to him. Sherbet was driving a big Ford truck with tinted windows. “Hey, you’re all wet.”

“I enjoy the rain.”

“So enjoy the rain with an umbrella. You’re getting my leather seats all wet.”

“Get over it. It’s just a truck.”

“It’s not just a truck. It’s my baby.”

“There’s more to life than trucks.”

“Someone in a bad mood?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He grinned and pulled out into traffic. The truck had a throaty roar. The detective, I quickly discovered, drove like a mad man. He pulled into traffic with reckless abandon, confident that his truck could survive any impact. I found his driving exciting. Maybe I was a closet adrenalin junkie.

“So do you have termites or something?” he asked after a cacophony of horns had subsided behind us.

“Excuse me?”

“Is that why I’m picking you up at a hotel in Brea? Does your house have termites?”

“Oh,” I said. “Sure.”

“Speaking of Brea, did you hear about the flying creature last night?”

“No.”

“Police call centers got swamped last night. About a hundred total. Apparently something dropped out of the sky and swooped down the middle of Downtown Brea.”

“Maybe it was a bird,” I said distractedly. I didn’t feel like talking. I was missing my children, and could not fight the horrible feeling that they were forever lost to me.

“This was no bird.” He chuckled and made a right onto State College Blvd. A minute later we were waiting at a stoplight to turn left onto Imperial. Through the side window I noticed a few teenage boys gawking at the truck.

“The boys love your truck,” I said.

“They should. It’s bitchen.”

I laughed, despite myself.

Sherbet continued, “Witnesses say it was black and massive and flying almighty fast.”

“What happened to it?”

“Made a right onto Brea Blvd and was gone.”

“Did it at least use its turn signal?”

The light turned green. He gunned the truck as if he were in a drag race. He looked over at me and smiled. “You don’t seem to believe any of this.”

“No,” I said. “Do you?”

“Hard to say. A hundred witnesses is a lot of witnesses.”

“Mass hallucination?” I suggested.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe they really saw something.”

Sherbet pulled behind a long line of cars waiting for the freeway on-ramp. I had the distinct—and exciting—feeling that Sherbet would have preferred to go over the cars.

“You hungry?” he asked suddenly.

“No.”

“You sure? You look like you could eat.”

“I’m sure.”

He pulled out of the line of cars, hung a suicidal turn back onto Imperial Blvd, and headed into a nearby Wendy’s drive-thru.

“That was frightening,” I said.

“Then why are you smiling?” he asked.

“I guess I like frightening,” I said.

He ordered his food and pulled up in line. He said, “The wife tonight made a German dish called machanka. She thinks I like it. I haven’t had the heart to tell her that I quit liking it fifteen years ago.”

“You must love her.”

“With all my heart,” he said.

“Lucky her,” I said.

“Lucky me.”

He got his food. Two bacon burgers, an order of fries, and a king-sized Coke.

“That’ll kill you,” I said.

“True,” he said. “But on the flip side: no more machanka.”

Shoving fries into his mouth, he recklessly made a left into traffic, into a break of traffic that was virtually non-existant. He looked at me and grinned around the fries.

I grinned, too.

Soon, we were heading south on the 57 freeway.

47.

It was after 10:00 p.m. when we parked on a street that ran perpendicular with Horton’s massive Gothic revival.

A thin sheet of rain obscured the street. We sat in the cab of his truck with the engine and wipers off. Moving wipers attracted attention, as did an idling car. So we ate in the cold and wet. The house before us was massive and brooding. Its towering gables spiked the night sky. Hawthorne would have been pleased. The truck’s tinted glass made the world darker than it really was. I liked darker.

After a moment, Sherbet shook his head. “Who could live in something like that?” Sherbet shuddered. “Like something in a fucking Dracula movie.”

“I like it,” I said.

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just being a wise guy.”

Sherbet was still sipping on his king-sized Coke. Occasionally some of the sips turned into loud slurps. The remnants of his greasy meal were wadded into a greasy ball and shoved into the greasy bag. The strong smell of burgers and fries suffused the interior of the truck cab. My hungry stomach was doing somersaults.

Easy, girl.

“That your stomach growling?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Haven’t noticed.”

He shook his head and slurped his Coke. The street was mostly empty. Occasionally a big car would splash past, and since tomorrow was trash day, most of the residents already had their trash cans out by the curb. Rick Horton’s trash cans were nowhere to be found.

“Maybe he forgot tomorrow was trash day,” said Sherbet.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe he’s one of those procrastinators who runs out just as the trash truck pulls up, dragging their trashcans behind them, beseeching the truck drivers to wait.”

“Beseeching?” I said.

“It’s a word.”

“Just not a word you often hear from a cop with a dollop of ketchup on his chin.”

He hastily swiped at the dollop, but missed some of it. He licked his finger. “You have good eyes,” he said.

“And you have a bad aim.” I used one of the napkins to clean his chin.

The rain picked up a little. The drops were now big enough to splatter. Overhead, the weeping willows wept, bent and shuddering under the weight of the rain.

“I could use some coffee,” the detective said. “No telling when this guy is coming out with his trash.”

So we got some coffee at a nearby Burger King. Or, rather, Sherbet did. He bought me a bottled water.

“You’re a cheap date,” he commented as he mercifully decided—at the last possible second—that an incoming bus was too close to dash in front of.

“And you’re the reason fast food establishments stay in business.”

“On second thought,” he said. “I would never date someone as grouchy as you.”

“It’s been a bad week.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

He didn’t push it. We pulled back up in front of Horton’s Gothic revival. Nothing much changed. Horton still hadn’t taken out his trash, which was, at least tonight, the object of our interest.

So we waited some more. Investigators are trained to wait. We’re supposed to be good at it. Waiting sucks. The interior of the truck was filled with the soothing sound of rain ticking on glass and sheet metal. I sipped some water. Sherbet was holding his coffee with both hands. Steam rose into his face. A light film of sweat collected on his upper lip. The coffee smelled heavenly. Coffee was not on my list. Rivulets of rain cascaded down the windshield. The shining street lamps, as seen through the splattered windshield, were living prisms of light. I watched the hypnotic light show.

“What’s it like working for the feds?” Sherbet suddenly asked.

“Safe, secure. Often boring, punctuated with the occasional thrill. My days were endlessly fascinating. I loved my job.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Hard to say. I miss the camaraderie of my partners. My job now is a lonely one. When I get the chance to work with someone else I often take it.”

“Even with an old dog like me?”

I looked at him. The truck was mostly silent. I heard him breathing calmly through his nose. Could smell his aftershave. He smelled like a guy should smell. Moving shadows from the rain dribbling down the windshield reached his face. The man seemed to like me, but he was suspicious of me. Or perhaps just curious. As a homicide investigator, he had his own highly-attuned intuition, which worried me because I was obviously causing it to jangle off the hook. But I had committed no crime, other than draining a corpse of blood, which I didn’t think was a crime, although I’d never perused the penal code for such an article.

“Sure,” I said. “Even an old dog like you.”

“How reassuring.”

Through Horton’s wrought iron fence I saw a figure struggling with something bulky. The fence swung open and Horton appeared in a yellow slicker, struggling to wheel a single green trash can. The can appeared awkward to maneuver. Or perhaps Horton was just clumsy. As he deposited the can near the curb, his foot slipped out from under him, sending him straight to his back. I voted for clumsy.

Sherbet shook his head. “Smooth,” he said.

48.

“Let’s wait a few minutes,” said Sherbet after Horton had dashed inside. Horton ran like a girl.

“Doesn’t look like much of a killer,” I said.

“No,” said Sherbet. “They never do.”

The rain came down harder, pummeling the truck, scourging what appeared to be a custom paint job. Sherbet seemed to wince with each drop.

“Aren’t you a little too old to be into cars?” I asked.

“You can never be too old.”

“I think you’re too old.”

“Yeah, well how old are you?”

“I’d rather not say. Not to mention you’ve looked at my police record and already know.”

“Thirty-seven, if I recall,” he said. “A very young thirty-seven. Hell, you don’t even have a wrinkle.”

“I’m sure it will catch up to me someday,” I said, and then thought: or not. But I played along. “And before I know it, I’ll look into the mirror one day and find a road atlas staring back at me.”

He snorted. “Welcome to my world.”

We waited some more. The rain continued to pound. Some of the water collected and sluiced along the windshield in shimmering silver streaks. Sherbet and I were warm and secure in our own little microcosm of leather, plastic, wood, and empty Wendy’s bags. Here in this mini-world, I was the vampire queen, and Sherbet was my noble knight. Or perhaps my blood slave, from whom I fed.

“Your name always reminds me of ice cream,” I said. “I like your name.”

“I hate it.”

“Why?”

“Reminds me of ice cream.”

A light in Horton’s upstairs window turned off. The house was dark and silent. So was the street.

“You stay here while I procure the target’s trash,” Sherbet said. “We’re going to have to adhere to some protocol if we hope to get a search warrant out of this.”

“Lot of fancy words to basically say you’ll be the one getting wet.”

“Oh, shut up,” he said.

I grinned. “Procure away, kind sir.”

“Okay,” he said, pulling on his hood. “Here goes.”

He threw open his door and dashed off through the rain. His nylon jacket was drenched within seconds. He moved surprisingly well for an older guy. He reached Horton’s trash can, pulled open the lid, and removed two very full plastic bags. I was suddenly very much not looking forward to digging through those. He shut the lid, grabbed a bag in each hand, and hustled back to the truck. He deposited both in the bed of his truck.

“You’re dripping on the leather,” I said when he slid into the driver’s seat.

“I know,” he said, starting the truck. “It saddens the heart.”

49.

We drove until we found an empty parking garage adjacent to an ophthalmologist college. The lights inside the garage were on full force and a white security pick-up truck was parked just inside the entrance.

We pulled up beside the truck. The guard was out cold, wrapped in his jacket, hugging himself for warmth, the windows cracked for air. Sherbet rolled down his window. The sound of thumping rain was louder and more intense with the window down. The guard still hadn’t moved.

“Hey,” said Sherbet.

The man bolted upright, accidentally slamming his hand against the steering wheel. The horn went off and he jumped again, now hitting his head on the cab’s ceiling.

Sherbet turned to me. “Night of Ten Thousand Fools.”

“An Arabian farce.”

The detective leaned out the window, producing his badge from his jacket pocket. “Detective Sherbet, Fullerton PD. We need to, um, commandeer your garage for a few minutes.”

“Of course, detective.” The guard’s voice was slightly high-pitched. He was fortyish and much too small to be taken seriously as a guard. His neck was also freakishly long. “It’s the rain, you know. Knocks me out every time. My bosses found out I was sleeping again, they’d fire me.” He looked sheepish.

“Don’t worry about it, pal,” said Sherbet. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

He brightened, his job secure. “Is there maybe something I can do for you? You know, maybe help you out?”

“Sure,” said Sherbet. “Guard this entrance with your life. No one comes in.”

“You got it, detective!”

Sherbet rolled up his window and we eased into the parking structure and out of the rain.

“Commandeer the garage?” I said.

“Sounds important.”

I looked back. The guard had positioned his truck before the garage’s entrance. “Good of you to give him something to do,” I said. “But what happens if someone wants to come in?”

“Then they’ll have to deal with Flamingo Neck.”

I snorted. “Flamingo Neck? Thought he looked more like a stork.”

“Whatever.” Sherbet pulled into a slot. “You ready to dig in?”

“As ready as ever.”

The covered garage was mostly empty, save for a few desolate vehicles. These vehicles had the look of semi-permanence. Sherbet handed me a pair of latex gloves.

The bags were sodden. One of them stank of rotten dairy. I gave that one to the detective.

“Thanks,” he said.

“I’m a lady,” I said. “Ladies don’t dig through smelly trash.”

“They do when they’re on my shift.”

“Yeah, well, luckily I don’t work for you.”

“Luckily.”

With legs crossed, I hunkered down on a parking rebar. I untied the my bag and was immediately greeted with what must have been last night’s chicken teriyaki. My stomach growled noisily. My stomach seemed to have missed the memo about my new diet. My new blood diet.

No chicken teriyaki for you, my friend. Ever.

I removed the big stuff first. An empty gallon of milk that, because it was sealed, had bloated to half again its normal size. Boxes of cereal, an empty jar of peanut butter, many cardboard cases of beer. Someone liked beer. A smattering of plastic Coca-Cola bottles. I sorted through it all, leaving a careful pile to my left.

At the bottom nook was a batch of papers which proved to be torn mail, the majority of which were credit card applications. Smart man. Debt, bad.

“Nothing over here,” I said.

I looked over at the detective who was squatting down on one knee. His hands were smeared with gelatinous muck. He looked a little green, and for a homicide detective, that’s saying a lot.

“More of the same,” he said. “Nothing.”

Beyond, the security guard was pacing in the rain before his truck. Occasionally he stole glances at us.

“Same time next week?” Sherbet asked.

“Yes,” I said. “More fun.”

“And Mrs. Moon?” he said, looking down at his rancid ichor-covered latex gloves. “Next time you get the smelly bag.”

50.

Sherbet dropped me off at the hotel and suggested that I take a shower because I smelled like trash. I told him thanks. At the hotel lobby, the doorman greeted me with a small bow. I could get used to that. Then he crinkled his nose. Maybe I did need to take a shower.

Conscious of my stench, I took the elevator to the ninth floor and inserted my keycard into the lock and pushed the door open and my warning bells went off instantly.

Someone was inside.

Movement down the hall. I turned my body, narrowing it as a target, just as an arrow bolt struck me in the shoulder, slamming me hard into the open door, which in turn slammed shut. I ducked and peered through the darkness and there, standing near my open balcony, was a man. A good-looking man. Tall and slender. Silhouetted in shadows. But I could see into shadows. His spiky blond hair looked like a frayed tennis ball. He was staring at me down the length of a cocked crossbow.

I knew him. It was the UPS man.

He didn’t say anything, didn’t move. Simply stood there with his crossbow trained, sweat gleaming on his forehead. His hands were unwavering. A flask of clear liquid was at his hip. There was a cross around his neck and a strand of garlic. He adjusted his sights imperceptibly, and I realized he was searching for a clear shot at my heart. I was determined not to give him that clear shot. I looked at him from over my shoulder.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“You don’t need to know.”

“Then why are you doing this?” My breath came in short gasps. I needed to do something about the shaft in my shoulder, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the man. The strand of garlic was bullcrap. Hell, I cooked with garlic all the time. But the water on his hip—holy water, no doubt—was troubling. I hadn’t dared experiment with holy water.

“It’s nothing personal,” he said.

“The bolt in my shoulder makes it personal.”

“It was meant for your heart.”

Behind me I heard voices. Someone was getting off the elevator. The voices were mixed with drunken laughter.

Although I hadn’t taken my eyes off the hunter, I had unwittingly shifted my weight to the sound of the voices. Apparently I had exposed my heart. He saw the opening he was looking for, and fired.

I heard the twang and snap of the bolt leaping from the crossbow. I saw it coming, too. Clearly. Rotating slightly in the air. My world slowed down. Much as it had when I leaped off the balcony.

As it rotated, its metal tip gleaming off of light unseen, my hand was coming up. And just before it buried itself into my heart, I caught the damn thing in the air, snagging it just inches from my chest.

The hunter gaped at me in disbelief, then flung himself backward through the open French doors and vaulted the railing. I pushed away from the doorway, stumbled through the suite and out onto the balcony. It was still raining. I peered down over the ledge and saw a man rappelling down the facade of the building. The rope was attached to the roof above. He dropped down into some foundation brush and unhooked himself. He looked up at me briefly and then dashed off. I watched him disappear around the corner of the hotel.

Back in my suite, out of the rain, I gripped the fletched end of the arrow shaft and winced. Okay, this is going to hurt. I inhaled deeply and pulled slowly. The pain was unbearable. I gasped and stumbled into the bathroom. The mirror revealed empty clothing, animated clothing, a miracle of special effects. An arrow protruded from the blouse’s shoulder area. A thick wash of blood was spreading down from the shoulder. The sight of the bloodied disembodied clothing was surreal.

I closed my eyes, continued pulling. White flashes appeared behind my eyelids. I pulled harder, screaming now. I looked down once and saw that the metal tip was almost out. I also saw that it was bringing with it a lot of meat from my arm.

Tears streamed from my eyes and I heard myself whimpering and still I continued to pull, and finally the bolt came free, followed immediately by a great eruption of blood.

It was then that I fainted.

51.

Sometime during the night I awoke in the bathroom to find myself in a pool of my own blood. I was cold and not very shocked to see that the wound in my shoulder had healed completely. I stumbled into the bedroom and collapsed into bed.

I slept through the day and awoke at dusk. I felt like hell, groggy, disoriented. I had to remind myself where I was. I bolted upright. Shit! I had forgotten to pick up the kids!

I was just about to hop out of bed until I remembered it wasn’t my job to do so anymore. Danny’s mother picked them up now. I slumped back into bed, immediately depressed.

My daytime obligations had vanished. Perhaps that was a good thing in away, since I did not operate well during the daylight hours. And, for the first time since the kids had been taken away from me, I felt—which was immediately accompanied by a lot of guilt—a sense of freedom. No kids to pick up. No dinners to cook, no husband to attend to or worry about.

Freedom and guilt, in just that order.

I stretched languidly on the bed, reveling in the surprisingly soft mattress. Why had I not noticed how soft the mattress was? A moment passed, and then another, and then my heart sank.

I had no children to pick up from school and no one to cook for! I missed my kids—but not my husband. Knowing I repulsed him helped sever my emotional ties to him. Yes, I missed the good times with Danny. But I wouldn’t miss these past few years.

But I would see my children this weekend. It sucked, but there was nothing I could do about it now, although I vowed to get them back.

Somehow.

For now, though, there was nothing to do but lie here and hurt—and wait for true night to fall. The drapes were thick and heavy and kept out most of the setting sun. My window dressings at home were, in fact, the same heavy curtains found in hotels. Early on, right after my attack, I had wanted to board up the windows, but Danny resisted and we compromised with the heavy drapes.

I massaged my shoulder. Although it still ached, there was no evidence of a wound. Another few inches over and I would have been dead. My only saving grace had been a last-second alarm that went off in my head, a warning that told me to turn dammit.

I thought of the vampire hunter. I couldn’t have him taking potshots at me whenever he damned well felt like it. I had to do something about him, and short of killing him—which was a definite option—I just wasn’t sure what yet.

First things first. I needed to figure out how the hell he kept showing up without me spotting him. I always check for tails, a good habit for an investigator to have. So I was certain he wasn’t following me.

Of course, there are other ways to keep tabs on people, especially tabs on vehicles. In fact, at HUD, we had employed such techniques. Tracking devices.

As I waited for the sun to set, I turned on the boob tube and flipped through some news channels and a re-run or two until I came across an Angels game. I couldn’t recall the last time I watched an Angels game. I loved baseball, especially the leisurely pace of the game. I liked the quiet moments when the pitcher stepped off the mound and gathered his thoughts while the world waited. My father was a minor league pitcher in Rancho Cucamonga. He was good, but not great, which is why he never made it past single-A ball. Still, surrounded by my three older brothers, I learned to love the game at an early age.

The Angels were up 3-2. Tim Salmon had just hit a line-drive single up the middle.

Those childhood memories seemed to belong to someone else. Someone I barely recalled, yet remembered in detail. I was a different person now. The pre-attack Samantha as opposed to the post-attack Samantha were two different people. Hell, two different species.

Salmon had a nice butt. So did most baseball players.

I rubbed my shoulder again as I watched the game. So how the hell did it heal so quickly? What caused this to happen? Ancient magic? If so, was this the same magic keeping me alive? Was I even truly alive? Or was I dead and didn’t know it?

Bengie Molina, the Angel’s catcher, ripped a line drive back to the pitcher. The pitcher doubled-up Salmon at first. End of inning.

Perhaps I was nothing more than a spirit or a ghost who didn’t have enough sense to move on. But on to where? I didn’t feel dead.

It was the eighth inning, and the Angels brought in their closer, El Toro, the bull. Percival was a big man with big legs. He looked like a bull. I liked the way he squinted and curled his tongue. He looked like a gunslinger. Except this gunslinger slung baseballs. He struck out the first batter in four pitches.

Perhaps I was a plague on the earth, an abnormality that needed to be cleansed. Perhaps the world would have been better off if the vampire hunter’s arrow had hit home.

More squinting from El Toro. I heard once that Percival needed to wear glasses but he chose not to while pitching, forcing himself to focus solely and completely on the catcher’s signals, blocking out all other distractions. On his next pitch, the batter popped out to center field.

Perhaps I didn’t need to know what kept me alive. Perhaps my existence was no more a mystery than life itself. Hell, where did any of us come from? That thought comforted me.

Percival struck out the next batter and pumped his fist. It was the bottom of the eighth inning.

I was suddenly content and at peace with myself. I would have ordered room service if fresh plasma was on the menu. Instead, I sipped from a bottle of water and let the day slip into night. And when the sun finally set, when my breathing seemed unrestricted and my body fully alert, I was ready to take on the world.

Oh, and the Angels won.

With all the time on my hands, maybe I’ll catch a night game this season.

52.

I first headed over to an auto repair shop in Fullerton.

The young mechanic came out to meet me as I pulled in front of an empty service garage. He wore a light blue workshirt with the name Rick stitched on a patch over his chest.

“Sorry, we’re closing,” said Rick when I rolled down my window.

I pulled out a twenty dollar bill. “All I need for you to do is lift my van.”

“Why?”

“I want to have a look underneath.”

“You want to? Why?”

“Because this is how I spend my Friday nights. Just lift the van for a few minutes, let me have a look underneath, and the twenty is yours.”

Rick thought about, then shrugged. “Hey, whatever you say, lady,” he said and took the twenty.

He motioned me forward. I drove into the narrow space, straddling the lift. I got out and Rick manipulated some nearby controls and soon the above-ground lift was chugging into action. The van rose slowly, wheels sagging down. A few minutes later, now at eye level, I thought the minivan looked forlorn and sort of helpless, like a wild horse being airlifted from an overflowing river.

“Okay,” Rick said. “Have at it. Just don’t hurt yourself. You need a flashlight?”

“No,”

“So what are you looking for?” he asked, standing next to me.

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

The underside of the van was a mess of hoses, encased wires and steel shafts and rods. I walked slowly along the frame until I found it. Held in place by magnets and twisty-ties, the tracking device was about the size and shape of a cell phone.

“What the hell is that?” asked Rick.

“My TV remote,” I said. “Been looking everywhere for it.”

“No shit?” he said.

“No shit.”

53.

It took two nights of waiting before I saw the hunter again.

I had left the minivan parked in an alley behind a Vons grocery store. I knew the hunter would eventually investigate, and to do so he would have to physically enter the alley. A typical ambush, and I’m sure he suspected a trap. If so, he would be right. This was a trap.

I sat on top of the grocery store roof, near a huge rotating vent. My great, leathery wings were tucked in behind me. The night was warm, but the breeze cooled things down. My skin was thick and rubbery. My new hide did wonders for keeping me warm, especially in the higher altitudes. I had discovered that I could remain in this form for as long as I wished. This was a good discovery, as it was nice shedding my old skin for this new one. People should try it sometime.

The alley was dark and mostly forgotten. My minivan attracted very little interest, even from hooligans. So that’s why when the bum appeared I perked up.

In my new form, my eyesight was razor sharp and eagle-like, an obvious necessity to high-flying predators. (And thinking of myself as a high-flying predator was almost too weird to, well, think about.) The bum was pushing a shopping cart filled to overflowing with what appeared to be junk. I immediately recognized the handsome face, the rugged jaw, the striking blue eyes, and the spiky blond hair shooting out from under a dirty and warped Dodger cap.

Nice costume, asshole.

As an added touch, he even dragged his leg a little behind him. The hunter was putting on quite a show, even hunching his shoulders now Quasimodo-like. I couldn’t help but smile. At least, I think I smiled. It was hard to tell; plus, I wasn’t even sure I had lips. At any rate, I intended to smile. Anyway, his shopping cart was, in fact, filled to the brim with soda cans. I wondered if he had purchased the cart and cans from a real bum, or collected the cans himself.

Probably just stole it, I thought.

He continued slowly down the alley, his head sweeping from side to side. Unfortunately for him, he never thought to look up. About fifty feet from the van, he removed a camouflaged crossbow from inside his tattered jacket. He armed it quickly with a bolt,. And then held it out in front of him like a gun.

He approached my van very, very carefully, leaving behind his cart full of cans. He went slowly from window to window, peering inside with a flashlight. I noted he had forgotten to limp.

I stayed put and waited for my opening.

He tried the doors, discovered they were locked, then popped one open with a Slim Jim. He goofed around inside a bit. Reappearing again, frowning. He seemed a bit perplexed. If anything, I had successfully confused the bastard.

The back door to the grocery store suddenly opened, yellow light splashing out into the alley. A kid appeared, hauling a big blue trash can. The hunter, distracted, turned toward the kid.

Now!

I leaped from my perch above.

54.

I tucked in my arms and shot down.

The hunter’s back was still to me. Wind thundered in my ears. The ground came up fast. More importantly, the hunter’s broad shoulders came up fast.

At the last possible second, I spread my wings wide. The leathery hide snapped open like a parachute. The hunter turned at the sound, swinging his crossbow around, but he was too late. My outstretched talons snatched him up by the shoulders. He cried out, screaming like a school girl. The crossbow tumbled away, skittering over the ground. I beat my wings powerfully, once, twice and finally lifted him off his feet and then slowly up out of the alley. He weighed a lot. More than I was prepared for. My arms and wings were strained to the max.

He struggled, kicking, as his arms were now pinned to his sides. He kicked the air futilely. We rose slowly into the sky together. I looked down in time to see the kid running back into the store. I think he wet himself.

Up we went. I was growing stronger, getting used to the added weight. The air grew colder. The hunter should be warm enough thanks to his homeless costume, which consisted of many layers of clothing.

I looked down just as he looked up. His face had drained of all color. He looked terrified. He should be terrified. A creature from his nightmares had snatched him away and for all he knew I was going to drop him into an active volcano. Not that there were many active volcanoes in Southern California.

Orange County spread before us, its hundred of thousands of blinking lights evidence that Thomas Edison had certainly been on to something. We flew over Disneyland, which glittered like its own happy constellation. Perhaps park guests would later report seeing a parade float gone amuck.

We reached the beach cities and finally the black ocean itself. Without the city lights, we were plunged into darkness. He stiffened here, and I think he might have whimpered. No doubt he thought I was going to drop him in. I still hadn’t ruled it out.

Much later, perhaps assuming he was safe, the hunter relaxed and sagged onto my talons. He spoke to me now, his voice rising up to me along with the smell of sea salt and brine, “How is your shoulder, Samantha Moon?”

The sound of my own name startled me. That this flying creature had a name was hard to believe. I didn’t bother answering. Even to my own ears my voice was nothing more than a shriek.

He went on, “I suppose you can’t speak in your changeling form. That’s fine, I’ll do all the talking. I know you’ve had a hell of a shitty week. I saw your children get taken away from you. And probably the last thing you needed was an arrow in your shoulder. So I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m sorry.”

Apology accepted, I thought. I was nothing if not forgiving.

I continued at a steady pace, wings flapping smoothly and effortlessly, propelling us over the eternal black ocean. I adjusted endlessly to the varying wind conditions.

“I’ve never seen a vampire with a family before. You have two beautiful children. At first I thought the family was just a facade. Perhaps you were just courting these mortals for your own nefarious means. A new angle, you know, to acquire blood. So I assumed you were hideous and vile to formulate such a scheme. Until I saw that this was indeed your family. The little girl is your spitting image.”

He stopped talking, and the silence that followed was filled with the rippling of water over the ocean’s surface, and something else, something deep and unfathomable, perhaps the sound of millions upon millions of megatons of water turning and roiling and moving over the face of the earth. The ocean’s song, if you will, and it was beautiful and haunting.

The hunter told me about himself. His name was Randolf, and his brother, years ago, had been killed by a vampire. Randolf devoted his life to finding his brother’s killer, and in the process to kill every vampire he came across.

Ambitious, I thought. But problematic for me.

His search eventually led him to an old vampire living in a mansion in Fullerton. Randolf ambushed him, killing him with a bolt through the heart. In going through the old vampire’s papers, Randolf had come across my name.

He had, in effect, found the vampire who had attacked me.

Not just found him. Found him and killed him. Saved me a lot of trouble.

Randolf continued, “But he was not my brother’s killer. I still have some unfinished business.” He paused. “You are not like other vampires, Samantha. May I call you Samantha?”

I nodded; I’m not sure he saw me nod.

“In your hotel room I found packets of cow and pig blood in your refrigerator. You are not a killer. Not like the others.”

I glanced down. He was still wearing the dirty Dodger cap. His spiky blond hair trailed over his ears. His face was purple with cold.

I continued steadily out to sea. I found that distinguishing the black water from the black sky was difficult, but my innate compass kept us on a clear course, and my equally innate horizontal balance kept us from plunging into the ocean. I thought of the old joke: I just flew in from Chicago, and boy are my arms tired....

But my energy seemed limitless, even hauling a full grown man. Still, I didn’t want to fly too far out to sea; I needed to provide for enough time to safely return before the sun’s ascent.

In the far distance, on the surface of the ocean, I spied the twinkling of lights. I altered course and headed toward the lights. Randolf snorted from below. I suspected he had been dozing. A hell of a rude awakening for him, no doubt, hanging from the claws of a flying beast.

The lights turned out to be a ship. In fact, it was a cruise ship.

“You’re taking me to the ship,” he said.

Smart boy.

“I get the hint,” he said, laughing. “You want me to stay away. And thank you for not killing me.”

There was a lot of activity on the deck of the cruise ship, so I circled the control tower, and set the hunter on the roof of the cabin. Whether anyone saw a black shape descend from the sky remained to be seen.

Randolf scrambled to his feet, no worse for wear. As I hovered above, as he held down his baseball cap against the downdraft of my wings, his astonishing blue eyes caught the starlight. He really was kind of hunky—even to a creature of the night.

He called up to me, “Have a safe flight home, Samantha Moon. Oh, and any idea where I’m headed?”

I had no idea.

I circled once and headed back home.

55.

Kingsley looked far more robust and pink than when I had last seen him.

We were at Mulberry Street Cafe in downtown Fullerton, sitting next to the window. It was raining again and the sidewalk was mostly empty of pedestrians. The rain had a trickle-down effect, if you will. Mulberry’s was quieter than normal.

Kingsley was wearing a long black duster, and leather Sole gloves, which he removed upon sitting. His dark slacks were darker where the rain had permeated. His face had a rosy red hue and his hair was perfectly combed. He was clean shaven and smelled of good cologne. He was everything a man should be. Gone were the tufts of hair along the back of his hand.

Pablo the headwaiter knew me well. He looked slyly at Kingsley, perhaps recalling that my husband was usually the man sitting across from me. The waiter was discreet enough not to say anything. He took our drink orders and slipped away.

“I’m impressed,” said Kingsley, glancing out the window. “Whenever I come here they seat me in the back of beyond.”

“They happen to like me here.”

“Pretty girls get all the breaks.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

“Yeah,” said Kingsley. “I do.”

“Even for a vampire?”

“Even for a vampire.”

Our drinks came. Chardonnay for me and bourbon and water for the counselor. Kingsley ordered shrimp tortellini and I had the usual. Steak, rare.

“You can eat steak?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “But I can suck the blood out of the carcass.”

“Should make for an interesting show.”

“Yes, well, it’s the only way I can participate in the human dining experience.”

“Well, you’re not missing much, “said Kingsley. “Food nowadays is entirely processed, fattening and just plain horrible for you.”

“Does it still taste good?”

“Wonderful.”

“Asshole.”

He laughed. I drank some of my wine. Kingsley, no doubt due to his massive size, often garnered curious glances from both men and women. I think, perhaps, he was the strongest-looking man I had ever seen.

“Are we human, Kingsley?” I asked suddenly.

He had been raising his glass to his lips. It stopped about halfway. “Yes,” he said, then raised it all the way and took a sip. He added, “But are we mortals? No.”

“Then what makes us immortal? Why don’t we die like everyone else? What keeps us alive?”

“I don’t know.”

“Surely you must have a theory.”

He sighed. “Just a working hypothesis.”

“Let’s have it.”

“I think it’s safe to say that you and I hover on the brink of the natural and the supernatural. So therefore both natural and unnatural laws apply simultaneously. I believe we are both human...and perhaps something greater.”

“Sounds lofty.”

“Do you suspect we’re something less?” he asked.

I thought about that. “No. We are certainly not less.”

The waiter came by and dropped off some bread. I didn’t touch it, but Kingsley dug in. “You mind?” he asked.

“Knock yourself out,” I said. “So what are we, then? Some supernatural evolutionary hybrid?”

He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Maybe we are super humans.”

“Maybe.”

“But during the day I certainly don’t feel super. I feel horrible.”

“Because our bodies are still governed by some physical laws, along with...other laws. Mystical laws perhaps, laws unstudied and unknown to modern science.” He looked at me and shrugged. “Who put these laws into place is anyone’s guess. But they’re there nonetheless. For instance, one such law dictates I will turn into a wolf every full moon cycle; another dictates you drink only blood.”

Kingsley spread liberal amounts of honey butter over his bread. He seemed particularly ravenous. Maybe it was the animal in him.

“Perhaps we are the result of a powerful curse,” I suggested.

“Perhaps.”

“That makes sense to me, to some degree.”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure anyone really knows.”

I suspected someone out there might know something. Be it vampire, werewolf or something else, something greater perhaps.

I said, “The curse angle could be why holy water debilitates a vampire.”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

“So to sum up,” I said. “We are both natural and supernatural, abiding by laws known only to our kinds.”

“And even much of that is open to speculation. For all I know you are part of one long, drug-induced dream I’m still having in the sixties.”

Our food came. Kingsley watched me cut a slice of meat from the raw steak, swirl the slice in the splatter of blood, raise the dripping piece to my lips, and suck it dry.

“Sort of sexy,” he said. “In a ghoulish way.”

I shook my head, then told him about my adventures with the vampire hunter.

He slapped his knee when I was finished. “A Carnival cruise ship?”

“Yes, headed for Hawaii, I think.”

“Then let’s hope he stays there.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s hope, although he was kind of cute.”

“Oh, God.”

I reached down into my purse and pulled out the medallion. It was wrapped in a white handkerchief. I unwrapped it for him.

“What’s that?” Kingsley asked.

“It was worn by my attacker six years ago.”

“Your attacker?”

“The vampire who rendered me into what I am now.”

“How did you get it?”

I told him about the vampire hunter, his dead brother, and the UPS package. When I was finished, Kingsley motioned toward the medallion. “Do you mind?”

“Knock yourself out.”

He picked it up carefully, turned it over in his hand. The gold and ruby roses reflected brightly even in the muted light.

“So why did he give you this?” asked Kingsley.

“I think he was sort of feeling me out, seeing what he was up against. To him, the medallion had no meaning.”

“And to you it does?”

I told Kingsley about my dreams. I left out the part where he ravaged me in the woods.

“Those are just dreams, Samantha,” he said, studying the heavy piece, turning it over in his big hands. “I’ve never seen this before.”

“But could you look into it for me?” I asked.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Do you mind if I take it?”

“Go ahead.”

He pocketed the medallion. We continued eating. Outside, a couple sharing an umbrella stopped and examined the menu in the window. She looked at him and nodded. He shrugged. They stepped inside. Compromising at its best.

“Sometimes I think God has forgotten about me,” I said.

“I know the feeling.”

“That, in fact, I have somehow stumbled upon the loophole of life.”

“Loophole?”

“Like you being a defense attorney,” I said. “You look for an ambiguity in the law, an omission of some sort, something that allows you to evade compliance.”

He nodded, “And being a creature of the night is the ambiguity of life?”

“Yeah. I’m the omission.”

“Well, that’s certainly one way of looking at it.”

“What’s another way?”

“To make the most of the life we’re given,” he said. “To see life—even for the undead—as a great gift. Imagine the possibilities, Samantha? Imagine the good you can do? Life is precious. Even for those who exist in loopholes.”

I nodded, thinking of Fang. “Someone told me something like that recently.”

“It’s good advice,” said Kingsley. “In fact, it’s good advice for everyone.”

“So we are like everyone?”

“No,” he said, reaching across the table and taking my hand. His was so damn warm...mine must have felt like a cold, wet, limp noodle in his own. Self-conscious, I almost pulled my hand away, but he held it even tighter, and that warmed my cold, bitter heart.

He said, “No, Sam. We are not like everyone else. I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and you’re a blood-sucking fiend. Granted, a very cute, blood-sucking fiend.”

56.

On a Wednesday night I broke back into Rick Horton’s Gothic revival.

I found the same box under the same bed. The file on me now contained a photograph of my home and a picture of me getting into my van. The picture was taken with a telephoto lens from a great distance away. I studied the picture closely; I so rarely saw myself these days. My face was, of course, blurry, but my body looked strong and hard. A diet of blood will do that to you. The picture was taken during the day, and I could see the sunscreen gleaming off my lathered cheeks. My hair was hidden in a wide straw hat. I had probably been on my way to pick up the kids from school.

In another file, the same one I had seen the first time I broke in, I found a computer print-out that chronicled in excruciating detail the day in the life of Hewlett Jackson, Kingsley’s now-murdered client. The paper had notes written in the margins. One of the handwritten notes said: “Not at work. No access.” Another note said: “Not in front of his children.”

Yeah, this would do nicely.

I pocketed it and returned the box under the bed. In the backyard, with his ferocious guard dogs cowering in the bushes, I wadded up the note in my gloved hands and carefully stuffed it in an empty cereal box in Horton’s trash can.

Tomorrow was trash day.

* * *

The next night, Sherbet and I were in the same parking structure being guarded by the same rent-a-cop. The same two vehicles were in the same two parking slots. The only difference tonight was that there was no rain.

I extracted the wadded up piece of incriminating evidence from the cereal box and made a big show of it.

Sherbet took the crinkled paper from my hand and studied it closely. He then squinted at me sideways, studying me closely, suspicious as hell. I innocently showed him the cereal box where I had found the note. Finally, after some internal debate, a slow smile spread over his face.

“I think we’ve got our man,” he said.

“I do, too.”

“And you had nothing to do with this note?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, detective.”

“Let’s go,” he said. And go we did.

57.

I was leaving the hotel suite to see my children for the first time in a week when my cell phone rang. It was Sherbet.

“You did good work, Mrs. Moon.”

“What do you mean?”

“Based on the evidence in the trash can a judge granted us a search warrant. We went through the house yesterday and today we arrested Rick Horton. We found enough incriminating evidence to convict two men for murder.”

“I’m not sure that analogy makes sense.”

“It doesn’t have to. You know what I mean.” He paused. “You are a hell of a detective.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“So why don’t you sound happy?” he asked.

“I am very happy. One less killer walking our streets.”

We were silent. Sherbet took in some air. “You don’t think we got the right guy, do you?”

“I was hired to find out who shot Kingsley Fulcrum,” I said. “Did you get Horton’s phone records?”

“Of course.”

“Could you fax them to me.”

“Why?”

“Just humor me.”

There was a long pause. Static crackled over the phone line. Finally, I heard him sigh deeply. “Where do I fax them?”

I gave him the number to the courtesy fax machine at the hotel’s business center.

“How many months back do you want?” he asked.

“Four months.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “The case is closed.”

“I know,” I said. “But this detective never sleeps.”

“Well, not at night, at least. And Mrs. Moon?”

“Yes?”

“Someday we’re going to discuss the eyewitnesses that claim to have seen a man rappel down from your balcony.”

“Sure.”

“And we’re definitely going to discuss the kid who worked at Vons who reported seeing a winged creature carry off a man.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t have any idea what the fuck is going on, but we will talk again.”

“I understand,” I said. “And detective?”

“Yes?”

“You might have a better idea than you think.”

He paused, then hung up.

58.

It was the first time I had been back to my home in over a week.

The house itself sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, with a chain link fence around the front yard. Early on I had hated that ugly chain link fence and wanted it torn down. Danny argued against it stating it might prove useful. He was right. The fence kept my young children away from the street, corralled puppies and kittens, bikes and loose balls, and was perfect for stringing Christmas lights along. It was also used as a sort of giant pegboard. We attached posters, artwork and ribbons to it. Advertised their lemonade stands and the birth of any puppies or kittens. I missed that damn fence.

Last year, Danny made us get rid of our dog and cat. The kids were traumatized for months. I think Danny secretly feared I would kill our family pets and feed from them, although he never admitted his concerns to me.

Anyway, now the fence was bare and there were no children playing in the yard. No balls, and certainly no puppies or kittens. Danny’s Escalade was parked dead center of the driveway. Usually he parked to the far left half to give my minivan room on the right. He didn’t have to worry about that now.

I parked on the street, headed up to the house. The sun was still out and I felt weak as hell, but that wouldn’t stop me.

Danny yanked open the door as soon as I reached the cement porch. He stared down at me gravely. He couldn’t have seemed less happy to see me. He was as handsome as ever, but that was lost on me now. I only saw his fear and disgust.

“I only have a few minutes, Samantha. These meetings are terribly inconvenient for me.”

“Then leave,” I said.

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

He stepped in front of me. “For the protection of my children, that’s why.”

I pushed him aside and entered my house. “Where are they?”

“In their room. You have only a few minutes, Sam. The babysitter will be arriving and I am leaving on my date.”

I tried to ignore his hurtful words. Mostly, I tried to keep calm and my voice from shaking. “We had agreed on two hours, Danny.”

“Things change, Sam,” he said dismissively, and I caught the undercurrent of his words. Things change...and so do humans. Into vampires.

He led the way forward and rapped on the children’s door. “Kids,” he said stiffly. Danny never had a way with our kids. They were always treated like junior assistants, interns or paralegals. “Your mother is here. Come along.”

The bedroom door burst open. Little Anthony, with his mess of black curls, flung himself into my arms. Tammy followed a half second later. Their combined weight nearly toppled me over. Squatting, I held their squirming bodies in my arms. Anthony pulled away and I saw that he was still clutching his Game Boy. Neither hell nor high water would separate him from his Game Boy.

“When are you coming back, Mommy?” Anthony asked.

Before I could answer, Danny stepped in. “I told you, son, that your mother is not coming back. That she is sick and she needs to stay away.”

I almost dropped the kids in my haste to stand and confront Danny. “Sick? You told them I was sick?”

He pulled me away into a corner of the living room, out of range of the children. “You are sick, Samantha. Very sick. And if I had my way I would report you and have you committed—for your safety and the safety of everyone around you.”

“Danny,” I said carefully. “I am not sick. I am a person like you. I have a problem that I am dealing with. The problem does not control me. I control it.”

“Look, whatever. It’s easier for the children to accept that you are sick. I’m going to have to demand that you play along with this, Sam.”

I stared at him some more, then headed back to the kids. The three of us sat together on the edge of Tammy’s bed while they both chattered in unison. They wanted assurance that I would not die, and I guaranteed them that I would never, ever die. Danny rolled his eyes; I ignored him.

And much too soon, I was back in my minivan driving away, crying.

59.

My sister came by my hotel suite, bearing with her a bottle of merlot.

Now we were sitting on my bed, legs tucked under us, sipping from our glasses. Mary Lou was on her second glass and already buzzed. I was nowhere near being buzzed. In fact, my last buzz had been when I sucked the blood out of the gang-banger.

“So your case is over?” said Mary Lou.

“Yes, I suppose.”

“You suppose?” she asked. “It was in the paper. The police found their man. Your name wasn’t mentioned of course. Although that hunky detective had his mug on the front page. Sherbert or something.”

“Sherbet,” I corrected. “And he is kind of hunky, huh?”

She shrugged. “In a grizzly bear sort of way.”

“Sometimes that’s the best way.”

“Sometimes,” she said. “So why do you suppose?”

“I think we got the wrong guy.”

“The detective seems to think you got the right guy.”

“We’re missing something, I’m not sure what.”

“Tell me about it?,” she said, topping off her glass. “Walk me through it, maybe I can help you.”

“Perhaps you could have helped before you started on your third glass.”

“You know I’m very lucid when I drink. Give me a shot. Lay it on me.”

And so I did. Everything, from working through the files with Kingsley’s secretary, Sara, to the multiple break-ins and the subsequent arrest.

“Other than the fact I don’t agree with you tampering with evidence,” said Mary Lou, “I don’t see any holes here. Horton had the evidence, the files. He had the motive, and he even had a similar weapon registered to him.”

“I have no doubt he killed Kingsley’s client,” I said.

“You just don’t think he was the shooter who attacked your attorney.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Why?”

“For one, they don’t look alike.”

“He was wearing a disguise,” said Mary Lou, over enunciating her words, as she always did when she drank. “Anyone who’s seen the video knows that was a fake mustache.”

“Horton was clumsy,” I said. “Sherbet and I watched Horton struggle with a trash can, and then slip and fall on his ass. He was as athletic as a warthog.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The killer was athletic. Damn athletic. At one point in the video, he leaps smoothly over a bench—”

“And shoots him,” said Mary Lou. “Yeah, I remember that. I re-watched the video after you took this case. That stood out. Wow, you’re good, sis.”

I shrugged. “Still don’t know who he is.”

“Maybe it’s not a he,” said Mary Lou.

Something perked up within me. “What do you mean?”

“What about his sister? Didn’t you mention Horton had a sister?”

I nodded. “She lives in Washington state and is currently recuperating from a broken ankle she suffered a month ago. She was in no condition to shoot and jump over a bench.”

“How do you know this?” she asked.

“I’m not considered a super sleuth for nothing.”

“Do you think Horton was working alone?”

“I don’t know,” I said. My gut told me no, but I didn’t say anything.

“You going to drink that?” asked Mary Lou, motioning for my glass. I gave it to her. She poured the contents of mine into what was left of hers. “And, since I know you like the back of my hand, you won’t rest easy until you find the shooter.”

“No,” I said, “I won’t.”

“Perhaps you won’t have to wait long, especially if he has an accomplice.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were third on the hit list. Perhaps the accomplice will find you.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “And for the record, I never rest easy.”

60.

An hour after Mary Lou left the hotel phone rang.

I had been staring down at the lights of Brea, lost in my own thoughts, when the phone rang, startling me. I nearly jumped out of my pale, cold skin at the sound of the ringing phone. I answered it.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Moon?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the front desk. We have a fax waiting for you in the lobby.”

“Thank you. I’ll be down in a minute.”

With the fax in hand and back in my hotel room, I hunkered down in one of the straight-back chairs and started reading. The cover letter was printed in tight, unwavering letters. Very cop-like. No surprise since the fax was from Sherbet. In his cover letter, he reminded me that the information contained within was confidential. He also reminded me that the case was closed, that he was looking to retire soon, and the last thing he needed was for me to make his life more difficult. He signed his name with an awkward happy face: the eyes were off-set and the mouth was just a long ghoulish gash, a sort of perversion of the Wal-Mart happy face. I wondered if this was Sherbet’s first happy face. Ever.

The rest of the fax consisted of Rick Horton’s phone records spanning the last four months. Riveting reading to be sure, so I settled in with a packet of chilled hemoglobin. I flipped through the records methodically, because I am nothing if not methodical. Anyone with eternity on their side damn well better be methodical. I read each number. I looked at dates and times and locations. Most of it was meaningless, of course, but some information began to emerge. First, Rick Horton was obsessed with his sister. A half dozen calls were made to his sister in Washington state each day. Second, Horton had made a handful of calls to Kingsley’s office. In fact, eighteen calls in all. Prank calls? Or had Kingsley been in personal contact with Horton?

Next, I searched for key dates and key times and was not really surprised to discover that an hour or so before both Kingsley’s shooting and the Hewlett Jackson murder a telephone call had been placed to the same unknown number. It was a local number.

I dialed the number from my hotel phone, which should be untraceable. I waited, discovered that my heartbeat had increased. I was calling the true killer, I was sure of it. In fact, I felt more than sure. I just knew.

The line picked up.

A generic voice mail message. I hung up. Maybe I should have left a nasty little message. Then again, I didn’t want to scare the killer away, as ironic as that sounds.

Instead, I flipped open my address book and called my ex-partner, Chad Helling. He didn’t answer. Typical. I left Chad a voice mail message asking for a trace on the cell number. Once done, I stepped back to the window, pulled aside the curtain and continued staring down at the city.

61.

An hour later, still at the window, my cell rang.

The name that popped up on the LCD screen said it was Sara Benson, Kingsley’s receptionist. “Mr. Kingsley Fulcrum requests a meeting tonight at the Downtown Grill in Fullerton at ten thirty.”

“Oh, really?” I said, rolling my eyes. “And why doesn’t Mr. Kingsley Fulcrum call me himself?” I emphasized Kingsley Fulcrum. I mean, who has their secretary set up dates for them? Not only was I falling for a werewolf, I was falling for a werewolf with a massive ego.

“He’s in a meeting at the moment.”

I checked my watch. Geez, defense attorneys kept weird hours. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

“Fine,” I said. “Tell Kingsley I’ll be there.”

“I’m sure he will be pleased.”

More than likely this was a business meeting, but since this was Friday night, who knows, maybe Kingsley had something more on his mind.

As I was getting dressed for what might or might not be a date, my cell rang again.

“Funny how you only call when you need something,” said the deep voice immediately. It was Chad.

“Would you prefer I called if I didn’t need something?”

“Would be a pleasant change.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“How’s that skin disease working out for you?” he asked.

“Very well, thanks for asking.”

“Anytime,” he said. “You want the name and address for that cell number?”

“Would be nice,” I said, very aware that the name he was about to give me could very well be the shooter.

He gave me the name and address. I used the hotel stationery and pen. By the time I finished writing, my hand was shaking.

I clicked off and stared at the name.

62.

I parked in the half full parking lot. Ever the optimist.

I was wearing flats, which slapped loudly on the swath of cobblestones that led up to the rear entrance of the restaurant. The night was clear and inviting, and I had a sudden surge of hope, and love of life. I felt that all was right in the world, or would be, and for the first time I actually believed it. Hell, I almost felt sorry for people who were not vampires, who did not get to experience this side of the night. I was lonely, sure, but that could always change. Loneliness is not permanent.

The cobblestone path ended in a short alley. The alley was kept immaculately clean, for it provided convenient access to the many shops and restaurants. At the moment, the alley was empty and dark. The lights were out. Or broken. I was willing to bet broken. I had long ago lost my fear of dark alleys. My footfalls reverberated off the high walls of the surrounding businesses. I passed behind the back entrance to a used bookstore, a comic book shop, a stationary store and a pet store. The Downtown Grill was the only establishment open at this hour. Music pumped from the restaurant’s open door. Fire escapes crowded the air space above the alley like oversized cobwebs.

Sitting on the fire escape was a woman. Pointing a gun at me.

There was a flash, followed immediately by a muffled shot. Something exploded in my chest and I staggered backward. I kept my balance and looked down. Dark blood trickled from a hole in my dress. Next came two more muffled shots—and the impact of two more bullets turned me almost completely around. The bullets had been neatly placed in my stomach. Some good shooting. My red dress was ruined.

The woman walked casually down the fire escape. I saw that there was a silencer on the gun. No one would have heard the muffled shots, especially above the din of music pumping from the restaurant. The fire escape creaked under her weight.

From out of the shadows emerged Sara Benson, Kingsley’s receptionist. She paused in the alley and held the gun in both hands like a pro. Her hair was pulled back tightly, revealing every inch of her beautiful face. Her eyes were wide and lustful, and tonight she appeared particularly radiant. Her shapely legs were spaced evenly at shoulder width. A good shooting stance. Any attorney should be so lucky to have such a beautiful receptionist.

Except this receptionist had gone over the edge.

“How could you help that animal, Mrs. Moon?” she said. Her voice was even, and calculating, as if her words had been planned well in advance. I could hear again the undercurrent of rage and hatred, and now I understood fully who that anger was directed toward.

I assumed she was talking about Kingsley. “He’s not an animal,” I said. Actually, technically, she might have had a point there.

She paused, no doubt surprised that I was still speaking. Her surprise quickly turned into indignant, self-righteous rant. “Not an animal? Murderers have been set free, rapists have been let loose. The man has no conscience. He’s manipulative and horrible.”

“He’s just doing his job.”

“He does it too well.”

“Perhaps. But that’s neither for you nor I to decide. There are safeguards put into place in the law to protect the innocent. He upholds these safeguards. Not everyone in prison belongs in prison.”

She shook her head, and continued moving closer. I could see tears streaming down her face. Why the hell was she getting so emotional? Wasn’t I the one getting shot here?

“I love him,” she said. “There is something so different about him, and I wanted to be part of that. I would have done anything for him. I gave him everything in my heart, but still he left me. And now he has you.”

“Let me guess. If you can’t have him, then no one can?”

She cocked her head and fired her weapon again. My head snapped back. Blood poured down the bridge of my nose. I’ll give her this much: she was a hell of a shot. Which didn’t surprise me much, since she was also a hell of an athlete.

And able to leap small park benches in a single bound.

For a brief second, my vision doubled and then even trebled, then everything righted itself once again. Three seconds later the bullet in my head emerged and dropped into my open palm.

Let’s see Copperfield do that.

Sara stared at me in dumbfounded shock.

From the opposite end of the alley, coming up from the Commonwealth Avenue entrance, another figure appeared. A very large and burly figure. He was standing in a small pool of light from the alley opening.

“Stop!” shouted Detective Sherbet. “Drop your weapon. Now!”

But Sara didn’t drop her weapon. Instead, she swung her arm around with the gun.

I jumped forward. “Sara, don’t!”

Too late. She didn’t get all the way around. Three gunshots exploded from Sherbet’s end of the alley. His shots weren’t muffled by a silencer. The echoes cracked and thundered down the narrow corridor, assaulting the eardrums.

Sara pirouetted like a ballerina, spinning on one heel. Her gun flung off in one direction and her shoe in the other. And as the sound of Sherbet’s pistol still reverberated in the alley, Sara’s last dance was over and she collapsed.

Sherbet dashed over to us. He was out of breath and looking quite pale. As he reached down for Sara he called for backup and an ambulance.

Then he looked up at me for the first time.

“You okay, Sam—” And then he stopped short. “Sweet Jesus. You’ve been shot.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“The ambulance is on its way.”

“Won’t be necessary.”

He was silent for a long time. In the distance, I heard the coming sirens.

“We will definitely be talking, Samantha.”

“I expect so, Detective.”

63.

Rain drizzled outside Kingsley’s open French windows.

Water gurgled forth from the fountain with the breasts. Kingsley and I were sitting together on his leather couch. Our shoulders touched. There seemed to be a sort of kinetic energy between us. A sexual energy. At least, there was a sexual energy in me.

“Tell me how you figured out Sara was the shooter,” he said.

“Three things. First, Horton was in constant contact with her, especially in the hours prior to each shooting. Second, she contacted me from her cell number, claiming she was calling from work, which I found odd. Third, I recalled the picture on her desk, the one taken at the office Halloween party. She went as a pirate.”

Kingsley smacked his forehead with his palm. “The mustache. Good Lord, I’ve seen that picture a hundred times.”

“It’s the spitting image of your shooter.”

“But why didn’t you suspect her earlier? I thought you had some sort of ESP thing going on?”

“I do. But it’s not an exact science. I sensed a lot of anger from Sara, but I assumed that anger was directed at her failed relationship with you.”

“Granted most of my relationships have been failures since the death of my wife, but how did you know about Sara and me?”

“I’m an ace detective, remember?”

“Yes, but—”

“She hinted at it.”

“Okay, yeah, we dated. We hit it off initially, but things didn’t quite take.”

“Ya think?”

We drank some more wine. Our shoulders continued touching.

“Speaking of dating,” I said. “Danny’s secretary dumped him.”

“Is that why you can’t wipe that smile off your face?”

“It’s one of the reasons,” I said. “Not to mention Horton has admitted Sara approached him with a proposal to kill you and your client. He provided the gun and surveillance. She did the shooting.”

“Then why attack me in broad daylight, in front of so many witnesses?”

“That was calculated. The shooting was scheduled between security shifts; her getaway truck was parked nearby, the plates removed. Horton was waiting a few blocks away, where they swapped cars. The truck was then concealed in a parking garage.” I paused and sipped from my Chardonnay. Even vampires get dry mouths. “Now, with Sara dead and the game up, Horton confessed to everything. He will stand trial as an accessory to murder and attempted murder.”

We were silent. Kingsley reached over and gently took my hand. His hand was comforting. And damn big. The rain picked up a little and plinked against the French windows.

“You did good work,” said Kingsley. “You were worth every penny.”

“Of which you still owe me a few.”

“When I get my new secretary I’ll have her write you a check.” He took my wine glass and walked over to his bar and filled me up. From the bar, he said, “I did some research on the medallion.”

I perked up. “And?”

“The medallion is rumored to be connected to a way of reversing the effects of vampirism.”

“Reversing?” I said, “I don’t understand.”

“The medallion,” he said, “can reverse vampirism.”

“You mean—”

“You would be mortal again, Sam. That is, if we’re talking about the same medallion, which, by the way, is highly coveted, so you might want to keep this on the down low.”

My head was swimming with the possibilities. To be human again. To be normal again. To have my kids again.

I looked over at Kingsley and there was real pain on his face. He was hurting.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked.

“You think that if I choose to be mortal...” my voice trailed off.

“I would lose you,” he said, finishing. “And I wouldn’t blame you for one second.”

I stood and came to him, this beautiful, massive man who made me feel alive again, who made me feel sexy again, who made me feel human again, even when I was at my lowest. I sat down in his huge, warm lap and put my arms around his huge, warm neck. I leaned in and pressed my lips softly against his.

When I pulled away after a long moment, I said, “And what if I told you I was falling in love with you?”

“Then that would make me the happiest man, or half-man, on earth,” he said. “But what about being mortal again?”

“We’ll look into that another day.”

“Good idea.”

And he kissed me deeply, powerfully, his lips and tongue taking me in completely.

It was a hell of a kiss.

64.

Did I catch you at a good time, Fang?

It’s always a good time when I hear from you, Moon Dance.

No girls over tonight?

No girls for awhile. So what’s new in your world, Moon Dance?

So I told him. I wrote it up quickly in one long, mangled paragraph.

More type-o’s than a blood bank, he answered when I had finished. I think Sara truly loved Kingsley, at least in her own twisted way.

Loved him and hated him.

And it drove her to a certain madness.

Yes, I wrote, remembering Sara’s pirouetting body. Watching her land in a heap as a pool of dark blood spread around her. I had stared deep into that dark pool, and felt a hunger.

Fang wrote: She thought Kingsley morally reprehensible, which justified her attempt on his life. And she would have succeeded had he not been immortal. You immortals get all the breaks.

Some of them, I wrote.

Rejection can make you do some crazy things.

Like jump off a hotel balcony, I added.

Yes. But not everyone has wings.

So why no girls for awhile, Fang?

Because I was in love with another woman.

So who’s the lucky woman?

There was a long delay. A very long delay. I wrote: Fang?

And then on my computer screen appeared a single red rose, followed by the words: I love you, Moon Dance.

I stared at my monitor. More words appeared.

I fell in love with you instantly. I know this sounds crazy because I’ve never met you, but I have fallen in love with the image I have created of you in my mind. There will never be a woman on the face of this earth who can compare to this image. All will fall short.

He stopped writing, and I read his words over and over again. Finally, I wrote my response.

We are both crazy, Fang. You know that, right?

Yes, I know that.

Goodnight, Fang.

Goodnight, Moon Dance.

The End

To be continued in:

Vampire Moon

Return to the Table of Contents

VAMPIRE MOON

Vampire for Hire #2

by

J.R. RAIN

Copyright © 2010 by J.R. Rain

All rights reserved.

Dedication

To Susanna, the bravest girl I know.

Acknowledgments

To Sandy Johnston (again!) and Eve Paludan for helping me look a little smarter than I really am, and to Elaine Babich, always my first reader.

Vampire Moon

“The moving moon went up to the sky, And nowhere did abide; Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside.”

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“The devil’s in the moon for mischief.”

—Lord Byron

Chapter One

I was alone in my hotel room.

The thick curtains were tightly drawn, and I was watching Judge Judy publicly humiliate this loser slumlord when my cell phone vibrated. I absently rooted through a small mound of Kleenex’s on the nightstand until I found my cell. I glanced at the faceplate: unknown number. I briefly debated ignoring the call. After all, Judge Judy nearly had this jerk in tears—and I just love it when she reduces jerks to tears—but I figured this might be a job, and I needed the work. After all, this hotel room didn’t pay for itself.

I muted Judge Judy’s magnificent rant and flipped open the cell. “Moon Agency.”

“Is this the Moon Agency?” asked a male voice.

“Would be a hell of a coincidence otherwise.”

There was a long pause. On the other end of the line, I could hear the caller breathing deeply, probably through his open mouth. His voice had sounded nasally. If I had to guess, I would guess he had been crying.

“Are you, you know, a detective or something?”

“Or something,” I said. “How can I help you?”

He paused again. I sensed I was about to lose him, and I knew why. He had been expecting a man. Sadly, I was used to this sort of bias in this business. In reality, most women make better detectives. I waited.

“You any good?”

“Good enough to know you have been crying,” I said. I looked at the balled up tissues next to my night stand. “And if I had to guess, I would say there’s about a half dozen used Keenixes next to you.”

I heard a sound on his end. It was sort of a snort. “You’re good.”

“It’s why I get paid the big bucks. I have a list of references, if you want them.”

“Maybe,” he said. More wet breathing. I heard a rustling sound, wiping his nose, no doubt. “Look, I just need help. I don’t know who else to turn to.”

“What kind of help?”

“Better if we don’t talk about it over the phone.”

“Are you in Orange County?” I asked.

“Yes, Irvine.”

“I’ll meet you in an hour at The Block in Orange. The world’s third largest Starbucks is there.”

“No shit?”

“Actually, I was using hyperbole. But it’s pretty damn big.”

He made another snorting sound over the phone and I could almost hear him grin. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll meet you at what may or may not be the world’s third largest Starbucks.”

Whoever he was, I liked him already. I told him to look for the dark-haired girl in the wide-brimmed sunhat.

“Sunhat?”

“I like to look fashionable. My goal is to block out the sun for anyone standing within three feet of me.”

He laughed. I noticed his was a hollow laugh. Empty. There was a great sadness in him. And it had to do with someone he had lost. My sixth sense was getting stronger, true, but it didn’t take a psychic to figure this one out.

“Well, we all need goals,” he said. “I’ll look for the dark-haired girl in the wide-brimmed sunhat causing her own solar eclipse.”

This time I grinned. “Well, moons and eclipses do go hand-in-hand.”

He gave me his name, which was Stuart, and I verified his cell number should he fail to find the world’s third largest Starbucks and the giant sunhat shading half of Orange County.

Yes, more hyperbole.

We agreed on a time and hung up. I unmuted the TV just as Judge Judy finished publicly dismembering the slum lord. The verdict: he owed his ex-tenant her full deposit.

Yea, for the little people!

I didn’t want to get out of bed. In fact, I didn’t want to move. The afternoon wasn’t optimum time for me. By all rights I should have been sound asleep at this hour, but I had long ago gotten used to getting up at this hour and picking the kids up at school.

Except now I had been banned from picking the kids up at school.

The ban went into place two weeks ago. The monster in me was probably grateful to finally get to sleep in until sunset. But the mommy in me was heartbroken.

And the mommy in me won out in the end.

Prior to a few weeks ago, I used to have to set an alarm clock to wake up on time. An alarm clock turned to its loudest setting and placed as near to my ear as possible.

Now I woke up on my own, at 3:00 p.m., every day. Like clock work.

Up at 3:00 p.m. with no where to go.

And that’s usually when I started crying. Not a great way to start your day—or night, in my case.

I wallowed in some more self-pity before finally forcing myself out of bed and into the bathroom. Once there, I proceeded to apply copious amounts of the strongest sunscreen on the market to my face and hands.

Once done, I grabbed my purse, keys and sunhat and headed for the door. And while I waited for the elevator, I wondered what my kids were up to. I checked the time on my cell phone. They would be home by now with Danny’s mom, who watched them every day. No doubt they were doing homework, or fighting over the TV, or fighting over the video games. Or just fighting. I sighed heavily. I even missed their fights.

I would call them tonight, as I did every night at 7 p.m., which was my nightly phone privilege with them. I would tell them I loved them and missed them. They would tell me the same thing. They would tell me about their day, and I would ask what they did during school, and about the time Anthony would launch into another long-winded tale, Danny, my ex-husband listening on the other end of the line, would jump in and tell me my ten minutes were up and to tell the kids to say goodbye. Once we said goodbye, Danny would abruptly hang the phone up for them.

Click.

And I wouldn’t hear from them for another 23 hours and 50 minutes. I used to have twenty minutes with them, and then fifteen. And now ten.

I was going to need more Kleenexes.

Chapter Two

I was waiting for Stuart under a wide green awning, sitting as deep in the shade as possible, as the sun was mercifully beginning to set behind the shining dome of the nearby cineplex.

The Block in Orange is a hip and happening outdoor mall that seemed to appeal mostly to groups of fifteen-year-old girls who spent most of their time doubled over with laughter. Looking at the girls, I was reminded of my daughter. These days, she didn’t spend much time doubled over in laughter. These days, she seemed to be sinking deeper into a depression.

Nine years old is too young for a depression.

Suddenly depressed myself, I spotted a man coming around a corner, moving determinedly. He scanned the busy Starbucks crowd, spotted me, and then moved my way. Speaking of shiny domes, the man was completely bald and apparently proud of it. As he got closer, I noted his slacks and tee shirt were badly wrinkled. A thin film of sweat glistened off his head. He wore a cell phone clipped at his hip that looked like it was from the late nineties.

“Samantha Moon?” he asked.

“What an amazing guess,” I said.

He looked at my hat.

He said, “Not as amazing as you might think. It’s hard to miss that thing.”

I usually avoid shaking hands. People tend to recoil when they touch my cold flesh. But Stuart held out his and I reluctantly shook it. Although he flinched slightly, he didn’t make an issue out of it, which I was grateful for. As we shook, I also got a strong psychic hit from him. Something bad had happened to him. No. Something bad had happened to someone close to him. And recently. I looked at his other hand. He was wearing a wedding band.

Something bad has happened to his wife.

“Would you like a coffee?” I asked. “Since we’re at the third largest Starbucks in the world.”

He looked around us. His bald head shimmered in the sun.

“You weren’t kidding. A place this big, you’d think the coffee was damned good.”

“Not just good,” I corrected. “This is Starbucks. Their coffee is magical.”

“It sure as hell can make five bucks disappear. Seven bucks if you get all that foo-foo crap.”

“Foo-foo crap?”

“You know, whipped cream and syrup and something called java chips.”

“Oh, the yummy foo-foo crap.”

He grinned and sat opposite me. He was a small man and slender. His bald head was oddly appealing to me. It was perfectly proportioned. No deep ridges or odd grooves. The skin was lightly tan and even. I thought I might just be looking at the world’s most perfect bald head. I wanted to touch it. Bad.

He pointed to my hat.

“So do you always wear such a big hat?” he asked.

I generally deflect personal questions, especially any questions that relate to my...condition.

I said, “It helps with my phone reception.”

He looked at me blankly for a second or two, then broke into a smile. “Ah, it looks like a satellite dish, I get it. Funny.”

I asked if he wanted some magical coffee and he declined, claiming it was too late in the day to drink coffee. I used that as my excuse, too, although it was only a half-truth. Six years ago, it would have been too late in the day for coffee, but now coffee only made me sick.

“So tell me about your wife,” I said. “It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes narrowed. His pupils shrank.

“Yes, but how did you know about my wife?” he asked.

“Women’s intuition.”

He studied me some more, then finally shrugged. He sat forward again and rested his small hands loosely on the table in front of him.

“My wife was killed about a month ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“So am I,” he said.

He told me about it. She had died in a local plane crash. She, and nine others. The plane had flown into the side of the San Bernardino Mountains not too far from here. No survivors. I recalled reading about it on the internet, but the story had not been followed up on in the news, and I had no idea why the plane crashed or where the investigators were in their investigation. It had been a big story that turned quickly into a non-story. I smelled a cover-up.

I don’t think I had ever known anyone who had lost someone in a plane crash. I recalled Stuart’s words from a few minutes earlier: She was killed. Not: She was in an accident.

“I’m sorry,” I said again when he was finished.

He nodded. Talking about his wife dying in a plane crash had sombered him. Had I known him a little better, I would have reached out and took his hand. As it was, all I could offer were some sympathetic noises and the occasional sorry. Both seemed inadequate.

We were silent for a few more seconds and when the time seemed appropriate, I said, “You don’t think the crash was an accident.”

“No.”

“You think someone killed her.”

“I know someone killed her. She was murdered. And so was everyone else on board.”

* * *

An elderly couple sat next to us with their books of crossword and sudoku puzzles. Both sipped quietly from tall cups of coffee. In Starbucks speak, tall cups were, of course, small cups.

I studied Stuart. I wasn’t sure what to think about him. My sixth sense didn’t know what to make of him either. He seemed sane enough, although terribly grief-stricken. The grief-stricken part was what worried me. Grief-stricken always trumped sane.

With the elderly couple nearby, Stuart and I automatically lowered our voices and moved a little closer.

I asked, “Why do you think she was murdered?”

“She had received multiple death threats prior to the plane crash, she and everyone else on board.”

Okay, sanity was gaining. But I had questions. Serious questions.

“Why would someone threaten your wife’s life, and the others on board?”

“They were going to testify in court. She, and five or six other witnesses.”

Stuart unconsciously reached for something that wasn’t there. As it was, his fingers closed on empty air. I suspected I knew what they were reaching for: something alcoholic and strong. Unfortunately, we were at a Starbucks, and as far as I knew, they didn’t serve any whiskeyaccinos. At least not yet.

“At the time of the crash, she was with the other witnesses?”

“Yes,” he said. “They were being flown to a safe house at the Marine base in Camp Pendleton. At the time, of course, I hadn’t known where the government was flying her to. I do now.”

“Who was she going to testify against?”

Stuart looked at me hesitantly. I sensed I knew the source of his hesitancy. He was about to involve me in something extremely dangerous. He wasn’t sure if he should. Here I was, a cute gal wearing an urban sombrero, and no doubt he didn’t want to put me in harm’s way.

“You can tell me,” I said. “I’m a helluva secret keeper.”

He shook his head.

“Maybe I should just let this go,” he said.

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m a big girl.”

“These people are extremely dangerous and, as you can see, can strike anywhere.”

“You caught the ‘big girl’ part, right?”

“It’s going to take more than being a big girl, Samantha. It’s going to take an army, I’m afraid.”

“Call me Sam. And there’s very little that I fear.”

He squinted, studying me, and as he did so his perfect bald head caught some of the setting sun. There’s beauty everywhere, I thought, even in baldness.

“You’re really not afraid, are you?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“You should be.”

“I’m afraid of a lot of things, but men with big guns aren’t one of them. My kids’ math homework, well, that’s another story.”

He grinned.

“Fine,” he said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Duly noted.”

He looked at me some more. He didn’t know what to do with his empty hand. It opened and closed randomly. No doubt he was used to holding his wife’s hand. Now, I suspected, her hand had been replaced by a crystal tumbler of the hard stuff.

“She was going to testify against Jerry Blum.”

I nodded. I knew the name, especially since I had once been a federal agent. Jerry Blum had single-handedly built an enormous criminal empire that stretched down into Mexico and as far up as Canada, which was no surprise since he was, of all things, Canadian. These days he worked hard to bring drugs to the streets and schools of Orange County. Six years ago, he had dabbled in home loan scams, which had been my specialty. He had an uncanny knack of distancing himself from anything illegal, and an even more uncanny knack to avoid prosecution, which is why my department never caught him.

Last I heard, he had been standing trial for a bizarre crime outside a nightclub in Seal Beach, California, where Jerry Blum had uncharacteristically lost his cool and popped someone with a handgun. Yes, witnesses were everywhere.

I asked Stuart about this, and he confirmed that his wife had indeed been one of the witnesses. She had seen the whole thing, along with five others. She had agreed to testify to what she saw, thus putting her life in mortal danger.

I tapped my longish fingernail on the green plastic table. My fingernails tended to come to a point these days, but most people seemed not to notice, and if they did, they didn’t say anything about it. Maybe they were scared of the weird woman with pointed fingernails.

I said, “Why do you think Jerry Blum was involved in your wife’s plane crash?”

“Because as of today he is a free man. No witnesses, and thus no case. It’s been ruled self-defense.”

“But we’re talking about a plane crash, and if the plane was headed to a military base, then we’re probably talking about a military aircraft.”

“I know I sound crazy, but look at the facts. Jerry Blum has a history of silencing witnesses. This case was no different. Just a little more extravagant. Witnesses silenced, and Blum’s a free man.”

I continued tapping. People just didn’t take down military aircrafts. Even powerful people. But the circumstantial evidence was compelling.

Whoops! I was tapping too hard. Digging a hole in the plastic. Whoops. A vampiric woodpecker.

I asked, “So what have federal investigators determined to be the cause of the crash?”

“No clue,” said Stuart. “The investigation is still ongoing. Every agency on earth is involved in it. I’ve been personally interviewed by the FBI, military investigators and the FAA.”

“Why you?”

“No clue,” he said again. “But I think it’s because they suspect foul play.”

I nodded but didn’t tap.

Stuart added, “But he killed her, Sam. I know it, and I want you to help me prove it. So what do you say?”

I thought about it. Going after a crime lord was a big deal. I would have to be careful. I didn’t want to jeopardize my family or Stuart. Myself I wasn’t too worried about.

I nodded and he smiled, relieved. We discussed my retainer fee. We discussed, in fact, a rather sizable retainer fee, since this was going to take a lot of time and energy. He agreed to my price without blinking and I gave him my PayPal address, where he would deposit my money. I told him I would begin once the funds had been confirmed. He understood.

We shook hands again and, once again, he barely flinched at my icy grip. And as he walked away, with the setting sun gleaming off his shining dome, all I wanted to do was run my fingers over his perfect bald head.

I needed to get a life.

Chapter Three

A half hour later, I was sitting in a McDonald’s parking lot and waiting for 7:00 p.m. to roll around.

I had already concluded that traffic was too heavy for me to get back to my hotel in time to call my kids, and so I decided to wait it out here, just off the freeway, with a view of the golden arches and the smell of French fries heavy in the air.

My stomach growled. I think my stomach had short-term memory loss. French fries were no longer on the menu.

The sun was about to set. For me, that’s a good thing. The western sky was ablaze in fiery oranges and reds and yellows, a beautiful reminder of the sheer amount of smog in southern California.

I checked the clock on the dash: 6:55.

My husband Danny made the rules. We had no official agreement regarding who could see the kids when. It was an arrangement he set up outside of the courts, because in this case he was judge, jury and executioner. A month or so ago he threatened to expose me for who I am, claiming he had evidence, and that if I fought him I would never see the kids again. Danny was proving to be far more ruthless than I ever imagined. Gone was the gentle husband I had known, replaced by something close to a monster of his own.

Not the undead kind. Just the uncaring kind.

For now, as hard as it was not seeing my kids, I played by his rules, biding my time.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. A small wind made its way through my open window, now bringing with it the scent of cooking beef. Maybe some McNuggets, too. I sniffed again. And fries, always the fries.

I looked at my watch. Three minutes to go. If I called early, Danny wouldn’t answer. If I called late, then tough shit, 7:10 was my cut-off no matter what time I called. And if I called past 7:10, he wouldn’t pick up. Again, shit out of luck. The calling too late thing had only happened once, when I was in a client meeting. I vowed it wouldn’t happen again, clients be damned.

Two minutes to go. I treasured every second I had with my kids, and I hated Danny for doing this to me. How could he turn on me like this?

Easy, I thought. He’s afraid of you. And when people are afraid they do evil, hurtful things.

One minute. I rolled up my window. I wanted to be able to hear my kids. I didn’t want some damn Harley coming by and drowning out little Anthony’s comically high-pitched voice, or Tammy’s too-serious recounting of that day’s school lessons.

Thirty seconds. I had my finger over the cell phone’s send button, Danny’s home number—my old home number—already selected from my contact list and ready to go.

Ten seconds. Outside, somewhere beyond the nearby freeway’s arching overpass, the sun was beginning to set and I was beginning to feel good. Damn good. In fact, within minutes I was about to feel stronger than I had any right to feel.

And I was about to talk to my kids, too. A smile that I hadn’t felt all day touched my lips.

At 7:00 p.m. on the nose, I pushed the send button. The phone rang once and Danny picked up immediately.

“The kids aren’t here,” he said immediately in his customary monotone.

“But—”

“They’re with Nancy getting some ice cream.”

Nancy was, of course, the home-wrecker. His secretary fling that had become more than a fling. The name of that witch alone nearly sent me into a psychotic rage.

“They’re with her?”

“Yes. They like her. We all do.”

“When will they be back?”

“I don’t know, and that’s none of your concern.”

“So when can I call back?”

“You can call back tomorrow at seven.”

“That’s bullshit, Danny. This was my time with—”

“Tomorrow,” he said, and hung up.

Chapter Four

An hour later, I was boxing at a little sparring club in downtown Fullerton, a place called Jacky’s. Jacky himself trained me, which was a rare honor these days, as the little Irishman was getting on in years. I think he either had a crush on me, or didn’t know what the hell to make of me, since I tended to destroy his boxing equipment.

The sun had set an hour ago and I was at maximum strength. I was also still pissed off at Danny, hurt beyond words, and now the old Irishman was feeling the brunt of it.

He was wearing brand-new punch mitts, which were those little protective pads trainers use to cover their hands. I was leveling punch after punch into his mittened hands, sometimes so rapidly that my hands were a blur even to my eyes.

And I wasn’t just punching them, I was hitting them hard. Perhaps too hard.

Jacky was a tough guy, even though he was pushing sixty. He was an ex-professional boxer back in Ireland who had suffered his share of broken noses, and no doubt had broken a few noses himself. I had never known him to show pain or any sign of weakness. And so when he began wincing with each punch, I knew it was time to ease up on the poor guy. He was far too tough and stubborn to lower the gloves himself and ask for a break.

I paused in mid-strike and said, “Let’s take a break.”

To say that Jacky was relieved would have been an understatement.

Still, he shot back. “Is that all you got, wee girl?” he asked loudly, and, I think, for the benefit of anyone watching, since I sometimes attracted a crowd of curious onlookers, and Jacky had a tough-guy image to uphold.

Of course, I never wanted to attract crowds of onlookers, as I generally avoid bringing attention to myself. But since that incident last month with a Marine boxer, an incident in which I put him in a hospital, well, I had become somewhat of a hero in this mostly women’s boxing club.

“Well, I could probably go another round or two,” I said lightly to Jacky.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said.

Jacky shook off the protective gloves. His hands were ruddier than his Irish complexion; his fingers were fat and swollen.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “I had a bad night.”

“I’d hate to get on your bad side.”

“Doesn’t seem to worry my ex-husband.”

“Then I say he’s not right in the head. You punch like a hammer.” He shook his head in wonder. I often caused this reaction from the old boxer, who hadn’t yet figured me out. “Harder than anyone I’ve ever trained, man or woman.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve all got our talents,” I said. “Yours, for example, is having red hair.”

“That’s not a talent.”

“Close enough.”

He shook his head and held up his red hands which, if I looked hard enough at them, I could probably see throbbing.

“I need to soak these in ice,” he said. “But if I soak these in ice, the women here will think I’m a pussycat.”

I leaned over and kissed him on his sweating forehead. The blush that emanated from him was instant, spreading from his balding head, down into his neck.

“But you are a pussycat,” I said.

“Well, you’re a freak of nature, Sam.”

Jacky, of course, didn’t realize how freaky I was. In fact, I could count on one hand the number of people who knew how freaky I was.

“You could be a world champion,” he said. Now we were making our way over to the big punching bag.

“I’m too old to be a world champion,” I said. Jacky was always trying to get me to fight professionally.

He snorted. “You’re, what, thirty?”

“Thirty-one, and thank you.”

However, Jacky was closer than he thought. I was indeed thirty-seven calendar years old, but I was frozen in a thirty-one year old’s body.

The age I was when I was attacked.

Granted, if a girl had to pick an age to be immortalized in, well, thirty-one would probably be near the top of her list.

And what happens ten years from now when you’re forty-seven but still look thirty-one? Or when your daughter is thirty-one and you still look thirty-one?

I didn’t know, but I would cross that bridge when I got there.

Jacky took up his position behind the punching bag. “So what’s eating at you anyway, Sam?”

“Everything,” I said. I started punching the bag, moving around it as if it were an actual opponent, using the precise body movements Jacky had taught me. Ducking and weaving. Jabs. Hooks. Hard straight shots. Punches that would have broken jaws and teeth and noses. Jacky bared his teeth and absorbed the punches on the other side of the bag like the champion he was, or used to be. I took a small breather. So did Jacky. Sweat poured from my brow.

“Let me guess,” said Jacky, gasping slightly, and looking as if he had taken actual physical shots to his own body. “Is it that no-good ex-husband of yours?”

“Good guess.”

“Does he realize you could kick his arse from here to Dublin?”

“He realizes that,” I said. “And why Dublin?”

“National pride,” he said. “So why don’t you go kick his fucking arse?”

“Because kicking ass isn’t always the answer, Jacky.”

“Works for me,” he said.

“We’ll call that Plan B.”

“Would be my Plan A. A good arse-kicking always clears the air.”

I laughed. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Break’s over. Hands up.”

He leaned back into the bag and I unleashed another furious onslaught. Pretending the bag was my ex-husband was doing wonders for me.

“You’re sweating like a pig, Sam,” screamed Jacky. “I like that!”

“You like pig sweat?”

He just shook his head and screamed at me to keep my fists up. I grinned and unleashed a flurry of punches that rocked the bag and nearly sent little Jacky flying, and attracted a small group of women who gathered nearby to watch the freak.

And as I punched and sweated and kept my fists up, I knew that fighting Danny wasn’t the answer. Luckily, there were other ways to fight back.

Chapter Five

After a long shower and a few phone calls to some friends working in the federal government, I was at El Torito Bar and Grill in Brea—just a hop, skip and a jump from my hotel.

I was wearing jeans and a turtle neck sweater. Not because it was cold outside, but because I looked so damn cute in turtle neck sweaters. The stiff-looking man sitting across from me seemed to think so, too. Special Agent Greg Lomax, lead investigator with the FBI, was in full flirt mode, and it was all I could do to keep him on track. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked so cute, after all.

Damn my cuteness.

El Torito is loud and open. The loudness and openness was actually of benefit for anyone having a private conversation, which was probably why Greg had chosen it.

Personally, I found the noise level here a bit overwhelming, but then again, I’m also just a sweet and sensitive woman.

It was either that or my supernaturally acute hearing that quite literally picked up every clattering dish, scraping fork, and far ruder sounds best not described. And, of course, picked up the babble of ceaseless conversations. If I wanted to I could generally make out any individual conversation within any room. Handy for a P.I., trust me. Granted, I couldn’t hear through walls or anything, but sounds that most people could hear, well, I could just hear that much better.

“Lots of people over at HUD talk very highly of you,” he said.

“I gave them the best seven years of my life,” I said.

“And then you came down with some sort of, what, rare skin disease or something?”

“Or something,” I said.

“Now you work private,” he said.

“Yes. A P.I.”

“How’s that working out?”

“It’s good to be my own boss,” I said. “Now I give myself weekly pay raises and extra long coffee breaks.”

He grinned. “That’s cute. Anyway, I was told to tell you what I could. So ask away. If I can’t talk about something, or I just don’t know the answer, I’ll tell you.”

We were sitting opposite each other in a far booth in the far corner of the bar. I was sipping some house zinfandel, and he was drinking a Jack and Coke. White wine and water were about the only two liquids I could consume. Well, that and something else.

Just thinking about that something else immediately turned my stomach.

I said, “So do you think the crash was an accident?”

“You get right to the point,” he said. “I like that.”

“Must be the investigator in me.”

He nodded, drank some more Jack and Coke. “No, this wasn’t an accident. We know that much.”

“How do you know that?”

He smiled. “We just know.”

“Okay. So how did the plane crash?”

“All signs point to sabotage.”

“Sabotage how?”

He was debating how much to tell me. I could almost see the wheels working behind his flirtatious eyes. No doubt he was computing the amount of information he could still give me and still not give up any real government secrets, and yet leave me satisfied enough to sleep with him tonight. A complex formula for sure.

Men are better at math than they realize.

He said, “Someone planted a small explosive in the rudder gears. The pilot heard the explosion, reported it immediately, and then reported that he had lost all control of the plane. Ten minutes later the plane crashed into the side of the San Bernardino Mountains.”

“And everyone on board was killed?”

“Yes. Instantly.”

“Is there any reason to believe that these key witnesses were killed to keep them from testifying?”

“There is every reason to believe that. It’s the only motive we have.” He drank the rest of his Jack and Coke. “Except there’s one problem: our number one suspect was in jail at the time of the crash.”

The waiter came by and dropped off another drink for Greg. Perhaps the waiters here at El Torito Bar and Grill were psychic. Greg picked up his drink and sipped it.

“It would take a lot of pull to sabotage a military plane,” I said.

“Not as much as you might think,” said Greg. “This was a DC-12, and the contract the government has with them stipulates that the makers of the planes get to use their own mechanics.”

“So the mechanic was a civilian.”

“Yes.”

“Have you found the mechanic?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Dead in his apartment in L.A.”

“How did he die?”

“Gunshot in the mouth.”

“Suicide?”

“We’re working on it.”

I followed up with this some more, but Greg seemed to have reached the limit of what he was willing to tell me.

Greg motioned to my half-finished drink. “You going to finish that?”

“Probably not.”

“You want to head over to my place and, you know, talk some more about what it’s like giving yourself raises?”

I said, “When you say ‘talk’ don’t you really mean boff my brains out?”

He grinned and reddened. I reached over and patted his superheated face.

“You’ll just have to give yourself a raise tonight,” I said, and left him my card. “Call me if you hear anything new.”

“But I live right around the cor—”

“Sorry,” I said. “But your calculations were off.”

I smiled sweetly and left.

Chapter Six

We were at the beach, sitting on the wooden deck of a lifeguard tower. The sign on the lifeguard tower said no sitting on the wooden deck.

“We’re breaking the law,” I said.

Kingsley Fulcrum turned his massive head toward the sign above us. As he did so, some of the moonlight caught his cheek bones and strong nose and got lost somewhere in the shaggy curls that hung on his beefy shoulders.

“We are risking much to be here,” he said. “If we get caught, our super secret identities may be discovered.”

I said, “Especially if I show up invisible in the mug shot.”

Kingsley shook his head.

“You vampires are weird,” he said.

“This coming from a guy who howls at every full moon.”

He chuckled lightly as a small, cold wind scurried over my bare feet. Before us, the dark ocean stretched black and eternal. Small, frothing whitecaps slapped the shore. In the far distance, twinkling on the curve of the horizon, were the many lights of Catalina Island. Between us and Catalina were the much brighter lights of a dozen or so oil rigs. The beach itself was mostly quiet, although two or three couples were currently smooching on blankets here and there. They probably thought they were mostly hidden under the cover of darkness. They probably hadn’t accounted for a vampire with built-in night vision watching them. A gyrating couple, about two hundred feet away up the beach, might have been doing the nasty.

Kingsley turned to me. I always liked the way the bridge of his nose angled straight up to his forehead. Very Roman. And very hot.

He said, “You became a private investigator after you were changed?”

“Yes.”

“So that means you took your P.I. photo when you were a vampire.”

“Yes.”

“So how did you manage that?”

“I wore a lot of make up that day,” I said smugly, proud of myself. I had wondered what to do about the photo, too.

“So the make up showed up, even though you didn’t?”

“Yes, exactly. I even made sure I blinked when the picture was taken.”

“Just in case your eye sockets came up empty.”

“Exactly.”

“You could have worn colored contacts,” said Kingsley.

“But then the whites of my eyes would have come up empty,” I said.

He nodded. “So you sacrificed your vanity.”

“I might look like a major dork in the picture, but at least I look human. Granted, if you look close enough, there is a blank spot somewhere near my throat, where I had missed a patch of skin, but not too many people are looking at my throat.”

“No,” said Kingsley. “They’re looking at the dork with her eyes closed.”

I punched him in the arm. The force of my blow knocked him sideways.

“Ouch!” He rubbed his arm and grinned at me, and the light from the half moon touched his square teeth. Kingsley was a successful defense attorney in Orange County. A few months ago, he had hired me to investigate a murder attempt on his life. His case had come at a difficult time in my life. Not only had I just caught my husband cheating, the bastard had the gall to kick me out of my own home.

A very difficult time, to say the least. The wounds were still fresh and I was still hurting.

And I would be for a very long time.

Not the greatest time to start a new romance with a hunky defense attorney with massive shoulders and a tendency to shed.

“There are two people boffing over there,” said Kingsley, looking off over his shoulder. “I think one of their names is Oh, Baby.”

Kingsley’s hearing was better than mine, which was saying something.

I grinned and elbowed him. “Will you quit eavesdropping.”

He cocked his head to one side, and said, “I was wrong. His name is Oh, God.”

I elbowed him again, and we sat silently some more. Our legs were touching. His thigh was about twice as wide as mine. We were both wearing jeans and sweaters.

I sensed Kingsley’s desire to touch me, to reach out and lay his big hand over my knee. I sensed him forcibly controlling himself.

Down boy.

I was still looking out over the black ocean, which, to my eyes, wasn’t so black. The air shimmered with light particles which flashed and streaked across the night sky. I often wondered what these streaking lights were. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a working hypothesis. I suspected I was seeing the physical manifestation of energy itself. Perhaps I was being given a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the workings of our world.

Then again, I’ve been wrong before.

Kingsley was still looking at me, still fighting what he most wanted to do. And what he most wanted to do was ravage me right here and now on this lifeguard pier. But the brute held himself in check. Smart man. After all, I gave him no indication that I wanted to be ravaged.

“Not yet, Kingsley,” I said calmly, placing my own hand lightly on his knee. “I’m not ready yet.”

He nodded his great, shaggy head, but said nothing. I sensed his built-up energy dissipate in an instant. Hell, I could practically see it zigzagging away from his body, caught up by the lunar wind and merging with the silver spirits surfing the California night skies.

He exhaled and sort of deflated. Poor guy. He had gotten himself all worked up. He rested his own hand lightly on mine, and if my own cold flesh bothered him, he didn’t show it.

And while we sat there holding hands, with me soaking in the tremendous warmth of his oversized paw, I told him about my latest case.

When I was finished, he said, “Jerry Blum is a dangerous man.”

“I’m a dangerous girl.”

From far away, emerging from under the distant Huntington Beach Pier, was a lone jogger. Even from here, the jogger appeared to be a very big man. The man was easily a hundred yards away.

Kingsley, who had been looking down at my leg, suddenly cocked his head, listening. He then turned and spotted the jogging man. The man, as far as I could tell, wasn’t making a sound.

I was intrigued. “You heard him?”

“Yes and no,” said Kingsley, still looking over his shoulder at the approaching man. “But I could hear his dog.”

I looked again. Sure enough, running along at the man’s feet, about the size of a rat on steroids, was something small and furry. A dog, and it looked miniscule next to the running man. I smiled. For some reason, I found it heartwarming to see such a big man running with such a little doggie.

Kingsley said, “So what, exactly, is your client hiring you to do? Does he want you to take down one of the most dangerous criminals on the West Coast?”

“Taking him down will be extra.”

“Taking him down will be dangerous for both you and your family, Sam. Remember, this guy doesn’t play nice.”

“I won’t put my family in harm’s way,” I said. “And besides, who says I play nice, either? I’ve been known to bite.”

“Very funny. But I don’t like this, Sam. This isn’t your typical P.I. gig. Hell, the FBI still hasn’t figured out a way to nail this guy, and you’re just one woman.”

“But a helluva woman.”

“Sure, but why am I more concerned about your safety than you are?” he asked.

“Because you like me a little,” I said, blinking daintily.

“I would like you more if you stayed away from this case.”

Something small and furry and fat suddenly appeared in the sand beneath our feet. It was the same little dog, now trailing a leash. It was, in fact, a tea cup Pomeranian, and it was about as cute as cute gets. Maybe even cuter. It wagged its tail a mile a minute and turned in a half dozen small circles, creating a little race track in the sand. It never once took its eyes off Kingsley.

“It likes you,” I said.

“Go figure.”

Kingsley made a small noise in his throat and the little dog abruptly sat in the sand in front of him, staring, panting, wagging.

And from out of the darkness, sweating through a black tee shirt and rippling with more muscle than two or three men put together—that is, if those men weren’t Kingsley—was the same tall man we had seen a few minutes earlier. He approached us with a small limp that didn’t seem to bother him.

“Kill, Ginger,” said the man easily, grinning. Ginger turned in two more circles and sat before Kingsley again. The man reached down and gently patted its little head. “Good girl.” He looked up at us. “Were you two at least a little afraid for your lives?”

“Terrified,” said Kingsley.

“I might have wet myself a little,” I said.

The man stood straight and I might have seen his six-pack through his wet tee shirt. Hubba, hubba.

“She doesn’t usually come up to strangers,” said the man. “In fact, I’m fairly certain she’s terrified of her own shadow. Of course, it’s a pretty fat shadow. Scares me a little, too.”

Kingsley slipped off the wooden platform, landing softly in the sand, too softly for a man his size. Ginger didn’t move, although her tail might have started wagging at close to the speed of light. The attorney reached down and scratched the little dog between turgid ears. Ginger, if anything, looked like a star-crossed teenager at a rock concert. Or me at a Stones concert.

“Okay, that’s a first,” said the man, looking genuinely surprised. “Took me three months before I was anywhere near those ears.”

Kingsley, still petting the dog, said, “She probably had a bad experience when she was a pup. If I had to guess, I would say she was beaten and abused before she found her new home. Probably by a man about your size, and so she doesn’t like men, but she does like you, even though you run too fast for her little legs, and you don’t give her near enough treats.” Kingsley gave Ginger a final pat and stood. “Like I said, it’s just a guess.”

“Good guess. And spot on. She had been abused before my girlfriend rescued her. Of course, there was no rescuing the man who abused her. Let’s just say when I was done with him, he had a newfound respect for every living creature.”

Kingsley and I grinned. I had no doubt that the man in front of us could have inflicted some serious damage on someone.

He went on, “And if I gave Ginger any more treats I would have to roll her on my runs.”

I snickered and Kingsley laughed heartily. He reached out a hand. “I know you from somewhere.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” said the man as he scooped up the little dog, who promptly disappeared behind a bulging bicep muscle that had my own eyes bulging.

Kingsley’s eyes narrowed. His thinking face. “You used to play football for UCLA.”

“Is there any other school?”

The attorney snapped his fingers. “You were on your way to the pros until your broke your leg.”

“Don’t you just hate when that happens?” said the man lightly. “And you are, of course, Kingsley Fulcrum, famed defense attorney and internet sensation.”

Kingsley laughed; so did I. Indeed, a few months ago, someone had tried to kill the attorney outside of a local courthouse. It was a bizarre and humorous incident that had been captured on film and seen around the country, if not the world. Kingsley, the man who couldn’t die. The world watched as his assailant shot him point-blank five times in the head and neck.

The two men chitchatted for a bit, and I realized, upon closer inspection, that both men were exactly the same height. Although the stranger was muscular and powerful-looking, Kingsley had a beefy savagery to him that no man could match. Even ex-football players.

After all the silly football talk, I soon learned that the tall stranger now worked as a private eye. I perked up. Kingsley mentioned I was one, too, and the man nodded and reached into his sweat pants pocket and pulled out a brass card holder. He opened it, gave me one of his cards.

He said, “You ever need any extra help or muscle, call me. I can provide both.”

I looked at the card. Jim Knighthorse. I might have heard the name before, perhaps on some local newscast or something. On his card was a picture of him smiling, really cheesin’ it up for the camera. I had a very strong sense that Mr. Knighthorse just might have been in love with himself.

“Helluva picture,” he said, winking. “If I do say so myself.”

I was right.

Chapter Seven

It was far too early in the morning for me, but I didn’t care.

The sun was high and hot, and I was sitting in my minivan in the parking lot of my children’s elementary school near downtown Fullerton, where I had parked under a pathetic jacaranda tree. The tree was mostly bare but offered some shade.

Beggars can’t be choosers.

I was huddled in my front seat, away from any direct sunlight, the shades pulled down on both the driver’s side and passenger’s side windows. My face was caked with the heaviest sunblock available on the market. Thin leather gloves covered my hands, and I was wearing another cute wide-brimmed sunhat, which sometimes made driving difficult. I had many such hats—all purchased in the last six years, of course—and all a necessity to keep me alive.

And what happens if I’m ever exposed to any direct sunlight?

I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to find out, either. All I knew was that the sun physically hurts me, even when I’m properly protected. I suspected I would wither and die. Probably painfully, too.

So much for being immortal.

Immortality with conditions.

As I huddled in my seat, I thought about those words again: wither and die.

You know, I used to lead a normal life. I grew up here in Orange County, was a cheerleader and softball player, went to college in Fullerton, got a master’s degree in criminal science, and then went on to work for the federal government. Lots of dreams and ambitions. One of them was to get married and start a family. I did that, and more.

Life was good. Life was fun. Life was easy.

If someone had told me that one day my daily To-Do List would consist of the words: 1) Buy extra-duty sunblock. 2) Oh, and see if Norco Slaughterhouse will set up a direct billing... well, I would have told them to go back to their Anne Rice novels.

I sat in my minivan, huddled in my seat, buried under my sunhat and sunblock, wary of any beam of sunlight, and shook my head and I kept shaking my head until I found myself crying softly in my hands. Smearing my sunscreen.

Damn.

I may not have known what lived in me, and I may not have known the dark lineage of my blood, but I knew one thing for fucking sure. No one was going to keep me from seeing my kids. Not Danny. And not the sun.

I opened my van door and got out.

Chapter Eight

I gasped and stumbled.

I reached a gloved hand out and braced myself on the hot fender of my minivan. Heat from the sheet metal immediately permeated the thin glove. Maybe Stephenie Meyer’s vampires had it right. Maybe I should move up to Washington State, in the cold and rain, where gray clouds perpetually covered the skies.

Maybe someday. But not now. I had real-life issues to deal with.

I gathered myself together and strode across the quiet parking lot, filled mostly with teachers’ and school administrators’ cars. I’m sure I must have looked slightly drunk—or perhaps sick—huddled in my clothing, head down, stumbling slightly.

A small wind stirred my thick hair enough to get a few strands stuck in the copious amounts of sunscreen caked on my face. I ignored my hair. I needed to get the hell out of the sun. And fast.

I picked up my pace as another wind brought to me the familiar scents of cafeteria food. Familiar, as in this was exactly what cafeteria food had smelled like back when I was in elementary school.

After crossing the hot parking lot, I stepped up onto a sidewalk and a moment later I was under an eave, gasping.

Sweet, sweet Jesus.

Keeping to the shade and sliding my hand along the stucco wall to keep my balance, I soon found myself in front of the main office door.

Focus, Sam.

I needed to look as calm and normal as possible. School officials didn’t take kindly to crazy-looking parents.

My skin felt as if it were on fire. And all I had done was walk across a school parking lot. I wanted to cry.

No crying.

I sucked in some air, held it for a few minutes—yes minutes—and let it out again. My skin felt raw and irritated. I picked hair out of the heavy sunscreen with a shaking hand, adjusted my sunhat, put a smile on my face, and opened the office door.

Just another mom here to see her kids.

* * *

A few minutes later, I found myself in the principal’s office; apparently, I was in trouble.

Principal West was a pleasant-looking man in his mid-fifties. He was sitting behind his desk with his hands folded in front of him. He wore a white long-sleeved dress shirt with Native American-inspired jade cuff links. As far as I knew, he wasn’t Native American.

Principal West had always been kind to me. Early on, just after my attack, he had been quick to work with me. I was given special access to the front of the school when picking up my kids. Basically, I got to park where the buses parked—thus avoiding long lines and sitting in the sun longer than I had to. Good man. I appreciated his kindness.

That kindness had, apparently, come to an end.

“I can’t let them see you, Samantha, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I got a call today from Danny. In fact, I got it just about a half hour ago. Your husband—or ex-husband—says that the two of you have an unwritten agreement that you will not be picking the kids up anymore.”

“Yes, but—”

“He also says that you have agreed to supervised visits only. Is this true?”

Principal West was a good man, I knew that, and I could see that this was breaking his heart. I nodded and looked away.

He sighed heavily and pushed away from his desk, crossing his legs. “I can’t allow you to see them without Danny being present, Samantha. I’m sorry.”

“But I’m their mother.”

He studied me for a long time before saying, “Danny also said that you are a potential danger to the kids, and that under no circumstances are you to be alone with them.”

I was shaking my head. Tears were running down my face. I couldn’t speak.

Principal West went on, “You’re very ill, Sam. I can see that. Hell, anyone can see that. How and why you pose a threat to your children, I don’t know. And what’s going on between you and Danny, I don’t know that, either. But I would suggest that before you agree to any more such terms, Sam, that you seek legal counsel first. I have never known you to be a threat. Outside of being sick, I have always thought you were a wonderful mother, but it’s not for me to say—”

I lost it right there. I burst into tears and cried harder than I had cried in a long, long time. A handful of secretaries, the receptionist and even the school nurse surrounded me. Principal West watched me from behind his desk, and through my tears, I saw his own tears as well.

He wiped his eyes and got up. He put an arm gently around me and told me how sorry he was, and then escorted me out.

Chapter Nine

I hate all men, I wrote.

Even me?

Are you a man, Fang?

Yes, but I’m a helluva man.

Despite myself, I laughed. I was in my hotel room sitting in the cushioned hotel chair. I should have been comfortable, but I wasn’t; the chair’s wooden arms were bothering me. Come to think of it, the chair wasn’t that comfortable, either. Maybe I should complain to hotel management.

Or maybe I should just calm down, I thought. Even better, maybe I should get myself an apartment somewhere and decorate it with my own chairs.

It was a thought, but something I would think about later.

How do I know you’re a helluva man? I wrote. I’ve never seen a picture of you.

You’ll have to take my word for it.

The word of a man? Never! :)

Remember: A helluva a man.

So you say.

What’s got you so upset tonight, Moon Dance?

Fang was my online confidant. I had met him via an online vampire chatroom years ago, back when chatrooms were all the rage. Nowadays, he and I just chatted through AOL, although we kept our old screen names. His was Fang321, and mine was MoonDance. To date, I had yet to tell him anything too personal, although he has probed repeatedly for more information. Admittedly, I have too. We were both deathly curious about each other, but I had my reasons to not reveal my identity, and, according to him, he did, too. Of course, my reason had been obvious: I admitted to him early on that I was a vampire. To his credit, or, more accurately, a ding to his sanity, he had believed me without reservations.

So I told him about my attempt to see my kids, and how Danny was stymieing me at every turn.

You could always kill him, wrote Fang.

Sometimes I don’t know when you’re joking.

There was a long pause, and then he wrote, Of course, I was joking.

Good. You had me worried.

Still, he wrote. It would solve all your problems.

And create a ton more, I wrote, and then quickly added: I’m not a killer.

Thus wrote the vampire.

I’m a good vampire.

There are some who would say that’s an oxymoron.

Why can’t I be good, too?

Because it’s in your nature to kill and drink blood. Ideally, fresh blood from a fresh kill.

I won’t kill anything. I would rather shrivel up and die.

But by not drinking fresh blood you are denying yourself the full powers of your being.

How much more powerful do I need to be? I wrote.

You have no idea.

And how do you know so much about vampires, Fang? You’ve told me long ago that you are human.

A human with a love for all things vampire.

And why do you love vampires so much, Fang?

I have my reasons.

Will you ever tell me what they are?

Someday.

But not on here.

Exactly, he wrote. Not on here.

If not on here, then where? I asked.

That’s the million dollar question.

I changed subjects. So what am I supposed to do about Danny?

Another long pause. I often wondered what Fang did during these long pauses. Was he going to the bathroom? Answering his cell phone? Sitting back and lacing his fingers behind his head as he thought about what he would write next?

Finally, after perhaps five minutes, his words appeared in the IM box: Danny has all the leverage.

I thought about that. Indeed, it had been something that occurred to me earlier, but I wanted to see what Fang had up his sleeve.

Keep going, I wrote.

Maybe it’s time for you to take back the leverage.

I agree. Any idea how?

Something will come to you. Hey, how psychic are you these days, Moon Dance?

More than I was a few years ago. Why?

Some psychics use automatic writing for answers.

What automatic writing?

It’s when you sit quietly with a piece of paper and a pen and you ask questions. Sometimes answers come through and your pen just...starts writing.

I laughed.

You’re kidding.

No, I’m not. It could be a way for you to find answers, Moon Dance.

Answers to what?

Everything.

I thought about that, and a small feeling stirred in my solar plexus.

So how do I do this?

Research it on the internet.

Okay, I will.

Good. And let me know how it goes. ‘Night, Moon Dance.

‘Night, Fang.

Chapter Ten

I did research it on the internet.

Normally, I would have scoffed at such nonsense (automatic writing? C’mon!), but my very strange existence alone suggested that I should at least consider it.

And I liked the possibilities. Who wouldn’t want spiritual answers, especially someone with my condition?

According to a few sites I checked out on the internet, the process of automatic writing seemed fairly simple. Sit quietly at a table with a pen and paper. Center yourself. Clear your mind. Hold the pen lightly over the paper...and see what comes out.

Then again, maybe I didn’t want to know what might come out. Maybe I needed to keep whatever was in me bottled up.

With some trepidation, I found a spiral notebook and a pen. I switched off my laptop and slipped it back in its case.

It was just me, the table, a pen, and a pad of paper.

I stared at the pen. When I grew tired of staring at the pen, I cracked my neck and my knuckles. In the hallway outside my door, I heard two voices steadily growing louder as a couple approached in the direction of my door. The couple came and went, and now their voices grew fainter and fainter.

I picked up the pen.

A domed light hung from the ceiling directly above the table. The light flickered briefly. It had never flickered before. I frowned. One of the sites I had read mentioned that when spirits were present, lights flickered.

It did so again, and again. And now the light actually flickered off, and then on. And then off. Over and over it did this.

I sat back, gasping.

“Sweet Jesus,” I said.

More flickering. On and off.

Nothing else in my room was flickering. The light near the front door held strong. So did the light coming in under my front door. It was just this light, directly above me.

And then the light went apeshit. On and off so fast that I could have been having an epileptic seizure.

“Stop!” I suddenly shouted. “I get it. I’ll do it.”

I brought the pen over to the pad of paper, and the flickering stopped. The light blazed on, cheerily, as if nothing had happened at all.

Okay, that settles it, I thought. I really am going crazy.

I set the tip of the pen lightly down on the lined paper. I closed my eyes. Centered myself, whatever that meant. I did my best to do what the article on the internet said. Imagine an invisible silver cord stretching down from each ankle all the way to the center of the earth. Then imagine the cord tied tightly to the biggest rocks I could imagine. Then imagine another such cord tied to the end of my spine, attached to another such rock in the center of the earth.

Grounding myself.

I briefly imagined these silver cords stretching down through nine hotel floors, plunging through beds and scaring the hell out of the occupants below me.

I chuckled. Sorry folks. Just centering myself.

When I thought I was about as centered as I could be, I realized I didn’t know what to do next. Maybe I didn’t have to do anything. It was called automatic writing for a reason, right?

I looked at the pen in front of me. The tip rested unmovingly on the empty page. The lights above me had quit flickering. No doubt a power surge of some sort.

Maybe I should quit thinking?

But how does one quit thinking? I didn’t know, but I tried to think of nothing, and found myself thinking of everything. This was harder than it looked.

One of the articles said that focusing on breathing was a great way to unclutter thoughts. But what if someone didn’t need to breathe? The article wasn’t very vampire friendly.

Still, I forced myself to breathe in and out, focusing on the air as it passed over my lips and down the back of my throat. I focused on all the components that were necessary to draw air in and expel it out.

I thought of my children and the image of me strangling Danny came powerfully into my thoughts.

I shook my head and focused on breathing.

In and out. Over my lips and down my throat. Filling my lungs, and then being expelled again.

And that’s when I noticed something very, very interesting. I noticed a slight twitching in my forearms.

I opened my eyes.

The twitching had turned into something more than twitching. My arm was spasming. The feeling wasn’t uncomfortable, though. Almost as if I were receiving a gentle massage that somehow was stimulating my muscles. A gentle shock therapy.

I watched my arm curiously.

Interestingly, with each jerk of my muscles, the point of the pen moved as well, making small little squiggly lines on the page. Meaningless lines. Nothing more than chicken scratches.

My arm quit jerking, and I had a very, very strange sense that something had settled into it, somehow. Something had melded with my arm.

The chicken scratches stopped. Everything stopped.

There was a pause.

And then my arm tingled again and my muscles sort of jerked to life and I watched, utterly fascinated, as the pen in front of me, held by own hand, began making weird circles.

Circle after circle after circle. Big circles. Little circles. Tight, hard circles. Loose, light circles. Sloppy circles, perfect circles.

Quickly, the circles filled the entire page. When there wasn’t much room left at all, my hand grew quiet.

Using my other hand, I tore out the page out, revealing a fresh one beneath.

My arm jerked immediately, tingling, and the pen wrote again, but this time not with circles.

This time words appeared. Two words, to be exact.

Hello, Samantha.

Chapter Eleven

I stared at the two words.

Had I written them? Was I deluding myself into thinking that something beyond me was writing?

At that moment, as those questions formed in my mind, the gentle shocking sensation rippled through my forearm again and the pen began moving. Three words appeared.

Does it matter?

The script was flowing. Easy to read. Big, roundish letters. Completely filling the space between the light-blue lines of the writing paper.

“You can read my mind?” I said aloud.

My hand jerked to life, and words scrawled across the page.

Thoughts are real, Samantha. More real than people realize.

I watched in amazement as the words appeared before me. I had the sense that if I wanted to stop writing, that I could. I wasn’t being forced to write. I was allowing something to write through me. If I wanted this to stop it would.

“Who are you?” I asked. My heart, which averaged about five beats a minute, had increased in tempo. It was now thumping away at maybe ten beats a minute.

There was only a slight pause, and then my hand felt compelled to write the words: I am someone very close to you.

“Should I be afraid?”

You should be whatever you want. But let me ask you: Do you feel afraid?

“No.”

Then trust how you feel.

I took in some air, and held it for a few minutes, staring down at the pad of paper. I exhaled the air almost as an afterthought.

“This is weird,” I said.

It is whatever you want it to be. It could be weird. Or it could be wildly wonderful.

Half the page was now full. My hand also moved down to the next line on its own, prompted by the gentle electrical stimulation of my arm muscles.

A weird, otherworldly sensation, for sure.

“So you are someone close to me,” I said, and suddenly felt damn foolish for talking to my hand and a piece of paper. “But that doesn’t tell me who you are.”

There was a pause, and I had a strong sense that whoever I was talking to was considering how much to tell me.

For now, let’s just say I am a friend. A very close friend.

“Most of my friends don’t speak to me through a pen and paper,” I said. “They use email or text messaging.”

Words are words, are they not? Think of this as spiritual instant messaging. A SIM.

Despite myself, I laughed. Now I was certain I was going crazy.

I looked down at the printed words. The fresher ones were still wet and gleaming blue under the overhead light. The printing was not my own. It was big and flowing. My own handwriting style tended to be tight and slanted.

Finally, I said, “I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

Do you have to understand everything, Samantha? Perhaps some things are best taken on faith. Perhaps it’s a good thing to have a little mystery in the world. After all, you’re a little mysterious yourself, aren’t you?

I nodded but said nothing. I was suddenly having a hard time formulating words—or even thinking for that matter. I was also feeling strangely emotional. Something powerful and wonderful was going on here and I was having a hard time grasping it.

Then let’s take a break, Samantha. It’s okay. We made our introductions, and that’s a good start.

“But you didn’t tell me your name,” I blurted out.

A slight pause, a tingle, and the following words appeared:

Sephora. And I’m always here. Waiting.

Chapter Twelve

At 7:00 p.m., and still a little freaked about the automatic writing, I called my kids.

Danny picked up immediately.

“I heard about the stunt you pulled today, Sam,” he said.

In the background, I heard a female voice say quietly, “What a bitch.” The female probably didn’t know that I could hear her. The female was now on my shit list. And if it was the female I was thinking it was—his home-wrecking secretary—then she was already on my shit list. So this put her name twice on my shit list. I don’t know much about much, but being on a vampire’s shit list twice probably wasn’t a good idea.

Danny didn’t bother to shush the woman or even acknowledge she had spoken. Instead, he said, “That was a very stupid thing to do, Sam.”

“I just want to see my kids, Danny.”

“You do get to see them, every Saturday night,” he said, breathing hard. Danny had a temper. A bad temper. He never hit me, which was wise of him, because even back when I wasn’t a vampire I could still kick his ass. You don’t smack around a highly trained federal agent with a gun in her shoulder holster. And then he added, “But not anymore.”

“What do you mean not anymore?” I asked.

“It means you’re no longer permitted to see the kids, Sam. How can I trust you anymore after that stunt you pulled today?”

This coming from the man who had been cheating on me for months.

“Stunt? Seeing my kids is a stunt?”

“We had an agreement and you broke it, and now I have an obligation to protect my children.”

“And they need protection from me?”

There was no hesitation. “Yes, of course. You’re a monster.”

I heard little Anthony say something in the background. He asked if he could talk to me on the phone. The female in the room shushed him nastily. Anthony whimpered and I nearly crushed my cell phone in my hand.

“Don’t take away my Saturdays, Danny.”

“I didn’t take them away, Sam. You did.”

I forced myself to keep calm. “When can I see them again, Danny?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

“I’m seeing them this Saturday.”

“If you come here, Sam, then everything goes public. All the evidence. All the proof. The pathetic life that you now have will be over. And then you will never, ever see your kids. So don’t fuck with me, Sam.”

“I could always kill you, Danny.”

“Awe, the true monster comes out. You kill me and you still lose the kids. Besides, I’m not afraid of you.”

He had something up his sleeve. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I suspected it was a weapon of some sort. A vampire hunting weapon, no doubt. Maybe something similar to what the vampire hunter had used on me last month. The hunter who came to kill me with a crossbow and silver-tipped arrow, and ended up on a one-way cruise ship to Hawaii. Long story.

I looked at my watch. It was well past the ten minutes he allotted me each night. “Can I please speak to my children now?”

“Sorry, Sam. Your time for tonight is up.” And he hung up.

Chapter Thirteen

Fresh off my infuriating phone call with Danny, I soon found myself sitting outside Rembrandt’s in Brea. I was drinking a glass of white wine. The woman sitting across from me was drinking a lemonade. Yes, a lemonade. Her name was Monica Collins and she was a mess.

We were sitting under a string of white lights next to a sort of makeshift fence that separated us from the heavily trafficked path to the 24-Hour Fitness behind us. While we drank, a steady parade of physical active types, all wearing tight black shorts, tank tops or tee shirts, streamed past our table and looked down at us gluttons with scorn. Most carried a gym bag of some sort, a water bottle, and a towel. Half had white speaker cords hanging from their ears. There was a sameness to their diversity.

This wine was hurting my stomach and so I mostly ignored it. White wine, water and blood were the only items I could safely consume without vomiting within minutes. Wine, however, rarely settled well, but I put up with it, especially when meeting new clients. I doubted a glass of chilled hemoglobin would make them feel very comfortable.

Monica was on her second glass of lemonade. Correction, third. She raised her hand and signaled the waiter over, who promptly responded, filling her glass again with a pitcher of the sweet stuff. She looked relieved.

Monica was a bit of a mystery to me. She was a full grown woman who acted as if she was precisely fourteen years old. She had to be around thirty, certainly, but you would never guess it by the way she popped her gum, swung her legs in her seat, giggled, and drank lemonade as if it was going out of style. Her giggling was a nervous habit, I noticed, not because she actually thought anything was funny. There was also something screwy about her right eye. It didn’t track with the left eye, as if it had a sort of minor delay to it. It also seemed to focus somewhere over my shoulder, as if at an imaginary pet parrot.

She had been telling me in graphic detail the many incidents in which her husband of twelve years (now ex-husband) had beaten the unholy shit out of her. I didn’t say much as she spoke. Mostly I watched her...and the steady procession of humanity coming and going to the gym.

Monica spoke in a small, child-like voice. She spoke without passion and without inflection. There was no weight to her voice. No strength. Often she spoke with her head and eyes down. She had suffered great abuse, perhaps for most of her life. Women who were abused as children often found themselves in abusive relationships as adults. No surprise there.

She stopped talking when she reached the bottom of the lemonade. She next proceeded to slurp up the remnants loudly. People looked at her, and then at me. I shrugged. Monica didn’t seem to care that people were looking at her, and if she didn’t care, why the hell should I?

When she was done slurping, she then asked me if she could go to the bathroom.

Yes, asked me.

I told her that, uh, sure, that would be fine. She smiled brightly, popped her gum, and left. A few minutes later she returned...and promptly ordered another lemonade.

She went on. After she had left her husband, he had made it his life’s purpose to kill her. She got a restraining order. Apparently he didn’t think much of restraining orders. His first attempt to kill her occurred when she was living alone in an apartment in Anaheim.

As she paused to fish out a strawberry, I tried to wrap my brain around the thought of Monica living on her own, doing big girl things, doing adult things, and couldn’t. Although thirty-something, she clearly seemed stunted and unprepared for adult life. I reflected on this as she continued her story.

He was waiting for her in her kitchen. After throwing her around a bit, he had proceeded to beat her into a bloody mess with a pipe wrench, cracking her head open, and leaving her for dead.

Except she didn’t die. Doctors rebuilt her, using steel plates and pins and screws. Today she still suffered from trauma-induced seizures and had lost the use of her right eye. That explained the eye. It was, in fact, blind.

After the attack, her husband had been caught within hours. But something strange happened on the way to prison. His attorney, who had apparently been damn good, had somehow gotten him out of jail within a few weeks, convincing a judge that her ex was no longer a threat to Monica.

Her ex-husband attacked again that night.

Still recovering from the first attack, Monica had been staying with her parents when her ex-husband broke into their home, this time wielding a hammer. I was beginning to suspect someone had given the man a gift card to Home Depot. I kept my suspicions to myself.

Anyway, her ex went on to kill her father and to permanently cripple her mother. And if not for the family Rottweiler, Monica would have been dead, too. Yes, the dog survived.

Monica grew silent. In the parking lot in front of us, an older white Cadillac drove slowly by. The windows were tinted. The Caddy seemed to slow as it went by. She played with the straw. I told her I was sorry about her father. She nodded and kept playing with the straw. I waited. There was more to the story. There was a reason, after all, why she had called me this evening.

She pushed her glass aside. Apparently, she had reached her lemonade limit.

She said, “He was caught trying to hire someone to kill me.”

“Who caught him?”

“The people at the prison.”

“Prison officials?”

“Yes, them. But he wasn’t, you know, successful.” Nervous giggles.

I said, “You’re scared.”

She nodded; tears welled up in her eyes. “Why does he want to hurt me so much? Hasn’t he done enough?”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“He’s horrible,” she said. “He’s so mean.”

As she spoke her voice grew tinier and her lower lip shook. Her hands were shaking, too, and my heart went out to this little girl in a woman’s body. Why anyone would want to hurt such a harmless person, I had no clue. Maybe there was more to the story, but I doubted it. I think her assessment was right. He was just mean. Damn mean.

She spoke again, “So I talked to Detective Sherbet. He is so nice to me. He always helps me. I love him.” She smiled at the thought of the good detective, a man I had grown quite fond of myself. “He told me to see you. That you were tougher than you looked, but I don’t understand what he means. He said you would protect me.”

I said, “In the state of California, a private investigator’s license also doubles as a bodyguard license.”

“So you are a bodyguard, too?” I heard awe in her voice. She smiled brightly. Tears still gleamed wetly in her eyes.

“I am,” I said, perhaps a little more boastful than I had intended.

She clapped. “Do you carry a gun?”

“When I need to.”

She continued smiling, but then grew somber. She looked at me closely with her good eye, not so closely with her bad eye. “I don’t have money to pay you. I haven’t been able to work at the bakery since he hurt me, but maybe my momma can help pay you. Detective Sherbet said that you know what the right thing to do is, but I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

I smiled and shook my head and reached out and took her hand, feeling its warmth despite its clamminess. She flinched slightly at my own icy touch. I held her gaze, and she held mine as best as she could.

I said, “Don’t worry about money, sweetie. I won’t let anything happen to you, ever. You’re safe now. I promise.”

And that’s when she started crying.

Chapter Fourteen

We were in my hotel suite.

Monica was walking around my spartan room as if it were more interesting than it really was. I sensed some of her anxiety departing. In the least, she was giggling less, which I considered a good thing.

Finally she sat on the corner of the bed, near where I was sitting in the surprisingly comfortable desk chair. My laptop was next to me, closed. Somewhere, in there, was Fang. I wondered what he was doing tonight. I wondered what he did every night. I found myself wondering a lot about him.

And what about Kingsley? I wondered about him, too, but he was a little easier to wonder about, since I knew where he lived and I knew he had the hots for me.

On the round table near me was the pad of paper that contained my conversation with...something. At least, the beginning of a conversation.

“You really live here?” asked Monica.

“For now, yes.”

“And your husband just kicked you out?”

“Something like that.”

She shook her head and smiled some more, but it was a nervous smile. I sensed her about to giggle, but she somehow held it in check.

“I had the opposite problem,” she said.

“As in, he never wanted you to leave.”

“Yes, exactly.” And now she did giggle. Sigh. As she sat there on the corner of the bed, her dangling feet didn’t quite touch the carpeted floor. She was so small and cute. And innocent. And sweet. And clueless. In the wrong hands, in the wrong relationship, I could see a brute of a man thinking she was his. A trophy. A little trophy. Something to possess and own. In the right hands, she would have been protected and loved and cherished.

She had found herself in the wrong hands.

Monica asked, “So why did he kick you out, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“I mind,” I said.

She giggled, turned red, and looked away. “I’m so sorry.”

I reached out and touched her knee. I had to be gentle with this one. Her social savvy wasn’t quite up to par, either.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just a very fresh wound that I don’t want to talk about right now. You did nothing wrong.”

She nodded vigorously. I patted her knee. She looked at me, nodded again, then looked down. She was so unsure of herself. So lost. So helpless. How could anyone hurt this girl? God, I already hated her ex-husband with a fucking passion.

“Sam, can I ask you a question?”

I smiled. “Sure, sweetie.”

“Can I, you know, ask how you’re going to protect me?” Nervous giggle. “Is that okay to ask?”

“It’s okay,” I said, patting her knee reassuring, much as I would my own daughter. And the thought of my daughter—and the possibility of not seeing her or Anthony this Saturday night—nearly brought me to tears. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and said, “You are either going to be with me, or with someone I trust. You will always be protected.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. She pursed her lips. “Who are your friends?”

“Good men. Honorable men. I trust them with my life. They will protect you when I’m not around.”

“Why would you not be around?”

“Sometimes I have...business to attend to.”

She nodded. She understood business. “And one of your friends is coming over now?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Because you are going out?”

“Right. I have work to do.”

“And I can’t come?” She sounded like a child asking her mother if she could go grocery shopping with her.

“Not this time,” I said.

“Okay.” Petulant. She didn’t like the idea of me leaving her so soon. I didn’t either, but what I had to do tonight she had no business seeing or being a part of.

“Chad is a good man,” I said. “You will like him.”

She nodded again. “Will you be back tonight?”

“Yes.”

She smiled and kicked her feet out again. She was wearing white shorts. Her legs were thin and tan. They were also crisscrossed with scars. I didn’t ask her about the scars, but I suspected she had been beaten badly with a belt.

“So how long will you protect me?”

“As long as it takes,” I said. Mercifully, she had no children and, apparently, was on extended leave at her baking job, which I discovered was a donut shop. No wonder why Detective Sherbet liked her so much.

There was a knock on my hotel door. Three rapid knocks, a pause, and then a fourth. It was Chad, using the coded knock we had been trained to use.

“That’s my ex-partner,” I said. I sat forward and patted her knee again. “You’re in good hands, I promise.”

She smiled and popped her gum. “I believe you,” she said.

Chapter Fifteen

I was sitting with Stuart Young three floors up on his balcony, overlooking a sliver of Balboa Beach. Stuart didn’t quite have a water view from his balcony, but what I could see gleamed brightly under the waxing crescent moon.

Stuart offered me some wine, but my stomach was still upset from the wine I had earlier. I accepted some water instead, and now we sat together overlooking a mostly quiet street. The street ran between more condos. The condos all looked the same. Row after row, street after street, of identical condos. How I found Stuart’s condo was still a mystery, especially with my dismal sense of direction.

But I knew the answer. I sensed his building, and I sensed his apartment. My psychic abilities were gathering strength.

Anyway, Stuart looked like he had recently been crying. No surprise there. He also didn’t seem to care that he looked like he had been crying and made no apologies for it. His eyes were red and swollen. His nose was red and swollen. A light film of sweat coated his perfect bald head. The sweat could have been from the alcohol, since the weather is always perfect. Which is why, water view or no water view, this condo probably cost a small fortune.

Stuart was drinking light beer that he had poured into a frosted glass. Beer was the one thing I didn’t miss. Blech. Give me wine any day.

“How you holding up?” I asked.

“Couldn’t be worse,” he said, and actually smiled.

I sipped my water and leaned slightly to the right to get a better view of the tiny sliver of ocean.

“If you look hard enough, you’ll find it,” said Stuart. “Believe it or not, I paid for that tiny speck of ocean you can see. Probably cost me another fifty grand.”

“It’s a nice speck,” I said.

He chuckled and drank his beer. He seemed to be enjoying it. Go figure.

“I have it on good word,” I said without looking at him, “that, unofficially, your wife’s plane was sabotaged.”

He stopped drinking.

I went on, “And if it was sabotaged, which appears likely, then that means your wife, along with everyone else on board, was murdered.”

He sat back, stared down into his frosted mug. He didn’t have much of a reaction. Then again, I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know or suspect.

I continued, “We all know who stood to benefit from that plane going down. Jerry Blum has not only escaped prosecution, he is now a free man. With no witnesses and no case, all charges have been dropped against him.”

Stuart nodded; his jawline rippled slightly.

“The plane crash investigation is still ongoing,” I said after a few minutes. “The investigation could take years. Even if the authorities do find out who took it down, or sabotaged it, I suspect there will be very little evidence linking the attack to Jerry Blum.”

He set his frosted glass down on the dusty, round glass table that sat between us, and turned and looked at me.

Stuart said, “And even if evidence is found indicating Jerry Blum was responsible for my wife’s crash, who’s to say that the next batch of witnesses won’t be killed as well.”

“It’s a sick Catch-22,” I said.

“This could go on forever.”

I nodded.

“I may never see justice,” he added. “Ever.”

“There is still a chance they could find damning evidence linking Jerry Blum to the downed aircraft,” I said.

“Or not,” said Stuart.

I nodded. “Or not.”

“More than likely he’s going to get off, again, and meanwhile my wife....” Stuart’s voice trailed off and he suddenly broke down, sobbing hard into his hands. I reached over and patted his shoulder and made sympathetic noises. He continued crying, and I continued patting.

When he finally got control of himself, he said, “I have something I want you to listen to.”

Chapter Sixteen

Stuart got up and went through the sliding glass door. He came back a moment later holding a Blackberry phone. He sat next to me again and pushed a few buttons on the phone. A moment later, the phone was ringing loudly on speaker mode. An electronic voice answered and asked Stuart if he wanted to listen to his voice mail. Stuart pressed a button. I assumed his answer was yes. The voice then asked if Stuart wanted to listen to his archive. He pressed another button, and he held the phone out between us, face up, above the round table and above his beer.

“Stu!” came a woman’s frantic voice. “Stu, listen to me. Something very, very bad is happening. Oh, God! Stu, the plane is having problems. Serious problems. I heard an explosion. It happened right outside my window. On the wing. It blew up. I can see it now. Flapping, burning, on fire. This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. Oh, God, Stu!” The voice stopped. From somewhere nearby, I heard a woman screaming in the background. A horrible, gut-wrenching scream. “Stu, sweet Jesus, the plane is going to crash. Everyone knows it. The pilot can’t get...can’t get control of it.” Another pause. A voice crackled loudly over a speaker. It was the pilot. He was telling everyone to sit in their seats, to buckle up, to remain calm. And then he told them to prepare for a crash landing. “Jesus, Stu. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Oh, good Christ. I wish I was talking to you, baby. I need you so bad. I need your voice. Baby, I’m so scared. So scared. This isn’t happening.” Someone screamed bloody murder in the background. “I heard your voice, Stu. I heard it when I got your voice mail. At least I heard it one last—one more time. I love your voice, baby. I love you, baby. I love you so much. I’m going to die now.” Someone spoke to her rapidly, hysterically, but the woman on the phone didn’t respond. “Everyone’s losing it, Stu. Everyone’s freaking. Stu, the explosion. Something blew this plane up. Something blew the wing up. It’s Jerry Blum, Stu. I know it. He did this, baby. Somehow. Somehow he got to us all. The motherfucker. Oh, God....” and now she broke down in sobs, briefly regained her composure, and into the phone, “I love you, baby. Forever.”

And the line went dead.

* * *

Stuart didn’t bother wiping the tears that ran down his cheeks. He stared silently down at his cell phone, which still rested in his open hand. His hand was shaking. Finally, reluctantly, he used his thumb and pressed another button, and pocketed the Blackberry carefully in his light jacket.

He said, “I forwarded my wife’s message to another voice mail account I have, and then forwarded the call to the FBI. They asked me to delete the original, which I did. I never told them that I still have a copy of it. Hell, I have a few copies of it, saved in various formats. How dare they ask me to delete my wife’s last message to me. The motherfuckers.”

We sat quietly for a long time, and I heard his wife’s panicked voice over and over again. My heart broke for her. My heart broke for him. My heart, quite frankly, broke to pieces.

“I’m so sorry,” I finally said.

He nodded absently and stared off toward the beach and the muted sounds of crashing waves. I doubted Stuart’s mortal ears could hear the waves. Probably a good thing, since hearing the sounds of crashing waves would have doubled the value of the condo. Just over the tiled rooftop of the condo across the street, two seagulls swooped down, their alabaster bodies clear as day to my eyes. As they flashed through the night sky, an ectoplasmic trail of crackling energy followed them like the burning tails of comets. The night was alive to my eyes. The night was alive to my ears, too.

Stuart said, “And even if the FBI eventually found the evidence to convict Jerry Blum, he still may never face punishment.”

I nodded.

He shook his head. “It’s...the worst feeling in the world, knowing that this motherfucker killed her, knowing that he let her burn to death.” Stuart took deep breaths. “He’s a fucking animal and I hate him. You know, fuck the trial. Fuck the evidence. Fuck everything. All I want is ten minutes alone with the motherfucker. Just me and him. Ten minutes.”

His wishful thinking got me to thinking.

Stuart went on, “But we can’t touch him. No one can touch him. Not the police, not the FBI, not the courts. No one.”

“I can touch him,” I said, surprised as hell that the words came out of my mouth. I really hadn’t thought this through. Not in the slightest.

Stuart snapped his head around. “What did you say?”

I plowed forward, what the hell. “I said I can touch him.”

Stuart squinted at me.

“What exactly does that mean, Sam?”

“It means I can hand-deliver you Jerry Blum.”

“I’m not following.”

It was a crazy idea. Too crazy. But Stuart was hurting and furious and frustrated, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. Unless....

I said, “Do you really want to face Jerry Blum alone, the man who killed your wife?”

“More than life itself.”

“Then what would you say if I told you that I could bring you Jerry Blum?”

“I would say you’re crazy.”

“Yes, maybe a little.”

“But you don’t sound crazy.”

“Good to know.”

But my crazy idea had sparked something in him. In the very least, it had given him something to take his mind off his pain. He turned in his seat and faced me.

“How could you do this?” he asked.

“I have contacts,” I said vaguely.

“And your contacts can get you Jerry Blum?”

“Yes,” I said. “Sooner or later.”

“And I would face him?”

I nodded. “Alone.”

“Man against man?”

“Mano y mano,” I said, which, I think, meant man and man, but what the hell did I know?

Stuart said, “What about all his bodyguards, his shooters, his hired killers?”

I shook my head. “It would just be the two of you. Alone.”

“And would anyone else know about this?”

“Just me, you, and Jerry Blum.”

Something very close to a smile touched the corners of Stuart’s mouth, but then he shook his head and the smile was gone. “As much as I would like to believe you, Sam, I have to face the fact that this is nothing more than a fantasy—”

“I can get him,” I said, cutting him off. “Give me two weeks.”

Stuart stared at me long and hard, then finally he nodded and grinned. He looked good when he grinned; it made his perfect bald head look even more perfect.

“Okay, I believe you,” he said. “Why I believe you, I don’t know, but I do.”

We both sat back in our patio chairs and I listened to the wind and the waves and the sounds of someone in the condo below us making a late night dinner. Shortly, the smell of bacon wafted up. God, I used to love breakfast for dinner.

Stuart rolled his head in my direction. “And what if I kill him?”

“Everybody’s got to die sooner or later,” I said.

“You’re a tough woman.”

“Getting tougher by the minute,” I said.

Chapter Eighteen

It was midnight, and I was sitting in my minivan with my laptop near the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel. No, I don’t normally hang out at the Ritz Carlton, but this was as good a place as any for what I was about to do.

Orange County’s only five-star hotel sat high on a bluff, which, if you asked me, looked exactly like a cliff. Anyway, I was parked in the guest parking lot in the far corner of the far lot. I doubted I had attracted much attention. Just a small woman in a big van.

A small woman who was about to get very naked.

My windows were cracked open and far below the steep cliff—I was going with cliff—was the pleasant sound of the surf crashing along what I knew were mostly smooth, sandy beaches.

I briefly thought about what I had gotten myself into, and the further away I was from Stuart and his heartbreak, the more I realized how crazy my idea had been.

Think about it, Sam: you promised to deliver one of the West Coast’s most notorious gangsters to a mild-mannered widower—for a one-on-one smackdown.

Yeah, I’ve had better ideas.

Of course, as things presently stood, Stuart would never see justice. Or, if he did, it might be years before Blum was locked behind bars again, and that’s if the feds could pin anything on him, which I seriously doubted. After all, Blum had been in prison awaiting trial when the plane went down.

A hell of an alibi.

And so what do you do, Sam? You offer to deliver a murderer to a man who’s only outstanding physical attribute was perhaps the world’s most perfectly bald head?

Stuart was a slight man, to say the least. Jerry Blum would no doubt kill the grieving widower with his bare hands. In fact, Blum had probably done exactly that throughout his career in crime.

And that’s if you managed to somehow even get to Blum.

It’s good business to under-promise and over-deliver. Well, in this case, I had over-promised...and might just very well deliver a murderer.

Great.

I shook my head. I’ve had better plans.

Jerry Blum needed to go down. One way or another. Having Stuart face the gangster was probably not my best idea, but it was the best I could come up with at the time. For now, I would let the details of the showdown percolate for a few days and see what else I could come up with.

I drummed my long fingers on the steering wheel. I might be a smidgen over five feet, but God blessed me with extraordinarily long fingers. Was it wrong to really love your own fingers?

Of course, now my fingers and thumbs were capped by very strong-looking nails. Not claws, per se, just ten very thick, and slightly pointed nails. Okay, fine. They were claws. I had fucking claws.

Sometimes I hate my life.

Earlier, I had made a few phone calls to my contacts and I had gotten the address to Jerry Blum’s lavish Newport Beach fortress. The gangster lived on a massive estate overlooking the ocean. In fact, it was a tiny island just off shore, but not too far offshore. A bridge connected the island.

Now, with my laptop glowing next to me, I used Google’s satellite feature and studied the lay of the land from above, memorizing the various features of the island. There weren’t many. The sprawling home spanned the entire north end of the island from side to side, leaving only a few acres of trees along the southern tip. For me, the trees were a good thing.

Birds get lost in trees.

But do giant vampire bats?

Once I had the images locked in my brain, I powered down the laptop and scanned the area. All was quiet in this remote section of the Ritz Carlton parking lot. I quickly stripped out of my jeans and blouse and everything in-between. It was the in-between stuff that left me feeling especially vulnerable. And although I had been sitting in my seat for nearly a half hour, the vinyl was still cold to the touch, probably because I was cold to the touch, since my body heat had gone the way of the dodo bird.

Just as I got down to the bare minimum, a family of four pulled up in an SUV that was big enough to lay siege to Idaho with. I crouched low in my seat, willing myself invisible. A few minutes later, the family piled out and headed up to the hotel, and when they had disappeared from view, I cautiously stepped out of my minivan.

Naked as the day I was born.

I quickly padded across the smooth concrete, stepped over a guard rail, and worked my way through some scrubby bushes until I was standing at the edge of a very steep cliff indeed. Whoever calls these “bluffs” can bite my ass.

Up here, staring down, the ground looked impossibly far. A faint line of foaming waves crashed rhythmically against the polished beaches. I could see two people walking near the surf, holding hands. And if they should happen to look up, they might see something very, very bizarre. Something that would no doubt give them nightmares for the rest of their lives.

Then let’s hope for their sake they don’t look up.

I took a deep breath, filled my lungs with oxygen I really didn’t need, closed my eyes, and leaped off the cliff.

Chapter Nineteen

I jumped up and out as far away from the cliff as I could.

For one brief second I was majestically airborne, face raised to the heavens, just your everyday naked soccer mom doing a swan dive off the Ritz Carlton cliffs.

The night air was alive with crackling streaks of light, flashes of energy and zigzagging flares of secret lightning. At least secret to mortal eyes.

I hovered like this briefly, suspended in mid-air, looking out over the black ocean....

And then I dropped like a rock—head first, arms held out to either side. An inverted cross.

The wind thundered over me. The face of the cliff swept past me in a blur—hundreds upon hundreds of multicolored layers of strata speeding by in a blink.

I closed my eyes, and the moment I did, a single flame appeared at the forefront of my mind, in the spot most people call the third eye. The flame grew rapidly, burning impossibly bright, filling my thoughts completely, consuming my mind. And within that flame, a vague, dark image appeared. A hideous, ghastly image.

I continued to fall. Wind continued rushing over my ears, whipped my long hair behind me like a black and tattered cape. The sounds of the crashing waves grew rapidly closer. Too close. Soon, very soon, I was going to crash-land at the bottom of the cliff, splattered across the piles of massive boulders.

Would I die? I didn’t know. I also didn’t want to find out.

The shadowy image took on more shape, its grotesque lines sharpening. I felt an immediate and powerful pull toward the beastly image.

The image grew rapidly, consuming the flame. Ah, but it wasn’t growing, was it?

No. Indeed, I was rushing toward it.

Faster and faster.

And then we were one, the beast and I.

I gasped and opened my eyes and contorted my body as great, leathery wings blossomed beneath my arms. The thick membranes instantly snapped taut like a parachute. The gravitational force on them alone should have ripped them from my body.

But they didn’t rip; indeed, they held strong. My arms held strong, too.

I slowed considerably, but not enough. The boulders were still rapidly approaching, the wind screaming over my ears, blasting my face. I instinctively adjusted the angle of my arms—and now I was swooping instead of falling.

And shortly after that, I was flying.

I swept above the boulders, just missing them, and now I was gliding over the smooth shore, flashing over the heads of the couple walking hand in hand.

They both turned to look, but I was already gone. Just a great, black winged mystery against the starless night sky.

I flapped my great wings again and gained altitude, and I kept flapping until I was high above the dark ocean.

Chapter Twenty

I flapped my wings again and rose another couple hundred of feet. I had about ten miles to go to get to Newport Beach. Would have taken me about twenty minutes along the winding Pacific Coast Highway. But as the crow flies, only a few minutes tops.

Or as the “giant vampire bat” flies.

I soon found myself in a fairly warm jetstream that hurled me along with little effort on my part. Far below, as I followed the curving sweep of the black coast, an array of lights shown from some of the biggest homes Orange County had to offer.

Six years ago, just after dusk, I had been out jogging along a wooded path in Hillcrest Park in Fullerton. The wooded path was one of the few such paths in Fullerton. Probably not the best time to be jogging in the woods (or what passed as woods in Orange County), but I was a highly trained federal investigator and I was packing heat.

I never saw it coming. Hell, I never even heard it coming.

One moment I was running, alert for weirdos and tree roots (in that order), and the next I found myself hurling through the air, and slamming hard against a tree trunk.

Close to blacking out, I sensed something moving swiftly behind me. I tried to reach for my gun in the fanny pack, but something was on me, something strong and terrifying.

Before my vision rapidly filled with black, I was aware of two things: One, that I was going to die tonight. And, two, the beautiful gold and ruby medallion that hung from my attacker’s neck.

* * *

The wind swept over my perfectly aerodynamic body. A foghorn sounded from somewhere. I was unaware that the beaches of southern California had foghorns, or even fog for that matter.

I banked slightly to starboard by lowering my right arm and lifting my left. A seagull was flying just beneath me. It didn’t seem to notice me, and together we continued slightly northeast, following the coast.

I had been partly correct, of course. In a way I had died that night.

Died and reborn.

And the medallion, through a series of unusual events that I’m still not quite sure what to make of, later came into my possession. As recently as six weeks ago, in fact.

Vampires and medallions are such a cliché, I thought, as I slowly began my descent. As I did so, I recognized the glittering Newport Bay and its equally glittering pier.

Then again, maybe the vampire who attacked me invented the cliché.

Hell, maybe he was the reason for it.

* * *

Two joggers had found me in the woods. I learned later that the joggers had initially reported me as dead.

I awoke the next morning at St. Jude’s Hospital in Fullerton, surrounded by friends and family and police investigators. Federal investigators, too, since these were my colleagues.

There had been a single ghastly wound on my neck. Whatever had attacked me had violently torn open my neck and nearly removed my trapezoid muscle.

I should have been dead.

There was no sign of sexual assault. Nothing had been stolen. Even my gun was still in my fanny pack. I was also shockingly low on blood. The only explanation that seemed to fit was that I had been attacked by a coyote, which are fairly common in those parts of northern Orange County. The loss of blood was unusual, since there had been no large quantities of it found at the scene. Again, that was attributed to the coyotes, which could have easily lapped up my hemoglobin.

And since when did coyotes prefer sucking blood to eating raw meat?

They didn’t, but there was no other explanation. Yes, I reported seeing the medallion. I reported being thrown against a tree, too. These reports were largely dismissed. Sure, my detective friends joked lightheartedly about being attacked by a vampire, but the jokes were forgotten as soon as they were made.

The attack made the local papers, and there was a witch hunt on the local coyote population. Many were regrettably killed.

My neck and shoulder had required hundreds of stitches. Doctors had spent hours on it. They were expecting serious issues with infection, and I was placed in a rigid neck brace. Two days later they released me.

And that’s when things started getting weird.

The morning after I was released, I noticed two things: the incessant itching under my bandages had stopped, and I was experiencing no pain in my neck at all.

With Danny watching cartoons with little Anthony, then only two years old, and Tammy at school, I went into the bathroom and shut the door and took my first look under the bandages.

And what I saw was the beginning of my new life.

I was healed. I was impossibly healed. I was supernaturally healed.

I had been sitting on the edge of the bathtub with the bathroom door locked, when Danny knocked on the door and asked if everything was okay, and I said yes. But I wasn’t okay. Something was wrong, horribly wrong.

He paused just outside the door, where I could clearly hear him breathing as if he was standing next to me. How could I hear him breathing from behind the door? And did I just hear him scratch himself? When he finally walked away, shuffling down the carpeted floor, I heard every step. Clearly. As if he been walking on hardwood floors.

Confused and alarmed, I crawled into the empty bathtub and hugged my knees tightly.

* * *

And later that day, as I nervously hid my healed wound from Danny—and alternately wondered why I was feeling a very strong need to stay away from direct sunlight—I also had my first craving for the red stuff.

What the hell was happening to me?

Chapter Twenty-one

From the sky, Jerry Blum’s estate was easily one of the biggest for miles around. And in Newport Beach, that’s saying something.

His estate was, in fact, an island all to itself, an island that was accessible via bridge from Balboa Island.

An island within an island. Cool beans.

Balboa Island wasn’t a real island, though. It was just a long peninsula filled with inordinately large homes and hip bars and restaurants. I suppose calling it Balboa Long Peninsula just didn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Still, those living on Balboa Island were living a lie.

Just sayin’.

Not so with Jerry Blum. He really did live on an island—an island all to himself, complete with a private bridge that arched from near the southern point of Balboa Island.

A handful of small planes buzzed around me, some beneath and some above. I doubted I was being picked up on any radar. A creature who didn’t have a reflection, probably didn’t return radar signals, either. And if a giant bat-like blip did show up on their radars, then that would certainly give the air traffic controllers something to chew on.

That, and nightmares.

I swept lower, tucking my arms in a little, angling down toward Jerry Blum’s private island. Wind blasted me as I raced through the sky. A thin, protective film covered my eyes. Vampiric goggles.

Whoever had created this thing that I sometimes turn into had done a bang-up job. Someone, somewhere had put some serious thought into this thing.

Who that person was, I didn’t know. Why I was created, I didn’t know. From where this dark flying creature came from, I didn’t know.

But I knew I wanted answers.

Someday, I thought.

For now, it was time to go to work.

Hey, even giant vampire bats have to make a living.

* * *

I found a large tree on the grounds and settled upon a thickish branch. From here, I had a good view of the rear and east side of the house.

Sometimes I wondered if I had really died that night six years ago. Maybe this was death. Maybe death was living out a nightmarish fantasy that couldn’t possibly be real. Maybe death was full of wonder and fantasy.

The thick branch creaked under my considerable weight. How considerable? I didn’t know, but if I had to guess, I would say that I weighed over five hundred pounds.

Big girl.

The massive estate was quiet, although men in shorts and Hawaiian shirts routinely walked the grounds. A high wall encircled the property, and barbed wire ran along the top of the wall. There were security cameras everywhere, but I didn’t worry about security cameras. Two big Lincolns sat to either side of the main gate. No doubt men with guns sat in those cars. Beyond the backyard fence was the bay, and beyond that was Newport Beach itself. Wooden stairs led down from the backyard to a boat house and private pier. A sixty-foot yacht was anchored next to the boat house. The yacht looked empty, although there were a few lights on inside it here and there.

I sat unmovingly on the branch for a few more hours. My great, muscular legs never once went to sleep or needed adjusting. I suspected I could have sat perched like that all night. Or until the sun came up or until the branch snapped off. Whichever came first.

But Jerry Blum’s house was quiet tonight. No doubt he was off somewhere honing his racketeering and murder skills. Perfecting the fine art of gangstering.

I’ll be back, I thought, and leaped off the branch and shot into the air.

Chapter Twenty-two

I swooped around my minivan once, twice, waiting for a security guard to move on. When he finally did, I landed softly atop the rocky cliff nearby, tucking in my wings. As usual, my wings’ thick, leathery membranes hung limply, this time in the dirt. And if I wasn’t careful, I could step on my wings, which I had done before and it wasn’t the most graceful thing to witness. A vampire stumbling on her own wings didn’t exactly grace the covers of supernatural romance novels the world over.

With the salt-infused wind hammering me atop the cliff, the flame in my mind’s eye appeared again. But this time a horrific creature wasn’t standing in the flame. (Unless, of course, you asked my ex-husband.) No, instead, a naked woman was standing in the flame.

A cute little curvy woman with long black hair.

It was one of the few times I actually got to see myself without heavy make-up on. Granted, it was a smallish image of myself, and perhaps only an avatar of myself, but it was me and I always loved looking at it.

And I didn’t look half bad. Personally, I think Danny is crazy. Think about it, he could have had a young-looking wife for the rest of his life, a wife who never aged. Granted every decade or so we would probably have to move and make completely new friends, and he would have to put up with my cold flesh, and the fact that I drink blood, but still....

Okay, maybe I wasn’t such a great prize, but I still think it’s his loss.

The asshole.

And as I gazed on that image of myself, as I stood on the edge of the cliff like a living gargoyle from hell, something occurred to me, something that had been bothering me for the past month or so.

Amazingly, I still cared for Danny.

Yes, the man had made my life an absolute living nightmare. Remember, until recently we had been trying to make things work. And if he hadn’t cheated on me, I would still be with him. I had planned to be with Danny for the rest of my life.

Well, the rest of his life.

But he had turned into his own kind of monster, which is more than ironic, and even though he began to openly cheat on me, and even though he hurt me more than I had ever been hurt in my life, I still had feelings for the bastard.

Yes, I understood why he did what he did. I get it. I’m a freak. He wanted out. But did he have to be such an asshole about things? Couldn’t he have treated me with compassion and love? Did he have to act like such a douchebag all the time? Did I want to hurt him often?

The answer, of course, was yes to everything.

I sat quietly on the cliff edge, surveying the beach below. There was no one behind me, or anywhere around me for that matter. My hearing in this form was phenomenal.

Danny was the father of my children. As much as it pained me to admit it, I knew he was doing the best he could given the circumstances. How many fathers would have taken their kids from something like me? Probably many of them. How many husbands would have sought a warm body elsewhere? Probably many of them.

Yes, it would have taken an extraordinary man to get through this with me.

Danny wasn’t him.

In my mind’s eye, I studied the woman in the flame. She stood there passively, naked as the day she was born, watching me in return. I loved that woman. I loved her with all my heart. Life had dealt her a shitty hand, but she, too, was doing the best she could.

A moment later, I was moving toward the woman in the flame. She grew rapidly bigger, taking on much more detail. And then she was rushing at me, too, and a moment later I found myself standing on the edge of the cliff, naked, cold and crying, and staring down into the churning dark depths below, where the surf pounded rocks into sand.

Chapter Twenty-three

“I think I’m in love with her,” said Chad.

It was nearly four in the morning, and we were standing just inside my hotel doorway. It had been a hell of a long night for Chad. Apparently, though, he had loved every minute of it.

“Thanks, Chad. I owe you.”

“I’m not joking,” he said. Chad was a tall guy, easily six-foot-three. Maybe taller. When you barely scrape five-foot-three, just about anyone looks tall as hell. Except for Tom Cruise, of course. Chad added, “There’s something about her.”

“She’s vulnerable and cute,” I said. “And you’re a man. It’s a simple equation.”

We were whispering since Monica was asleep on my bed. We were also whispering because it was four in the morning and we were in a hotel and we weren’t assholes.

He glanced over at her sleeping form. I glanced too. Mostly under the comforter, she looked tiny and child-like. Just a little bump in a big bed. Say that five times in a row.

He said, “Sure, but there’s something else.” He stopped talking. Chad, I knew, wasn’t used to expressing his emotions; he needed prodding, like most men. Well, those men not named Fang.

So I prodded. “You feel an overwhelming need to protect her, to help her, to save her.”

Chad looked at me funny. “That’s pretty much it, yeah. How did you know?”

“Because I had the same reaction,” I said.

He nodded and looked back at her sleeping form. “How could anyone do that to her?”

“There are bastards out there,” I said.

Chad didn’t say anything at first. When Chad and I were partners we didn’t talk much, but we always had a comfortable silence. When he spoke, his words weren’t empty. They were full of a lot of forethought.

“I would kill him,” he said. “If he ever came within a mile of her.”

“That sounds like love to me,” I said. “And just think, I was only gone for six hours.

“And we talked nearly the whole time.”

“You mean she talked and you listened.”

Chad grinned, but kept looking at her sleeping form. “Something like that.”

“Get out of here and get some sleep, you love-struck puppy dog,” I said. “Before you propose to her in her sleep.”

“I guess I am being a little ridiculous, huh?”

I shrugged.

“This has never happened to me before,” he said.

“Welcome to love-at-first-sight,” I said. “Now go on.”

He nodded and told me to call him anytime I needed help. I said I would and practically shooed him out of my hotel room. As I locked the door behind him, I resisted the urge to look out the peephole to see if my ex-partner was hugging and kissing the door.

With Monica sleeping nearby, I did some more work on my laptop. In particular, I got the visiting hours to Chino State Prison. On a whim, mostly because the bastard was on my mind, I headed over to my ex-husband’s law firm’s website. Danny was your typical ambulance chaser. He screwed insurance companies...and anyone else, for that matter.

I broadened my search on Danny Moon, chaser of ambulances extraordinaire. His name was all over the net, usually in association with some case or another, usually a case that actually went to court. You see, Danny didn’t like to go to court. Danny was a lazy SOB, and his firm did all they could to keep cases out of court. But sometimes the negotiations went bad and cases actually did go to court. When they did, Danny and his firm actually had to do real legal work. Which generally made him grumpy as hell to be around.

Poor baby.

I next went to his Facebook page. I generally don’t go on Facebook. It’s not like I have a lot of new pictures to post, right? Anyway, I do keep an account because my daughter has one and I like to see what she’s doing. Besides, Farmville is a hoot.

No, Danny and I are not friends on Facebook; apparently, divorcing someone is also grounds for dropping them as Facebook buddies. So I guess you could say I’ve been defaced.

Anyway, Danny kept his pictures public. Maybe he didn’t know the intricacies of Facebook privacy, or maybe he didn’t care.

He should have cared.

Although his pictures were very professional, everything a respectable attorney’s pictures should be, there was one very unprofessional picture. Apparently Danny had been tagged at a party. And not just any party. A party at a strip joint in Riverside. And not just any party at a stripjoint, but a Grand Opening party.

Now, what was a respectable attorney doing at the grand opening of a cheesy strip club in Riverside?

I didn’t know, but I was going to find out.

Chapter Twenty-four

It was almost sunrise and I was feeling my energy fading.

I had already warned Monica of my “condition”. That is, she thought I had a rare skin disease that kept me out of the sun, which, of course, necessitated me keeping odd hours. She promised she would let me sleep during the days, and that she would not leave the hotel room on her own. I told her to wake me if she needed anything, but that I didn’t awaken easily; she would have to give me one hell of a good shove, or two. I told her she could do just about anything she wanted, other than leave the suite, open the curtains, or answer the door.

She agreed to my terms, and for her sake, I hope she honors them.

My body was shutting down. Quickly. I felt vulnerable and weak and easy to subdue. But even at my weakest, I still couldn’t be killed, unless someone drove a stake through my heart.

And why would anyone want to do that to such a sweet little thing?

Vampires might be immortal, but we sure as hell felt human about this time; that is, just before sunrise. (And, no, I didn’t sleep in a coffin. Just give me a bed, darkness, and some peace and quiet.)

When I shut down, I do so in waves. The first, a draining of energy, always hits me about a half hour before sunrise. And ten minutes before the sun came up, the second wave hit.

That was always a rough wave. I was stuck between exhaustion and sleep. I usually lay down at this time, because within minutes I would be out cold. But when the third wave hit, I absolutely had to lie down and sleep. I was out of options.

For now I was in the middle of the second wave. The sun was minutes from rising and my body was exhausted. And that’s when my IM window popped up on my laptop.

Are you up, Moon Dance?

Yes, but not for long.

First or second wave? asked Fang.

Second wave. Almost third.

So I have only a few minutes.

Yes.

I like knowing that I’m sometimes the last person you think about before going to sleep.

You’ve said that before.

When I was in the second wave, I was often short and to the point and didn’t feel very flirty. I felt exhausted. I felt as close to dead as a person could feel.

I also like knowing that you might dream of me.

I rarely dream, Fang. And besides, what am I supposed to dream about? Words that appear in a pop-up window?

There was a long pause. Almost too long. I felt myself going catatonic. If Fang didn’t say something soon, it was going to take all my last energy to shut the computer down and crawl over to the couch in the pseudo-living room.

Then perhaps we should meet someday, Moon Dance.

Now it was my turn to pause. I sat back, and as I did so, I had the peculiar sense that something wanted to leave my body. What that something was, I wasn’t sure. A part of me. Perhaps my soul, if I still had one. Within seconds I would be out cold.

Through a narrow gap in the curtain, I could see the sky lightening with the coming of the sun.

Are you being serious, Fang?

Yes.

I drummed my fingers on the wooden desk. My brain was fuzzy, thoughts scattered.

Did you say meet? I asked.

Yes. Now, sleep, Moon Dance. Goodnight, even thought it’s morning.

Goodnight and good morning, Fang.

Chapter Twenty-five

“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked Monica for the tenth time.

She nodded but looked a little overwhelmed. I didn’t blame her. We were at Chino State Prison in Ontario, California, sitting in a stark waiting room with a few other people. I had made special arrangements with the warden for a late evening visit. Both he and the inmate agreed. Being an ex-federal agent has its advantages.

The plain waiting room was smaller than I thought it would be. We sat in plastic bucket seats that were covered with gang graffiti. Took some balls to carve gang graffiti in a prison waiting room.

Monica looked lost and fragile, and I wondered again at my logic for bringing her here. Chad was busy tonight and I had had no one else to turn to. As I was contemplating calling the private investigator Kingsley and I had met at the beach, brainstorming out loud, Monica had volunteered to come with me, telling me she would be fine. “After all,” she had said, “I’m just going to be in the waiting room, right? I won’t be seeing him.”

I reached out now and held her hand, forgetting for a moment that my own was ice cold. She flinched at the touch, but then gripped my hand back tightly.

“Sorry,” I said. “My hands get cold.”

“So do mine. Don’t worry about it.” She squeezed my hand again, tighter, and looked at me. “So what are you going to say to him?”

“I’m going to convince him to leave you alone.”

She nodded and looked down. I didn’t want to mention that maybe her ex-husband’s next attempt to find someone to hurt her might slip past prison officials. Although all his calls were monitored, there is more than one way to smuggle information out of a prison.

“How are you going to convince him?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m going to kind of feel my way through it.”

“He’ll want to kill you, too, you know.”

“I’m not worried about him.”

She kept holding my hand. Hers, I noticed, was shaking. I shouldn’t have brought her—

But maybe this was a good thing for her. Maybe on some level, she was facing her fears.

Just then the heavy main door into the prison opened and a young, serious-looking guy wearing a correctional uniform stepped into the room.

“Samantha Moon?” he asked.

I gave Monica’s hand a final squeeze before I released it. “I’ll be back,” I said.

Chapter Twenty-six

Ira Lang was shown through a heavy metal door.

Monica’s ex-husband was a medium-sized man in his mid-forties. He was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, and not very well, either. The clothing hung loosely from his narrow shoulders and flapped around his ankles when he walked. He looked like a deflated pumpkin. Ira was nearly bald, although not quite. Unlike my client, Stuart, Ira did not have a perfect bald head. In fact, his was anything but. Misshapen and oddly flat, it was furrowed with deep grooves that ran from the base of his skull to his forehead. What Monica had seen in the man, I didn’t know.

I watched from behind the thick Plexiglass window as Ira was led over to a chair opposite me. I noticed the guard did not remove the handcuffs, which were attached to a loose chain at Ira’s waist, giving him just enough freedom of movement to pick up the red phone in front of him and bring it to his ear, which he did now. I picked up the phone on my side of the Plexiglass.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked.

I knew the warden was listening. The warden had agreed to let me speak to Ira, anything to make this problem go away. And Ira, with his hell bent desire to kill his wife, was proving to be a huge problem for the prison.

“My name’s Samantha Moon, and I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired to protect your ex-wife.”

“Protect her from what?”

“You.”

I sometimes get psychic hits, and I got one now. I saw waves of darkness radiating from Ira. Wave after black wave. The man felt polluted. I sensed something hovering around him, something alive and something alien. I sensed this thing had its hooks in Ira. What this thing was, I didn’t know. After all, it was only an impression I was getting, a feeling. Something I sensed but didn’t really see. Anyway, this something was black and ancient and full of hate and vitriol, psychically hanging on to Ira’s back, digging its supernatural claws deep within the man. I sensed that Ira had let this dark energy into his life through a lifetime of fear and hate and jealousy. And I knew, without a doubt, that whatever this thing was that had its hooks in Ira, it would never, ever let him go without a phenomenal fight. Whatever clung to Ira would cling to him until his death, and perhaps even beyond, a cancer of the worst kind.

These were all psychic hits. Impressions. Gut feelings. I get these often. Sometimes they’re important, sometimes they’re a waste of time. But I’ve learned that I should trust such feelings. And I trusted these.

A smirk touched Ira’s lips. And something ancient and dark swept just behind his eyes. Whether or not Ira was possessed by something, I couldn’t say for sure. But something foul and alive was eating him away from the inside out.

He asked, “So what are you, a body guard or something?”

“Or something.”

He laughed, but his was a dry, raspy, dead sound. “Okay, fine, whatever. So who hired you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He quit smiling and something passed behind his eyes again, a flitting shadow. Whether or not it was really there, I didn’t know. And whether or not I was making it up, I didn’t know, either. But there was something off about the guy. Something off, and something wrong. The moment passed and he smiled again. Amazingly, he had a hell of a smile. Perfect teeth. Okay, now I could see how he might have been engaging to a young girl fresh out of high school, which was when Monica had first met him.

“So what the fuck do you want?” he asked.

“Gee, you have such a wonderful way with words, Ira,” I said. “It’s almost poetic. Maybe you should write a book of poetry in prison, rather than obsessing about your ex-wife. Call it, I don’t know, Poetry From the Pen or, let’s see, Lock-down Limericks.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was a poetry/prison riff. Not my best work, but not my worst either.”

He looked at his phone as if there was something wrong with it.

“Lady, either tell me what the fuck you want or get the fuck out of here.”

“Okay, now there’s a slap in the face for you,” I said. “Dismissed by a scumbag who has nothing better to do than to play with his willy.”

“Fuck off, bitch.”

And as he moved to stand, I said, “Leave Monica alone, Ira.”

A long shot, of course, since I suspected Ira Lang spent most of his waking hours obsessing over his wife’s frustrating lack of dying. And playing with his willy.

He sat back down slowly. As he did so, he adjusted his grip on the phone, wrapping his surprisingly long fingers tightly around the receiver. His movements were all slow and deliberate, as if he had practiced them beforehand. He now placed the phone carefully against his ear and looked at me for a long, long time. I think I was supposed to be afraid. I think I was supposed to shrink away in fear. Perhaps he thought I would swallow nervously and look away. I didn’t swallow, and I didn’t look away. I also had the distinct feeling he was memorizing every square inch of my face.

“You want me to leave my wife alone?” he said evenly into the phone. He didn’t take his eyes off me.

“Your ex-wife, and yes.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I said so.”

He stared at me blankly, and then laughed. A single burst of sound into the phone. He laughed again, longer this time.

“You’re funny.”

“When I want to be.”

“You’ve got balls coming in here,” he said. “I’ll give you that much.”

“The world’s worst compliment to a woman.”

“What?”

“Never mind. So will you leave her alone?”

He stared at me some more. I heard guards talking to each other out in the hallway. Ira and I were alone in the visiting room, since it was after hours and I had been given special access. A clock ticked behind me. Somewhere I thought I heard someone scream, but that could have just been my imagination. Or my hypersensitive hearing.

Ira cocked his head a little, and then said, “It’s too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“Never mind that. The bitch shouldn’t have left me. I told her to never leave me.”

“Gee, you’re such a sweetheart, Ira. How could anyone ever leave you?”

He barely heard me. Or heard what he wanted to hear. “Exactly. I gave her everything. The ungrateful bitch never had to work a day in her life.”

“People leave each other every day, Ira. It happens.”

“Not to me it don’t.”

Ira had gotten himself worked up. I knew this because the skin along his slightly misshapen forehead had flushed a little, and he was holding the phone so tight that his knuckles looked like some weird prehistoric spine running along the back of the receiver.

Breathing harder, he said, “I will do everything within my power to make sure the bitch dies. No one leaves me. Ever.”

I realized this was going nowhere fast. I honestly hadn’t expected anything different, but it had been worth a shot.

“I beg to differ,” I said, gathering my stuff together.

“You beg to differ what?”

“Monica very much left you, just as I’m doing now.”

“I’m going to remember you, cunt.”

“Lucky me.”

I was about to hang up when he added, perhaps fatally, “And not just you, Samantha Moon, private investigator and bodyguard. Everyone you know and love. You have kids?”

I heard the sound of boots moving along the hallway outside. Apparently, someone listening to us had heard enough. I took in some air and closed my eyes and did all I could to control myself.

But dumbass wasn’t done. He went on, saying, “I see I hit a nerve. So Samantha Moon is a mom.”

“Did you just threaten my kids?”

“You catch on quick.”

I opened my eyes and saw red. In fact, I couldn’t really see at all. All I could see was a blurred image of the man behind the bulletproof glass. And I heard pounding. Loud pounding. In my skull.

The sun, I knew, had set thirty or forty minutes ago. I was at full strength. I sat forward in my chair and leaned close to the thick Plexiglass that separated us. I motioned with my index finger for Ira Lane to come closer, too. He grinned, cocky and confident, and as he leaned forward, something very dark and very twisted danced disturbingly just behind his dead eyes.

His face was inches from mine when he said, “Is there something you want to tell me, you stupid bitch? I bet you’re wishing right about now you never fucked with—”

I punched the bulletproof glass as hard as I could. My hand burst through in a shower of glass and polycarbonate and whatever the hell else these things are made out of.

Bulletproof but not vampire-proof.

Ira screamed and would have fallen backward if I hadn’t grabbed him by the collar through the fist-sized hole in the thick glass. In one motion, I yanked the motherfucker out of his chair and over the counter and slammed into the clear glass barrier. His nose broke instantly, spraying blood over the glass, and two or three of his front upper teeth had broken back into his mouth. His lips were split clean through.

He flailed at my hand, struggling to free himself, but I wasn’t done with him.

Not by a long shot.

Still holding him by the collar, as his warm blood spilled over the back of my hand, I proceeded to slam his face again and again into the glass, breaking more teeth, breaking his face, his skull, his cheekbones, anything and everything, and I kept smashing him into the now blood-smeared glass until I was finally tackled from behind.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I nearly killed a man tonight.

Tell me about it.

And so I wrote it up for Fang, telling him everything from my first impressions of Ira Lang, to the bastard being hauled off on a stretcher. It took three huge blocks of text to get the whole story written, and when I had posted the final segment, Fang answered nearly instantly. How he could read so fast, I had no clue.

Were there any cameras in the visiting room? he asked.

No.

So there is no visual record of what you did?

Not that I’m aware of.

Don’t most prisons have surveillance cameras in the visiting rooms?

Not all of them. It’s up to the discretion of the warden.

So no one saw your little, ah, outburst?

No.

When you broke the bullet-resistant glass, did you leave behind any of your own blood?

That was a good question. I had cut my arm while reaching through the shattered glass. However, I hadn’t bled at all, as far as I was aware. I explained that to Fang.

So you don’t bleed?

Maybe, I wrote. But apparently not from cuts along my forearm.

Did the medical staff look at you?

They tried to, but I had wrapped my sweater around my arm, and since there wasn’t any blood, they assumed, perhaps, I wasn’t in need of any medical attention.

Was he in need of dire medical attention?

According to the warden, with whom I had had a long meeting after the incident, the prison doctors had determined that I had broken Ira’s jaw, nose, right orbital ridge, his sinus cavity, and broken out seven teeth. He was going to need countless stitches in his mouth and hours of surgery. I related all this to Fang.

There was a long pause. I looked over at my hotel bed where Monica lay sleeping contentedly on her side. It had, of course, been a long and emotional night for her. She had visited her abusive and murderous ex-husband’s prison. She had waited for me anxiously while the warden pieced together what had happened. She had been given snippets of news from the prison staff, and, she told me later, could hardly believe what she was hearing—that I had put the son-of-bitch in the hospital...even more than that, I had nearly killed him. Later that night, she sat staring at me during the entire ride home from the prison. At one point she reached out and held my hand tightly. She didn’t ask me how I punched through the glass. Or how I had the strength to grab a grown man and bash his face repeatedly against the glass. She simply held my hand and stared at me, and I held hers for as long as I could before I became self-conscious of my cold flesh and gently released my grip. I saw that she was crying, but she didn’t make a federal case of it. What those tears were for, I didn’t know, but I suspected this had been a hell of an emotional night for her. I didn’t tell her the bastard had threatened my kids. She had enough to deal with.

So what did the warden say? asked Fang.

He asked me why I didn’t kill the bastard?

Was he joking?

I don’t think so.

And what did you say?

I told him he should have given me another few seconds.

Jesus. What else did he ask?

He asked me how did I punch through bulletproof glass?

And what did you say?

That I was a vampire, and that if he asked me any more questions, I was going to suck his blooood. (Insert cheesy Bela Lugosi impression.)

Not funny, Moon Dance. You have put yourself at grave risk. There’s going to be legal implications to this. He can press charges. There’s going to be an investigation.

Maybe, I wrote.

What do you mean, maybe?

The warden heard Ira Lang threaten me.

Still, it’s only a threat.

A threat from a known murderer. A threat from a man who has also been known to do anything he could to carry out such threats.

So his threat is much more than a threat.

Yes, I wrote.

So if Ira Lang did press charges, a DA may likely decide not to prosecute.

Right.

So what did you really say when he asked how you punched through the glass?

I reminded him of all those stories of mother’s lifting cars off their injured children and such.

He bought that?

Probably not. He was in a state of shock himself. Everyone was.

So is that the end of the case? asked Fang.

No. Ira Lang made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t rest until his ex-wife was dead.

I could almost see Fang nodding, as he wrote: Not to mention he could still try to carry out that threat on you and your kids.

Exactly, I wrote.

So what’s the plan? asked Fang.

If he won’t rest until he’s carried out violent crimes against his wife, or even me and my kids, then I think there’s only one answer.

Don’t tell me.

I went on anyway: Perhaps I should hasten his rest.

Chapter Twenty-eight

The backyard to my old house abuts a Pep Boys.

When I say old house, I mean my house of just over a month ago, where I had lived with my kids and husband. A house, by some weird turn of events, I had been kicked out of, even though my husband had been the one caught cheating.

Since our house sits in a cul-de-sac, we have an exceptionally large and weirdly-shaped backyard. In fact, our backyard is bigger than most little league baseball fields, which was always fun for the kids and great for parties.

On the other side of our backyard fence was the parking lot to Pep Boys, with its massive, glowing sign of Manny, Moe, and Jack in all of their homoerotic glory. I hated that sign, and thank God they shut the damn thing off at closing time.

It was well after closing time and the lights were off. Thank God. Manny, Moe, and Jack were sleeping. Probably spooning. My ex-partner Chad was happily watching over a sleeping Monica—at least, I hoped he let her sleep. No doubt he was watching her in more ways than one. Let’s just hope he didn’t creep her out too much. Chad was a great guy, even if a little love-starved.

We’re all a little love-starved, I thought.

I was sitting on our backyard fence, my feet dangling down, looking out across the vast sweep of our backyard, toward where I knew my children were sleeping.

Or where they should have been sleeping. A flickering glow in Tammy’s room meant that she was up well past her bedtime since this was a school night. Her laughter occasionally pierced the air. At least, pierced it to my ears. Actually, I could tell she was trying to laugh quietly, perhaps laughing into a pillow, but occasional bursts of laughter erupted from her.

Most remarkable, and surreal, was that my daughter was laughing at Jay Leno. I could hear his nasally laugh and wildly ranging voice—which went from high to low in the span of a few words—even from here.

Jay Leno? Seriously?

And since when did my ten-year-old daughter watch Jay Leno? And since when was Jay Leno ever laugh-out-loud funny? Perhaps a mild chuckle here and there, sure. But ha-ha funny?

At the far end of the house I could hear Danny’s light snoring. His snoring never bothered me, since I was a rather deep sleeper. Supernaturally deep, some might say. Anyway, mixed with his snoring was something else. Another sound. Not quite snoring. No, a sort of wheezing sound, as if someone was having trouble breathing through one nostril. Along with the wheezing was an occasional murmur. A female murmur.

My heart sank. Jesus, his new girlfriend was sleeping with him, in our bed. The fucker. Probably sleeping naked together, their limbs intertwined, touching each other intimately, lovingly. All night long.

Just a month earlier I had been sleeping in that same bed, although Danny had long ago stopped sleeping naked and had made it a point not to touch me.

The fucker.

I stared at my old bedroom window at the end of the house for a long, long time, and then I forced myself to find another sound, and soon I found it. The sound of light snoring. A boy’s snore. Little Anthony was sleeping contentedly, and I found myself smiling through the tears on my face.

A small wind made its way through the Pep Boys parking lot, bringing with it the smell of old car oil, new car oil, and every other kind of oil. Living here, you get used to the smell of car oil.

I folded my hands in my lap and lowered my head and listened to the wind and my son’s snoring and my daughter’s innocent laughter, and I sat like that until her laughter turned into the heavy breathing of deep sleep.

I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text message: I’m sad.

The reply from Kingsley Fulcrum came a minute later: Then come over.

Okay, I wrote, and did exactly that.

Chapter Twenty-nine

I drove east on Bastanchury, winding my way through streets lined with big homes and big front yards, the best north Orange County has to offer.

It was past midnight, and the sky was clear. The six stars that somehow made their way through southern California’s smog shined weakly and pathetically. The brightest one might have been Mars, or at least that’s what a date once told me in college.

Probably just trying to impress me to get into my pants.

Speaking of impressing me, Kingsley Fulcrum was an honest-to-God werewolf. Or, at least, that’s what he tells me.

Maybe he just wants to get into my pants, as well.

Granted, I’ve seen the evidence of his lycanthropy in the form of excessive hair the night after one of his transformations, and so I tend to believe the big oaf. But Kingsley is a good wolfie. Apparently, with each full moon, he preferred to transform in what he calls a panic room in the basement of his house.

Probably a good thing for the residents of posh Orange County. After all, can’t have a big, bad werewolf picking off the surgically-enhanced Desperate Housewives of Orange County one at a time like so many slow-moving, top-heavy gazelle. Would probably hurt the ratings.

Or drastically help them; at least, until the show ran out of stars.

Stars? I thought.

Now don’t be catty.

Bastanchury was always a pleasant drive, made more pleasant these days because it led to a big, beefy werewolf. I hung a left onto a long, curving, crushed seashell drive, past shrubbery that really needed to be trimmed back; that is, unless Kingsley was purposely going for the creepy feeling they invoked. Or maybe he just didn’t want to make his home too inviting. I voted for both.

Soon I pulled up to a rambling estate home that sat on the far edge of north Orange County. The house was a massive Colonial revival, with flanker structures on either end, and more rooms than Kingsley knew what to do with.

I stopped in the driveway near the portico, in a pool of yellow porchlight. My minivan seemed inadequate and out-of-place parked before such an edifice. Hell, I seemed inadequate and out-of-place.

The doorbell gonged loud enough to vibrate the cement porch beneath my feet, and was answered a moment later by a very unusual-looking man. His name was Franklin and he was Kingsley’s butler. Yes, butler. Yeah, I know, I thought those went the way of Gone with the Wind, too, but apparently the super affluent still had them.

Must be nice.

But in the case of Franklin, maybe not so much. There was something very off about the man. For one thing, his left ear was vastly bigger than the right. And it wasn’t that it was bigger, it seemed to not, well, belong on his body at all. As if, and this is clearly a crazy thought, it had actually belonged on another person’s body altogether. Perhaps strangest of all was the nasty scar that ran from under his neck all the way to the back of his head. The scar, I was sure, wrapped completely around his neck.

My instincts were telling me something very, very strange was going on here, so strange that I didn’t want to believe them.

He was tall and broad shouldered, and there seemed to be great strength contained within his very formal butler attire. He looked down at me from a hawkish nose, nodded once, and asked me to follow him to the conservatory. I spared him another “Clue” game joke. This time. Next time, he may not be so lucky. Also, he spoke in what I assumed was an English accent, although it could have been Australian. I could never get the two straight. But my money was on English.

I followed his oddly loping gate to the conservatory. No, I wasn’t greeted by Mrs. Plum wielding a candlestick (whatever the hell that is). Instead, I was greeted by a great beast of a man who sprung from his oversized chair with a glass of white wine in hand. How he didn’t spill his wine, I didn’t know. As he bounded over, exuberant as a puppy, I was half expecting him to jump up on me and lick my face clean. Good thing he didn’t, since he would have crushed me. Instead, he set the wine down on an elegant couch table and gave me a crushing bear hug. I think a bone or two popped along my spine. He then led me over to the sofa where a glass of wine was already waiting for me. Along the way, he snatched his own glass.

Franklin waited discreetly near the doorway until Kingsley dismissed him. The gaunt man nodded, a gesture that was meant to be somewhat dignified; instead, it came across as sort of herky-jerky, as if the man didn’t have complete control of his head.

No surprise there, I thought.

When the butler was gone, I turned to Kingsley and said, “Are you ever going to tell me Franklin’s story?”

The attorney was gazing at me with heavy-lidded eyes. The air around him was suddenly charged. No, supercharged. His brown eyes crackled with yellow fire, and he looked, for all intents and purposes, like a creature stalking me from the deep woods.

“Maybe someday,” he said. His voice was thick and sort of husky.

“Was he in an accident?” I asked, suddenly a little uncomfortable. I quickly reached for the wine and sipped it, keenly aware that Kingsley was staring at me intensely.

“I’m sure parts of him were in an accident,” said Kingsley. He had reached out and lifted some of my hair off my shoulder and was now stroking it delicately between his oversized thumb and forefinger.

I drank more wine, suddenly wishing like hell that I could get a serious buzz going.

“Parts of him?” I asked, suddenly more nervous than I had been in quite some time. “What does that mean?”

“It means...I will tell you later.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

He had slid closer to me, looming over me. I could feel his hot breath on my bare arm. I could feel his eyes on me. Crackling sexual energy radiated from him. I seemed to be caught up by it, sucked into it.

This wasn’t meant to be a booty call. In fact, over the past month I had barely even kissed Kingsley. But now I felt myself curious about something more. Excited by the thought of something more. Terrified about something more.

But....

“I don’t think I’m ready,” I said, not wanting to meet his eyes. I loved those big brown eyes.

“You’re trembling,” he said.

“And you’re breathing on me.”

I saw him smile out of the corner of my eyes. He was still playing with my hair.

“How long has it been since you’ve had a man touch you?”

“A man? What’s that? I’ve heard about those curious creatures.”

He grinned some more. “How long has it been since you have made love, Samantha?”

“That’s a little personal, isn’t it?”

He laughed loudly, a sound that erupted from him with such force that I jumped. “And sharing our supernatural secrets isn’t personal?”

“Don’t use your attorney double-speak with me, Kingsley Fulcrum. I’m just not comfortable talking about it.”

“Then I retract my question. I was out of line.”

But he didn’t stop touching my hair. Didn’t stop staring at me, but I sensed that some of his supercharged energy, which had been erupting like solar flares from the sun, had died down a little. Also, his breathing wasn’t so ragged, either.

I set my wine down and curled up next to him, holding his waist tightly. Kingsley reached down, wrapped a heavy arm around me and softly kissed the top of my head.

Twenty minutes later, when I felt comfortable and safe, I said, “Six years.”

“Six years what?” he said groggily. I think he had been dozing lightly on the couch.

“It’s been six years,” I said again.

He didn’t say anything at first, but I heard his heartbeat quicken. Finally, he whispered, “Too long.”

I nodded and took in air I really didn’t need.

Kingsley moved me aside gently and stood. His knees popped. He offered me his hand. “Come,” he said. “I’m exhausted. Let’s talk in bed.”

“Bed?”

“Yes.”

I protested some more—or tried to—but he had already snatched my hand and was pulling me through his opulent home and up his staircase, and to his bedroom and bed.

The horny bastard.

Chapter Thirty

We were in bed.

I was still wearing my jeans and tee shirt. Kingsley was in a pair of black workout shorts and nothing else. We were both on top of the covers. Kingsley had his hands folded behind his head and was staring up at the ceiling. I was on my side, propping my head up with my hand, watching him. In the night, I could see him clearly. He was a little static-y; meaning, there were some limits to my night vision. Light particles flitted through the air like snow flakes caught in a car’s headlights. I was used to the light particles. I barely saw them anymore.

Kingsley was a beast of a man. His body was thick and powerful and nothing like the men you see grace most muscle magazines. There wasn’t a lot of definition. Meaning, he was just pure muscular mass. Maybe a few pounds overweight, but he wore the weight well. No, he wore it perfectly. In fact, I was certain his hulking frame would have looked emaciated if he was at his ideal weight. Tufts of hair ran down the center of his chest and spread over his flat-enough belly. I never much liked hair on men, but with Kingsley it came with the territory.

“So is that a line you use for all the girls you have over here?” I asked.

“What line?”

“‘I’m getting tired, talk to me in bed’. That line.”

“No,” he said. “But it’s a good line, apparently. I’ll have to remember it.”

I slapped his chest. I could have been slapping a side of beef. “Asshole.”

“So, has it really been six years, Samantha?”

“Yes.”

“Your choice or Danny’s choice?”

“His choice, but then again, that part of me sort of shut down and never came back, either. But if he had wanted to make love to me, I would have done anything for him. What was mine, was his.”

“But he didn’t pursue it.”

“Nope.”

“Did he ever touch you again?”

“Not like that.” I told Kingsley that sometimes Danny and I would get close. Sometimes we would kiss passionately. Sometimes we would be on the verge of making love, and then he would just pull back and shudder. Once or twice he vomited.

“Vomited?”

“Yes,” I said. “Not something a wife wants to see after kissing her husband.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

We sat quietly some more. Kingsley’s eyes were open. He continued looking up at the ceiling, or at nothing. His chest reminded me of a powerful, idling truck engine.

“So, have you lost all interest in sex?”

“Well, I don’t consider myself sexual,” I said. “I consider myself, in fact, a monster. Monsters don’t have sex.”

“When was the last time you orgasmed?”

It was late. We were alone in bed. We were talking softly to each other. My innate need for privacy cringed at the question, but we were adults here, and it was a legitimate, if not too-personal question. I didn’t have to answer it, but I did.

“See my comment above.”

“Six years?”

I nodded. Kingsley, I knew, could see me in the dark. No doubt he saw my gesture, or sensed it.

“Hell of a long time,” he said. “Do you miss it?”

“I don’t think about it. Quite honestly, having orgasms is pretty far down there on my list of things to worry about. Besides, I don’t think I can anymore.”

“Why do you say that? Have you tried?”

I knew my face was red. A crimson-faced vampire. Go figure. But what can I say? I never talk about my sex life. Not even with my sister, who was one of the very few who knew my supersecret identity.

“No,” I said. “I haven’t tried.”

“You haven’t wanted to or haven’t tried?”

“Both. I haven’t wanted to even try.”

“Because you feel you are a monster. And monsters don’t have sex, or orgasms, or real lives of any type.”

I said nothing. What was there to say? That part of me was dead, I was sure of it.

Kingsley rolled over on his side and faced me. “You have been punishing yourself a long time, Samantha, for something that wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m not punishing myself,” I said. “I’m dealing with it the best I know how. Besides, I don’t feel sexy. I feel cold and gross, and what man would ever want to touch me?”

Kingsley suddenly put his hand on my hip as if to answer my question. His hand nearly covered my entire left hip. Jesus, he was a big boy. And then he did something that even I wasn’t expecting. He gently nudged me to my back and as I fell backward, he slipped his hand between my thighs and opened my legs. His hand, through my jeans, felt remarkably hot.

I reached down and stopped him. “I’m not ready for sex,” I said. “I may never be ready for sex.”

“Who said I wanted to have sex with you?” he said, winking at me.

“Then what are you doing?”

“Just seeing how dead that part of you really is.” He ran his warm palm up the inside of my thigh, over my jeans.

“I think you should stop.”

“You think?” he said quietly, perhaps even huskily.

His hand continued up my inner thigh and I heard myself gasp. The moment I gasped Kingsley smiled again. The light particles around him were zigzagging like crazy. Like moths on crack.

“Please,” I said.

“Please what?”

And then his hand lightly touched me between my legs and I reached down and grabbed his hand. I made a half-hearted effort to push it away, but his hand wouldn’t move. Still, I didn’t release his hand even as his thick middle finger gently stroked the fabric of my jeans. I wasn’t sure if he knew what he was stroking, but the big son-of-a-bitch had found the right spot.

Lucky guess.

I gasped again and made another effort to push his hand away, but this seemed to only inspire him to work his middle finger faster.

“You deserve happiness, Samantha Moon. You are not a monster. You are a sexy woman who has been dealt a very strange hand. But I have a surprise for you.”

“What?” I heard myself ask. My hands were still on his hands. It had been so long since anyone had touched me down there. So long. Hell, I had forgotten what to do with my own hands.

“That part of you didn’t die. In fact...” And now his one hand was expertly undoing my jeans, button by button, as if he had done this hundreds of times before, which he might very well have had.

Now he slipped his hands inside my jeans, and his strong, curious fingers found their way under my panties, and now they were moving down with a mind of their own, gently parting me open.

His middle finger touched me almost hesitantly, perhaps testing my readiness. Jesus, I was ready.

And then two things happened simultaneously.

Kingsley lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me harder than I have ever been kissed in my life, and his thick middle finger slipped deep inside me.

Chapter Thirty-one

I had an orgasm last night, I wrote.

Good for you, Moon Dance.

My first in six years.

Must have been a hell of an orgasm.

I cried, I wrote. I didn’t think I would ever have another one.

I am happy for you, Moon Dance. But why would you think you couldn’t have one?

Because I hadn’t had one in six years.

Did you try to have one?

No, not really. Danny wouldn’t touch me any more, and I lost all desire to touch myself. It’s hard to feel sexy or sexual when your husband finds you repulsive.

And so you touched yourself last night?

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I knew what I was about to write next would hurt Fang. No, I wrote. I was with the werewolf.

There was a long pause. My IM box remained static, with no indication that Fang was even typing. Finally, an icon appeared in the box showing that he was busy typing. A second later his response appeared on screen.

I am happy for you, Moon Dance. He’s a lucky man.

A few months ago, after years of corresponding via chatrooms, Fang had expressed his love for me...even though we had yet to meet in person or even talk on the phone, for that matter. I wasn’t sure what to think about that. I had never met anyone off the internet, let alone dated from the internet. Besides, Fang was my friend, wasn’t he? He knew all the gory—and I do mean gory—details about me.

I’m sorry if that hurt your feelings, Fang.

I’m okay. Really, I am.

Well, you’re a big man.

You have no idea.

Are you flirting with me, Fang?

Me? Never!

I’m not so sure about that.

There was a short pause. I would never flirt with another man’s woman.

I snorted, although he couldn’t see me snort. And who says I’m another man’s woman?

I assumed....

You assumed incorrectly. I am still not there yet. Still not ready. I paused in my typing, thought about my words, then added: I’m not even sure I’m close.

Do you still think of yourself as your ex-husband’s wife?

Maybe a little. I still feel connected to him. Maybe it’s the kids that make me feel connected to him.

Even though he has rejected you in every way?

Well, it’s only been a few months, you know. I guess I still need time to heal.

We were silent some more. Lately, I had been thinking of taking up smoking. I hadn’t yet, but what the hell? It’s not like I was going to ever die of lung cancer, right? Anyway, right about now I could picture myself sucking on the end of a cig just to do something with my hands. I wondered how my body would react to the nicotine.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

Fang was writing something to me, and so I waited. As I waited I looked over at Monica, who was lying on her side and reading a novel. A vampire novel, no less. Maybe I should read one of those. Maybe I could learn a thing or two.

Fang deleted his message and started over. What he deleted, I will never know. A moment later, his message appeared: Promise me one thing, Moon Dance.

Okay, I’ll try.

Before you commit to the werewolf—or any man, for that matter—please promise me that you will meet me first.

But I’m not committing to anyone, Fang.

Just promise.

Okay, I will consider it. But I have to admit, I’m confused. I thought we were friends.

For a friendship to work, both people have to want the same thing. Both people have to want to be friends.

I wrote, And if one of the friends suddenly wants something more than friendship?

It changes things, he wrote.

I don’t want things to change, Fang. I like talking to you. You are my outlet. You are my friend and my therapist and my confidant.

I want to be more, Moon Dance.

We were both silent for a long time. The hotel made typical hotel noises: a door slamming somewhere, the ding of the elevator around the corner, the endless drone of hundreds of air conditioners working hard against the warm Orange County night. On the bed nearby, Monica licked her fingers and turned the page. As she did so, her shoulder flexed a little. A narrow cord stood out on her neck. I found myself absently staring at it. Even from here, I could see it pulsating.

You there, Moon Dance?

Yes.

I want to meet you in two weeks.

I sat up suddenly. My heart, nearly useless in my chest, slammed hard once or twice against my ribs. My mouth instantly went dry. Two weeks?? I reached for a nearby bottle of water and sipped from it, staring at Fang’s words. Finally, I answered him.

Okay, I wrote. Two weeks.

Chapter Thirty-two

We were at our favorite bar in Fullerton, called Hero’s.

I was with my sister, Mary Lou, and my client, Monica. The three of us were sitting on vinyl stools in front of a long, brass-topped bar. Our favorite mixologist was tending bar, a young guy of about thirty. The fact that he was also kind of cute contributed to the “favorite” part.

We were all sipping white wine. My sister Mary Lou was probably doing a little more than just sipping, since she was already on her third glass. It was Friday evening and the bar was hopping. This was also Casual Friday, apparently, and so Mary Lou, who worked for a small insurance agency in Placentia, was wearing jeans and a bright yellow tee shirt. For the uninitiated, Casual Friday is a sort of mini-national holiday for office workers everywhere. Occurring only four times a month, Casual Friday is commemorated by the wearing of jeans, tee shirts and sneakers, and the consumption of store-bought donuts and bagels. Homemade brownies are also acceptable. From what I understand, the day usually begins with a general air of optimism and hope, and deteriorates rapidly into a serious need to drink something strong and hard. I often reminded my little sister that every day was Casual Friday for me. And I did so now.

“Are you trying to depress me?” she said.

“Not clinically,” I said. “But a tear or two is always nice. Besides, I have to gloat about something. There’s not much else to gloat about these days.”

Mary Lou didn’t like her job. Unfortunately, she never did anything about it, other than bitch. My philosophy is this: Life is too short to work another minute at a job you don’t love. Unless, of course, you’re a vampire. And then that philosophy goes out the window.

Anyway, with my client sitting with us, my sister and I kept our conversation to mundane topics. Just three fairly cute girls, sitting in a bar, wrapped in secrets and pain and heartache.

Good times.

Mary Lou knocked back drink number three and waved the bartender over. He caught her eye, nodded, and reached under the counter for the bottle of wine. As he did so, I caught my sister adjusting her bra.

“Why are you adjusting your bra?” I asked.

“I’m not adjusting my bra,” she said. “I’m adjusting my boobs.”

“Happily married women don’t adjust their boobs in front of cute bartenders.”

“Happily married women have boobs, too,” she said.

“They also have husbands.”

“He’s coming over—shh, quiet!”

Indeed, he was, grinning at us easily. He had short brown hair. Big brown eyes. Dimples in his cheeks and chin. He wore a combination of metal and leather bracelets, which jangled as he filled Mary Lou’s glass with more wine. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing tattoos that went down to his wrists and beyond. Some of the tats crawled along the back of his hands. His ears were pierced with silver studs, and he wore a leather strap around his neck, anchored by two huge shark teeth.

“Just a little more,” said Mary Lou, slapping his hand lightly. “Pretty please.”

Oh, brother, I thought, and caught Monica’s eye. She smiled at me and sipped her wine, enjoying my sister’s retarded attempt at flirtation. Myself, I wasn’t enjoying it so much.

“If I give you more, young lady, then I have to give everyone else more,” he said. “And if I give everyone else more, then my boss will fire me.”

“Oh, poo. You’re no fun.”

He winked at me and left.

So far, Monica had remained silent and inexpressive. I sensed that her personality had been beaten out of her by her ex-husband. Sure, she had opened up to me, but not so much with other people. With that said, I suspected she didn’t like my sister, either. The excessive drinking might have had something to do with it. Also, when someone laughed particularly loud, or brushed up against her, she jumped. And so she stayed close to me, like a trained puppy, never more than a foot or so away from my elbow. She felt safe with me. She should feel safe with me. Hell, I felt safe with me.

While we drank and talked, I stayed alert for any suspicious activity. Her ex-husband, prior to his unfortunate run-in with the bulletproof glass, had indicated that he had succeeded in hiring someone to carry out his threat on her.

Monica touched my forearm and leaned over and whispered into my ear. “I need to use the restroom.”

I patted her hand. “Okay.” I turned to Mary Lou. “We’re going to the restroom.”

Mary Lou nodded and kept her eyes on the bartender. Monica and I left and I held her hand as I threaded our way through the crowded bar. She kept about as close to me as she possibly could. Inside the surprisingly uncrowded bathroom, I waited outside the stall for her to finish her business. As I waited, I had a very bad feeling I couldn’t shake. I looked over my shoulder, but we were alone. I frowned.

Shortly, we were working our way back through the bar to where we found an ashen-faced Mary Lou staring at us. We took our seats on the stools next to her, and as I sat, Mary Lou leaned over and whispered in my ear: “There was a man here.”

“Who?”

She shook her head. My sister looked completely shaken. “I don’t know. He came up next to me and ordered a drink.”

“So?”

“He looked right at me and smiled...the most horrible smile I have ever seen.”

“You’re not drunk are you?”

“No, dammit.” She kept shaking her head. “He looked... wrong. Off. Evil. He looked what I would imagine a killer would look like.”

“A killer?”

“A hired killer.”

“Is he here now?”

“No, he ordered a Red Bull, paid cash, and left. Right before you two came back. He wanted me to see him. He wanted you to know he’s watching.”

“And you’re not drunk.”

“Goddammit, no.”

My first instinct was to run out after the guy. Maybe that’s what he wanted me to do. Maybe. The sun was still an hour or so from setting. I wasn’t at my strongest, and I wasn’t going to leave Monica.

“Okay,” I said to Mary Lou. “Hang on.”

I motioned for the bartender. He saw me immediately and, even though he was talking to someone else, said something to them, laughed, and came right over. He looked curiously at my mostly full drink.

“You need something else?” he asked.

I nodded. “The guy who ordered the Red Bull a minute ago. Have you ever seen him in here before?”

He shook his head. “No. Why?”

“How tall would you say he was?”

He shrugged. “Six foot maybe. Why?”

“How old would you say he was?”

He shrugged again. “Hard to say. Forty, fifty. Is everything okay?”

“We’ll see,” I said. “Can you tell me any more about him?” I wanted a description of the guy from someone who wasn’t nearly three sheets to the wind.

The bartender studied me with his big brown eyes. His shark teeth glistened whitely at his throat. He had been working here for a few months, but he had never really spoken. Still, I often caught him catching my eye. I think he thought I was cute. Go figure. Finally, he said, “White guy. Thin. Black hair. Black eyes. Probably brown eyes, but they looked black in here.”

“Anything else about him?” I asked.

“He was wearing a sign around his neck that said, ‘I am exhibiting suspicious behavior.’ Does that help?”

“I don’t tip you to be funny,” I said.

“The humor is free.”

I looked away from him, scanning the room. I didn’t sense any immediate danger. The sensing of danger is tricky business for me. Lots of things set off my warning bells. If the man honestly didn’t intend any sort of physical violence at this moment, I probably wouldn’t have picked up on anything. Now, had he been charging us with a pocket knife at this very moment, my spidey-senses would have sprung to life.

I turned back to the bartender, who was watching me curiously. “So that’s all you remember?”

He grinned easily. “Hey, he just ordered a Red Bull to go. I think I did pretty good remembering what I remembered.”

“Bravo. You get a biscuit.”

“So what’s this all about anyway?”

“Official undercover chick business,” I said.

He nodded. “I see. Well, be safe under those covers, young lady,” he said, and then moved quickly away to get another drink order filled.

I turned to Monica; she was staring at me, having heard everything of course. “Is he a bad man?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Does he want to kill me, too?”

“I don’t know,” I said, frowning. “But no one is going to kill you or hurt you or anything. I promise.”

She smiled, or tried to, and gripped my arm even tighter.

Chapter Thirty-three

I called right at 7:00 p.m.

Danny picked up and told me to hold on. No other pleasantries were said. There were never any pleasantries said. While I waited and while I listened to him breathing steadily on his end, I thought of us standing together in the shade of the Fullerton Arboretum. It had been a small wedding. Just forty or so family and friends. It had been a beautiful, sunny day. Danny had looked so handsome and awkward in his suit. He kept folding his hands over and over at his waist, trying to look dignified standing in front of everyone, but mostly looking nervous as hell. I had watched him the entire way as walked down the aisle with my father. Danny had watched me, too, and the closer I got the more his nerves abated. He quit fumbling with his hands. He then smiled at me brighter than he had ever smiled at me before or after.

I heard something akin to a hand covering the phone, heard muffled voices, then more scraping sounds and Danny spoke into the phone. “You’ve got eight minutes.”

“Eight!?”

A second later, a squeaky little voice burst from the line.

“Mom!”

“Hi, baby!”

“Don’t call me baby, mom. I’m not a baby.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Man.”

“I’m not a man, either.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m a boy.”

“You’re my big boy.”

He liked that. I could almost see him jumping up and down on the other end of the line, pressing the phone into his ear with both hands, the way he usually does.

“Daddy says you can’t come see us tomorrow. That you are too busy to see us.”

“That’s not true—”

“Yes, it is true, Sam,” said Danny’s voice. He had, of course, been listening in from the other phone, as he always does. “You’re busy with work and you can’t see them.”

I took in a lot of air, held it. Let it out slowly.

“I’m sorry, angel,” I said to my boy. “I’m going to be busy tomorrow.”

“But we never get to see you—”

“That’s enough, Anthony. Get your sister on the line.”

A moment later, I heard Tammy say, “Give me that, jerk,” followed by Anthony bursting into tears. Sounds of running feet and crying faded quickly into the distance, followed by a door slamming. He was probably crying now into his pillow.

“Hi, mommy,” she said.

I was too broken up to speak at first. “Is Anthony okay?” I asked, controlling my tears.

“He’s just being a baby.”

“No, he’s just being a little boy.”

“Whatever,” she said.

“Don’t ‘whatever’ me, young lady.”

She said nothing. I heard the pop of chewing gum. I also heard Danny making tiny shuffling movements on his end of the line. No doubt looking at his stopwatch. Yes, stopwatch.

“What did you guys do today?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“How was school?”

“Boring.”

“Did you do your homework?”

“Maybe.”

“Is that a yes or a no, young lady?”

“It’s a maybe.”

I knew Danny was on the other phone, listening, hearing his daughter disrespect her mother, and not giving a damn. I let the homework go. She was right, after all. I presently had no say in whether or not the homework got done, nor did I have any way of enforcing any house rules. I knew it. She knew it. I also suspected she was deliberately hurting me, since my unexplained absence was hurting her.

“I miss you,” I said. “More than you know.”

“You have a funny way of showing it, mom.”

“I’ll figure out a way of seeing you guys more soon. I promise.”

“Whoopee.”

“That was rude,” I said.

“So?”

“Don’t be rude to your mother.”

“Whatever.”

I took a deep breath. I knew my time was running out fast. I suspected Danny sometimes cut our conversations short. Either that, or time disappeared when I spoke to my kids. Even when they were being impossible.

I said, “I promise, I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

“Tomorrow?” she asked, and I heard the faint hope in her voice. She was still trying for badass pissy, but the little girl who missed her mother was still in there.

“Not tomorrow, angel,” I said, my voice breaking up. “But soon.”

She was about to say something, probably something mean or rude or both. But something else came out entirely. A small, hiccuppy gasp. She was crying.

“I love you,” I said. “I love you more than you could possibly know.”

“I love you, too, mommy,” and then she really started crying, and I was crying, and Danny stepped in.

“Time,” he said.

“Goodbye, angel,” I said quickly. “I love you!”

She was about to say something when the line went dead.

Chapter Thirty-four

Monica and I were sitting in my minivan down the street from my house. Very far down the street. In fact, we were at the opposite end of the street. Still, from here I could see my house—yes, my house. In particular, I could see anyone coming or going, especially Danny and his lame new Mustang.

Mustang? Weren’t those for college girls?

Also from here, I could see the Pep Boys’ sign rising above the house. Looming, might be a better word. The lights in the sign were currently out. The boys were asleep. Allegedly.

The night was young and some in the neighborhood were still out and about: pushing baby strollers, walking dogs, jogging, or, in one case, power walking.

My windows were heavily tinted for two reasons: The first was because I happened to be fairly sensitive to the sun. Go figure. The second was because I often used my nondescript minivan for surveillance. And when I was doing a lengthy surveillance, I would actually pull down a dark curtain from behind the front seat and hunker down in the back of the van, looking out through the many blackened windows. I even had a port-a-potty for long surveillances.

Tonight I didn’t expect to need my port-a-potty. Tonight I expected the action to begin fairly quick. Call it a hunch.

“So is this a real stakeout?” asked Monica. She was sitting cross-legged in the passenger seat. She could have been a teenager sitting there next to me.

“Real enough,” I said.

“And that’s your old house up there?”

“Yes.”

“So are we stalking your ex-husband?”

“I’m a licensed private investigator,” I said. “I’m licensed to stalk.”

“Really?”

“In most cases.”

“What about this case?”

“In this case,” I said. “We’re stalking the hell out of him.”

She giggled. If Danny spotted me following him, he could report me to the California Bureau of Investigative Services, where I would probably be heavily fined and face jail time, probably a year. The CBIS frowned upon investigators abusing their privileges.

Which was why I was parked way down the street. Back when I had first caught Danny cheating on me, I had been reckless and he had spotted me.

This time, I intended to play it safe.

“So what’s it like having kids?” asked Monica. She was chewing some gum, occasionally popping bubbles inside her mouth, the way kids used to do it back when I was in high school. I never did figure out how they did that, or how she was doing it now, and with that thought, something fairly exciting occurred to me.

Hey, I can chew gum!

At least gum that had no sugars in it at all. I asked Monica for a piece and she reached into her little purse and produced a rectangular square. It was cinnamon and sugar free. I had no clue what it would do to me, but I was eager to find out.

God, I’m pathetic.

I unwrapped the gum hastily and tossed the discarded paper in my ash tray. Saliva filled my mouth as the sharp bite of cinnamon tore through even my dulled taste buds. Cautiously, I swallowed my own saliva, now filled with cinnamon flavor.

I kept an eye on my dashboard clock. I would know in less than two minutes if my body would reject even this small amount of flavoring.

And while I waited, I chewed and chewed, savoring the flavor, savoring the smooth texture of the gum on my tongue and in my mouth. And, like riding a bike, I produced my first bubble in six years. It popped loudly and Monica giggled. And just as I was scraping the gum off my nose and chin, something in my stomach lurched.

But that’s all it did.

Lurched.

Nothing came up. No extreme pain. Nothing more than that initial, slightly painful gurgle. I grinned and continued happily chewing the gum.

So there you have it. Vampires can chew gum. Wrigley should consider a new slogan: “So good, even a vampire won’t projectile vomit.”

I asked Monica for the brand name of the gum, and she fished the package out again and told me. I grinned. Hell, I was going to buy stock in the company.

“Look,” said Monica pointing through the windshield excitedly. “Someone’s leaving your house.”

I took my binoculars out and adjusted them on the medium-sized figure. It was Danny, and he was dressed to kill.

Chapter Thirty-five

In his girly Mustang, he exited the driveway, drove briefly towards us, and then hung a left down a side road inside the housing track. I started the van and pulled slowly away from the curb. Like a good girl, Monica checked her seat belt. She was grinning from ear to ear. I’ll admit, P.I. work can be fun.

Twenty seconds later, I made a right onto the same road Danny had made a left onto. As I did so I caught a glimpse of him making a left out of the track, and onto Commonwealth Avenue.

It was just past ten and I wondered who was watching the kids. Until I realized it was, of course, his slutty, ho-bag secretary.

I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

You probably don’t want to piss-off a vampire. Just sayin’.

Anyway, I hung a left on Commonwealth, and easily picked up the shape of the Mustang’s taillights about a half mile down the road. One thing about my current condition, my eyesight was eagle-like. And it only got better when I was in my, well, eagle-like form. Or bat-like. Or whatever the hell I transformed into.

While tailing someone, I could hang back farther than most investigators could. Still, it was a fine balance of staying far enough back to not get spotted, but not so far that I hit a red light and lost him altogether. I should probably have rented a car for tonight, but it was too late now.

Live and learn.

Next to me, rocking slightly in her seat, Monica was chewing her nails nervously. From my peripheral vision, her mannerisms and sitting position suggested she was no older than ten years old. About the age of my daughter.

My cell rang.

Shit. I dreaded looking down. Was it Danny? Had he spotted me already? Impossible.

It continued ringing and finally I reached for it in the center console, where it had been charging. I looked at the faceplate. It was Kinglsey.

I unhooked the phone from the charging wire.

“Arooo!” I sang, “Werewolves of London....”

“Not funny,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through my ear piece. “And please not over the phone.”

“Big brother and all that,” I said.

“Something like that.”

“You sound like you’re in a pissy mood,” I said.

“I am.” He paused on the other end. Up ahead, Danny took a right onto Harbor Boulevard. He didn’t use his blinker. I should make a citizen’s arrest. Kingsley went on, “You nearly killed my client the other day.”

I turned onto Harbor as well. I wasn’t sure I heard Kingsley right. “Your client? What do you mean?”

“Ira Lang.”

I nearly dropped the phone. “Excuse me?”

“Ira Lang is my client, Samantha. And he’s been my client for the past few years, since his first arrest. Now he’s in the hospital, with a face full of metal pins and screws and staples.”

I looked over at Monica, who was still peering ahead, rocking slightly. From this angle, I could see where her left eye drooped badly, the result of her husband’s attack with a hammer, the attack which had resulted in Ira’s first arrest.

Kingsley’s words had sucked the oxygen from my lungs. I found myself driving on automatic, vaguely aware that I was still following the Mustang far ahead. Danny was slowing for a red light. There were three cars between us, and he was still a quarter mile down the road.

“This is a problem,” I said.

“Damn straight, Sam. My client’s going to press charges.”

“I’m not worried about that,” I said. “Let’s talk later, Kingsley. This isn’t a good time.”

“Swing by my place when you get a chance.”

“Okay,” I said, and hung up.

Monica was watching me curiously. She, like most people, was far more psychic than she realized. She had picked up something in my voice, something in my mannerisms. She knew something was wrong.

Hell, yeah, something was wrong. The guy I was seeing—the guy who had touched me more intimately than any man had touched me in a long, long time—had gotten her ex-husband out of jail on a technicality.

Who then went on to bludgeon her father to death.

Sweet Jesus.

Monica was still watching me. I looked over at her and gave her the brightest smile I could muster. It seemed to work. She smiled back at me sweetly, reminding me of a child all over again, a child eager for good news.

I reached out and held her hand; she held mine in return, tightly. I continued following Danny at a distance, and holding Monica’s hand.

Chapter Thirty-six

We were sitting outside a strip club. A filthy, disgusting, vomitous, vile strip club.

We had followed Danny down the 57 Freeway, and then east along the 91 Freeway. He had gotten off in the city of Colton, a tough little area in Riverside County. We were about 60 miles east of Orange County. Here, they did not make reality shows about super-enhanced married women. Here, there was crime and gangs and a sense that something, somewhere had gone very wrong with this city. So wrong that it was beyond hope to fix.

Danny had worked his shiny Mustang along the dark and dirty streets, far removed from our cute little neighborhood, and had ended up at a small strip joint at the far edge of the city.

By the time we had pulled up to the club, Danny was already inside. I circled the packed parking lot, found his car, and then parked as far away from it as I could, all while keeping an eye on the club’s front door.

We parked and cracked our windows. Music thumped through the club’s open door. Two rather large black men stood on either side of the door. In a raised truck about five cars away, I was pretty sure two people were having sex. Already I felt I needed to shower.

Monica had seemingly shrunk in on herself. She pulled her feet up on the passenger seat and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees.

I was, admittedly, confused as hell. I had never known Danny to be the type to go to strip clubs. Of course, I had never known Danny to be a cheater and a liar and royal piece of shit, either, until recently.

I was tempted to look inside the club, but I wasn’t going to bring Monica with me, and I sure as hell wasn’t leaving her alone.

And so we sat, staring at the entrance to the strip club. Amazingly, I still felt a pang of jealousy that Danny would find pleasure in looking at other women. That is, until I reminded myself that he had been sleeping with another woman for the past few months.

I felt sick. I felt disgusted. I felt a massive wave of revulsion.

Monica was rocking now. The thumping music and the trashy cars and the trashy guys were all too much for her. She reminded me of a child sitting in her bedroom and listening to her parents fighting downstairs. Listening and rocking and suffering.

I waited another half hour, watching Monica, watching the door, watching the waves of men coming and going. Danny remained inside.

I was having a hard time believing Danny had come all this way to a strip club. There were clubs a lot closer than this. Not as sleazy, certainly, but a lot closer. So why had Danny driven nearly an hour to go to this shit hole? I didn’t know, but I was going to find out.

I started the car and left.

Monica rocked in her seat nearly the entire way home.

Chapter Thirty-seven

I comforted Monica with hugs and hot tea.

When she seemed stable again, I called my ex-partner. He was more than up to the challenge of watching over Monica again. In fact, I suspected he might have been waiting eagerly by his phone, since he had snatched it up on the first ring.

Thirty minutes later, with Monica in good (if not adoring) hands, I made my way over to Kingsley’s massive estate. Franklin the Butler did not seem pleased to see me this late, and I once again followed his slightly off-kilter, loping gait. This time to the kitchen, where I found Kingsley sitting at a round corner table, working on a double-stuffed ham sandwich. Sitting across from him was a glass of red wine. Mine, I assumed, although I rarely drank red wine since it gave me stomach cramps. Too many impurities.

Kingsley thanked the butler, who expressed his love of servitude with words dripping with sarcasm, and disappeared down a side hallway. To where, I had no clue. No doubt a servant’s quarter.

Or perhaps a stone slab with straps and thick cables attached to some sort of medieval antennae on the roof.

Or not.

As I stepped into the kitchen, Kingsley set aside the heavy-looking sandwich and got up and gave me a hug and a light kiss on the lips. The light kiss was my idea. I turned my head, since I wasn’t in much of a kissing mood. Kingsley indicated the chair across from him, and as I sat, I realized the glass wasn’t full of wine, it was full of something else.

It was full of blood.

Saliva burst instantly from under my tongue. I might have even licked my lips. Might have.

Kingsley was watching me. “You don’t have fangs.”

“What an odd thing to say to a girl,” I said, keeping my eyes on the hemoglobin-filled goblet. Say that three times in a row.

“I noticed it the other night, in bed, when we were kissing. Your teeth are normal.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“But I thought vampires had fangs,” he pushed.

“And I thought vampires existed only in teen romance novels.”

He chuckled lightly and let it go. I noticed the blood in the goblet was beginning to congeal a little along the surface, sticking to the inside of the thick glass. It was just blood. Disgusting blood. But it was the only thing I could consume comfortably. It was the only thing that gave me nourishment. And now, over the course of six years, blood had become my comfort food. Hell, it had become my only food, My everything. My stomach was doing back flips.

God, I was such a fucking ghoul.

“Drink, honey,” he said. As he spoke, he used some strange German accent. Oh?

“Who’s blood is it?” I asked.

“Does it matter?” His voice was back to normal.

He was right, of course. I had discovered that the source of the blood mattered not at all. Human, animal, warm, cold. It all had the same effect on me: it nourished me deeply.

I picked up the glass and drank deeply. The blood was warm. It was fresh, too. Something had recently died. Blood has a unique texture and I have grown to both love and loathe it. Good blood, fresh blood, is heavenly. The blood I normally drank, blood provided to me from a local butchery, was filled with all sorts of disgusting “extras”, which I constantly found myself spitting out.

Yum.

My account with the butchery was more or less a secret account. The butchery was in Chino Hills, and six years ago, I had convinced the owner I was a vet assistant and that I was involved with animal blood research. He hadn’t asked questions, and I hadn’t provided any more info other than that. The blood arrived monthly and I paid the exorbitant bill. Meals on wheels.

With that said, this blood was flawless, minus one or two coagulated lumps. I drank from the goblet steadily, briefly unable to pull away from it. Salty and metallic, it coated the inside of my mouth, filling the spaces between my teeth. I didn’t need to come up for air because I really didn’t breathe.

I drank steadily, greedily, happily.

When the goblet had been half-drained, I forced myself to set it down in front of me, and burped.

“Hungry?” asked Kingsley.

“Usually,” I said.

“So how often do you eat?” asked Kingsley, and I silently thanked him for not using the word “feed”. The word rubbed me the wrong way. Animals feed. Monsters feed. Ladies with degrees in criminal justice, who had two wonderful children and a successful private eye firm didn’t feed. We drank, even if our food was liquified.

A smoothie from hell.

“I’m hungry every night,” I said, shrugging. “Like most people.”

“Most people eat during the day.”

“You know what I mean,” I said, picking up the glass again. “Asshole.”

He grinned. “Do you eat every day?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because the packets of animal blood disgust me.”

“I’ve seen your packets,” he said, shuddering. “Revolting.” He looked at me some more, his sandwich looking miniscule in his oversized hands. “So, then, is it safe to say that you go as long as you can without eating?”

“Yes.”

“And how long can you go without eating?”

“Three or four days.”

“And then you have to eat.”

I nodded, tilting the glass up to my lips, reveling in the purity of the blood, letting it coat my tongue, the roof of my mouth.

“Do you ever worry that you will go too long between meals, and find yourself so hungry that you might do something stupid?”

“Like kill someone?” I asked.

“That would be something stupid, yes.”

“I’m not worried,” I said. “Not really. I’m generally always close to a source of blood. When I’m hungry enough, I just pop open a packet.”

“There might come a day when you don’t have such a ready source of blood.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

And with that, I finished the glass of blood. I brought it over to the sink and immediately washed it out. When I wasn’t hungry, the site of blood made me want to vomit.

About that time, Kingsley stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth, chewed a half dozen times—surely not enough to fully masticate such a large section of sandwich—and then swallowed it down like a whooping crane, tossing back his head.

We both sat back, looking at each other.

“We have a problem,” I said.

Kingsley nodded. “Is it that I’m too sexy?”

I didn’t feel like smiling. I felt like clawing his eyes out, if you wanted to know the truth. “You got Ira Lang out of jail the first time around,” I said.

“Sure,” said Kingsley, shrugging. “And he didn’t even have to pay me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was his court-appointed attorney.”

“But I thought you were one of the most expensive defense attorneys around.”

“I am. But sometimes when there are emergencies or the other attorneys are swamped, a judge will ask me to take over a case.”

“So you took over the case.”

He winked. “Of course. You don’t say no to a judge.”

“But Ira tried to kill his wife,” I said. “And not just tried. The piece of shit did everything within his power to kill her.”

“Right. And I got him out of jail,” said Kingsley evenly. “It’s what I do best.”

I searched for words, fought to control myself.

As I did so, Kingsley continued, “Look, Sam. Don’t take this so personally, okay? If it wasn’t me getting him out of jail, any other defense attorney worth his salt would have done the same. Ira had no previous record. He was a first time offender. He was ordered to stay away from his wife—”

“And I am sure you are proud of yourself for getting him out.”

“I did my job well.”

“And how did you feel when you heard the news that he had gone after her again, but this time killing her father, who fought to protect her?”

“It was unfortunate.”

“And you couldn’t have seen that coming?”

“I saw it coming.”

“But you did nothing to stop it.”

“It’s not my job to stop it, Sam. It was my job to get him out of jail.”

“You’re an animal,” I said.

He folded his arms over his great chest. His black tee shirt was stretched to the max over his biceps and shoulders and pectorals and even his slightly-too-big gut. His deep voice remained calm; he never once took his eyes off me.

He said, “You are emotional because you have grown close to the victim.”

“I am emotional because I let an animal put his hands on me.”

“I seem to recall that you liked my hands on you.”

I stood abruptly. “I can’t talk to you right now.”

He stood, too, and grabbed hold of both my shoulders. He towered over me. His shaggy black hair hung down over over his face. He smelled of pastrami and good cologne. He had put the cologne on for me, I realized. He had wanted more tonight, perhaps to sleep with me. I shuddered at the thought.

“Don’t go,” he said. “I’m not the enemy.”

“No,” I said. “But you might as well be.”

He tightened his grip on my shoulders, but with one swipe of my hand, I easily knocked them off. Shaking, I turned and walked out of the kitchen.

“Don’t go,” he said after me.

I didn’t look back.

Chapter Thirty-eight

I sat on the same thick tree branch and watched the crime lord’s regal estate. Just a giant black raptor with a love for cute shoes.

The massive island home was ablaze with lights as Jerry Blum did his personal best to accelerate global warming. Activity had picked up since the last time I was here a few days ago. Now there were more guys with big guns, more beautiful women, and more cars coming and going. The cars looked armor plated. Once, a man and a woman strolled beneath the very tree I was perched in. The man lit a cigarette. The woman was wearing a blouse cut so low that I could see straight down it to her belly button. Probably a good thing neither of them thought to look up.

As I watched them, sitting motionless and squatting on the thick branch, I wondered if I emitted an odor of some sort. I had read years ago that Bigfoot sightings were often preceded first by a horrific stench. Well, I had showered just a few hours earlier, thank you very much. Granted, I had showered as a human. Either way, neither crinkled their noses and looked at each other and asked, “Do you smell a giant vampire bat?”

Again, probably a good thing.

The man finished his cigarette and mentioned something about being off in a few hours and why didn’t she come up to his room then? She said sure.

He nodded and flicked his cigarette away, and Mr. Romantic and Slutty McSlutbag drifted off over the grounds, to disappear in the controlled mayhem of the estate house. Something seemed to be up, but I didn’t know what. I caught snatches of conversation, but couldn’t piece anything together. Once I saw Jerry Blum himself, surrounded by a large entourage of men. Big men. Dark-haired men. They moved purposely through the house, and I watched them going from window to window, until they slipped deeper into the house and out of view.

Jerry was going to be hard to get alone. But I was a patient hulking monster.

As the wind picked up and the tree swayed slightly, I adjusted my clawed feet, stretched my wings a little, and hunkered down for the night.

Chapter Thirty-nine

I turned off Carbon Canyon Road, which wound through the Chino foothills, and onto a barely noticeable service road.

Stuart Young, my beautifully bald client who was sitting in the passenger seat next to me, looked over at me nervously. I grinned and winked at him.

“Um, you sure you know where you’re going?” he asked.

“No clue,” I said.

“Of course not,” he said good-naturedly. “Why should you? We’re only driving through the deep dark forest in the dark of night.”

“Fun, isn’t it?”

I doubted we would get lost since there was only about a quarter mile of wilderness between the road and the grass-covered hill before us. Even a soccer mom could get her bearings here. We had been driving down the twisty Carbon Canyon Road, a road some think of as a sort of shortcut from Orange County to Riverside County, but, if you ask me, it’s just a more scenic way to fight even more dense traffic.

The van probably wasn’t made for dirt roads, but it handled this one well enough. We bounced and scraped through shrubbery until we came across a metal gate that consisted of two horizontal poles.

“It looks locked,” said Stuart.

“Hang on,” I said.

I put the van in park and hopped out, brushing aside a thorn covered branch with my bare hand. A thorn or two snagged my skin and drew blood. By the time I reached the gate, my hand was already healed.

Cool beans.

A thick chain was wrapped around a rusted pole driven deep into the ground. The chain was padlocked with a heavy-duty lock. I often wondered who carried keys to these random city and county locks. Somewhere out there was a guy standing in front of some obscure park gate with a big wad of keys and going crazy.

This lock was a big one, and heavy, too. As I picked it up, the chain clanked around it. I turned my back to Stuart. I hooked my finger inside the lock’s rusted loop and with one quick yank, I snapped the lock open.

“We’re in luck,” I yelled, letting the lock drop. “It’s open.”

* * *

We were now in a clearing at the edge of a ravine, where a small river flowed twenty feet below. The gurgling sound of it was pleasant. The chirping of the birds was even more pleasant. Darkness was settling over what passed as woods in southern California, which amounted to a small grove of scraggly elderberry trees, deformed evergreens, beavertail cactus, and thick clumps of sagebrush and gooseberry, and other stuff that wasn’t taught in my junior college environmental biology course.

We were in a sort of clearing, surrounded by a wall of trees. My sixth sense told me that this place had been used before, for something else, for something physically painful, but I didn’t know what. My sixth sense was sketchy at best. Still, I heard the crack of something breaking, perhaps bone, and I heard the crash of a car. I walked over to the edge of the ravine and looked down. Sure enough, deep within the soft soil around the lip, I saw deep tire tracks. Someone, at sometime, had taken a nose-dive off the edge here and down into the river below.

I turned and faced Stuart. “This is where I will bring him.”

Stuart had walked to the center of the clearing, and was taking in the area, perhaps envisioning himself fighting a crime lord to the death in this very spot. Like gladiators in an arena.

“It’s a good place,” he said, nodding. He looked slightly sick.

A bluejay shot through the clearing, flashing through the shadows and half light, disappearing in the branch high overhead, reminding me of the old George Harrison song, “Blue Jay Way”, about fogs and L.A. and friends who had lost their way.

I stood in the clearing with a man who had lost his way, too, his life completely derailed by pain and grief and the burning need for revenge. He stared up into the darkening sky, which filled the scattered spaces above the tangle of trees. His bald head gleamed dully in the muted light.

We all lose our way, I thought. Some of us just for longer than others.

Perhaps even for all eternity.

“A part of me doesn’t believe you can get him here,” said Stuart, still looking up, his voice carrying up to the highest, twisted branches.

I said nothing.

“But another part of me believes you can. It’s a small part, granted, but it believes that you can somehow, someway, deliver Orange County’s biggest son-of-a-bitch to me.”

I was quiet, leaning my hip on the fender of the minivan, my hands folded under my chest. A small, hot wind blew through the clearing.

“So then I ask myself, ‘What will you do if he does show up? What will you do if Samantha Moon really can deliver him?’” He lowered his head and looked over at me, his face partially hidden in shadows. I could mostly see through shadows, but I doubted he could. I’m sure to him I was nothing more than a silhouette. A cute silhouette, granted. “But that’s the easy part, Sam. If you deliver him to me, I will hurt him. I will do everything within my power to make him feel the pain he has made me feel. But first I will play my wife’s last message to him. I want him to hear her voice. I want my wife’s voice to be the last thing that son-of-a-bitch hears.”

A single prop airplane flew low overhead, its engine droning steadily and peacefully. A bug alighted on my arm. A mosquito. Now there’s irony for you. I flicked it off before I inadvertently created a mutant strain of immortal mosquitoes, impervious to bug spray or squishing.

Stuart went on. “But I’m going to give him a fighting chance, more than he gave my wife, the fucking coward. I’m not sure what sort of fighting chance I will give him, but I will think of something.”

We were quiet. The woods itself wasn’t so quiet. Tree branches swished in the hot wind, and birds twittered and sung and squawked. A quiet hum of life and energy seemed to emanate from everywhere, a gentle combination of every little thing moving and breathing and existing. Sometimes a leaf crunched. Sometimes something fast and little scurried up a trunk. A bird or two flashed overhead, through the tangle of branches. Insects buzzed in and out of the faint, slanting half-light.

Stuart was looking down. A bug had alighted on his bald head, threatening its perfection. He casually reached up and slapped his head, then wiped his palm. Whew! Disaster averted. Stuart, I saw, was crying gently, nearly imperceptively.

I waited by the van. He cried some more, then nodded and wiped his eyes. His whole bald head was gleaming red.

“Let’s do this,” he said, nodding some more.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

“No, this is the best answer. This is the only answer, Sam. I want justice, but the courts won’t give it to me.”

“Jerry Blum is a professional killer. He’s going to know how to fight. And he’s going to kill you the first chance he gets.”

“I have been taking boxing lessons these past few weeks, since our last talk.”

“Boxing lessons where?” I asked.

“A little Irish guy. Says he knows you. Says you’re a freak of nature.”

“Jacky’s always exaggerating,” I said.

“Says you knocked out a top-ranked Marine boxer.”

“The top-ranked Marine boxer had it coming to him.”

Stuart looked at me. The red blotches that had covered his head were dissipating. He looked so gentle and kind and little. I couldn’t imagine him taking on a crime lord single-handedly. “You are a fascinating woman, Ms. Moon.”

“So they say,” I said, and decided to change the subject, especially since the subject was me. “Stuart, there’s a very real chance you aren’t walking out of this grove alive in a few days.”

That seemed to hit him. He thought about it. “Well, this is a good place to die, then, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have to die, Stuart,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I suppose I could always just shoot him before he knows what hits him. Or have a whole array of weapons at my disposal.”

I said nothing. I was liking this plan less and less.

“But he killed my wife, Sam. He put fear in her. He put terror in her. He made the woman I love feel terror. Think about that. He made the woman I loved, the woman I had committed my life to, the woman I was going to start a family with, die in a fiery crash. I hate him. I hate him more than you could ever know. Yes, I suppose I should just step out of the shadows with a gun. I suppose I should just level it at him, and blow his fucking brains out. Maybe I still will. I don’t know. But I want to beat him, Sam. With my fists. I want to hear his nose break. I want to see his blood flow. I want to punch him harder than I have ever punched anything in my life. I want to see the terror in his eyes when he realizes he will never get up again, that he will die in that moment.”

“And when you kill him?” I asked. “What then?”

Stuart turned to me and looked perplexed by the question. He hadn’t, of course, thought much beyond this. A red welt was blistering on the side of his head, where the mosquito had gotten to him a fraction before he had gotten to the mosquito. The blood-sucking little bastard.

“I don’t know, Sam. I don’t know.” He paused, then looked me directly in the eye. “Will you still help me?”

I was never much for vigilante justice. I had taken an oath years ago to uphold the law. This was very much outside the law. This was also crazy.

These are crazy times, I thought.

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

“Thank you, Sam.”

And when he said those words, a dull tingling sensation rippled through me, and something very strange happened to the air around Stuart. A very faint, darkish halo briefly surrounded his body. The black halo flared once, twice, and then disappeared.

Chapter Forty

There was a knock on my hotel door.

Monica, who had been lying on her side and reading, snapped her head around and looked at me.

I stepped away from my laptop and moved over to the bedside table. I quietly pulled open the top drawer and removed my small handgun from its shoulder holster. Then I slipped quietly over and stood to one side of the door. Never directly in front.

“Who’s there?” I asked.

“Detective Sherbet.”

I grinned. I was quite fond of the detective, who was an aging homicide investigator here in Fullerton. A few months back, Sherbet had helped me solve Kingsley’s attempted murder case. And spending long nights sitting together in the rain on stakeouts had gotten us close. But not so close that I had revealed to him my super-secret identity.

I unlocked and opened the door to find the big detective standing there holding a greasy bag of donuts. He was also breathing loudly through his open mouth, and I realized just the effort of walking down the hallway had been a bit much for the old guy. The donuts didn’t help.

“Got a minute?” he asked.

“Do I have a choice?” I asked.

“Not really.”

“In that case, come in, detective.”

He came in, nodded at me, spotted Monica on the bed, and went straight over to her. He took both her hands in his one free hand. The other, of course, was holding the donuts. Monica sat up immediately when she saw him, and now she looked a bit like a teenage girl talking to her grandfather.

“Hello, Monica,” he said warmly. “Are you keeping Samantha out of trouble?”

She smiled—or tried to smile—and then she burst into tears. Detective Sherbet calmly set the greasy bag on the night table, then sat next to her and put an arm around her. He made small, comforting noises to her, and they sat like this for a few minutes.

Sherbet squeezed her shoulders one more time, patted her hands, and then stood. He grabbed the bag of donuts and led me out onto the balcony. He closed the sliding glass door behind me. He then sat on one of the dusty, cushioned chairs, calmly opened the oily bag, peered inside, and selected a bright pink donut.

“I thought you didn’t like the color pink,” I said. “Or, for that matter, pink anything.”

“I’m coming around,” he said, and held up the effeminate-looking donut.

“Speaking of pink,” I said. “How’s your son?”

Sherbet paused mid-chew, breathing loudly through his nose. He finished the bite and looked at me sideways. “That was a low blow, Ms. Moon.”

“You know I adore your son.”

“I do, too,” he said. “The kid’s fine. I caught him trying on his mother’s pantyhose the other day. Pantyhose.”

“What did you do?” I asked, suppressing a giggle.

“Honestly? I went into my bedroom, shut the door, and sat in the dark for an hour or two.”

“So you took it well.”

“About as well as any dad would.”

“You love him, though.”

Sherbet reached inside the bag again. “In a weird way, I think I love him more.”

“Oh?”

He pulled out an apple fritter. Remnants of the pink frosting donut were smeared on the fritter. Sherbet licked the remnants off.

He said, “The kid’s going to have it tough in school, and everywhere else, for that matter. He’s going to need someone strong by his side.”

I patted his roundish knee, hidden beneath slacks that were stretched tight. I think Sherbet had gained 10 or 15 pounds since I’d last seen him. He didn’t sound very healthy, either. As he ate the donut, I reached over and gently took the greasy bag from him. He watched in mild shock as I held my hand over the balcony railing.

“Sam, don’t,” he said.

“You’re gaining weight, detective. And you sound like you need a respirator. These things aren’t helping.”

“You sound like my wife.”

“You should listen to her.”

I let the bag go. Five seconds later, I heard it splat nine floors below.

Sherbet winced. “I should give you a ticket for littering.”

“Then give me a ticket.”

He went to work on the rest of the fritter. “My hands are too sticky to write. Besides, I’ve got some news for you.”

“Go ahead.”

“We got a call from a guest staying here at the hotel.”

Sherbet licked his fingers. I waited.

“She reported that a strange man had been watching the hotel for a few days now. So we sent one of our guys around and talked to him. The guy’s story didn’t sound kosher, and so we picked him up for questioning.”

“And did he answer your questions?”

“Not at first, but, believe it or not, I can play bad cop pretty damn well.”

“Bad cop? You? Never!”

Sherbet grinned. There was pink frosting in his cop mustache. I should have told him there was pink frosting in his cop mustache, but he looked so damn cute that I decided not to. “So I shake this guy down and he finally tells me his story.”

“He’s a hired killer,” I said.

“You know the story?”

“I can guess some of it.”

“So what else can you guess, Sam?”

“He was hired by Ira Lang.”

Sherbet raised his thick finger and shot me. The finger glistened stickily. “Bingo.”

Chapter Forty-one

Detective Sherbet sat back and folded his hairy arms over his roundish stomach. I mostly wasn’t attracted to roundish stomachs and hairy arms—or, for that matter, hairy anything. But on Sherbet, the longish arm hair and extra stomach padding seemed right. On him, oddly, both were attractive. If he had been single and I had been another twenty years older, there was a very good chance I would have had the hots for him.

He seemed to be noticing me looking at his stomach and unconsciously adjusted his shirt over, not realizing that his padded stomach was adding to his manliness. At least for me. I can’t vouch for every woman.

I suspected I had daddy issues, whatever that meant.

“He also said something else,” said Sherbet. As he spoke, he looked through the sliding glass door at Monica, who was sitting on the edge of the bed and wringing her hands and rocking slightly. I couldn’t be sure, but I think she was mumbling something, or singing something. The woman was tormented beyond words, and my heart went out to her.

I looked back at Sherbet, “What else?”

“He told me that Ira Lang would never give up trying to kill her, that Lang had approached many, many people in prison, and that just because we caught him once, didn’t mean we were going to catch the next killer that Ira hired, or the next, or the next.”

“He’s going to keep coming after her,” I said. “Forever, until one or the other dies.”

“Which, for him, is sooner rather than later, since he’s on Death Row.”

“Still a few years away, though.”

“Or longer,” said Sherbet. “Unless, of course, you visit him again, in which case he might not survive the meeting.”

“He threatened the kids.”

“You are a mama grizzly.”

“I’m a mama something.”

Sherbet looked at me, seemed about to say something, paused, then seemed to go a different direction. “Anyway, he’s out of the hospital and back on Death Row.”

“Where he belongs.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

We were silent. Sherbet’s overtaxed digestive system moaned pitifully as it went to work on the greasy donuts.

“Which reminds me,” said Sherbet, reaching down and opening his briefcase. He extracted a smallish electronic gizmo thingy. “I want to show you something.”

“Your new DVD player?” I asked.

He grinned. “Sort of. It’s a loaner from the department.”

I watched with mild amusement as his sausage-like fingers tried to manipulate the small piece of electronic gadgetry. He picked it up and examined it from every angle.

“Everything’s so damned small,” he grumbled.

“Let me have a look, detective,” I said. He gratefully handed it to me. I took it from him, and flipped a switch on the side and the player whirred to life.

“Should I press ‘play’?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

I set the player on the table between us and pressed ‘play’, and a moment later I saw a sickening scene. It was footage from a security camera, looking down on two people conversing in a jail visiting room. Both were on the phone, speaking to each other through a thick, bulletproof glass window.

Sherbet was watching me closely as the video played on the little screen. I hate being watched closely. My first instinct was to turn the damn thing off and fling it over the balcony railing like I had with the donuts.

My next instinct was to make a joke or two about the video, perhaps something about the camera adding ten pounds. But there was no joking my way out of this.

I had been wrong: there was a camera in the jail’s visiting room, perhaps hidden.

Besides, I felt too sick to joke, so instead I watched the tape with horror and curiosity. After all, it was a rare day that I actually got to see myself.

Of course, I had worn a lot of make-up that night, knowing there would security cameras everywhere, and wanting to make sure I didn’t show up as partially invisible. In fact, anytime I was anywhere that had heightened video security, I made it a point to wear extra make-up.

Anyway, the video was grainy at best. No sound, either. On the tiny screen, I watched as I sat forward in the chair, speaking deliberately to Ira. Ira was leaning some of his weight on his elbows and didn’t seem to blink. Ever. I hadn’t noticed that before. Then again, that could have been a result of this grainy image. The camera had been filming from above, in the upper corner of the visitor’s side of the room.

From this angle, I could see some of my profile, and I watched myself, fascinated, despite my mounting dread over what was about to come.

In the video, I looked leaner than I had ever looked in my life. A good thing, I guess. I also looked strong, vibrant. I didn’t look like the stereotypical sickly vampire. But I knew that wasn’t always the case. This was early evening. I always looked better in the early evening. Or so I was told.

And, if I do say so myself, I looked striking. Not beautiful. But striking.

As the video played out, I must have said something with some finality because I ducked my head slightly and reached for my purse. As I did so, Ira said something to me, and I immediately sat back down again. I leaned closer to the window. Ira did, too, grinning stupidly from behind the protective glass.

Now my face looked terrible. I suddenly didn’t look like me. Truth be known, I didn’t recognize the woman in the video clip at all. She seemed strange, otherworldly. Her mannerisms seemed a little off, too. She moved very little, if at all. Every movement controlled, planned, or rehearsed. In fact, the woman in the video seemed content sitting perfectly still.

But now I wasn’t sitting still. Now I was motioning with my finger for Ira to come ever closer. And he did.

One moment I was sitting there, and the next I was reaching through the destroyed glass, grabbing Ira, slamming his face over and over into the glass. What I saw didn’t make sense, either. A smallish woman reaching through the glass, manhandling a grown man, a convict, a killer. Slamming him repeatedly against the glass as if he were a rag doll.

None of it made sense; it defied explanation.

It defied normal explanation.

A moment later the guards burst into the room. The final clip was an image I had not seen since I was struggling under a sea of guards. It was an image of Ira’s face, partially pulled through the glass, his skin having been peeled away from his forehead like a sardine can. Also, the glass was cutting deeply into his throat, and he was jerking violently, gagging on his own blood, which flowed freely down the glass, spilling over both sides of the counter, dripping, dripping. He would have surely died within minutes if he had not been given emergency help.

Sherbet reached over and easily turned off the player and sat back, watching me some more. He said, “The guards reported that you were nearly impossible to tackle to the ground. That it took three of them to do so, and even then you wouldn’t go down easily.”

I said nothing. For some reason, I was remembering what I had looked like in the security video. My passive expression. My inert features.

Sherbet went on, “As you can see in the video, you punched through the glass so fast that there was little or no indication that you moved at all. One moment you’re sitting there, and the next you are reaching through the glass. We were certain the digital video had skipped a few seconds ahead, but the timer on it never missed a beat. One second you are sitting there. Two-tenths of a second later you are reaching through the glass. Two-tenths of a second, faster than a blink of an eye. And during those two-tenths, you are seen flinching only slightly. The broken glass itself can be seen hurling through the air at the same time you are holding Ira by the neck.” Sherbet shook his head. “It defies all explanation. It defies natural law.”

Beyond my hotel balcony, the sky was alive with streaking particles of light, flashing faintly in every direction. Thank God I can mostly ignore these flashing lights, or I would go crazy. Vampirism and OCD do not mix.

Sherbet looked at me. “Do you have anything to say about this, Samantha?”

I continued looking up at the night sky, at the dancing lights. No jokes, no nothing. I needed this to go away. “Obviously there was something wrong with the video, Detective.”

He nodded his head as if he had expected that answer. “And the fact that you broke through the security glass?”

“The glass was already broken.”

“We can’t see any breaks in the image.”

“You yourself said the image is not the clearest.”

He nodded again. Now he turned his head and looked in the same direction I was looking. I doubted he could see the zigzagging lights.

I asked, “Why were you shown the video?”

Sherbet chuckled lightly. “Are you kidding, Sam? The video has made its way through our entire department. Hell, half the police in the state have seen it by now. You’re lucky it’s not on BoobTube.”

“YouTube,” I said, and thought I was going to vomit. So much for keeping things on the down-low.

Sherbet went on, “You can imagine my surprise when I discovered the freak in the video was, in fact, you.”

“Probably so surprised that you nearly dropped your donut,” I said.

“I’m never that surprised.”

“So why are you here?” I asked.

“Just chatting with an old friend.”

“I’m not so old,” I said.

He nodded as if that somehow answered a question he had. Now we were both silent. Inside the hotel, Monica had turned on the TV—a comedy show judging by the sudden bursts of laughter. Monica giggled innocently.

“I’m your friend, Sam.”

“I know.”

“Anything you tell me will remain between us.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“That’s good to know,” I said.

“I worry about you, Sam.”

The surprising tenderness in his gravelly voice touched me deeply, and I found words temporarily impossible to form. I nodded. My vision blurred into tears.

“If you ever want to talk,” he said. “If you ever need a friend. If you ever need help of any kind, I’m always here for you. Always.”

And now I was weeping.

He reached over and hugged me tight, pulling me into him, and I smelled his after shave and the donut grease and the smallest hint of body odor. The body odor went with the manliness. After all, this was the end of a long day of crime fighting. A man should have a hint of body odor at the end of a long day.

His hairy arms smothered me completely and for a few seconds, a few rare seconds, I felt safe and comfortable and cared for.

Then he pulled away and carefully packed up his mini-DVD player in his scuffed briefcase. He then gave me the softest jab you could ever imagine on my chin, smiled sadly at me, and left me on the balcony.

Inside the hotel room, through the sliding glass door, I watched as he quietly spoke to Monica. As he did so, he held both of her hands in one of his. He said something else, jerked his head in my direction, and she nodded. He was reassuring her, I knew. Letting her know she was in good hands.

When the door shut behind him, Monica came out and sat beside me. She reached over and took my hand, and we sat like that for a few minutes.

Finally, I said, “They caught a guy hanging around downstairs.”

“The guy Ira hired to hurt me.” Her voice sounded so tiny and lost and confused. Her simple, sweet, innocent brain was trying to wrap itself around why a man she had loved at one time would actually hire another man to hurt her. To kill her.

And as we sat out there together, as we held hands and watched the quarter moon climb slowly into the hazy night sky, I suddenly knew what I had to do.

Chapter Forty-two

I was flying. I was free. Life was good.

The moon, still about a week from being full, shone high and bright. Any thoughts of the moon automatically conjured images of Kingsley. And any thoughts of Kingsley automatically conjured images of the beast he was, or claimed to be. Admittedly, I had never actually seen Kingsley transform into a werewolf, and a part of me still wanted to believe that, in fact, he wasn’t a werewolf, that this was all one crazy hoax. Or that he was delusional.

I mean, come on, an honest-to-God werewolf? Really?

This, of course, coming from a creature flying slowly over Orange County.

Actually, a part of me—a big part—still hoped that I was in the middle of one long, horrific nightmare, and that I would wake up at any moment, in bed, gasping, relieved beyond words that this had all been one bad dream.

I’m ready to wake up, I thought. Please.

I banked to port and caught a high-altitude wind. I flapped my wings easily, smoothly, comfortably, sailing along in the heavens like an escaped Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float from Hell.

Still, just because one monster (me) existed, that didn’t necessarily mean all other monsters existed.

Or did it? Maybe there was some truth to everything that goes bump-in-the-night. If so, where did it end? Were there fairies? Angels? Aliens? Demons? Keebler elves? And weren’t elves, in fact, fairies? Or was it the other way around?

I didn’t know.

More than likely Kingsley was exactly what he claimed to be: a werewolf. I had seen the excessive hair on his forearms a few times now. I had also seen him survive five bullet shots to the head. Not to mention, he didn’t even bat an eye when he found out that I was, in fact, a vampire.

Still, that didn’t a werewolf make.

The moon burned silver above me. I wondered if I could fly all the way to the moon. I wondered if I could fly to other worlds, too.

Maybe someday I will fly to the moon.

Dance on the Moon.

I hadn’t spoken to Kingsley in a few nights now, not since I had discovered that he was, in fact, responsible for getting Ira out of jail. Jesus, how do you respect a man who does that for a living?

An icy wind blasted me, but I held my course. I flapped steadily, powerfully into the night.

Granted, not all of Kinglsey’s clients were killers. Some were innocent. Some he legitimately helped. Others, not so much. Others were evil and wretched and should stay in jail. Kingsley knew damn well that he was releasing animals back into society, that he was putting killers back onto the streets.

But I had known this about Kingsley already, hadn’t I? It hadn’t really bothered me until now. Until it hit close to home. So why should I hold it against him now? Kingsley had done nothing wrong. Hell, he was just doing his job. Like he said, if it hadn’t been him, it would have been another defense attorney getting Ira out of jail.

So perhaps I should be angry at the system, not Kingsley.

Perhaps.

Below me was my destination. It was a massive multi-storied structure in Chino, California. It lay sprawled before me in a hodgepodge of auxiliary wings and isolated buildings. My target was one of those isolated buildings, located on the north side of the prison.

The Death Row Compound.

It was a large, grim, three-story structure that housed hundreds of condemned inmates. A lethal, electrified fence encircled the compound. Guard towers were everywhere.

I circled the bleak structure once, twice, getting a feel for the place. I circled again a third time, and as I did so, I felt a pull for a particular area. I focused on that area as I circled the structure again.

The pull grew stronger.

I rarely used my new-found psychic ability in this way. In the past, I just sifted through various hits as they came, rarely directing my heightened senses.

Now I directed them.

I was searching for one inmate in particular. One inmate currently housed in Death Row. One inmate who’s time had come.

As I circled the structure a fifth time, I felt a very strong pull toward a corner wall on the second floor.

There he is, I thought.

I knew it. I felt it. I believed it.

But what if I was wrong?

I let the question die in me unanswered; I didn’t have the luxury of being wrong.

As I circled back from my fifth fly-by, I tucked in my leathery wings and dove down, fast, the wind howling over my flattened ears.

Chapter Forty-three

As I rapidly approached the building, I was suddenly filled with doubt. Was I doing the right thing? Should I veer off now and forget this whole crazy, horrific, stomach-turning plan? Was I even heading toward the right section of prison?

I shook my head and blasted aside the self-doubt.

The decisions had been made hours ago, and I knew, in my heart, they were the right ones.

Now, of course, it only remained to be seen if I was heading towards the correct section of prison wall.

We’ll see, I thought.

I flew faster. The west side of the wall grew rapidly before me. I adjusted my wings slightly, a flick here, a dip there, and angled toward a particular spot on the second floor, near the corner of the building.

It just feels right.

I picked up more speed. The massive, oppressive structure grew rapidly in front of me. Behind those walls were the worst of the worst. Killers, cutthroats, and the not very kind. Wind thundered over me, screeching across my ears.

There was a final moment when I could have chosen to veer away, and avoid the building altogether.

I didn’t veer away.

Six years ago, I was busting loan swindlers and thieves and low lives. Now I was hurling my nightmarish bat-like body at a maximum security prison.

Would this kill me? I didn’t know, but I was about to find out.

My last thought before I struck the wall were: I love you Tammy and Anthony...if I don’t make it, I’ll see you on the other side.

The gray wall appeared directly before me. I could see the fine details of thick cinder blocks and heavy bricks. I lowered my head and turned my body slightly and struck the building with such force that I suspected the whole damn building shuddered.

* * *

I sat up in a pile of rubble.

My thick wings were draped around me like a heavy, dusty blanket. Chunks of wall continued to fall and clatter behind me. I should have been dead many times over. I should have been flattened outside on the wall itself. I should have been many things...but here I sat, in a prison cell, surrounded by massive chunks of cement, bent re-bar, and bricks that looked better suited for a medieval dungeon.

As I sat up, and as the dust still settled around me, I closed my eyes and saw the single flame in my forethoughts. I next saw the woman in the flame, standing there impatiently, and quickly I felt the familiar rush towards her....

And when I opened my eyes, there I was. My old self again—completely naked in a maximum secure prison in a cell on Death Row.

Outside, through the massive hole in the prison wall, I heard dozens of men shouting and a cacophony of running feet. A moment later, a siren wailed, so loud that it hurt even my ears.

I stood slowly. Dust and debris slid off my flesh.

Had I guessed right? Was this the right cell? Had my sixth sense led me to the man I wanted?

My eyes needed no time to adjust to the darkness.

There, huddled at the far end of the single cot, was Ira Lang, staring at me with wild, disbelieving eyes. Believe it, buddy boy. Ira was a royal mess. His face and forehead were nearly covered in bandages, and if it weren’t for his signature bald head, with its deep grooves and odd lumps, I might have wondered if I had the right room. His face, what little of it I could see puffing out between the bandages, was horribly swollen and disfigured. A multitude of pins and bolts and screws were holding the whole thing together.

What a waste, I thought, of all that work.

There was no way of knowing what Ira was thinking. Hell, what could he be thinking? One moment he was lying in bed, no doubt plotting his ex-wife’s death, or perhaps sleeping, and dreaming of her death, and the next a massive hole appears in his jail cell, filled by a hulking, nightmarish creature. A creature who then turned into a woman. A woman he loathed.

I didn’t know what he thought, nor did I care.

I brushed off some dirt and smaller chunks of concrete from my shoulder and shook out cement dust from my hair. A small, grayish cloud briefly hovered around me, and then drifted to the floor.

People were shouting within the prison itself, their voices echoing along what I assumed was a long hallway just beyond. Lights were still out. No one could see me. No one, but Ira.

Now he was blinking at me hard. He then sat forward a little, straining to see through the dark and dust. He breathed raspily through his misshapen and swollen mouth.

Footsteps pounded from somewhere nearby. Sirens blasted from seemingly everywhere. A spotlight flashed through the opening, catching some of the swirling dust.

Ira’s eyes widened some more. “You!” he suddenly hissed. His swollen lips never moved, and the sound itself seemed to come from somewhere in his throat. “How the fuck did you get in here?”

I said nothing. There was nothing to say. Things were about to end badly for Ira and there was no reason to joke or elaborate or waste time.

I stood there, waiting, naked as the day I was born. I was certain most of my body was silhouetted by the lights coming in through the large opening in the wall behind me. How much Ira could see of me, I didn’t know, nor did I care.

I don’t think he cared either.

He reached underneath his flimsy bed mattress, and then hurled himself at me. As he did so, I spotted something flashing in his hands. Growling with what could have been demonic rage, he drove the metal object—which turned out to be a sharpened spoon wired to a wooden stick—as hard as he could at my chest. Whether or not the shank qualified as a stake, I didn’t know, nor did I want to find out. I caught his slashing wrist as he slammed into me hard. I stumbled back a foot or two and nearly tripped on a block of cement, but mostly I held my ground. Ira brought his knee up hard into my stomach. Air burst from my lungs. He redoubled his effort with the shank, and I might have squeezed his wrist a little too hard, because I felt bones crunching. As Ira screamed, I spun him around and reached up with one hand and grabbed his already broken jaw and turned his head as hard and fast as I could. I nearly ripped his head off. His neck broke instantly, sickeningly, the vertebrae tearing through his skin and his orange prison jumpsuit like jagged shards of broken glass. Ira shuddered violently, and then went limp. His head fell grotesquely to one side.

More sirens. More running feet. Now lights were turning on in the prison itself.

They were coming for me. At any moment, someone was going to burst into this cell. I had to leave now. But I didn’t. Not yet. Instead, I found myself staring down at Ira’s broken neck. I wanted to drink from him so bad that I was willing to risk getting caught. I was willing to give it all up for one drink of fresh blood.

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.

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.”

“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.

“So there’s no one trying to hurt me anymore?” she finally asked.

“No one’s trying to hurt you,” I promised. In fact, Detective Sherbet had just sent me a very choppy and error-filled text message (I could just see his thick sausage fingers hunting and pecking over his cell’s tiny keyboard) that he had had a heart-to-heart with the accused hitman. The hitman, currently awaiting arraignment for conspiracy to attempt murder, understood that his employer—in this case Ira Lang—was dead.

The hotel was oddly quiet, even to my ears. No elevator sounds. No creaking. No laughing. And no squeaking bed springs.

After a moment, Monica said, “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

I remembered the way Ira’s head had dropped to the side, held in place by only the skin of his neck. I had no problem believing he was dead.

“So I guess you’re done protecting me?” she added.

“Yes,” I said. “But I’m not done being your friend. If you ever need anything, call me. If you’re ever afraid, call me. If you ever need help in any way, call me. If you ever want to go dancing, call me.”

She laughed, but mostly she cried some more and now she leaned into me and hugged me, and when she pulled away, she looked at me closely.

“Your hands are always cold,” she said, her tiny voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes. I’m always cold.”

“Always?”

I thought about that. Yeah, I was usually cold, except when I was flush with blood, especially fresh blood. I kept that part to myself.

“Is that part of your sickness?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry you’re sick, Samantha.”

“So am I.”

She held my hands even tighter in a show of solidarity. And like a small child who’s always looking to make things better, she swung my hands out a little. “Did you really mean the part about dancing?”

“Sure,” I said. “I haven’t been dancing in a long time.”

“I’m a good dancer,” she said.

“I bet you are.”

There was a knock on the door, and I got up and checked the peephole and let Chad in. He came bearing flowers and wearing nice cologne. I mentioned something about the flowers being for me and he said in my dreams. My ex-partner was in love, but certainly not with me. I looked over at Monica who brightened immediately at the sight of Chad, or perhaps the flowers. Whether or not she was in love, I didn’t know, but, I think, she was in a better place to explore such feelings. In the least, she was now free to love.

Chad pulled me aside and we briefly discussed Ira’s crazy death. He wanted to know if I had any additional information and I told him I didn’t. We both agreed Ira’s death was crazy as hell and both wondered what had happened. We concluded that we may never know, and it was doubtful the prison was coming clean with all the facts. We both concluded that there was some sort of cover-up going on. The cover-up idea was mine, admittedly.

Chad looked at me, but I could tell he was itching to get back to Monica, who was currently inhaling every flower in the bouquet. Chad said, “She’ll be safe with me. Always.”

“That’s good.”

“I won’t let anyone ever hurt her.”

“You are a good man.”

“I love her.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Do you think she loves me?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think the two of you are off to a great start.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I do too.”

The two of them left, together, arm-in-arm, and I suddenly found myself alone in my hotel room for the first time in a few weeks. I went out to my balcony and lit a cigarette and stared silently up at the pale, nearly full moon.

My thoughts were all over the place. I was hungry. Starving, in fact. I hadn’t eaten in days. I thought of the chilled packets of blood in my hotel refrigerator and made a face, nearly gagging at the thought.

My scattered thoughts eventually settled on Stuart, my bald client. And I kept thinking about him even as my forgotten cigarette finally burned itself out.

Chapter Forty-eight

I was taking a hot shower.

No doubt it was too hot for most people, but it was just right for me. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would say that I could almost smell my own cooking flesh. Anyway, such hot showers were some of the few times that I could actually feel real heat radiating from my body. The heat would last all of twenty minutes after stepping out of the shower, granted, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

I did my best thinking in the shower, and I was thinking my ass off now. Danny had two things on me: First, he had a vial of blood he had supposedly drawn while I was sleeping (the piece of shit), and, second, he had pictures of me not showing up in a mirror, or on the film itself.

Allegedly.

Both items were currently with an attorney friend of his—allegedly—who kept them God-knows-where. How much his attorney friend knew about me and my condition, I didn’t know, but I doubted Danny told him very much, if anything. Danny was good at keeping secrets. Anyway, according to my ex-husband, his attorney friend had been given strict instructions to make public the files should Danny meet an unfortunate end.

Briefly distracted by picturing Danny’s unfortunate end, I allowed the image to play out for exactly six seconds before I forced myself back to reality. However much I hated my ex, he was still the father of my children.

For that, he has been given asylum.

For now.

Anyway, Danny had also threatened to go public with his evidence should I fight him on anything. And so I didn’t fight him on anything. And so I accepted his harsh terms, his mental anguish.

I took it, and I took it, and took it.

I was sick of taking it.

So what could I do about it? I thought about that, turning my body in the shower, letting the spray hit me between my shoulder blades. Danny’s evidence was centered around my blood. Danny assumed, wrongly or not, that my blood would be different, and that I could be proven to be a monster. He also had the pictures. I wasn’t worried about those. Hell, anyone could manipulate such pictures nowadays, and I doubted anyone would take them seriously. Danny would look like a complete idiot waving those pictures around and would be laughed out of a job.

So I could dismiss the pictures.

But could I dismiss the blood? I didn’t think so. At least, not yet. The blood worried me. I needed more information. And as the superheated spray worked its way over me, I thought about what I had to do.

A few minutes later, dried and dressed, I grabbed my car keys and headed for the elevator.

It was time for a Wal-Mart run.

* * *

Two hours later, I was back in my bathroom, this time pouring the contents of a plastic bottle of organic juice down the toilet. Wasteful, I know, but what the hell was I going to do with it? Anyway, I flushed the whole shebang down the pooper, as Anthony would call it, and spent the next few minutes thoroughly cleaning out the container in the bathroom sink. I used my hair dryer to carefully dry the plastic without melting it.

Once done, I carefully cleaned my right index fingernail, running hot water over it and using some hand soap. I next swabbed some rubbing alcohol on my forearm, blew the spot dry, and then carefully pressed my right fingernail into the skin of my arm. I didn’t bother to look for a vein. A phlebotomist would have been horrified. Which, by the way, would be a good job for a vampire.

Except you would probably be fired for drinking on the job.

I laughed nervously at my own lame joke while I continued to work my nail deeper into my flesh. A knife would have been good, except I didn’t have one handy. Besides, my nail worked just fine.

The first thick drop of blood appeared around my naturally sharpened nail. I kept pushing and slicing, and soon I opened up what I thought was a sizable incision.

Blood flowed. Languidly, granted, but flowed nonetheless. I positioned the empty juice bottle beneath the cut and caught the first drop of blood as it dripped free. The red stuff flowed free for precisely ten seconds before the wound completely healed. No scar, nothing. Just a dried trail of vampire blood.

I repeated the cutting process, caught the fresh flow of blood, and did this eight more times before I was certain I had enough hemoglobin. Eight cuts, no marks. My arm completely healed.

Yeah, I’m a freak.

I swirled the contents of my blood in the container. A smoothie fit for Satan himself, minus the wheat grass and bee pollen, of course. As I swirled the contents, I thought hard about what I was doing. I even paced the small area in the bathroom and rubbed my neck and debated internally, and in the end, I packed the sealed juice bottle full of my dark plasma into a small Styrofoam container.

I had a friend at the FBI crime lab in D.C. A good friend. I was going to have to trust him, especially if my blood came back...irregular. And if it didn’t come back irregular? Well, I had nothing to worry about, then, did I?

I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

Most important, I needed answers, and this was the best way I knew of to get them.

I next checked on the packets of Blue Ice that I had stashed in my mini-fridge’s mini-freezer an hour or so earlier. The packets were hard as a rock. Good. I placed one under the bottle of blood, one each on either side, and finally one on top. I closed the Styrofoam container, taped it shut, and placed the whole thing in a small cardboard box. I next went online and found the lab’s address in D.C. Once done, I placed an order for UPS to swing by the hotel tomorrow morning for a same-day delivery. The same-day delivery was going to cost me $114. I shot off an email to my friend in D.C., telling him to expect a super-sensitive package from yours truly. I ended my email with a smiley face, because I like smiley faces.

When that was taken care of, I switched outfits. I stepped out of my sweats and tee shirt and into something decidedly more slutty. Interestingly, the slutty outfit was something I had borrowed from my sister and never worn.

Anyway, I was now showing more cleavage and shoulder and back, and when I was certain I looked like a skank whore, I grabbed my freshly packed box of blood and my car keys and headed out.

No Wal-Mart run his time.

At the front desk, I dropped off my package and filled in the front desk clerk—whose eyes had bugged out of his head and onto my boobs—to expect UPS tomorrow morning. He nodded distractedly. I wonder what he was distracted about? I made him repeat what I said twice before I headed out.

It was kind of fun being slutty. I think every woman should dress like a slut once in a while. It was very liberating.

Now, acting like a slut was something else entirely.

Maybe that would be liberating, too.

Giggling, I gunned my minivan and headed off to Colton. I had a stripper job to apply for, after all.

Chapter Forty-nine

I parked in the far corner of the dirt parking lot, near where a van was currently a-rocking. I considered a-knocking, just because I hate being told what to do, but ultimately I decided against it, since I really didn’t want to know what was going on in there.

And besides, I had a job interview.

Of sorts.

Feeling ridiculous and self-conscious, I strode across the parking lot and up to the front entrance. I didn’t see Danny’s car, which was a damn good thing.

The bouncer was big and black and scary as hell, even to me. Suddenly insanely self-conscious, I reminded myself that my body still looked like a twenty-eight-year old.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Yeah?” He barely looked at me.

“I hear you’re hiring.”

He jerked a thumb behind him, toward the inside of the club. “Talk to Rick.”

I winked and stepped past him and as I did so, his hand dropped down and grabbed my ass. I convulsed slightly and continued on into the dark club. I entered a small hallway, with an opening at the far end. I passed through the opening and was met by thumping music, losers, and boobs. To my left was the raised stage, which was brightly lit with hundreds of little white light bulbs. The stage was made of dark wood and was heavily scuffed. A single brass pole rose up from the center of the stage, and a single white stripper was currently cavorting around said brass pole. At the moment, just her breasts were out. Her breasts were nothing to write home about, if you ask me. They were fake and probably three or four years past their expiration date. Don’t be catty. Glitter sparkled between her breasts and over the upper half of her chest. I wondered if any of the men cared about the sparkles. I wondered if any of the men even saw the sparkles.

The place was only half full. Men in varying degrees of drunkenness and physical deterioration sat around the raised stage. Most were drinking beer. Some were drinking shots of the hard stuff. All were staring at the woman with her glittering breasts.

I stood where I was and took in the scene. So why did Danny keep coming here? So what’s the draw? Glittering fake breasts?

Maybe. Men have fought for far less.

I continued scanning, realizing I was going to need another hot shower tonight. Smoke filled the air, even though it was illegal to smoke in such establishments. I continued scanning. No one acknowledged me. No one cared that I was standing there at the entrance. A man to my left was currently getting what I assumed was a lap dance, although it looked like a lot of hard grinding. We called that dry humping in my day.

My stomach turned.

Other strippers were making their rounds, running their hands over customer’s shoulders and through their hair, offering them some sort of service or another. The men smiled and politely deferred. Many wanted to touch the women, and seemed to forcibly control themselves. Touching the women, I was certain, was highly illegal in such an environment. And, of course, this strip joint was a model in adhering to local laws. Minus the smoking and the dry humping. One man actually took a stripper up on her offer, and she promptly led him by the hand into a back room. Another very large man stood outside the door to this room. I shuddered to think what was going on in that back room.

Oh, don’t be such a prude, I thought. It’s just sex and lots of it.

I went over to the bar. A Hispanic bartender was talking to a customer with a thick neck. The bartender didn’t look at me. I finally got his attention and told him I wanted to speak to Rick.

The bartender motioned with his jaw, and the customer with the thick neck apparently wasn’t a customer at all. The man turned slowly and looked at me. “Waddya want?”

“Are you Rick?”

“Sure.”

“I’m looking for a job.”

Rick looked me over and somehow held back his excitement. “We ain’t hiring, sorry, toots.”

Toots? Feeling oddly rejected, I took a gamble. “Danny told me to talk to you about a job.”

“Danny, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Rick took in a lot of air, which somehow made his thick neck swell out even more. He studied me some more, lingering on my chest. I took in some air and puffed it out a little. Finally, he said, “Come back tonight at eleven when Danny gets here. Then we can all talk to him. But the last I heard, we ain’t hiring.”

I took another shot in the dark. “But Danny said he was the owner and what he says goes.”

“Look, whatever. Come back tonight and we can all have a pow wow.” His gaze lingered on me some more. “Let’s see your tits and see what we’re working with.”

I sucked in some air despite myself. I’ve been undercover before, but not like this. “You can see them tonight, with Danny.”

He shrugged and said, “Whatever,” and turned back to the bartender, and as I left, I realized that any feelings I had had for Danny, any lingering connection to the man that I had felt, had completely dried up and disappeared in that moment.

Chapter Fifty

I was sitting at a Denny’s in the city of Corona, drinking a glass of iced water. There was a hot cup of black coffee sitting in front of me, too, but I didn’t touch the black coffee. The coffee was there for show, and just to be ordering something.

I idly wondered how many vampires hung out at Denny’s. Maybe none. Maybe most vampires were out running through graveyards or having blood orgies, or whatever the hell else real vampires do.

The waitress came by and glanced at my full cup of coffee and asked if I needed anything else. I smiled and said no. She smiled and dropped off the check and left. I smiled just for the hell of it.

I had a notebook in front of me, open to a blank page. I was loosely holding a pen near the top of the blank page. As I sat there, I remembered the grounding steps from last time, and performed them now. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself securely tethered to the earth with glowing silver cords. Then I took in some air and held it for a few minutes and then let it out slowly.

A now familiar tingling appeared in my arm. The pen jerked in my hands. It jerked again, and now the tip was moving, writing. Three words appeared.

Good evening, Samantha.

I stared at them, knowing I should probably be freaked out, but I wasn’t. Whatever the hell was going on, I didn’t know, but I was game to go along for the ride.

I spoke by subvocalizing the words, that is, speaking them with barely a whisper, just loud enough for me to hear, and hopefully loud enough for my new friend to hear. But, of course, not so loud that I would get thrown out of Denny’s.

“Good evening, Sephora,” I said. “How are you?”

I’m well. And I can hear you just fine.

I smiled. “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you earlier.”

There is no reason to feel sorry, Samantha. Remember, I’m always here.

“Yes, you said that. And where is here?”

Where do you think it is?

“Heaven?”

Close. Let’s call it the ‘spirit world’.

“And what’s that like, the spirit world?”

Oh, you know it well.

“I do?”

Indeed, a very significant part of you still resides in the spirit world.

“You totally lost me.”

You are much more than your physical body, Samantha. Do you understand the concept of a soul?

“Yes. I just don’t know if I believe in the concept of a soul.”

I understand. You live in this physical world of time and space. There isn’t, admittedly, a lot of evidence of a soul. Then again, there isn’t a lot of evidence for vampires, either. But both exist.

I nodded and sipped my ice water. The coffee had quit letting off steam. Quickly, when no one was looking, I poured a little out onto the table and then mopped it up with my napkin. Now the coffee at least appeared to have been sipped. I wrapped another napkin around the sopping wet napkin. The things I do to appear normal. Sigh.

“So some things are taken on faith, is that what you’re saying?”

Something like that, Samantha.

“You can call me Sam.”

I’ll do that...Sam.

“So what did you mean that a significant part of me still resides in the spirit world?”

The easiest way to describe this, Sam, is to say that not all of your soul is focused in your current physical body. Some of your soul—a large portion of your soul, in fact—still resides in the spirit world.

“And what’s it doing in the spirit world?”

Watching you, closely.

“This is a lot to take,” I said. “And weird.”

I understand. So take things slowly. There’s time. There’s no rush.

“And who are you, exactly?”

Just a friend, Sam.

“A good friend?”

The best.

“Okay, that makes me feel better,” I said, and as I said those words quietly, I felt a slight shiver course along the entire length of my body. Oddly, it was a comforting sensation. There was a good chance I might have just been hugged.

I’m glad you feel better, Sam.

“I want to ask you more about me, about what I have become, but maybe that can wait until another night.”

I’m always here, Sam.

And just like that, the electrified sensation left my body. I closed the notebook, put the pen back in my purse (along with the sopping napkin, which I had wrapped another napkin around), and paid my bill and left.

Chapter Fifty-one

The more I thought about delivering Orange County’s most notorious crime boss into the hands of the mild mannered Stuart Young, the more I realized I had given my perfectly bald client a death sentence.

And so I spent a lot of that night thinking about what I could do about this dilemma. I thought long and hard, and somewhere near the break of dawn, I came up with an idea.

* * *

I spent all the next evening researching the plane crash; in particular, the victims on board. Because this was a military crash and because most of the victims were key witnesses to an important trial, getting the names wasn’t easy. I used every available contact I had in the federal government until finally a list was provided to me.

And once I had the list I went to work.

* * *

Two days later, on the night of the full moon, with Kingsley howling away deep inside his safe room—I hoped—I alighted on Jerry Blum’s wonderfully ornate alabaster balcony.

I tucked in my massive, leathery wings, focused my thoughts on the woman in the dancing flame, opened my eyes, and found myself standing naked on his stone balcony.

Naked but not without a plan.

My talons might be hideous and scary as hell, but they were good at carrying smaller objects. And one of them, this time, had been my daughter’s extra backpack. The backpack was full of, let’s just say, crime fighting gear.

Below me, I heard the muted sounds of men talking quietly among themselves. So far, I hadn’t been seen. The sliding glass door in front of me was wide open. Apparently, Jerry Blum never expected a giant vampire bat to alight on his balcony. From within the room, I heard the sounds of muffled snoring.

I stepped into his darkened bedroom. My eyes did not need adjusting. His spacious room was electrified with shining filaments of zigzagging light. Ghost light. Vampire light. There was a lone figure sleeping in a massive four poster bed. White gossamer sheets hung from the bed’s cross beams. Very uncrime lord-like.

The figure sleeping in the center of the bed was snoring softly, peacefully, contentedly. There was no evidence that this son-of-bitch stayed awake over the crimes against humanity he had committed.

There was a white cotton robe hanging over the wooden sleigh bed footboard. I slipped it on and assessed the situation. I was certain there were guards somewhere nearby, although none seemed directly outside the door. I didn’t hear them, nor was my sixth sense jangling. My sixth sense was telling me that, for now, I was safe.

Carrying the backpack, I went over to the side of the bed and looked down at the man who had presumably killed Stuart’s wife, a man who was powerful enough to bring down a government-owned airplane. There was a reason why I didn’t confront him directly and openly. He would have gone after me and everything I loved, too. I had to hunt him from afar.

I had another reason for being here. Before I condemned the man to death, I had to know if I had the right man. Sure, Jerry Blum was a bastard. But was he the bastard I wanted?

Well, let’s find out.

“Wake up, asshole,” I said.

Jerry Blum’s eyes popped open instantly. His hand snaked beneath his pillow, a practiced motion. He was fast, but I was faster. In a blink, his arm was pinned up over his head, driven into the mattress by my own hand, and I found myself leaning over him, staring down into his startled face. It was a face I had seen often: in the news, in books, and even in magazines. He was a celebrity crime lord, if ever there was one. Celebrity or not, he was a son-of-a-bitch. He was also quite handsome. Blum was in his late fifties, but he could have passed for his early forties. There was some gray at his temples, and there were fine lines that creased from the corners of his eyes and reached down to the corners of his mouth. These were not laugh lines. Worry lines, no doubt. Jerry Blum was not a big man, but I could feel his muscular body beneath me. Shockingly, amazingly, I found myself slightly turned on by the position I found myself in: pinning down a handsome devil in his bed in the middle of the night.

I shook off the feeling as soon as it registered.

He quit struggling, perhaps realizing it was doing him no good, and we stared at each other for a heartbeat or two. Ambient light made its way in through the open French doors. Laughter reached us from somewhere on his grounds, but not very close. A girl giggled. An airplane droned high overhead.

Jerry Blum had thin lips. Too thin for me. He breathed easily, his nostrils flaring slightly. He smelled of good cologne and something else. Lavender. But the scent wasn’t coming from him. It was coming from his bed; in fact, it was coming from his pillow. I knew something about aromatherapy. One sprinkled lavender on one’s pillow to ensure a good night’s sleep. No doubt Mr. Blum had been plagued by a lifetime of nightmares. Or not.

“Who the fuck are you?” he finally said.

“Your worst nightmare,” I said, and somehow managed to keep a straight face.

“Yeah, well, you look like a whore.”

He next tried to throw me off. Tried being the operative word here. He grunted and grimaced and bucked, but I didn’t go anywhere. Finally, he lay back, gasping, face contorted slightly in pain. I think he might have pulled something.

“You’re a very bad man, Mr. Blum.”

“And you’re a dead woman.”

“You’re closer than you think,” I said.

He opened his mouth to yell or scream and I used my other hand to slap his face hard. It was a nice slap, harder than I intended, but I didn’t care. His eyes literally crossed, then settled back into place. A moment later, he was staring up at me in a daze.

“No yelling or screaming,” I said.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. My stomach lurched. I purposely had not eaten tonight.

“Did Danny Boy send you up?”

“No.”

“So you ain’t no whore?”

“That’s a double negative, Mr. Blum.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

I found myself staring down at the fine trickle of blood that glistened at the corner of his mouth. Blood was food for me, sure, but it was also something else. The right blood—fresh blood—satisfied more than hunger.

I said, “Do you want the bad news, Jerry, or the really bad news?”

He fought me again, this time harder than before, doing his damnedest to buck me off him. But I didn’t move, and he quickly tired of this game, gasping. And that’s when I punched him. Hard. It was a straight jab into his left eye. I put a lot of strength behind the punch. I wanted it to hurt. The sound of bone hitting bone was sickening, and the punch drove his head deep into the pillow, where the goose down bloomed around him like a white flower, no doubt dousing him in peaceful lavender.

A very small voice protested what I was doing, as it had been doing all night long. It reminded me that I was a mother, a sister, a friend, an ex-federal agent, an ex-wife, a woman with a conscience and a heart. It reminded me that I was not a killer or a murderer.

And as Jerry Blum shook his head, as a deep cut along the edge of his orbital ridge dripped blood into the corner of his left eye, I listened to that voice. I listened to its arguments and I listened to its reasoning, and I decided, in the end, that Jerry Blum had to die.

But not yet. First, I needed information. First, I had to know.

I said, “You sabotaged an airplane carrying a half dozen government witnesses. The airplane crashed killing everyone on board.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I punched him again, harder than before, driving his head deeper into the pillow.

“Fuck,” he said. Blood was now staining his pillowcase, no doubt adding a nice coppery smell to the lavender.

I didn’t come here to beat up Jerry Blum. I didn’t come here to intimidate him. I came here to get a confession from him. And what happened after that, well, I was going to play that by ear.

“Tell me about the plane, Jerry,” I said.

“Do you have any idea who I am?”

“You’re Jerry Blum. Orange County’s biggest crime lord. You are untouchable. Your enemies shudder in your presence. You’ve destroyed lives and businesses and spread fear far and wide. Did I miss anything?”

“Yeah, I’m rich. I can triple whoever’s paying.”

“Paying me to do what?”

“To kill me.”

“They didn’t pay me to kill you, Mr. Blum. I tossed that in as a freebie. Pro bono, so to speak.”

He lay back in his bed, bleeding. His nose was perfect, probably surgically altered. His teeth were perfect, probably dentally enhanced. He let out a long breath. His breath was tinged with the scent of blood. In fact, blood wafted up from him everywhere. He wasn’t bleeding a lot, granted, but a little bit of blood registered deeply with me.

I’m a shark, I thought, smelling blood in the water dozens of miles away.

“Tell me about the plane,” I said. The blood, quite honestly, was driving me fucking crazy.

“Go to hell, cunt.”

“Tell me about the plane, Jerry.”

He threw his face at me, lips pulled back, cords standing out on his neck. His eyes veritably bulged from their sockets. He fought and fought and screeched in frustration and anger and pain, and when he spoke spittle shot from his mouth in a steady stream. “Of course I killed them, you fucking freaky bitch! Just like I’m going to kill you. You can’t stop me, no one can stop me. I’m invincible. I kill who I want, when I want, and how I want. You understand, you crazy bitch? You understand? You’re a dead woman. Dead! And so is your client and anyone else you fucking know! And that’s after I fuck you every which way, you fucking whore! How dare you come into my house, how dare you come in here and—”

And that’s as far as he got.

“Enough,” I said.

I flipped Jerry Blum over and pulled his hands behind his back. I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. I cuffed the bastard and then pulled a black, breathable hood over his face. I cinched it tight. He fought me like a demon on crack, bucking and twisting, but it did him no good.

When I was finished, I hauled him to his feet and threw him over my shoulder. I carried him to his beautiful alabaster balcony, where I set him down, along with my backpack, and ditched the robe. I closed my eyes and saw the flame and the hulking winged creature. When I opened my eyes again, I was easily five feet taller than I had been just seconds before. Jerry was still pinned beneath me, this time beneath one of my massive talons.

My hands in this form are quite dextrous; unfortunately, they’re also attached to my wings, just like a bat. Still, I used my hands to drape the backpack over one of my talons. Once done, I gripped Jerry Blum by his shoulders. No doubt my claws hurt like hell.

I flapped my wings hard, causing a thunderous downdraft that whipped Jerry’s hair crazily. He screamed and fought me some more, but had no clue what was happening to him. And as I got a little air under me, I adjusted my grip on the crime lord, using both talons now. I flapped my wings harder and now I was rising up into the night sky, Blum dangling beneath me like a kangaroo rat.

Chapter Fifty-two

We were in the predetermined clearing in Carbon Canyon. One of us unwillingly.

Still wearing the black hood, Jerry Blum was handcuffed to a tree branch, his hands high above him. He had cussed and hollered the entire twenty minute flight here. I flew on, ignoring him, catching a high altitude current that made flapping my wings a breeze. Once we had arrived in the clearing, I had transformed again and slipped into a little black dress that I had included in my bag of tricks. Blum was full of questions and vitriol and hate. I ignored all of his questions as I cuffed him to the tree branch.

Now from my bag of tricks, I removed my cell phone. I selected eleven recipients and sent out a single text message. I next made a call to my client, Stuart Young. In so many words, I told Stuart that the eagle had landed. I had our man. Stuart had paused, swallowed hard, and said he would be here as soon as possible.

I left Jerry Blum alone, secured to the tree. Jerry Blum, as far as I was concerned, had dug his own grave. From my backpack, I fished out a pack of cigarettes and fired one up and inhaled deeply. I had stepped out of the clearing and into a thicket of twisted trees. As I exhaled, I looked up at the full moon, now just a silver mosaic through the tangle of branches. My thoughts were empty. My heart was empty. I felt empty and cold. I listened to the sounds the forest made, and the sounds of my own distant beating heart. I finished the cigarette and immediately lit another just to be doing something. Jerry Blum bellowed angrily from the clearing behind me, but I ignored him. He dug his own grave. I finished the second cigarette but decided against a third. I finally leaned a shoulder against a dusty tree trunk and closed my eyes and stayed in that position until I heard the crunch of tires from somewhere nearby.

* * *

I met Stuart on the dirt road, about a hundred yards away from the clearing. Stuart did not look good. He looked sick and scared and probably had to go to the bathroom.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.

I nodded and he dashed off. A moment later, he came back, zipping up. He said, “So he’s really here?”

I nodded, watching him. “Yes.”

“I want to see him.”

I nodded again and led Stuart through the forest and into the clearing, which was dappled in bright moonlight. Jerry Blum heard us coming and raised his head.

Seeing a man chained to a tree was no doubt unnerving to Stuart. He immediately stopped in his tracks. “Oh, my God.”

Blum shouted, “Who’s there, goddammit?”

I ignored Blum. Instead, I took Stuart’s hand and walked him over to the shackled crime lord. I removed the hood and Blum shook his head and squinted. I handed Stuart a flashlight from the backpack and he clicked it on and shined it straight into Blum’s face, who turned away, blinking hard and spitting mad.

“Goddammit! Who the fuck are you two? What the fuck is going on? How the fuck did I get here?”

“Shut the fuck up, Jerry,” I said.

“Fuck you, cunt.” He spit at me, tried to kick me. He succeeded in only losing his footing and hanging briefly by the cuffs.

Stuart said nothing. He simply stared in open-mouthed wonder at the man hanging from the tree. Still open-mouthed, Stuart then turned to me.

“You really did it,” he said.

I said nothing. I was watching Stuart. My client still did not look good. He looked, in fact, a little hysterical. I covered Jerry’s head again and led Stuart away. Blum screamed and repeatedly threw his body against the tree trunk. Stuart looked back but I pulled him along through the high grass to the far end of the clearing. Once there, we stopped.

“And no one knows he’s here?”

“No one who matters.”

Stuart nodded. His wild eyes were looking increasingly erratic.

“Are you okay?” I asked Stuart.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Sam.”

“I understand.”

Stuart was shaking. He ran a hand over his bald head. “I hate him so much, so fucking much. I still can’t believe he’s here. How did you do it?”

I shook my head; Stuart nodded. The wind picked up considerably, swishing the branches along the edge of the clearing and slapping the tall grass around our ankles.

And through the wind, I heard many more vehicles driving up along the dirt road. One after another. Stuart didn’t hear them. Stuart was lost in his own thoughts. Stuart also didn’t have my hearing.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

Stuart nodded. Tears were in his eyes.

“I hate him so fucking much.”

We were silent some more. The wind continued to pick up, moaning through the trees. I heard footsteps coming. Many footsteps.

I said, “What if I told you that you didn’t have to do this alone, Stuart?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if I told you that Jerry Blum had wronged many people the day he killed your wife? What if I told you that many, many people share your desire for revenge.”

“I don’t understand.”

I waved my hand and in that moment ten figures stepped out of the woods. Ten solemn, white-faced figures. I recognized the faces, all of whom I had met in the past few days. All of whom I had easily convinced to be here tonight. Not one needed prodding. All had jumped at the opportunity.

“Jerry Blum is a bad man, Stuart. He would have hurt you tonight. He would have killed you.”

“Who are they?”

“People like you, Stuart, all victims of Jerry Blum.”

“What’s going to happen tonight?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m leaving that to all of you.”

Stuart looked at me with impossibly wide eyes. He then looked at the others, most of whom nodded at him. They were all here. Mothers, wives, husbands, and children. All had lost loved ones in the crash.

I squeezed Stuart’s hand and then left him there with the others. I went over to Jerry Blum and uncuffed him. I took his blindfold off and led him over to the center of the clearing.

“Who the fuck are those assholes?” said Jerry. He only fought me a little.

I didn’t answer him. Instead, I turned and walked away, leaving Jerry alone in the light of the full moon. Off to the side of the clearing, I quickly slipped out of the dress and shoved my cell and cuffs and keys inside the backpack.

I had just transformed when I heard the first gunshot. And as I leaped high into the air and flapped my wings hard and flew away from the isolated canyon, I heard shot after shot after shot.

* * *

I asked Stuart a few days later what had happened on the night of the full moon, but he wouldn’t give me an answer. And neither would the others.

I had been wrong about Jerry Blum. He didn’t dig his own grave. I very much suspected the others had done it for him, leaving Orange County’s notorious crime lord buried deep in that forgotten clearing.

Chapter Fifty-three

I don’t get exhausted, but I get mentally fatigued, and tonight had stretched me thin. I was looking forward to coming home to my empty hotel room, closing the curtains tight, and sleeping the day away, dead to the world.

But as I unlocked the door to my room with the keycard and stepped inside, I was immediately met by two things: the first was a fresh breeze that was blowing in through my wide open balcony door, and the second was a nearly overwhelmingly foul stench.

Last time I had been surprised in such a fashion, a vampire hunter had been waiting for me. And what was waiting for me now, stunned even me.

* * *

Alert for silver-tipped arrows or silver ninja stars or silver anything else hurling at me, I cautiously entered my hotel room.

I moved cautiously down the very small hallway. To my left was a closet. The door was partially open. I knew immediately there was no one inside. No, whoever was in my suite was in my living room or sleeping area.

The lights were out. Squiggly, rapidly-moving prisms of light shot wildly through the air. These super-charged particles of light illuminated my way, as they always did.

I took another step into my suite.

I was approaching the end of the short hallway. Around the corner to the right would be my bed and the desk. Around the corner to my left were sitting chairs and a round table. Presently, from my position, I could not see very far around either corner.

Directly before me, at the far end of my suite, I could see the sliding glass door. Or what had once been the sliding glass door, as most of the glass was presently scattered across the carpet. The heavy curtains shifted in the breeze, swaying slightly.

I took another step.

My sixth sense was buzzing. The fine hairs on my neck were standing on end. The foul stench grew stronger. Something rancid was in my hotel room.

No, something dead was in my room.

I took another step. I was now at the end of the hallway. To my right, I could see the foot of the bed. To my left, was a section of the round table. The stench, I was certain, was coming from my right, on the side where my bed and desk were located.

I paused, listening.

Someone was breathing around the corner. Deep breaths, ragged breaths. My heart thumped fast and hard. I suddenly wished I had a weapon.

You are a weapon, I reminded myself.

I continued listening to the breathing. A slow sound. A deep sound. A rumbling sound. Something big was in my living room. Either that or someone parked a Dodge Charger on my bed.

I stepped around the corner.

* * *

The thing standing in the corner of my room was horrific and nightmarish, and if I wasn’t so terrified, I would have turned and ran or peed myself. Instead, I stopped and stared and still might have peed myself a little.

The thing was watching me closely, almost curiously, its head slightly angled, its pointed ears erect and alert. Its lower face—or muzzle—projected out slightly, but not quite as long as a traditional dog, or wolf. More like a pug.

Standing there in the corner of my room, the thing looked like a long-forgotten Hollywood movie prop.

Except this movie prop was breathing deeply and growling just under its breath. A low growl. A warning growl. The same kind of growl a guard dog would give. Except this growl was terrifyingly deep.

Blood was dripping from its face. Blood, and something else. Something blackish. Something putrid. I suddenly had a very strong sense that it had dug up a body and feasted on it. In fact, I was certain of this. How I was certain of it, I didn’t know. Maybe my sixth sense was evolving into something more.

Or maybe because this thing smells like the walking dead.

I made sure my back was to the open glass door. I wasn’t sure what I would do if the thing attacked, but having a readily available escape route seemed like a damned good idea. And if I had to take flight, well, I could kiss these clothes goodbye. They would burst from my body in an instant.

A part of me felt like this was a dream. Hell, a lot of me felt like this was a dream.

We continued staring at each other. I continued wanting to pee. The creature continued breathing deeply, throatily. I could have been standing next to a tiger cage.

And that’s when the beast took a step toward me.

Every instinct told me to run—and to keep running until I had put hundreds of miles between me and this thing. But I didn’t run. Something kept me in that room. That something was curiosity.

Curiosity killed the cat. Or, in this case, the vampire.

It took another step toward me. A very long step. One that spanned nearly the entire length of my bed. As it walked, it sort of tucked in its shaggy elbows.

The thing, I was certain, was a werewolf. And that werewolf, I was certain, was Kingsley.

When I transformed, I was all there; meaning, I was still me, and I could control all of my actions and emotions. I doubted Kingsley would have chosen to dig up a grave and feast upon a corpse, if that was, in fact, what he had done. So that alone suggested Kingsley was not all here. Meaning, something else was controlling this beast. But enough of Kingsley was in there to find his way to my hotel room tonight.

What happened to the panic room? And where was Franklin the Butler who, I knew, looked after Kingsley during these monthly transformations?

You ask a lot of questions, vampire.

The words appeared in my thoughts, directly inside my skull, as if someone had whispered them straight into my ear cavity. I didn’t jump, but I did step back.

“Who said that?”

As I spoke, the creature cocked its head to one side, its pointed ears, moving independently of each other, shot forward. Cute on a dog, not so cute on a hulking, nightmarish creature.

Who do you think said it, vampire?

The creature stepped forward. Its movements were graceful and surprisingly economical. It only moved when it had to. Nothing wasted.

“Kingsley?” I asked.

Kingsley’s not home.

“Then who is this?”

The werewolf stepped closer still, and the wave of revulsion that emanated from it nearly made me retch.

I reminded myself that I was a terrifying creature of the night, able to strike fear in the hearts of even the most hardened criminals.

You look afraid, vampire, said the voice in my head.

Up close, the creature looked even more hideous. And up close, it smelled even worse.

“Who are you?” I asked again. My voice shook.

Does it matter?

“Yes. I want to know where my friend is.”

Oh, he’s in here, vampire.

“Where is here?”

In the background, vampire. Watching us.

Moonlight reflected off the creature’s thick brow and slightly protruding muzzle. Long, white teeth gleamed over black gums. A low, steady, rumble came from its throat and chest. The creature seemed incapable of remaining silent. A low growl seemed to continuously emanate from it. I fought a nearly overwhelming desire to step back. But I didn’t.

You are brave, vampire.

“And you smell like shit.”

The werewolf tilted its head. One of its ears revolved out to the side, hearing something that was beyond even my own keen hearing.

Kingsley has been wanting to see you, vampire. Very badly. But he has refused to do so out of pride. But I thought I would take it upon myself to visit you tonight. I thought it was time to make your acquaintance. There are, after all, so few of us.

“Us?”

The undead.

“Fine, so you’ve met me. Now who the fuck are you?”

The werewolf growled a deeper growl, a sound which seemed to resonate from deep within its massive chest.

I am called Maltheus.

I did my best to wrap my brain around what I was hearing. “You are a separate entity that lives within Kingsley?”

Not always within, no. But I do visit him once a month. He’s such a gracious host.

I sensed sarcasm. “And what, exactly, are you?”

I am many things, vampire.

“How is it that you can take possession of Kingsley? How is that you can turn into this thing?”

This thing, as you call it, is my physical incarnation. And I took possession of my dear fellow Kingsley because he allowed me inside him.

“He wanted to be bitten by a werewolf?”

No. He wanted death. He wanted revenge. He was full of hate and despair and emptiness. The voice paused; the werewolf stared down at me, breathing heavily through a partially open mouth. Its lips were pure black. I exist to fill that emptiness.

“I don’t understand.”

You will someday, vampire. And we will meet again. Of that, you can be sure.

In a blink of an eye, moving faster than any creature that size had a right to move, the werewolf turned its massive shoulders and dashed through the shattered door and leaped off the stucco balcony.

I ran over to the edge and watched as it dropped nine stories, landing softly and gracefully. It didn’t throw back its head and let loose with an ear-splitting howl, nor did it dash off into the night on all four legs.

No, it simply sniffed the air, scratched behind its ear, and walked calmly away.

Chapter Fifty-four

It was late and my IM chat window was open. So far, there was no sign of Fang.

I had spent the past three hours cleaning my room, picking up glass and scrubbing clean the blood and other bodily fluids that had been dripping from Kingsley. With the place clean, now all I had to do was come up with a convincing story about the broken glass. I decided on going the drunken, divorced mother route. I had been drinking on the balcony, when I stumbled through the glass door. Could happen to anyone.

Now, with my hotel suite smelling like coconut butter and rotted corpse, I was sitting in front of my computer, waiting for Fang to log on.

I buzzed him again.

And again.

Twenty minutes later, I saw what I wanted to see: a flashing pencil had appeared in the message box. Fang was writing me a message. I felt overjoyed and relieved. I had come to rely on Fang more than he realized.

More than I realized.

A moment later, his words appeared: You are persistent tonight, Moon Dance.

I have news.

Of that, I have no doubt.

Were you asleep?

I might have been dozing, but I always have time for you, Moon Dance.

My heart swelled. Thank you, Fang.

He typed a smiley face and then asked: So what’s your news?

I saw a werewolf tonight.

Your old client and new lover?

I hesitated. Yes.

Tell me about it.

And so I did. I relayed everything that had happened and what was said to the best of my ability. As I typed, Fang waited patiently. Then again, he might have fallen back to sleep.

Nope. I had barely sent my message, when his response appeared nearly instantly.

I’m not surprised. It is commonly believed that werewolves feast on corpses.

Well, if he thinks he’s ever going to kiss me with those ghoulish lips again, he’s got another think coming.

Isn’t that a bit like the teapot calling the kettle black?

I don’t eat corpses, Fang.

Point taken. So you say this entity claimed to be living inside your friend?

Yes, I wrote.

Fang paused, then wrote: There are some who believe that werewolves and other such creatures of the night are, in fact, the physical manifestations of highly evolved dark masters.

I’m not sure I’m following.

These beings, these powerful entities, are forbidden to incarnate on earth. But they have found, let’s call them, loopholes.

And one such loophole is to incarnate once a month, as werewolves.

Exactly. But they don’t consider themselves wolves. You are, in fact, looking at the physical expression of the darkest of evils.

I shuddered.

And how do they find...a host?

No doubt the usual ways. Being bitten by such a being would be one way. But generally, and I think your ex-client is proof of this, they attach themselves to a willing host.

I’m lost, I wrote. As usual.

I have no doubt that your ex-client, the attorney, did not pointedly ask to be a werewolf. But he projected weakness, anguish, pain, despair. Such extreme emotions attract the attention of these highly evolved dark masters. It was just a matter of time until a werewolf-like creature found its way to your friend. Either that, or death.

So they saw my friend as a good host.

You could say that.

So, in effect, he is possessed.

Exactly. But he’s possessed by something very dark, and very, very evil.

The sun will be up soon, I wrote.

Spoken like a true vampire. So are we still on for Sunday night?

That was two days from now. My heart slammed in my chest. Yes.

Where would you like to meet, Moon Dance?

You are in Southern California? I asked.

Yes.

Are you familiar with Orange County?

Yes.

Do you know where the Downtown Grill is in Fullerton?

There was a pause. Yes.

Okay, I will see you there at midnight.

The vampire’s hour. So midnight it is, Moon Dance.

Goodnight, Fang.

You mean good morning.

Ha-ha.

Sweet dreams, Moon Dance. See you soon.

Chapter Fifty-five

I got up earlier than normal to take care of the sliding glass door with hotel management.

Groggy, weak, and feeling less than human, I walked the short, stocky and highly disapproving woman through my fictional drunken escapade last night, which culminated in me supposedly crashing through the glass door. She clucked her tongue numerous times, and in the end, after taking a few photographs of the damages, she seemed to buy my story. An hour or so later, a work crew stopped by and replaced the glass.

As they worked, I wondered if it was finally time for me to find my own place. Of course, I already had my own place. It was the house Danny and I had purchased together. The house he was currently using to fuck his secretary in.

I had been at the Embassy Suites for two months now. Surely, it was time for a change. And with that thought in mind, as I sat in the center of my bed while the work crew positioned the big piece of glass in the balcony doorway, I realized what I hadn’t seen in the seedy strip club in Colton.

Heart pounding, I fired up my laptop. I jacked into the hotel wireless service and did a quick search for the club. As I expected, there was no mention of it. No mention of it, in fact, anywhere.

As the work crew finished, one of them suggested that next time I fall away from the glass door when I was shit-faced drunk. I told him I would keep his suggestion in mind (asshole), and when they were gone, so was I.

Covered in sunscreen and heavy clothing, sporting my cool sunhat and shades, I grabbed my keys and hit the road.

* * *

Along the way to the Riverside County Courthouse, my cell phone rang. It was Kingsley. I picked up immediately.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said.

“Last night was a little terrifying. At least I no longer doubt that you really are a...you know what.”

Kingsley hated for us to talk about our super secret identities on the phone. He actually laughed. “This coming from a...you know what.”

“We all have our hang ups.”

He was silent as I drove along the congested freeway. Mercifully, the sun was behind me.

Finally, Kingsley said, “Am I to understand you took care of my client the other night?”

“You are to understand anything you want.”

I could almost see him nod. “I should be very pissed off at you for that.”

“You should thank me. I lessened your workload.”

“That was very reckless, Sam.”

“These are reckless times.”

He was silent some more. I suspected he was in his massive office, surrounded by piles of files.

“So what do we do, Sam?”

“About what?”

“About us.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I like you. A lot.”

“I’m a very likable person,” I said.

He chuckled. “Sometimes. But now you’re being distant and cold.”

“I feel distant and cold, so no surprise there.”

“It’s because of what I do,” he said.

“I hate what you do.”

“Sometimes I help people, Sam. Not everyone belongs in prison.”

“And not everyone should be freed on a technicality.”

“We can argue this forever,” he said.

“And forever is a very long time for...us.”

He chuckled lightly again. “Can I see you tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow night I have plans.”

He made a noise on the phone. I know he wanted to ask who my plans were with but he held back. “I see. Perhaps next week?”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“I’ll call you later.”

I said okay and we hung up.

* * *

My cell rang again. I checked the number and ID on the faceplate. The number came up “Restricted”. It was either a creditor or one of my pals with law enforcement. My finances had gotten a little out of hand these past few months. My hotel room hadn’t been cheap and Danny wasn’t helping me. I took my chances and clicked on.

“I don’t have any money,” I said.

“Hello? Sam, it’s Mel.”

Oops. It was my DNA biologist friend from the FBI Crime Lab. Definitely not a creditor, although he did accept deposits in blood. My heart immediately slammed hard against the inside of my ribs. His call could only mean one thing.

“What’s shaking, Mel?”

“I have the results to your blood work up, Sam.”

I took a deep breath, held it, and then said, “Okay. Lay them on me.”

Chapter Fifty-six

Danny’s firm took up the entire second floor of the office building. The building itself wasn’t much to write home about. Squarish and ugly and immediately forgotten. A couple of years ago, I had jokingly referred to the building as “Ambulance Chaser Headquarters”, and Danny had refused to speak to me for two days.

The big baby.

With the sun still a few hours from setting and myself not at my strongest, I climbed the exterior stairs and pushed through the smoky glass doors. Four leather chairs sat empty to one side of the door. A thick, square mohair carpet spanned the length of the office. A bubbling fountain gurgled in the corner to my left, projecting an aura of zen-like calm in these troubled, accident-prone times. On the walls were the paintings I had picked out with Danny at a swap meet years ago. Big, fake, cheap stuff.

And directly in front of me, sitting behind a kidney-shaped desk, with her shiny, tan legs crossed and absently texting on her cell phone, was my ex-husband’s new secretary. The woman he had cheated on me with. The woman he was currently fucking. The woman he entertained at our house, in our bedroom, in our bed. The woman he had introduced to our children.

She had known that he was married. No doubt he had made me out to be a monster. No doubt he had painted a picture of an unfit mother. Unfit or not, she had chosen to cheat with a married man. My married man.

She set her phone aside, uncrossed her thin legs, and gave me a big smile. She was about to ask if she could help me, but then stopped short. Her mouth sort of hung open and her eyes narrowed. She was an ugly woman, I thought. I had no clue what Danny saw in her. Face too thin, skin too tan, boobs too fake. On second thought, I saw exactly what Danny saw in her. She was the opposite of me.

She jumped up and moved quickly around her desk, blocking my path. She crossed her arms under her fake breasts. Her nails were red and long. She looked like a whore.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she said.

I smiled and, without breaking stride, punched her straight in the face. She flew backward, bounced off the desk, spun around and landed on her face. On her nose, in fact. She moaned. I wasn’t at full strength and I certainly didn’t hit her as hard as I could, but she would remember me.

Danny appeared from his office door, open-mouthed. He looked at me and then at his secretary on the mohair rug. “Sam, what the fuck is going on?”

And as he stepped out of the office, I punched him hard in his stomach. He oofed nicely and doubled over. I grabbed him by the collar and threw him back into his office and shut the door behind me.

Chapter Fifty-seven

I pushed him down into one of his leather client chairs and sat on the edge of his executive desk, which was big enough to land an F-17 on.

Danny still hadn’t gotten his breath back entirely. His face was purplish and contorted, and he was staring at me with frightened, angry eyes.

I kicked my legs pleasantly and whistled absently, waiting for his lungs to kick start again. Finally his short rasping breaths turned into longer rasping breaths. And when they did, words vomited from his mouth. “What the fuck are...who the hell do you...you have royally fucked yourself...how dare you attack....”

“Are you quite done, asshole?”

He sat up straighter, took in a long, agonized breath. “I demand to know what’s going on.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely.”

I grinned and continued swinging my legs. I shouldn’t have been enjoying this so much, but I was.

He looked at me with very confused, very dark eyes. Danny was not a big guy. Just a few inches shy of six foot, he was also too skinny for me, but I never told him that. I had always liked my men a little beefier, which is why Kingsley had been so damn intoxicating.

He said, “Do you have any idea the shit you just landed yourself in, Sam?”

“About as much shit as you landed in, dickhead.”

His eyes narrowed. “What the hell does that mean?”

There was a low moan from outside the closed door, followed by some sobbing. His secretary lying there on the carpet, crying, probably wasn’t good for business.

“You’re the owner of The Kittycat,” I said. “Perhaps the world’s sleaziest strip club. In fact, you’re the sole owner of it.”

The color drained from his already pale face. He tried to sit up. I told him to stay where he was and he did so.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sam.”

“Of course you don’t. Deny everything, right? It’s the losers’ motto.”

“Sam, you’re talking nonsense.”

“Am I? All I have to do is make one call to any number of my friends in law enforcement, and they will come down hard on The Kittycat.”

“Just wait a second, Sam. Whether or not I own the business is beside the point. It’s hardly a crime to run a strip club.”

I crossed my arms under my chest. My own natural bosom didn’t push up unnaturally through the top of my own blouse and I was proud of that.

“It’s a crime, Danny, when said business—in particular, a strip club—operates without a license.”

“Shit.”

I grinned and sat back. I swung my legs some more. Seeing Danny squirm had just become my favorite new hobby.

“I’m in the process of getting a license—”

“In the process of and having one are two different things, Danny. And you know that. But you couldn’t wait, could you? You just had to open the doors to that shithole of sleaze.”

He said nothing. I could see his pressed shirt pulsating slightly over his hammering heart.              His mind was spinning in ten different directions. But there was no getting out of this one. Not for him.

“What the fuck happened to you, Danny?” I asked. “How does a respectable family man end up owning that dungeon of filth?”

“I don’t have to answer you.”

“Hey, I’m not the cops, Danny boy. There are no Miranda rights and I’m not wired. This is just between you and me.”

“Well, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Now, can I check on Sugar?”

I laughed into my hand. “Sugar?”

“Not now, Sam—”

“Her name is Sugar? Honest to God? Is she also one of your filthy strippers, Danny? Sucking up to the boss in more ways than one?”

“Okay, you caught me. So sue me for looking outside of our shitty marriage for something more. So sue me for jumping on a chance to own something that’s going to make me a lot of money.”

“You’re pathetic.”

“And you’re a living nightmare. What the fuck do you want, Sam?”

I studied him long and hard. Sugar had quit sobbing from the other side of the door. Sugar wasn’t happy.

I said, “I want the house and I want the kids.”

He laughed. “No way. There is absolutely no fucking way I’m letting you around our kids unsupervised.”

“I don’t think you understand the quagmire of shit you find yourself in, Danny. If I say the word, the hammer comes down on your disgusting enterprise. You’re looking at an ungodly amount of fines, not to mention automatic disbarment. Oh, yeah, and the world will see you as the slimeball you’ve turned out to be. And I can’t wait to see what your mother thinks about all of this, too.” I paused, shaking my head. “No one stops to consider their mothers. It’s a pity.”

“You forget, Sam. If you say anything, I will expose you for the monster you really are.”

I slipped off the desk and approached him slowly. I squatted down between his legs, resting my elbows on his knees. He was in a very, very vulnerable position.

“Expose me for what, Danny? Having a rare skin condition?”

“I’ve got a vial of your blood, Sam. It’s in a safe deposit box. If anything happens to me, my attorney has been notified to have that blood immediately tested. Your secret will be out. You will be exposed to the light for the freak that you are.”

“Perhaps you should have already tested the blood, Danny.”

“What does that mean?”

I stood again and removed a folded piece of paper from my back pocket. Earlier, I had stopped at a Kinko’s and printed out Mel’s emailed test results.

“What’s this?”

“My blood test results.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I had my blood tested, Danny. A variety of tests, too. The technician was asked to look for any irregularities. Look at the results yourself.”

He quickly read through the report. Attorneys, if anything, were great scanners.

“As you can see,” I said. “It says no irregularities found. My blood is normal, Danny. Normal. In every way. So have it tested. Do what you want with it. But I’m taking back my house, and I’m taking back my kids, and you damn well better believe that no sleazeball porn king who brings whores home to my kids will ever—ever—be welcomed into my house again. You have until eight p.m. tonight to move your ass out, and anything you leave behind will be trashed. Do you understand?”

He looked at the paper some more, then looked directly across at me, since I was once again squatting down at eye level. “So you won’t report me?” he said.

“You disgust me.”

And I leveled a punch directly into his groin. As he rolled out of the chair, gasping, I walked out of his office and didn’t even look down at his bleeding whore.

Chapter Fifty-eight

It was 8:30 p.m. and Danny had just left.

I gave him the extra thirty minutes out of the goodness of my cold heart, since, after all, he had been working so hard to get his shit moved out. The kids were off eating pizza with Mary Lou, my sister. They would come home to find their daddy gone. Traumatic for them, I know, but they would adjust. They had to adjust.

Before Danny drove off, with his Cadillac Escalade filled with all his crap, he informed me that he had talked Sugar out of pressing charges, mostly by offering her a massive raise. I reminded Danny that I wanted a massive raise, too, in the form of a butt-load of alimony and child support.

As he sat behind the wheel, looking utterly exhausted, he leveled a glare at me that was supposed to make me curl into the fetal position. I didn’t curl.

“This isn’t over, Sam.”

“I certainly hope not,” I said. “I’m having too much fun.”

He shook his head and drove off. I watched him make a left turn and disappear out of sight, and I realized I didn’t even care where he ended up.

Smell you later, asshole.

I flipped the phone open and called my sister. “Bring them home,” I said.

* * *

We were all eating hot fudge sundaes that were oozing with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. And, yes, some of us were only pretending to eat. So far, my kids had not caught on that I could not eat like them. Mostly, they just saw mommy not eating at all, and when I did, the spitting-it-back-into-a-cup routine worked wonders.

Even with all the spitting, some of the ice cream and fudge made it down my esophagus, which caused some seriously uncomfortable cramps. After a few minutes of pretending to eat my ice cream, I finally ditched the bowl and emptied the cup-o’-spit down the garbage disposal. Mostly, no one noticed me, and I just sat there, glowing, watching my kids eat ice cream and laugh with their aunt...in the comfort of my own home with Danny not watching over me.

The kids had asked repeatedly where their dad was, and I told them that it was mommy’s turn to have the house, and that daddy was going to stay with a friend of his for a while, and that everything was going to be okay.

Tammy later came over and held my hand for nearly the entire night. She told me again and again how sorry she was for yelling at me on the phone. I told her again and again that it didn’t matter and that I loved her with all my heart.

When we were done with the ice cream, I grabbed a clean comforter from the hall closet and we all snuggled together on the living room couch and watched an illegal copy of Toy Story 3 that Mary Lou had purchased at a liquor store. I told her I couldn’t condone such illicit behavior and vowed to purchase a real copy when the movie hit the DVD stands. Mary Joe stuck her tongue out at me.

About halfway through the movie, Anthony giggled. I knew that giggle.

“Oh, no you didn’t!” I cried out.

He laughed harder and lifted up the comforter. “Dutch oven!” he shouted and a wave of stink hit us.

We all piled out of the living room, laughing and tumbling over ourselves.

And later, after the room had cleared and after we had finished the movie, while Mary Lou was twisting Tammy’s long hair into a braid and while Anthony was showering, I found myself crying tears of joy.

Chapter Fifty-nine

It was the next night and I was getting ready for my big date. I didn’t often get nervous these days, but I was nervous as hell now. And while I got ready, my AOL account twirped. It was Fang.

See you in one hour, Moon Dance?

You bet.

Are you nervous? he asked.

More than you know.

Don’t worry. I don’t bite.

I would have laughed if my stomach wasn’t doing somersaults. I took a deep, shuddering breath. I really didn’t need such deep breaths, but they did help to calm me.

How do I find you? I wrote when I had calmed myself down enough to focus on the keyboard.

Look for the man with a twinkle in his eye.

Smartass.

Trust me, Moon Dance, there will be no mistaking me tonight.

What’s your name? I wrote. I mean, your real name?

I will tell you my name tonight, Moon Dance. Deal?

Okay, deal. I have to get ready.

See you in fifty-six minutes.

So we’re really doing this?

Yes, wrote Fang. We’re really doing this.

I shut down my laptop and went back to work on my hair. My hands, I noticed, were shaking.

* * *

I was driving down Chapman Avenue when my cell rang. I looked at the faceplate. Another restricted number. At this late hour, it could only be a cop. I even had a sneaking suspicion who it was. I clicked on.

“It wasn’t me, officer, I swear. Please don’t use the rubber hose again.”

“We don’t use rubber hoses any more,” said Sherbet.

“So what do you use?”

“Proper interrogation techniques.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“We dig out the rubber hoses.” He paused. “Do you have a couple of minutes?”

“Anything for you, detective.”

“I’ll remember that. Anyway, we had numerous eyewitness reports of something running through the streets of Fullerton a couple of nights ago, and I want your opinion.”

“And because I have a rare skin disease and I’m forced to stay out of the light of day, that makes me an expert in all things that go bump-in-the-night?”

“Something like that.”

“Was this something about nine feet tall and covered in fur?”

“How did you know?”

“Was there also a grave defiled?”

“Yes, over on Beacon Street, but—”

“Just a lucky guess, Detective.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Sam. What the hell is going on in my city?”

“You would never believe it, Detective.”

“Try me.”

“Soon. I promise.”

He was silent on his end of the phone. Finally, he said, “How soon?”

“Soon.”

He sighed. “I can be your best friend, Sam. Or your worst enemy. I have a city to protect.”

“We will talk soon, Detective. I promise.”

He didn’t like it, but accepted it.

“Get some sleep, Detective.”

“With a nine-foot creature running around? Hardly.”

“You’re safe,” I said. “At least until the next full moon.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“We’ll talk later, Detective.”

And we clicked off just as I pulled into the Downtown Bar & Grill parking lot.

Chapter Sixty

I was in the same parking lot where a young lady had been killed not too long ago in connection with a case of mine. A case that had involved Kingsley.

The parking lot was mostly empty. It was late Sunday night, so no surprise there. I was in a spot that afforded me a perfect view of the parking lot’s entrance.

I’m really doing this, I thought.

I was a few minutes early. To my right was an alley that ran behind the restaurant. The alley was clean and dimly lit and led to the back entrances to the stores that ran along Harbor Boulevard. Potted plants were arranged outside the bar’s back door, and a nearby fire escape appeared freshly painted. The alley itself was composed of cobblestones, like something you would see in an English village. I remembered the way the girl’s blood had soaked between the stones, zigzagging rapidly away from her dying body.

The moon was bright, but not full. Clouds were scattered thinly across the glowing sky. Glowing, at least, to my eyes. A small wind made its way through my partially opened driver’s side window. I couldn’t keep my hands from shaking, and so I kept them there on the steering wheel, gripping tightly, my knuckles glowing white.

A car turned slowly into the parking lot, making a left from Chapman Avenue. Its headlights bounced as the vehicle angled up the slight driveway and into the parking lot.

I’m really doing this.

I hadn’t expected to be this nervous. Fang knew everything about me. He knew my dirtiest secrets. So what did I know about him? I knew he was a lady’s man. I knew he had a massive fascination for vampires. I knew he was mortal.

And that was it.

In a way, I loved Fang. He was always, always there for me. In my darkest hours, he consoled me. He lifted me up and reminded me that I was not a monster. I shared with him my heart, and in return he accepted it with tenderness and compassion. He was the perfect man. The perfect confidant.

I didn’t want to lose what I had with Fang.

The car continued moving through the parking lot. I could hear its tires crunching. The car, I soon saw, was an old muscle car. A beautiful thing. Not quite cherried, but obviously well taken care of. It gave off a throaty growl, not unlike the growl of the werewolf the other night.

I didn’t want to lose Fang. I love what we have. Our connection was so rare, so helpful, so loving, so sweet, so important to me.

I can’t lose that.

I wrapped my hands around my keys, which were still hanging in the ignition.

This was a bad idea. I should never have agreed to this.

“What am I doing?” I whispered, feeling real panic, perhaps the first panic I had felt in a long time. Far worse panic than when a nine-foot-tall werewolf approached me in my hotel room.

And what if Fang isn’t who he says he is? What if he’s someone completely different? Someone untrustworthy?

What if I have to silence him?

I started rocking in the driver’s seat. The throaty growl of a muscle car reverberated through the empty lot, bouncing off the surrounding dark buildings. The car pulled slowly into a parking space two rows in front of me.

We were now facing each other. The windshield was tinted enough for me to have a hard time seeing inside. Still, I could see a single figure. A man.

The driver turned the car off and the parking lot fell silent again. A moment later, the muscle car’s headlights flashed twice.

My heart slammed inside me. My right hand was still holding the keys. I could start the car now and get the hell out of here and forget this night ever happened, and Fang and I could go back to what we had.

I could. But I didn’t.

I reached down and flashed my headlights twice in return. A moment later, the muscle car’s driver’s side door opened. A booted foot stepped out.

Close to hyperventilating, I went to open my door but stopped short. Shit, I had forgotten about my seat belt. I hastily unfastened it and opened the door.

I’m really doing this.

As I stepped out of my van completely, the person opposite me did the same. The night air was cool. Sounds from the nearby bar reached us. Laughter. Music. The low murmur of a handful of conversations going on at once.

I stepped around to the front of my minivan, and the figure in front me did the same, stepping to the front of his car. He leaned a hip casually against the front fender. When I saw him, I stopped and gasped and covered my mouth with both hands.

Fang grinned at me. “Hello, Moon Dance.”

The End

To be continued in:

American Vampire

Vampire for Hire #3

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Return to the Table of Contents

VAMPIRE LOVE STORY

Book #1

by

H.T. Night

Vampire Love Story

Published by H.T. Night

Copyright © 2010 by H.T. Night

All rights reserved.

Dedication

I dedicate this novel to my family.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to J.R. Rain and Sandy Johnston for all their help.

Vampire Love Story

Chapter One

I rolled over in my bed and looked at the time on my cell phone. It was 9:30 p.m. and my twenty-minute power nap had turned into a two-hour snooze. Oops.

I glanced out my bedroom window to check the weather conditions. It was completely dark with a lot of wind. Definitely not ideal jogging conditions, but it would have to do. I needed to get in a workout or Tommy was going to kill me for slacking off. My best friend, Tommy, often got on my case, which was ironic, because the guy was always getting into trouble himself.

I threw off my blankets and pushed myself out of bed. I gave one good yawn with a long stretch then plopped back on my bed. I knew if I didn’t run at this very moment, there was no way I’d run at any other point in the night. It was now or never.

I am a professional mixed martial arts fighter, and training to be the best has many drawbacks. The worst one, by far, is working out when my body is dead tired. The last thing I wanted to do tonight was exercise, but I knew I had to push past my desire to be lazy. Because right about now, grabbing a bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal and flipping on an episode of CSI sounded a whole lot better than running the streets of San Bernardino in the dark of night.

There was a knock at my bedroom door.

“Come in,” I called out.

“You decent?” It was Tommy, and he was just outside my door. Not only was the guy my best friend, he was also my housemate.

“Would I say ‘Come in’ if I wasn’t decent?” I laughed.

The door swung open slowly, and there stood Tommy, wearing nothing more than a tiny towel, showing off his perfectly chiseled body. He motioned to his abs and said, “Maybe because you are secretly in love with this.” He flexed his stomach muscles and popped a sexy pose.

Damn, he was a clown.

“Save it for your girl groupies, bro. What do you want, Tommy?”

“I want to borrow some cologne. Is that cool with you?”

“Go ahead. They’re on top of the dresser.”

He clapped his hands and strode into my room over to my dresser where I had a collection of cologne. I had everything from Old Spice to high-end brands that cost a plenty penny in the nicer stores.

I watched as Tommy looked for his favorite. He was like a kid in a grocery store, trying to pick out a favorite cereal.

“So, what’s with the cologne?” I asked.

“I got a date with that box girl at the supermarket, and I want to smell real nice, if you know what I’m saying.”

“You finally got the nerve to ask her out?”

“It had nothing to do with nerve, brother. I finally wanted to ask her out. She’s been eye-balling me for years.”

I rolled my eyes and started to get dressed for my run. “So, it took you two years to want to ask her out? That’s the story you’re going to stick with?”

“You know me, Josiah. I like to take things slow before I go in for the kill.”

“That sounds very romantic,” I said.

“Kid, when are you going to realize that romance only gets you hurt in the end?” he replied. “I’m done trying to Don Juan my way around girls. I’m taking a cue from the wild animal kingdom.”

“You’re just going to jump on top of women and not even say hello?” I laughed.

“No. I’m just not going to waste unnecessary time making beds in a burning house.”

“Okay, that analogy makes no sense. Which is the burning house? The women or the romance?”

Tommy thought about it and then laughed. “It made a lot more sense in my head than it did out loud.”

“I bet it did. Where are you taking her?”

“I’m taking her to Murphy’s.”

“Wow, classy.” Murphy’s was the fanciest place to eat in San Bernardino. It had it all: ambiance, location, and hot female clientele. “You sure you’re not trying to romance this girl? I only take a girl to Murphy’s if she earned it.”

“She will,” Tommy replied.

“All I’m saying is you better keep your eyes on your date and not the waitresses.”

Tommy picked the cologne he wanted from the top dresser. Of course, the guy picked my favorite cologne, Drakkar Noir. He sprayed his upper body and both his legs and even lifted his towel to do a meticulous squirt inside the towel.

“That’s enough. You wear the cologne. Don’t let the cologne wear you.” I walked over and grabbed the bottle from Tommy’s hand. “Like I said, you’re all class.” I pushed Tommy out of my room. “Now get out, so I can get ready for my run.”

Tommy stopped himself and turned around. He looked at me seriously, which he rarely did. “Don’t run too far tonight. I’ve got a weird feeling.”

“You do?” I asked, legitimately concerned. Tommy’s feelings were eerie. I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll be careful. I’ll run to the college and back.”

“Get back in an hour and you’ll be fine.” Tommy thought for a second and then added, “Yeah, an hour will be fine. One more thing, Josiah, the Commission is going to let us know tomorrow who we’ll fight next month.”

Tommy was also a professional fighter, and good enough to be a contender for the title.

“I hope the Commission will give me a real fight this time,” I said. “Maybe I’ll have a shot to move up in the rankings.” The Commission tended to think I was still a cherry, and they were taking me along a lot slower than I wanted.

“Maybe if you didn’t wait till 10:00 o’clock at night to get in a workout, you would be ready to have better fights.”

I sighed. Tommy always brought up my workout regimen. Tommy and I couldn’t be more different when it came to our workout routines. Tommy’s workouts were epic. They made pro boxers’ workouts look tame. I, on the hand, have always gotten by on pure talent. I have an insane ability to fight and my instincts are off the charts. I got away with hardly working out, and finally, it has caught up with me.

“You know you and I will never agree on how I should be working out, Tommy. You should be pleased that I want to run tonight.” I paused, and then I asked, “What kind of fight are you looking for with the Commission?”

“I just need a tune-up before my title fight. I need to work out some kinks.” Tommy was fighting for the title in four months.

“You’d better hope the Commission gives you just a tune-up fight and nothing more. The last thing you need is to get hurt before your title bout.”

“I’m not going to get hurt; I’m 18-0! Remember that.” Here Tommy went again with his undefeated record. He wears his record like a badge of honor, even a braggart. It was quite amusing, especially when he brought it up in bars and tried to impress girls. Usually, they had never even heard of mixed martial arts.

Tommy seemed to forget I was undefeated, too, even though I didn’t work out nearly as hard as him. “You aren’t the only one who is undefeated,” I reminded him.

He stood at my doorway. “Yup, you sure are. Your little 4-0 record is very cute, Josiah.”

“I only have four wins because the Commission takes forever to give me a fight, unlike you, who they throw on the card every month.”

“What can I say? I’m an excellent draw. Chicks dig themselves some of the ‘Tom Man.’” Tommy was now starting to get full of himself, and that was my cue to kick him out of my room. Again.

“For the love of God, Tommy, just go on your date!” I shut the door in his face.

“Not cool, Josiah.”

“And neither is wasting all my favorite cologne.”

“Touché.”

I grinned at the exchange I just had with Tommy. I enjoyed his company. Having him around made my life easier. In our friendship, we took turns on who was the responsible one. Even though, Tommy is ‘a good’ five years older than me, people wouldn’t know it by how he behaved sometimes.

I peeled off my shirt, and I looked at myself in the mirror. I needed to lose around ten pounds before my next fight. Did I even have ten pounds to lose? I was six feet tall with very little body fat. I pinched my belly and grabbed as much fat as I could get. I got a decent handful.

Okay, maybe I did have ten pounds to lose.

I studied my face. It was clean, with few marks and scars, not like some of the other professional fighters I knew. The ones who had been in it for a while usually sported knots, bumps, scars, broken noses, busted cheekbones, and more. My own face was remarkably unmarred, considering I had never said ‘no’ to a fight in my life. In fact, I had been fighting off bullies since I was seven years old. My shiny blonde hair, as pretty as any girl’s, had made me a target for bullies who called me names and took their shots at me, thinking that my angelic appearance translated into an easy target for beatings. In those years, me, the pretty boy, had to fight my way into Respectville by pummeling the neverending parade of bullies. I got so good at defending myself on the street that I turned it into my lifework. I was a natural, really, growing from a much picked-on kid into professional fighter.

Nowadays, I looked more like a surfer than a mixed martial arts fighter. People often misread my casual beach bum look and underestimated me. That was a good thing. Interestingly, there’s something about the way I look that makes most guys want to start a fight with me. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I look as if I should be singing lead in a boy band or that I’m extremely confident. Anyway, there’s something about me that makes random strangers want to mix it up with me—constantly!

Too bad for them.

An ex-girlfriend once asked me why I love to fight. My answer was simple: Some guys were born to fix cars or play football. Some guys were born to be astronauts or to hit a fastball. I was born to fight. It’s the only thing in this world that ever made perfect sense to me. When I’m in a fight, time stands still. I see everything in slow motion. My brain goes into Good Will Hunting mode, and I’m able to quickly determine what I want to do to inflict the most damage to my opponent.

Anyway, I put on a pair of sweats, a t-shirt, and my running shoes. Once done, I headed outside the house that Tommy and I shared, and did some stretching next to the tall sycamore tree in the front yard.

I was still stretching when I heard a familiar kee-eeeee-arr cry from above. I looked up, and there was Daphne. Daphne was a beautiful red hawk that seems to have developed a fondness for me over the past couple of years. She made herself known each day by crying her distinctive call or sometimes a shrill chwirk sound while flying low enough, so I could see her. I still have no idea where she came from or why she seemed so interested in me. I named her Daphne one day after watching an episode of Scooby-Doo. They were both redheads, so the name seemed to fit her. I have been known to be partial to redheaded women.

“I’m off for a run, Daphne; try to keep up with me.”

I gave Daphne a wink and took off running. The beautiful bird let out an amicable loud chwirk as I headed down the street. At first, I went fairly slow with my run. Daphne followed me for about a block or two and then pulled back. I kicked up my heels and began to run at a faster pace. I quickly ran out of the neighborhood and headed for the main street that led up to Cal State San Bernardino. I liked running at the college. It was peaceful at night and, as long as I avoided campus police, I usually had no problems.

I turned left and headed down University Way toward the college. I could hear loud music, which meant that I was approaching the Gamma Phi Beta frat house. They always had a party going on, and this Thursday night was no different. Their frat house was a massive two-story white house that stood out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood that was filled with smaller houses.

As I ran toward the house, I noticed that the party was in full swing. Animal House style, there were a lot of cars parked out front, and people milling around outside in various stages of dress, undress, and loudness, depending on how much alcohol they had consumed. Music thumped from the open front door, with the bass so loud that the people inside were sure to go deaf for a couple of days. I hurried past the house, so I wouldn’t have to hear drunk frat boys yelling out things like “Run, Forrest, run!”

As I was about to pass the house without incident, underneath the thumping hip-hop, I heard a chilling scream. The scream was so distinctive and piercing that it made me stop in my tracks.

I turned around, and as I did so, I heard it again. It was coming from behind the house. The gate was open, so I walked toward it. I thought it could just be college girls having a good time, but then I heard it for a third time. This time, it was louder and more uneasy.

As I neared the back gate, I saw movement in a window. A young, dark-haired woman wearing a black dress was desperately opening a window. I picked up my pace, running now. She wrenched up the window, looked over her shoulder, and then jumped from the upstairs window.

Holy shit.

She dropped behind some hedges, where I heard her scream and crash through something wooden. She reappeared a moment later, limping badly and bleeding from fresh scratches along her face and elbows.

She and I reached the side gate about the same time. Amazingly, I recognized the girl. In fact, we had gone to high school together at Eisenhower. She was one of those girls who had been into Goth and had kept to herself in an emo way. I saw that she was barefoot, and her black dress was torn at the right shoulder. Blood oozed from the opening. Her jet-black hair was messy, and she appeared to have been crying.

I would be crying, too, if I had just jumped from the second floor.

I failed to dredge up her name from my memory bank. “Hey, Eisenhower girl!” I shouted, joyful that I remembered her at all. And then I demanded to know, “What the hell is going on?”

Chapter Two

The girl’s eyes met mine for the first time, and her initial reaction was to shrink away from me, but then they widened with what I could only describe as hope. “I know you!” She shouted at me. “Please! Help me, please!”

But before I could respond, she threw herself into my arms, nearly knocking me over. I tried to look at her face, but she held me tight.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you hurt?”

She released me and grabbed my arm. “Please, just get me out of here!”

“What’s going on?”

“Just get me out of here!”

“I don’t have a car. I’m on foot—”

“I don’t care! Just help me leave!”

I had just watched her jump from an upstairs window, and unless she was on a bad trip, she needed some serious help. But who was she running from? I wasn’t very good at this sort of thing, but then again, who is?

“Okay, then.” I grabbed her hand as we ran back around to the front of the house. The party was still raging. For the most part, her scream had gone unnoticed, although a few guys were watching me. Maybe they noticed her blood.

And just as we hit the front sidewalk, a plump redheaded guy, with flaming hair like a copper penny, vivid in that Carrot Top Thompson way, burst through the front door and down the porch, chasing us.

“Lena!” he screamed. “Where you going, baby?”

“I’m getting the hell out of here, Ron—or Ronnie—whatever the hell your name is. You and your friends can kiss my ass.”

I was still holding her hand. A crowd was gathering.

What the hell had I got myself into?

“Well, that’s what we were trying to do until you decided to be a tease,” the redheaded goon said. This guy was a piece of work. He had more freckles than any twenty-year-old man I had ever seen. He was heavy-set and could have used more time in the gym and less time drinking dark, imported brewskies at a frat party. The empty brown bottles littered the lawn. Damn, expensive stuff, too, that Carlsberg Elephant beer.

Ron smirked and started to walk toward us. Ron was about my height, but he outweighed me by seventy pounds. He looked like an oversized Raggedy Andy doll. Or, maybe a guy who ate an oversized Raggedy Andy doll.

“Don’t come near us!” Lena grabbed my arm.

“Who is this guy?” Ron said, and ignored Lena to point at me with his chin. Uh-oh. In fact, he walked right up to my face. I tried to size up the reach of his arms and legs, compared to mine, so I would know whose punch and kick would reach first. It wasn’t always all about technique or the size of the man, but the length of his limbs that also mattered.

I said, “I’m going to take her home.” I was unusually calm and in control. Deep breaths. I could feel myself flustering. I didn’t like guys coming up to my face and pointing at me with their chins. Big mistake on his part to assume that my surfer looks meant that I was a nice guy. I wasn’t.

“Who the hell are you?” Ron asked. He stepped closer to me. I could smell alcohol on his breath.

“Just go back inside,” I said to Ron. “Go back to your party. Chill.” I took a step back to appear less confrontational.

“And what if I don’t want to go back to my party? What if I am not in a chill mood?” Ron took another step toward me. A bigger step. An extraordinarily stupid step.

I looked at this guy. I would get kicked out of Mixed Martial Arts for even entertaining a thought to fight a guy who was this out of shape. And this drunk. I resolved not to throw the first punch or kick. It was the only way to protect my job, which I was more worried about protecting than my physical ass.

The guy let loose a burp, a very stinky roaring mega-belch that was permeated with imported beer fumes. Sheesh! The hops didn’t smell so good when they were already getting processed in a human being.

One problem: It was hard not to entertain punching a punkface like this into a pulp when you love to fight. And then taunted you by belching in your face and taking a fight stance, as piss poor as it was. To a professional like me, he was already toast. But, I again resolved not to throw the first blow. In a street fight, you never do that. Only in the ring. And then, only sometimes.

I felt my heart rate increase. Blood throbbed in my temples as my inner beast unfurled its fangs in wait. My left hand, my free hand, opened and closed. It itched to make a fist. It itched to connect with this douchebag’s speckled face.

“I asked you a question, Blondie.” And then he growled, “What if I don’t want to go back to my party?”

“Look, Spanky,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m sure there’s a whole plethora of girls inside just begging for you to slip them a roofie. Why don’t you just let us get out of here and then you can go back to raping and pillaging.”

“Raping and pillaging? Oh, you’re funny, back street boy. You’re not going anywhere. I took Lena to this party. If anyone’s taking her home, it’s going to be me.”

“I don’t see that happening,” I said. The throbbing in my temple increased. Adrenaline was flooding my bloodstream. “You seemed to have lost that privilege the second you and your frat buddies decided to commit a federal crime.”

“The last time I checked, it wasn’t a crime when a girl was asking for it.”

“So, that’s why her hair is messed up and she has a ripped dress.” I didn’t know if she had ripped her dress on the fall from the upstairs window, or if he had done it, but Ron answered my concerns soon enough.

“What can I say? I guess the bitch likes it rough.”

“You’re a fucking pig, Ron!” Lena yelled out.

“Look, whore, you know you wanted it, and you got scared once you saw how fat my cock was.”

My stomach turned. I stepped toward Ron. “Get the fuck out of here, you fat piece of shit.”

“And what if I don’t?” As he spoke, spittle flew from his mouth and hit my cheeks. I hate that. When someone spits on me, I usually lose my resolve not to beat the shit out of him.

I said, “Then this night will not end well for you.”

“Are you threatening me?” Ron bellowed.

By this time, twenty party celebrants in matching embroidered Gamma Phi Beta polo shirts with little alligator logos and tan Docker slacks had now made their way outside to see what the commotion was about. Among them were four or five of Ron’s frat buddies. His friends were of all shapes and sizes, none of them remotely intimidating. They walked over to us, eager to get in on the fun.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” one guy chanted. Oh shit, but fighting was fun. Sometimes too much fun. Others egged on Ron by joining in the chant.

Anyway, now they stood next to him in a display of solidarity. Ron shouted to them, “This guy thinks he’s going to kick my ass.”

Ron had no idea what he was up against, obviously. If he had any street smarts, he would take in how I was holding myself. How I was prepared, at a moment’s notice to strike, and strike hard. Any fighter worth his salt knew immediately what he was up against, by the way his opponent held himself. Ron wasn’t a fighter. He wasn’t anything.

And he’s not worth getting suspended over.

I took in a lot of air. I had sized up my opponent and knew immediately what I was up against. Ron was doughy and out-of-shape. I could knock him out in seconds. His friends, on the other hand, might cause some problems if they decided to make this a group affair. I didn’t shy away from group affairs. I shied away, in fact, from very little.

I looked at his friends. Some looked cocky. Some looked confused. Most looked drunk. One or two of them were yelling for Ron to kick my ass. My best guess was that his friends were probably not going to jump, that they were going to allow this to be a fair fight, so I put all my attention on Ron.

Fair? I thought. You’re a trained fighter. There’s nothing fair about it.

Ron rubbed his soft-looking knuckles, sizing me up as I squared off in my own stance. He didn’t like what he saw. Now, I saw the fear in his eyes. Ron and I both knew he wasn’t tough. He was just big. A guy like this got through life barely fighting because he was usually bullying people into thinking he was tougher than he was. He couldn’t bully me, and he knew it. Tonight, he was about to be exposed for the fraud he was.

As he continued to stare at me, I said, “Look, Ron, I’m not falling in love looking at you this long. If you’re going to do something, do it. Otherwise, I’d like to make it home in time for Jimmy Kimmel.” I knew this would piss him off.

Ron continued rubbing his knuckles. He also continued not doing anything.

I gripped the girl, Lena’s, hand tighter. “All right,” I said. “Let’s go, Lena. Ron is apparently a nice guy and is going to let us leave.” I turned around and let go of Lena’s hand, knowing Ron would push me in the back, and sure enough, Ronny boy didn’t disappoint.

Like I said, when I get into a fight, things always go in slow motion for me—and they did so now. The moment I felt Ron’s hand on my back, I whirled around and grabbed his hand. Ron wasn’t prepared for me to turn. I’ve been told my reflexes are off the charts, my anticipatory skills are unrivaled. I credit it all to the slow-motion thing. How it works, I don’t know, but the world seems to slow down around me while I go to normal speed. So, while Ron’s eyes widened in fear as he saw me spin around, he was helpless to do much about it. I grabbed his right hand and pulled him forward using his own momentum. Ron stumbled forward and hit the side of an oversized SUV parked on the street near us. He bounced off the door and fell straight to his ass. I heard chuckling from the crowd.

Ron got to his feet slowly, watching me. People were still laughing behind us, and I could see that their laughter was making Ronny-Boy increasingly angrier. There was a red mark on his forehead where it had bounced off the side of the SUV.

And that’s when he charged at me in a clumsy, uncoordinated motion. I wasn’t sure if he would try to punch me or grab me. Regardless, I turned my body to the left and got into a perfect position to throw a vicious uppercut with my right hand. And that’s what I did. My punch landed directly on his chin, and Ron flew backwards onto the sidewalk, landing hard on his ass and back, his head bouncing off the concrete like a basketball. To my utter surprise, he scrambled quickly back to his feet, where he stared at me unsteadily. I think his eyes might have crossed a little. He staggered once, twice, and then fell backward.

I looked over at Lena. Her eyes and mouth were wide open. I couldn’t tell if she was scared or excited. Then she pointed, and I turned quickly and saw four of Ron’s frat buddies surrounding me. I’ve been jumped before. Being jumped isn’t a big deal if you know how to fight, and there are no weapons involved. As far as I could tell, these guys were packing nothing but their soft fists. And since the crowd was composed of a lot of women, the guys would be less inclined to fight dirty. At least, that has been my experience. Then again, these were the same scumbags who had just tried to hurt Lena, so all bets were off.

The group backed up a little. And once again, I marveled at my propensity to get into fights. Some guys attract money and girls. I attract fists.

The guys were staring at each other, trying to decide what to do. They were waiting for a signal. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of them nod, and I thought: Here they come.

And they did, all four charging me at once. Except, of course, they charged at me in slow motion, my brain once again slowing things down like it always did. The first two guys tried to throw punches in the direction of my head. I easily ducked and sidestepped and gave a sharp left cross to the guy on the right—and broke his nose on contact. Blood spurted down his face and over his shirt, and he screamed and fell away. One down. Three to go.

Nearly simultaneously, I gave the second guy, coming up behind me, a back kick that hit nothing but manhood. He fell to the ground, holding his gooseberries. Two down. Two to go.

The next guy jumped on my back. I threw him over my shoulder, and he landed on the guy with the bloody nose. Three down. One to go.

The last guy just charged me like a football player. I took a step back and gave him a high kick to the chin that made him stagger back. He came at me again and I gave him a four-punch combination, with my last hit breaking his nose. All were down.

My adrenaline was pumping, and I felt as if I could do this all night. By the looks of it, these four couldn’t. They were done. Unfortunately, the Gamma Phi Betas brothers weren’t. The whole fraternity—or at least what was left of them—surrounded me. There must have been twenty-five guys out there. I was good, but I wasn’t that good.

I was about to say something that would call attention to how unfair the numbers were, when something excruciatingly painful exploded in the middle of my back. I fell to my knees and then to the ground. I turned around, and sure enough, Big Red Ron was standing there holding a baseball bat, sporting a shit-eating grin. He raised the bat again.

I hate when that happens.

Chapter Three

Ron looked like a kid ready to hit the crap out of a piñata. He was the deranged kid and I was the piñata. Already, I figured he had done some serious damage to me. He had either chipped my vertebrae, or ruptured my kidney, or both.

As he wheeled back to take another swing, and as I was about to dive under the nearby SUV, we both heard a commotion coming from down the street. He stopped in mid-swing, and I stopped in mid-dive, and promptly coughed up some blood.

And while I coughed, a van appeared around the corner, screeching on two tires. Three guys in black trench coats hung out of the open van doors, whooping and hollering at the top of their lungs. I had just propped myself up on a knee when the van burst over the curb. It bounced and skidded to a halt, tearing up the lawn next to me.

You have got to be kidding me. What the hell did I just get myself into?

All of the doors to the van seemingly opened at once, and three guys poured out of the van, all wearing trench coats and looking as if they had just gotten back from a Marilyn Manson concert. Oddly, they looked alike: tall, pale, and with long, greasy black hair.

I coughed, and more blood came up. I stood slowly. I think Ronnie boy had cracked a rib, too. As I stood, I felt a gentle hand under my elbow, helping me. Say what? I looked, surprised, wanting to know who it was. Lena! She smiled at me, but the smile quickly faded. Her eyes flashed a warning in the direction of the death rock trio.

As I steadied myself, the tallest of the van freaks—easily seven feet tall—rushed over to Lena, who was still holding my arm. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. She pulled me with her a little, and I spun, too, nearly falling.

The giant weirdo said, and none too politely: “What the hell are you doing at this meathead party? I warned you to stay away.”

She stood her ground, looking up at the guy. “You think I wanted to come to this party, Atticai? One of these assholes drugged me at the club, kidnapped me, and brought me here.”

A woman got out of the driver’s side of the van. She had dark reddish-maroon hair and was paler than all the guys put together. She was stunning. She too, wore all black, but it looked like a jumpsuit, and she had a bull whip in her hand. She cracked it in the air for effect, not hitting anyone, but it was one of the sexiest things I had ever seen. Hot damn. This night was just getting better and better.

“They drugged you?” asked the tall guy. Atticai, I assumed.

But before she could answer, one of the frat guys yelled out, “Hey, Freak Show! Get your fucking van off my lawn or I’m calling the police.”

“Who said that?” Atticai said, scanning the crowd, which was pretty easy for him to do, since he was the tallest guy I had even seen up close.

A real muscular guy came forward. “I did,” he said. “Now get your fucking van off my grass or I’m going stick my foot deep in your bony ass.”

Atticai turned away, ignoring him. He took both of Lena’s shoulders in his abnormally large hands. “Did they hurt you?”

Lena looked away. There were tears in her eyes. Hell, there were tears in my eyes, too. “Almost.”

I looked at Ron. He was standing with his back to me, holding the bat loosely, completely absorbed by the three strangers. My back throbbed to the rhythm of my heartbeat.

The tall guy said, “So, which one of these young men thought it would be okay to drug a young woman and take advantage of her?”

Without hesitation, Lena pointed at Ron, who stepped back a little and gripped his baseball bat. “Hey, man, I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Of course not,” said Atticai. “Lena, get in the van and shut the door.” He looked back at Ron. “My little ginger-haired friend is going to be taught the correct way to treat a lady.”

Lena grabbed the tall guy’s hand. “Atticai, please. Someone already took care of it. Just let it go.”

Ron, hearing this, took a step back. He also raised the bat again. Atticai continued looking at Ron. “Yes, I can see that someone did some damage to the boy.”

“Who are you calling boy, punk?” Ron jutted the fat part of the bat in the direction of the tall figure.

Atticai’s face hardened. He looked back at Lena. “Get in the van. Now.”

Lena looked at me one more time, tried to smile, and then hurried over to the van. I want to say something, but I’ll admit, I was awkwardly caught up in the scene. Besides, Lena seemed to know these weirdos and didn’t seem afraid. Or, at least, she seemed less afraid.

I had been in enough brawls to know that one was about to go down, and I was pretty fought out for the evening. Getting hit in the back with a bat has a way of doing that to you.

I told myself: This is none of your business. Leave now before this gets ugly.

Easier said than done. For now, it was all I could do to suck in a deep breath, let alone walk away. Besides, there was the small matter of a little payback.

Let it go, I thought. And get the fuck out of here.

“So, you play baseball, Fatty?” Atticai asked to Ron. From somewhere deep inside the tall man’s trench coat, he removed a length of chain.

A woman in the crowd gasped. A lot of people did. Lena was watching from the front seat. She looked sick.

Ron dropped the bat. “Look, no harm, no foul. You guys can just go.”

“Oh, we can?” Atticai began circling Ron. The chain hung limply from his long arm. “How very generous of you.”

“Please—”

“If only life could be so simple, Red.”

“My name is Ron.”

“Thanks for clearing that up, Red. So, you met a pretty young girl at a bar, slipped something in her drink when she wasn’t looking and thought that you and your buddies would do the unthinkable to her. But, somehow, your plans didn’t quite go as planned.” Atticai smiled at his little play on words.

Ron gulped audibly.

Atticai continued circling Ron. The gaunt figure, easily a head taller than the cherub-faced Ron, looked at me and caught my eye. He nodded perceptively, and I understood the meaning. He was thanking me. Atticai looked back at Ron. “Unfortunately, for you and your sick plans, you didn’t count on others helping her. You sick rapist fucks never figure that in... that some people truly love these girls who you hurt.”

“Look, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything. You can even ask her.”

“I don’t need to ask her. You want to know why? I can see through you. I can see your heart. I can see your soul. And you know what? You aren’t a righteous person. So, that is why I’m going to finish giving you the beating that someone else started.”

Ron faded to a whiter shade of paleness that was so light that his freckles stood out like black polka dots on his skin. Then again, that could have just been a play on light. Either way, he started walking backwards—and promptly tripped over the garden hose. He screamed as if he had been shot, scrambled to his feet, and made a mad dash toward the front door of the house.

Atticai watched him with a bemused expression on his face, and I thought that was going to be it. Ron would run to his room, and everyone would disperse, and I would limp my way home.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The tall man swirled his long chain like a lasso and what he did next defied logic and reason. He threw the chain, which whipped through the air, humming as it went. The chain wrapped around Ron’s legs perfectly and the burly dope pitched forward onto the house’s concrete steps. My mouth had barely dropped open, when this Atticai character somehow, miraculously appeared on top of Ron.

Then Atticai opened his mouth, and in the ambient street and house light, I could see that he had filed down his teeth. What the hell? A second later, he buried his teeth and face into Ron’s neck. Ron screamed like a girl. Someone else screamed, too. Ron kicked once, twice. More people screamed.

Was I being Punk’d? Was this happening?

A moment later, Atticai pulled his face away—a face now covered with blood. Ron laid perfectly still, with blood pouring down his neck; his blood splashed over the concrete stairs.

This was real. The seven-foot tall freak fucking bit into fat boy’s neck. And in front of a crowd of people. Unbelievable!

Atticai casually picked Ron up by his neck, lifting him entirely off the ground. Ron’s legs dangled like a five-year-old’s. And with a primeval growl, the tall freak threw Ron off the stairs and into the bushes nearby.

And that’s when complete pandemonium broke out.

Chapter Four

Most of the party goers took off running, but there were some unfortunate bastards who stood their ground trying to defending their frat house turf.

Like I said, unfortunate bastards.

The three guys in trench coats were moving so fast that they appeared more of a blur than anything else. I was beginning to wonder if I had been the one who had been slipped a “roofie.” Anyway, time skipped a bit. One moment, the tall, freaky guys were here. And the next, they were over there. In a blur, a blink, and sometimes, even instantly. Since I no longer had a dog in this fight—not to mention that I was seriously questioning my sanity—I decided to duck behind the Jeep and see how this all played out.

And then get the hell out of here.

The red-headed woman had now joined the three trench coats. All four, as best as I could tell, were laying beat downs with their chains and whips in a scene that could only be described as surreal, and one that made movie prison riots look tame. No one here had a chance.

The red-headed woman, who had just disposed of a man twice her size by throwing him hard against a tree trunk, suddenly stopped and looked straight at me. I wanted to duck, but it was too late. Her eyes narrowed and then she did something unexpected. She nodded slightly and motioned with her head. I frowned and was momentarily overcome with an impression that she recognized me somehow, although I was damn sure that I had no clue who she was. She motioned with her head again, and my foggy, dense brain finally understood the gesture. She wanted me to run!

Well, that sounded like a hell of a good idea, and so that’s what I did. Well, as I best as I could pull off. With a sharp pain ripping through my injured back—and pain that was eclipsed by a powerful surge of adrenaline—I bolted down the driveway.

And that’s as far as I got.

Before I could even get to the sidewalk, one of the trench coats guys had tripped up my feet. I fell to the ground. I tried to fight him off, but it was no use. He had the strength of ten men. He was impossible to move. I was a world-class mixed martial arts fighter, and this Goth dude was keeping me down? I rolled over, and he bit down on my neck. What the hell was this crazy asshole doing?

He was freaking biting into my neck! Really?

I had been in at least two hundred fights, in my life. Not one time did my opponent think that a smart move was to bite my neck.

I tried fighting him off, but it was no use. With everything I had—and using every wrestling technique Tommy had ever taught me—I broke his grip on me and heaved him off me. All in one motion. And as he went spinning and stumbling, I leaped to my feet and grabbed my neck. He regained his balance and turned and faced me, eyes wide with wonder and confusion. He didn’t plan on me being that strong. It was if that would be the first time anyone ever got the best of him.

I looked at my hand. There was a small amount of blood on it. “What the fuck did you do that for?” I said to the man who just took a bite out of my flesh.

“You should have never come,” he hissed, and lunged toward me again, his mouth wide. This guy also had his teeth filed.

What the hell was going on? They all had some crazy vampire fetish.

I landed a punch that did him little harm, although it slowed him down some. He shook off my blow and kept coming at me. The blow that I had landed would have laid out most people. People being the operative word here.

And in a move that would have made any MMA fighter proud, he grabbed my hand in a blink and pulled me forward. The movement was so sudden and powerful that I lost my balance. He yanked me again and now I pitched forward onto the grass. Not the world’s most graceful take-down, but it worked. Not to mention he still had me by the hand, which he had yanked awkwardly behind me.

Awkwardly and painfully. Too painfully. I turned my head and saw that the son-of-bitch had bitten down on my wrist. I tried to free myself, but I was in a hell of a twisted position.

He bit down harder, tearing away some of my skin.

This man was now drinking the blood from my wrist. I could see the crazy motherfucker swallowing my blood. I looked toward the grass, and the other two guys were biting their victims, too. I began to feel faint.

“Don’t hurt him, Wyatt!” a voice shouted, in the night. It was hard to be sure from where, exactly. Blackness had seriously started encroaching along the edges of my vision. The voice might have been coming from the van. “He’s the only one who helped me!”

And with that, the man let go of my wrist. My hand dropped, and I fell forward on my face. I was completely drained of all energy. I lost all desire to move.

As I laid there, feeling as if I had been attacked by a grizzly bear, I could hear the sounds of approaching sirens. I’m no stranger to sirens or even to being arrested. If you grow up as a street brawler like me, you get used to both; however, I was too weak to move.

Now, I seriously felt drugged, and my neck and wrist hurt like hell.

Suddenly, Atticai was by my side. He knelt down, which took him a heartbeat longer than most people, since he was so damn tall. He lowered his face to mine, and I was struck instantly by the strong scent of coppery blood on his breath. Indeed, blood was dripping in large globs down his chin. My stomach flip-flopped.

“Is this true?” Atticai asked me.

“Is what true?” I could barely muster out.

“Did you help Lena?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

He glanced over his shoulder to the others. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.” He looked back at me and grinned through all the blood. “And, you’re coming with us.”

Amazingly, he gripped the back of my shirt and lifted me clean off the ground. I found myself briefly dangling—and gasping for air—before he threw me into the back of the open van like a sack of potatoes. The rest of the freak show gang of blood suckers followed in behind me and the side door was slammed shut.

Wyatt, the same guy who tried to feast on my arm, started the van and threw it into reverse. Dirt, grass, and mud kicked up and soon the tires screeched rubber trails across the sidewalk and back onto the asphalt street. I heard it. I smelled it. Burned rubber, acrid against the metallic copper scent of their breaths in the van. There, Wyatt shoved the gearshift into ‘drive’ and the van literally squealed away, briefly slewing sideways.

Most of the seats had been removed from the van. The others freaks were hanging out the windows, bracing themselves against the madcap turns. Only Lena and the red-headed girl were looking at me. A brief thought ran through my head that I was in some sort of Scooby Doo horror flick in an alternate universe, or that I was having a pizza-induced nightmare, but the pain in my back, neck and wrist was so all-consuming that I knew it was real. I was hurt, bad. Me, martial arts professional, was nearly slayed by a baseball bat and a blood sucker.

I wanted to ask where the hell they were taking me—to a hospital?—but I was still weak and oddly drained of energy. I could not even speak. And so, I did the only thing I could think of. I closed my eyes and hoped that I would awaken from this terrifying nightmare.

Chapter Five

I must have passed out in the van.

When I next opened my eyes, the redheaded woman was half reclining next to me. She had my wrist in her hand and was swabbing rubbing alcohol on the bite marks from a first aid kit with a red cross on the container. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“A little,” I said, not wanting to wuss out in front of her.

“Wyatt is terribly sorry for biting you. He thought you were one those pricks at the party.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, dude. That was totally my bad. I should have realized they were all wearing those matchy-matchy Izod polo shirts with their logo,” Wyatt said to me from the driver’s seat, without turning around. “I thought you were making a run for it.”

I had no idea how to respond to a guy who had just bitten my neck and drank blood from my arm. I’m sure my expression said it all. It was a cross between What the hell? And Seriously? You drank my blood?

Instead of answering, I turned back to the redheaded girl and asked, “Where are we going?”

She looked at me with a softness that was a complete one-eighty from what I had seen earlier, when she was whipping dudes into submission. “We’re headed to the Flatlands. It’s just north of Arrowhead.”

“We’re in the mountains?” I asked.

The girl nodded. “We weren’t about to stick around and allow you and Lena to get arrested.” She grinned a little. “We’re not complete monsters.”

Being arrested was nothing new to me. Then again, explaining the bite marks on my wrist and neck to the police might be hard to do. Yeah, it was probably best to get the hell out of Dodge. Then again, getting the hell out of Dodge with these weirdos might not have been my best choice, though. Not that I had much of a choice.

Atticai sat pressed up against the inside of the car door. With his long limbs bent sharply, he looked a bit like a giant praying mantis. He had his arm around Lena. A protective gesture. It reminded me of a father protecting his young daughter. Anyway, Atticai was staring at me, and it was making me feel extremely uncomfortable. I’m not used to feeling uncomfortable. I decided I didn’t like the feeling.

He stared at me for another few seconds and then asked, “Did you seriously beat the shit out of those five guys before we got there?”

I thought about his question. I wasn’t sure if the king freak would be impressed by that or threatened. Finally, I shrugged and said, “Yeah, I did.”

“With only your hands?” he asked.

“And my feet,” I said.

Atticai nodded. “Impressive,” he said. He was now stroking Lena’s hair, who sat impassively. I couldn’t see if she liked his touch or not. Anyway, he seemed to treat her more like a pet than a human being, which I found creepy as hell. He looked back at me. “So what’s your name?”

“Josiah.”

“Well, thanks, Josiah. I’m not sure what would have happened to Lena if you hadn’t stepped in.”

Was this guy for real? Was he truly acting this normal?

He and his buddies just finished literally ripping the flesh and drinking the blood of the party goers; he just sat there, calmly petting Lena, as if she was a pet cat. Austin Powers, he was not.

Something seriously strange and terribly wrong was going on here. And I was trapped in the van with the freaks from Gothville, still weak as hell from having my own blood feasted upon.

“What are you guys?” I ventured.

The third guy spoke up. “We might ask you the same thing. What are you?” he asked. “A superhero?” He sat in the front passenger seat next to Wyatt. He was as thin as the others and just as pale, but he had a Middle Eastern look to him.

I sat up a little more, feeling some of my strength coming back into my body. Or maybe I was just willing my strength to come back. The redheaded girl and Atticai were still staring at me. I guess I was just going to have to get used to these creeps looking at me and not talking. Granted, having a beautiful redhead staring at me was certainly not as creepy, but not by much.

I said, “Not a superhero. I just wanted to help Lena.” I looked over at her again. “We were acquaintances in high school.”

Now, she glanced at me and smiled, even while Atticai continued running his fingers through her hair. She had a zen aura about her now that she was obviously extremely safe.

Or maybe she’s just as freaked out as you, I thought. But I doubted it. She knew these people. And she wasn’t afraid.

“Well, you guys seemed to have things pretty well under control,” I said, purposely not mentioning the part where they also seemed to have enjoyed a late night snack. On blood.

Seriously. I worried about when they were going to tank up next. And on whom?

“No, really,” I said. “Who in the hell are you guys?”

The red-headed woman wrapped a bandage around my wrist. “My name’s Yari,” she said, taping on the bandage. Her touch was gentle, pleasant...and oddly cold. As if her fingers had been dipped in a bucket of chilled blood. The contradictory nature of all of these individuals was making my brain spin.

“Yari?” I asked, trying to pronounce it correctly. “Kind of like Tasha Yar from Star Trek? But with an ‘eee’ sound at the end?”

She smiled at me. She was incredibly beautiful. I felt like her bright, searching eyes could see right through me. “Yes...Yari, Y-A-R-I,” she spelled out. It rhymes with Atari.” She smiled.

As creeped out as I was, I smiled, too. “Wow! You made an old-school game reference. I’m impressed.”

“Oh, you have no idea how old school I am. Way older school than your Star Trek reference would indicate that you are.” She grinned, then flicked her gaze over to Atticai, who was still staring at me.

“The freakishly tall scary fellow here is Atticai.” She nodded toward the driver. “You already know Wyatt. And in the passenger seat is Hector. Hector likes to smile a lot and doesn’t say much.”

I nodded and tried to smile at everyone. I guessed introductions were in order, considering I was being kidnapped. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Wyatt suddenly turned the van hard to the right and hit the brakes. “We’re here.”

Atticai leaped into motion, his long limbs unfurling in a blink like some weird alien life form awakened from a space travel stasis slumber. He threw open the bay door, and he and Lena jumped out. I slowly followed with my bandage around my wrist and no doubt, a damn big hickey on my neck, compliments of Wyatt.

The Flatlands was a giant gravel parking lot that was surrounded by trees. We were obviously in the heart of the San Bernardino Mountains. The sky was lit up by stars that you just couldn’t see in the city, due to light pollution. There were several trucks and cars parked throughout the gravel area. Beyond the cars were fires and voices that belonged to many dark-clad figures. It appeared to be a giant party, a rave of some sort, except that everyone was dressed in black.

A freak convention, I thought. Of epic goth proportions.

There were bonfires everywhere and the sounds of old-school Suicidal Tendencies blaring. A quick scan and guestimate told me that there were at least a hundred or so of these “emo” characters in the gathering. I shivered, deprived of blood and still pretty shocky.

I was led over to one of the bonfires. Atticai still had his arm around Lena. He was still giving off this protective vibe when it came to her. It was surreal, to say the least.

Anyway, as we walked up, there was no doubt who was the alpha male in this group. A swath opened for him in the pressing crowd of black-clad bizarros, and he walked down the middle of it like a freaking king at his coronation. Everyone seemed to turn and watch him. I stopped at the edge of the fire with Yari and watched as Atticai took off his trench coat and then his T-shirt. He was pretty ripped. He was damn pale, granted, but the dude had some serious game in the abs department. His stomach looked as if it was carved out of alabaster by Michelangelo himself. No wonder Lena liked this guy. Even though he was a colossal freak, he was a man among pale, skinny boys in this adoring crowd. As he turned his back to me, I saw that he had a pretty strange tattoo covering the upper half of his back. It was, in fact, writing. Big, black Old English font letters spelled out the acronym, “C.O.N.”

Okay, whatever.

One of the guys at the party walked up to Atticai and handed him a wooden jug that looked like something out of 1800s. Atticai grabbed the jug and immediately jumped on the hood of one of the trucks and took a long drink from whatever was in the container.

He shuddered briefly then turned and looked straight at me. “Hey, Josiah! Want a swig?”

“What is it?” I asked from the other side of the fire.

“A little of everything. Tastes like shit, but that’s not the point.”

I was about to ask what the point was, but I decided I didn’t want to know. It was probably laced with God-knows-what. Whatever it was, I know I didn’t want it in my body. Not with my big fight coming up.

“I’ll pass,” I said. “I’m in training.”

“Training?” Atticai laughed. “Training for what?”

“For a fight I’m having next month. I’m a professional fighter.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“No wonder you kicked so much ass tonight. I didn’t realize I was in the presence of Muhammad Ali.”

“I’m not a boxer. I’m a mixed martial arts fighter.”

“You mean that crazy Royce Gracie crap?”

“It’s evolved since him, but, yeah. That is exactly the sport I’m in.”

Everyone at the party was now looking at me. They seemed impressed that Atticai was taking a liking to me. As if we were old friends or something. I still wasn’t sure what I thought about all this.

I was just about to relax a tad when someone shoved me hard in the back, my bat-beaten back. Again with the pain of great magnitude. I took a couple steps toward the fire and turned around and immediately dropped into a fighter position. Standing there was a bleached-blonde idiot about my size, staring at me.

“You think you’re a badass?” the guy asked.

You have got to be kidding me. Was I seriously about to have another scuffle?

This dude looked ridiculous. This guy wore a Danzig shirt and had several piercings in his face. One punch to his face would tear him to shreds, not to mention ruin about five hundred dollars’ worth of jewelry.

“No,” I said. “I’m just hanging around like everyone else.”

The bleached-blonde guy got up in my face. “I don’t like you.”

“Back the hell off, Rubidoux!” Atticai shouted.

“Why? If this guy is so tough, then let’s have him prove it.”

“Rubidoux, you’re tanked. Trust me, you don’t want anything to do with this guy,” Atticai insisted.

But Rubidoux didn’t listen. He took a swing at me, and I instinctively ducked. When you fight, you always go by instinct. You also have to account for your surroundings, and especially friends who might have your back. Hopefully, have your back. I had Lena, a friend. But a mere girl. As far as these other hinky guys, who knew if they would be friend or foe in a fight?

In this case, I knew that I couldn’t strike this guy or I might have dozens of guys on me. Punching out friends always has a way of getting other friends riled up. But friends will let a fight play out if it goes to the ground. Of course, what happens after that is anyone’s guess. I had many fights under my belt, street and pro, to know that until someone is down and doesn’t come up again, and the friends walk away in closure, the fight isn’t over.

Time to meet the challenger. I knelt down and shot my shoulders straight into his legs. In one smooth motion, I picked him up and threw him hard to his shoulders, pinning him down on his back, while holding down both his arms.

A perfect take-down.

I was particularly careful not to touch his face. Had we been alone, he would already have been knocked out.

“I don’t know you!” I said to Rubidoux. “I have no problem with you! You need to calm down!”

“All right, man, get the fuck off me.”

“Are you going to be cool?” I insisted.

Then, without warning, Rubidoux turned his head and puked all over the rocks. I jumped back as the dumbass wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

As I stood back, Atticai did a whooping warrior-scream at the top of his lungs. When he was done acting like a crazy man, he pointed at me and shouted, “I knew this guy wouldn’t disappoint!”

Everyone yelled and cheered and many mimicked his ear-splitting rebel yell. I was apparently caught up in a Goth pep rally, in my honor.

“On second thought,” I said to Atticai. “Give me some of that.”

I walked around the fire and over to him. He grinned and handed me the wooden container. I sniffed the contents and almost lost my own lunch and dinner. It smelled like dead fish and dead everything else. But it was too late to turn back. Everyone was watching me. Holding my breath, I downed the disgusting contents as if it was water.

Yeah, it was the worst thing I had ever drunk.

I tried not to puke. But I was fired up. As I pulled away from the wooden jug, I yelled at the top of my lungs—the same Braveheart warrior yell that Atticai seemed to prefer—and everyone immediately cheered.

And as they bellowed and whooped and hollered, I could only think: What the hell have I gotten myself into?

Chapter Six

Everyone went back to partying.

The music got cranked up louder, and insanity seemed to fill the air. I went and sat on a giant log next to the bonfire. I looked over at Lena, who was still standing with Atticai. For once, he didn’t have his arms around her. She caught me looking at her, and gave me a look that suggested I had somehow been accepted.

Did I even want to be accepted by these people?

That putrid drink was pretty powerful. I had a buzz going almost instantly. Redheaded Yari walked over to me. Damn, she looked terrific. Her black lace dress looked pretty spectacular on her, too. That Rubidoux character had gotten my testosterone raging and now Yari’s outfit was sending my hormones through the roof.

“You had quite a night,” she said, sitting next to me. She sipped a bluish drink in a clear glass.

“Whatcha drinking?” I asked. My voice, I noticed was slightly slurred. It also sounded distant, too, as if I had spoken from about ten feet away. Weird, I know.

“Oh, it’s my own peculiar blend. I call it ‘Sex On the Beach and Everywhere Else, Too.”

“Is that a joke?”

“If you want it to be.”

I looked at her. God, she was a bright light in all this Goth doom and gloom. She smiled at me. I smiled back. I wanted to kiss her, until I reminded myself that earlier tonight I had watched her drink from some guy’s neck. I said. “You know, you guys are going to have to give me back. Kidnapping is illegal in this state. And all other states, for that matter.”

“I’ll take you back any time you want. Do you want to leave?”

I thought about that. The party was raging around me. Bodies dancing around the massive bonfires. There was a sense of excitement, of freedom, of hungry passion. The hungry part, admittedly, made me a little nervous, but other than that, this was a pretty cool party.

“I guess not,” I said, shrugging. “At least, not yet.”

She smiled knowingly, as if she already knew what my answer would be. She said, “We figured those guys would have thrown you under the bus once the cops came. You were probably looking at about ten counts of attempted murder. No joke.” She was probably right.

“Luckily, none of those assholes even knew my name.” I guessed I should be more grateful that the Addams Family here took a liking to me. “I guess I’ll stick around for a while, as long as no one tries to eat me.”

She laughed. “Cool. Let’s go for a walk.” Yari took my hand and led me off the Flatlands lot and into the woods.

I was quiet for a bit. I felt safe with her. I don’t think I had ever met a girl who could kick as much ass as me. “Who are you guys?” I finally asked. “Are you all part of a band or something?”

“Why do you say that?”

“It makes sense. I thought maybe your band’s name was Con?”

“Con?” Yari laughed.

“The letters that are written across Atticai’s back.”

“Those are initials. It’s an acronym for Children of the Night.”

“And what—or who—is that?”

“Us. Our clan. Our group.”

“All those people back there?”

“No, just mainly the ones who kidnapped you.” Yari smiled at me again.

“So, what are you guys, then? A club?”

“Something like that. We’re just some people who have one or two things in common.”

I guess biting into people’s flesh and thinking you were vampires were the things they had in common, but I decided to keep that to myself. Instead, I said, “Are any of those guys back there your boyfriend?”

Yari smiled at me. “Do you think if I had a boyfriend back there that I would be out here in the woods with you now?”

“Probably not.”

“Besides,” she added, “I don’t do the boyfriend thing. Too much drama.” I could feel her eyes on me. “What about you? Got yourself a girlfriend?”

“It’s been awhile since I had one.”

“And why is that?”

“I don’t have the time. And, like you, I’m not into all the games.”

“I guess we have something in common, then.” Yari handed me her drink.

“I guess we do.” I took a sip. “That tastes pretty decent. Granted, that’s not saying much, but I think anything would taste better than the crap Atticai gave me.”

She smiled. “Well, despite popular opinion, I’m still very much a girl, and I like girlie drinks.”

“Trust me, you are very much all girl—or all woman—from where I stand.”

“Are you flirting with me, Josiah?”

“Maybe,” I said.

We stopped walking, and I leaned up against a tree. Yari sat on a giant rock next to me. I looked down at Yari—and decided that we needed to get real. “So, what the hell is all of this, Yari? And please be honest with me.”

“What is what?”

“You know, the ‘Hellbanger’s Ball’ back there. How many more guys like Rubidoux are going to want a piece of me before the night is through?”

Yari stood up and walked over to me. She was pretty tall for a girl, just a couple inches shorter than me, which put her at about 5’8”. She looked directly into my eyes. Damn, she was gorgeous. “Well, I can’t tell you everything; at least, not yet.” She then reached out with her left hand and started to play with my bangs. “But you do have that blond, surfer-boy thing going on. I guess you stick out here.”

“You think?” I said, trying to sound casual and confident. I had to admit. She made me nervous in more ways than one. “I don’t exactly blend in. I might be the most tanned dude at this party.”

Now she began to stroke my longish hair. Her red-painted nails scratched my cheeks lightly as she did so. “You’re very cute, Josiah.”

“Thank you.” I said completely thrown off my game. “You’re pretty cute yourself.”

“Cute, huh? Like a kitten?”

“Cute like a lioness.”

Yari laughed, but remained in control. “A lioness, huh? I just might devour you, watch out.” Yari leaned her body up against me.

“Please, no more biting.”

“I promise.” Now Yari ran her hand up my thigh. “So, is it fair to say that you like me, Josiah?” She was pressing all of her weight up against me now.

I swallowed.

“Oh, my,” she continued. “I think you do like me, Josiah. I can feel you.”

Yari’s hip had now pinned mine up against the tree. I stood my ground and instinctively licked my lips.

“So, you think I’m going to kiss you, huh? And why would you think that?”

“I don’t know...maybe it’s because you’re pressed up against me so tightly that, by now, I’m pretty sure you even know if I’m circumcised or not.”

“Oh, you’re circumcised.” Yari winked at me. I felt myself blush, damn her.

She leaned in and gently pecked my lips. I gently pecked her back. That seemed to be the invitation she was needing. She moved in even closer and now used the tip of her tongue to lick my lips. I stood there like a trained tiger. I wanted to pounce, but I allowed her to play her game. She licked my top lip first and then my bottom lip. She reached her hand down and slid it up my thigh, stopping just short of touching my livelihood.

“I think I’m going to save some for later,” she said. She then eased off me. “We should probably go back.”

“Really?” I said, completely shocked.

“It’s probably a good idea.”

I adjusted myself and hid the disappointment in my voice. “Hey, it’s your party.”

She patted my cheek. “Trust me, when I tell you that it will be well worth it. But I do want a taste.” Yari leaned in again and kissed me passionately. It was the perfect kiss. She came in slow and intensely sensual. Then there was a slight build-up, with just enough passion that it ignited all my senses. Now my hormones took over. I pressed her up against the tree. I grabbed her thigh with my left hand and slid my fingers slowly up her dress. I was just about to touch her panty line when she grabbed my hand.

“Like I said, I want to save some for later.”

“I guess you’re the queen of this jungle.”

“That I am.”

“Wow...what a night.” I adjusted myself and did a little shake dance to get the blood to other parts of my body.

Yari looked over at me. “You’re cute, Josiah. Almost too cute.”

“You should see me fight. In the ring. Against one guy. Trust me, there’s nothing cute about that.”

“Someday, I will.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.”

Chapter Seven

Yari and I walked back to the party, which had devolved into something that looked straight out of Lord of the Flies. Shirts off and barefoot, people were dancing around fires in a ritualistic way that raised my eyebrows and sent a chill down my spine. Either that, or they were drunk out of their gourds. Also, there seemed to be a lot of birds flying overhead. I hadn’t noticed that before. The birds were large and black, and they appeared to be ravens. Maybe they were attracted to the fires? I didn’t know, and I honestly didn’t care—especially after that amazing kiss. Hell, it was all I could do just to keep my feet planted on the ground.

Still in a daze, we walked together to the same log, I had previously sat on. Atticai saw us and came over.

“Hey, Josiah,” he said, “Let’s have a little chat.”

Was Yari part of his harem? Did I just make a monumental blunder that would probably get me killed? Yari patted my hand reassuringly. I wasn’t scared of Atticai. Hell, I wasn’t scared of anyone. If that weird bastard attacked me, I knew I was in for the fight of my life, especially with all of his friends around.

I reluctantly parted from Yari and followed Atticai over to his van. He got into the driver’s side, and I got into the passenger’s side. He turned the key in the ignition just enough to power up. He turned the radio on. “What’s your music of choice?” he asked.

“I don’t care. Choose whatever you want.”

“I like classical. But the stations out here on the West Coast would rather go under financially with some God-awful hip-hop station than to give Mozart and Bach a chance.”

“I love classical.” And I did, too. I had a music appreciation class back in high school and had been introduced to all the greats in classical and jazz.

Atticai said, “You don’t strike me as the classical music type.”

“You’d be surprised what I like. Now about the real part of the chat you requested. Let’s get to it,” I said.

Atticai looked directly at me. I found his stare slightly unnerving. After a second or two, he said, “I see Yari’s made your list.”

Oh great, now he was going to give me the low-down. “Look, Atticai, I meant no disrespect. She wanted to walk, and quite frankly, I needed to clear my head. If you’re seeing her—”

“Relax my friend, it’s not like that. I’m just letting you know that you might not want to get too close to her.”

“Let me guess: for my own good?”

His lips peeled back into a dark grin. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Thanks, but I’m a big boy. I can handle myself.”

“Consider yourself warned.”

“Like I said, ‘thanks.’”

He nodded and put his seat back, and waved his hands in the air like a maestro. He rolled his head in my direction. “So what’s your story, Josiah?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my time. But I can only count on one hand how many times I’ve seen someone like you.”

“There can be only one,” I joked, wondering if he would get the cultural reference to Highlander. He didn’t.

He paused and I wondered just how old he was. He made it sound as if he was ancient. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me. He went on, “When we arrived to get Lena, there were five guys sprawled on the ground, all beat to a pulp by you.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t take much skill to beat up a few drunk, horny assholes.”

He was staring at me again. Someday I was going to wipe that weird stare off his face, but now was not the time. “Maybe,” he said. “But you also took care of Rubidoux, too. Do you know how tough Rubidoux is? He’s no pushover.”

“I can fight. I don’t know what else to say. That is the one thing I do know how to do and do well. It’s my greatest passion, my lifework, my pulse. I live to fight. I fight to live.”

“I like that. I like that a lot.” Atticai got real quiet. “Hey, check it out.” He finally found a classical music station. He cranked up the volume real loud. I didn’t recognize the piece, but it was classical, and that seemed to be all that was vital to Atticai. Presently, the long-limbed creature of the night seemed to be in a trance. He clenched his fists and raised them to his forehead. With his eyes closed, he tilted his head back and seemed to be experiencing each note individually. The music was doing something to him. It was ministering to his soul. For a brief moment, I envied him. I envied anyone that could be moved in this way over anything. The song ended, and Atticai opened his eyes. He looked at me. “That was pretty intense.”

“No kidding,” I said. “I guess you have a passion, too. I fight. You feel the music.”

He was staring at me again. Amazingly, I was getting used to it. “I like you, Josiah,” he said. He nodded, and then opened the driver’s side door. “Let’s head back so no one thinks anything homoerotic is going on.”

“I would hope not.”

“Oh, you have no idea around here, Josiah. You have no idea. Just remember what I told you about Yari.”

“Like I said, I’m a big boy; I can handle Yari.”

Atticai laughed. “Famous last words.”

We stepped out the van. I once again headed back to the clearing and planted myself on the same log next to the same bonfire. I looked around for Yari, but she was nowhere to be found. Lena, however, walked over to me and sat next to me on the log.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“With Atticai? I have no freaking idea. I think he was just trying to feel me out.”

“Atticai is like that. He doesn’t trust anyone. He likes you, though. I can tell. You have no idea how rare that is.”

“Well, one thing at a time. I’m still having a hard time digesting this entire night.”

“Why? Did Yari freak you out? Don’t let her do that.”

Lena almost seemed a tad jealous. I looked at her. She was beautiful, too. No, not everyone was beautiful here. There were some real creepy-looking guys and girls. Lena wasn’t one of them. So, how the hell did she get caught up in this world?

I asked, “So, is this what you do? Hang out with these people in the woods?”

“You mean since Eisenhower High?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

She shrugged. “More or less. This lifestyle isn’t the norm. I know that. There’s a lot about this you’ll never fully understand.”

“What does that mean?”

“Trust me when I tell you that it is best not to know.”

Atticai, who had been talking to some guys near the van, high-fived a couple of them, and then headed over to us. No matter what, the man was a striking figure, and he seemed to command everyone’s attention. He was clearly the King Goth in this party of Goths. Of course, that wasn’t saying much. Still, as he headed over to us, just about everyone in the clan watched him at some point. And as he approached, Lena got up immediately, and Atticai slipped a long arm over her shoulders.

“I should probably get you two back home,” Atticai said. “It’s going to be sunrise in about two hours.”

I shrugged. “Sounds reasonable to me. I was just going out for a jog and seven hours later... here I am.”

“You guys are going back?” a voice said, from behind me.

I turned around and saw Yari standing there. I had no idea where she came from and why she would be behind me.

“Apparently, we’re leaving right now,” I said.

She smiled warmly at me. “Then I guess I’m going with you since neither Atticai nor Lena can drive.”

“Neither of you drives?” I blurted out, nearly laughing.

“Hey, I never got a license,” Atticai responded, shrugging.

Now, I did laugh. “Okay, now I’ve heard everything.”

If Atticai minded that I was laughing at him, he didn’t show it. A moment later, we all piled into the van, with Yari getting in the driver’s seat and me next to her in the front passenger’s seat. Lena and Atticai disappeared behind the back seats, in the space I had found myself in when I came to after passing out, post-blood sucking. I took only a quick glance at them, but they appeared to have disappeared under a blanket. What they were doing under the blanket, I didn’t want to know, but I could probably guess.

Yari reached out and touched my hand. “Put the seat back and get some sleep.”

I did as I was told, since I was utterly exhausted. And as I settled into the cushions, Yari drove the van out of the flatland rocks and made for the highway. As we drove, I found myself staring at her. She was acutely focused on the road. No surprise there, since there was a light fog over the winding, mountainous highway. She was an extremely fascinating woman. She was amazingly complex. I closed my eyes. I listened to the sound of the motor. The thrum of the pistons under the hood, in the absence of talking or music, was hypnotic and soothing.

“Wake up, Sleepyhead. We’re here.” I had clearly fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes, we were in front of my house. I said goodbye to everyone and stumbled out of the van.

Atticai called out, “Hey, Josiah?”

“Yeah,” I answered sleepily.

“When’s your next fight?”

“Next month.”

“Cool, I’ll check it out.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about that. A part of me was hoping that this was going to be the last I’d see any of these guys. That is everyone, but Yari. And maybe Lena.

I nodded at Atticai and turned around and trudged off toward my front door. The van drove away, and I could feel many sets of eyes on me. As I opened the door, something occurred to my sluggish, sleep-deprived brain.

How did they know where I lived? Okay, that’s freaky. Then again, so was the entire night.

I shrugged. Maybe Lena knew someone from high school, who themselves knew where I lived. Or not. I was too tired to care, truth be known.

When I unlocked the door, I found Tommy doing sit ups in the living room. Tommy had an incredibly strict workout routine and this morning was no different.

Tommy stopped in mid-crunch and looked up at me. “That was some run.”

“You have no idea.” I went to the fridge and grabbed the milk carton.

“You okay?” Tommy seemed concerned.

“I’m okay. Why?”

“You’ve got a bandage on your wrist and a hickey on your neck the size of a basketball.”

I had forgotten about my injuries. Tommy got up from the floor and walked over to the kitchen table and sat down.

“What can I say? It was a night to remember.”

“Jo, you need to take it easy on the partying. Don’t forget, we find out who we’re fighting today.”

“This coming from the guy who partied away all his money,” I said.

“That was before, Jo. You know I have been working hard on getting myself back on the right track.”

“I know. I just need to get to bed right now. I’m utterly wiped.”

“So, you’re going to skip your morning workout?”

“As far as I’m concerned, it is still last night. Besides, I had quite the mixed martial art workout last night.”

“Ah, hell. Don’t tell me you got into another fight.”

I was quiet.

Tommy added, “You know we can get sued if anyone finds out who we are. We’re pro fighters and we can’t just go around fighting ‘regular Joes.’ You’re not fifteen anymore, bro, and you can’t just go around bashing people’s heads in.”

“I know. Trust me, I wasn’t intending to fight.”

“But let me guess: You just couldn’t help yourself, right?”

“Tommy, look, when I wake up, you can rip me ten new assholes, but right now I need to get some sleep.”

“All right, bro. Go to bed.”

I laughed, which took my last bit of energy. “Thanks and good night.”

As I stumbled down the hallway on my way to my bedroom, Tommy called out after me: “It’s morning, jerk off, and you never even asked me about my date!”

“You can tell me all about it when I wake up.”

Once in my bedroom, I plugged my headphones into my stereo and laid on my bed. I had a Queen CD in the deck. Freddy Mercury seemed particularly fitting, considering the night I had.

I closed my eyes, and I was out.

Chapter Eight

I didn’t sleep as soundly as I wanted to.

I tossed and turned throughout my slumber. Mostly, I kept dreaming about the surreal night I had. I dreamed about Atticai, Yari, and Lena. I dreamed of kicking college punks’ asses. I dreamed of dark clearings and birds and long kisses. Some of the dreams were extremely erotic. And other dreams were not so much. Additionally, my body was painfully sore from the bat. It was, in short, one of the worst sleeps I’ve ever had. I eventually couldn’t take it anymore and just got up. I looked at my cell phone. It was 2:00 p.m.

I got up, and my back was still killing me. Not that I expected the pain to go away magically, but, damn, it seemed even worse. I walked over to the bathroom and took the longest shower of my life. Even the spray of water hurt my back. Without looking at it in the mirror, I knew how big the bruise was and what color it was today. While the hot water blasted me, I took the bandage from my wrist and washed the wound, too. As I washed it, I took a close look at it. It was truly one of the most bizarre injuries I’d ever had. There were two perfect teeth marks on my wrist. Wyatt feasted on my arm something fierce. What the hell would possess a guy to do that?

I got out of the shower and was drying off when I heard a kee-eeeee-arr squawk at the window. It was Daphne, my little red hawk friend. She was peeking through the window.

“Hey, girl. You like what you see?” I did a little dance for her.

Daphne gave a shrill chwirk. I laughed. Apparently she liked my jig.

I went into my bedroom and looked at my cell phone. I had a missed a call. I didn’t recognize the number. It was local, so I called it back.

“Hello,” A girl’s voice said. A cute girl’s, too, if I was any judge of voices.

“I got a call from this number—”

“Josiah? It’s Lena.”

“Oh, hello. What’s going on?”

“I got your number from Johnny Wade.” Johnny Wade was an old partying buddy of mine that apparently Lena knew, as well. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon and all that. Johnny Wade knew everyone who knew someone that he knew. He was the real-life Kevin Bacon connection in our city.

“No problem, Lena. What’s going on?”

“I need to talk to somebody and...I don’t know... after last night, I thought I could talk to you.”

“I was about to head down to the gym, but I guess I can talk.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, no problem. I had a pretty vigorous workout last night.”

“The fight or the time you spent with Yari in the woods?”

“Ha ha, very funny.”

“Can we talk in person?”

“Sure, do you want me to pick you up?”

“That would be great. I’ll text you my address.”

“Cool, I’ll be there in a half hour.”

I got off the phone and sat on my bed in my towel. I looked at myself in the mirror. Tommy was right I had a hickey the size of New Jersey on my neck. It was the most impressive hickey ever. World class. Too bad it was from a guy. If anyone of my friends, outside of Vampireville, ever found out, I would never hear the end of it.

I got dressed and headed over to pick up Lena, not bothering to cover up my world-class neck badge of courage. I drove to the ghetto part of San Bernardino. And I do mean ghetto. Her address led me to a rundown trailer park where a horror movie could have been made, if someone wrote a script about a haunted trailer park. It was broken-glass, trash-strewn borderline epic. Just like everything connected with Lena was epic.

I pulled the truck into the community, and Lena was right at the front, waiting for me. She was wearing a black tank top with short black skirt. She playfully stuck out her thumb, pretending to be hitchhiking. I grinned and stopped my truck. She jumped into the passenger side.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, there. Nice neighborhood,” I quipped.

“Don’t harsh my hood,” she bantered back. “We’re getting a mini-golf course as soon as the meth factory pays off big on the next batch.”

“Mad props, then,” I said sarcastically. I flipped a sassy U-turn and pulled onto the main highway. I glanced over at Lena. Her eyes stared straight ahead.

“So, what’s up, pretty girl?” I asked.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“I’m actually starving.” And she smiled for a flash at the “pretty girl” compliment, as it registered with her.

She offered, “We can go to this mom-and-pop burger joint on the corner. We can talk inside.”

“You sure? We’re not going to get shot or anything?”

“It’s not that terrible out here. People out here are meth-heads, not gangbangers.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when a meth-head slits my throat for the twenty dollars in my wallet.”

“Trust me, it’ll be okay. I’ll protect you.”

“You’ll protect me?” I laughed.

“What’s so funny about that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re a hundred pounds, dripping wet.”

“I can kick some serious butt if I have to.”

I glanced at Lena’s petite body. “I bet.”

“Pull over in there.” Lena pointed to a little diner on the corner. It had a sign out front that read “Burgers and Tacos.”

“Classy,” I said, pulling my truck into the driveway.

“Don’t be so mean. It’s affordable. It’s good. It’s a clean place. Nobody will bother us here.”

“So, what style of food do they serve here?” I asked. “I just hate when the name of a place gives you little idea what to expect. I mean, what if I want the prime rib but they are out of it and they try and bait-and-switch me to the petite filet mignon and offer A-1 Sauce with it? That would be a meat tragedy.”

Her mouth twitched in amusement. “I think they serve a little of everything. You might want to stay away from their roast lamb and mint jelly, though. It might really be mutton, you just never know.”

I laughed at our light banter and glanced at Lena. Our eyes met, and I didn’t say anything.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Or, well, I just think you should smile more often.”

“If you were as funny as you think you are, then maybe I would.”

“That so, huh? I didn’t realize Goth girls liked to laugh.”

“Goth girl? Is that how you see me? You think I’m some kind of ‘emo’ weirdo who cuts herself, starves herself and longs for death?”

“In a ‘Suicide Girls’ sort of way, you do wear a lot of black and your friends are pretty out there.”

“Black is an amazing color. Everyone could use a little more black in their wardrobe,” Lena said, looking at my colorful Ed Hardy T-shirt. “You might also want to let your legs breathe, ‘cause those jeans are snug.”

“The chicks dig the snug. All the way up the legs and to where they meet.”

“I’m pretty sure Yari digs your snug, too,” she said, with more than a little bite.

“Wow, where did that come from, Lena? I think you might be jealous.”

“Okay, now you’re getting funny.” Lena did a whopping fake ha-ha-ha laugh.

“I’m not so sure...” I said, letting my voice trail off.

“Why? Do you want me to be jealous?”

I once again stared at Lena. Her eyes were asking me ‘Well?’ I thought about it for a second and decided to leave the topic alone. After all, the last time I had seen her, she had been pretty cozy with Atticai. Instead, I asked, “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

We walked inside and gave our order to the old man who ran the joint. He gave us a number, and we sat down at a deep and comfy booth next to a window that overlooked the street. We were both quiet. Lena stared morosely out the window.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked, genuinely concerned.

After a moment, she turned and looked at me. “You know, one thing was lost in the scuffle last night.”

“It was less of a scuffle and more of a battlefield. But what was that lost item?” I asked.

“That those boys at the party tried to take advantage of me.”

“It didn’t get lost on me. I have an aching back to prove it.”

“I know. I’m sorry. How’s your back?”

“It hurts like hell, but I’m all right. Nothing a bat to the chest wouldn’t set right,” I joked.

She nodded and reached out and patted my forearm. She retracted her hand quickly.

“Thank you, again, but I just feel so stupid.”

“Don’t feel stupid. That’s the last thing you should feel. Those guys were Grade A douchebags. They got what they deserved.”

“Did they?” Lena seemed upset.

“I’d say so. They got an ass kicking by me and then your friends beat the crap out of them, too, not to mention taking bites out of them in the process.”

“I’m just pissed that I let it happen.”

“Well, don’t be. We all make mistakes. Look at me, I made the biggest mistake of all. I decided to go jogging last night.”

“Very funny.”

“Hey, I almost stayed home. To slept the sleep of the just. I almost ended up sleeping the sleep of angels. A dirt nap, shall we say?”

Lena stared straight ahead. She had tears in her eyes. I finally got up and sat next to her.

“Sometimes, I need to feel normal,” she said. “Sometimes, I just want to be like everyone else.”

She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and so I got up again and got her a napkin. I handed it to her. She took it without comment and wiped her eyes.

“Look at me, I’m crying like a typical chick.”

“I have news for you, sweetie: you are a chick. And you’re human. You had an extremely traumatic thing happen to you last night. Don’t be so hard on yourself for feeling some aftermath.”

“Josiah, there is so much you don’t know.”

“Like what? Tell me.”

“Stuff.” Lena looked out the window again, this time up into the bright afternoon sky. I had at first thought she was gazing absently into the sky, until I saw her eyes tracking something. I turned and looked, too. There was nothing up there but some birds. Crows, I think.

“What are you looking at?” I asked, not sure why I suddenly cared if she was staring at the sky.

“Nothing.” She turned away and faced me again.

I could tell something was weighing heavy on her mind. So I decided to press, “Are you talking about Atticai and his buddies? Have they done some pretty bad things?”

Lena’s eyes focused on the napkin in her hand as she crumpled and uncrumpled it. I could tell she wanted to tell me something—but was afraid to. “Lena, you can tell me anything.”

“That’s the problem Josiah. I can’t. For your own good. I can’t.”

“For my own good? What will happen to me?”

“Josiah, let’s just change the subject.”

“Or what? Your wannabe vampire friends will try to eat me again?”

Lena took a pen out from her purse. She began writing on her wrinkled paper napkin. When she was done, she handed it to me.

It read: They are not wannabes, Josiah. They are real.

“Real what? Vampires?” I said out loud. “Just because someone decides to dress up like it’s Halloween every day doesn’t make them something that doesn’t exist.”

“Please stop talking about it, Josiah. You have no idea what you are doing or saying.”

“Are you kidding me? Vampires do not exist. For one thing, they were not sparkly in the least.”

“Josiah, please. Don’t even joke about that. There’s so much you don’t know. Please trust me. Don’t talk about it out loud. At all.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t!”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what Mani want. They want you to know.”

I was confused. “Who the hell are Mani?”

Lena had the kind of look on her face that suggested she had just accidentally revealed the secret location of the Holy Grail, and that despite what Dan Brown says, it’s most certainly not under the Louvre in Paris. Her combination of horror and surprise was almost comical.

“You’re afraid of these Mani people. You better tell me what you are up against, so I can protect you. Help you.”

“Josiah, please. I promise you that someday I will tell you, but right now it’s not safe to talk about it.”

“Talk about what? I’m still lost.”

But Lena was as serious as a heart attack. I couldn’t believe that she thought her friends were really vampires. She was either delusional or on something. She shook her head, and like a little kid, mimed zipping a zipper across her lips, locking it at the corner with a twist and throwing away an invisible key. At that moment, she had never looked so vulnerable. So pathetic. So afraid.

“Okay. I’ll drop it.” For now, I told myself.

“Thank you.”

Chapter Nine

I sat there quietly for a moment. Unfortunately, my brain had a hard time dropping it. It kept replaying the word vampire.

Finally, I said, “Well, tell me this. How did you meet Atticai?”

Lena sighed, leaned back, and crossed her arms just under her chest. “I was at a party in Riverside about two years ago. A typical college party: stupid stunts, drunk assholes, beer bongs, and I was pretty bored, to say the least. I was sitting alone outside, having a smoke, when Atticai approached me. He seemed more out of place at the party than I did. He sat next to me, and we talked for hours. We ended up being the last two at the party. He took me home, and the rest is history.”

“It’s the rest that you can’t tell me about?”

“Not at this moment. But I can tell you that Atticai is the one who started calling me Lena.”

“Your name isn’t Lena?”

“You don’t remember? My name was—is—Donna.”

“Sorry. I remembered your face, but I never knew your name at Eisenhower.”

“Wow, no wonder why I hated jocks so much in high school. You didn’t even know my name.”

“Hey, we never talked. We didn’t have a single conversation.”

“Trust me, that was all you,” Lena said.

“Why is that?”

“I had a little crush on you.”

“You did?” I was extremely surprised to hear that. I wouldn’t have thought a girl like Lena would have given a second glance toward a guy like me.

“Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have your picture hanging in my locker or anything, but I thought you were pretty cute.”

“I wish I would have known.”

“What are you talking about? You didn’t even know my name. You’re were too busy dating cheerleaders and drill team girls.”

“I never dated those types of girls. It might surprise you, but I have always been interested in girls like you.”

“What type of girl do you think a girl like me is?”

I paused. “A thoughtful loner, who thinks independently and doesn’t care what ‘pop culture’ tells her to be like.”

Lena smiled. “I guess that is me. And you liked that?”

“Yeah, because believe it or not, that is how I am. You know, but as a guy.”

“I figured that what you meant. I didn’t think you were having a gender identity crisis.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Lena. I knew your face in high school. You were someone who I thought was hot, but thought I had zero chance with. I figured girls like you hated guys like me.”

She laughed. “Trust me—we did. No one knew I was secretly crushing on you.”

“How funny,” I smiled at Lena.

“Oh, don’t start getting all cocky on me.”

“I’m not getting cocky. Life is funny; that’s all. We never spoke in high school, but yet, after one night, you trusted me enough to let me help you.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“What I mean is, at the time, you were all I had. If you turned out to be a creep, too, like those frat boys, I was shit out of luck. You not only turned out to be a fantastic guy, you kick more ass than any man I had ever seen.”

“Your boyfriend isn’t too bad in his own right.”

“Yeah, but he has an advantage.”

“What advantage is that? That he is so tall?” I laughed.

Lena looked at me as if she would open up to me about something, but then held back. Lena paused and took me in. Her eyes penetrated through me. “I want to trust you, Josiah,” she said. “I hope I can.”

“You can, Donna,” I said, winking at her.

“Please don’t call me Donna. I hate that name immensely.”

“So, why did Atticai rename you Lena?”

“The reason is a little bit on the weird side,” Lena laughed.

“Trust me, nothing you tell me about Atticai would make me think he’s any weirder than I already do.”

“No, this is pretty weird—even for Atticai. Okay, fine. Donna was his mother’s name.”

I paused. Atticai’s fear of an Oedipus complex factoring into their relationship swirled in my brain like curdled milk in hot coffee. “You’re right. That is pretty freaking weird. But I kind of get where he was going with the name change request.”

“I know. Right?”

“Your order is up!” The old man from behind the counter yelled out. I got up and grabbed the tray and filled up my Diet Coke. I brought the tray over and set it on the table. Lena tore open her burger wrapper and took a giant bite.

“I’m so hungry,” she said, wiping her mouth.

“Apparently so.” I watched as he devoured her hamburger.

Lena looked up from her burger. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure,” I said. I started to eat my fries first, as I always do. I think I secretly have a salt addiction.

“How much do you get paid to fight?”

“I’m fairly new in the sport. So, I get paid the minimum.”

“Which is?”

“About five thousand a fight.”

“Wow! That’s not bad.”

“It’s not for other fighters. When you only fight every three months, it ends up being a pretty remedial job.”

“Then why choose that profession?”

“I’m hoping I’ll get better and to win over a larger fan base. The idea is to get proficient enough to get on pay-per-view. That’s where the real money is.”

“Well, you’re as tremendous a fighter as I’ve ever seen. I’m sure you’ll get the big pay-per-view fights in no time.” Lena took a couple more bites of her hamburger. I decided to start on my own hamburger. It tasted delicious. This old man behind the counter could make a pretty tasty burger.

When we were done, I took Lena home. I knew she had more on her mind, and somewhere along the way in the conversation, she held back for whatever reason. I dropped her off and was just about to pull out of the driveway when I got a text from Tommy. It was a short text: ‘Get home. Now.’

Chapter Ten

I pulled up to my house and Tommy was outside sitting on the porch steps. I got out of my truck and headed over to him.

“So, what’s up?” I stood there looking at Tommy. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Tommy, what’s going on?”

He hesitated. “You know, we got our match-ups today. Aren’t you the least bit curious about who you’re fighting?”

“You know me, Tom. I genuinely don’t care. I fight my fight like an adrenaline maniac, no matter who it is. Look, if you’re pissed off that I took a day off from training...”

“Josiah, you have a tough opponent this time and you better start taking your training very seriously. Don’t be such a dumbass about your career.”

I shrugged. “Who did they give me? Don’t tell me that they gave me Marquez already.”

“No, your opponent is a little tougher than Marquez.”

“Who am I fighting?”

Tommy stood up and walked onto the lawn. He got into the MMA striking stance. And he said, “Me!”

“You?! You’re kidding, right?”

“I wouldn’t have asked you to come straight home if it wasn’t true.”

“Can they do that? I mean, everyone knows we’re practically brothers.”

Tommy laughed. “Josiah, they can do whatever they want. They are the Commission, man. They can make us fight a leopard in the ring if they want to.”

“I don’t understand. They told you this was only going to be a tune-up fight. They know I’ve knocked out everyone in the first two minutes of each of my fights. I’m anything but a tune-up.”

“It’s not your performance in the ring, Josiah. It’s who you are out of the ring. ”

“What does that mean?”

Tommy was getting himself worked up. “It means you don’t take being a fighter seriously, man. It means you get fat every time you’re done training. Don’t you think the trainers see that extra twenty pounds you’re carrying right now? They see you arrive late to do your training, and you’re always the first to leave. You’re looked at as being soft. Lazy!”

“That’s bullshit, and you know—”

“Josiah, they apologized to me that they couldn’t give me a better fighter.”

My ego wounded, my mouth dropped open. “You’re serious?”

He nodded. I knew this wasn’t easy for him.

“They apologized for not getting you a better fighter? And they were talking about me?”

He nodded again. “Look, Josiah, I know you’re tough, and I know what you can do. So, I’m telling you right now that you better train seriously. If I easily kick your ass, the Commission will think you threw the fight, and that would be worse than if I lost to you.”

“I can’t believe you assume that you’re just going to kick my ass. Do you have any idea what I’m capable of?”

“It doesn’t matter how tough you are, Josiah. You and I both know that. When two fighters are as skillful as we are we are, the winner is always the person who trains the hardest and who is the smartest. You and I both know I have you on both points.”

“Says you,” I replied.

“When you measure who has the edge, between you and me, it’s me, Josiah. Me.”

This was the first time in my life I ever wanted to punch Tommy in the face. How could he say these things to me? He was in my corner in each of my knockouts. He saw how easily I manhandled all of my opponents. The nerve of him, thinking he could just roll me over!

“Look,” I said, raising my voice, feeling that familiar surge of adrenaline. It was all I could do to control myself. “Do what you have to do, and say what you have to say to try to get in my head, to beat up my ego, to get your edge squared away out of the ring. Before you get in it, with me. Because there will be no mercy in that ring. None.”

Tommy stiffened, but didn’t reply.

I blasted on. “Tommy, I’m telling you right here and now that this is the worst thing that could have happened to you. You’d better train Rocky Balboa-style. I will not be easy on you. In fact, I will be the exact opposite. I’m going to kick the living shit out of you.”

Tommy had a cocky smirk on his face. “Good, that’s what I want to hear. Our fight is in 24 days. I think it would be best if I stayed over at my grandma’s house until the fight. You know how I get. All machismo. It will be just too weird running into you each day. We’ll end up beating each other’s cocky asses over the last protein bar in the house before we ever set foot in the ring.”

“Do what you have to do,” I repeated. “And don’t eat too much of your grandma’s cooking, or we’ll see who’s too fat on fight day!”

“Hey, you smell like burgers and fries,” Tommy said. “Cut that shit out.”

I brushed past him into the house. I went straight to my room, where I stripped off my shirt and jeans. They did smell of burgers and fries. Now, just in my boxers, I dropped to the floor and cranked out 4 sets of 50 pushups. If Tommy wanted me at the top of my game, then that’s where he was going to find me.

Chapter Eleven

I spent the next two weeks training three times a day.

My days started with a five-mile run and then a four-hour gym session. Each evening I did a six-mile run, just because I could pull it off. One thing I knew I could count on was that my legs were going to feel heavy, and little Daphne was always there to greet me before each run with a loud hawk squawk.

Each night before bed, I would visually play out my game plan against Tommy. My strategy was simple: I was going to strike. I was going to throw a storm of punches and kicks until I knocked him out. My arms and legs would be a blur. Tommy’s strategy would be to get me to the ground. Tommy loved to do submission moves, but there was no way I’d ever give him that chance. Never get under Tommy. I knew this from watching him fight. And he had watched me fight, too, and knew my own secrets for wining.

At the gym, I practiced my ground game with Mike Flores. Mike Flores was an ex-MMA fighter who had to quit cause he blew out his ACL in his knee. Mike had been in my corner in each of my fights, along with Tommy. Mike thought it was naive of me to think that I was just going to knock out Tommy in the first two minutes. We both figured that I needed to go over some ground defense.

So, I did. I worked out intensively with Mike Flores. And as the first week came and went, I had forgotten all about Lena and her crazy friends.

On a Saturday night, with seven days to go before the big match, I decided to take the night off. I was craving a slab of ribs from Hotlanta, a barbecue joint that served up some incredible quality old-fashioned soul food. It was in Riverside, which was about a half hour away, give or take traffic conditions. I could use a pleasant drive. I showered up and put on my only black T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. I was in the bathroom combing my hair when I heard a knock on the front door.

I finished the last bit of styling of my beautiful locks and went to answer it. I opened the door and found Yari standing there. She looked incredible. She wore a long white dress that looked like something out of a romance novel. Her hair was fixed up, and her bright red lipstick made the color in her hair stand out.

“Hey there,” I said, surprised as hell.

“Hey, yourself,” she said, in a sultry voice.

I peeked out the door and saw that she seemed to be alone. There wasn’t even a vehicle in sight. “Do you want to come in?”

“Sure.”

“What were you looking for outside?” she asked.

“I don’t know...I thought maybe you had your friends with you.”

“Nope. Just little ol’ me. Sorry if you’re disappointed.”

I grinned. “I’m anything but disappointed,” I said. “I was just surprised to see you, that’s all.” I sat on my couch. Yari walked over and sat next to me, with about a foot separating us.

“I hope it was a pleasant surprise,” she said.

“It was a very nice surprise. You look ‘off the hook’ tonight.”

“Thanks. ‘Off the hook?’ I have never been told that before,” she giggled, almost girlishly. Which was odd coming from her. She normally behaved with an air of confidence that only the most beautiful women seem to have. You know, the kind of women who receive a steady stream of compliments by every man that enters their vicinity. “You’re looking nifty, too. Were you going somewhere?”

“I was just going to get a bite to eat.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “By yourself?”

“Yeah, I do most things by myself these days.”

“That’s too bad.”

“So, where are you headed? You look as if you’re dressed to go to a party.”

“That’s why I’m here. I’m heading over to a party in Victorville. I was thinking you might want to come.”

“You drove all the way out here to see if I wanted to come to a party?”

“Well, I didn’t have your number, did I?”

“How did you get here? There are no cars outside.”

“Some friends dropped me off.”

“And what if I wasn’t home?”

“Then I was going to call my friends to come back and get me. Your light was on so I told them to take off. What’s up with the third degree?”

“There is no third degree. I’m just flattered, I guess.”

“You should be. If you haven’t noticed, I look smoking hot right now. I don’t know how often a hot woman comes to your door and asks you to escort her to a party.”

“That happens like...never,” I said.

“Then do you want to scratch your pathetic dinner plans and come with me?”

I grinned. “Sure, let me grab a jacket.”

I went to the closet and did just that. When I returned, Yari was staring at me with a big smile.

“What?” I asked.

“You look good, Josiah. Real good. I just might want a taste before we go.” Yari leaned into me and kissed my lips. I kissed her back. I had a lot of pent-up energy considering that I subscribe to the no-jacking-off rule before a fight. Or a date, for that matter.

Her lips felt soft and tender. She was such an incredible kisser. I pressed her up against my wall in my hallway and turned her body around. Her dress felt unbelievable. It was silky and soft. I placed my hands around her body and onto her thighs. Her perfectly-shaped buttocks pressed against my groin. I kissed her neck and slid my hands up the front of her body until both my hands were cupping her breasts. She turned her head and kissed me. Her tongue was soft and wet. Her pheromones were flying off the chart, up my nose. She smelled incredible, and even her saliva smelled refreshing.

“In my entire life,” I said, “no one has ever turned me on the way you do.”

Yari stopped and looked at me with a tenderness I had not seen from her before. “That’s good,” she said. “We should get going.”

Then she walked to my door and outside my house. I was left there, turned on, but at least I did have a place to go with that pent-up power.

Chapter Twelve

I drove us to Victorville in about a half an hour. Victorville is one of those little desert cities along Highway 15 that people pass on their way to Las Vegas. The city is in the high desert. It still has an old-fashioned feel to it. It was a place where a young Clint Eastwood might squint and settle a score, in exactly that order. Him and me both.

Anyway, the party was another thirty minutes off the highway, and when we finally arrived at the house, I pulled into a long, narrow driveway. I noticed there weren’t many cars out front. I also noticed a lot of black birds flying around outside. They appeared to be the same birds that had been hovering around Flatlands. I looked up through the windshield at the house in front of us. It was, as Tommy would say, ginormous. It had a stately feel to it and seemed better suited for a governor or senator, ,not a place you would expect to be in the heart of Victorville.

“Am I going to know anyone at this party?” I asked Yari.

“Atticai and Lena should be here, along with Wyatt and the others.” Yari looked down at my wrist. “Your wrist seems to be healing.”

“Yeah, the teeth marks look more like I got branded than bitten.”

“You know that Wyatt feels bad about that.”

“I bet he does. I still have no clue why a grown man would want to bite me.”

“You can ask him, yourself.” Yari motioned to my rear view mirror. Sure enough, the infamous black van pulled up behind my truck.

I opened my door and got out.

Atticai stepped out of the van’s side door with his held high as if he was royalty. He turned and saw me, but gave no indication of recognizing me. His face looked paler than before. Lena came out after him. She saw me and ran over to me.

“Hey, you!” she said to me.

“Hey yourself,” I replied.

“What? Are you too good for me?” she asked, putting both hands on her curvy hips.

“Why you say that?”

“Ever hear of returning a call?”

I looked at Atticai. I wanted to see if he would be annoyed that his girlfriend was calling me on the telephone. Again, he had zero expression on his face. He just continued walking up to the house.

“Oh, sorry. I’ve been training hard for my next fight and turned my phone off. You know, to cut down on the distractions.” I winced at the moment that last sentence left my mouth. Yari whistled next to me.

“Well, it’s good to know that I’m only a distraction.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I’m just busting your balls. I know you’re busy. I was just wondering what happened to you. I guess I now know why. You look as if you’ve lost some weight. Damn, boy, you look skinny!” Lena leaned in to pinch my stomach, but Yari promptly blocked her hand with her own hand.

“You don’t have to touch,” Yari snapped at Lena.

“Wow, Yari. Down, girl. I was just playing around.”

“Nobody has time for your games,” Yari responded.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had already marked him.”

“I haven’t marked anybody. Why don’t you go find Atticai and you can play your games with him?”

“Fine, I’m going to go inside.” Lena looked at me sadly and walked off.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said to Yari. “She was just fooling around.”

“Look, you two can play grab ass all you want. I’m going inside, too.” Yari stormed off, and I was left alone with the guy who had enjoyed my wrist as a snack, just a couple of weeks earlier.

“Chicks, dude.” Wyatt laughed. “I have no clue what any of that was about.”

“You’re telling me,” I said.

We shook our heads some more in one of the strangest moments of male bonding I’ve ever had, and then he showed me into the house. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I know I wasn’t expecting this. Except for a few dozen flickering votive candles, the whole house was entirely dark. I stopped in the foyer, but Wyatt urged me along. Deeper in the house I saw that there were candles placed just about everywhere, in every room and on every table. The candles provided just enough light so that I didn’t run into furniture, but not enough to make me feel anywhere near to the concept of comfortable.

What the hell was going on?

As I walked through the small party, I noticed a lot of couples making out. I had been to a lot of parties in my life but never one like this. It reminded me of a junior high make-out party. Well, everything but the insane candles. If I saw one Ouija board, I would be outta here.

Anyway, I made my way to the kitchen since I was starving. There was no food anywhere. Just tons of alcohol. I needed to eat something ASAP.

I opened the refrigerator, and I hit the jackpot. Chicken wings. A whole plate of them. I looked around to make sure I wasn’t snagging someone else’s food. Well, I was, but they didn’t have to know about it. I grabbed eight wings and sat at the table, near a stack of napkins and cups. I put the sticky wings on a napkin and poured myself some of what appeared to be straight tequila.

I took my time with the wings, enjoying each bite. When I polished off the last knobby bite, I quickly downed the two or three shots of tequila I had poured. I blew out of my mouth, the second the alcohol went down my throat. I learned that trick a couple years back. Somehow, blowing out of your mouth and not inhaling through your nose helps with the harsh aftertaste.

Almost immediately, the tequila seemed to be doing its job. I had a decent size buzz going. I felt a little more relaxed, considering I was in a house of full of self-proclaimed spooks. I decided to look for Yari, and see if she would be in a better mood. First, I looked around downstairs and ignored the folks sucking each other’s faces, but she wasn’t in the house.

I peeked in the backyard but no luck. No Yari. I went back inside and still felt buzzed, then headed upstairs. The second floor was almost entirely dark, and all of the doors were shut. All of them, except one. I had just decided to check it out when a drunk, pale-skinned, bald guy walked out of the open door and straight over to me. Amazingly, he leaned over me and sniffed me.

Yeah, sniffed me.

As he did so, he made noises that sounded disturbingly like lip-smacking. The same noises I had made just five minutes earlier when I had come across the chicken wings in the fridge. He continued on, stumbling his way downstairs. I half expected to hear him pitch forward and tumble all the way down. Somehow, amazingly, he made it without busting his ass.

Just then, Yari walked out of the same room the drunk guy had been in. “You don’t want to be up here, Josiah. Let’s go downstairs.”

“No problem. I was looking for—”

But she grabbed my forearm and steered me back down the stairs. As she did so, I couldn’t help but notice the woman’s grip. Sweet Jesus, she was strong. Once back down the stairs, I heard a squawk and saw two gigantic black birds flying in the house. I nearly dove for cover, but someone calmly opened the rear sliding glass door and the birds flew out of the house. Not a single person called attention to them or seemed to care that two big birds had been in the house. I looked around to get a reaction from somebody. Nothing.

What the hell was going on here?

Yari led me to one of the downstairs bedrooms. “Let’s go in here,” she said. She then opened the door. The room was lit by a couple of candles in the window still, and there was a mattress with a comforter on the floor. She reclined on the mattress, as I stood there looking at her, dumbstruck. I was still trying to wrap my brain around everything I had just seen, from the candles, to the secret upstairs bedroom, to the damn birds. And now, Yari was leading me to a bed. It seemed like we had skipped a few steps on the way to bed.

One weird thing at a time, I thought.

Yari’s eyes were bright and expressive, as if she was amped up on something. So, I started with the obvious question, even though I suspected I already knew the answer. “So, what was going on up there? Drugs?”

“No one was doing drugs, Josiah, but trust me when I tell you that ‘people’ were having a good time.” She stared at me long and hard, and I wondered if she was one of those having a good time.

A good time doing what?

I asked her, “Is this like, one of those sex parties or something? Or maybe is it one of those candle parties, the kind with the MLM recruitment to be a hostess and sell them yourself?”

She chuckled softly. “Why don’t you lie down next to me?” she asked.

“Look, if what you wanted is to fool around, then we didn’t have to come to the world’s freakiest party to do it. We could have just stayed at my house. If you want to fool around, I like my own turf better.”

“World’s freakiest party?” Yari then smiled really big. “Are you scared of these people?” Yari rubbed my leg and was trying to get a rise out of me.

Which kind of rise? I wasn’t exactly sure. I think she was succeeding at both kinds.

“I’m not scared. It takes more than a few pale-faced dudes and a house that seems to have zero electricity to scare me.”

“Oh, this house has electricity.” Yari took her other hand and rubbed it on my upper thigh near the goods. I drew in a slow breath, trying to think of unsexy activities: raking leaves, delivering newspapers, eating Kraft macaroni and cheese. Nope, none of that was working while she traced her slender fingers across my denim-clad legs. I chastised myself: No sex during training!

Yari was holding a silver flask. She reached up and grabbed a shot glass from the dresser next to her. “This looks clean.” She giggled and poured some red alcohol into the shot glass. She handed me the shot glass. “Try it, Josiah. You’ll love it.”

“Thanks, but I had some tequila; I’m feeling good.”

“Trust me, this isn’t tequila.”

“I don’t want to get wasted. I have to train tomorrow.”

“Josiah, you’ve been training hard these days. Tonight, let’s have a little fun.” She got up from the mattress and slipped behind me. I was wondering what she was doing until she put her left hand around my waist. She then reached around with her right hand and held up the shot glass full of red liquor.

I puckered my lips and turned my head away. “I said I don’t want any!”

Yari kissed my neck. I froze. She hit the right spot. “Try it...for me...please. You know I would never hurt you.”

I smiled at Yari and said, “I don’t know that to be true.”

“You need to trust me.” Yari slid her hand down and grabbed my inner thigh. “Please, Josiah, just one sip.”

I continued to resist the drink. And the more I resisted, the higher Yari’s hand rose up my thigh, massaging as she went. I let out a long, shuddering breath. Honestly, what guy could have resisted her? I clearly wasn’t strong enough. And besides, it was just something to drink, right? If these Goth nut jobs were going to poison me, they would have done it out on the Flatlands, when I drank that weird shit.

I said, “You promise you’re not trying to kill me?”

Yari leaned even closer and whispered real softly in my right ear. “I just want you to loosen up, so we can have some fun.”

Then she thoroughly grabbed my expanding goods, my package snugger than snug in my jeans. I gasped, all the breath leaving my lungs. She continued to massage me, not without considerable skill, I noticed. She knew her way around the goods. I was excited, to say the least. Then she lifted the flask to my helpless lips and gently poured the drink down my throat. It was thick and sweet. It didn’t taste anything like alcohol.

“All right. I drank it,” I said. “So, now what?”

“Now, here’s where the fun starts.”

Yari took me by the hand and led me out of the room, and back to the living room, where partygoers were kissing so deeply and rhythmically, that I suspected some of them were doing the dirty right then and there. But then again, with the absence of any real light, it was hard to tell.

Yari scanned the room, looking for something. And then she found it. A beautiful blond girl who was sitting close to an equally beautiful brunette. Yari took the blond girl’s hand, who rose from the couch without hesitation or question. The blond, I could see, was lean and supremely sexy. She smiled at me shyly.

As Yari held our hands, she continued leading us through the undulating party, where we stopped this time in front of a sexy Latina woman who was probably in her early thirties. The blond girl nodded and reached out her own hand. There was a chain reaction going on here that I wasn’t fully getting. The Latina simply nodded and took the proffered hand. Once done, Yari led the three of us back into the same bedroom with the mattress on the floor and locked the door behind us.

I heard Tommy’s voice in my head, mocking me not to have sex while in training for a big fight.

I think this is where I swallowed. Hard. What the hell was going on?

Yari led me to the bed. I went, to say the least, willingly. Without asking or hesitation, the Latina woman took off my shirt, and now the blond girl began kissing my chest. I don’t know what happened to my jeans, but suddenly, they were gone and took my boxers with them.

That’s when the room started spinning.

Or maybe it in was my head. But everything kept on spinning until I couldn’t see anything at all. It was a blur. I suspected I had been drugged, but I didn’t care, not with three women swarming around me, touching, kissing, licking. Sucking! All I could do was feel. And feeling was enough. Hands roamed all over me. My entire body was groped and kissed. Caressed. Teased.

“I have one rule, girls,” I heard myself say from somewhere seemingly outside my body. “No biting. Everything else is fair game.”

The next two hours were the greatest two hours of my adult male life.

Chapter Thirteen

At some point, I either passed out or fell asleep.

I opened my eyes and, as my eyes adjusted, I could finally see. I was alone in the room. I pulled out my cell from my pocket. The lighted display read 2:12 a.m. Four hours of my life had just vanished. I got up, and my legs felt wobbly. It had not been an Partylite candle party. It had been a party of the other type.

What the hell had been in that drink?

I slowly got dressed and weeble-wobbled to the bedroom door and then made my way to the living room. There were still a lot of couples making out. Smoke from the many candles hung suspended in the air. The whole scene was surreal and bizarre, and now I was a part of it. I needed fresh air. With my legs feeling a little stronger, I headed out the front door.

I stood on the brick steps and took in a lot of fresh air, which did wonders to clear my head. And that’s when I heard the sounds of crying. Off to the right, in a small patch of grass near the side of the house, was a swing hanging from the thick branch of a tree. Lena was sitting alone and crying softly, the sounds of her muffled sobs reaching me in the quiet night air. I walked over to her.

“Hey,” I said.

Lena looked up at me. “Hi, Josiah.” She wiped her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem as if it’s nothing,” I said. “What’s going on? Where’s Atticai?”

“Atticai left with a couple of his friends.”

I looked over and noticed the van was still in the driveway.

“The van is still here. Is he coming back?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t like to tell me what he does.”

I paused. “That’s a pretty weird party going on in there.” I didn’t mention the foursome I had, although thanks to the power of that witchy potion I had drank, I was beginning to remember less and less of it. Which was a damn shame.

“You have no idea,” she said. “Did you go upstairs?”

“For a moment, but Yari found me and said I shouldn’t be up there.”

“Be glad that she did, they might not have known.”

“Not know what?” I asked.

Lena looked at me. “You have no idea what they were doing up there?”

“I’m not stupid,” I said. “I assume they were doing drugs.”

“Drugs? You think that’s what this party is about? A drug free for all? Are you honestly that clueless?”

“What are you saying?”

“Open your eyes, Josiah!”

“This all comes back to what your freaky friends did at the frat party, sucking on everyone’s neck and wrists. Do these people truly think they are vampires?”

Lena gave me a withering look that seemed to imply I was the world’s biggest idiot. Maybe I was. “Josiah, they were feeding up there!”

“Feeding? Like eating?”

She shook her head violently, and she kept shaking her head.

“Feeding on what, Lena?” My voice growing higher, perhaps with panic. “What were they feeding on? People?”

“No, not people’s flesh, but people’s...”

“Blood? Is that even sanitary?”

“It is when you’re a vampire.” Lena stared at me with utter amazement. But I had better critical thinking skills than to believe that because people drank blood, it obviously led to actually becoming a vampire. People do stupid things for all sorts of reasons, even drink blood. To me, there was nothing magical about blood drinking. It was almost some kind of a sexual fetish.

I shook my head at her. No, this could not be! I would believe in vampires on the same day that I believed in fairies. Which would be never. One thing that I did believe in was mental illness and drug addiction; I thought this party was a sure sign of both.

I said, “Vampires? You have got to be kidding me.”

She wouldn’t look at me. “I don’t know why Yari brought you here. But now that you’re here you need to start opening your eyes. This isn’t a Halloween party. These people—or things—are truly real.”

“The only thing that is real about them is that they are delusional. If they are truly drinking people’s blood against someone’s will, then they are also committing a serious crime.”

“It’s not a crime if no one is alive to press charges.”

“Are you saying they’re killing people upstairs? You’re telling me vampires—real vampires—are running wild in the city of Victorville?”

Lena just stared at me. Above, I heard more birds flapping. The beating rush of their wings was powerfully loud in the silent night. I felt as if I was being watched, but I didn’t know by whom. Mostly, I heard the dull thumping of my heart in my ears and my own harsh breathing.

This was crazy talk, of course. I mean, c’mon. How could anyone believe in something so crazy? Worse yet, if she was telling the truth—at least about the killings—then I was stranded here with a bunch of psychos.

“Lena,” I said, trying again, “just because some people have a fetish for” —and I couldn’t believe I was about to say this— “drinking blood, that doesn’t make someone something they’re not.”

“You think all those people in there just have a fetish?”

My mind was spinning. I was still feeling the effects of whatever it was in Yari’s flask. “Of course. What else could it be?”

“We shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not safe for either one of us.” Lena looked away, pausing. “Josiah, I have seen things.”

“What? The biting? Please! Just because someone can puncture flesh with filed-down teeth, doesn’t make them a vampire.”

“Do you seriously think all those people in there are playing games?”

“Of course they’re playing games. And someday they’re all going to have to grow up and get real jobs and let the fantasy go.”

Lena seemed pretty upset. I thought she was going to storm off, and maybe that would have been for the best. I felt sorry for anyone who believed this crap, and Lena obviously did. She seemed like a reasonable person. Everything pointed to her not being delusional, but then again, I hadn’t spent a lot of time with her, either.

“You really believe this, don’t you?” I said.

“It’s not a matter of believing. Believing is what a kid does in Santa Claus. This isn’t faith. Faith and believing are what you do with the unknown. This is extremely real.”

I knew I’d better drop it. She looked particularly vulnerable. I took her hand. “Let’s go for a ride,” I said.

“But where’s Yari?” Lena asked, her round eyes meeting mine. A spark of jealousy flickered in her pupils.

“I have no idea. We don’t need to worry about Yari.”

“She’s pretty possessive.”

“Well, she is nowhere near being my girlfriend, so I wouldn’t worry about her.” Any girl that drugs me and brings in two other women was certainly not the possessive type, and certainly not girlfriend material.

Lena stared at me and then looked down at our hands. I could tell she wanted to go with me, but something held her back. She pushed through it and finally said, ”Okay, I would like that. Let’s get out of here for a bit.”

“Cool.”

Chapter Fourteen

Lena and I walked over to my truck. I opened the door for her, and she jumped into the passenger side. Lena smelled incredible, and she looked fantastic in her usual black attire.

I got into my side and keyed the ignition and reversed out of the house of horror’s driveway. I found my way back to the same road that I used to get here, and I just drove.

Just to lighten the mood, I said, “Even though it’s dark, I feel at peace out here.”

“Well, you are in excellent company. Everyone around these parts likes the dark; it’s what they’re all about.”

“Still on the vampire kick, eh?” But before she could answer, and we could get into another argument about the undead, I quickly added: “So, what are you about, Lena?”

“I like the dark. It makes me think of death.”

“You make it sound as if that’s a good thing.”

“Death, for some, is a good thing.”

I shuddered a little. Geez, dark girl. I said, “I have too much living to do to think much about death.”

We lapsed into silence after that rather lively exchange. If she continued to talk like that, then I was better off sitting in silence. Who likes to talk about death?

A few minutes later, I asked Lena, “So do you still live with your parents?”

“Unfortunately, I do. I have been hoping that Atticai and I could get a place.”

“Are you two pretty serious?”

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“Emotionally, we are pretty serious. The physical aspect of us is a whole other story.”

“Physically? I’m confused.” I pulled the truck into a field and parked. “Explain yourself, young lady.”

“Young lady?” She laughed a little. “Okay, well, Atticai and I have never...” Her voice trailed off.

“Never what?” I asked eagerly.

“Never... had sex.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope.”

“Not one time?”

“We haven’t even been to second base.” Lena looked at me with almost of sense of irony.

“Whoa,” I was shocked. By the way, these two acted together, I would have thought there wasn’t a place in San Bernardino they hadn’t done it.

She said, “It’s pretty crazy, isn’t it?”

“It’s insane.” I couldn’t hide my surprise. Lena was extremely hot, and any guy would jump at the chance. “Is it you? Or is him?” I asked.

“It’s all him. I mean...yes, I’m a virgin, but I was ready to have sex with him a year ago.”

“So, what’s the hold up?”

“He keeps telling me that he wants to preserve my innocence.”

“What a crock of shit.”

“Atticai cares about me, Josiah. He told me that things will change in a couple of weeks when it’s my birthday. I guess it freaks him out that I’m still in my teens.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s old. His physical body is about twenty-eight.”

“His physical body?” I sputtered. What the hell did that mean?

Lena gave me a knowing look, one that seemed to imply I should already know the answer.

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. He’s Dracula.” How could someone who seems to be so honest with herself be so clueless?

“I guess it’s a good thing you still don’t believe. It’s probably the thing that’s saving your life.”

“Saving my life? What are you talking about?”

“Never mind. Anyway, so what about you? Do you still live with your parents?”

I was still wrapping my brain around the ‘It’s probably the only thing saving your life’ comment she made. I made a mental effort to switch gears and answer her question. “No, I don’t,” I said distractedly. “I live with my best friend.”

“Do your parents still live in San Bernardino?”

I was quiet.

“Did you hear me?” Lena asked.

“Yeah, I heard you,” I said.

“Well, where do your parents live?”

I got out of my truck and walked over to the front of my hood. Lena got out and stood next to me.

“The moon’s pretty bright tonight,” I said. “Even though it’s only a half moon.”

But she wasn’t looking at the moon. She was staring at me. “I’m sorry if talking about your parents upsets you, Josiah. God only knows that I have a crappy relationship with mine.”

We were silent. I kept looking up at the moon. She kept looking at me. Finally, I said, “They passed away, back when I was in high school.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“They died in a car accident, along with my sister.”

“Josiah, I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t know, don’t worry about it.”

“No, I pressured you into telling me about it.”

“You didn’t pressure me.” I jumped up and sat on my hood. “I wanted to tell you about it. Really.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I don’t talk about it much, if ever. I just felt as if you are someone I can...” I shrugged, “I can open up to, I guess.”

“I am, Josiah. I want you to know that.”

I hesitated and then decided to tell her. “It was our senior year. I was on my way home from the gym, and I got a call from Tommy. Tommy had been dating my sister. He got the call first, since his was the last number my sister had called on her cell. He told me that they had been in a terrible car accident on the 91 Freeway, and all three were at the hospital. I remember just dropping my phone and flooring it to the hospital. They were dead before I’d got there. All three of them.”

Lena covered her face with her hands. “Oh my God, Josiah. I am so sorry. I can’t believe I didn’t hear about this in high school.”

“You didn’t hear about it because I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t tell a single person in high school. To be honest, this is the first time I’ve ever talked about it.”

“But surely you and Tommy talked about it.”

I shook my head.

“You haven’t talked to anybody about it?”

I shook my head again.

“Never?”

“Never.” I said. “Not one time.”

“Wow, that’s pretty heavy. Why me? Why now?”

“I just felt safe enough to tell you.”

Lena reached over and held my hand. She had tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay, Lena. I’m all right. It was a while ago.”

Lena let go of my hand. She then got up on the hood and sat next to me. She rested her head on my shoulder, and we sat there in silence for a little while. I appreciated the silence. I felt particularly comfortable around Lena. She had a gentle way that was being masked by a tough female exterior.

I sat back on the hood and laid on my back. “The sky is spectacular. The stars look phenomenal tonight.”

Lena leaned back and cuddled into me. It was nice. For the first time in my life, I felt secure. I felt a release come over my body and tears drip from my eyes. I didn’t make a sound. This moment was perfect. This woman was perfect. She was these things and... she wasn’t mine. The thought of Yari—Yari naked—swam into my mind.

God, had that actually happened tonight? What would that be called anyway, a ménage à quatre?

I didn’t know, but I did feel weird lying there with Lena and soaking in her tender touch when I had been with not just one, but three women just a few hours earlier.

Anyway, we eventually got back to the party, and when I pulled in, Atticai, Yari, and the guys seemed to be waiting for us.

I opened the door and got out of my truck, expecting the worst. Lena got out on the passenger side. Atticai walked right up to me, looming over me like Lurch from the Addams Family, only paler.

“Josiah, when did you get here?” Atticai asked.

“Huh?” I asked surprised. “I saw you earlier.”

“You did?” Atticai walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder and stared into me. Yes, into me. It appeared he was trying to look deep into my soul. Then again, maybe he honestly could. Maybe vampires were telepathic. Or maybe I was just losing my mind. Anyway, he did this staring thing for a while, looking at me intently with zero expression on his face. Eventually, he nodded and smiled.

“We’re all good here,” Atticai said, to whom exactly, I’m not sure. “Hey, Josiah, do you mind taking Lena home? We’ll take Yari back.”

“Um, sure, no problem,” I said.

Yari walked up to me and gave me a long, seductive hug. “You had quite a night,” she said. “The girls and I had some fun with you and apparently you still needed a little dessert.” Yari glanced over at Lena, perhaps implying something had happened between us.

“Nothing happened, Yari,” Lena responded. “We just went for a drive. We weren’t going to wait around for you guys to finish whatever it was that you were doing.”

“Oh, you know what we were doing, Lena.” Yari smiled rather sadistically at Lena. Yari then turned to me and planted a long, passionate kiss on my mouth. I was stunned. I didn’t resist, and decided to go with it.

“And there it is! Territory marked!” Wyatt said, laughing.

Atticai smiled at me and simply said, “Be careful, Josiah.”

Atticai then kissed Lena lightly on top of her head, and I had to admit that I now looked at their whole relationship differently now that I knew they hadn’t slept together. There was, in fact, something majorly asexual about them.

I said goodbye to the rest of the pale-faced gang and Lena and I got back into my truck and got out of there. She was asleep by the time we hit the freeway. I looked over at her quite a few times and just stared at her face. She seemed so peaceful, so innocent. She certainly didn’t belong in that world.

And what was that world? I didn’t know. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

An hour later, I dropped her off. I got out of the truck and walked her to her front door. “I enjoyed talking to you,” I said.

“Even if I am just dessert?”

“You’re more than dessert. You’re an eight-course meal.”

She laughed. “Oh, really?”

I hugged Lena tightly. After a few seconds, I loosened up to let her go, but Lena held me even tighter. So, I continued holding her. We stood out there and hugged for another five minutes. It wasn’t a sexual hug. As a matter of fact, it was the opposite. It was just two people who had found each other. Two people from completely different backgrounds who discovered they have a true connection. Finally, we released. As we did so, I kissed her forehead.

“Thank you, Josiah. Thank you for everything.”

Lena went inside her house, and I stood there and stared at the front door. What a night. I had sex with three women and fell in love with a fourth.

Chapter Fifteen

The next week was all about preparing for my fight with Tommy. I tried to keep my mind off Lena, but I had never genuinely felt these kinds of emotions before. I knew I couldn’t deal with them right now because it would only be a distraction. I needed to do what paid the bills.

On the Friday before the fight, we had our weigh-in in Anaheim. I easily made weight, as did Tommy. Tommy looked surprised to see how in-shape I appeared in such a short amount of time.

I didn’t hate Tommy, and this was going to be the hardest part about the fight. If I beat him, Tommy would lose a chance at the title. If I lost, it would be an enormous setback for me, one that I might never come back from.

In the sport, you’re only given a couple of shots to prove yourself to the Commission. And if you get a chance to fight someone of Tommy’s caliber, well, that someone needed to take advantage of it. And that someone, of course, was me. I needed to knock out Tommy.

It was the night before the fight, and I was going to bed earlier. I went to my room and found Daphne sitting at my window. She turned her head slightly and looked at me with what appeared to be a concern in her sharp eyes. Or maybe I just needed sleep, since I was seriously exhausted. I went over to the window, bent down, and stared at her. I looked deep into her hawk eyes, which I found oddly comforting. Daphne dipped her head in a seeming nod, as if to say: “You worked your butt off, buddy, now go take care of business.”

“Don’t worry about me, Daphne,” I said. “I’ll make both of us proud.”

And with that, Daphne flew off. I crawled into bed and was out cold in seconds.

* * *

The next day, I took things easy. I met up with my trainer, Mike, at 4:00 p.m. My fight was scheduled to go at 6:30. It was the third fight on the card.

In the locker room, Mike and I went over a few things.

“Just keep your head in the fight. If you do that, you’ll beat him.” Mike said to me, while he taped my knuckles.

We did our usual pre-fight routine, practice moves, going over pointers, stretching and loosening up, and before I knew it, it was time.

Mike and I walked out of the tunnel. I had to admit it was weird, not having Tommy in my ring corner for support. It had been the next best thing to having my dad, or an older brother. I walked out into the arena. Tommy was already in the ring. His eyes were locked on me. I refused to look at him. I didn’t have to do that to get psyched up. I would let him exhaust himself, mad-dogging me.

The announcer introduced both of us, and I headed to my corner. I looked into the crowd. There were about fifteen hundred people in the stands. I scanned the crowd to see if anyone I knew was out there. Sure enough, sticking out like a sore seven-foot thumb was Atticai. In fact, the whole gang was with him. Surprisingly, Yari and Lena were sitting next to each other. I made eye contact with Atticai. Atticai pointed to Tommy and drew his finger over his throat. Was he serious? I didn’t enter the ring to hurt anyone. At least not permanently.

I looked at Yari—and, man, she looked sexy as hell. I could see her red lipstick from the ring. Lena looked on with concern. Our eyes met, and she smiled. That was what I needed.

As I stood in the corner, Mike rubbed my shoulders and said in my ear, “This is it, Josiah. Tonight, Tommy is not your friend. Tonight, he is someone who wants to rip off your head. No mercy. Strike first and strike hard!”

The bell rang, and Tommy and I both ran out into the middle of the ring and hit gloves.

We circled one another for about 30 seconds, both trying to find an opening in each other’s stance. I noticed that Tommy would lose his focus about every 10 seconds, as if trying to regroup his thoughts or something. Weird what you notice when you’re fighting someone, but you always look for any advantage you can find. So, I counted off ten, and sure enough, his eyes dropped a little, and I swung a hard right hand that landed on the side of his face. He stumbled backwards a couple of feet.

“Watch his right hand!” Tommy’s coach yelled out.

Too late, I thought.

That right hand would have been enough to lay out anyone during a street fight. Tommy wasn’t just anyone. He was strong as hell, and I was going to need more than one punch.

He shook his head and came back at me. Then we circled each other again. Once more, I counted off ten seconds and threw a five-punch combination that ended with an uppercut that landed directly on Tommy’s chin. Tommy fell to the mat. I jumped on top of him and landed a series of punches. As I did so, Tommy grabbed my knee and was attempting a submission move. I knew better. I kicked it out. As I did, I hit my nose on Tommy’s right thigh. It blurred my vision, so I decided to jump up and go back to a neutral standing position.

I looked up and saw that we were three minutes into the five-minute round. This was already the longest professional fight I’d ever had. We circled each other some more. Tommy’s attention was now in overdrive. He stopped whatever he was doing earlier. Smart move for him. Now, I was going to have to strike him without an opening. I lunged forward and threw a powerhouse right. Tommy blocked it with his arms. He winced, which meant that just blocking my punches was going to hurt him and wear him down. Good for me. And so, that’s was what I did. I came in throwing powerhouse rights and lefts. Tommy couldn’t keep up with the barrage of punches. I saw an opening below and kicked Tommy in his right thigh, sending his body spinning to the ground.

I heard someone in the crowd yell: “Finish him off.” My instincts, of course, were to do just that. I jumped on top of him and wildly threw rights and lefts. Tommy’s eyes were rolling back. Why the hell weren’t they stopping the fight? Did they want me to kill him? I slowed down and pretended to be exhausted. Those assholes weren’t going to stop the fight because they didn’t think that I was capable of knocking him out. I looked down at Tommy.
“Don’t stop, Josiah.” Tommy said to me, his mouth guard muffling the words, but I understood them. “You’re not even breathing hard.” I held him down until I heard the bell. I went back to the corner.

Mike yelled at me. “What the hell, Josiah. Why did you stop?!”

“I was tired,” I said.

“You won that round. If you win this round, you have it. Just don’t get soft!”

I sat there thinking about the last round. Then, something dawned on me. Tommy hadn’t thrown a single punch. Tommy was reluctant to hurt me. Tommy was refusing to punch me. The bell went off.

Tommy and I circled each other. “You’re going to have to punch me, Tommy. You can’t beat me unless you punch me. You need to forget who we are. This is your fight. This is your career. You can go toe-to-toe with me, but you will have to strike, also.”

Tommy nodded—then lunged forward and threw a hay maker. It landed across my face. I stumbled back.

I grinned, despite the pain. “There you go, Tommy. Now it’s a fight.”

Tommy and I traded punches for almost three minutes. My arms were heavy. I was getting pretty exhausted, and for just a millisecond, I down let my guard. That was all that Tommy needed. He sprung in and grabbed my legs. I fell to the mat. He whipped around me. He was trying to get me in his famous front-choke submission. Luckily, Mike and I practiced defending this, but, damn, Tommy got a good hold on me. Tommy was strong. Stronger than I remembered. He locked his forearm under my neck and had it wedged in tight. I tried to fight it off but, I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe.

I totally blacked out.

When I opened my eyes, I could barely think clearly. I could hear someone talking to me from seemingly far away. It was Tommy and apparently, I lost. Tommy and a paramedic team were crouched down next to me.

“Come back to us, Josiah,” Tommy said, and I had a feeling he had been saying it a few times before that, too. Tommy gave me a big, relieved smile when he saw me blinking and breathing.

Now a doctor started asking me questions to see if I would be okay. I could see they had brought out a stretcher, and with that, I jumped straight up. There was no way I would be hauled off on a stretcher.

“Stay down, Josiah.” Tommy said to me.

“No freaking way, Tom. You deserve a proper hug.” I reached over and embraced Tommy.

Tommy grabbed my face, squishing my cheeks. We had always been like brothers. “You kicked my ass that first round, you know that.”

“Only because you didn’t have the heart to throw a punch, dumbass. You got me, Tommy. You deserve it.”

“I’m coming home tonight. I’ll take you out, and we’ll head up to Los Angeles and wreck that city.”

“Sounds good to me. I might need an aspirin first.”

“Me, too.”

We both laughed. I looked out into the crowd and both Lena and Yari were standing ringside, both looking terribly worried. I gave them a thumbs up to let them know it was okay. They both exhaled. The crowd cheered. Wow, two beautiful women were deathly concerned for my well-being. Could be worse.

I noticed that Atticai was making his way to the ring, too. He motioned for me to come to him, and I did.

When I reached the ropes, he said, “It’s bullshit, man. They should have never allowed that thing in the ring.”

I blinked. “Thing? What thing?”

Atticai looked at me with cold eyes. “No Tandra can handle a Carni. It’s not a fair fight.” What are these words? Mani? Carni? Tandra. What the hell were these people talking about?

I said as much to Atticai, and he just shook his head and walked away.

What the heck was that all about? I swore everyone in that group was bat-shit crazy.

The announcer announced that Tommy had knocked me out, and I gave Tommy one more hug and told him that I’d see him at home.

Chapter Sixteen

I got home and took a long hot bath. Ironically, the only thing that hurt was my back. I swear it was still hurt from that a-hole hitting me with a baseball bat a few weeks ago.

After my bath, I put on a pair of sweats and laid on the couch and waited for Tommy. I thought about the fight. I couldn’t believe I’d lost. Honestly. I have only lost two fights in my entire life. I lost my very first boxing match when I was a kid, and I lost today. I wished my dad would have seen Tommy and me tonight. He would have been proud of both of us.

I closed my eyes and took a moment and thought about my parents, especially my dad. My dad was a lucid dreamer and loved to tell me his dreams. The last thing he had ever said to me was on the morning of their accident. I had just gotten up for school, and as I went into the kitchen, my dad was sitting there, staring off into oblivion.

“Hey, Dad, what’s up?” I had asked, still bleary-eyed from sleep.

He looked over at me. “Oh, I just had the most amazing dream, son.”

This wasn’t the first time my dad had told me about an extraordinary dream he had, but whatever this dream had been, well, it was obviously giving him some serious food for thought.

“What was it about?” I asked, opening the kitchen door and grabbing the milk. If my father wasn’t there, I would have downed the milk straight from the carton. As it was, I found a box of cereal and started making breakfast.

“It was about you, son.”

“Me?”

“It was about us. We were camping up in Big Bear. You were a lot younger, maybe around seven years old. I had lost you and went looking for you in the woods. I couldn’t find you anywhere, and I began to panic. I sensed you were in danger. Considerable danger. I ran and ran looking for you, until I reached an enormous cliff.”

“A cliff in the woods?” I said, confused.

“Hey, Josiah, it’s a dream. A big, pink Easter bunny could show up, and there would be no rhyme or reason for it, all right?”

He was so cranky in the morning. “Sorry, Dad. Go on.”

“Anyway, I walked to the edge of the cliff and I look down, and about 300 feet below, I could see you. You were calling out for me. I yelled down to you that I wanted you to wait there, that I would be coming down for you. But then something horrible started to happen.”

I was about to shovel in my first spoonful of Cap’n Crunch. I waited, genuinely intrigued.

He went on. “About twenty hyenas surrounded you. They were growling and hissing at you. And as they started closing in, all I could do was watch from above, feeling totally helpless. I was going to have to watch all these animals tear you apart, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. So without thinking, I jumped. It was more like a dive. It was instinct, you know? I had to protect you. And as I fell, something miraculous happened. My arms began turning into wings. My entire body had changed into a beautiful white bird. I swooped in and grabbed you, just in the nick of time.”

Now the first spoonful found my mouth. “Wow. That’s pretty crazy,” I said, talking with food in my mouth, which immediately irritated my dad.

He frowned at me. “Anyway, it was so real. Josiah, I can still feel the air beneath me.”

I had looked at my dad, and he had this amazingly peaceful expression on his face. Far-off and dreamy. A tranquility I had never seen in him before. The irony was, of course, that he would die eight hours later. He would never be able to save me from the hyenas.

As I lay there on the couch, remembering my last conversation with my dad, with tears filling my eyes, I turned on the TV. I put on some Jimmy Kimmel since it was 12:30 in the morning. So, where was Tommy?

I didn’t know, and soon I dozed off.

Chapter Seventeen

My cell phone was ringing. My eyes cracked open, and I tried to collect my thoughts. My body and mind were beyond the point of exhaustion. I grabbed the phone and did my best to focus my eyes on the Caller I.D. It was a local number, but I didn’t recognize it. And as I answered the call, I saw Daphne peeking in the window at me.

“Hello,” I said, as much to the hawk as to the caller. My voice sounded groggy as hell.

“Is this Josiah Reign?” A woman asked at the other end.

“Yes.”

“Are you a relative of Tommy Jensen?”

“No, I mean yes. We’re practically brothers.” Okay, now I was worried.

“Tommy has been in an accident.”

I sat up. “What kind of accident?”

“We’re not quite sure. We pulled his file, and you were the only contact listed. He’s in the ICU.”

“Which hospital is this?”

“San Bernardino Memorial.”

“Okay. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I jumped up and put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and headed out the door. Daphne was on the hood of my truck, almost as if she were waiting for me. I got in my truck and honked my horn, so she’d fly off. She did, squawking at me with a shriller kee-eeeee-arr than usual, and I pulled out of the parking lot and headed to the hospital.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled up to the emergency entrance. Surprisingly, there were a lot of empty parking spots. Even at 5:00 a.m., I would have thought most of Southern California ER’s would have been busy. Learn something new every day. I went through the double doors and headed straight to the nurse’s station.

“Hi, I’m here to see Tommy Jensen,” I said to the dark-haired, heavy-set Latina woman behind the desk.

“He is in the ICU. Why don’t you have a seat and someone will be available shortly to speak with you.”

“But I got a call from you guys. Can I go back and—”

“Have a seat and someone will be out to speak with you.”

“All right.” I sat down in a seat near the back, my stomach churning. There were sure a lot of people in the waiting room, considering how few cars there were in the parking lot.

A police officer came in from outside. He walked over to the nurse, and the nurse pointed him in my direction. I guess the “someone” who was to speak with me was going to be a police officer. He came right over to me. “Are you Josiah Reign?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Sure,” I said.

“What relation are you to Tommy Jensen?”

“There is no relation. He’s my roommate. He’s the closest person in the world to me, but there is we are not related.”

“Were you with Tommy tonight?”

“Well, sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“Tommy had a fight tonight at the Honda Center in Anaheim.”

“A fight? You mean a professional fight? A boxing match?”

“Close. It was a mixed martial arts fight.”

“You mean like ultimate fighting?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I said.

“You were at the fight?”

This guy wasn’t going to believe what I was about to tell him, but it was the truth, so I had nothing to lose. “I was his opponent in the fight.”

“You’re kidding me? You fight also?”

“Yes.”

“And you fought Tommy tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Who won?”

“He did.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, he did,” I said, suddenly annoyed.

“Wow, there’s a first for everything.” The police officer sat down in the chair next to me. “So, what did you guys do after the fight?”

“Nothing. I went straight home. What is this about? Can I see Tommy now?”

“You didn’t stop off for a beer or an ice pack?”

“I received all the ice packs I needed before I left the arena. No alcohol at all after a fight. Gotta heal up.”

“What did Tommy do after the fight?”

“He had been staying at his grandma’s during training. After the fight, he was supposed to come over, so we could go out and celebrate our first fight together.”

The police officer stopped writing and looked me in the eyes. “You were going to celebrate getting your ass kicked?”

“No, not exactly. Tommy is ‘in line’ to fight for the title in our weight class.”

“I see.” The police officer paused. “Did you throw the fight?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, that’s neither here nor there. Have they told you the severity of Tommy’s injuries?”

“No. I don’t know anything.”

“Did Tommy call you and tell you that he was going to be late?”

“No, he didn’t. What has happened to Tommy?”

“We’re not quite sure. All we know is that he was attacked.”

“Attacked? After the ring fight?”

He paused and leveled his stare at me. “And, due to the nature of his injuries, it appears that he was attacked by some kind of wild animal.”

I think my eyes bugged out of my skull. Before I could speak, the officer went on. “Even more unusual, he was dropped off at the ER, where the nurses found his body lying near the door.”

“No.” A sense of dread filled me. “Who dropped him off?”

“We don’t know.”

“Someone just dropped him off and took off?”

“Exactly. So where were you at 1:00 a.m?”

“I was at my house just about to fall asleep.”

“Can anyone else vouch for that?”

“No. I was alone.“

“Well, hopefully Tommy will regain consciousness shortly and he be able to shed some light on what happened.”

The police officer closed his notepad, nodded at me and walked outside. I just stared at him. Had I heard him correctly? Tommy had been attacked by a wild animal?

I sat there and waited. And waited. Two hours later, I got up and went to the nurse’s station.

“I’ve been here for two hours. Is there anyone who can give me an update?”

“The doctor will be out shortly to talk to you.”

“The doctor?” I questioned.

“Yes, the doctor.”

I was about to head back to my seat when I heard someone call my name. I turned around, and there was a man of Middle Eastern descent coming toward me.

“Yes, I’m Josiah.”

The man walked over to me. “Are you related to Mr. Jensen?”

“I’m pretty much all he has. What’s going on?”

The doctor paused. “I’m sorry. He didn’t make it.”

I’ve been hit hard in my life, but never have I been hit harder than that. All the air left my lungs, and I struggled to find words.

The doctor went on, but his voice reached me as if speaking from a deep well. “Mr. Jensen was pronounced dead ten minutes ago.”

“His name is Tommy. Please call him Tommy.” My voice sounded strange to my ears. Panicked, strained, high-pitched.

“I’m real sorry.”

I took in a lot of air. I could tell I was close to hyperventilating. “But...what happened?” I managed to say.

“He had bite marks all over his body. It appears he was attacked by multiple animals. But that’s for the medical examiner to determine.”

“But this doesn’t make any sense! He was on his way home from a professional fight.” My brain spun. For all, I knew I was spinning, too. I wished like hell that there was something nearby to hold onto. I would have used the doctor, but I didn’t think his frail body could support me. “What kind of animal was it?”

“I have no idea. The bites were deep and unmistakable. The medical examiner will look into it, along with the police.”

“He’s seriously gone? Dead?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

“Just like that? One minute he’s full of life kicking ass in the ring, and twelve hours later, he’s...dead?” I wasn’t making sense, and I knew it. Who could make sense at a time like this?

“If you need grief counseling, we can provide you with that—”

“I don’t need grief counseling.”

I fell to my knees. I couldn’t think straight. What I needed was a hospital bed of my own.

Chapter Eighteen

I made my way to a chair in the waiting room. I leaned back my head and couldn’t believe that this happened to me again.

Fuck this!

I got up and stumbled toward the door.

What the hell was going on? Tommy? Dead!

I pushed my way outside and looked up into the morning sun. I dropped to my knees. My heart felt as if it was going to rip from my chest. I needed to get out of here. I went to my truck. But I didn’t trust myself to drive, not right now. So I started running. I ran past cars in the driveway and people walking to their cars. I got to the sidewalk and started sprinting down the street, heading the opposite direction of traffic. The sidewalk soon ended and I was now in the street, running in the direction of approaching cars. I didn’t care. Let them hit me. I didn’t care.

Fuck them. Fuck everything.

I kept running as fast as I could make my body go. Cars swerved around into the next lane. Horns honked everywhere. Tires screeched. And still I ran. Now, a car was coming straight for me. I refused to move over. It screeched to a stop, smoke billowing up around its tires. But I didn’t slow or deviate. Instead, I ran up onto its hood and ignored the shocked expression of the middle-aged driver. I ran over the roof and down the trunk, leaving massive footprints in the sheet metal. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything.

Eventually, I turned a corner and found myself in a dirt parking lot. Some cars followed me in. I dropped to my knees, sucking air, trying to breathe, trying to die. Whatever came first, I didn’t care.

A guy in a big, black Ford truck got out of his vehicle and began yelling at me. “What the hell were you doing, you stupid asshole!”

I ignored him, hardly saw him. He was just background noise.

Another guy jumped out of a white Mazda. A chubby Asian dude. “You stupid piece of shit...what the hell were you trying to do?”

God, I was in so much pain. I didn’t care if these two guys wanted to kick my ass or not. I was going to let them just have at me. I dropped my chin against my chest. My heart was racing so fast. Finally, I just let out a long, bellowing wail. It was shocking, the level of animalistic grief in that long wail. It was a primal sound, one that I was freaked out came from within me. It woke me up, in a way, and I asked myself where I was running to. Tommy wasn’t out here. He wasn’t anywhere. He was gone.

One of the annoyed guys asked me if I needed help, but I didn’t respond. Eventually, they both got in their vehicles and drove off. From above, I heard the beat of Daphne’s wings and an occasional screechy squawk. I don’t know what it was about that bird, but she was attached to me. The morning sun beat down on my neck. Its heat comforted me.

Eventually, I made it back to my truck and drove home. I opened the door and went straight into Tommy’s room. He kept his room meticulous, just as he did everything else in his life. He still had pictures of himself and my sister on his dresser, even though she had been dead for three years. He had pictures of them at Disneyland and one from her senior prom.

On top of his dresser was a framed picture of Tommy and me. We had our arms around each other after my first MMA fight. I had knocked the guy out in one minute, so Tommy and I were sporting the number one sign. We both seemed so happy. This picture was about a year old, which would have been two years after my family’s accident. Tommy and I knew, without ever talking about it, that we were bonded for life, brothers not of flesh, but of hearts. Now...he was gone. He had gone to heaven. Now I had my pops, mom, sis, and Tommy all looking after me. From above.

I sat on his bed and lay back on his pillow and stared at the ceiling. Up there was a movie poster of Never Back Down. Tommy had eaten, slept, and lived mixed martial arts fighting.

“So, what am I supposed to do now, guys?” I yelled out loud. “You guys think I can do this alone? Well, I have news for all of you...I can’t.” I rolled over, and I got up. I looked at myself in Tommy’s mirror above his dresser. “But it looks as if I have no choice.”

Chapter Nineteen

I felt lost. I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to get out of here. Go somewhere far away. I needed to talk to someone. I needed to talk to someone I trusted. I needed to talk to Lena.

I got in my truck and drove over to her house. She answered the door immediately.

“Josiah,” Lena said, surprised. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not.” I said. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”

“Sure.” She grabbed her coat, and we both got in my truck. I drove around the corner and parked in a church parking lot. I suddenly found speaking exceedingly difficult. I collected myself and, with her concerned eyes on me, I blurted out, “Tommy is dead.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

Her question was completely out of left field. “What do you mean, how do I know? I was at the hospital when he died. A cop told me!”

“Oh, no. This can’t be happening.” Lena covered her face and looked away.

Okay, either this girl had no clue how to console someone hurting, or something else was going on. “What can’t be happening? Lena, do you know something about this?”

She looked back at me. Yeah, something was wrong. “What is it, Lena? Please. Tell me.”

“You’re not going to believe what happened.”

“Tell me.”

“Let’s go for a ride.”

So we rode. I pulled out of the church driveway and soon we were cruising on a mostly empty freeway, going nowhere in particular. Lena turned in her seat and looked at me.

“Josiah, how well did you know Tommy?”

“I knew him like a brother.”

“Then perhaps even brothers keep secrets.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Tommy had a secret, Josiah. A big secret.”

I was in no mood, and, quite frankly, she was beginning to irritate me. I needed to be consoled, not presented with riddles. It took all my power to bite my tongue, and simply growl, “How the hell would you know about Tommy’s secrets? You hardly knew him.”

“Josiah, this might be hard for you to understand. This will be difficult for you to process.” She took a deep breath, touched my hand tentatively, and then retracted her hand.

“Just say it, Lena.”

She nodded. Tears were streaming down the side of her cheeks. This night was just getting weirder and weirder. “Josiah, Tommy is what’s called a Carni.”

“What the hell is a Carni?”

She was staring at me again. Even in my peripheral vision, I could see her lower lip shaking.

“Please, talk to me, Lena. I’m seriously confused. What’s a Carni?”

“They’re werewolves.”

I looked at her, and she was dead serious. She didn’t even blink. Her eyes were piercing right through me.

“Tommy’s werewolf name is Kyro. He’s one of the most notorious werewolves in the area.”

“Lena, listen to me. And listen to me good. You are freaking crazy. Atticai, Yari, Wyatt, Hector, all of you idiots are stone-cold nut jobs. Tommy was as normal as anyone I’d ever known. I was with him every day. I’ve never once seen him become a...” I couldn’t even say it. This was all far too insane.

I got off the freeway and got back on, going the other direction. I wanted Lena out of my car. She was only making a shitty night worse. I wanted nothing more than to dump her at her trailer park and never see her again.

“Listen to me. You never saw it, Josiah, because he can control it. Tommy is an advanced Carni. The only time they can’t control it is during a full moon.”

“What?”

“Think about, Josiah. Did Tommy mysteriously leave every month for about 48 hours?”

“That’s silly. Tommy was in the reserves. Of course, he would leave. He was on duty for the United States military. On rotation. Duty.”

“Other than his word, did you ever see proof that he was in the reserves?”

“In my world, someone’s word is pretty much enough. His was.”

“Josiah, the last thing I want to do is wreck your world. But you are going to have to open your eyes. Everything you know to be true is upside down. There is a whole world of Carni and Mani all around us. And by their mercy, they don’t kill the Tandra.”

“Tandra?”

“Yes. We are the Tandra...the mortals.”

I couldn’t wrap my mind around any of this. “How do you know so much?”

“Because they let me in. I don’t know exactly why, but Atticai says on my twentieth birthday next week, everything will be clear to me.”

“So who—or what—killed Tommy? That’s even if I believe this, which I don’t.”

Lena was quiet.

“Who killed Tommy, Lena, since you know so fucking much?”

“Atticai confronted him after the fight in the parking lot.”

“What?”

“Atticai approached him, and Tommy, of course, knows exactly what Atticai is. They got into a heated discussion. Atticai was defending you, saying a Carni had no business competing in Tandra sports. He told Tommy that if he continued to test the Triat, it would be to his demise.”

“What the hell are you smoking, girl? What the hell is the Triat?”

“The Triat is the unbinding force that allows the Carni and Mani to live in peace along with the Tandra.”

“You have fucking lost your mind, Lena. You’re making up a bad religion in your head to explain what you don’t understand.”

“Please—”

“Tell me what they did to Tommy!” I screamed, sounding as if I had lost my mind, as well. I pounded the dash and left a dent in it.

Lena shrank against the passenger side door. “Tommy challenged Atticai.”

“Where and how?”

“They went to old Rogue Field over by Wasserman. They knew it was isolated enough that they wouldn’t be seen by regular folks. Only Carni and Mani were invited. ”

I heard myself breathing. I heard my heart beating loudly in my ears. What the fuck was going on?

“Were you there?” I asked.

“Yes, I was.”

“So what happened?”

“Atticai and Tommy battled.”

“You’re lying. You’re crazy.”

She went on, ignoring me. “Your friend battled bravely, but Atticai had too much power.”

“Atticai killed him?”

Again, Lena got quiet.

“Did Atticai kill him?”

“In the Carni tradition, once a Carni loses to a Mani in a public fight, all the observing Carni mangles the remainder of the body.”

Honestly, how the hell was I supposed to respond to that? I decided to keep to the facts. “Who drove him down to the hospital? He was alive when he was dropped off at the door.”

“I don’t know who dropped him off, Josiah. He was left for dead.”

“But someone drove him to the hospital. Who?”

“I don’t know. Everyone left late in the morning. When we left, Tommy’s body was still out there.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe any of this. Atticai killed Tommy because he’s a crazy, delusional, Goth-crazed psychopath.”

I exited the freeway.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to the Flatlands. I’m going to find Atticai.”

“Josiah, if you go there—and if you tell them that you know anything—they will kill you. Your ignorance of them is what keeps you alive. It’s what keeps all Tandra alive, by decree of the Triat—”

“Please, just shut your mouth.”

“Drop me off at my house because I don’t want to be a part of this.”

“I will gladly drop you off. But you were willing to be a part of it last night when Tommy got killed.”

She didn’t answer that, which was just as well. The more she opened her mouth, the more I started not liking her. After I parked in front of her trailer park, Lena got out and walked over to my window.

“Don’t go away angry, Josiah. Please. For me. Try to forget all of this and just go back to your normal life.”

“What life, Lena? Tommy was the last of my family, and your family killed him.”

She shook her head and stepped back away from my truck. I reversed out of her community’s driveway, tires squealing pas the 5 m.p.h. sign, and headed to the Arrowhead Mountains. I was going to find and hurt Atticai.

My mind raced as I drove. What if, on any level, any of this was true? But how could it be? This wasn’t freaking Groovy Goolies Saturday morning cartoon show where vampires and werewolves were the norm. This was real life.

My head hurt. My heart hurt. Everything hurt.

And one way or another, Atticai was going to hurt, too.

Bad.

Chapter Twenty

My truck bounded onto the rocks at the Flatlands, where I soon skidded to a halt.

There was a small party going on out here, maybe about twenty guys total. But they were scattered around, more casual than the other night. I jumped out of my truck and looked around for Atticai. Everyone stared at me. I stalked toward them. There, he was. The tall goon was standing by himself near a bonfire.

“Josiah,” he said, and turned to face me. The firelight highlighted his gaunt feature. His striking nose, his small eyes. He said, “You might want to watch your every move from this point on.”

“Why? You going to claim I’m a werewolf and kill me, too?”

Atticai’s dark eyes, reflecting the firelight, focused on mine. “Josiah, you will turn around and leave.”

“Are you seriously trying mind-control on me? You’re not a Jedi knight and I’m certainly not a Storm Trooper.”

I continued forward. Atticai, amazingly, seemed a little confused. Did he honestly think he could mind-control me? The depths of his delusion were unfathomable. I cracked my neck by turning it until sounds like popcorn kernels exploded. Atticai was going to get the beating of his life. I said, “Did you kill Tommy, Atticai?”

He didn’t answer me.

I kept moving, stalking through the low grass of the clearing. “Did you kill my best fucking friend, you worthless piece of shit?”

Atticai snapped his fingers. Suddenly, those people who were scattered throughout the Flatlands turned silently and left, getting into their various vehicles and leaving. I stopped in my tracks and watched them leave, one after another. All because Atticai snapped his fingers. Seriously, what the hell? Only Wyatt and about five others were left. The five guys walked over to the bonfire, which now separated Atticai and myself

“Only Mani are left?” Atticai asked Wyatt. Wyatt nodded. Atticai seemed pleased. “Josiah, what exactly are you intending to do here all by yourself?”

I got into a fighter’s position. That should have been answer enough for them.

“You seriously think you’re going to be able to fight all of us? We all saw what one Carni could do to you. I’d say you don’t have much of a chance.”

“I don’t want to fight everyone, Atticai. Just you, you disillusioned vampire fuck.”

“A disillusioned vampire fuck is it?” Attic repeated, laughing. “Wow, I have been called a lot of strange things over the last three hundred years, but that is one of the most amusing.”

“Three hundred years, my ass.”

“I’m glad you’re not a believer, Josiah, because that just might be what saves your life.”

“Because the supposed Triat will spare me?”

“Ah. So you know about the Triat. Your furry-face friend, Tommy, either let you in on his secret, or you’ve been talking to someone else. And since Yari knows better than to do that, well, that means you must have had been talking to Lena. Alone, no doubt.”

Atticai ran at me in a millisecond. He open-hand punched me with more force than I had ever felt in life. I flew backwards about ten feet.

“Did you put your grimy Tandra hands on her?” Atticai yelled at me as I rolled on the sharp rocks. Man, that was painful.

I got to my feet. “I haven’t touched Lena.” Atticai stared at me like a crazed animal. I didn’t know what to do. Atticai was the strongest human being I had ever felt strike me. I stared at his position. I needed for him to run at me again. If he did, I could drop my body to the left and use his momentum against him. It was a classic move, one that would allow me to get a good choke hold in.

Atticai came at me again. Fast—hell, perhaps even faster than last time. But I was ready for him this time. Or, at least, as ready as I could be. He was reckless, cocky, confident, and I used that against him.

As he raised his fist, no doubt to deliver a hell of a killer blow, I dropped, caught his arm and flipped him. In a practiced motion, I rolled with him, getting my other arm around his neck, in a perfect choke hold.

Fuck this piece of shit.

I locked in tight and hard. He kicked, struggling, fighting, gasping. I felt something warm spill over my forearm. Blood. Good. I squeezed even harder.

“Transition!” Wyatt yelled frantically.

Atticai was weakening. Did vampires need air? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. Atticai should have been out by now. Hell, he should have been dead by now, but he was still fighting me, still struggling.

And that’s when something mind boggling happened.

Suddenly, I was holding nothing. Suddenly, where Atticai had just been struggling for air, a battered bird flew away. It was a black raven.

I didn’t have time to react. Everything was happening so fast. Dreams happen fast, too, or slow.

Before I could fully comprehend that Atticai seemed to have turned into a giant raven, Wyatt slammed into me hard from the side, tackling me to the ground. The impact rocked me, rattling my brain and teeth. It was all I could do to focus my eyes before Wyatt unleashed a ferocious pummeling, his fists moving faster than I could react. I must have taken ten or fifteen full shots to the face before he finally let up. I’ve been hit before, and I’ve been hit hard. No way was this fucker going to take me down. The moment he let up, I bucked hard. He lost his balance and now I was scrambling to my feet.

The world spun. Blood gushed from multiple cuts around my eyes and forehead. I needed just a moment to get my bearings, to clear my head, and then that fucker Wyatt was next.

He continued backing off. Good, I caught my breath. My eyes and head cleared slowly. Wyatt was strong as hell, too, and his punches had done some damage. And that’s when the battered raven flew back, alighting on the ground next to Wyatt.

A moment later, the raven began to spread out, to elongate. I was sure my head was still spinning. Perhaps my eyes hadn’t fully adjusted. I watched as each wing and spindly leg continued to stretch and reform and fill out. Perhaps ten seconds later, the wounded raven was Atticai.

My mouth dropped open. Blood spilled from my mouth, and there was an excellent opportunity. Wyatt had knocked loose a tooth. Still, none of that concerned me. All that concerned me was that I was convinced I was losing my mind.

Atticai straightened out his neck and spit out some blood of his own. “You can close your mouth, Josiah. It’s all true. Everything you might have heard. And you nearly killed me, too, which was an unfortunate move for you, bro. Too bad, too...I liked you. ”

Now I was certain I was dreaming. I mean, c’mon. Yes, that made a lot of sense. Perfect sense. It made the only sense. I was dreaming, and Tommy was still alive, and Atticai most certainly didn’t just turn into a raven—and then back again.

I stood before the four of them, too stunned to speak, waiting to wake up, willing myself to wake up. So far, my tortured brain felt it necessary to continue this bizarre dream.

Atticai and his four friends circled me. Dream or not, for the first time in my life, I felt fear. I powered through it.

“Face me one at a time, you vampire fucks. Or not, I don’t give a shit. Just do something. You’re certainly not getting any prettier.”

Famous last words. All five ran at me. Worse, all five turned into fucking black birds at the same time. One minute they were on their feet running, and the next they were black missiles were hurling at me. Missiles with claws and beaks and little beady eyes.

Okay, Josiah, you can wake up now!

No such luck. The first bird dive-bombed at my face. I threw myself to the ground, ducking. Now they were all on me, squawking and clawing and pecking. At first I thought they were trying to eat me alive. They weren’t. They were gripping me, hooking their talons into anything they could grab: my jeans, my shirt, my flesh. Amazingly, I found myself lifting up off the ground.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

I looked down, and I was flying. Cold wind rushed over me, whipping my hair crazily. They flew me higher and higher. I assumed they were just going to drop me, and that this was it for me. I said some prayers and just waited.

But they didn’t drop me, and as best as I could tell—since it’s hard to get your bearings when you’re flying over treetops at night—we seemed to fly in a massive circle. The Flatlands appeared below, a massive clearing in the high forest. The ravens somehow worked as one, and soon we were dropping together. Moments later, I felt the ground beneath me, and I had never felt so relieved in all my life. The massive ravens released their hold on me, and I tentatively found my feet. My knees shook.

I wasn’t out of the woods yet, no pun intended. The ravens weren’t normal sized. These suckers were big, and now I knew why. Want to know surreal? How about being stared at by five enormous, shiny black ravens?

Suddenly, Atticai and the others transitioned back into their human selves. Or vampire selves. Or whatever the hell they were. One moment, the five ravens somberly regarded me, and the next, the five men stood ten feet away, stretching their arms.

Atticai said, “You a believer now, Josiah?”

I was pretty shaken up. “I believe in something.” Actually, I believed in two things above all else: either I had gone insane with grief over losing my friend, or I was still dreaming.

“Now that you’re a believer, Josiah, we’re left with only a couple of choices. You see, you now know way too much. You’re a risk to all of us. We would normally just kill you at this point.”

He said this matter-of-factly, as if he had done this very thing before, perhaps dozens of times before. “Then why don’t you?” I said.

“Because even though you tried to kill me, I like you. I see your potential. You’re the toughest Tandra I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something. Imagine if you became a Mani. Imagine how powerful you’d be as a vampire.”

I wanted to laugh this off, but it was hard to laugh off five dudes who could turn into ravens and take you on a nighttime flight high above the treetops.

“A vampire? And what kind of life would I have?”

Atticai grinned. “A longer one than what you’ll have now. I’m giving you an offer of a lifetime. A chance to live forever.”

I hadn’t realized he was giving me an offer. I knew what I wanted, and what I didn’t want, was to be one of them. “Atticai, I don’t want to be a Mani. Or a vampire. Or a damn bird. I just want to be a regular person. You must remember what that was like...being a regular person?”

I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I think I was trying to buy some time. If by some chance that this shit was real, there was a very real chance that I might not make it out of this clearing alive tonight. And I sure as hell didn’t want to go around sucking people’s blood for the rest of my unnatural life.

Listen to you. This is nuts.

Nuts or not, I had five guys surrounding me, five guys who had just taken me on a flight from hell.

Atticai was smiling again. For someone who had nearly been choked out of existence by me, the tall fucker was sure pleased with himself. “A regular person? Hell, that was back in the 1700s. Life was a little more boring back then, Josiah. We didn’t have the internet or Xbox or Starbucks. The whole vampire gig was a pretty decent deal.”

Wyatt grinned. So did some of the others. Somewhere in the near distance, I could hear a strange rattling noise. I didn’t think it was my own teeth, or my knocking knees. I felt fear, but I wasn’t afraid of Atticai, or anyone. I just didn’t want to die. Not out here. And not by them.

I said, “So, if I say no, you guys just kill me right here and now?”

“No, we won’t. The rattlesnakes will. You do hear them, don’t you? Coming for you? I’ve summoned them. It’s a trick of mine. It’s one of the bag of tricks I have in my arsenal, to summon the things that slither over this earth. Some of us can just do it better than others.”

I could hear a rattling. I could hear lots of rattling. Hundreds of rattling sounds rising in crescendo all around me, like maracas in the hands of possessed folk musicians. Okay, now my knees were knocking. Snakes? Hundreds of them?

Oh, sweet, sweet Jesus.

“I just want you to know one thing, Josiah. I did not kill Tommy. His disgusting Carni brothers did.”

“And why would they do that?”

“How would I know, Josiah? Maybe they mistook him for Kibble N’ Bits or puppy chow. They’re filthy animals; that’s all I know.”

The rattling seemed to grow louder. Were there seriously rattlesnakes coming for me now? I looked around, scanning the darkness around me. I couldn’t see anything, but I seemed to hear a whispering, the sound a slithering body makes moving over the earth. Hundreds of slithering bodies. And then I smelled them, the snakes. Snakes have a very distinctive smell when they are threatened, something I learned in high school biology. I smelled the slight skunkiness in the air—snake musk.

“Last chance, Josiah. Join me.” Atticai reached out his hand to me. “Join me and live.”

I looked at his proffered hand. The rattling was indeed getting closer. Good God, this wasn’t happening. Atticai might have liked me, but I hated him. He could say what he wanted, but he was responsible, one way or another, for Tommy’s death.

I shook my head. “I’d rather die out here.”

“So be it.”

Suddenly the five vampires transitioned into ravens. They circled me in what could have been a ceremonial farewell, and then flew off into the night.

Chapter Twenty-one

So, there I was, completely left alone to die. Not to just die, but die a horrific death at the fate of hundreds of approaching snakes. I spotted a long branch on the ground nearby and grabbed it. I looked up at the sky and looked for the North Star. I knew the way down was to go south. So, I needed to go opposite of the star. I tucked my pant legs into my Doc Martin shoes. I was still wearing my leather jacket, which gave me some comfort. Could snakes bite through jeans?

Next, I said a prayer and took off running south. There was some moonlight, and I was able to use it to find a game trail. I followed it and kept running, praying like hell that I didn’t break an ankle.

Or come across like...a million snakes.

That thought alone sent me scurrying through the forest, running as fast as I could run. My adrenaline was on high. I had never run so hard in my life. I was hopping over bushes and, yes, over snakes. I could feel them underneath me but, I refused to stop. I ran as hard and as fast as I could move. I had no idea how long I was going to have to do this.

It was nearly thirty minutes later when I looked up at the sky. Shit. I had totally lost track of my direction. I was now facing the North Star. Which meant I had been running in circles. I was exhausted, and my side hurt. Nearby was a giant rock. So I jumped on top of it. The rattling of the snakes echoed everywhere. I looked around me, and the ground seemed to be moving. Snakes, everywhere. Slithering, inevitably approaching me. My skin crawled. How Atticai had done this, I don’t know, but the man—or vampire—was surely dealing with some dark magic.

There was no way that I was going to make it around them. I was going to have to attack them.

I jumped down and started swinging the branch. I swung it like a crazed, steroid-induced baseball player. I tried to make room, so I could get around, but there were just too many of them. Snakes flew in every direction. I severed some in half; I bashed others. But there were just too many. I was tiring and losing hope, certain I was going to be smothered by thousands of rattlesnakes, when suddenly I heard a squawk. A familiar shrieking squawk. It sounded like Daphne: kee-eeeee-arr, kee-eeeee-arr.

This night was getting weirder and weirder.

She flew in like a missile, wings folded close to her body. It was dark, and I couldn’t see what the hawk was doing, but it was something. She flew in low circles, and the snakes began to scatter. I jumped back onto the boulder, and just stood there and watched Daphne in action. The undulating forest floor, once alive with snakes, now calmed. The rattling disappeared into the distance. In a matter of minutes, the snakes were gone, beaten back by the angry hawk with a shrill voice and no fear of them. Incredible.

All the snakes had gone away. Or so I thought. As I jumped down from the rock and moved through the high grass, I heard a sharp rattle, and then a biting pain. Turns out the little shits can bite through jeans.

I kicked my leg hard and the little fucker went flying. The pain in my ankle was intense and immediate. The poison quickly took effect, perhaps because I was depleted emotionally and physically. I fell to my knees. My eyes blurred. I was losing consciousness. I could hear a lot of noise nearby. More snakes? More birds? More vampires? I didn’t know or care.

Still, someone was close by. Someone or something. As strange colors flitted just behind my eyelids, perhaps an effect of the poison, I felt something bite deeply into my ankle, the same spot where the snake had just sunk its own fangs. Another snake? No. I could feel hands gripping my leg.

I closed my eyes. The pain in my ankle was excruciating. The person sucking the venom did so with ferocity. I forced open my eyes, and through the swirling colors and light, I saw Yari.

“Yari?” I gasped, convinced I was hallucinating.

“Shh. Quiet, Josiah. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

I looked at Yari, and she started transitioning in the way Atticai and the others had done. But Yari didn’t transition into a raven. Yari transitioned into...Daphne, my faithful hawk friend. Yari was Daphne?

It was then that I passed out.

Chapter Twenty-two

I opened my eyes, and I found myself in my bed.

Was everything a dream? I looked down at my ankle, and there were two sets of raw, swollen puncture wounds. The snake and Yari?

Not a dream, I thought. Last night was real.

So then how I was home?

I got up and went to the living room. It felt like morning, yet, my house was still completely dark. I soon saw why. Someone had duct-taped the blinds so that no light could get in.

A voice spoke from the darkness, startling me. “In about three hours, I can go outside.” Yari was sitting on the carpet cross-legged in the far corner of the living room. She looked as if she had been doing yoga in complete darkness. If not for her pale complexion, I probably wouldn’t have seen her at all.

“So, it’s all true,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. “Vampires, sunlight, werewolves, full moons—all of it.”

“It’s all true, Josiah.”

“I still can’t believe it.”

“Believe, Josiah. You have seen it with your own eyes.”

I stared at Yari, sitting there in the corner of my living room, in complete darkness, a beautiful woman I had slept with just weeks earlier, a woman I had watched turn into a fucking beautiful red-tailed hawk. I sat down and held my head. I wasn’t suffering from overwhelming grief—although my heart ached heavier than ever, knowing that Tommy would never set foot in here again. I wasn’t running on adrenaline, and I certainly wasn’t high or drunk. This was real, and there was no talking my way out of this. Could I still be dreaming? Sure, maybe, but I doubted it.

This was real. Real.

I asked the only question that I could think of at the moment: “Since when did vampires start turning into birds? I thought it was supposed to be bats or fog or something.”

“You mortals—and your writers, in particular—were the ones who fabricated that nonsense. Hell, we don’t even refer to ourselves as vampires. We are something else.”

“Mani,” I said.

“Yes.” Yari stood up and walked over to me. “Josiah, I have done a horrible thing.”

“What would that be, exactly?”

She paused, and then sat down on the couch. She was being exceptionally quiet. I walked over and sat next to her. “What is it?” I asked.

“Josiah, I saved you. The Triat won’t like that. The Mani won’t like that, either. Especially Atticai.”

“Why is it so awful that I know? Lena knows, and nothing seems to happen to her.”

“Lena is different.”

“How so?”

“There is so much about us that you don’t understand. There is a history, and there are many things that have been prophesied. I can’t go into that right now. When I am at full strength, we need to get you out of here.”

“Where would I go, Yari?”

“Anywhere but here. Atticai knows where you live, and I know him; he’ll get suspicious if there is no word about a man dying in the wilderness. He will assume you survived.”

“So, what am I supposed to do? Run? I’ve never run from anything in my life.”

“Can the macho ego bullshit, Josiah. These guys will kill you without a second thought. The Triat gives them the right to do so. Please, we must leave. Soon.”

“And go where?”

“Far away.”

“Come with me.”

Yari stared at the floor for a moment before looking up at me. “Josiah, I will always be with you.”

“No, don’t be with me as Daphne, the hawk. I want you to be by my side as you...Yari. You. Whatever you are, I want to be with you.”

Tears glistened in her eyes. “Look, do you have an extra set of keys to Tommy’s car? It should still be parked at the ranch from the other night. His keys must have fallen out when he fought Atticai because he didn’t have them when I dropped him...” her voice drifted off.

“When you dropped him off at the hospital,” I said suddenly, as the realization hit me that it had been Yari who tried to save my friend’s life. “Why would you do that if you knew he was a Carni?”

She looked away. “Because I knew you cared about him. I did it for you.”

This whole thing was almost too much for me to handle. I sat down and cradled my head in my hands, thinking. “You’re going to have to turn into Daphne and go get his Mustang from the ranch. You are going to need to bring it back here. It’ll be dark soon, so I guess you won’t have a problem, you know, transitioning, or whatever you call it.”

Yari smiled and looked at me for a heartbeat or two. She reached out and took my hand, and we sat like that until the sun finally set. And when it did, she stood from the couch and stepped away from me. “Do you have an extra set of keys, Josiah?

“Yes, we both kept a set of each other’s keys in our bedrooms just in case of an emergency. Can you carry them as a hawk?”

“Oh, I can carry much bigger things than keys, Josiah. I’ll need the keys to the Mustang. Now.”

I nodded and fetched the keys, and when I returned, a beautiful red hawk was sitting on the arm of the couch. She opened her talons, and I carefully hooked the key ring inside the claws as they closed over the key ring. I opened the door, and the hawk shot out of my apartment like a cannon shot.

“Be careful!” I yelled after her, wondering what my neighbors were thinking. With any luck, no one saw the hawk.

About a half hour later, Yari made her way back in Tommy’s Mustang. During that time, I had packed a few things. We jumped into the muscle car and headed straight for the freeway. I kept looking up in the sky for ravens.

So far, the coast was clear.

We hit the 91 Freeway and eventually made our way to the 5 Freeway. I wasn’t sure how far north I wanted to drive, but Monterey seemed far enough. Monterey was a quaint beach city about five hours north, and it seemed as if it would be the last place anyone would think to look for me. If the Triat wanted me dead, I think she or it—or whatever it was—would have done it by now.

Then again, what the hell did I know?

Chapter Twenty-three

In Monterey, we stopped at a quaint bed and breakfast. I got us a room that only had one small window. Before the trip, I had packed the same duct tape that Yari had used to tape my own curtains shut. Yari and I proceeded to tape shut the curtain to this window, as well. We even duct-taped the blinds themselves, so that no light whatsoever could peek through come morning.

I was exhausted. In hindsight, I probably should have had the vampire be the one to do the driving through the entire night. Anyway, I got the room for three nights, so that we could figure out our next move. Even though, it wasn’t morning—in fact, morning was still a few hours away—Yari hit the sheets hard, crashing immediately. Dead to the world, so to speak. And for all I knew, she was.

I lit a couple of candles that I had brought and then I sat on the leather-back chair that was directly in front of the bed. Although Yari and I had been intimate previously at the party in Victorville, I felt I needed an invitation before lying next to her on this day.

So, I sat there and watched her sleep as the sun moved across the sky, which I only knew was happening from my wristwatch. I thought that I had read somewhere that vampires didn’t sleep, that they died all over again, and then were reborn come sundown. Well, say that to this softly snoring girl. She sure as hell sounded asleep to me.

I was exhausted, but was too wired to sleep. I didn’t want to put on the TV because the noise and light might bother her. So instead, I just stared. I sat there and looked at her in the candlelight. Her auburn hair flowed down her back like a red waterfall. Her body was long and athletic. She looked like a female superhero, something out of a comic book. And, like a heroine, she had saved my life. I didn’t know why, but she seemed always to be there for me.

I thought about everything, trying to wrap my brain around this vampire business. Had Tommy seriously been a werewolf all this time? The more I thought about it, the more it was adding up. Tommy had come out of nowhere. He had no family. He had an erratic temper that he seemed always to be trying to keep in check. True, he had disappeared for a few days, and, no, I had never seen any actual proof that he was in the Reserves. I just took him for his word. Who wouldn’t?

In fact, oddly—or perhaps hysterically—he even hated high-pitched noises.

My eyes were growing heavy, and I dozed off. Sometime later, I felt a hand guiding me to the bed. I cracked my eyes open and saw Yari pulling down the covers. She unbuckled my belt and slid my pants off like a mother putting a son to bed. Still wearing my boxers and T-shirt, she guided me into bed and tucked me in. She was sweet and gentle and kind in every movement she made. She slipped under the covers next to me, her body surprisingly warm.

“Aren’t vampires supposed to be cold?” I asked.

“I’m not a vampire,” she said patiently.

I nodded once. “You’re a Mani.”

“There’s a big difference.”

“Of course,” I said, and grinned.

I turned and faced her. “I don’t know what to do. Where do I go from here?”

“Don’t think about it, Josiah. Not right now. Tonight, just close your eyes.”

I could feel her breath on my face. I leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Thank you for saving my life.”

Chapter Twenty-four

I slept for a long time. It felt like years. I opened my eyes and saw that Yari had opened the single window because it was now dark outside. The clock on the nightstand showed 8:42 p.m. Wow, I had slept for fifteen hours. I sat up. The showerhead blasted the echoing tiles with water in the connecting bathroom. Considering that I had been out for the past fifteen hours, I needed to use the facilities.

Duty called. I eased open the bathroom door and could see Yari’s silhouette through the steamy glass shower door.

“Josiah, is that you?” Yari called out over the water.

“Of course it is. Who else could it be?”

“Who knows? Maybe the maid. I’m not sure how familiar the staff is at this bed and breakfast.”

I did my business. Luckily, she couldn’t hear it above the drone of the rushing water. When done, I started walking out the door. “Where are you going?”

“Outside. To give you some privacy.”

“Aren’t you dirty? Do you need a shower?”

“Yeah, I’ll take one when you’re done.”

“There’s plenty of room in here.”

I paused. “Seriously?”

“If you’re shy, I understand.”

“I’m not that shy.”

“Well, you better hurry up. I would hate to use up all the hot water.”

Oh, she was good. I looked at her silhouette one more time. That’s all I needed to see. My boxers and T-shirt were off in seconds. I walked over to the sliding glass shower door. I took a deep breath, as if I was about to enter a swimming pool. I pulled open the glass door. I looked in, and Yari faced me. Her body was perfect. The wispy shower steam did little to hide her curves. I tried not to stare, but the truth is, I haven’t seen that many women naked before—and the ones I had seen naked were nowhere near Yari’s jaw-dropping perfection.

Oh, my God.

Her skin was milky white. Her body as curvy and hard and smooth as anything I had ever seen. Her wet hair hung over her shoulder, and she put a long-fingered hand on one hip.

“You getting an eyeful, mister?”

So much for not staring.

“Uh, sorry,” I said. At least, that’s what I think I said. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I had any control of my mouth or my voice at that moment. My hormones were somewhere in orbit at the moment.

“Come over here, silly. I’m not lying about the hot water getting used up. This is a private bed and breakfast, not a Sheraton.”

I stepped into the hot shower, and she backed up underneath the shower head. The water flowed over her, accentuating her curves. I went straight to her like a moth to the flame, and into the epicenter of the water flow.

At first, the hot water shocked me and then it felt incredible. Yari turned my body around and began lathering my back and shoulders with a bar of soap. As she did so, she gently massaged my skin and muscles. Oh, dear Lord. She next guided my head so that the water sprayed directly onto my scalp, and then poured some shampoo into my hair. Now she was massaging my scalp, and I think I died and went to heaven. I tried to turn around, but she stopped me.

“Hold on,” she said. “I have to wash out the shampoo.” She rinsed my hair thoroughly. I relished the feeling of her gentle fingers on my scalp. I couldn’t take all this sensuality much longer. My passion was burning, and I was going to explode.

I turned around and switched spots with her so that now she was underneath the flow of water. I ran my fingers through her thick, black hair and pulled her toward me. She came willingly. I kissed her passionately, and soon we were pressed up against the side wall, kissing hungrily. I had never kissed any woman in my life with this much intention. I wanted her to know how much I appreciated her and wanted her. Needed her. I pulled back and looked at her intensely. Then I leaned in and kissed her again and again. It was the first time I had ever felt in complete control in her presence. Everything up to now, she had dictated. I sensed that releasing control was somehow turning her on—more so than I had ever seen before in my life.

Stumbling and slipping, I led her out of the shower and into the bedroom. I threw her on the bed softly and proceeded to kiss every square inch of her body. I was in the midst of kissing her belly button when she reached around me and grabbed my buttocks and pressed me up against her. Then she wrapped her arms around me and just held me close.

I look down at her, gasping. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, Josiah.”

“Are you sure?”

“Josiah, I...”

“You what?”

“Josiah, I...”

“You what?” I was anticipating her saying that she loved me, which would have floored me. To be honest, I wanted her to say it. So, I pressed again. “What? Please tell me.”

“Josiah, I... have to kill you.”

“What?!” I jumped off of her.

“I know I have to do it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Josiah, the Triat led me to you. I never understood why. I thought it was because it would have something to do with Tommy. But I think the Triat led me to you because you were going to ultimately mess up the prophecy.”

“The prophecy? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The Children of the Night’s prophecy.”

I got up and put my jeans back on. Having someone tell you they were going to kill you sort of dampened the mood. “Sure, of course. That makes a tremendous amount of sense. Look, I was about to make love to you, and now I’m seriously thinking I have to stick an entirely different kind of stake in you. Start talking fast, or tonight’s about to get real ugly.”

I glanced around. I didn’t have a stake. Would a toothbrush do?

God, listen to me. I’m going nuts.

“Atticai, Hector, Wyatt, and I were all given the same prophetic dream. The four of us didn’t meet by chance. The Triat brought us together through dreams.”

“This just gets better and better. What was the dream?”

“The four of us were given the same vision in our dreams. This was fifteen years ago. We all had the same dream to meet on April 18, 1995, at midnight. We were to meet and form a clan called Children of the Night.”

“So you’ve known Atticai for almost seventeen years now?”

“Not quite. In the mid-1800s, Atticai and I were in a giant clan on the east coast. So, I met him first during the Civil War.”

“The Civil War?”

“Yes, Josiah.”

“You have got to be kidding.”

“Josiah, I was born October 18th, 1673.”

“You need to give me a moment here. You are over three hundred years old?”

“I look pretty good, huh?”

“I’ll say. Okay, so you and Atticai were in some giant Mani vampire clan during the Civil War? Just saying that out loud makes me think I’m crazy.”

“You’re not crazy, Josiah.”

“Says the girl who calls herself a vampire. Go on.”

“Not a vampire. A Mani.”

“Somehow that sounds even crazier. Anyway, go on.”

“Atticai was the head of our clan. There was a Mani named Krull who didn’t like the way Atticai ran things. Believe it or not, Atticai is not about death and destruction. He defends and protects the will of the Triat, but ultimately, he is a mediator.”

“Sure, he seemed real peaceful when he sicced half the rattlesnakes in California on my ass.”

“I can see how you would think that, but the will of the Triat is what makes him a killer. Mani, such as Krull, are the real killers. Such Mani are the reason why we often get referred to as vampires—and why so many Tandra—humans—have died over the years.” She paused and sat back on the bed.

God, I still wanted her. Did she just say she was going to have to kill me? Even that statement didn’t kill my desire for Yari.

She went on, “Krull and others like him want the Tandra to discover our world because then they have a license to kill. Atticai knew that’s what Krull and those who followed him were doing. Atticai put a stop to this, until Krull’s legions rose up over Atticai’s clan, and Atticai—and many others—were forced to flee.”

She paused and studied me a moment longer. Her eyes were so damn hard to read. “Josiah, there is a whole world of Mani out there that want to destroy all Tandra.”

“Where do werewolves—the Carni—come into it?” I discreetly moved over to my bag, where I had packed a pocketknife. I wasn’t going down without a fight. Even if I had to fight a female vampire.

Yari said, “The Carni are their own species and are equally protected by the Triat, although they have their own set of rules. The Carni have not as many rules to live by and are in constant opposition of the Triat.”

“Why doesn’t the Triat just have them killed off?”

“It doesn’t work that way. The Triat works through us and the only way the Carni will be destroyed is by the Mani.”

“Okay, that’s pretty heavy.”

“And that’s where the Children of the Night come in. For hundreds of years, there has been a prophecy. A Mani that will be so powerful, so pure, that he will restore order to the orderless. It is said that he will bring beauty back to us all so that we can live in peace.”

I nodded, not really understanding. Not wanting to, either. Because if I understood, then I would have to accept things.

Yari continued, “After Atticai, Hector, and Wyatt, and I all received our visions, we were told to form a four-person clan, or a cell. Once done, the next step would be revealed to us in further dreams.”

“And was it?”

“Yes.”

I nodded, guessing this part. “You dreamed of Atticai being the Chosen One.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps. There is no face to the Chosen One. At least, not yet.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied me. “Why do you think it’s Atticai?”

“It makes sense. He fights for humans—well, for the most part—and he’s a Mani.”

Yari continued studying me, then finally said, “Unfortunately, there’s nothing pure and beautiful about Atticai.”

“So you don’t think it’s him?”

“It does not matter what I think, Josiah. I am an extremely small fish in a much bigger pond. Anyway, most people think it’s going to be Atticai. Already he is prepping to harvest a virgin on her twentieth birthday. When he does so, he will, according to legend, transform into the white eagle.”

“White eagle?”

“As you know by now, all male Mani transition into ravens and the Mani women into hawks. The Chosen One, however, will transition into a white eagle.”

“Err, what exactly do you mean by harvest?”

“A Mani will drain all the life-blood of a Tandra—or Carni, for that matter.”

“Yeah, Atticai’s a real saint,” I said sarcastically, shaking my head. “So who’s this virgin that Atticai’s supposedly going to harvest?”

Yari was quiet.

I pressed. “There’s not too many virginal twenty-year-olds out there. Is he going to pluck a nun from a nunnery?”

“No. Our dreams were acutely specific on who the virgin is supposed to be.”

Confused, I looked at Yari and then it hit me. Everything now made perfect, twisted sense.

The virgin was Lena.

Chapter Twenty-five

“You’re talking about Lena, aren’t you?” I said. “Shit! Wasn’t it going to be her birthday any day now?”

“We all had the same dream and the same vision, Josiah. In each of them, Lena fits the image of the twenty-year-old virgin exactly. And as her twentieth birthday has come closer, the dreams have been out of control for us. Now we dream about what is to happen nearly every night. And just recently, there has been something else added to the dream. A new twist, so to speak.”

“And what is that?” I asked.

“There is this strong presence of evil. In the dream, Atticai is freeing us all by receiving the necessary blood. But there is an evil presence interfering that we can’t quite make out. We’re not sure if it is a fallen Mani or Carni. But there is something there, and it is exceedingly evil, and we are all on guard because of it.”

“Does Lena know any of this?”

“She knows only that, on that special night, she and Atticai will be joined together throughout all eternity.”

“But in reality, she’s not. In reality, Atticai is going to kill her.”

“Atticai is going to fulfill the prophecy, Josiah. He will then save the Mani. He will fly in as a white eagle. It has been prophesied for thousands of years. Do you understand how lucky each of us is to be asked to be a part of it?”

“About as lucky as a heart attack. And what if the virgin sacrifice doesn’t go according to plan? What then?”

“It has to come to plan, Josiah. Everything needs to come to pass. Every detail all the way down to whatever evil that needs to be taken care of.”

“Are you still planning on killing me?”

Yari stood up and came over to me. I slipped my hand in my bag and grabbed the knife. Woman or not, she was a Mani, and I knew these things were tough as hell.

She said, “If I was, I wouldn’t have told you everything.”

“Maybe you told me everything, so it would make it easier to kill me.”

Yari’s eyes burned through me. I knew then she was in absolute love with me. Her love for me, I knew, was the only thing keeping her from attacking me, from fulfilling her obligations to the Triat. Still, I kept the knife in my palm.

“There’s nothing in this world that could make me harm you, Josiah.” She touched my cheek, and I sensed genuine emotion from her.

I knew I needed to save Lena. But I needed more information. Everything I knew about how to defeat a vampire was from novels and movies. And, from what I was gathering, they had gotten things wrong. Dead wrong.

There was no doubt I cared for Lena. I wanted to save her from this crazy shit. I could give a damn if the Mani and Carni lived in peace or not. It was not my fight. But what could I do? The only thing I knew to do was to make sure that there was no way that Atticai became the Chosen One. Because if he did, Lena would have to die to make that happen. What was I thinking? These people were crazy, all of them. There was no way I was going to let Lena become a victim of their agenda, real or not.

I slipped the knife in my back pocket, leaned in, and put my hands around Yari’s waist. I pulled her in close and looked her in the eye. “But what if I wanted to harm you though?”

“You want to harm me?” she asked, with a soft and sexy surprise in her voice.

“How would a Tandra have a chance against a Mani like yourself?”

She studied me a moment, obviously debating how much to tell me. Finally, she said, “There are a number of ways a mortal could defeat a Mani.” Yari kissed me gently on the lips. “Why would you want to harm me?”

“Not you,” I said, but that’s all I would say.

She looked at me for a long time, keeping me at arm’s length. I could sense her inner conflict. After all, why should she tell me their deepest secrets, especially the one that could bring down the entire prophecy? Did she trust me? And why should she trust me? Hell, just a few minutes earlier, I was preparing to fight her. Eventually, she shrugged and pulled me in close. When she spoke, she did so in my ear: “You defeated Atticai last night. He was forced to transition to escape. I’ve never seen that happen before. Not from a Tandra.”

“How would I protect myself against your kind?” I asked.

“There is no protection, but there are two ways to defeat us.”

“A stake?” I offered.

“A silver stake,” she corrected. “And you need to pierce a Mani so deadly that it goes in through the front and out through the back. Complete impalement.”

I shuddered. “So, it doesn’t have to be through the heart?”

“If you want maximum chance at a permanent kill, then yes, through the heart.” Yari reached down and began unzipping my pants with her left hand while we still bantered face-to-face. Within seconds, she had me free, and in a tight grip, and after three hundred years, well, let’s just say she was exceptionally skilled at what she was doing. Blood started to rush away from my head as my thoughts went in other directions. Downward.

“And what’s the other way?” I struggled to say.

“Excuse me?” Yari had clearly shifted her focus to something else entirely.

I gasped and panted. She was good and mid-stroke, I asked her: “What...what is the other way a Tandra can defeat a Mani in battle?”

Yari turned me around and sat me on the bed. She lifted a leg and was soon straddling me. Within moments, I was completely inside her. She leaned in and our bodies began moving in a slow, sensual motion.

I moaned but, trying to maintain my focus, I repeated my question, in an abbreviated fashion: “Tandra vs. Mani. How can Tandra win the battle?”

“Well, Josiah,” she said, her voice husky in my ear, “the other way is to pierce a Mani’s neck from one side to the other with just about anything. Such a wound prevents us from transitioning. A Mani, you see, needs maximum air capacity to transition. After just a couple gasps, a Mani will be done.”

“Done?” I asked, wondering if she meant dead.

Apparently so, because she said, “So, there you go, Josiah. How to Kill a Mani for Dummies. Just don’t let our secret out, or I will have to kill you.”

She grinned and kissed me deeply, and I wondered how much of what she was saying was true. Had she seriously given me the recipe for defeating her kind? Just because I was in her? I didn’t know, and I didn’t have much time to ponder these questions, because soon Yari was doing delicious and dirty things to me that I swore I would never repeat to anyone.

And, I’m a man of my word.

Chapter Twenty-six

In the afterglow, I laid on the bed and was finally able to turn my head to look at the bedside clock. It was 10:00 p.m.

“Isn’t tomorrow night the big night?” I asked, when my head finally cleared. “Isn’t it Lena’s birthday in twenty-six hours?”

Yari was curled up next to me. Her body was warm, which went against everything I had heard about vampires. Hey, trust me, I was glad she was warm. The last thing I wanted was something cold and undead lying next to me. She was staring at me intently, while I looked up at the ceiling with my hands behind my head, trying to make the question casual, so that she would not suspect that I was planning anything. Which I kind of was.

She nodded. “Yes, it’s almost time for the prophecy to come to fruition. I can’t miss it. I’m going to fly back soon.”

“As the crow flies?”

“As the hawk flies,” she said, pinching me. “Crows are vile.”

“What’s the difference between a crow and a raven?”

“Do we really want to talk about it?”

I shrugged. “Probably not. So, does it have to be this way?”

“What way?”

“The sacrifice and all the bloodletting, or whatever it is, that Atticai plans on doing to Lena.”

“Yes, Josiah.”

“And where is it going to take place?”

“It’s only going to be the four of us and Lena. We’re going to do it at the old Savoy Ranch. That’s where it is in the dream.”

“Savoy Ranch is popular with hikers and campers. Aren’t you afraid someone will see you?”

“Josiah, we are not afraid of anything. And don’t get any ideas. I’ve spared you tonight. But if you want to live, you will stay here and wait for me. Once Atticai becomes the Chosen One, he might show you clemency. That’s what I’m hoping for, at least. Otherwise, you’re going to have to spend the rest of your life on the run.”

“Great. I’m once again at Atticai’s mercy. I saw what his mercy did to me the last time.”

I rolled over and pretended to go to sleep, like most Tandra do after having sex. Except, I was not like other Tandra. Yari was my 4-1-1 to the Mani and their diabolical plans to slay Lena. Like hell, I was going to stay here. I’ve never run from a fight in my life, and no seven-foot goon, especially a goon I had already choked out, was going to stop me from helping a girl I cared about: Lena.

Once Yari left, I had about 24 hours to convince Lena not to trust those bastards.

Minutes later, Yari kissed me gently on the head. I didn’t stir. She opened the window after first peeling off the tape. I cracked an eye open and watched as she transitioned back into Daphne, the hawk, and took off out of the screenless window. In a flash of wings, she was gone, and, as I stared at the window, all I could think of was that I just watched a woman I had just slept with—well not a woman but a something—turn into a bird of prey. A chill went down my spine.

I decided to wait about an hour just in case Yari decided to come back for any reason, even to see if I was following her. As I waited, I gathered my things and left $200 on the bed with a note to the bed and breakfast hosts, saying that we were sorry for leaving early. That we had an emergency.

An hour later, I was stowing my things in Tommy’s Mustang. I had a brief moment when the pain of his passing hit me hard, and I covered my face and sobbed deeply into my hands. Through all this madness, I hadn’t even had time to mourn Tommy. He had died only three days ago. Unfortunately, I was now caught up in a world that I needed to fix. Before another innocent person died. Her name hammered my heart like a mantra. Lena: A sweet, trusting, innocent virgin, who ate burgers and fries with me and was my friend and the gentlest girl who I ever knew.

Even more unfortunate was that I didn’t have anything close to a plan; that is unless you counted the general goal: find Lena. Fast.

I fired up the car and headed out. I intended to do just that.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I drove all night and got to Lena’s house at about 7:00 a.m.

There were no cars parked out front, and the lights were out. The trailer park looked deserted, and I suddenly felt hopeless. The only other place I could think to look was the creepy mansion in Victorville. I knocked on the door and waited. I kept looking in the sky for Daphne. Sadly, I knew that I needed to avoid her, too. Especially her. With a start, I realized that it was probably over for me and Yari. Me and Daphne. I was light. She was dark. And she was in a creepy cult clan with a terrifying agenda. And I...didn’t want to be.

Finally, I heard the door unlatch. It opened and Lena was standing there wearing white shorts and a red tank top. Her hair was messy, and I had obviously awakened her.

“Holy shit, Josiah, you’re alive!” Lena jumped in my arms and hugged me. “Come in, I don’t want anyone to see you.”

“Where’s your family?”’

“They took off to Vegas last night.”

Lena grabbed a blanket from the floor and laid it on the couch. I looked around the living room area. It was extremely conservative. There were crosses on the wall, pictures of Jesus, and posters with Bible verses on them.

“Wow, I guess you rebelled, didn’t you?” I said, referring to all the Christian stuff in the room.

“Don’t even get me started on the hypocrisy in this house. I am so happy you’re here.”

“You are?” I said, surprised.

“Josiah, I was so upset when I heard what they had done to you. You have to understand that Atticai had no choice. I know that on some level, he was hoping you would make it through the trial of the snakes. He just has to abide by the rules of the Triat. If Atticai wanted you dead, you would be dead. He gave you an out, and you made it.”

“Some out,” I said, thinking about all the snakes. I was going to have nightmares for the rest of my life. But the thought that Atticai wasn’t such an awful person or whatever creature he is, intrigued me. Indeed, if he wanted me dead, he could have just ordered for me to be dropped me from high above. I would have fallen a hundred or so feet, at least ten stories roughly. I would have been dead for sure. Instead, he sent snakes after me. How biblically symbolic of him. Still, the big goon had nefarious plans for Lena, and that’s where I drew the line. Atticai, in the end, was no friend of mine. Or hers.

And since when did I start using words like nefarious, since I started talking about vampires? Vampires and nefarious go hand in hand.

I shook my head, focusing my thoughts and pushing them out at Lena. “Well, before he decided to turn into his little black bird, I almost choked him out.”

“Be glad you didn’t. The other guys would have ripped you to shreds.”

“Why, Lena?”

“Why, what?”

“Why do you love him? Why do you want that world? Why do you have to be a part of them? You’re better than that.”

“Am I, now? Look around, Josiah. I live in a two-bedroom trailer house where my stepdad finds a way to put his grimy hands on me every day. And if he’s not doing that, he’s spying on me showering or changing.”

“Then move out. Go somewhere else.”

“Where? Where can I go?” She paused, perhaps sensing the silliness of her own question. A nineteen-year-old girl could go anywhere. At least, she could move in with friends, like Tommy and I had done. She steeled her resolve and said, “I love Atticai and he loves me. And that’s enough for me.”

“But he doesn’t love you, Lena. He’s using you.”

“What do you know? You didn’t know any of them until a month ago, and now you’re an expert? I know you lost your best friend, and I can’t imagine how bad that is screwing with your head, but I’m not you. This is the life I want.”

“Lena, listen to me: if you leave tonight with Atticai, he will kill you.”

“Kill me?! You don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Lena, I know more than you know. I know about their prophecies. Atticai is to be their Chosen One. He is going to become some white eagle or something and save all the good Mani from the bad Mani. I know everything.”

“Then what’s the problem, Josiah? Atticai and I will always be connected. Don’t you see? It’s beautiful.”

“Wait, you know?”

“I know what I care to know. I know Atticai needs me to fulfill his destiny, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes and to do whatever he needs me to do to make that happen.”

“Even if it means killing you?!” I yelled. “He’s going to suck all the blood out of your body. You are basically going to bleed to death. You do understand that you are not one of them, right? You can romanticize it all you want. In the end, he’s going to kill you.”

“I see,” she said, but I don’t think she saw at all. “What do you suggest I should do then, Josiah, since you seem to have all the answers?”

“Run away with me. I have over a hundred thousand in the bank from my MMA winnings and inheritance. Run away with me, Lena, and we’ll start a whole new life together.”

“Are you in love with me or something?”

I looked at her and didn’t know how to answer that. “All I know is, I don’t want you to die. I want you to live. I’m willing to do whatever it takes. To save you.”

“Josiah, come sit next to me.” She patted the couch next to her, and I did as she asked. “I know a lot has happened since you stuck up for me. To be honest, I cried for hours when they told me that you were dead.”

I sighed. “We need to get going. Now,” I said firmly.

“Josiah, I believe that once in every lifetime, each of us is given a golden opportunity. We’re given a chance to be a part of something greater than ourselves. Some people never get this chance. I’m going to take it.”

“But you’re going to die. And for what? So some hidden underground societies have peace?”

Lena put her arms around me, and I found my head resting on her chest. I could hear the strong beat of her heart. She was so amazing. She was so comforting, too. I came here to try to save her, but instead she was comforting me. I was exhausted, and soon we both fell asleep in one another’s arms. There was nothing sexual about it. It was just two friends who discovered they loved each other.

Chapter Twenty-eight

We woke up around noon and I tried talking her out of it several times. Mostly, she didn’t want to talk about it. We got something to eat, and mostly I couldn’t eat. How can you eat, knowing the person sitting across from you, a person you had come to care about deeply, was going to die in just a matter of hours? We talked a lot, and I got to know her even more. Every time I brought up her upcoming birthday, she shushed me with a haunting smile. All in all, it was an extremely odd day.

Finally, it was about 10:30 at night.

“You’d better leave, Josiah. They’ll be picking me up at any minute to take me over to Savoy Ranch.”

I walked over to her and hugged her tight. I hugged her the way I would have hugged my mom and my sister on the day they got into their car accident, had I somehow known their fate ahead of time. I knew Lena’s fate if she did not come with me. I looked down at her and kissed her on the lips.

“Lena, whatever happens, please know that I care about you. That I always will.”

“I know, Josiah,” she leaned in and held me tightly and then let go. “You better go.”

I left Lena’s house feeling sick and disoriented. I needed to control something in my life. Everything important was spiraling in circles, just out of my reach.

What the hell was I going to do?

One thing I knew I could do was go to the hospital and try to see where they moved Tommy’s body. Was there a morgue in the hospital basement, like in the movies? It was a grim thought, thinking about my closest friend in the world’s lifeless body, stuck in a freezer, waiting for autopsy, burial, closure. It was all I had to grip onto at this moment while I waited for Lena’s sick and twisted demise. She seemed perfectly happy to go to it. I was aghast at her decision.

So, I went to the hospital in search of my other best friend, the dead one. I needed to find out where they had placed Tommy’s body. After all, I still needed to make funeral arrangements.

The eeriness of pulling into the hospital in Tommy’s car wasn’t lost on me. I shuddered slightly and felt sick again. I went straight to the front and asked them about the deceased. They sent me to the morgue in the basement, just like I visualized before I went there. After going through a bunch of doors and two different security guards, I found a pleasant-looking lady wearing horned-rimmed glasses sitting behind a desk. She seemed to be waiting for me.

“How can I help you?” she asked.

The room was cold. I shivered. I said, “My friend died in this hospital a few days ago, and I need to make funeral arrangements.”

I knew a thing or two about hospitals and death, since I had lost my whole family. I knew hospitals kept bodies until family members could make arrangements for a proper burial.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, and to her credit, she sounded legitimately sorry. “What’s his name?”

“Tommy Jensen.”

She paused and stared at me. “You’re the family of Tommy Jensen?”

“Yes, more or less.”

“You need to go back upstairs and speak to Human Resources.”

“Why?” I said. “I was told to come down here. What happened?”

“I can’t get into it, young man. You’ll need to speak to a hospital administrator.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Do you have Tommy or not?”

She stared at me and, amazingly, I saw that her hands were shaking. What the fuck was going on? I forced myself to calm down, even though I felt my heart racing.

“Please, what’s going on? Tell me.”

She looked over my shoulder and then behind her. We were alone. “I’ve been working in this hospital for over twenty years, and I’ve never seen what I saw with your friend.”

Now my heart figuratively froze in my chest, but I could feel an actual chill tighten my breathing. “What are you talking about?”

“I shouldn’t be telling you this. In fact, I was told specifically never to mention again what I saw.”

I was suddenly finding it extremely difficult to breathe.

“But you’re here now, and...you have a right to know.” She took off her glasses and started shaking her head. “Screw my bosses. Sometimes, you just have to do the right thing.”

“Please,” I said. My voice sounded strangled to my own ears.

“Three days ago, I get this body sent down to me. He’s all scratched up and has bite marks all over it. I’m thinking this poor young man is a mess. Anyway, I do what I normally do to prep the body for autopsy.”

She paused again, and I found myself leaning over her desk, supporting my weight.

“So, I began to wash some of his wounds. But the weirdest thing happened. I would wash a wound, and the body would heat up, and the wound would...heal right before me. I called a couple of my colleagues over and we started cleaning all of his wounds. Two hours after he was pronounced dead, his pulse returned.”

“What?!” I yelled. I couldn’t help myself. The word just burst from my mouth.

“Quiet down. Please. So listen, we are all freaking out because we have a freaking miracle on the table. My colleagues and I leave the room to find the doctors...” Her voice trailed off.

It was all I could do not grab her by her damn uniform and shake the story out of her.

“What happened to Tommy?” I said sternly.

She hesitated and then said, “When we came back...he was gone.”

“What do you mean gone?” I asked.

“His body was gone. We had everyone searching, but he was nowhere to be found.”

I felt my knees buckle. I leaned on her desk, almost falling on it.

Tommy was...alive?

“Why, why didn’t anyone call me?”

“This is out of my hands; you’ll have to talk to someone upstairs. I already told you too much.”

“So, no one saw him leave? Not even the security?”

She shook her head.

I looked at the clock on the wall as the elevator closed. It read 11:30. Savoy Ranch was ten minutes away. I thanked her and left.

I wasn’t sure how but I was going to save Lena, but I was going to. I also wasn’t sure how I was going to find Tommy, but I was going to do that, too.

Chapter Twenty-nine

As I sat in Tommy’s Mustang, I wondered if Tommy had been back to the house. I also wondered if he had tried to contact me. He must have. I had been so caught up in all this crap, and I hadn’t been around to see him. Well, I still needed to do one more thing and, to be honest I had no idea if I would make it out of this alive.

We’ll find out soon enough, I thought.

I headed to the ranch. The ranch was tucked away in the canyon right before you head up the highway for the mountains. It’s a popular spot for hikers and campers...and apparently, vampires.

Tommy and I used to train up there, which is how I know about it since I’m not exactly the outdoorsy type. It was, admittedly, beautiful up there. Well, tonight there wasn’t going to be much beauty up there. Tonight was going to be anything but beautiful.

The Mustang bounded around hairpin turns and straight cliffs, as I drove wildly, recklessly. A few miles from the ranch, I turned off my lights. I wasn’t sure how acute a vampire’s hearing was, but I didn’t want to announce my arrival in a blaze of headlights, either. Using the moon as my sole source of light, I followed the slightly glowing road all the way to the Ranch, the Mustang taking the tight turns like a race car.

As I rounded the final bend, at exactly 11:50 p.m., I saw a flickering glow toward the back of the ranch. A bonfire. Surrounding the fire were four black-clad figures. No, there was a fifth, too. Someone dressed in a white gown. Lena.

It was now or never. I had no plan, other than to fight. Hell, that’s all I was good for anyway. I had a feeling that I was born for this moment. I may not be a vampire, but I sure as hell knew how to defeat an opponent, dead or undead.

On a whim, I opened Tommy’s glove compartment and could hardly believe my good luck. There was a long, rusty railroad spike inside. What he was doing with it, I didn’t know, but I had my suspicions. The spike made for a perfect stake. Granted, it wasn’t silver, but it would have to do.

I shoved the spike in my front pocket, took a deep breath, and stepped hard on the gas. Tommy’s Mustang responded wonderfully. The tires spun, rumbling loudly, no doubt kicking up lots of loose rocks and shredding rubber.

And I shot forward in the car like it was a rocket.

The pinpoint of fire that had been the bonfire grew rapidly in my windshield. Soon the fire and all five figures filled the glass, and I turned the wheel hard, tires screeching recklessly over loose dirt. Had the Mustang not been so low to the ground I might have flipped it. I jumped out of the car. Breathing hard, my mind was on the railroad spike in my front pocket.

Atticai, mouth open and as tall and gaunt as ever, just stared at me. “You’re alive?”

“Surprise, motherfucker!”

He nodded slightly and cocked his head. “I guess the evil has arrived.”

“The only evil is you, Atticai.” I looked at Lena, and she looked scared. She looked, if anything, as if she was having second thoughts about this, her compliance in her own demise.

“Lena, you don’t want to do this,” I implored.

Wyatt stepped forward. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing, Josiah? This isn’t about us. This isn’t even about Lena. This is about—”

“I know what this is about, Wyatt: killing Lena so that Atticai can become some super vampire to defeat the Carni and the fallen Mani. Yada-yada. And they all lived happily ever, except Lena.”

Atticai crossed his long arms over his narrow chest. “Oh my, I see someone was given a lesson in Mani prophecy. And since it’s not the Reader’s Digest version that we give to Lena, that can only mean...” He turned to another black-clad figure, the smallest of the four. “Was he worth it, Yari?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Atticai,” she said.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, kid,” he said. “Don’t you think that I know you’ve fallen for Josiah? Don’t you think that I know the only way Josiah’s even alive tonight is because you saved him from the snakes?”

“It’s not true, Atticai.”

“Oh, it is true, but what I don’t understand is how the Triat has allowed it to happen?”

“You’re wrong, Atticai. He saved himself. He deserves your mercy.” Yari was grasping at straws.

“My mercy? A Tandra who refused a chance to become a Mani deserves my mercy? What the hell had got into you?”

“Please, Atticai, consider it.”

Wyatt snapped open his cell phone and looked at the glowing faceplate. “It’s almost time,” he said.

Atticai nodded. “But first things first.”

He grabbed Lena. Although she didn’t make a sound, the confident girl I had seen just hours before was long gone. She looked terrified. I wondered if Atticai had her under some spell, the same type of spell he had placed on the snakes.

Wyatt and Hector stepped in front of them, forming a wall between them and me. Atticai walked behind Lena and looked at his watch on his left hand. “Ten seconds,” he said.

Lena looked terrified. I didn’t blame her. Shit, she was surrounded by vampires, and her death was just seconds away. She suddenly began to struggle, the will to live in her strong and true.

I did the only thing I could think of. I removed the iron spike from my pocket and ran at them. Wyatt jumped up into the air, Karate Kid-like, and kicked me full in the face. Motherfucker, I hadn’t expected that. Not the face! Now I was furious. Actually, I hadn’t expected him to be that fast.

On the ground, I snapped my head around and watched as Atticai opened his mouth. Moonlight reflected off his elongated canines. He looked at me, smiled, and bit into Lena’s neck.

I jumped up and summoned all my fighting instincts. This was, after all, going to be the fight of my life. And Lena’s.

Wyatt came at me again. He tried the exact same move but I ducked beneath his kick, grabbed his leg and yanked him down to the ground. I punched him as hard as I could in the face. The blow rocked him enough that I jumped up and turned my attention to Hector, who was coming at me from the other direction. He hit me hard, so hard that I flew backwards and into something solid. A tree trunk. Air burst from my lungs as I sank to the ground. Good God, I felt as if I had been hit by a car. Oh God, my back. Not yet healed from the baseball bat injury, my back was on fire again.

And before I could fully clear my head and see through the bright lights that had burst just behind my eyelids, two powerful ravens—Wyatt and Hector, I assumed—grabbed me in their massive talons and flew me up into the air. Once again, I found myself dangling from flying creatures. Being lifted up above the treetops had a definite way of clearing one’s head. Far below, in a small glow of fire, I could see three people standing. Atticai had his face pressed into Lena’s neck, and Yari stood nearby—on guard, I presumed.

This time I was certain they were going to drop me—and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I had failed to save Lena; in fact, I couldn’t even save myself.

But instead of immediately dropping me, they flew up, up. Now, Savoy Ranch was far below. They were going to drop me from hundreds of feet up, making damn well sure I was smashed to smithereens.

But they surprised me again, they circled back over a cliff’s edge, where they promptly landed, dropping me. What the hell? Both transitioned back into Mani and faced me. I knew then that they were both going to give me a thorough beating first, just like the undead scum they were. Mani bullies, really. No doubt they planned to drink from me first, too, and get a late-night snack squeezed in. After all, why let a good meal go to waste? Only then would they toss me off the cliff, dead and bloodless, to disappear in a broken heap of skin and bones.

Well, I wasn’t going down without a fight.

I charged forward, heaving my right hand at Hector’s face as hard as I could, while simultaneously kicking Wyatt with my left leg. It was an advanced move. Not something they teach you in MMA, since you don’t fight two guys at once. I had learned this one from Tommy. Anyway, the leverage I generated by hitting Hector transferred through me and gave my kick an amazing amount of force, a kick that landed square in the center of Wyatt’s chest. To my own surprise, the Mani tumbled off the cliff. I had no doubt he would transition back into a raven before hitting bottom. I would have looked for myself but, Hector had already jumped on top of me.

Good God, he was incredibly strong. Before I could grab the bastard, I felt his teeth sink deep into my neck. The pain was so intense, I dropped to my knees. The bite had an odd effect. Almost immediately, it sapped my strength. I reached weakly for Hector, my hand futilely slapping and grabbing at him. He sank his teeth even deeper, tearing at my neck. Good God, I heard him drinking from my neck, sucking on me like a monster.

Black encroached from the edges of my vision. I had been knocked out enough to know that I was about to pass out. And that’s when someone—or something—tackled Hector off of me. Both bodies fell off the cliff. I shook my head and grabbed my damaged neck. I crawled to the lip of the cliff and, bleeding and lightheaded, looked down.

It had been Yari, once again saving me. I looked down and watched as both Yari and Hector transitioned before reaching the ground. It was like watching two dog-fighting WWII aircraft, tumbling and battling, wings tangled. Raven and Hawk clawed at each other, all the way to the ground. Once on the ground, both transformed back to their Mani selves, and the fighting continued, only this time Wyatt joined in. Sweet Jesus, they were beating the crap out of Yari. Sure, she got some punches in, but two Mani were clearly stronger and more powerful than one.

Atticai was still sucking on Lena’s’ neck. Now I could see her fighting him, struggling. If ever someone had made a poor decision—Well, she wasn’t the only one who had made a poor decision. Who was currently sitting high atop a cliff at night, only moments from two vampires returning and finishing their job?

And the one person who had saved me and had my back was currently being pinned to the ground by Wyatt. From high above, I watched in horror as Hector removed something gleaming. Even from up here, I could see what it was.

A silver stake.

They were going to kill Yari. And Atticai was going to kill Lena, and any minute now they would return and kill me, too.

Good job, hero, I thought.

But there was nothing I could do. I was stuck up here. If I jumped, I would surely die. There is no way I could survive that fall.

But as I looked down over the cliff, something amazing happened. Simultaneously, both Yari and Lena yelled, “Josiah!”

That was all I needed to hear to know my fate.

Chapter Thirty

I stared, stunned. But I didn’t know what to do. But suddenly—amazingly—I wasn’t weak anymore. In fact, I felt incredibly strong. But they were still so far below. What could I do? Still, my body felt suddenly indestructible, stronger than I had ever felt before. I had never taken steroids, but I imagined this is what they felt like—times ten.

I stood up. I felt ten feet tall. I looked down...and without thinking, I jumped.

And I didn’t just jump. I dove headfirst, as if from a high diving board. As I fell, I stretched my hands and felt the wind thunder over me. I knew I was going to die. I had to die. What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking. It had almost been instinct to jump. But an instinct bore from what? But it didn’t matter. I had jumped. I had just done it without thinking twice.

Too late now. Too late to even care.

But what a way to go!

I plummeted down. The wind whipped my clothes and hair crazily. My body felt unbelievably strong. I almost felt as if I could fly. Probably everyone who jumps thinks this. Perhaps this is the last thought all jumpers have before they hit bottom:

That they could fly.

But I did feel as if I could fly. In fact, I was suddenly certain I could fly. Of course, I was certain. I had no other hope to hang onto. I was about to get dashed across the rocky bottom and who wouldn’t wish they could fly?

And that’s when something amazing happened.

I stopped picking up speed. In fact, it felt almost as if I was slowing.

Maybe that was part of death, too. Everything slowing down, right before I hit bottom.

But I didn’t hit bottom. In fact, I was slowing down even more.

What the hell?

I looked at my arms, and that’s when I received the shock of my life. My arms weren’t arms. My arms were wings. Beautiful white wings. I instinctively angled my arms—or wings—and I swooped up, just missing the ground and the shocked faces below. I made my way up into the sky again. I yelled out, and an eagle-like screech echoed along the canyon walls.

Somehow, I had transitioned.               Somehow, I had turned into...the white eagle.

Lena!

I looked down, and my eyesight was amazing. I could see all the details below. Lena was still in Atticai’s arms. Her head was forward. He was fastened to her neck like a goddamn sucker fish. He was drinking deeply, his throat working, swallowing her life force. A deep bruise had formed around her neck where he was sucking her blood, sucking and sucking...

I angled my wings, tucking them in, and dove down.

I shot through the night, going faster than I had ever gone in my life. It was exhilarating. Atticai never saw me coming. Someone—Wyatt, I think—shouted to his vampire leader, but it was too late.

I slammed hard into Atticai, piercing his neck with my great, hooked beak. The force of the impact was great. Atticai was thrown to the side, spinning through the air. My beak, I saw, had gone in one side of his neck and out the other. Just as Yari had said to do.

Atticai rolled across the dirt, and I rolled with him, tucking in my wings. We were still deeply attached. Finally, we stopped and he opened his mouth, gasping. His terrified, confused eyes fell on me. And they widened even more as he realized what he was seeing...a white eagle. His mouth worked. Blood poured out of his nose and mouth, dripping over my own beak.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered, unable to find his voice.

I considered killing him. I considered watching the bastard die, but he had spared me once—although it had been a half-assed gesture. Still, I decided to return the favor.

Except, I didn’t know how to transition back. What was I supposed to do? And suddenly, within seconds, I found myself—my normal self—lying next to a bleeding Atticai. Apparently, just wanting to transition back was all that was necessary to switch back and forth.

“You...” gasped Atticai, holding his neck and sitting up. “You were the one in the visions. I didn’t know. How could I have known? You were the Chosen One.” Atticai coughed, and more blood dribbled down his chin. “I was the evil. I was the evil in the dream.”

Atticai closed his eyes and then just disappeared. In a night, where I had found myself turned into a white eagle, seeing a man disappear in front of me, really freaked me out. But I didn’t have time to worry about it. Next on the list would be to save Yari; that is, if I wasn’t too late.

I scrambled to my feet, and discovered I was still wearing the same clothes I had been. Okay, now that was a neat trick.

Focus, Josiah. Find Yari.

But I didn’t have far to go, or much to worry about. She was standing with Wyatt and Hector, all three of whom were staring at me, open-mouthed. Yari stood still, staring at me as if she had seen a ghost. And that’s saying something about a girl who was already extremely pale faced and was a supernatural being herself.

“You’re the one, Josiah. You’re the Chosen One. I can’t believe it.”

“Never mind that, we need to help Lena.” I turned and spotted her lying on the ground. Blood dribbled from her neck, soaking into the dirt around her. I ran to her side and picked her up. She didn’t look as if she was breathing.

“What do I do?” I yelled. “Someone tell me what to do!”

“There is only one thing you can do, Josiah,” said Yari.

“What? Tell me!”

Amazingly, the others didn’t seem to care what happened to Lena. Why should they? They were used to killing; they were used to death. What was one more dead Tandra to them?

“Tell me, or I’ll rip all of your fucking hearts out!” I screamed.

“She is lost,” Yari said. “Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you choose to turn her.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“To save Lena, you will need to turn her into a Mani.”

“I don’t understand.”

Yari smiled gently at me. “You are one of us, Josiah. You have been bitten three times by a Mani. It takes three bites to turn her.”

Through my scattered, crazed thoughts, I realized she was right. The first had been when Wyatt bit me. The second had been when Yari sucked the poison out of me. And third had been Hector, up on the cliff. That’s why I was able to transition.

“You need to help her become a Mani, or she’ll die. She has lost too much blood.”

“But you just said three bites...”

“This will be her second bite.” Atticai was obviously the first one. Yari walked over and lifted Lena’s wrist and bit down into it, drawing a small amount of blood. Blood dribbled out, but certainly not as much as I would have thought, until I remembered how much blood Atticai had surely consumed.

“Now, you Josiah,” said Yari gently. “But you need to get her conscious.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps she should have some say in the matter?”

“Of course.” God, I wasn’t thinking at all. Who could, under these circumstances? But I did as I was told. I patted her face gently. “Lena, wake up.”

I repeated this a few more times until her eyelids fluttered and finally opened.

“Josiah?” she whispered.

I smiled down at her. She was still in my arms. “Yes. Lena, I need to know...do you seriously want to become a Mani?”

Lena smiled. “Of course, Josiah. That’s all I ever wanted.”

I looked at Yari. “Now what?”

“Bite her anywhere. Allow your new teeth to pierce her deep enough so that her blood flows into your mouth. Drink her and swallow. It won’t have to be much. Just enough so that the bond is felt by the Triat.”

“Okay.”

I ran my tongue over my “new teeth,” pausing at the canines. My tongue stopped and slid along the full length of them. They were as long as a mountain lion’s incisors. Hell, longer.

“Hurry, Josiah,” said Lena.

I nodded, opened my mouth, leaned down, and sank these new teeth deep into her neck, the opposite side where Atticai had feasted. Her blood tasted metallic and warm...and utterly delicious. I stopped, forcing myself to pull back. I released my teeth and looked down at her. And before my very eyes, the two puncture wounds in her neck closed. As did the wounds in both of her wrists. She looked up at me and smiled.

“You can set me down,” she said.

I did so, and she stood and rubbed her neck, and I could only stare in stunned silence. It was all so much to take in. I knew that at any moment, I would wake up from some long-ass dream, no doubt fueled by some highly illegal hallucinogenic drug, slipped to me by some nefarious means. But for now, I was awake. Wide awake. And I was a Mani.

“What happened to Atticai?” asked Lena, looking around. I knew then that she had sincerely loved the tall bastard.

“Atticai is gone,” Yari said.

“Is he okay?”

Yari shook her head, and Lena covered her mouth. Finally, she said, “So the prophecy wasn’t fulfilled?”

“Oh, it was fulfilled, just not by Atticai.”

“I don’t understand,” said Lena.

“Josiah is the Chosen One.”

She stared at me, and it was then that I also knew that she had strong feelings for me, too. Yari saw the look that passed between us, and didn’t like it, but she didn’t say anything. I turned to Wyatt and Hector. Both were openly staring at me, and both looked nervous as hell.

“Relax, guys.”

“We cool?” Wyatt asked. “I mean, no hard feelings about us, um, trying to kill you and all?”

“Oh, I’ll be kicking your asses later, but for now, we’re cool.”

They both grinned, and we all stood there in silence. I wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, but I knew more would be explained to me, much more. But for now, there was only one thing I wanted to do. Well, two.

“Let’s get out of here, guys,” I said.

We all transitioned: Lena and Yari into beautiful red hawks, Hector and Wyatt into black ravens, and myself into the great white eagle.

We flew, together, over the San Bernardino Mountains. I was now part of the Children of the Night. I was now a Mani. I was now supposed to be their savior. But two beautiful women, C.O.N. business, and even the ass-kickings of my new henchmen would have to wait.

My first order of business was to find Tommy...

The End

To be continued in:

The Werewolf Whisperer

(Vampire Love Story #2)

Return to the Table of Contents

THE WEREWOLF WHISPERER

Vampire Love Story #2

by

H.T. Night

The Werewolf Whisperer

Published by H.T. Night

Copyright © 2010 by H.T. Night

All rights reserved.

Dedication

I dedicate this novel to J.R. Rain and Joshua.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Margaret Cervenkas, April M. Reign, Liz Jones and Sandy Johnston for all their help.

The Werewolf Whisperer

Chapter One

It had been two weeks since the night I became a Mani. This wasn’t the life I chose. And this sure wasn’t the way I figured the world was run. One day, I was a mixed martial arts fighter trying to make a name for myself, and then suddenly, I was the chosen savior of the Mani people, or vampires, or whatever the hell they are—we are. How the hell was I supposed to live as a vampire? Or as an eagle? It wasn’t like I could transition and become an eagle whenever I felt like it. Some redneck would probably shoot me out of the sky.

I was now a Mani. Not by choice. Mani were vampires. Not your everyday Dracula vampires either. We didn’t turn into bats or fog. We could turn or transition into specific birds whenever we felt like it. The men transitioned into black ravens, and the women into red hawks. Me? Hell, I transformed into a giant white eagle. Yeah, you heard it right: an eagle.

I was the lucky one. I was The Chosen.

Somehow, somewhere, I was the one who was chosen to bring harmony to the Mani. Me? Of all people? I was chosen to save some crazy vampire race from becoming extinct? Are you fucking kidding me? Who wants that kind of pressure? I sure as hell didn’t.

One month ago, I didn’t even believe that vampires or werewolves existed. Now, I had been given the keys to the kingdom? But who the hell was I now? My name, Josiah Reign, seemed to be all that remained of my old life.

This Chosen One gig was supposed to be Atticai’s job. Freaking Atticai! What the hell had happened to him? Had I really killed him? Where had he disappeared to? Did he go to some kind of Mani heaven...or hell? I had no answers. I avoided the only ones who could give me the answers I needed. I wasn’t ready for the whole truth and I knew it.

I was turned into a Mani unwillingly, and I hadn’t quite wrapped my brain around that fact. My life, as I once knew it, was over. It was absurd to think that I could be okay with that thought. Sure, I needed time, time to adjust to my new reality, so I barricaded myself in my house. I had enough to eat and drink; I wanted nothing to do with anyone or anything.

Seriously? What did they expect me to do? Just assume the role of some chosen prophesied vampire and go along with their delusional ideas without even saying a word? The Triat never gave me a vision, the Triat never gave me a heads’ up. Where were my premonitions? Where were my dreams?

Dreams? That was a good one. I didn’t know if I even truly slept any more. It was like I closed my eyes and rested, not slept. Time skipped as if I was dreaming. I felt my muscles rebuilding, but somehow, the sleep part escaped me. Did I sleep or did I just regenerate? Did I dream or did I plot? Like that Star Trek episode where everyone on the ship was going crazy when they experienced REM-stage sleep deprivation, even my sleep life was surreal now, as if the very synapses of my brain were being totally remapped. I suppose, in a way, they were.

Also, shouldn’t those blood cravings be kicking in right about now? I thought vampires roamed the earth trying to find a good vein. Hell, any vein. So far, everything I eat seems to go down fine. I really had no idea what was myth or truth when it came to living as a creature of the night. The only vampire facts I knew, I had read in books and seen in movies. And I knew that watching Vampire Sucks a dozen times on cable wasn’t the best source for accurate vampire information.

I was waiting for this uncontrollable desire for human blood to take over all my senses. The only thing I had been craving these days was a mean peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich. So unless there was some secret human blood ingredient in Jiffy peanut butter, I hadn’t been hit with any intense cravings...yet.

One thing that was definitely not a myth was that sunlight was to vampires as deep fryers were to donuts. And I was the donut from sunrise to sunset. Unless I transitioned to the eagle, I couldn’t cope with any kind of daylight. It gave me the same dehydrated, overheated feeling that I always got after a fight. I felt nauseous until I got out of the sun. The times that I got caught outdoors in the sun, even for a few seconds, always brought to mind that scene in the Wizard of Oz where the witch gets doused with water and cries out: “I’m melting! I’m melting! Oh, what a world!” That scene pretty much summed up my fear of daytime hours, that someday, I would lock myself out of the house or something, and just...fry.

Every day for the last two weeks, Yari and Lena had both tried to contact me. I ignored their calls and their unannounced knocks at the door. What the hell did they expect? I turned into a freaking vampire, trying to save both of their lives. Which I did. But now, I needed some space to come to terms with my new reality.

My old reality consisted of training to be a mixed martial arts fighter and hanging out with Tommy, my best friend in the world. Apparently, Tommy isn’t even his real name. It’s Kyro. And he had been living as a werewolf the whole time I’d known him. And managed to keep it a secret, until recently. He covered up his own transformation life with the excuse that he was in the military reserves and had to leave for his duty every month. A sly, cool subterfuge.

Tommy’s state of being as a werewolf wasn’t the thing that most concerned me. What was uppermost on my mind was if he was even alive or not. He had been pronounced dead and sent to the hospital morgue. And then his body vanished! Did he come back to life and take off? I had no idea where he went, or even if he was still alive. I really needed Tommy right now. Werewolf or not, he was still my best friend and I considered him my only family. Maybe he could shed some light on all of this madness that was my new existence as a Mani.

Unfortunately, it was summertime. Not only was it hot as summer-shaved balls in southern California, it didn’t get dark till about 8:30 at night. I finally became restless and sick of being cooped up in my house. I didn’t want to talk to any Mani yet, but I just wanted to leave the house. Get out and stretch my legs. Maybe even my big white wings.

I laid on my bed, staring at the ceiling in my bedroom, which was also my blackout room, with the windows completely covered up, so that no glint of daylight would ever again penetrate the glass. I looked at the clock. It was 9:00 p.m. That meant that it was officially dark, and safe for me to go outside. I had serious cabin fever and really needed a change of venue. I had been wearing nothing but basketball shorts for days, and I figured I was in desperate need of a shower and a change of clothes. I stood up and stared at myself in the mirror. I had lost weight. My body was more slender and paler than I ever remembered being. My six-pack looked more like ribs etched into my skin, the muscles so defined that they looked like hard bones under my skin. My blond hair seemed a bit darker than before. Okay, I was dirty. Yeah, I definitely needed a shower. I peeled off my shorts and walked naked down the hallway to my bathroom. I turned on the shower. There was nothing like a scalding hot shower to lighten my mood. I always liked hot showers and tonight was no different.

I took a ten-minute shower, wondering if it was the greatest one I had ever taken. The water felt amazing. The shower penetrated my muscles. I couldn’t believe how refreshed I felt when I got out. Or perhaps it was just that it was night. And now I was a creature of the night. No, a child of the night.

I dried myself off and went to the bedroom. I decided to wear a pair of 501 jeans out of my closet and put on a plain black t-shirt. I decided to put on some hiking boots and splashed on some Drakkar Noir, an old-school cologne that seemed to appease my need for sensuality and sensibility. The familiar smell was sweet like the woods with a touch of pine and made me feel more comfortable in my own skin. I smelled like me again. Funny how a scent could do something that powerful. And then, there was the scent of blood. But I did not yet need to drink it to survive. Good thing, because I really liked human food.

Wyatt and Hector, my new henchman and friends, brought back my truck and left me a text message telling me they’d dropped it off, leaving the keys under the fender. I liked my white truck. It was one of the constants in my life, and I needed reminders of who I once was. That was going to be very important to me in the years ahead as a Mani.

I stepped outside and took a deep breath. Wow, the air felt so good. It was the first time I had been outside in days. Sure enough, my white Ford truck was in the driveway. It was a beauty. I walked over to my truck, found the keys, and got in. I put the key in the ignition. This was the first time I was going to drive as a Mani. Why did I even have to drive? I could transition into an eagle and go wherever the hell I wanted to. But tonight, I needed to drive. I wanted to feel normal. Have a little bit of fun and just forget for a couple of hours.

I put on some tunes. Dammit! A hip-hop station! I hated hip-hop! Give me the Beatles or Depeche Mode any day. I scanned the radio and found a song I liked. It was classic Pink Floyd. That was exactly what I needed right now—to feel comfortably numb. I leaned back and closed my eyes to listen to the lush rich sounds of “Breathe,” off the Dark Side of the Moon album, then opened my eyes again when I felt somewhat grounded, centered. I had no idea where I was going tonight, only that I just needed a change of venue, a fresh beginning for my new life that would wash away the agony of realizing what I was and somehow, find ways to embrace it as an asset. I got on the 215 freeway and headed toward Orange County. There was a lot more going on in that direction. I was in desperate need of a beer, or a shot, or both.

The 215 became the 91, and I headed to the 55 freeway.

I had carried a fake ID since I was seventeen and used it often when Tommy and I would go to local bars. Tommy had mentioned this dive bar called Slammers off the freeway, and it was about time I checked it out. I took the exit and headed to the hole-in-the-wall.

The parking lot wasn’t big. In fact, it was packed to the rim. I parked my truck in the only space that was open. The parking lot was full of pickup trucks and rundown cars. This was not going to be the type of bar that served high society. I sure as hell didn’t care. I was the furthest thing from that crowd.

I cautiously got out of my truck. I wasn’t here to pick up chicks, but I stopped and looked in my driver’s-side mirror anyway. I brushed my hair back. I looked good. I knew I had some serious game. Maybe I’d even flirt a little bit.

I started toward the bar. The parking lot was torn up as if a construction crew had gone through and ripped it apart. This was the kind of place where a fight would break out and the police wouldn’t show up until 20 minutes later. My kind of place.

I walked up to the guy at the door. He was an African American fellow and seemed bored to death. I pulled out my wallet and showed him my ID.

He looked over my driver’s license before he asked, “Hey, you’re some kind of fighter aren’t you?”

I was shocked. Not too many people recognized me. He must have been a fan of the sport.

“I used to be. I’m retired.”

“You’re kind of young to be retired.” He began sizing me up.

“It’s a tough sport,” I murmured.

“As I remember, you’re a tough son-of-a-bitch.” He handed me back my I.D. “Just keep it classy in there.” I smiled at the irony of that statement. I entered the bar and the room felt like it was 120 degrees. There were a number of people sitting and drinking at tables, playing darts, and shooting pool. Yeah, my kind of place.

There was a lot of facial hair in this place. Beards, side burns, and goatees were an obvious prerequisite to get into this joint. I hadn’t shaved in a couple weeks, so I assumed I was going to fit in. Boy, was I wrong.

I scoped out the joint to find a place to sit. This was a definite sausage fest. There were a few girls in the joint, but none seemed like they were here to do anything other than get shitfaced with their female friends. Something caught my eye in the back of the bar. Or should I say someone; he was the largest man I had ever seen. He looked like a Sasquatch. He had a braided brown goatee and a bald head shaved down to his scalp; just his presence alone demanded attention and, believe me, he had it.

I wasn’t in the mood to kick the biggest guy in the bar’s ass—not tonight. Thank God. But damn, he was a beast. I spotted an open stool in front of the bar area. I didn’t want to make much eye contact, because I really just wanted to chill out and drink. I did feel like every eye in the bar was on me. Even Sasquatch in the back was aware that I was in the bar. They must not get too many new folks in this place, I thought.

I walked up to the bar and sat on the lopsided stool in front of the counter. No wonder nobody was sitting here. The bartender’s back was to me. “Hey buddy,” I said, “I’ll have a Vodka Coke.”

The bartender turned around and he, too, had a goatee for days. He looked at me, slowly shook his head, and then turned back around.

“Excuse me,” I repeated. “I’d like a Vodka Coke.”

The bartender turned around again and motioned for me to lean in so he could speak in my ear. I obliged.

He whispered in my ear. “Get the fuck out of here you piece of shit. I don’t serve your kind.” And then he took a step back and smiled as if he had told me good wishes.

“My kind?” I said, shocked. “What the hell are you talking about? We’re both white males in our twenties. Except that you need a shave and a bath, we’re practically the same guy.”

“Listen you Mani fuck, I can have about ten Carni’s over here in two seconds. So, you either leave peacefully, or we can all have some fun tonight at your expense.”

I was completely surprised by the bartender’s comment. He knew I was a Mani? How could he tell? “How do you know?” I asked.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I need to know. How could you tell?”

The bartender stared at me with utter amazement. “I can smell the filth on you. You reek.”

“Is that because you are a Carni?”

“Are you fucking for real, man?” The bartender was not having any more of my questions.

I didn’t care. I persisted, I needed to know. “Are you Carni? Is that why?”

“You have five seconds to leave.”

“Tell me and I’ll go.”

The bartender whistled across the bar. That was my cue to leave; he wasn’t playing games. Dammit, I didn’t even get a fucking drink.

I turned around and headed for the door. I could feel every eye in the place on me. My senses were tingling. This wasn’t good. I hurried out the front door and did not turn around. I passed the doorman. Was he a Carni? Did he set me up?

I was now in the parking lot and I could hear people behind me.

I got to my truck and reached into my pocket to grab my keys. I dropped them and leaned over to pick them up. Why was I so nervous? I unlocked my driver side door and got into my truck.

How the hell was I supposed to know this was a werewolf bar? Was there such a thing? Was I going to be running into this all the time? Had I been going to werewolf bars and clubs for a while now and never even known it?

I slid my key into the ignition. I put my truck in reverse, and began pulling out of the parking lot. Without warning, a man jumped on the hood of my truck like a wild animal. I slammed the brakes, the man leaped over my windshield and into the bed of my truck.

I jumped out of my vehicle. I guess this was going to go down. Dammit! Why the hell did things always have to go down with me?

“What the hell, man?” I yelled at the idiot in the bed of my truck. I turned around and there were five guys coming up behind me, one of them was that seven-foot monster. Fucking great!

“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” I yelled to the men approaching me.

“You asked for it, you Mani scum, the moment you set foot in our bar,” the smallest of the men called out. That was usually the case. The runt of the group always seemed to be the loudest.

I had no idea what I was up against if they all decided to jump me. How did I defeat werewolves? I was pretty sure all these guys were Carni; I had no idea how strong they could be. I knew that Mani strength was off the charts. But head to head, Mani versus Carni? I was in uncharted territory.

“Look,” I said, “this is all kind of new to me. So, let’s just call it a mistake and I’ll go on my way.”

“Ha ha. He’s a newbie,” the runt yelled out again. “Poor bastard. He’s just trying to find his way.”

“Exactly,” I replied, knowing full well I was being mocked by the little shit.

“Well just to let you know, rookie,” the little man continued, “when we have a dispute, we don’t settle it in bar parking lots. We have specific locations where we settle our scores. That way the Tandra don’t have to be involved in our business.”

“I don’t have a score to settle with any of you. I made a big mistake coming here. I’ll just leave.”

“This pretty boy is breaking my heart,” the guy in the bed of my truck said. “You almost want to just kill him here and put him out of his misery.”

“Is that what you think?” I asked. “That I’m a pretty boy?” Now my blood, or whatever runs through my veins, was boiling. It didn’t matter if I was human or vampire. I was still going to get no respect because of how I looked. “Okay, so how does this work? Do I fight one of you, all of you, or do I just pick which of you has the least teeth and we go from there?”

“This is between you and me.” A voice came from the bar entrance. It was the bartender. He had made his way out to the parking lot. He was about my height and about thirty pounds heavier.

“You?” I asked. “Why, because I ordered a drink?”

“No, because this is my bar and you disrespected it by coming here, knowing full well you aren’t welcome.”

“For your information, I was just telling the boys from Deliverance here that I haven’t looked online yet at which Carni bars and restaurants I need to avoid. This is all kind of new to me.”

“Mistake or not, you fucked up. We’ll meet at 2:30 at Barnes Ranch in the hills.”

“Where the hell is that?” I moaned.

“Someone get this fucker a GPS system or a Thomas Guide. It’s up in Anaheim Hills. Take Imperial Highway as high as you can. You can’t miss it. It’s the last ranch you hit before the mountains. So, go round up your Mani cohorts and we’ll make it a party.”

I stared at the bartender. If he was a human, I knew I could kick his ass in seconds. But I had no idea how strong a werewolf was. Did they only get strong on a full moon? I had no idea what the hell I was up against. I sighed and asked, “Are we done here?”

“You better show up, Blondie, or we’ll hunt you down.”

“Hunt me down? You serious?” The bartender glared back at me and I looked him in the eye, “I’ll be there, scruffy.”

The guy on the bed of my truck hopped off on cue. How did this happen? I wasn’t gone for an hour and I seemed to have pissed off all of the Carni Nation. I cautiously got into my truck. My door was still open from when I jumped out. I got in slowly and started my engine. I closed my door. I eased out of the parking lot, making sure I didn’t hit any of those assholes. God knows I wanted to.

What the hell did I just get myself into? A fight? At some ranch? What is this? The Outsiders? I looked at the clock and it read 10 p.m. I had four and a half hours before this stupid fight. They wanted me to round up my Mani counterparts. Did I have Mani counterparts? I knew four Mani, and none of them would be eager to come with me to a slaughter.

I decided it was time to go find Lena. I had ignored her long enough. I had enough time to find her before the fight, I just hoped she wasn’t too pissed at me for ignoring her.

I pulled into a Taco Bell parking lot. I figured I would transition into the eagle so I could get to Lena’s home faster. I hadn’t transitioned from Mani to eagle that many times, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure how to fully control it. It wasn’t like I could say something like “alla kazam” and presto, I was now an eagle.

I put my keys under my seat and left my door unlocked. I got out and walked behind a Dumpster so no one could see me. I closed my eyes and imagined I was turning into the white eagle. At first, nothing happened. How the hell did I do this before? I relaxed and concentrated. I felt a rush of wind come over my body, which is what happened the other times when I had transitioned.

In an instant, my eye level dropped three feet. I was no longer six feet in height. I was a three-foot tall eagle. I tilted my head to look at my body and extended my wings. Something caught my eye across the street. My reflection in the glass of an office building was magnificent. Damn, I was beautiful. What a gorgeous creature. For a brief second, I forgot I was looking at myself. It was like I was at a nature exhibit, staring at some rare, nearly extinct eagle. But I wasn’t, I was staring at myself. I was the white eagle. For the first time, the reality of me being this animal was extremely real to me. It was heartbreaking. I was no longer Josiah, the man. I was Josiah, the thing. I was a freak of nature, an unnatural beast-bird-man with a tragic path ahead of me, if the last two weeks were any indication of what I faced as The Chosen One. The body count alone was ripping up my heart and sometimes made me question who I really was now, and what I was. Was I good or was I evil? Was I a man or a creature? I didn’t have the answers yet. I didn’t know if I ever would. I teared up and shook my tears off my beak.

I looked around and saw no one near me, so I knew it would be safe to fly. I flew up awkwardly. Flying was surreal, and I didn’t quite know how to shift my weight just yet. I got some good momentum and flew high in the sky above the clouds so no one could see me. I still wasn’t fully comfortable with the whole flying aspect of all of this. It was terrifying at times. It was hard to judge my speed and landing was a total bitch.

I took off in the direction of Lena’s trailer park, hoping she would be there. The air felt amazing. Flying was a spectacular feeling. I’d had dreams that I could fly in the past and it definitely didn’t feel like this in my dreams. This had a sense of delicacy to it. It wasn’t a gliding feeling like I had imagined flying to be, it felt more like a sleek missile ready to barrel into anything in its way.

It only took about ten minutes to get back to the Inland Empire. I decided to fly over a park across the street from Lena’s place. There was an old barn at the Far East end of the park. And about two football fields’ worth of grass in front of it. I decided to land on the grass. I knew my landing was going to be rough;, it always was. I made sure no one could see me. I circled the grass a couple of times. Damn, I was horrible at this. I aimed down to the ground and of course, went much faster than I wanted to. I slammed into the earth and rolled like a sack of potatoes falling out of a delivery truck. I decided to transition back to my Mani form immediately, so I wouldn’t break my wings.

I finally stopped rolling and I was face first in the dirt with a mouth full of mud. Yummy. I got up, spit the mud out, and brushed myself off. Where did my clothes go when I transitioned? They were always back on my body when I returned to my human form. I couldn’t quite figure out why. Definitely something I need to ask about.

I jogged across the street over to Lena’s trailer park. I found her trailer and walked up to it. I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked a couple more times and still there was no answer. I was about to give up when I heard a squawk from above. A beautiful red hawk landed right in front of me. It appeared to be either Yari or Lena.

Chapter Two

The mesmerizing hawk stared at me intently. I waited for it to change, to take on its human form. Instead, it stood perfectly still, staring me down. Minutes felt like hours when the bird finally bent down and transitioned into Lena. She still didn’t say anything. I could sense that she was not sure how to greet me. Quite frankly, I wasn’t sure how to greet her either.

“You look pale,” she said. Hmm, not exactly a hello.

“So do you,” I replied. But I thought, look who’s talking.

She glanced down at the concrete behind me. “I thought you had run off or something.” She then kicked a pebble across the asphalt.

“Run off? That’s not my way. I am sometimes just...incommunicado.” I watched her. She was beautiful. Her jet-black hair looked shorter than I remembered. She must have cut her hair since I’d last seen her. She was wearing a black tank top with black stretch pants. I stated the obvious. “You cut your hair.”

“Sure did.” She looked down and then back up at me.” Why didn’t you answer your phone calls or answer the door when I came by?”

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Do you think I do?” Lena was now visibly upset.” Remember, I’m this way because of you.”

“It was what you wanted, Lena.”

“It was what I wanted when Atticai was here. Now, I’m not sure. I’m not even sure what our purpose is.”

“Don’t look to me for answers. I’m completely in the dark. Literally and metaphorically.”

“Yeah, that makes two of us,” she murmured. Lena opened the door to her trailer. “Come in.” she said. “You know that’s a rule?”

“What is?”

“We can’t enter a human’s home unless we’re invited in.”

“Really?”

“It’s a stupid rule, but we need to live by it.”

“Silly me. I didn’t get my rule book when I joined up.”

I entered her trailer home and apparently, her parents weren’t there. I didn’t see any cars parked out front. “I don’t even know which is myth, and which is real.”

“Most of what you find on Wikipedia is myth, but there are some serious truths.”

“I figured out the sunlight one real fast.” I mentioned.

“Yeah, that one’s a bitch, and the only way I can get out of that is to transition.”

I sat down on the couch in the living room and asked, “what about the whole drinking blood part?”

“There are ways around that. Eventually, we do need blood or we’ll weaken.”

“Are you able to eat other things?”

“Not really. I get very sick.”

“I haven’t gotten sick yet. I’m able to eat the same things I had ate before.”

“You’re lucky,” Lena said as she sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor. She was so much more beautiful than I remembered.

Lena caught me looking at her. I could tell it made her a bit uncomfortable. “Have you had any human blood?”

“Just yours.” I laughed awkwardly.

“I heard that once you drink blood, your stomach aches for more and your taste buds turn against human food. And then the desire hits you like a brick to your chest. You just gotta have it.”

“So, have you had human blood?”

Lena’s fidgety movements made me concerned. I wanted answers to my serious questions. “Yes, I have,” she whispered under her breath.

“Wow,” I said flabbergasted. “You didn’t waste any time.”

“Don’t act so holier than thou, Josiah. You’ll get a craving and when it hits, you will have very few choices.”

“Who was it?” I probed.

“Remember our little frat buddies?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s just say Ron’s fat ass had enough blood for four Mani.”

“Did you kill him?”

“I let him live.”

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll say something to someone?”

“You do know we have a thing called mind control? The weak Tandra are receptive to it. It actually saves their lives. Otherwise, I would have killed him because he knew too much.”

“So, mind control is true?”

“Some of us have it, and some of us don’t. We are all given gifts from the Triat. It’s up to us to figure out what they are. Some are prophets, some can heal, some can control minds, and some can read minds. Atticai was able to read minds. That’s why he liked you.” Lena paused. A longing in her eyes made it clear that she wasn’t over Atticai.

“Where do you think he went? Do you think I killed him?”

“I don’t know Josiah; you pierced his neck real good. Just like humans, none of us are entirely sure what happens to Mani when they die. The hereafter is all a big dark secret. There are theories but no proof.”

“So, no one knows where Mani go when they disappear?” I asked.

“There are rumors the same way there are with mortals. There are tales of an afterlife: Mani given a second chance, a rebirth, even a chance at being mortal again. But there are not enough facts about it. No one really knows what happens, not for sure.”

“So, when a vampire dies, they just disappear?”

“Yes. Otherwise there would be dead vampires everywhere. By now, humans would have had a field day with the autopsies.”

“Is that what happened to Tommy? Is that what happens to the Carni?”

“Actually, no. The Carni are as close to humans as you can get, with a lot of the DNA threads very common to both. Mani history goes back as far as 10,000 years ago. While Carni history is just 500 years young.”

“How’s that?” I had been under the impression that werewolves and vampires were manifested at the same time.

“Mani believe that Carni are an inferior species. Werewolves believe in a lot of myth and untruths.”

“Why do they do that?”

“It’s a way to justify giant mistakes they have made so they can be at peace with their form, their destiny.” Lena’s soft voice filled the room. I could see her desperately trying to answer my questions when she had questions of her own.

“I know about wanting to feel a sense of peace. For two weeks, I’ve tried to find my inner peace. I shut myself away so that I could seek my own truths and separate it from the flood of pop culture about vampires, werewolves, and related creatures. Are there any other creatures? I sort of wanna know.”

Her lips twitched into a semi-smile. I listened and she continued, “The blurring lines of truth and fiction have forced Carni to live far outside the Triat’s will. Mani believe that Carni have forgotten what their purpose is and they are no better than savages.”

“Purpose...I’ve been trying to figure that one out for two weeks. What is our purpose, Lena? Is it biological, ecological, spiritual? What must we do with what we have, what we are?”

“Well, you were chosen by the Triat even before you were a Mani. Josiah, there is something greater out there—something amazing.”

“What was amazing was my other life, my human life.”

“Yeah, but think about it this way, we are wiser than the average living species. We have a window to the world. People live and then die, and in the course of living, they know nothing. Perfect ignorant bliss.” She smiled at me.

“You have a way of making this sound...almost glamorous.”

“Maybe it is glamorous, Josiah. You’ve been given a gift. Don’t turn your back on the possibilities.

“Ah, so it’s not really a curse, it’s a gift. Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

I needed to know more about werewolves, and unfortunately, I needed to know about them fast. “Do Carni become stronger once they are turned from Tandra to Carni?”

Lena thought for a moment. “Not like the Mani,” she said.

“They might get a tad stronger and quicker, but nothing close to what occurs in a Mani’s body after its transformation.

“Mani become much stronger?” I asked.

“Put it this way, Josiah, I could barely hurt a mouse when I was mortal. The other night, I was holding down that frat boy, Ronnie, like he was a kindergartner. I feasted away on his blood, close to sheer joy in the knowledge that I could have left him dead if I chose to and walked away with no regrets, with nothing more than a satisfied burp as penance. I let him live because I was full.”

I laughed. “So, I basically turned you into a bad ass.”

Lena shook her head at me. “Yeah, you did, Josiah Reign, and never forget that.” Lena then smiled brightly at me. It was the first time in a long time I had seen her smile like that. She was radiant. She had little dimples and frankly, my heart melted.

“So, what happens when they turn into a full-blown werewolf?” I asked.

Lena’s smile turned serious. “When a Carni turns into a werewolf, it can hold its own against a Mani. Most of the time, they are stronger. But Mani can fight with cognitive thought while werewolves are like wild lions that just want to tear through their prey. There’s not much thought to it. Mani think. Carni function on pure animal instinct. Remember, we Mani have 10,000 years of evolution under our belts, Carni only 500 years.”

“What about the full moon? Is that a myth, or is it real?”

“Oh, it’s real. Too real. It is then, and only then, they turn from Carni to werewolf.”

“So, your everyday Carni walking around is just slightly stronger than a human?”

“Yup.” Lena stared at me with wonder. “Why are you asking so many questions?”

“One more question,” I said. “Why would any Carni ever fight a Mani in a one-on-one fight?”

“Oh, they do when it’s a full moon.”

I looked up in the sky. It was a half moon. Why the hell would the bartender want to fight me if he knew I was a Mani and would be stronger? He must have thought he could easily take me. I was still getting zero respect. I guess being anointed the ‘Chosen One’ didn’t mean I was looked at as a bad ass.

“What’s going on Josiah? Why are you asking so many questions about the Carni?”

“Tommy disappeared from the hospital, so I’m thinking he is still alive. If he is, I need to find him.”

“He is alive, Josiah.”

I nearly fell to the ground. “What? He is? How do you know?”

“Some have seen him.”

“Where is he?”

“No one knows where he stays, but he is definitely still alive.”

I had a growing excitement spreading through my body. If anyone could tell me how to defeat a Carni, it would be Tommy. The problem was, I had no idea where he was staying. He was obviously hiding out for his own safety.

Lena could see my wheels turning in my head. “What is it, Josiah? What’s going on?”

“I have a scheduled fight tonight, not in the ring, but with a Carni.”

Lena’s mouth literally opened and her eyes stared at me hard. After a second of glaring she asked, “Where?”

“Some ranch in Anaheim Hills.”

“You’re joking?”

“I wish I was. I hadn’t even been out in public for an hour and one of those assholes picked a fight with me. Why would he fight me? It’s not a full moon.”

“Because Carni are arrogant, Josiah. It is why Tommy fought Atticai and got his ass kicked. Carni think they run the show. To them, we are just Gothic freaks who worship the devil.”

Stricken, I put my hand over my heart. “Oh no. Please tell me we don’t worship the devil—do we?”

“Of course not.”

I exhaled in relief.

Lena continued, “But that is what the Carni has reduced us to in their heads. They can’t explain how we are a more advanced race, so they just say our abilities are given to us from the Underworld.”

“Gothic freaks or not,” I said, “no one picks a fight with someone they know can kick their ass.”

“That’s the thing, Josiah. They don’t think you can kick their ass. It’s like they have a jock mentality. They can’t accept that the outcast freak-show can kick the captain of the football team’s ass.” Lena got up off the ground and sat next to me on the couch. “You know if you fight him, you cannot use any of your vampire powers as long as he’s not a werewolf?”

“Vampire powers? I don’t have any vampire powers.”

“You don’t know it, but you do. At this point, the only thing you need to worry about is not turning into the eagle. That will freak them out and they will probably think you’re Satan himself. If that happens, it could get real ugly.”

“Nice,” I said sarcastically. “I don’t even know how to fully control it. What if it happens by accident?”

“Don’t let it, Josiah. You have powers and abilities that no Mani before you has ever had or ever will again. No one knows exactly what you’re capable of. You probably have every gift that has ever been bestowed on the Mani and ones we still don’t know about. So, fight the guy straight up. Don’t do anything out of the ordinary.”

“Let me ask you this,” I said. “Can I bite him?”

“Yes, because trust me, that’s what he’ll try to do to you. You can fight him anyway you want, you just can’t use what they call ‘magic.’”

“They seem to think I’m going to bring a sea of Mani with me to the ranch for back up.”

“Because they don’t always play fair, you can’t show up there alone. They do have a strict rule of only fighting one on one. So, you won’t have to worry about being jumped by the pack as long as you don’t use any of your special Mani abilities.”

“Do I have to go? I have nothing to prove to those guys.”

“Did one specific Carni challenge you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you accept?”

“Yes,” I stated.

“Then, guess what? You better go, or you will anger the Triat.”

“Triat schmiat. I don’t even know what or who the Triat is.” I said defiantly. “No one has bothered to explain stuff to me. I am supposed to be the savior of the Mani and I don’t even know what the Trait is. Is it God, or Mother Nature, what is it?”

“It’s all those things and more. It’s the balance. It’s the code we all live by.” Lena took my hand. “Josiah, you need to respect the Triat more than anything you have ever paid reverence to. If you listen, and open yourself up, the Triat will guide you. You need to ask for guidance.”

“Seriously? Ask for guidance? You’re making it sound like a cult.”

“Don’t be skeptical. You will not be alone tonight. All of us will be there with you. We’ll make sure everything goes down the way it should.”

I looked at Lena. I didn’t want her to have any part in what was happening tonight. “Look, I’m going to go alone. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. Especially not you.”

“You know you have a family now. We stick together.”

“Not tonight. Let me deal with this tonight.”

“Don’t be so fucking macho. We’re going with you. What time is the fight?”

I looked at Lena and lied, “3:30 a.m.” I said, “Meet me there. I’m going to do a couple of things before I get there.”

“We’ll meet you a mile up at 3:15.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Everyone: Wyatt, Hector, Yari, and me.”

I didn’t think having just four Mani there was going to be very much help. Two of them were henchmen groupies, now my followers, who I easily defeated, and two of them were female, though I had to admit that Lena’s recollection of her takedown of Ronnie the Frat Boy for her supper had opened my eyes to her powerful bloodlust and the strength behind it. Still, I didn’t want her hurt. Or Yari, for that matter. And if I wasn’t allowed to unleash my vampire powers in the fight against them if they were not werewolf poetry in motion, purposely handicapping myself for a potential ass beating by a Carni, I might as well just go get beat up by myself. Hell, I didn’t want the girls to see me pummeled while I held back my superpowers for a fight with some Carni assholes.

“3:15 a.m. Sounds like a plan. See you all there.” There was no way I was going to have Lena go tonight.

She looked at me uncertainly, as if she knew I was lying through my teeth.

“I better go,” I said, wanting her to stop trying to figure out if I was messing with her about 3:15 a.m., which I was. It was nearing midnight, and if I was going to fight someone, I needed to at least prepare myself the way I did a mixed martial arts fight. I needed to go to my gym and pump up!

Chapter Three

After I left Lena, I transitioned into the eagle. I didn’t have a car and walking to my old gym would take entirely too long. I could feel myself growing stronger, and sleeker with this art of flying. The wind alone was exhilarating.

When I arrived at the gym, I noticed the second floor window was open. I challenged myself and flew into the small opening. I made it unscathed, but landed hard on the concrete of the gym, and rolled into the wall like a ton of bricks. I was dizzy and disoriented, but I found the strength to turn back into my Mani form.

The gym was dark, but there was an eerie glow, which came from a street light outside. I searched high and low; it was empty. It had been a long, strange night so far, and I thought I should stretch and meditate to make sure I was ready. I warmed up like I would before any fight. I worked out my legs, punched the big bag and let my heavy emotions dictate my moves. Tears ran down my face. I swung over and over as if every punch were the pendulum to turn back time—to take it all back. “Leave some for the fight,” a faceless voice said from a dark area of the gym.

“Who is it?” I called out.

“You cannot expect to beat a werewolf if you exhaust yourself before you actually fight.”

“Who are you?” I said again.

There was a man sitting in a chair in the dark. “I’m Mr. fucking Myagi.”

Holy shit. I knew who it was. Karate Kid was our favorite movie growing up.

“Tommy!” I yelled.

Tommy turned on the lamp beside his chair. “In the flesh.”

“Or should I call you Kyro?”

“Kyro is dead. I will forever be Tommy.” Tommy was still pretty scratched and bruised. It had been a couple of weeks, and his scars still looked fresh.

“Are you alive?”

“You mean am I some kind of Carni ghost that has come back to haunt you?” Tommy laughed. “No. I’m alive. I’m as alive as you used to be. What the hell happened to you?”

“You must smell it. The Carni at the bar did.”

“Josiah, you have no idea how many times I almost told you the truth. I couldn’t. So, what happened? Did you go willingly or unwillingly?” Tommy was obviously asking if I had chosen to be Mani or was it forced upon me.

“I didn’t choose it. That choice was definitely out of my hands. That’s not the worst of it.”

“What’s the worst of it?”

“I don’t know what you know about Mani lore, but apparently—”

“You’re the Chosen One. I know, Josiah.”

“How do you know?”

“Your hawk friend might have had something to do with it.”

“Yari, you’ve spoken to Yari? When?”

“The last thing I remember was this beautiful redhead dropping me off in front of the emergency room. Before she left, I asked her name. She said Yari.”

“Did you know a Mani was saving you?”

“I didn’t know much of anything. This ten-foot tall motherfucker kicked the crap out of me not even an hour after we had our MMA match. The guy looked like a freaking scarecrow.”

“His name is Atticai,” I said.

“I knew who he was.”

“And you fought him anyway?”

“Why not? Who was he to tell me what the rules were?”

“Apparently he was the judge, jury, and executioner,” I said.

“He was only the judge and jury. Goliath was the executioner.”

“Who the hell is Goliath?”

“He is another seven-foot beast, but he’s not a twig like Atticai. He weighs almost 500 pounds.”

“So, I take it that Goliath wasn’t his birth name.”

“It’s the only name that fits.”

“After your friend Atticai was done with me—”

“Trust me, he’s not my friend.”

“Anyway, I had the pleasure of getting my ass kicked again by Goliath.”

“It doesn’t make any sense that Carni do that to their own people.”

“We know the score if we challenge a Mani and lose.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. What a backward way of dealing with shit. They should tend to you. That is what Mani would do.”

“Nobody said Carni were rocket scientists.” Tommy got up and walked toward me. He grabbed a pair of trainer’s gloves and motioned for me to get into the ring with him. He still looked fit.

I made my way through the ropes, and met Tommy in the middle of the ring.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about.” Tommy gave me the motion to punch his hand. I threw a right cross and our gloves popped. “Good shot, Josiah.” I continued to do combinations that Tommy and I had worked on in the past. “You know Josiah, that seven-foot beanpole was actually fighting in your honor.”

“I didn’t ask him to,” I said. “He just wanted an excuse to fight.”

“Maybe, but in the end, he was defending you.”

“All of this is crazy.” I threw another four-punch combination, with the last punch making a popping sound that echoed throughout the gym. “The Triat used him as a pawn to get me. The more I think about it, it’s pretty fucked up how bad he was mind-fucked by the whole thing.”

Tommy put his gloves down, “Did you kill him?”

“I had to. He was trying to kill two people I care deeply about.”

Tommy nodded his head. I think Yari had let him in on all the details, but he just wanted to hear it from me.

“So, you’re the fucking white eagle that’s in all the stories, the legends, the truth. That’s unbelievable. You have no idea how huge that is. It sure beats a mixed martial arts title.”

“Can I ask you a question?” I looked at Tommy. I didn’t want to rub salt into Tommy’s wounds. But this had really been bugging me ever since I knew Tommy had been a werewolf. “Why would you fight me in a sport that is designed for humans?”

“Because I was a Tandra when I began my mixed martial arts training. I didn’t become a Carni until five years ago. I worked too hard at the sport to give it up. I wasn’t much stronger.”

“But being a Carni made you stronger?”

“A little bit.”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with that?”

“Josiah, if you want me to say I’m sorry that I fought MMA, knowing that I had an edge, I will. But I think the Triat gave me the punishment that I deserved. I was pretty much left for dead.”

“The hospital said you were dead. Did you die?”

“I’m not sure what happened. One moment, I was left at the door of the hospital and the next moment I woke up in the woods with dead rabbits and squirrels all around me.”

“You obviously turned into a werewolf on the following night. The following night was a full moon.”

“I realize that, I’m just not sure how it happened.”

“So, then what did you do when you turned back into a human?”

“I went looking for you. I was at the house and Yari was there to see you and said you weren’t answering the door for anyone. She told me that you needed time.”

“When was this?”

“About two weeks ago. She told me everything. She told me about Atticai trying to kill a girl named Lena. She said how you saved both Lena and her. She mentioned that you had been turned into a vampire. I felt awful for you, but I knew if anyone could help you deal with it, it was me.”

“I would have answered the door for you. You should have knocked.”

“I did knock—a couple times—but you didn’t answer. I figured you were dealing with a lot of major shit and I would speak to you when you were ready—”

“You being alive trumps anything I would have to deal with.”

“I just figured our time would come. I wasn’t going anywhere.”

My eyes began to well up. “Tommy, they pronounced you dead. I thought I had lost everything.”

Tommy put his hand on my shoulder. “I know, Josiah. I should have come to you sooner.” We shared an awkward silent moment that neither of us was used to. Tommy broke the silence with, “Show me the white eagle.”

“Seriously?” I said.

“Why not? I’m curious what you look like.”

“I don’t feel like it right now.” I really wasn’t in the mood.

“Come on, Josiah. Look at me. I’m beat up and broken down. I don’t ever ask for much.”

I looked at Tommy. His puppy dog eyes and bruised face and body were pulling at my heart strings. It was true. He didn’t ask for much, so I decided I would do it. “All right. I’ll do it this once. But this isn’t some kind of routine I’m going to pull out at parties to get you laid.”

“Very funny.”

I gave Tommy a look that said, ‘you better enjoy this cause this is the only time I’m going to do this just for the hell of it.’ I closed my eyes and concentrated. Immediately, I felt a rushing wind come over me and I dropped to the floor.

I squawked, as if to say, ‘here you go.’ I was the white eagle. I took off in flight, trying to navigate through the confinement of the gym. I nearly hit the ceiling and the walls right before I flew smack into Tommy’s arms. I was trying to land on his shoulder, but instead plowed into him. Damn, I was awful at this.

“Holy shit,” Tommy held me in his arms and petted my feathers. “You’re beautiful, Josiah! You have any idea what this means?”

Tommy let me go and I flew down on the concrete gym floor and transitioned back to a Mani. “What does what mean?”

“It means that you shouldn’t waste your time fighting Carni’s that you meet in a bar.”

“How do you know about that anyway?”

“Let’s just say I have been in the shadows.”

“Seriously? You have been following me?”

“Someone needed to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid.”

“Well, you did a great job with that,” I said sarcastically.

“You were bound to get challenged by a Carni out of the gate. Consider it a rite of passage.”

“I don’t need a rite of passage. I think defeating Atticai proved that I can take care of myself.”

“The Carni and Mani feud is epic, Josiah. You might have defeated a Mani stud like Atticai, but now you need to take care of your business with a Carni. Just kick his ass and get the hell out of there before they challenge you a second time. If you don’t leave after the first fight, you’ll be there all night. Trust me; you want no part of Goliath.”

“Was he that giant bald guy back at the bar?”

“Did he have a long, braided goatee?”

“Yup,” I said.

“That’s Goliath. And he is as filthy as they come. He doesn’t play by the rules, and he never quits a fight. No matter how long it takes.”

“Will he be there?”

“Oh, that grizzly bear wouldn’t miss a duel for his life.” Tommy slipped through the ropes and hopped on the concrete floor where I was standing.

“Any advice for me about the bartender?”

“The owner challenged you?” Tommy’s laugh echoed through the gym.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’ll have no problem kicking his ass. He’s all talk. A couple of high kicks should finish him off pretty quick. What time is the battle?”

I looked at Tommy. His bruises and scratches seemed fresh. I didn’t want him to get hurt anymore. This wasn’t his fight. It was mine, and I could take care of myself. “It’s scheduled for 3:30,” I lied. “3:30 a.m., of course.”

“Of course.”

Tommy said, “I’m going to meet up with Yari and we’ll meet up with you before. You don’t want to walk in there alone.”

“Tommy, you can’t go. You have been banned by them.”

“I just want to see their faces when I show up alive.”

“You think that would be safe?”

“Who gives a shit about safety? Those assholes left me for dead.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m going to take off and get some fresh air.”

“No more working out. Go have a Slurpee or a Red Bull. Find a nice tree and mentally go over your takedowns and submission moves. You probably won’t even have to use them, but you can never be too careful.”

“Will do, Tommy. Will do.” I transitioned and flew out the same window I had come in through.

Chapter Four

I took Tommy’s advice and flew over to Hillcrest Park in Fullerton. When I got there, I transitioned to Mani and spent about an hour lying under a tree getting my head right—getting myself in the right frame of mind to take on another immortal creature. The reality of the situation was serious because I was not sure how to prepare for the fight. Therefore, I prepared the same way I would for any fight. I meditated and walked through my takedowns and submissions. I went over and over them until I knew I was ready.

I thought about Lena, and how amazing she looked tonight. I couldn’t help but feel an immense bond with her. Why? Was it because I was the one who turned her into a Mani? Or was it because of something else, something deeper and less tangible? All I knew was that she would have no part of tonight; I would not allow it. No one would be involved except me.

I glanced at my cell phone and realized that I had 45 minutes until the fight. It was time to go. I transformed into the eagle and flew to Taco Bell to get my truck. I circled the parking lot, waiting for the night manager to get into his car and leave. When the coast was clear, I decided to try something different. I tried transitioning back to Mani simultaneously as I landed. It kind of worked. I didn’t land perfectly on my feet, but at least I didn’t fall down. I stumbled a little, but caught my balance.

I opened my truck and was pleased that no one had stolen my radio since I had left it unlocked. I reached down and grabbed my keys from under the seat. I started my truck and took off out of the parking lot.

I drove up Imperial Street toward the mountains. Sure enough, there was a giant ranch right before the mountain trail started. I guess that was Barner’s Ranch. I parked my truck at the bottom, and walked up the side of the road by myself. I looked up into the dark sky, “Well, Triat,” I called out. “If I’m the guy you want for all of this, then please keep me safe.” I continued to walk and I figured I should cover all my bases. I looked up to the sky one more time. “Whoever is in charge of all this? Keep me safe.”

I began my trek up a dirt path that led to a large ranch. I could hear Carni shouting and laughing like a lynch mob ready to jump me from all sides. Instead, they kept their distance while taunting me from dark places along the road. That’s all they did—taunt.

I was wearing the same blue jeans and black t-shirt that I had on earlier in the evening.

I had to admit I had never felt this way before an altercation. I almost felt like nothing could hurt me, as if I was protected by some supernatural force.

I approached a grassy field at the north end of the ranch. I stood there alone. On the other side of the field appeared to be at least 30 to 40 Carni. The area had about half a dozen giant rocks scattered throughout. They almost appeared to be boulders. Not sure what kind of landscaping design this was, but it was definitely different. The noise and laughter soon stopped as I approached. It was obvious these ignoramuses had no idea who I was. They all looked at me amused, as if I had walked up to my own execution. I liked to be underestimated, I liked that a lot.

In the middle of this hairy, dirty mob stood my opponent, the bartender. I don’t think he was thirty yet. But hell, he was a Carni; he could have been this age for 300 years. He made his way to the front. I was less impressed with the bartender’s stature and more impressed with the seven-foot-plus wild beast in the back. It appeared that Goliath had made his way to the show. Something told me he was not here as a spectator.

“You alone?” the bartender asked with a nervous crackle in his voice.

“Yes,” I said staring directly at him. I was amused that he appeared anxious.

“You really are new at this,” he laughed. All his Carni cohorts laughed like a grisly choir of deadheads. “You are either a bad ass or just stupid.”

“I would go with the first,” I said plainly. I walked a little closer to him. About seventy-five feet separated us. “So how do we do this?”

“You’re asking me how to fight?” He turned to the others and laughed.

“No, I definitely don’t need any advice on how to fight. I’m going to kick your ass, and I’m going to do it rather quickly. What I do want to know is this: once I’m done with you, is that going to be it?”

“You sound pretty confident, blood sucker.”

“It’s not confidence, hairball. It’s what I know. What I know is someone like you can’t last two minutes with someone like me.”

“I could kick this pretty boy’s ass,” a woman yelled out from the crowd. “Are we sure that this is even a man?”

I looked at the woman. She was at least fifty and about 50 pounds overweight. I smiled bemusedly at her. “Listen, ma’am. Do yourself a favor and don’t come anywhere near me.”

“Ma’am?” The woman said. “This little twig just called me ma’am.”

Little Twig? I decided to take off my shirt so everyone could see I was definitely not a twig.

“What?” the bartender said. “You think because you spent some time in the gym that it matters out here on the ranch. You’re going to need to do more than just flex, pretty boy.”

I stared at the grisly mob. They looked like something out of a bad seventies’ movie starring Billy Jack.

“Kick his disgusting Mani ass!” the fifty-year-old woman yelled out.

“Let’s get this going,” a man from the mob yelled out.

“Kick his ass, Brian!” another echoed in.

“Brian?” I yelled out. “Your name is Brian?”

“Why the hell do you care?”

“When I write my memoirs, I want to be able to call you by name.” I turned to the mob and said, “So, if one of you can grab a piece of paper and pass it around, would everyone sign it with your first and last names? I promise, you will all become infamous after tonight.”

“Kill him,” a man from the back yelled out. I looked over. It was Goliath.

Kill him? Damn this was real. This wasn’t a stupid college fight. This was as real as the night I became a Mani. At least then, I had Yari on my side. Tonight, by choice, I was alone.

I slapped my body all over to get my blood flowing, doing it the same way I would before a mixed martial arts fight. I didn’t know if I had blood anymore, but slapping myself was doing the trick. I was ready to go.

Here we go! I circled Brian. I had him come out to me by nodding my head and motioning to come and get me. This was a safety measure. It is common to circle each other in a fight. So, being that I was outnumbered 30 to 1, it was in my best interest to move the fight away from his friends. You never want to turn your back on a group that wants to rip off your head. These guys not only wanted to rip it off, they wanted to display it at their bar.

“It’s show time, you Mani piece of shit.” Brian charged at me. I focused my eyes on my opponent, and this is the part where everything goes in slow motion. All my life—whenever I fight—it would seem as if time would almost stand still. My brain goes into what I call Good-Will-Hunting mode. I am able to dissect and break down my opponents weaknesses in milliseconds. This would allow me to do the most damage by delivering the least amount of energy.

Brian, my werewolf friend, charged me like a bull. So, I knew that very little force would knock him down. As he came up on me, I bent down and swept my left leg, and tripped him. I hit his leg with an extreme amount of force. He did a face plant into the grassy dirt field.

Brian pushed himself out of the mud and got to his knees. He hollered out, “You better not use any of your Mani wizardry. The second you do, all bets are off.”

I didn’t know how to do anything other than transition to an eagle. Even that was a challenge for me. “You’re lucky, bar-back-boy,” I said as I circled around him on the ground. “I don’t know any magic tricks; I’m just one tough motherfucker.”

“We’ll see about that.” He got to his feet and came at me again. This time instead of charging me like a bull, he ran up to me and held firm like a horse being pulled in by a lasso. I just stayed there and did not waste a drop of energy. He was bobbing and weaving like Cassius Clay on speed. He was show boating for his Carni audience. He began peek-a-booing with me. That’s when a fighter puts his hands to his face and then drops them, so he is vulnerable like you would simulate a game of peek-a-boo with a child.

All I was doing was timing each peek-a-boo. Each one was two seconds faster. The last one he did was ten seconds, so this one should be eight seconds. I counted to seven in my head and I knew it would take only a second to high kick him like Tommy had told me to do. I raised my leg and high-kicked him right in his smug face and just laid him out. I had completely knocked him out.

The Carni ran over to their fallen friend and surrounded him like they were protecting a piece of meat from an opposing animal.

“Get him,” one guy yelled out. “He used Mani magic.”

“No, I didn’t! I did a standard high kick made famous by the Nintendo video game, Shaq Fu.”

“Someone take him to the hospital,” a large, toothless man yelled out.

“Wait a second. Your boy is done. I used no magic. As a matter of fact, I barely used human fighting. Isn’t this the part where you kick his ass some more and leave him for dead like you did to Tommy?”

“He knows Kyro!” the same toothless man yelled out.

“Nobody touches Brian,” Goliath yelled out from the back. “I’ll take care of him after I kick this pip squeak’s ass.” Goliath stretched his arms and walked toward me.

“Goliath, is it?” I asked in a cocky, but polite tone.

“You heard of me,” Goliath smiled from the corner of his mouth.

“Not until tonight. You’re kind of hard to miss.”

This guy was over seven feet tall and over 450 pounds. He was the largest man or thing I had ever seen. He was wearing cut-off jeans with a Harley Davidson T-shirt that was two sizes too small. I looked at his feet, of course he had 2-inch thick Doc Martens, so he could pound a guy even harder. Unfortunately, I was going to be that guy. I wasn’t looking forward to feeling his size 18 shoe crushed against my skull. His face was scarred in the way only a street fighter would appreciate.

“I guarantee one of your Bruce Lee kicks won’t even faze me, little man.” He then pulled out a chain that was apparently in his back pocket.

I looked up at the moon to make sure it was still a half moon. I couldn’t be too cautious.

I would hate to fight this guy when he was a werewolf. “That’s okay.” I said. “I didn’t even break a sweat.” My adrenaline was amped. I had just floored a guy with two kicks. I didn’t care that this guy was twice my size.

“All right,” I said. “Round two.”

Goliath stood there like a rhinoceros. His hands were up and his feet were shoulder-width apart.

It was obvious that he wanted me to strike first. A guy like this would wait for his prey to make a mistake and then pretty much sit on him and beat the crap out of him. He had one giant problem. I wasn’t going to make any mistakes. I knew if I made just one, it would be the end of me.

“Come and get me!” he shouted.

“Nah, big boy. If you want a piece of this; you’re going to have to come and get it.” I mirrored his fighting stance, and stood like a statue.

“Let’s go, Josiah Reign, Mr. MMA fighter. You had a 4-1 record and got your ass beat by Kyro himself.

This overgrown gorilla did know me. “Oh,” I said. “You know me. I feel honored.”

“Oh, I know you all right. I know that Tommy kicked your ass.”

“That he did, Sasquatch. But, I’ve ironed out a couple of flaws in my technique since then.”

“The lying flat on your ass technique wasn’t working for you?” All of Goliath’s Carni folk burst out laughing.

“Just to let you know, I was the one who beat Tommy to death. And if a bitch-ass like Tommy could handle a fluff like you, then this should make for a short fight.”

“I guess that doesn’t say much for your bartender friend, does it?”

Goliath didn’t like that comment. He broke his stance and came at me. I leaped forward with a roundhouse kick. I missed because Goliath moved out of the way. Goliath was agile. I was shocked. When my kick missed, I fell to the ground.

Goliath jumped on top of me. This guy was the strongest opponent I had ever felt. He picked me up right up off the ground by my neck. He held me up in the air with my legs dangling. I gasped for air; he walked me by my neck to an old eucalyptus tree that was near the flowerbed. With one slick motion, he threw me like a Frisbee against the tree. I hit the tree head first about six feet up, and then dropped to the ground.

I heard screams of excitement from the crowd. They were laughing at my expense. Damn, I hated to hear laughing and cheering at my expense. I was filled with anger, I turned around and opened my mouth, and I felt my incisors protrude out to razor sharp blades. I had never felt that sensation before. It felt like I was flexing my teeth.

“He’s vampiring up!” a man yelled from the crowd.

“Let’ him!” Goliath bellowed. “That will give us reason to rip him to shreds.”

I lunged at Goliath. I grabbed both of his ears with my hands and head-butted him right in his nose. Blood sprayed everywhere. Some got on my tongue. Wow, it tasted delicious and I felt an erection in my pants. Just the smell seemed to quench my every desire. Werewolves bled?

Goliath rolled backward and landed on his feet. “You taste good,” I said.

I grabbed my groin. “Now I’m ready to play.”

Goliath dove at me. I jumped ten feet in the air and hit the peak of my height. It felt as if I floated in midair for a second. I came down hard and fell to my feet.

“What the hell was that?” someone yelled.

“He just flew, that motherfucker just flew,” another hollered out.

When I landed, I collapsed on the ground. I had no idea what had just happened. My body just defied gravity. I almost couldn’t tell because I had been flying all night as an eagle. I had most definitely floated. No one told me that could happen in human form. I didn’t have the time to analyze what had happened. There was a 450-pound man ready to take my head off. Goliath jumped on top of me. It felt like I was on the bottom of a ten-person dog pile. He was hitting the back of my head with elbows, mixed martial arts style. I felt a sea of elbows hitting my neck, head, and shoulder blades.

I heard the strangest crushing and tearing sound come from the back of my head, he had cracked the back of my head open. I was disoriented. There was a large boulder to the left of me. As I continued to get the crap beat out of me, I stared at the large boulder. I felt helpless. Goliath was heavy and strong. I wished that boulder would just fly up and knock the fat motherfucker off me. I stared at the boulder as if I felt my will breaking. I continued to stare at that rock. In my mind, I was pleading for help. I zeroed in on the boulder. I then zeroed in on the crowd that was cheering for my demise. Something miraculous was about to happen. The boulder lifted off the ground and into the air, and then it shot 40 feet through the air and crashed into the crowd, knocking Carni over like bowling pins. I don’t know how I did it.

“He’s using magic,” a bearded man yelled.

Goliath grabbed me by both arms and stood me straight up. My head was killing me.

“Why the hell would you do that?” he yelled at me.

“Do what?” I yelled back at him.

“Use your bullshit Mani magic. Now we have every right to kill you.” Goliath held me tight in his grasp. I struggled, but it was no use. He had me in the worst bear hug known to man. I looked over his shoulder and tried to resist his squeeze. I could see the chain that he originally had at the beginning of the fight about fifteen feet behind him, he must have dropped it.

As he held me, I focused my attention on the chain. I imagined the chain flying in the air. I strained my eyes. Nothing happened. How did I make the boulder move? I looked at the chain, and then quickly looked at Goliath. The chain whipped off the dirt, flew up in a whipping motion, and wrapped around Goliath’s neck. It wrapped tight. Real fucking tight.

A woman yelled. “Get him! He keeps using magic.”

Goliath ripped the chain off his neck.

“No one fucking touches him, he’s mine,” Goliath gasped. Goliath threw the chain fifty feet in the air like a boomerang.

“So it’s going to be like that, you bloodsucking turd.”

I had no idea how I was making things move with my mind or how I floated in midair. This was definitely not in the vampire handbook that Lena had explained to me.

“Look,” I called out. “I’m not trying to use magic. I have no idea how I’m doing what I’m doing.”

“Shut up, you pale Mani,” Goliath screamed. “You’re finished.”

Goliath charged me. I jumped up and again I floated up 10 feet in the air. But, this time, I went faster and my body was jerkier. I landed 20 feet away from him.

“What the hell are you?” Goliath seemed angry and confused. “You’re only supposed to fly when you transition. What kind of bullshit is this?”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“You have broken every rule in the book. I don’t care if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. You’re going to die tonight.” Goliath rushed me again. This time I stood my ground. I high-kicked him the same way I had Brian, but with a much different result. Goliath caught my foot. I fell backwards, but did not hit the ground; instead, I spun around in the air. Goliath had my foot and he was strong enough to hold me in midair by my freaking foot. He spun me around like a lasso. I whizzed through the air and had the sensation of flying as an eagle. Without warning, that is exactly what happened, I transitioned into the eagle. Goliath let go of me in shock.

“What the fuck is that thing?” he called out.

At first, I hadn’t realized I had transitioned, but as I flapped my arms it had been my long wing. I was about two hundred feet in the air. I circled the werewolf party and squawked as loud as I could. I had broken every rule tonight, but had no idea how I was doing it. I couldn’t be criticized or judged for that. The Triat had to know I didn’t do any of that on purpose.

I needed to get out of here and that I did. I flew out of the ranch. I went straight into the sky as high as I could like a rocket. The wind got colder and colder the higher I went. The air felt incredible; I felt incredible. I had never felt so alive. I had never felt so much excitement. The euphoria was exhilarating—too exhilarating.

I stopped thinking about Josiah the eagle and I began reflecting on Josiah the man. That was another huge mistake. Somehow, I had transitioned back into my Mani form. How did I know this? I looked down and saw my human legs. I was a mile high without wings. I was a mile high and had no idea how to fly in my Mani form. I soon hit the apex of my ascendance and stood still in midair. For that brief moment, as I switched from ascending to the certain fall that awaited me, I had an amazing moment of clarity. I felt as if everything in the world made sense. That must be the feeling one gets right before he dies. It didn’t last long because I fell. And fall, I did.

My emotions went from euphoria to absolute terror. I was thousands of feet above earth. And now I was dropping at a speed that I couldn’t even fathom. The night was completely dark and I felt as if I was falling into a black hole. But I knew better. I was falling to the earth—an earth that would crush and destroy me on contact. What the hell was I to do?

I need to fly! I was going to make contact with the ground soon. The fear was indescribable. I couldn’t think clearly. I knew I needed to transition. Was this a faith issue? Was this a test by the Triat? Was I falling to the earth because I was allowing fear to beat me? The wind was choking me. I decided to look up and get a giant gasp of air, as if I was going underwater. I gulped as much air as I could and then I looked down. I concentrated on becoming the eagle. Nothing was happening! Why wasn’t I transitioning? I remained calm. I looked up and took in another gulp of air. I spread my arms out and began flapping them, praying they would turn into wings.

I looked down. It was no longer a black hole. I could see a sea of lights below me. I was getting closer to the earth. Dear God! This can’t be the way this ends! I straightened my legs as if I was doing a jackknife into a pool. I raised my arms straight up. Then something miraculous happened. I felt my body slowing down, as if I was a racecar driver that had taken my foot off the pedal.

As I slowed down, I could see shapes as well as lights below me. I knew I was getting closer and closer to the ground. With all that I had, and every bit of will, I stretched my arms out as hard as I could. I had nothing to lose; if it didn’t work, I was going to die anyway.

Then it happened. I could feel my body taking control of my speed. I had control. I freaking had control! I was no longer falling. I had somehow changed direction again. I was now going up again. I needed to reel this in.

I couldn’t let myself rise out of control again. I wasn’t going to let it happen. I had some bearing of control this time. It was like trying to ride an out-of-control horse. The problem was, I was the horse. I concentrated, breathed and did all that I could to recall the feelings I had had as the eagle, to try to control my flying. I had seen Superman and Greatest American Hero. They made flying look easy. I needed to relax. And relax I did.

The more relaxed I was, the easier it was to control my body. I was now flying, I was finally in absolute control. I was flying! Not as an eagle, but as me, Josiah Reign. I felt power underneath my feet. My energy was allowing me fly. It was the most amazing feeling I had ever experienced. This was more exhilarating than flying as an eagle. I could see my own arms, my own legs. It felt similar to swimming, but a lot more freeing.

As the eagle, I had felt light and delicate. At times, I got the sense of power when I struck a person or an object. But flying as a Mani felt like the dreams I used to have when I was mortal. I felt powerful and alive. And yes, I felt like Superman. I tilted my arms and leveled out my body so that I was flying parallel to the earth, Superman-style. I allowed myself to drop and then I would ascend. Flying felt like having ten orgasms back to back. It was the biggest rush I have ever had. It was more exciting than all my experiences combined. I felt like the most powerful man in the world. That was the problem. I was no longer a man, I was a vampire—and now I could fly. In my Mani body. I was jubilant.

Chapter Five

I flew around for the next two hours in my Mani form, arms and legs flapping in the wind. I noticed that I was less anxious about flying when I was lower to the ground, but I was risking being seen by the public. So, I was going to have to find a happy medium with all this flying business. I needed to fly low enough to feel comfortable and high enough to not be seen by the naked eye.

The sun would be coming out soon. I decided once again to go find Lena. I knew I had left her and everyone else stranded a mile down from the ranch. I doubted she was still there. I checked there anyway just to be sure. I scoped up and down from the sky and saw no one within two miles of the ranch. I decided to fly over to her trailer community. Hopefully, she had gone back home. I got to the trailer park in minutes. I spotted her mobile home from the air and noticed a car parked in the driveway. Her parents must have come home.

I decided to land in the park across the street. It seemed like it was the best spot because of the large amount of soft grass. I circled the park as I had done earlier in the night. It was different this time because I wasn’t circling the park as an eagle, but as a man. I was getting better at landing as ‘the eagle.’ This was a completely different ball game, trying to land with legs. As an eagle, I could pull back and delicately hit the earth, my wings lifting me at the last moment of touchdown. I had no idea at what speed I should hit the ground flying as a Mani. I didn’t want to crush my legs on impact.

There was a barn at the far east end of the park. It was some sort of petting zoo for kids in the area. As I circled the barn, I could see some bales of hay to the left of the barn. I decided to aim my landing in that direction. Hay on top of grass was double the protection.

I continued to circle around the barn, each time making the circle smaller and smaller. Each time I circled, I inched my way closer and closer to the earth. I was about twenty feet from the ground. I needed to land and I was becoming apprehensive. I dipped my legs down a tad, as if I was jumping off a roof of a house. That was not a good idea. I pulled back my motion as I got closer and closer to the ground. Right next to the barn was a scarecrow and I used it as my focal point. I pulled up hard, but I knew my speed was still too fast. I hit the bales of hay much harder than I intended to. I instinctively curled my body up in a ball to protect my vital areas. All that did was make me roll instantly when I hit the ground. And roll I did. I rolled out of control and crashed directly into the barn. I had hoped the barn would stop my momentum. No such luck. My body broke through the wooden walls as if I was a tank. I wrapped my hands around my head on contact to prevent further injury.

Finally I stopped and laid there flat on my back. I looked up and saw a brown horse looking down at me. It stared at me with a bewildered look as if to say, ‘Who the hell are you?’

I got to my feet as quickly as I could. My body ached all over. I had put my body through the wringer tonight. Although I was in immense pain, my adrenaline was still off the charts. I felt like I had just downed ten Red Bulls.

I wiped off the dirt and hay, cracked my neck, and walked out of the barn. The cold morning air hit my face. The sun would be up shortly. I walked across the grassy field and headed to Lena’s trailer park.

I felt like a superhero as I exited the park and went across the street. Cars passed me and for the first time, I had the feeling of immortality. Ultimately, I felt that nothing could hurt me. It felt insanely great. It was the high of highs. The surge of power at beginning to realize my own potential as a Mani.

I wasn’t even sure if Lena was home. Lena’s parents were home and that changed everything. I went to the side of the house and tapped the window to her bedroom. After just one tap, the lights in her room came on. Lena pulled back the curtain and I saw her face. She looked concerned and very beautiful.

She opened the window just enough to be heard, “Josiah,” she whispered, “Are you okay?”

“I’m more than okay,” I said, louder than I planned to.

“Shhhh, you’ll wake up creepazoid.” She opened the window more.

“Screw him. Let’s get out of here!” I whispered back.

Lena looked behind me. “Where’s your car?”

“I’m not going to need that anymore.”

Lena looked at me puzzled.

“Get some clothes together,” I said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Lena had a spark in her eye. “Really?”

“Of course, really. You don’t need to live here anymore. I have plenty of room, you can stay with me.”

Lena’s face looked like a child’s on Christmas morning. “Hold on!” She left for a moment and came back. She already had a suitcase packed with clothes in her arms and handed it to me through the window.

All of a sudden, I heard a deep voice, “Who the hell are you talking to, little woman?” Lena quickly jumped out the window and fell into my arms. We swiftly hid behind the trailer. We could hear Lena’s stepdad in her room. He was walking around. “That little whore snuck out again!” he said in a loud voice. He turned off the light.

I looked at Lena and I couldn’t help but have the biggest smile on my face.

She could see the excitement in my eyes. “What the hell happened tonight? Did you fight?”

“Yes.” I must have had a lot of scrapes and bruises.

“Did you win?”

“Yes and no,” I said.

“Well, you’re alive. That’s the only thing that matters.” Lena looked at the back of my head. “Josiah your head is cracked open. Do you feel alright?”

Goliath apparently had done a number to the back of my head. “Let’s get out of here. We need to take care of that.”

“Okay,” I said. “Put your arms around my neck.”

“Why?” Lena looked at me curiously.

“Just do it,” I said. Lena wrapped her arms around my neck. “Hold on tight,” I raised my arms as if I was a superhero preparing to fly.

“What the heck are you doing?” Lena gasped. I raised my arms again this time with some oomph. I had a small problem. Nothing was happening. Lena looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

“Uh...Josiah. What are you doing?”

“Hold on,” I said. “Watch!” I raised my arms again, this time I made a fist as if that would help. Again, nothing happened.

“What are you trying to do?” Lena asked laughing.

“I’m trying to fly,” I stammered.

“Well,” Lena said sweetly. “You’ll need to transition to do that.” Then we heard someone open the front door. “Transition, Josiah!” Lena immediately transitioned into a red hawk.

Dammit! I wanted to show her I could fly! Why couldn’t I fly?

Lena flew away, leaving her suitcase behind. I could hear Lena’s stepdad getting closer. I transitioned to ‘the eagle.’ I grabbed the suitcase in my beak and flew out of the area like a speeding bullet. Yeah, now I was the super hero.

Chapter Six

We both landed in my front yard and the sun was peeking up over the horizon. It was a beautiful thing to see. It would be something I couldn’t enjoy anymore. That was sad to me. That the sun was a deep fryer for vampires who had the stupidity to stand outside in it.

We both transitioned into our Mani forms on my front porch. I picked up the suitcase and grabbed a key that was hidden under a pot by the door. I knew any idiot would check there first if they intended to rob me, but I really didn’t care, I had renter’s insurance.

I unlocked the door and we went inside. I looked around quickly to see if Tommy had shown up. There was no sign that he had been in the house, everything was the way I left it.

“Let’s re-duct tape the curtain drapes and blinds.” I said to Lena. “Light has a funny way of getting inside.” I grabbed two rolls of duct tape off the table and handed one to her. I went around my house, reapplied duct tape on all areas that light could get in, and Lena did the same. In a few minutes, we had finished. We were sure that no sunlight could get in under any conditions. But then, neither could air.

We both went into my kitchen.

“So what happened?” Lena asked.

“With the wolves?”

“Yes, we all showed up at 3:15 a.m. and you were nowhere to be found. We transitioned and flew toward the ranch and saw Goliath finishing off one of his own, the way he did to Tommy. We all hoped it was because you worked him good. We flew around looking for you for a little while and just figured you had split.”

“I might have fibbed about the time.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I wanted to take care of my own business. And protect my friends.” I walked past Lena, went into the living room, and sat on the couch. Lena turned and followed me.

“Look, you’re going to need protection. Everyone does. No one expects you to fight 30 Carni all by yourself. That was preposterous, what you did.”

“Well, I did fine.”

“You can’t see the back of your head. It’s dented! Why are you being so stubborn?” Lena wasn’t messing around. She was becoming really upset. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

“Maybe I want to do it alone,” I said defiantly.

“Then you’re going to get killed. You might have been Chosen, Josiah, but don’t forget we all were. We have been called to help you. Serve you.”

I looked down at Lena. I needed to tell her the real reason why I gave her the wrong time. “I told you the wrong time because I didn’t want you to get hurt.” Lena raised her head and gently looked up at me. I looked down at her and for the first time, showed how vulnerable I was in her presence. “I don’t care what I have to do; I’m always going to make sure you’re safe.”

Lena reached out her hand and rubbed my arm. “Please let me help you, it’s what I’ve been called to do.” The slightest touch from Lena made me melt. She looked at me lovingly. Dammit, I was falling hard for her. “There is just so much I don’t understand,” I said and took Lena’s hand in mine.

“That’s why you need all of us. We all need you, too.” Lena sat next to me on the couch. Her legs were now touching mine.

I turned to her and said, “It’s hard for me to trust a bunch of people who were trying to kill me a month ago.”

“I know it is. But, you need to remember, you’re one of them now. We both are and we’re all in this together. Wyatt and Hector have had amazing lives. They are good men. They have seen and done things that would blow your mind. You need to trust them. And I don’t have to tell you about Yari. All of them will lay down their lives for you, the same way they were prepared to do for Atticai.” After Lena said ‘Atticai’ she stopped and stared straight ahead.

“Do you still love him?” I asked.

“That kind of thing doesn’t just go away.” Lena let go of my hand.

“Look, I know that there is this beautiful romantic part of you that wanted to live forever by his side. But, you are aware that he was only using you?”

“I know.” Lena held back tears. “I’m just confused.”

“Why?”

“I had my own visions, Josiah. I had amazing dreams where I was this beautiful angel watching over The Chosen.”

“Was it visions? Or wishful thinking?”

“All I know is that I felt so much love when I was watching over him.” Lena shook her head with disgust. “You’re right. It was just some little girl fantasy that got into my subconscious.” Lena now looked defeated.

I couldn’t let her feel this way. “Lena, don’t be upset with yourself. You are this amazingly beautiful woman inside and out. Your heart and soul is why the Triat chose you for this venture. Just because the details weren’t what they seemed, doesn’t mean anything less. You’re a spectacular woman.”

“I guess I’m still that.” Lena looked at her body. “I may be a Mani, but I’m still a woman.”

I looked at Lena and she was as beautiful as ever. “That you are.”

“The sun is up,” she said.

“Yes, it is. We should probably get some rest.”

I got up and Lena laid her legs across the couch. She closed her eyes. I went to the closet and got out a blanket out for her. It was an orange and white cover; one that my grandmother had made for me when I was five years old. It was my favorite blanket. I walked over holding the blanket and looked down on this beautiful young woman lying on my couch. Why did I have such intense feelings for her?

Lena opened her eyes and looked up at me. She gave me a warm smile. “Do you need something, mister?” she asked in a very sweet, innocent voice.

“Do you want a blanket?” I asked.

“That would be nice.”

I laid the blanket gently on top of her. I then sat on the floor and leaned my back up against the couch. I closed my eyes and sighed aloud. I just wanted to be near her.

Lena said softly in my ear, “Before all this happened, Josiah. What did you believe in?”

I sighed again. “I don’t even know.”

“Really?” You didn’t believe in anything?”

“Do you mean like God, heaven, and hell?

“Yeah. Did you believe in any of that?”

“I remember going to a church youth group when I was a sophomore in high school with a girl I was dating at the time. The pastor guy asked if anyone wanted to come forward to be prayed for. I remember wanting to believe in what he was saying so badly. I even went forward and got prayed for. The guy prayed with me. I had to admit, it was intense.”

“So what happened?”

“Nothing happened. I started wondering if what I felt was more of a belief in a Creator or for something greater than myself.”

“What do you mean exactly?” Lena sat up again. She seemed very interested in what I thought.

“Maybe what I felt was a hope that a God could exist and that my life had a plan.”

“But it does have a plan,” Lena said with conviction.

“I know now that it does. I’m trying to figure out what my stake in this is. I guess I can accept that I am needed to help make a change. But I still need guidance. I feel like I’m dangling. I feel the Triat, or whoever is leading this life, has left me to figure it out on my own.”

“Have you stopped to listen?”

“Listen to whom?”

“I’m not going to pretend I know the answers, Josiah. But one thing is for sure, I’m listening.” Lena closed her eyes. She lay back down and wrapped herself up in the blanket.

She was quiet and I just listened to her breathe. I had never done that with anyone before. It was comforting.

I got up and tucked her in, went to my room to grab a pillow and blanket and walked back to the living room. I made a little bed with my blanket on the carpet and lay on the floor next to Lena.

As I rested, I closed my eyes. I felt my body and mind drift off. I could feel my muscles rebuilding. I’d had an insane night and my body definitely needed to relax and recover. I concentrated on my muscles and tendons. It felt wonderful lying there. I was in harmony with my body.

Suddenly, I felt a jolt through my entire body. I opened my eyes instantly. I was in a dream; this was my first one since becoming a Mani. I was lying in a field on the side of what appeared to be a hill. I was in front of a gigantic beautiful white castle. The castle was huge and majestic. It was something out of a fairy tale. I got to my feet and walked toward this magnificent place. There was brush out front, and what appeared to be pine trees. At the front of the great white castle, I could see something moving. Whatever it was, it wasn’t that tall. I walked closer to this creature. It was a grayish-blue color. It almost looked like a gnome without the pointed hat. He was no taller than three feet.

A sudden burst of wind came over me. And the air became smoky. The little blue man walked over to me.

“Come and see me,” he said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“As of right now, that will not be important. But I do have a message for you.”

This was definitely a vision. My surroundings felt as real as day. “What is it, friend?”

The creature looked at me with disdain, as if to say, “We are not friends.” He looked off to the side as if to purposely not look me in the eyes. Finally, he said, “Tame the wolf.”

“Huh?” I replied.

“If you tame the wolf, you will find yourself.”

I looked at the blue Smurf-like creature. “What wolf?” I asked.

“Tame the wolf and you will find yourself,” he repeated. He was obviously being cryptic on purpose.

“Will I see you again?” I asked.

“Most definitely,” the little man replied. “For now, you need to do what I’ve told you.”

With that I woke up and was staring at the ceiling in my living room. I looked at the clock, it was 7:00 p.m. Man I was out a long time. I could hear dishes being washed in the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” I called out to Lena.

“Cleaning up; you live like a pig.”

“I do the necessities.” I got up, stretched my arms, and then made my way to the kitchen.

“There is a green fungus growing in your sink that I’m pretty sure would have killed you if you were mortal.”

I laughed, “You don’t have to clean, especially a life-threatening green fungus.”

“Trust me, if I’m going to be staying here, it’s the least I can do.”

“I have a guest room you can sleep in. You don’t have to sleep on the couch.”

“That will be fine. Thank you.” Lena put the last of the dishes away in the cupboard. I liked seeing Lena in my kitchen. It felt right, almost natural.

“So, you’re pretty domestic?” I asked.

“Not really. I just can’t stand filth.”

“I guess I’ve been living like a slob as of late. That’s what barricading yourself in a house will do to you. Why don’t you put your things in the guest room?”

Lena nodded and walked by me to get to the living room where her suitcase was still on the floor next to the T.V. I caught a whiff of her perfume or deodorant. Whatever it was, it was intoxicating.

“Wow, you smell good,” I said, a bit awkwardly.

“Do I?” Lena stopped and smelled her shirt. “I’m not wearing fragrance. It’s just little ol’ me.”

“Well, you smell great.” Now I had made things even more weird by piggy-backing my original compliment. I tried to save myself, “I’ll go to the store later and get some things for your room. Who knows, I might even decorate it.”

“You don’t have to do that, Josiah.”

“I would love to. How about a nice ballerina theme? We’ll do the whole thing in pink.” Lena socked me in the arm playfully.

“You’re right.” I said. “You have gotten stronger. I almost felt the punch.”

“Oh really, tough guy? Almost felt it? I’ll give you something to feel.” Lena began playfully punching me all over. “Chosen One or not, I’ll whip your ass.”

“Oh, you think.” I grabbed Lena’s arms after her last punch nearly got me in the chin. I had a sister growing up so I knew how to be physical with a girl without being rough. In one quick motion, I turned her body around so her back was pressed against me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight in a bear hug. Not too hard, but I was definitely in control.

“Oh, big, bad, Josiah has to prove his manhood.”

“I don’t need to prove anything. Don’t forget I’m kind of special.” I loosened my grip. As I did, Lena paused and then backed into me as if to say, “Don’t let go.” That threw me off a little bit. But I definitely liked it. It was a subtle gesture. I leaned into her and my grip became a hug. I rested my head on the top of hers. She felt nice in my arms.

We stood there in my kitchen, just swaying almost as if we were slow dancing. Neither one of us said a word. We were two people, two new vampires, having a moment. One thing that hasn’t changed since becoming a Mani was my heart and my soul. I loved the same, maybe even more. It was like I could see truth in another light. Lena was my truth. She was my salvation in the midst of all this madness.

Lena turned around. “Josiah.” She cupped my face. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

“I don’t know.” I looked at her and stared into her eyes. I felt her love toward me. My love for her was overwhelming. Why was I an open book to this woman? “This is hard,” I said. “I’m trying to be strong, but it’s damn hard.”

Lena turned around and now she was facing me. She was a foot shorter than me so I crouched a little. She touched my face with the back of her right hand. I could feel tears burning my eyes.

“Sweet, Josiah,” Lena whispered. “How did you, of all people, get caught up in this?”

“I’m a little more than just caught up in it. I’m being consumed by it.” I felt the warmth of Lena’s breath on my neck. She wrapped her arms around my waist.

“I’m not upset about Atticai. I need you to know that.” She looked up at me and tightened her grip around my waist. “I need you to know that I am very grateful that you saved my life.”

I looked down on this petite, delicate woman. She had my heart.

She said, “I’m glad you understand, because I would do it all over again.”

“I know you would.”

“Lena, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“A lot of weird stuff happened last night during my fight. I knocked the first guy out quickly, but the second guy was a beast. And I was using powers by accident.”

“What kind of powers?”

I stepped back and Lena let go of my waist. I went back into the kitchen to the sink. I grabbed a glass and poured myself some water. “Okay, last night...during the fight, I was able to move a 400-pound boulder using just my mind.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not kidding. I was able to move this gigantic rock just using my thoughts.”

“How did that happen?”

“I really don’t know. I was getting the crap beat out of me by this gorilla.”

“You were?” Lena seemed concerned.

“Obviously, I’m okay. I’m here with you now.”

“Alright,” Lena hesitated. “Go on.”

“This 450-pound man was on top of me and I had my face in the dirt. He was beating on me something fierce and I was running out of options. I could see a giant white boulder about 20 feet away. I could also see to the left of me a group of Carni laughing and mocking me. I remember just wishing in my heart that somehow that boulder would lift off the ground and fly into the crowd to shut them up.”

“Did it?”

“Not at first. I stared at the boulder as a point of focus. That’s something you learn from fighting on the streets. Whenever you’re getting the crap beat out of you, the way you don’t pass out is maintaining a point of focus.”

She got even paler than she was. “Okay, go on.” Lena did not like this story.

“I stared at the boulder and then wished in my heart this thing would lift up. I shot my eyes at the crowd. Then, as if the hand of God himself picked up the boulder, it rose off the ground and catapulted 20 yards in the air and crashed into the crowd.”

Lena looked at me with absolute amazement. “I have never heard of that. That’s telekinesis. That is unprecedented! No Mani has ever been able to do that. At least it hasn’t been documented.”

“That wasn’t the only thing. Every time I jumped, I would float.”

“Float?”

“Yeah, float like a helium balloon.”

“Not fly, but float?” Lena was even more bewildered.

“No, I flew too, but at first, I floated. I floated a few times until I realized my body was trying to fly.”

“Josiah, do you understand what this means?”

“No, not really.”

“I think the Triat has given you all the Mani gifts and more.”

“What are the gifts?” I asked.

“Most Mani are given one. It is up to them to find out what it is.”

“Just one?”

“Some Mani’s only gift is transitioning. But transitioning is what makes Mani who we are, so it’s not really a gift. It’s a given.”

“So what about the other stuff, Lena?”

“I have never heard of a Mani flying in their Mani form, nor to being able to move things with their mind.”

“Never?” I asked.

“I have only been in the know for a couple of years. There are a lot of legends and rumors.”

I walked back into the living room and sat in the big chair. Lena looked at me and grinned at the satisfied look I had as I eased into the chair. “Men and their chairs. You all have your thrones, even if they are only in front of a big-screen TV.”

“Ahh. Yep.” I closed my eyes and enjoyed the comfort of the chair.

Lena smiled. “Did you try to do what I told you to do when you went to bed last night?”

“Which was what?” I asked.

“Did you listen? Did you open yourself up to all of this?”

I smiled at Lena. “Actually, I did.”

“You did?”

“Yep, I did. And you know what? I think I had my first vision.”

“Really?” Lena was surprised.

“Uh-huh.”

“Anything you’d like to share?”

I wasn’t ready to share my vision. I wasn’t even sure if I was supposed to. “I will at another time.”

“When you’re ready, I’ll be here.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“Well, you do know, don’t you, the rest of us have had visions since that infamous night?”

“Everyone has?” I asked.

“Everyone has. Even Hector.”

“Well, what are they?”

Lena retracted in her body language.

“Is it bad?” I was now concerned.

“It’s not bad. I mean it could be if we don’t succeed.”

“Succeed?”

“Surely, you didn’t think this was going to end the night you turned into a vampire. That’s when all of this began. Josiah, when you’re ready to share your vision, we will all share ours with you. Otherwise, I’m afraid we will overwhelm you.”

It’s amazing how well Lena already knew me. “Okay,” I said. She was right. I wasn’t ready for her to dump a bunch of visions on me.

“So, what are you going to do right now?” she asked.

“I need to get some fresh air. I was thinking about going for a light jog.”

“Don’t go to any more frat parties.”

“Oh, I won’t.” I got up from the chair and walked down the hallway into my bedroom. I went into my closet and pulled out my running shoes. I sat on my bed and took off my jeans. My back was sore from sleeping on the floor. I decided to jump in the shower before my run to and allow the hot water to loosen up my back. It was a little trick I learned in MMA to shower before and after a workout. I removed the rest of my clothes. I stood in my bedroom looking at my naked body in the mirror. I stared at my skin. It was so pale. I use to be pinkish tan, and now I looked like someone had dusted me all over in baby powder. I grabbed a towel from my laundry basket and wrapped it around my pale body. I stepped out of my room and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. Lena was in there.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m going to take a shower.” Lena was embarrassed that I was standing there in just a towel.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was just freshening up.” Lena walked by me and I could feel her eyes scanning my body from head to toe. I hoped she liked what she saws. She shut the door and I turned on the shower. I stepped in and let the hot water just run down my body. It felt so good, as if the water pressure was massaging my skin. Ever since I had transformed, I had a heightened sense of touch, as if new nerve endings had grown on the surface of my skin. I was hypersensitive to pleasure as well as pain. I cleaned off all the key areas of my body with soap and I turned off the water and stepped out. I dried off, and once again wrapped myself up in the towel.

I stepped outside and went into my bedroom. I put on a pair of sweats and a white t-shirt. I put on my socks and running shoes. When I walked into the living room, Lena was sitting on the couch watching TV.

“I’ll be back in an hour.” I opened the front door.

“No saving damsels in distress.”

“Oh, you will always be my first damsel.” I stepped out of my house onto the front porch. This was when I used to see my old friend, Daphne. The red hawk. She was always there. I missed that. I missed Yari, her Mani counterpart.

I stretched on my porch. Every joint in my body crackled as if I was setting off fireworks. I stepped onto the sidewalk and began my jog. It felt great to run. I could feel my body loosening up. I headed down toward Cal State San Bernardino. I passed the infamous frat house where this whole mess started. There was no party tonight. Not a single car was parked outside the house.

When I made it to the San Bernardino campus, I made my way to the running track. I looked at my watch and decided to time myself running the 440, which is one full lap around the track. My best time in high school had been 58 seconds.

I started my way around the track. I decided to pick up speed. I began running as hard as I could. Then, something strange started to happen to my body. I was running at an accelerated speed. It felt like I was running downhill. I zipped around the track like I was going fast forward. I looked down at my time, 33 seconds. Holy shit! That would be the world record if I were human. I was floored by my time. Not only could I fly, but I had super speed. I just might be Superman after all.

I decided to run up to the stadium. I ran up and down the stadium stairs. As I ran down the steps, my body seemed to glide, as if it was trying to fly. But I wasn’t allowing it to happen. I ran up the steps again. When I reached the top of the stadium, I looked down at the track. I could see a woman down at the bottom on the field. I recognized her. It wasn’t just any woman; it was Yari.

Chapter Seven

It took a few minutes for my heart to slow down. She was stunning as ever. I walked down the stairs toward her, watching her red hair blow in the wind. Not to mention her body was still in immaculate shape, which I couldn’t help but notice since she was wearing the cat woman body suit.

“So, this is what it’s going to take to see you?” she said. “I have to stalk you?”

“How are you, Yari?”

“Do you hate me?”

“Of course not,” I said.

“Then why haven’t you seen me?”

“I needed some space. I needed time to think.”

“Josiah, that night was intense for all of us. For you to cut me off and refuse to speak to me was awful.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She reached out her arms to hug me, but I pulled back.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing, I’ve been in a hundred fights this past month...” I stopped explaining when I saw her step closer to me.

“Come here, I won’t hurt you.”

I leaned in when I felt her arms wrap around me. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“I feel good. I feel strong.”

“That’s good.” Yari was trying hard to connect with me and I wasn’t sure how to respond. I cared about Lena and was not willing to jeopardize that any further by being physical with Yari.

“It’s nice to see you,” I said honestly.

“Well, I was always a phone call away.”

“I know. I just needed to figure a couple things out.”

“You said that already. Josiah, I care about you. Do you have any idea what I have seen in the last 400 years? I’ve had every kind of relationship. I have met the most powerful men in history.”

I looked at her, wondering where she was going with this.

“I want you to understand this: No one, Josiah, ever made me feel the way you did!”

“Did?” I asked.

“Yes, did. You are a fantastic person, and I am touched to have been the one to lead you to become who you are for the Mani people. But your purpose is for greater than a schoolgirl crush. You’re The Chosen, and all I want to do is help you achieve your destiny. Help us achieve the destiny for the Mani people.”

I believed Yari. She had a peace about her that I had not yet explored. I knew I could always trust her. In some ways, I trusted her more than Lena. So I decided to tell her what everyone was dying to know.

“I had a vision.” I said.

“Just one?” she asked.

“Yes, and it happened today.”

“What was it?” Yari asked.

I paused and grinned at the absurdity that I was about to tell her. “A little blue man in front of a giant castle said I was to ‘tame the wolf’ and then come back to see him.”

“Are you sure it was a vision, or could it have been a bad sugar high?”

I laughed. “It was definitely a vision. It was my first and only dream I have had since becoming a Mani.”

“A little blue man, huh?” Yari took a few moments to think.

I tried to push the Smurf-like image into a gnome in my head. Yes, a blue gnome. That’s what he was.

Then she lifted her eyes and looked into the sky.

I followed her gaze and saw a sea of black ravens circling us in the sky.

“We have company, Josiah!” Yari yelled.

“Who are they?!” I hollered back.

“I don’t know.”

Yari and I were caught in the middle of something that was not going to be good. I could feel it. The ravens surrounded us in a perfect circle. Yari and I had our backs to each other. The ravens were loud and I had no idea what was going to happen. There was a slightly larger raven that had a white stripe along its wingspan, like a military officer of their ranks. I could tell that he was the leader, and my focus was going to stay on him.

Suddenly, in an instant, all the ravens transitioned into Mani men. The raven with the white stripe on his wingspan transitioned into a muscular Asian man that looked like what you imagine modern samurai warriors would look like.

“Josiah?” the large, samurai-looking man asked loudly, with a voice that sounded like a trumpet blaring.

“Yes,” I said.

“Walk up to me,” he proclaimed as if he was royalty.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Come before me, boy!”

I looked at Yari and for the first time ever, she appeared to be terrified, and that wasn’t at all assuring.

“Do you question my command!?” the samurai-looking fellow yelled.

I stood my ground. “Look Genghis, I don’t make it a habit to bend over for every raven turned Mani who asks me to come before him. Or disrespects me by calling me ‘boy.’”

“Do you know who I am?” The man had a look of horror on his face.

He obviously thought my response should have been more like Yari’s. I looked this guy up and down and had no clue. He could have been an extra in a John Woo movie. Other than that, I hadn’t the foggiest idea who he was.

“He’s Krull,” Yari hollered at me.

“Krull?” I asked.

“You know, the fallen Mani.”

“I wouldn’t say I was fallen. More like reborn,” he stated. All of the Mani men surrounding us laughed. I looked around and this was the first time I got a good look at these guys. There were at least two hundred of them. Boy, were they a sight for sore eyes. Some looked like body builders, while others looked as if they had been on the high seas for months at a time. They looked shaggier than the Carni men from the other night.

“Okay, you’re Krull. Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“You’re a cocky little shit aren’t you?” Krull would not tolerate my disrespect. It appeared that no one had talked to him in that way for years. He seemed flustered and confused, and I was enjoying that.

“This puny little man surely isn’t the Chosen One I am to kill?” Krull yelled out to the other Mani that surrounded us. “You’re just a child—a baby.” All the Mani surrounding us laughed again. “How long have you walked the earth, boy?”

“Walked the earth?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

“How long have you been alive?” Krull screamed.

“I’ve been alive for about twenty-one years.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Why? Do I look like I’m already twenty-one? There are few liquor stores that don’t card me.”

“Jokes? To me?” Krull looked as if he was going to lose his mind.

“Look, Krawl.”

“It’s Krull.”

“Krull, Crawly, Night Crawler, Creepy Crawler—whatever. It really doesn’t matter to me. If you think you can intimidate me you have another think coming.”

“You have it wrong, young Mani. My intention is not to intimidate you. My intention is to destroy you.”

Krull then lunged at me and tackled me to the ground. I threw him off my back. He was strong, but I was stronger. Krull then came at me again and this time he glided toward me as if he could fly himself. As he did so, he kicked me straight in my chin. Damn that hurt!

“Josiah, we need to get out of here!” Yari yelled. “There’s too many of them. They are here to kill you.”

Now, Yari says this?

“I figured they weren’t here to get an autograph,” I yelled back. “Who isn’t trying to kill me these days?”

I looked up and Krull had completely jumped over me like in a video game. Prince of Persia came to mind, that old-school game. He landed behind me, and high-kicked me in the back of my head. I fell forward. I looked around and all the Mani men had come for me. Two very large men had grabbed me and were holding my arms so I couldn’t move. All of them surrounded me. One by one, they were punching me in the face as if each person could say they struck ‘The Chosen’ before he was killed. This wasn’t good. This was damn awful. Each punch was more intense and more painful. They were throwing me around like a rag doll. I knew I had to fight back, but the odds were against me.

“Yari, get out of here,” I yelled.

Krull laughed. “Don’t worry, Chosen Child—she ran a few minutes back, or should I say—flew away.”

“What do you want from me?” I yelled, while being tossed from one Mani to the next.

“Let him be!” Krull called out. The last Mani punched me in the ribs and I dropped right in front of him. “All I want is to destroy you. Your mere existence is going to mess up my plans—plans that have taken me 800 years to carry out.”

“I don’t know what your plans are, and I don’t care to know.”

“Shut up!” Krull stopped himself and then looked to the sky. “This is who you brought before me? A sniffling, teen-age boy?” Krull was horrified at the prospect that I was sent to stop him. Krull quit yelling at the sky and then turned his attention back to me. “They chose you!? You are the prophesied savior of the Mani people!? Look at you! You’re a hundred and seventy pounds dripping wet. This is insulting!” Krull began a frantic pace like a maniac on speed.

I got up and stood my ground. Truly, what else did I have to lose? I couldn’t get away. There were too many of them. I might as well go down swinging.

Krull then put his attention back on the sky. He was apparently showing his disdain for Triat. “Is this your way of MOCKING ME?!” Krull was screaming at the sky like a petulant child.

I looked to the sky to see the direction that Krull was yelling. Then I saw two red hawks, and two ravens coming toward us in a fury. Thank God. My two Mani women friends and my faithful henchmen ass-kickers were here.

Krull’s Mani clan saw the birds too, and two of them grabbed my arms. The birds circled above us, squawking and soaring. With utter quickness, the four birds dived down and clawed the Mani men holding me. They let go of me and I quickly transitioned into the great white eagle and flew up as fast as I could. I needed to get the hell out of here. Two ravens and two hawks followed me. Suddenly, one of the hawks began squawking uncontrollably.

I looked back to see if anyone was coming at us and I noticed on the ground the Mani had surrounded another body.

I circled and turned back around to see who it was. It was a man. Holy crap! It was Tommy! They had Tommy! What the hell was he doing here?

It was Tommy, one lone Carni against Krull’s gang of Mani barbarians that he’d been building for 800 years. I never leave a friend behind, never turn tail, never run when loyalty is on the line. And it was. Would I die to save Tommy? Damn right, I would!

I circled back and made an impulsive decision that took zero thought from my end. I flew down hard toward Tommy. Krull had Tommy by his throat. SCREW THAT SAMURAI PIECE OF SHIT! I aimed my beak at his back like a dagger and torpedoed down to the mob. Krull was right in the middle of the heap. I gave another burst of speed. My elongated beak cracked into Krull’s back, piercing through his skin and muscles. Krull was a specimen. I tore into him real good, but I had ricocheted off of him on contact. He flew forward and I flew backwards. It looked like a scene out of Rocky.

He let go of Tommy. I transitioned quickly into my Mani form and charged Krull. Krull turned around to face me. My beak had fucked him up pretty good. He was still in a daze. I gave him the hardest uppercut punch I had ever given in my life. He popped up about four feet in the air, I didn’t slow down—I roundhouse-kicked him right in his fat skull before he hit the ground, knocking him another ten feet in the air. I didn’t see what kind of damage I had done because I needed to get Tommy the hell out of here. I quickly transitioned back to the eagle, grabbed Tommy by the shirt with my claws, and got him out of there. I flew faster than I ever had before. My claws were deep into Tommy’s shirt, the Mani Chosen One saving a Carni. He wasn’t going anywhere with Krull. I had Tommy safely in my talons. The two red hawks and two ravens followed us.

Lena was right. Everyone had my back, even when the odds were stacked horribly against us. All four were there to help me, including Tommy. I turned around, expecting ravens to be close behind me, but we were alone. They apparently decided they’d had enough. I didn’t take any chances by slowing down. I kicked my speed into another gear with Tommy in hand—or should I say clawed hand. I had hit Krull real good and I would have loved to have been there when he realized that this boy just laid him out. I knew deep down that I couldn’t fight him straight up. I had to sucker punch him. But he had the numbers, and when you come to a fight with 50 times the numbers—all bets are off.

“Fly up the San Bernardino Mountains and head over to Running Springs,” Tommy said as he dangled from my claws. “We’ll all stay where I’ve been hiding out.”

With that, the six of us made our way up the mountain.

Chapter Eight

Tommy guided me to a cabin just north of Running Springs. I dropped him down on the front porch and then proceeded to land on the roof. I nearly fell off, but I had to admit my landings were getting better. I settled on top of the roof and watched my four bird-friends land next to Tommy and transition. I nodded my head to let them all know the coast was clear from where I was perched.

I lifted my wings, leaped off the roof, and landed next to my friends. We all just looked at each other and no one said a word. Somehow, through a will that was not our own, this group of six had found one another. If I was ‘The Chosen,’ then it was time for me to accept that these five were chosen with me.

“So, this is it,” I said out loud. “This is who we are going to war with?”

“Yes, it is,” Lena agreed.

“We’re all in this together,” I said, looking each of them directly in the face while nodding with approval. Again, no one spoke.

Tommy broke the silence, “Let’s go inside.”

“So, this is where you’ve been?” I asked Tommy as he opened the door. Wyatt, Yari, Hector, and Lena all walked in after him. Apparently, werewolves weren’t given the same courtesy as humans. Everyone walked in without an invitation.

“There’s an upstairs and a bath,” Tommy said. “My bedroom is upstairs and anyone is welcome to have it. One of the rooms is not in use though.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Check it out.” Tommy walked over to a room next to the living room. He went to the doorway and turned on the lights. I peeked in and saw a giant steel cage with bars as thick as 4x4’s.

“What the hell is that?” I asked Tommy.

“Sometimes I put myself in there.” Tommy walked inside the room and made his way to the cage. He opened the door of the cage and walked in. There were five lengths of thick metal chains complete with wrist and ankle holsters at the back of the cage. This is the type of cage I would have imagined they put ‘Hannibal Lechter’ in. The cage was big enough to house ten gorillas. “These metal bars are what keep me from being a killer.” Tommy was obviously referring to when he becomes a werewolf.

“Did you build this?” I asked.

“I got it from a zoo.”

“That must have been an interesting conversation.”

“The guys thought I was some sicko serial killer.”

“He sold it to you anyway,” I said, pointing out the obvious.

“Two thousand dollars cold cash has a way of allowing people to see things your way. For all I know, when I become a werewolf, I just might be a serial killer.”

“You don’t know?” I asked.

“Most Carni have no recollection when they become a werewolf. Some of the stronger ones can lead packs of werewolves and still have little recollection of the details of their night. Sometimes, I look at police reports to see if there is ever a file that fits my description.”

“What description is that?”

“Apparently when I turn, I become a six-foot-two gray werewolf.”

“A gray werewolf?” I laughed. “I knew you were older than what you admitted.”

“It has nothing to do with age. Look at Hector, he’s one of the palest guys I have ever seen, yet he becomes a black raven when he transitions.”

I looked over at Tommy and shrugged. “Can you believe all this? How the hell did we get thrown into the middle of this?”

“Sometimes I wonder what any of this means. Sometimes I feel each of us is just a pawn in the Triat’s twisted game.”

I paused and leaned against the wall staring at the odd visual of my best friend standing inside of a steel cage. “Thank you, Tommy,” I said.

“For what?”

“Coming to help me, and trying to take on 200 Mani vampires by yourself.”

“Yeah, I was a big help,” Tommy said sarcastically.

“It doesn’t matter. You risked your life for me.”

Tommy paused and smiled. “All right, Josiah. Don’t get all misty-eyed on me. You were the one who came back and got me.”

“You would have done the same if you could fly.”

Tommy nodded. “Let’s go out to the others.”

Tommy and I left the strange room and headed toward the kitchen. The kitchen was in the back of the cabin. Wyatt and Hector sat at the kitchen table while Lena and Yari looked through the cabinets.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked.

Lena looked over her shoulder and said, “I’m seeing what supplies we have if all Armageddon breaks out.”

“I don’t think we’re going to fight off a Mani army with pots, pans and a Sunbeam popcorn popper,” I said.

Tommy walked over to Yari and whispered something in her ear. Yari nodded.

What was that about?

“So, is this what we’ve been reduced to?” I announced. “We’re hiding out like fugitives. I refuse to live this way.”

“Look Josiah,” Wyatt spoke up. “You are not ready to fight Krull.”

“Huh?” I said to Wyatt. “Where did that come from, Wyatt?”

“None of us are ready to wage war against him and you sure as hell aren’t. Krull is the most powerful Mani ever. He possesses more Mani gifts than any Mani before him or since. You pegged him right. He is the Genghis Khan of the Mani.”

“Well, I’ve been doing some crazy shit, too, over the past two days. I just might have him beat.”

“Like what?” Yari asked, adding to the conversation.

“A lot of things,” I said. “What kind of gifts did Atticai have that you all knew about?”

“He had every gift that Krull does. They were pretty much equal except we all thought Atticai was The Chosen.”

I asked again. “What gifts did Atticai have that Krull still has?”

Hector who never says anything said, “They both can fly.”

“All of you can fly!” Tommy interjected.

“Not as a bird, but as a vampire,” Wyatt clarified.

“You’re telling me that seven-foot bean pole that kicked my ass could fly?” Tommy asked.

Wyatt grinned, “He had all the other Mani gifts as well. The only thing Atticai couldn’t do was see in the future. If he could have, he would have known he wasn’t the Chosen.”

“What if he did know?” I asked. “Maybe that’s why he left me for dead to be bitten by all of those snakes?”

“There is always a chance he did,” Yari said. “But I don’t think so. There was a lot of good in Atticai. He chose not to follow Krull. He and Krull had the ability to take over the world if they would have joined forces. Atticai refused.”

Tommy added, “Do you think it was in the Triat’s will that Josiah killed him?”

All of the other Mani looked at each other as if to say they didn’t know.

“You all look disappointed that ‘The Chosen’ wasn’t Atticai,” I remarked.

“We’re not disappointed,” Yari said. “We just had no idea it was going to be you.”

“The word isn’t disappointed,” Wyatt said. “We were just fucking surprised as hell. Then when you refused to talk to us for weeks, we wondered if it was all a mistake.”

“Do you guys think it was a mistake now?” I glanced at all of them. Lena and Yari both shook their heads. Hector and Wyatt however looked at me blankly. “Are you and Hector completely on board, Wyatt? I need to know. Because if you’re not, I completely understand and would hold no resentment toward you—if you wanted out.”

Wyatt paused and looked at Hector. “We don’t want out, Josiah. We just want to make sure when all of this is over and when we prevail over Krull that you don’t plan on killing us.”

“What?” I asked surprised.

“Why wouldn’t you, Josiah?” Wyatt continued. “We both tried to kill you. We’re two of the three reasons you became a Mani unwillingly.”

“All of that may be true, Wyatt. But that isn’t who I am. I respect that you were loyal to Atticai. You were only doing what you felt the Triat wanted you to do. I can’t be any angrier at you than I am at Tommy for kicking my ass in the ring a month back. He only fought me because the Commission told him he had to.”

“So, we’re cool?” Hector came out and asked.

I smiled at Hector and Wyatt. “We’re cool, guys. As long as I know from here on out that I can trust you, all is forgiven.”

My eyes went to an older needlepoint picture hanging on the cabin wall. The words seemed to fit the current mood in the room and I nodded at it, so that Hector and Wyatt would read it, too: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’

Hector and Wyatt let out relieved sighs.

I looked at Yari. “So, what’s the deal with Krull? Is he going to hunt me down until he kills me?”

“Or until you kill him,” Yari answered. “Krull is a prideful son-of-a-bitch. Atticai was the only person who ever matched up with him. Since you laid him out, he now looks at you like a greater challenge. He had no idea what hit him.”

“Only because I sucker-punched him,” I stated.

“In a Mani-on-Mani fight, everything goes. You were well inside the rules. Krull won’t forget. But neither should you.”

“I almost wish we still had Atticai. It would be one more body.”

“Atticai would have never yielded to you,” Lena interrupted. “What happened to him that night was his destiny. The Triat knew he would never accept anyone else to lead us, no matter how much any of us cared for him. You did what you were supposed to do. You did the right thing.”

Wow, I was getting mixed signals from Lena. Was she happy or sad that I was now in charge?

“Okay,” I said. “If Krull is going to come after me, then that means he is coming after us. If this is too much for anyone and you want out—let it be known now.”

I looked at Hector.

“I’m in,” he said.

“Hey, I got Hector to talk again,” I joked. “This is an epic night.” Hector smiled. I looked over at Wyatt. “You in, Teethie?”

Wyatt laughed. “I told you that night that I didn’t know you weren’t one of those frat douchebags.”

“Did I at least taste good?”

“Oh, you taste good,” Yari responded. Yari had been my second bite when she sucked the snake venom out of me.

I looked at Yari. “You in?”

“I’ve been in for two years with you, Josiah.”

I nodded and looked at Lena. “What about you? You don’t have to be part of this.”

Lena shrugged. “You’re joking right? Josiah, this thing that we all are part of—is the only thing that matters now.” I nodded at Lena. I was afraid for her. She was barely five feet tall and maybe 100 pounds. This wasn’t going to be easy.

I looked over at Tommy, who by now, was making himself a sandwich. “How about you, werewolf boy? You want to stand and fight with a bunch of vampires?”

Tommy looked around the group. “Well considering none of you has tried to kill me yet, that’s what I plan on doing. I don’t really have too many options, anyway.”

“All right,” I said. “I need to know two more things. First, what is our money situation? Do you guys have jobs? How do you pay for stuff?”

Everyone laughed.

“We don’t need jobs, Josiah,” Yari answered.

“What? Do you all steal?” I asked.

“None of us are thieves. We all have our own money for different reasons.”

“Do you have bank accounts?”

“Swiss bank accounts,” Wyatt laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

Wyatt looked over to Hector and Hector gave him a nod as if to say it was okay to tell me.”

“Hector used to be a prince.”

“Hector? A prince? You’re screwing with me, right?”

“Serious as a heart attack, Josiah.”

“Prince Hector?” I looked over at Hector and he grinned.

“Yeah, so he’s set,” Wyatt continued. “I’m set because of some great real estate ventures I made in the 90’s when the market was good. And Yari—”

Yari interrupted Wyatt and said, “I had a few ‘friends’ along the way that have allowed me to live comfortably for quite some time.”

“So, you’re a gold digger?” I asked.

“Not a gold digger. I like pretty things and men seem to like to provide me with that.”

“This is why I never cared to ask about your money situations,” I said. “I was scared to know.”

“Josiah, there is a combined wealth among the three of us that approaches Donald Trump.”

I looked over at Lena. “Don’t look at me. I’ve been sponging off my parents and these guys for the last couple years.”

“Well,” I said. “I still have a lot of inheritance left, so I guess money is the least of our worries.” I knew that Tommy had some money from his MMA winnings. “So, my next question is what Mani gifts does each of you have?”

“Don’t look at me,” Tommy goofed. “I can only bite people once a month when the moon is full.”

“What about you, Hector?”

“I can transition and sometimes see the future.”

“Wyatt?”

“The same,” Wyatt answered.

“Lena, what can you do?” I asked.

“I can erase thoughts and transition. I might have more. I don’t know.”

“Yari, what about you?”

Yari was quiet. “Yari?” I repeated.

“I can do everything, but fly in Mani form,” she said plainly.

“You serious?” Tommy said, nearly choking on his sandwich. He seemed impressed.

“I’ve been around a long time. You pick up skills along the way.”

“Then you’re going to be as valuable as hell,” I said, pleased.

“I’m not sure how valuable I’m going to be to the cause,” Yari said. “Mind reading and memory erasing only work on the very weakest Mani and Carni. My skills will be limited against Krull’s crew.”

Then something dawned on me. Yari said she had every skill except flying. That means she could see into the future. She must have known that I was The Chosen. I didn’t want to say it in front of everyone. But it all made sense now. The reason she saved me, and why she let me know how to defeat Atticai. I thought she did all that because she was in love with me. Apparently, she was only doing the will of the Triat.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Yari. The reason why I’m alive is because of you.”

Yari seemed pleased that had I said that. “I can tell you this, Josiah. Krull will not come for you here. You are going to battle Krull at another time. It won’t be here, and it won’t be anytime soon.”

“You know that for sure?” I asked Yari.

“As far as Krull and his minions are concerned, we will be safe here.”

“What about you, Josiah?” Tommy came out and asked. “What gifts do you have?

“I’m not exactly sure.”

“You said earlier that you could do some weird shit now,” Tommy added.

“I’m not completely sure what I can do.” I said again.

“You must know something.” Tommy persisted. “What things can you do differently? Are you faster? Are you stronger?”

“Well, I can change into the white eagle and...”

“Tell them, Josiah,” Lena said bluntly.

“Tell us what, Josiah?” Yari said. “What aren’t you telling us?”

I hesitated. Why didn’t I want to tell them the truth? Maybe I was scared that if they knew all I could do, they’d expect me to be some kind of Christ-like figure. I wasn’t ready to tell them. I looked across at Lena.

Lena said in a soft voice. “You need to tell them.”

I exhaled and said, “I can fly, too.”

“As a Mani?” Wyatt asked.

“Yes, I can fly even when I’m not the eagle. But I can’t control it very well. And I don’t know exactly how to start it.”

“Holy shit!” Hector spouted.

We all laughed.

“Anything else?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah, there is one more thing. But I have less control with this than I do flying.”

“What is it?” Yari stared at me intently.

“Tommy,” I said. “Do you have a Styrofoam cup somewhere?”

“Yeah.” Tommy opened the cabinet directly behind where he was standing in the kitchen. He grabbed a bag that had Styrofoam cups inside. “Do you need just one?” he asked

“One will be fine; you can put it on the table.”

Tommy placed the Styrofoam cup at the center of the table. “Everyone step back and stand next to me and look at the cup.”

Everyone walked over and surrounded me. The table was about 5 feet away.

“All right, watch!” I stared at the cup. Once I felt a connection, and a bond with it, I closed my eyes, turned my head, and opened my eyes, staring at the left wall. And, with a sudden boost of energy, the cup shot off the table and hit the ceiling.

“What the hell?” Tommy shouted. “You can move stuff with your mind?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I have never heard of a Mani being able to do that,” Yari said.

“Me neither.” Wyatt continued. “That must be a specific gift given only to Josiah. How heavy of an object can you move?”

I looked at the group and said, “I moved a 400-pound boulder the other night. It lifted off the ground and flew about 40 yards.”

“Can you control it precisely?” Yari asked.

“Not even close,” I said. “Just right now I tried to make the cup hit the left wall and it hit the ceiling instead.”

“So, you tried to move it in one direction,” Lena asked, “and the cup went in another?”

“I can move it, but not control it.”

“Do you have any control over it, whatsoever?” Tommy asked.

“I am able to connect with an object almost on a spiritual level; other than that, not really. Once I have the connection, the object moves whatever direction it wants.”

“Just like any skill, Josiah,” Yari said. “You’re going to have to master it.”

I was tired and once again had had an exhausting night. “All right, guys. I’m beat. I’m going to find a bedroom and get some rest.”

Chapter Nine

I found a room in the far west corner of the house that was some kind of guest room. It appeared to be a room that had been added onto the cabin after it was built. The room only had a couch and a very old TV. I flopped on the couch and stared at the ceiling remembering my vision from the night before. ‘Tame the wolf,’ I thought. I had very little experience, if any, with the species. Other than those Neanderthals at the bar, the only other wolf I knew was Tommy. Was Tommy the wolf that needed to be tamed? Was I to train him? Tommy was already a great fighter. If anyone needed training, it was me. I knew nothing about being a werewolf. How was I supposed to train him? I laid there pondering this and then it hit me! I jumped up and went back to the kitchen. Everyone was still sitting around shooting the shit.

“Hey, Tommy, I have a couple questions for you.”

“Yeah?” Tommy answered. All eyes were on me.

“Why exactly do you lock yourself in a cage when you become a werewolf? What are you afraid of?”

Tommy didn’t hesitate to answer my question. “I’m afraid of hurting someone,” he said, “or doing something that might cause someone to want to hurt or even kill me.”

“Do you have any recollection after you come out of your werewolf state?” I asked.

“I don’t have a stream of memory. I remember glimpses—or random moments.”

“Are there any specific details that you remember in those glimpses or random moments? Why do you suppose you remember those moments opposed to others?”

Tommy thought for a second. “Maybe I remember the times when my senses are heightened.”

“Really?”

“Where you going with this, Josiah?”

I looked at the group and said, “I had a vision last night. Or at least I think I did.”

“And...” Tommy pressed.

“I won’t go into the details of the dream, but I’ll tell you the message I was given. I was told ‘to tame the wolf and I will find myself.”

“And you believe that I am the wolf?” Tommy asked.

“Why wouldn’t you be? It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

“So, what’s with all the memory questions?” Yari asked.

“I’m thinking somehow I need to tame or train Tommy when he’s in his werewolf state.”

“How are you supposed to do that?” Lena asked. “Have you ever seen a werewolf when it has completely shifted?”

“No. But I think that actually is going to rule in my favor. I won’t have any preconceived feelings about it. I am coming into it with a clean slate.”

Tommy seemed uneasy about what I was saying. “What do you mean by training?” Tommy laughed. “Do you plan on taking me to Vegas to do an act?”

“Not in the slightest.” I said. “I need to get face to face with you and have you trust me to the point that you don’t attack me.”

“What if I kill you when you’re trying to Lassie me up?”

“That’s the part we have to figure out. We’ll need to do the training in stages. Tommy, have you ever heard of werewolves having any kind of control during full moons?”

“Control?” Tommy thought about it. “The older werewolves might be able to. They aren’t as bloodthirsty as younger ones.

“Why do you suppose that is?”

“Cause they’re beat down and tired,” Tommy said plainly.

“What if...” I said. “It’s because they are more seasoned and they have figured out a way to control it?”

“Saying, ‘they can control it’ is a big leap. Werewolves are like psychopathic serial killers who have been chained up for twenty years and finally let out on the general population. Werewolves are told from the get go to figure out a way to go into hiding. Most go to caves and isolated areas so there is no temptation to kill humans. I think you might be reaching, Josiah. Werewolves are no better than wild animals.”

“That’s what you’ve been told, Tommy. What if you could be tamed and you never knew it? The way a lion-trainer tames a lion.”

“Are you intending to beat me with a whip?” Tommy asked humorously.

“No, you might enjoy that too much.”

“Okay, let’s say you do train me. What good will that do?”

“Tommy, the good it could do is endless. What if we could get you to a point of cognitive thought? What if you could decipher right from wrong?”

“Cognitive thought? That’s unheard of, Josiah; there is no way it can be done. Werewolves are mindless beasts who know only one thing—KILL. We act on instinct in our werewolf form.”

Tommy was going to need more convincing. But the more I talked, the more I believed in my heart that I was on to something. “I’m going to put more thought into this,” I said in conclusion.

“In the end, Tommy,” Yari spoke up, “it won’t hurt to give it a shot.”

Tommy glanced over at Yari. “You think?”

“Josiah had a vision,” Yari continued. “We need to respect that. God knows we are all here because we were all given relentless visions. Now look at us. What will it hurt?”

“It could hurt,” Tommy said. “It could hurt very much, if you let me out and try to train me and it doesn’t work. I could do a lot of damage to everyone. You all will be forced to fight back and someone might get killed. Hell, you all might be forced to team up and kill me.”

“That will never happen, Tommy.” I said. “I would never allow it. We need to do this in baby steps. We take baby steps first, and see if we are on to something. Let’s first see if I can build trust with you.”

“I don’t know, Josiah. Give me some time to think about it.” Tommy still seemed unconvinced.

“One last thing, Tommy,” I said. “Just imagine how powerful you would be if you were self-aware as a werewolf. Imagine how much good could come out of it.”

I was done talking and I was tired. I did one final look around the room to make sure everyone was on board. I stopped when I glanced over at Yari and motioned for her to follow me out of the room.

Yari nodded and followed me out to the guest room. “What is it, Josiah?”

“You knew, didn’t you?” I said.

“Knew what?”

“You knew that it was me and not Atticai that was supposed to be in charge of all of this, that’s why you followed me for two years.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Yari seemed worried.

“Look, I won’t say anything to anyone else. But if you are able to see into the future, you must have known.”

Yari paused for a very long time. She was really struggling with telling me the truth. Then, very softly, she said, “I knew.”

“Wow.”

“Are you mad?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure what I felt, but I was definitely not mad. Because of all of this, I was able to find Lena. I could never be upset about that.

“I’m not mad, Yari. Not at all. In fact, I’m honored.” I looked over to her. She was still very stunning and I cared for her deeply, although no longer in a romantic way but rather a protective way. I took her by the hand and pulled her close to me and hugged her tightly.

“You ready for what is to come?” Yari whispered in my ear.

“I hope so.” I said. “I sure hope so.”

Chapter Ten

There wouldn’t be a full moon for another two weeks. That gave Tommy plenty of time to think about what I requested. It had also given me time to consider how I would try to tame and train the wolf.

On one of the evenings, Tommy and Yari went out and purchased items at the local clothing store. They bought clothes for everyone. They bought me some comfy plaid pajamas. I’m used to sleeping naked, so wearing any kind of nightwear made me uncomfortable and itchy.

It was a couple of days before the next full moon. We were all watching Survivor on the tube. Tommy made eye contact with me across the room and mouthed, “I’m in.” I nodded and was very pleased. I turned my head and watched another blindside at tribal council. Damn, I loved Survivor.

It was the day of the first full moon. I went into Tommy’s room and he was lying on his bed listening to his MP3 player.

“What you listening to?” I asked.

“Some old-school Bobby Brown.”

“Nice.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Tonight is the first night of the full moon.”

“I realize that, Josiah. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

“Just so I’m clear. You only turn into a werewolf when the full moon is seen at night?

“Yes.”

“And you shift back to a Carni during the day?”

“Yes.”

“How many days does it last?”

“Three nights.”

“Perfect! That will be enough time to do what I want to do.”

“Are you going to let me in on your plan?” Tommy inquired and looked down at his MP3 player.

“Yes, but I don’t want you to worry about it just yet. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I have a hunch, Tommy. I’m not sure where it came from. Let’s hope it’s from a higher power.”

Tommy stared at me for a few seconds and shook his head and laughed. “Let’s hope so, Josiah.” He then turned his attention back to his MP3 player. “If you don’t mind, Bobby is waiting.”

“By all means Tommy boy, that’s your prerogative.”

“Cute, Josiah.” Tommy put on his headphones and put his ear buds back in his ears.

I went into the kitchen. Hector, Wyatt, Lena and Yari were all sitting at the table drinking from Styrofoam cups.

“Good evening, sunshine,” Lena said with a little flirtation in her voice. I smiled in her direction. Our eyes met and we took a moment to allow each other in. I hadn’t tried to get closer to her the past couple weeks. I knew I had feelings, she knew I wasn’t going anywhere. So, why rush into something?

“Do you ever have cravings, Josiah?” Wyatt asked.

“For blood? No, not yet. But I did enjoy Goliath’s blood the other night when I got a taste of it.”

“That didn’t send your cravings into orbit? That doesn’t make any sense,” Yari chimed in. “All Mani have intense cravings, almost from the get go.”

Yari looked at me with skepticism.

“What? Don’t you think I’m a real Mani?” I said.

“The protruding incisors and that fact I get fried in the sun isn’t enough for you?”

“I just don’t like it that you can still eat like a teenage boy. It isn’t fair.”

“Seriously, Yari, has any of this been fair to any of us?”

“You have gotten the better end of the stick, you have to at least admit that, Josiah,” Lena added.

“Oh, don’t you start with me, little missy. Thanks to Yari, Wyatt, and Hector, I am who I am.”

“And thanks to Atticai, Yari, and you, I’m who I am, too,” Lena reputed.

“Touché,’” I said.

“You two just need to have sex and get it over with,” Yari just came out and said.

“No one is having sex with anybody,” I said. “Unless that’s how you and Hector roll?” I shot Wyatt a look and grinned playfully.

“Very funny,” Wyatt said. “I had enough tail in the 1920s to last any man a lifetime.”

“Hey, Josiah?” Hector spoke up. “Did your ...” Hector awkwardly looked in the direction of my groin.

“Did my...what?” I asked.

“You know, did your...you know?” He eyed my package again.

“Did my what?” I said again. “Quit looking down at me, you perv.”

“I think what he’s trying to ask you is,” Yari said. “Did little Josiah get bigger when you became the Almighty Chosen?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I said.

“How’s that possible? Yari laughed.

“I haven’t had an erection since I became a Mani.” The whole room fell apart laughing.

“It made you impotent?” Wyatt marveled.

“No,” I said, insulted. “I haven’t exactly been in a romantic mood after having my life turned upside down.” I looked at Hector. “So, to answer your question, I don’t know. Why you need to know details of my member is creepy. Anyway, I have always been a grower not a show-er.”

Lena smiled at me. “Can we stop talking about Josiah’s package, if that’s okay with everyone?”

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough, sweetie,” Yari stated to Lena. Lena ignored Yari’s comment. But she didn’t say she wouldn’t. Hey, every little bit helps.

“I concur,” I said. “So what are you drinking? Animal blood?”

“Not exactly,” Yari said.

“Human blood?” I asked, disgusted.

“No one that had to die for it, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” Lena laughed as she sipped her cup.

“That’s good,” I said. “Glad to see we still have our morals.”

“Don’t worry, I know the graveyard security guy at Running Springs Hospital. He hooked us up last night.”

“Did you and Tommy get it?” I asked.

Yari looked at me with a little disdain. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. I was only asking.”

“Yeah, Tommy went with me. Is that a problem? Or do you need to keep tabs on me?”

“Oh, you would like that, wouldn’t you?” I responded. “Yari, I have zero problem with you and Tommy being friends. As matter of fact, you can be more than friends. Go have tons of vampire and werewolf babies.”

Everyone laughed and Yari didn’t correct me. There was definitely something going on between her and Tommy.

I peeked in Yari’s cup. The Styrofoam cup was stained red at the bottom. I couldn’t help but gag and Yari saw it. “Seriously, ‘The Chosen’ just gagged at the sight of blood? What is wrong with this picture?” I left the kitchen and went to the living room and closed my eyes and rested a bit.

Some time had passed and Lena came over to me. “Josiah, you awake?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Just wanted you to know that it will be dark soon and our little friend is going to go all wolf-boy on us.”

“Where is he?” I asked.

“He’s putting extra chains on his cage.”

“Extra chains?”

“He thinks the fact that there will be so many Mani close by, the smell might drive him over the top.”

I got up and went into the front room where Tommy was. He was inside his cage locking chains on top of one another. He would yank on the chains to make sure they were locked in tight.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

“I’m reinforcing the chains, so I will be stuck deep inside and not harm anyone. I’m already starting to itch.”

“So, that’s why you itch. You always said it was because you were nervous about leaving for the reserves.”

Tommy laughed. “I had to tell a couple of lies to keep my cover.”

I walked into the cage and knelt down next to Tommy to see if he needed my help. He handed me a chain while he connected the smaller end to the back bar of the cage.

“Did my sister know about you?” I asked Tommy.

Tommy was quiet. My sister was always a touchy subject for him. So, I respectfully waited for him to answer me.

“Your sister knew.” Tommy continued to work on the chains.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“She knew Josiah. She was the only Tandra that knew. She was the one person in this world I completely trusted.”

“Okay, Tom.” I decided to change the discussion. “I think we should have everyone else leave for the next 72 hours.”

“Why?”

“I want to do something with you that will take complete commitment from the both of us. It’s got to be about you and me, and you and me only. We need to connect in a way we never have before. I just think it’s in everybody’s best interest if we were left alone.”

“Have you let them know?”

“I wanted to run it by you first.”

“I think you’re nuts for trying this, but I’ll agree to whatever you want to do.”

“If there is the slightest chance that I’m on to something, this will be well worth it.”

“Well, you better tell your Mani buddies they need to find a Motel Six for the next three days.”

“They’ll stay at my house. Krull is only after me. Plus, Yari says our little showdown isn’t going to happen any time soon. I’m worried more about your Carni friends who will be in full werewolf mode during the next three nights.”

I stuck my head out of the room and yelled, “Can everyone meet over here?” Within a few seconds, everyone appeared. “Come inside Tommy’s lair.” I said. “I would like to speak to everyone.” Everybody stepped into the room.

“What is it Josiah?” Lena asked, concerned.

“Tommy and I were talking and we think it would be a good idea if everyone was to leave for the next 72 hours.”

“What the hell are you planning to do?” Yari asked, insulted.

“I plan on doing bonding exercises. The less distraction that’s here, the more Tommy and I will be able to connect. It’s going be extremely important for us to do so, if this is going to work.”

“Josiah, have you ever seen a Carni in its werewolf state?” Wyatt asked.

“No.” I said.

“It’s the scariest, most intense thing you’ll ever see,” Lena said, jumping in. “Are you sure you want to do this alone?”

“It’s the only way it can be done. I’m sure of it. I believe there’s more to the Carni than meets the eye.”

“What if there’s not? What if they are just crazed dogs?” Yari said intently.

“Then we’ll know for sure. As long as Tommy is willing to stand and fight next to us, we owe it to him to see what he is capable of becoming.”

“What about you, Josiah?” Tommy said. “You have talents that you haven’t even scratched the surface of.”

“My time will come. I believe it in my core. This is what we need to do first.”

“We all hope you’re right, Josiah,” Lena said with an assuring tone.

“I believe that there is a chance there is something great inside Tommy. The Triat gave me the vision and this how I’m interpreting it.”

“So, where should we go?” Lena asked

“Go to my house,” I said.

“Do you think it’ll be safe?” Wyatt asked. “We’re not exactly the most liked group of people in town.”

“I know,” I said, “but I’m sure you’ll be safe. Neither the Carni or Krull is after you. They are after me. If you do run into any trouble, just head to the Flatlands. At least you’ll have friends there.”

“Is that what you want?” Yari looked at Tommy.

“Yes, it’s what I want,” Tommy answered back.

“Then it’s a go.” Yari left the room. She seemed hurt, but this wasn’t her deal. She needed to trust me. Or at least respect the fact that Tommy trusted me.”

“Here are the keys to my house.” I tossed my keys to Lena.

“I guess we’re out of here,” Yari walked over to Tommy and hugged him. She let go and walked over to me. “I hope you’re right, Josiah. Your instincts have been right on so far. Please be safe.” Yari leaned in and hugged me tight.

Lena walked over to me also. “You sure about this?”

“Yeah, this is going to work.” I said. “I know it.”

Lena brushed the back of her hand on my cheek. It was a tender gesture, one that gave me goose bumps. “I guess we’ll see you two in a couple days.”

“I guess so.” With that, all of them left the room and got ready.

Chapter Eleven

Everyone had left and made their way to my house. There were about forty minutes until nightfall and then the full moon would reveal itself in glorious moonrise. Tommy and I were in the room.

“How do you go to the bathroom if you’re chained up?” I asked.

“That is what the cardboard is for in the corner. Most of the time I can make it.”

“Oh, this is going to be fun.” I said.

“Just show me the courtesy of not staring at my junk when I go.”

“I don’t see that being a problem, Tommy.”

Tommy paced around the room, stopped and looked out the window. “I think it’s time to lock me in. So, what’s the plan, Dr. Phil?”

“Well,” I said, “it is my belief that we need to bond in stages, or phases, if you will. Tonight, you will be chained in.”

“You’re planning on unchaining me at some point?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Josiah, if you’re wrong—”

“I’m not wrong.” I said confidently.

Tommy sighed then stretched as if he was preparing for a MMA fight. When he was done stretching, he entered the cage. I watched as a spectator and friend.

“Josiah, you really have no idea what you’re in for.”

“Nothing surprises me at this point. The last two months have been insane.”

“How do you plan to tame the wolf?” Tommy asked.

“In stages,” I repeated again. “We need to build trust—more trust than we ever had before.”

“Josiah, have you thought about the possibility that I’m not the wolf the Triat talked about in your vision? Think about it, I lost to a Mani, even though he did no magic whatsoever against me. I humiliated my own kind to the point they left me to die. I will never be forgiven by the Carni. I’m damaged goods. Why would the Triat choose me?”

“You might never be forgiven by the Carni, but there is no way in hell that you’re damaged goods. Look at you; you’re built like a pit bull. I know in my heart that the Triat looks fondly on you. The Triat knows you are a good man and full of character. You need to trust me and believe in me. Together, we will change everything.” I then gave Tommy a comforting nod.

Tommy nodded back. “I trust you, Josiah. What’s the game plan?”

“Let’s chain you up first.” I went in and helped Tommy chain himself. We wrapped the chains around his ankles and wrists, and then fastened all four clamps. We put additional chains around his chest and groin. We gave a little pull on the chains to allow him to do small amounts of walking. When we were done, I walked out the door and locked the cage.

I turned around and looked at my friend. It was odd seeing him chained in as if he was about to pull off a Houdini-type escape artist trick.

“Okay, Tom,” I said. “I’m going to give you two kinds of emotional indicators. The idea here is to get you to connect with me emotionally. The first wave will be verbal. I will give you commands as the ‘alpha male’, and you will need to submit to me. You will need to do all my commands. Once we have that mastered, we will do tactile. Through my touch, you will learn to trust me, as well as submit to me. Tonight we will focus on the verbal, and tomorrow we will concentrate on the touching.”

Tommy nodded. “What about the third night?”

“I’m going to play it by ear.”

“Play it by ear? What if none of this works?”

“You have my word, Tommy. I will not harm you, no matter what happens.”

“Josiah, if at any point—I turn on you—and you need to attack me to save your life, you’re going to have to do it.”

I looked at Tommy dead in the eyes. “It won’t come to that. I promise.”

“Are you in there tight?” I asked.

“As tight as it can be. We have about 25 minutes, so we better get started!”

“Okay, Tommy. You need to forget that I’m Josiah. You need to look at me like I’m your master. You need to take on the role of a typical dog who listens to the commands of his owner.”

Tommy looked at me perplexed. “Okay, then what?”

“You’ll need to obey my commands, no matter how lame they seem to you, or how silly you feel.”

Tommy chuckled. “All right, let’s do it.”

I took a deep breath and so did Tommy. I took a moment and just trusted the silence and then I began. “Tommy!” I shouted.

Tommy looked at me a bit startled and then lowered his head to show me that I was the one in control.

“Tommy,” I yelled again. “Look me in the eyes!”

Tommy eyes slowly raised and met mine. “Good boy,” I said. Tommy smirked.

“Tommy,” I pleaded, “please take this seriously. Concentrate on my command and just let everything go.” Tommy nodded his head.

“Sit!” I commanded him. Tommy hesitated at first and then obeyed. He sat on the ground.

“Good boy! Now stand!” I said with authority. Tommy stood up.

“I want you to sit and stand three times.” Tommy shuffled his feet.

“Do it now.” I commanded. Tommy obeyed and stood and sat three times.

“Good boy,” I said. “Now, howl!” Tommy howled.

It sounded almost as if he was whistling at a girl on the street from a construction site. But it sounded good.

We proceeded to a number of commands: showing me five fingers, answering ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions by showing paws, sitting in the east and west corners of the cage.

The sun began to set and Tommy began to itch wildly.

“I guess this is it,” I said.

“Josiah, be careful and don’t move too quickly. Be absolutely sure you have my trust.”

I watched on as the full moon became more visible. Then something started happening to Tommy’s entire body. I was extremely curious how the transformation looked. From the south window of Tommy’s room he had a perfect view of the moon.

The moon was slowly developing into giant full moon. Right when the moon hit full view, Tommy began howling. He hadn’t changed yet physically, but the transformation had begun. I watched and studied what was to happen next. Tommy dropped to all fours and let out another frightening howl! I watched as gray hair protruded out of his skin. The gray hairs flowed out of his face, arms, head and ears. He still had his jean shorts on, and luckily, those bad boys didn’t fall off. That was going to be a problem when it was time for him to relieve himself. His hair was a beautiful, silver mane. His nose now began to elongate and his ears began to rise. Within seconds, Tommy had become a full blown werewolf.

Tommy’s head was down and I was certain that the beast had no idea I was accompanying him in the room. He would very soon; when that happened, he would want to take off my head.

I watched and what I witnessed was very trivial. Tommy was the same height and was slightly bigger in body mass. For the first time, I got a glimpse of his eyes. They were the color of the sun—bright yellow. He turned his large body around and laid flat on the ground, staring at the back wall. He was completely calm. This wasn’t the first response I anticipated him having. I thought he would be a crazed junkyard dog salivating for a killing spree. Instead, he was lying on the floor like a golden retriever on a hot summer’s night.

Then something unusual started happening. Tommy started to whimper and he began to whine like a sad puppy. He was still unaware that I was in the room. I remained extremely quiet as I watched further. I wasn’t ready to let this werewolf know I was present.

Tommy got to his feet. I thought he was going to turn around and notice me. I anticipated the worst as I held my breath. But the werewolf didn’t turn around; instead he walked over to the south window and stared at the full moon. Then, he howled a heartbreaking cry unlike anything I’d ever heard. It had a symphonic tone in its misery.

As I listened, I realized it was no longer a howl, but a full-blown cry. My best friend in the whole world was crying at the moon and it broke my heart. It was disturbing to listen to and it was really getting to me. I had to leave the room. I quietly backed up my feet and left. I went into the living room and sat in the big chair.

I sat there and listened to Tommy cry into the night. He did this for hours, three to be exact. I wondered if this was some kind of ritual—where werewolves go through some kind of grief period—at the beginning of their werewolf cycle.

I sat about 15 feet away from him in the other room, completely perplexed and dumbfounded the entire time. Then suddenly, he stopped.

The next thing that happened was even more bizarre than the crying. He fell asleep. I could hear the giant dog snoring.

This was not how I thought this night was going to start. Tommy slept for a good hour. We were now four hours into Tommy’s werewolf transformation and I had no clue what to make of it.

I dozed off myself. I was sitting in a big, comfy chair. Tommy’s snore had put me in a sleepy, hypnotic state. I was suddenly startled out of my slumber by a deafening, crazed, growl. This wasn’t any growl. This was the growl of a fucking werewolf.

Tommy was no longer sleeping. He was now a beast, a killer, something that wanted nothing more than to tear a Mani from limb to limb.

I took about ten deep breaths and got up out of my chair and crept over to the room. I slowly stuck my head in the door. Tommy saw me and immediately went absolutely ape-shit. I could hear the chains scraping against the bars of the cage. He zeroed in on me with his fierce, yellow demonic eyes. I nearly peed my pants. This was not my friend. This rabid beast had one goal; kill anything in its way.

I needed for this beast to get used to the sight of me. He needed to know I wasn’t here to harm him. I needed to stay in the room no matter how intense it got. Eventually, just like all living things, he would tire out. So that’s what I did—I stayed in the room.

This werewolf screamed bloody murder at me as it snarled, growled, and even bit the air in my direction. I calmly and lovingly looked at him and didn’t say a single word.

I just gave him a caring, empathetic smile. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the overgrown canine finally shut up. I was still looking at him. The wolf stared back at me confused; about every ten seconds he would do a small little grunt. He looked at me as if I was prey, determining which level of ferocity he would engage me in.

I figured this was the moment where the alpha is decided in the animal kingdom. I had to act now. I had to be larger than life. I had to make him submit to my commands. Hopefully, he will recall something we had done earlier when he submitted to me in his Carni form. I stood up and yelled “TOMMY! SUBMIT!”

Tommy lunged in my direction and was pulled back by the chains. The odd part about it, he did this without making a sound. I took that as a sign of weakness. “TOMMY!” I yelled even louder. “YOU NEED TO SUBMIT! This time he growled—not an attacking growl, but a growl to let me know that he was still there and he would defend himself if need be. This was good. He was no longer on the offense. He was now playing defense.

This was progress. This was damn good progress. “TOMMY!” I yelled one more time, “SUBMIT!” This time Tommy, the werewolf, lowered his eyes. He was well aware that I could be the enemy. I was aware I was still dealing with a wild animal.

“TOMMY! SIT!” I bellowed. Tommy took a step to the left and then another to the right. He stared at me unsure. He was listening. So, I calmly said, “Tommy. Sit.”

Then it happened. Tommy lowered his head and sat on the floor. Holy shit, he fully submitted. I immediately continued my commands. “Tommy,” I said with authority. “Look up at me!”

Tommy looked up at me. He no longer had the devil eyes ready to devour anything in its way. Instead he looked at me the way a dog would look at its owner. They were still as yellow as the night was dark.

“Stand!” I commanded him. Tommy immediately stood up on all fours. This was amazing. How amazing? I did not know. But this was definitely a breakthrough.

I proceeded to give the werewolf basic commands such as speak, roll over, and walk on two legs. Tommy was not only obeying, Tommy was having fun with it. I even saw his tail wag at one point.

It was nearing daylight and Tommy would turn back into his Carni form. I wanted to raise the stakes before that happened. I began asking Tommy questions, and having him raise his left paw for ‘yes’ and his right paw for ‘no.’

I stared at this amazing beast. “Tommy,” I said. “Are you older than me in years? Tommy stared and then slowly raised his left paw. That meant ‘yes.’ Tommy had answered it correctly.

“Tommy,” I said. “Did I win when we fought our only professional, mixed martial fight together?” Tommy looked at me with a familiar look. For a second, I saw one of Tommy’s expressions when he was being cocky. Tommy raised his right paw proudly. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Tommy.” I said, “Are you a Carni?” Tommy raised his left paw.

“Tommy,” I said, “Am I your best friend?” Tommy stared at me and I saw his yellow eyes gleam. He raised his left paw. This was fantastic! Tommy not only answered all my questions correctly, he was connecting to them on an emotional level.

I decided to once again raise the stakes. “Tommy,” I said. “Is it okay to kill a helpless Tandra, Mani or Carni?” Once again Tommy’s eyes looked up at me. This time he had a noble stare. He raised his right paw. Which was ‘no.’

“Tommy, have you been rejected by your own people?” Tommy didn’t like that question. Tommy barked and growled.

“Easy, Tom,” I said, “I’m sorry. I’ll ask you a different question.” But before I could ask another question, this amazing werewolf, slowly raised his left’ paw. He didn’t want to and I could see it in his body language. But he answered the question anyway.

“One more question, Tommy,” I said. “Do you trust me?”

Tommy calmly raised his left paw.

“That’s a good boy,” I said. Then it dawned on me, he must had been starving. He hadn’t eaten all night. “I’ll be right back.” I said. We had some leftover chicken breasts in the fridge. I heated them up in the microwave.

I brought a plate full of chicken to Tommy. One by one, I threw them in to him. He ate them up like they were chicken nuggets. I grabbed a breast and ate one myself. I leaned against the wall and stared down at my best friend. I had a smile on my face bigger than the full moon itself.

Chapter Twelve

I’d had an exhausting night and I was resting against the front wall. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. I was startled by a brush of wind hitting my face. I opened my eyes and was no longer in the room with Tommy; I was back at the castle. I was having my second vision.

Once again it was foggy. This time the fog was thick and had a distinct smell: a combination of morning dew and auto exhaust. The castle was about a hundred feet away. There was a siren in the distance. I definitely did not care to know what that siren meant; it was more annoying than a car alarm. I wondered if the siren was real or just a ringing in my head.

I got to my feet and walked up the hill toward the castle. The castle had layers to it and almost appeared to resemble a mission. I hadn’t remembered this detail from the last dream. At the front of the castle was distinct writing that was chiseled into gate. I could barely make out the letters , ‘B’ and ‘R.’ The rest was blurry as if water and age had deteriorated the remaining letters.

I worked my way up the steep hill and stood at the front of this magnificent castle. I approached the great castle and the doorway that the blue gnome had previously stood in was now closed. The blue gnome was nowhere to be found. I opened the unlocked door and walked inside the glorious castle. I was surprised to see the door led me to a middle courtyard. It was spectacular with a cathedral-like quality. At the other side of the courtyard was another door that was open. I decided to enter the door; I wasn’t sure what to expect upon entering such a glorious castle. As I made my way through the corridor, I could barely see. It was dark and I felt my way by touching the walls. The walls were coarse and prickly. It was like touching coral at the bottom of the ocean. I made my way to an open room in the back of the castle. I could hear someone talking inside the room. I peeked in and there he was—the blue gnome.

“Who are you talking to?” I asked.

“I was talking to you,” he replied.

“How did you know I was here?”

“How could I not. This is your dream.” The Blue Gnome sighed and got up to greet me. I motioned for him to sit back down.

“Have you tamed the wolf?” he inquired.

“Not yet, I’m working on it.”

“Very good. You must build a bond and then the wolf will break free.”

I was pleased to know my instincts were right and it was Tommy who was to be tamed. “What then?” I asked.

“When you are done, you must come back and see me. Then we will start your training.”

“Visit you? I asked. “In my dreams?”

“No, Josiah,” you’ll need to find me here. I will be here…waiting.”

“Here? Where?”

“Josiah!” Someone screamed loudly. I woke up instantly. It was Tommy. He had transformed back into a Carni and was drenched in what appeared to be water or sweat. His long, brown hair looked as if he had dipped his head in a pool.

“Are you going to let me out or what? I have to piss!”

“Oh yeah, where’s the key?”

“It’s in my coat pocket. My coat is hanging on the wall outside the door.”

“How did you get out of the cage the other times?”

“I had a friend do it, someone I trusted.”

“A Mani?” I asked.

“No, an everyday human: a Tandra.”

“It was my sister wasn’t it?”

Tommy looked at me with a desperate look, “Yeah, it was, bro. Now please let me out or I’m going to piss right here.”

“Why are you soaked?” I took the key out of his coat pocket.

“It’s what happens when we turn back. It’s sweat.”

“I think I’m going to throw up.” I unlocked the cage door. I entered the cage and Tommy was still very much chained up. One by one, I unlocked his wrists and ankles and then his chest. When I got the last lock off, Tommy bolted past me and ran to the bathroom. I heard him do one of the longest streams of pee I have ever heard in my life. I swore it took three minutes. He came back into the room with a look of relief on his face.

“Tommy, my sister died two years ago. Who has helped you since then?”

Tommy paused and looked at me. “You don’t know her,” he said. “It was someone I trusted and cared about.”

“You have a lot of secrets don’t you?”

“I need my secrets; especially now that I’m flying solo.”

“You’ll never be solo, Tom.”

“We’ll see.” Tommy had a familiarity behind his eyes I hadn’t noticed before. “So, how did it go?”

“Do you remember anything?”

Tommy just stared straight ahead. He didn’t say anything.

“Tommy,” I said waving my hand in his face. “Do you remember anything?”

“Josiah, I need to wrap my head around all of this. Let me get some sleep and we’ll talk when I get up.”

“Okay,” I said. I would have liked an immediate answer, but whatever floated his boat.

Tommy walked past me and went upstairs to his bedroom. That was weird. Then again, why would I expect anything less?

* * *

I went into the guest room where I had been sleeping for the last two weeks. There were no windows in the room, so there was zero chance for any kind of sunlight to get in.

I laid down and fell into a deep, peaceful slumber. I opened my eyes and it was exactly five hours later. I felt refreshed. I got up and decided to go to the kitchen and grab a glass of water. I was pretty dehydrated after a very bizarre night.

I noticed in the kitchen there was a Styrofoam cup that had some dried blood still in it. I dipped my finger in the cup and scraped out the remainder of the blood with my fingernail. I raised my finger to my nose—smelt the dry blood—then tasted it. I had to admit, the smell was intoxicating. I licked my finger and it tasted okay. Probably a lot better warm. I liked the taste of strawberry jelly better.

I decided to go take a shower. I peeled off my clothes and walked to the bathroom naked. I felt alive and free being naked. I wonder what it feels like to fly naked. That was definitely something I needed to try.

For now, I was going to take the longest shower known to man. The water was hot as it poured down my body. I closed my eyes and thought about the night before. I was acting on instinct. Or was I? About every five minutes, I made the shower hotter and hotter. The hotter it got, the more soothed I felt. I loved every minute I stood underneath the water; it was like having a masseuse applying pressure on my body. When I was done, I put on a pair of jeans and a black tank top.

I walked upstairs and into Tommy’s bedroom. I knocked at the door. “Tom,” I called out.

“Yeah,” Tommy yelled from inside his room.

“You up?”

“I am now!” He moaned like a teenager.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure, if you want to see me in all my glory.”

“Put some boxers on, weirdo!”

“Come in, Josiah, I’m kidding.”

I opened the door slowly to see if he actually was kidding. I wouldn’t put it past him to just be laying there in his best Playgirl pose. He had his boxers on and was sitting up.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“I’m a little amped up—and a little exhausted. You know a little bit country—a little bit rock and roll.”

I grinned and sat at the foot of his bed. “So, tell me, do you remember anything?”

“I do remember some of it. I remember seeing you. I remember hearing your voice. But I can’t remember details.”

“Really?” I said disappointed.

“I usually never remember anything.”

“I was hoping you would remember our questions.”

“You asked me questions?”

“Yes, and you answered them with feeling. You were connected.”

“Was I connected from the get-go?”

“No, not at all. You howled and screamed at me for ninety minutes. You finally wore out. That was when I started to train you. You were no longer this ferocious wild animal. You were almost kind.”

“You’re fucking with me, right? Kind?”

“Tommy, I’m not. For a good two hours you submitted to me.”

“Really?” Tommy seemed shocked.

“Close your eyes and try to remember. It’s in your memory bank. You and the wolf are one and the same.”

Tommy closed his eyes. “Okay, tell me something we did.”

“I was asking you questions. I asked you to raise your right paw for ‘no’, and your left paw for ‘yes.’”

Tommy appeared flustered.

“I asked you if I had beaten you in our mixed martial match.”

Tommy strained his eyes. He was really trying to remember. “I answered no?” Tommy was a bit uncertain.

“Yes, you did. Do you remember that?”

Tommy smiled. “Maybe.” Tommy paused and then said, “You asked me about five or six questions?”

“Yes,” I said. “Tommy, that’s good. Okay, there was one question really bothered you. Do you remember what I asked you?”

Tommy closed his eyes. “I was calm.”

“Yes, you were.”

“I felt secure with you.”

“Okay. Keep going, Tom. Concentrate.”

Tommy suddenly opened his eyes. “You asked me if I...if we...if you and I were best friends.”

“Yes, Tommy!”

“I answered yes!”

“Now, what was the question that bothered you the most?”

“You asked me if I had been rejected by the Carni and that angered me!”

“Yes, it did!”

“I remember, Josiah. I remember all of it.”

Tommy and I both jumped up and down on his bed like a couple of six year olds.

“It’s working, Tommy!” I said, as we stopped jumping.

Tommy hopped off his bed and landed on the wood floor, shaking the entire house. “This is amazing, Josiah, I actually have specific memories about last night. That has never happened before.” Tommy stopped and looked at himself in the mirror over his dresser. He began flexing. He was really feeling it. “What’s next?” he asked.

“We’re not having a pose off, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

“Be thankful, Josiah. You want none of this.” Tommy looked down at his reasonably chiseled body. Tommy had a lot more mass than me, but was solid as a rock.

“You’re exactly right, Tommy,” I laughed. “I don’t want any of that,” referring to his body. I enjoyed the camaraderie, but I needed to get serious. “Tonight, I am going in the cage with you. I’m going to try touching.”

“Touching? Just keep your hands above the waist.”

“Very funny. We will go through the details about an hour before you turn into a werewolf again. That seemed to really work last night. We need to go with what’s working. There isn’t a Taming a Werewolf for Dummies book out there.”

“What we’re doing, Josiah, is pretty fucking groundbreaking.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You should get more rest. I’m going to call Lena.” I nodded and went downstairs and collapsed on the couch. I took my cell phone out of my pocket and turned it on. I had turned it off last night so I wouldn’t have any distractions. When my phone turned on; it read that I had three new voice mails. I pressed the number one on my keypad and it went straight to my voicemail. The first two messages were hang ups, but last one was Lena.

She said, “Hey Josiah, what happened last night? Did it work? I hope it did.” She paused on the message and then said, “I just was hoping to hear your voice.” She wanted to hear my voice? I wanted to hear hers, too, and didn’t hesitate to call her back.

She answered on the first ring. “Hello,” she said.

“Hey, it’s Josiah.”

“Hey.”

“Hey,” I said again. This was starting out a bit awkward.

“How’s Tommy?” she interjected quickly.

“He’s great. We made a lot of progress last night. I think this might just work.”

“That’s awesome!” Lena seemed genuinely excited. “Josiah?” Lena said, with yearning in her voice.

“Yes,” I said.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m great, Lena.”

“That’s good to hear.” Lena paused. “Josiah?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” I said.

“You do?” she asked with a bit of vulnerability I hadn’t heard from her before.

“Yes, I miss you more than you know,” I assured her.

“This is so weird isn’t it?” Lena laughed sweetly.

“I don’t remember what’s normal anymore.”

“I know,” Lena said.

I wanted to say more to her. I wanted to tell her every beautiful thought I felt for her, but I didn’t know how to cross that line further, so I just said, “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“Okay, be careful, Josiah.”

“I will.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” I waited for her to hang up. I didn’t hear her hang up. Instead, I could still hear her breathing. I waited about fifteen seconds and then I said, “Lena?”

“Yes, Josiah.”

“Forever...” I stopped talking. I don’t know why I said that word out loud. Forever.

Lena was quiet and then said, “... and Always.” She completed my thought.

We were both quiet. We didn’t need to say anymore. We were connected by something bigger than this world. I knew she was my destiny. Eventually, after a minute of very comfortable, loving silence—we both said goodbye. That was exactly what I needed to light a fire under my ass.

I leaned back and laid flat on the couch. I thought about Lena; her amazing brown eyes, her beautiful smile, her pale skin, her angelic face. I thought about how amazing she felt the other day in my arms. I closed my eyes and I thought of nothing but her.

Chapter Thirteen

Night was coming and Tommy had gone into his cage to chain himself in again. I stood outside the cage and looked at my friend like a trainer before a big fight. We both knew the stakes were high tonight, and it was going make or break us. We had 45 minutes until show time.

“Okay, Tommy, I’m going to enter the cage at some point tonight.” I said from outside the cage. “I’m going to touch your face. You will need to submit to me first verbally, then physically.

Tommy smiled. “Just keep it G-rated, Josiah.”

I smiled. “All right, no more jokes, Tom. We need to get serious.”

“Yes, sir!” Tommy gave me the military salute. “Let’s do this Josiah, I’m ready.”

I started to once again give Tommy verbal commands like I had done the day before. Tommy seemed more eager to listen and do what I had asked than the day before.

When I finished with the verbal commands I said, “Let’s move on to the tactile. I am coming into the cage. Do not attack! Keep your head down!” I knew Tommy wasn’t going to attack me in his Carni form, but I was paving his sense memory for tonight.

Tommy nodded.

I opened the gate and entered imagining Tommy was a werewolf, proceeding cautiously. Each time Tommy tried to raise his head, I commanded him to put his head down. I inched my way to Tommy and stood over him in an alpha male stance. I took my right hand and put it on top of his head. “Keep your head down!” I commanded him. I then gently touched the top of his head. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a stick of beef jerky. “Head up!” I said firmly.

Tommy raised his head; I fed him the beef jerky.

“Eat!” I said.

Tommy chewed the beef jerky.

I held my position like a boxer. “Good boy,” I said. “Eyes down.” I slowly knelt down and cupped my left hand placing it on his head. As I did so, I gently petted Tommy’s human hair back. “Good boy,” I said.

I spent about ten more minutes petting him and talking to him softly. When we were done, I left the cage.

“Tommy,” I said.

“Yeah, Josiah.”

“Good job.”

“You, too.”

We both smirked and knew we were walking a fine line. We were treading in waters that were very unfamiliar.

“You have about fifteen more minutes,” I said.

I left the room and decided to wait outside on this night as Tommy turned into his werewolf state. A few minutes passed and the sun was completely down. The sounds in the other room had led me to believe Tommy had turned werewolf—lots of howling and growling.

Then just like the night before, the poor wolf began to whimper into the night. I had forgotten to ask him about that today. His whimpering then became full-blown howling. Again, it was very heartbreaking to hear. I had no idea what part of this process was making a werewolf cry out. I wasn’t sure if it was a Carni deal or a Tommy situation. Nonetheless, it was one of the worst sounds I’d ever heard.

I stood by the door, while this went on for about two hours. Tommy had once again exhausted himself from howling and dropped to the floor and slept.

Tonight, I decided to come in and watch him sleep. I looked at the spectacular, gray wolf asleep on the ground of the cage like any ordinary house dog. This wasn’t a house dog. He was gigantic and very powerful looking. Tommy was six feet in length and built like a pit bull. This beast looked as if it could kill a bear in seconds. His teeth were thick and long, and his claws were the size of no. 2 pencils.

I sat there staring and studying Tommy for what felt like a long period of time. At times he was restless; at times he seemed peaceful. I knew I needed to take this bond to the next level. I hoped we were ready.

* * *

I slipped out of the room as Tommy began to wake up. I wanted to start the night doing the audible commands outside the door to hopefully keep Tommy from going as ballistic as he done the night before at the sight of me. I was counting on him recognizing my voice, and having a mental connection. It would be then that I would enter the room.

Tommy was growling and pulling at his chains. The chains were dragging and scraping on the ground. I took a deep breath. I called out, “Tommy!”

I heard the werewolf stop in his tracks. No sound, no snarls, nothing. “Sit boy!” I yelled from outside the door. I heard him pace for a few seconds. I repeated loudly, “Sit! Then it happened. I heard a flop sound. He sat. I then proceeded to give him the same basic verbal commands that I had done the day before. When I felt he trusted me, I entered the room.

This magnificent, giant werewolf was sitting and staring at me as if he was a lap dog waiting for a treat. I rewarded him and threw some beef jerky in the cage. Tommy caught it in his mouth then dropped it to the ground and sniffed it. He licked the jerky a couple of times and then decided to devour it like it was a Twinkie.

When he had finished his snack, I began running through more verbal commands with him. We did this for nearly an hour. There was a lot of trust and interaction between us. I decided to ask Tommy some questions that could lead us to a tactile situation.

“Tommy, if you trust me, speak!” I called out. Tommy yelped. Tommy’s yelp did not sound like a typical bark. It was a high-pitched growl. It was a tone that demonstrated obedience and dominance in the same melodic tone.

“Tommy,” I said. “Will you attack me if I came in the cage? Raise your right paw for ‘no’, and your left paw for ‘yes.”

Tommy stared at me, and calmly raised his right paw. That was a ‘no.’

“Do you promise, Tommy? Do you promise on the love you have for my sister that you will not harm me in any way if I enter the cage?”

Tommy raised his left paw. That meant he promised.

He was letting me know it was okay to come in. I didn’t know how smart this creature actually was. Could he lie and manipulate me? Was he capable of tricking me into entering the cage and then attacking me? He hadn’t shown any signs of deceit up till now. He had been 100 percent loyal. I had to trust him. This was my turn to believe in him.

“Tommy, would you like for me to come and see you inside the cage?” I asked.

Tommy raised his left paw. Yes.

Okay, this was it. I was going to go in. He was either going to attack me or allow me to sit with him. I had to trust my gut instinct. I believed him. I was certain he wouldn’t hurt me.

I took out the key out of my pocket and unlocked the gate and opened it. I cautiously stepped in and leaned my backup against the front of the cage. Tommy was in the back. There was enough length that he could at the least bite off a toe if he was aiming to attack.

“Sit! Tommy!” My voice had both command and love in its delivery.

Tommy panted and then sat. Thank God!

“Tommy,” I said. “May I approach you?”

Tommy panted like a dog happy to see his master after a long day. He confirmed by raising his left paw.

“Tommy, I am going to walk up to you and I’m going to pet your head.”

I took a big exhale and looked at this spectacular creature in his fierce yellow eyes. He didn’t have a drop of fear or uncertainty. He trusted me, and I couldn’t help but feel a powerful bond developing between us. It was different than the connection Tommy and I had in our human form.

I walked up to Tommy and slowly petted his head. Tommy liked being petted. I petted his back, and his face. I knelt down and massaged his forehead in a rhythmic motion. Tommy tilted his head and opened his mouth. His long sharp teeth were exposed. My first reaction was to jump, but I froze instead.

I stared down at the wolf’s gigantic jaw. His mouth was wide open and I was unsure what would happen next. I could see him salivating. I wasn’t sure if he was going to bite, but I remained calm. Then his long tongue came out of his mouth and he began licking my hand. Not in a way that he was preparing to devour it, but in a loving way that told me he was pleased that I was there.

I knelt down and Tommy licked my face. I laughed out loud as his long tongue tickled my nose and cheeks. I hugged him in a way a seven year old would hug his brand-new puppy on Christmas morning. This wolf, this six-foot-tall, 250-pound werewolf was loving on me, and I was loving on him.

“Tommy,” I said. “Are you aware that I’m Josiah?”

The wolf looked at me strangely.

“I’m Josiah,” I repeated. “Do you know me?”

Tommy once again licked my face.

If he didn’t know me as Josiah, his friend, he definitely knew me as Josiah, his master. “Are you hungry, boy?” It was funny calling Tommy boy, but it seemed like the most natural way to talk to him in this state. I had prepared a couple of steaks for Tommy earlier in the evening and went out of the cage and closed the cage door, but didn’t lock it. I mean after all, he was still chained in. Baby steps, I thought.

I came back and threw both steaks in the cage. Tommy went to town on them and enjoyed those steaks more than any human ever could.

The rest of the night Tommy and I played in his cage. He was still chained in, but at no point did I ever feel I was in danger. This was once again becoming an extremely productive night. This just might work.

The sun was about to come up, and I was very curious to watch Tommy transform back to his Carni form, as I had slept through it the night before. Tommy had put his head down and rested. I wasn’t sure if he was asleep, but I decided to unlock his chains. If he was going to attack me he would had done it by now. I unlocked all the chains that were tightly placed around his elbow and ankles and chest.

Tommy didn’t wake up and was completely still. I walked out of the cage and instinctively locked the door behind me. I stopped, and decided to unlock the cage. Not only did I unlock the cage, I left the door open. I was going to trust Tommy one hundred and ten percent. Tommy the werewolf and Tommy the man were no longer two separate things and were becoming one. I sat down outside the cage and rested against the wall. Tommy was snoring away. What a night! I was exhausted.

The sun was peeking over the horizon, so I decided to study the werewolf as he slept. Tommy startled himself awake, within a second, he went from werewolf to man. I almost didn’t catch it. It was a much quicker transformation than when he had turned into a werewolf. He laid there in his boxers completely soaked from head to toe. He looked up at me. “Josiah,” he said, “I remember everything.”

Chapter Fourteen

Tommy and I agreed we would talk after we both rested. Tommy showered and went up to his room to sleep. I went to the guest room, crashed on the couch and pondered the night—wondering what it all meant.

What was all this for? Would this give me an advantage against Krull? Or was I saving Tommy from himself? I didn’t know. Was Tommy ‘the werewolf’ and Tommy ‘the man” becoming one? If this was true, there might be a chance that Tommy may be able to transition the way Mani can. Who knew what could happen then?

I had dozed off and unless I had a vision, I didn’t dream.

“Josiah.”

I opened my eyes.

It was Tommy. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Want to talk about last night?”

“Definitely, Tom.” I sat up, stretched my arms, and wiped my eyes.

“Damn Josiah, you’re paler than I have ever seen you.”

“Not seeing sunlight in six weeks can do that to a person.” I laughed.

“So, what do you think?” Tommy looked at me intently as if I was given details by the Triat personally.

“I have a lot of thoughts,” I answered. “I’m just not sure if any of them are valid.”

“Valid or not, let me hear them.”

I got up and walked to the kitchen. Tommy followed. I poured myself a glass of water, and then sat at the table with Tommy across from me.

“It’s like this,” I said. “How many immortal species do you know of? I mean is it only Mani and Carni?”

“There are rumors of other species, but the only ones I know for sure are the Mani and the Carni.”

“Okay, let’s assume we are the only ones. We are both immortal right? So whatever DNA—or whatever it is that’s inside us—that keeps is from dying from old age is similar to one another. It has to be.”

“Okay.” Tommy was interested.

“What if the Mani is just a more evolved species?”

“Like you’re smarter than us?” Tommy said, insulted.

“Not necessarily smarter; it’s more like the Mani just know themselves better because they have been around so damn long.”

Tommy stared at me. He was slightly put off, but Tommy was a smart guy. I just needed to explain myself better.

“It’s like this,” I said. “The internet wasn’t invented in a day. First, there was electricity—then telephones—then computers—then the World Wide Web! What if the Mani are in the internet stage of the evolution and the Carni are still at the Franklin kite-in-the-sky electricity stage? Benjamin Franklin was one of the most brilliant men that ever lived; he would crap his pants if he knew what we could do with electricity now.”

“What if the Carni haven’t figured out how to transition at will, the way Mani can? What if the Carni had always had the ability but they had just been slaves to the full moon? What if they could resist the full moon and turn into a werewolf whenever they felt like it the way Mani can? What if you could control it by transitioning back to a Carni form when it’s a full moon and transition back to a werewolf during the day?!”

“Wow, I never thought of it that way.”

“We have broken huge ground in just 48 hours. I took your chains off and let the door open and you just slept peacefully.”

“I know. I was calm. I remember feeling safe, like I was home.”

“That is because of our bond.” I paused and looked at Tommy. “I have a question for you?”

“Okay.”

“You remembered everything from last night, right?”

Tommy was hesitant, “Yeah, I think so.”

“You’re aware that you were licking me like I was a 50/50 bar.”

Tommy laughed. “Yeah, about that,” Tommy stammered a bit, “all I can tell you is that it’s instinctive. I can’t high-five you or even give you a bro hug. When I’m in that state, licking seems perfectly OK.”

“As long as you only do the licking as a werewolf, we’re cool.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, pretty boy.” Tommy knew that calling me pretty boy pissed me off. “Are we done with that?” Tommy said, a little embarrassed.

“Yeah, we’re done, sloppy kisser,” I said with a chuckle.

Tommy shot me a look that pretty much said, ‘quit it, dude.’

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Now I’m done.”

“Josiah, there is one more full moon left. Do you think we can accomplish what we need to in one more night?”

“I hope so.”

Tommy nodded and went upstairs to take and a nap.

I decided to watch a Scorsese marathon on the tube. Raging Bull followed by The Departed. Damn, he was an intense director. I loved me some Marty.

Tommy came downstairs as The Departed ended. I looked up at Tommy and said, “How Mark Walberg didn’t win the Oscar for that movie I don’t know.”

Tommy ignored my sentiments for Marky Mark and had other things on his mind. “Yari called me,” he said. “She said they will come back tomorrow.”

“She called you? Are you guys like best friends now?”

“Relax, Josiah; you can’t put a claim on every woman in this house.”

I laughed. “I’m not jealous, Tom.”

“Then what are you?”

“I don’t know what I am,” I said.

“Look, I know you two slept together. I know she followed you for two years, but it’s obvious that you have feelings for Lena.”

“Huh?” I said, acting surprised.

“Jo, you have serious feelings for Lena. Anyone can see that.”

“I’ve never ever said anything to lead you after that conclusion.”

“Josiah, I’ve known you for a long time. You have the same look in your eye you had for Krista Gregory. And you had it bad for Krista Gregory.”

He was right, I was crazy about Lena. I cared for her in a way I didn’t completely understand. Every time I think about her, I got exhausted with the longing in my heart. “Yeah, I guess so, Tom,” I said.

“You guess so?” Tommy answered back.

“What do you want me to say?”

“You don’t have to say anything. I get it.”

“My sister?”

Tommy nodded his head and stared off. I knew he loved my sister deeply. “After I lost to Atticai and Goliath had beaten me further and left me for dead, I was lying there in a pool of my own blood. I had inner peace inside me, I figured I was done and I was about to go to the ever after. Then something extraordinary happened. I saw your sister. She was reaching out to me. I was dying and knew the end was near. I knew I was moments away from being with her.” Tommy stopped talking.

I waited patiently, giving him time to get himself together.

He tried to speak again but he was too choked up to do so. This was hard for him. Hell, it was hard for me to hear. “I could see her face, Josiah. I could see your sister’s face. She was reaching out her hand to me. She was there to take me with her. It was the most wonderful feeling I ever felt. I reached out my hand and she took it.”

“She took your hand?”

“I thought it was hers, but it wasn’t. It was Yari’s. Yari took my hand and wiped the blood from my eyes. I reached out for your sister, but Yari was the one there. Jo, Yari saved my life. I was left for dead. She risked everything to get me out of there.” Tommy stopped talking. “It was like your sister acted through her. Her touch was Yari’s touch.”

“Wow,” I said.

“I still can’t believe that seven-foot beanpole kicked my ass.”

“Atticai did look like a beanpole, but that was where it ended. He was the strongest man I have ever fought.”

“Stronger than Krull?”

I thought about it. “Yeah, definitely. Krull seemed more seasoned. Atticai had the heart of a lion.”

“All I know is that heart of a lion, scarecrow-looking, motherfucker kicked the shit out of me,” Tommy said, disgusted. He stared at me and didn’t say anything.

“What?” I asked.

“How were you able to kill him?”

“I was able to kill him only because I had become ‘the eagle.’ Man vs. vampire, he would have manhandled me. I don’t know if I could take him even now.”

Tommy’s expression was one of disgrace and confusion. He stood up from the table. “Anyway, so what’s the plan for tonight?”

“There is less of a plan for tonight and more of a plan for today.”

“Okay?”

“I just think we should just hang out today.”

“Just hang out?” Tommy repeated slowly.

“I’m thinking we just hang out together and forget about the sun going down. We just spend quality time together. I want to see if the bond we have right now can easily translate as you become a werewolf. I think if there is no change in your reaction we will be on to something.”

“You sure, Josiah? What if things don’t go as smoothly as they did last night? What if I don’t respond to you? Then it’s ‘Josiah vs. Werewolf,’ Part 1.

“I am going with my gut again on this one. This is going to work.”

Tommy was definitely unsure about my decision but he went along with it anyway. “All right. What do you want to do?”

“I thought we could either do some old school MMA training, or I could kick your ass in Scrabble.”

“You didn’t just lay down the gauntlet?” Tommy grinned from ear to ear. Tommy and I have had some epic Scrabble matches in the past.

“You have a board?” I asked.

“What do you think? It was the first thing I bought when I got the place.”

“Okay, Tommy boy. It’s time to triple letter your ass.”

“Triple letter? Son, I’m going to triple word your face into submission.”

Tommy and I loved to play our Scrabble. Tommy went to get out the board. It was 6:00 p.m. There was two hours until sunset.

Tommy laid out the board on the living room floor and we took our pieces to begin the match. I went first. I got double points; I spelled “rhythm.” There was no way Tommy could get a good word off of that. Tommy took his time and then got a familiar gleam in his eyes. Oh no, he was going to get major points, I could feel it. Tommy used my ‘y’ in ‘rhythm’ and made the word ‘oxygen’ going down and played the ‘x’ on the triple letter.

“Look, who just got his ass triple lettered,” Tommy said, as cocky a man could get playing a game of Scrabble. “That’s 32 points, son. Shabam!”

The challenge was on! Tommy and I were going to have another epic match. We played a long time and it came down to the wire once again with the score being ‘312 to 317’ with Tommy ahead. I had a letter ‘Q’ left and was down by five. There was an ‘A’ and a ‘T’ in the far right corner of the board. ‘QAT’ was a Scrabble word. I had no idea what the word meant, but I recalled seeing the word in the Scrabble dictionary. I was staring at the ‘Q’ with deep thought and had my head down. I closed my eyes and thought about it for a moment. Should I put it down? If I was wrong, I know Tommy would challenge it. I opened my eyes and said, “Okay, Tom, you’ll probably challenge this but I got to do it.” I was expecting Tommy to say, ‘challenge.’ But, there was a problem, Tommy wasn’t in the room. I got up and looked for him in the cage room, and sure enough, there he was. He had turned into a werewolf and I didn’t even know. I was too busy pondering the ‘Q’.

Tommy once again stared out the window crying to the moon. It was less of a cry this night and more of a plea. What was making him so sad?

I hadn’t interacted with Tommy during his howling out phase, but this time I needed to. I needed to bond with him immediately. I slowly and tentatively walked over to the giant, gray wolf. His beautiful mane encircled his huge head. I knelt down next to him and Tommy turned his head toward me and rested it on my shoulder. Whatever he was feeling inside, somehow my presence was comforting him.

Tommy walked on all fours out of the room. He continued upstairs and I followed him. He went up to his room and was looking under the bed. I walked over to him, and his nose was nuzzled under the bed. I looked under the bed to see what he was looking for and saw an envelope with pictures. I reached under the bed and picked up the envelope and sat on his bed. I opened the envelope to look at the pictures: it was pictures of us, pictures of my parents, pictures of Tommy and my sister.

Tommy jumped on the bed and sat next to me. I slowly went through each picture with him, tears burning my eyes. I hadn’t taken time to reflect on my family in a very long time. My family was Tommy’s family, and their death affected him the same way it did me. He loved my parents and they loved him. He and my sister’s love was one for the ages. I wondered why it took him to become a werewolf to properly mourn. He and I had never really talked about the day they all died in the car crash. We just went on with our lives and used mixed martial arts as a way to escape.

I put the pictures down and lay back on the bed and Tommy yawned and put his head on the bed. I decided to talk to him, not like a wolf, but as man. “I miss them, Tommy,” I said, “I miss them a lot.”

Tommy looked up at me.

I continued, “That day is a blur to me. When you called and told me they were in the hospital—I went into shock. I convinced myself they were dead even before I got to the hospital. That was the only way I could deal with it. It’s morbid, but it’s what I had to do. I don’t know how you dealt with it, Tom. You were in the room when my sister died.”

Tommy moaned. He laid his head on my chest. I quit talking. We both laid there in silence. This was the first time Tommy and I mourned together for my family.

Chapter Fifteen

After a while Tommy fell asleep on the bed. I got up quietly; left the room and walked downstairs. I decided to go outside; it had been three days since I had some fresh air. After a while I decided to go for a light run in the midnight air. I jogged uphill on a winding road. Running uphill always made me feel alive. The air is a lot thinner up in the mountains, so I didn’t push it. I wanted to feel the night.

I ended up at the all night 7-Eleven store, two miles up. I decided to go in and grab some hot dogs for Tommy and me. I went to the back where they kept basic items in the freezer. I grabbed a pack of dogs and a pack of buns from the shelf. I went to the condiment aisle and got some Gulden’s mustard. Neither Tommy nor I liked ketchup.

I walked up to the front counter to pay and scanned the magazines while I waited for the guy in front to me to pick out some lottery tickets. I looked at the tabloid magazines and newspapers. One cover read, “Real Vampires Wreak Havoc on Dracula’s Castle.” I laughed. Real vampires, my ass! I’d show you a fucking real life vampire! There was a picture of Dracula’s Castle on the cover of the magazine. As I stared at the cover, I dropped the hot dogs, buns and mustard.

There it was: a white castle with exactly the same building structure as the one in my vision, complete with hill and distinct-colored brush. Holy shit! It was the castle to a “T.” Was I supposed to go to Dracula’s castle? Was that little blue man supposed to train me at Dracula’s castle? Where the hell was Dracula’s castle located? I skimmed the article. Transylvania, Romania. Are you fucking kidding me? Could this get any weirder?

* * *

I got back and put the hot dogs and buns in the refrigerator and went upstairs to check on Tommy. When I got to his room, something was horribly wrong; he wasn’t there. My heart fell to the floor. Tommy was out of his cage! I totally forgot that he was still a werewolf. A werewolf that was capable of killing anything or anyone in a blink of an eye.

What was I thinking? How could I be so careless? I had let Tommy out and whatever happened would be my fault. I went through the cabin looking for him. I yelled out his name. Nothing. I went outside and looked in every direction. Nothing. I decided to head up toward the woods, I don’t know why that made the most sense, but it did.

I yelled out his name as I hurried deeper into the woods. I heard rustling in the bushes ahead of me and then I heard a familiar growl.

“Tommy!” I yelled. “Stop whatever you’re doing! STOP!” I was praying there wasn’t something awful behind that bush. I ran around the bush to see the potential massacre. There he was, Tommy—by himself. And he had obviously relieved himself. He looked at me as if to say, ‘Really dude?’

“Let’s get back, Tommy.” I said in a command. As we walked back, I said to him repeatedly, “I didn’t know, bro.”

When we got back to the house, it was 4:30 a.m. The sun was going to be up in two hours and I would have to wait a whole month for another full moon. So, Tommy and I needed to get to work. If my vision was right—or if I interpreted it correctly, Tommy should be able to transition the way Mani could.

Right now, there was an immense amount of trust between us. He went outside and didn’t have the need to kill. As far as I could tell—he didn’t even harm a small animal, not even an insect. I truly believed in my heart of hearts that he had been tamed to a certain extent.

I looked at Tommy. How was I going to take this up to the next level? How was I going to get Tommy to a place where he can transition the way a Mani can? Everything up to this point had just come to me. Almost as if the Triat was speaking through me. Now, I felt like I was dangling. I hadn’t a clue.

I sat on the couch and just closed my eyes. Tommy jumped on the couch and lay next to me with his giant werewolf body. The only thing that made any sense to me was to talk to him as Tommy my friend—not Tommy the werewolf.

“So, what now?” I asked him. Tommy looked up at me and seemed desperate for me to have some answers as if to say, ‘You don’t know? We have accomplished all of this, and now you’re stumped?’

“I know, Tommy. I am stumped,” I said.

I looked at this werewolf. He was quite the creature. If I didn’t know it was Tommy, I’d be scared to death. This killing machine looked ready to tear anything from limb to limb. Are we supposed to go out and fight? Or are we supposed to bond in another way? I had no idea. Well, that question would be answered soon enough.

Tommy’s ears pricked up and he ran to the door. Suddenly, I heard howls, but they were not coming from Tommy. I ran to the windows and saw something awful outside. As the full moonlight landed on the earth I saw what it was. It was five werewolves as big or bigger than Tommy creeping up to the cabin and I could see a sixth one in the distance. One of the werewolves was almost twice as big as the others. These must be the Carni from the other night. And the gigantic black one must be Goliath. He was already scary-as-hell-looking as a Carni, but as a werewolf, he looked like something out of the book of Revelations.

I looked at Tommy, “What should we do?” I whispered.

“I don’t know,” Tommy said back.

At first, I didn’t realize what had just happened. Then it became very clear to me. I’d just heard Tommy’s voice, or did I imagine that?

“You didn’t imagine anything, Josiah,” Tommy said to me. He was staring at me. His mouth wasn’t moving. I could hear his thoughts.

“We can read each other’s minds?” I asked Tommy in my head.

“You always had the ability to read my mind, but now I can read yours,” Tommy said through his thoughts.

“This is fucking huge,” I whispered out loud. “But we really need to talk about this later.”

“Josiah, talk to me in your head. They will hear you. Werewolves have keen hearing.”

“How do they know we’re here?” I thought to Tommy.

“This place wasn’t exactly a secret,” Tommy replied, looking at me.

“We have two choices. We can run, or we can fight.”

“I choose fight.” Tommy said. He wanted payback. Who could blame him?

“We are horribly outnumbered,” I said, still in my head. “If we choose to fight, we’ll need to isolate them.”

“We cannot allow them to attack us a pack.” Tommy agreed. We were on the same page. This wasn’t going to be a Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid going out in a blaze of glory. We needed to be smart about this.

“We need to split up,” I said. I figured Tommy and I could use our thoughts as walkie-talkies.

I peeked out the window. The werewolves were making their move on the house. “I’m going to transition to the eagle and fly out back. You go upstairs and climb out the window and get on the roof.”

“Josiah, whatever happens. Please don’t leave me here.”

“Tommy, there would be no way I would. I’ll die here tonight if I have to.”

Tommy nodded and headed quickly upstairs.

I ran out the back and transitioned into the eagle as I hit the back porch. I flew up by gliding my wings just high enough that the wolves couldn’t see me. I circled and looked down. I saw Tommy climb out his bedroom window and leap in one quick motion to the roof by bouncing from the tree at the side of the house to the roof—like a ninja.

“This is a good plan,” I thought.

“I doubt all of them will come here at once,” Tommy thought back.

“Good, we can still hear each other. I see a wolf by himself about three houses down, he must have pulled back to be some kind of look out. I’m going to go down to him.”

“Be careful,” Tommy said in his head. “I’m going to see how I measure up to one of the assholes at full werewolf.”

I spread my wings and felt the wind underneath me. Damn, it felt awesome to be an eagle. I sped down in a quick motion beak first and I aimed my mouth directly into the giant dog’s back. I nailed him like a linebacker blitzing a quarterback. The beast flew forward. The wolf was black and white in appearance and I was having trouble seeing him in the dark. I needed to remain an eagle because my eagle eyesight was off the charts. So, this fight was going to be ‘eagle vs. wolf.’

The wolf turned around and I flew up about 20 feet over his head. I once again sliced down and pierced him hard, this time in his left front leg tearing into his flesh down to bone. He fell over in pain, crying and howling like a puppy that got spanked for peeing on the carpet. The wolf hobbled into the middle of the street when a giant truck came flying down the street. My heart sank as the truck slammed into the black and white wolf. As this happened, I flew up again and watched the wolf lie in the street. I didn’t like killing anything, but now I had no choice. It was kill or be killed.

Nonetheless, I flew down to try to help it. I was too late. The wolf had vanished. Dammit, I killed him. The truck driver stopped his semi and stepped out to see what he had hit. He seemed bewildered when he saw there was nothing there. The werewolf disappeared just as Atticai had months earlier.

I flew up and I saw Tommy on the roof. There was a white wolf crawling up the side of the house, ready to leap from the drainage pipe. As far as I could tell it was just one. Tommy was highly aware of the beast as the white wolf slipped up the side of the house and made its way to the top of the roof. Tommy didn’t let him get situated, he slammed into the wolf with a fierce throttle and the white wolf did a backwards somersault, falling off the roof. The wolf landed on its back on the grass below. I flew down and grabbed the injured wolf with my talons. I flew away as fast as I could. I thought about dropping him in Arrowhead Lake, but watching the last one die made me nauseous. I dropped the wolf into some brush. Maybe the brush broke his fall, maybe it didn’t. At least this way I was giving him a fighting chance.

Back to the house. The wolves now were down to four. I glided up to the roof where Tommy was. I landed next to him, “Good job, Tommy!” I thought.

Tommy panted proudly, “Where’s Goliath?” he said in his head.

“I don’t know.” Suddenly, I saw two more wolves going up the side of the house.

“Tommy! Watch out!” I yelled out loud.

Tommy saw that there were two of them. “I might need your help.”

“I’m already on it.” They were both brown, so I could see them reasonably well. I transitioned back to my Mani form to be more agile. Both wolves jumped on the roof at the same time. I flew up in the air as a Mani to have elevation on them. Tommy held his ground in the center of the roof.

The first brown wolf leaped on top of him, with the other not too far behind. Not on my watch. I flew down and kicked the second wolf right in the face before he could land on Tommy. I fell backwards on contact and slipped on the roof.

The wolf, dazed, turned and leaped on me. It was trying to bite me. This creature was ferociously strong, but I was stronger. I reversed the wolf MMA style and was on top of him—riding him like fucking bull. I slammed my elbow into the back of the wolf’s neck. It reached back to claw me from behind. I grabbed the wolf by its neck and had an amazing hold—choking him out. I knew I could have killed the wolf with my bare hands, but didn’t want to see him die. I threw him off the roof and didn’t bother to look down. The creature sealed his fate coming here. The Triat would allow me to defend myself when I was clearly outnumbered.

I looked over and saw the fourth wolf make his way to the roof. Still no Goliath; that big ape probably couldn’t climb up the side of the roof. The fourth werewolf was the smallest of the bunch and was completely white. Child’s play. Still, Tommy was outnumbered 2-1. I transitioned back to the eagle in midair. I darted down again with more force and speed than I ever had before. I was really feeling it. Tommy was doing a great job of fighting the other brown wolf one-on-one. So my only goal was to spear this white wolf in his back. My beak was more powerful than a sword at this speed. As I flew down, the wolf leaped out of the way, I hit the roof like a pile of bricks and slid as I hit the shingles falling off the roof landing right in front of Goliath. Holy shit! He was huge!

I quickly transitioned back to a Mani and Goliath seemed to like that. His eyes sparkled like I was a steak. I wasn’t as hurt as I thought I’d be falling twenty-five feet. Eagles were pretty tough I guess, but I needn’t have worried about that at the moment because I was now a Mani. This was definitely your classic David vs. Goliath matchup. I was tiny compared to the mammoth werewolf. I looked over and saw a motorcycle parked next door. I needed to use everything I had and this was as good of time as any to do try to do that moving shit with my mind business. I looked at the motorcycle, connected with it, and with a quick glance I shot the motorcycle across the grass and rammed right into Goliath’s back. Woo Hoo! I controlled it! Goliath yelped. The motorcycle did some major damage. Goliath wasn’t moving at all but he was definitely still alive. I left him there yelping and made my way back up to the roof to help Tommy. Thank God Tommy was holding his own, battling the two werewolves.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Tommy said, shooting a look in my direction.

I yelled out loud, “Sorry, I was just throwing an 800-pound motorcycle at Goliath with my mind.”

“Impressive,” Tommy then smacked the white wolf with his left claw. “Take the one on the right, I got this little shit.”

“Always leave me with the hard work,” I said charging the wolf on the right. As I ran forward, the wolf also charged into me. It was going to be ‘Mani versus werewolf’ in an old school football collision. We collided into each other like a car crash. I bit down with my razor-sharp incisors and chomped him in the neck on contact. He never saw it coming. And with my left arm, I uppercut the wolf in the chin. The first brown wolf stumbled backwards, nearly falling off the roof, but stopping just short of doing so. He turned around and I greeted him with a roundhouse kick. The wolf fell to the ground below. I turned my head to not watch him die. I turned my head back to Tommy where he was fighting his wolf that was like something reminiscent of the Lion King.

Tommy was able to bite the wolf in the front of its neck. The wolf yelped as they did when they felt pain. Tommy didn’t let up. He bit down and with his right claw he punched the wolf as hard as he could with his claws extended. Tommy’s claws went deep into the wolf’s stomach. Blood poured from his mouth and abdomen. Within seconds—the wolf disappeared.

There was just Goliath left. I looked up at the sky and I saw the sun was coming up. Goliath and Tommy will turn back, shortly. Sure enough, Tommy was lying on the roof in his boxers, soaked.

“Let’s get out of here, Tommy.” I transitioned into the great white eagle and grabbed Tommy with my talons and headed down the mountain with Tommy in claw. I didn’t see Goliath as we exited. It was probably better that way.

Chapter Sixteen

As I flew down to my house, I gently dropped Tommy on my front lawn and landed beside him—transitioning back into a Mani. The morning air had dried Tommy off, but he still stunk of sweat.

“Well, Tommy. How do you feel?”

Tommy looked at me and didn’t say anything. “Are you answering me in your mind?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Tommy laughed.

“I can’t hear you anymore,” I said. “Can you hear my thoughts?”

Tommy focused on me. “No,” Tommy said.

“The sun is out and my skin is beginning to sting.” I opened the door and Tommy and I entered the house. Wyatt and Hector were asleep on the living room floor.

We walked to the back of the house. Yari was sleeping in Tommy’s room, and Lena was asleep in mine. “What a couple of Goldilocks!” Tommy said, laughing.

I smiled. “Let’s go talk in the kitchen.” We walked to the kitchen and sat at the table.

“You hungry,” I asked

“I’m starving.”

“I’ll make us a couple of omelets.” I opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs, milk, cheese, and some lunch meat. I opened the bottom cabinets below the stove and took out a skillet. “You want three or four eggs?”

“I’m starving. Give me five.”

“You want lunch meat?”

“What kind?”

“Turkey.”

“Sure.”

I proceeded to crack the eggs open and make us both a couple of omelets. Tommy put out a couple of plates and poured us some orange juice; it felt like old times.

“I miss this,” I said as I put the hot plates on the table.

“We sure had our times, didn’t we?” Tommy dug into his omelet. “Damn, Josiah, this tastes great.” I took a bite of mine. It was pretty damn good. One thing I could do was make a mean omelet. Mastering my Mani abilities was another story.

“So,” I said, “it’s obvious we connected on a far greater level than either of us expected.”

“It appears to be that way.” Tommy continued to eat his omelet.

“What I need to figure out is why the Triat felt it was important for me to train you further as a Carni, while I remain stagnant in my abilities.”

“Maybe by helping me, somehow you grew yourself. Maybe the Triat wanted to see you do an unselfish act.”

“Maybe, I hadn’t thought about that.” I continued to eat my omelet. I took a drink of my orange juice. “I do, however believe the Triat wants me to go away and be trained also.”

“Trained? Where? By whom?”

“You’re going to laugh.”

“I doubt that, Josiah, we have experienced too much crazy shit for any of this to be too damn funny.”

“Okay,” I said. “The Triat wants me to go to Dracula’s Castle and get trained by a blue gnome.”

Tommy stared at me blankly, then cracked a smile and laughed out loud. “Were you sure it was a vision, or did you smoke some herb before going to bed?

“No, it was definitely a vision.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“I had a couple visions where Dracula’s castle and the little blue gnome were in both of them.”

“Gnome?” Tommy asked. “Liked the Travelocity guy?”

“Sort of. He looks as if the Travelocity guy and Smurfette had a kid.”

“And this guy is supposed to train you like some Yoda?”

“I don’t know exactly. I don’t know if he is going to do the training or I’m supposed to just meet him there to be trained by someone else. I know it’s what I’m supposed to do.”

“Why?”

“It is why I trained you. I was told by the blue gnome to do so, and looked what happened. You now have cognitive thought as a werewolf.”

Tommy nodded his head. “So, when do you plan to go?”

“Very soon.”

“Wow, now Dracula is mixed up in this mess,” Tommy laughed. “This just gets better and better.”

Yari came into the kitchen. “Why are you guys here? I thought we were coming to you at the cabin.” She looked pretty hot wearing red plaid pajamas.

“We had a little bit of trouble,” Tommy said.

Yari sat down at the table. “So, which of you is cooking?”

“Josiah made his famous lunchmeat omelet. It’s pretty ghetto, but it’s damn good.”

Yari smiled. “I like ghetto.”

“You can’t eat an omelet, can you?” I asked.

“Maybe, if I dipped it in blood.” Yari laughed.

“Sounds delicious,” I said.

“So, what kind of trouble did you get into?”

“Tommy and I made a ton of progress in our training exercises. We were able to do things neither of us anticipated.”

“Like...?” Yari asked.

“When I’m the gray wolf, Josiah and I are able to communicate through our thoughts.”

“Bullshit!” Yari scowled.

“We’re not kidding.” Tommy looked to me for confirmation.

Yari looked over to me. “He’s telling the truth.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“Well, that’s where the trouble comes in. We were attacked by a pack of werewolves,” I said.

Yari looked at both of us. “Seriously? That was the trouble you were talking about?”

“It wasn’t just any pack of wolves,” I said “It was Tommy’s old gang: Goliath and his minions.”

“You were able to kill Goliath?” Yari asked.

“Actually, no. I did cripple him pretty good with a motorcycle. The sun started coming out, and Tommy and I fled down the mountain.”

“Did you kill any of them?” Yari said worried.

“We both did,” I said. “We had to while defending ourselves.”

“How many did you kill?” Yari asked with her voice rising.

“Two,” I said.

“Two each?”

“No, one apiece,” I said. “Why, is it a big deal?”

“You killed two Carni and you don’t think it’s a big deal? This isn’t the Middle Ages. You can’t just kill whoever you want.”

“Look, neither one of us killed for sport,” I said. “We were defending ourselves. They came after us.”

Tommy had remained quiet as I defended our brawl to Yari. Yari looked over to Tommy. “If you had any chance of returning to your people, it’s completely over now.”

“Who said I wanted to? They left me for dead.”

“But you’re not a Mani, Tommy. I am not even sure if Mani and Carni can coexist inside the will of the Triat.”

“Look, Yari,” Tommy said. “I know you have been around since George Washington. But none of us knows what any of this means. Josiah had a vision that told him to work with me. That’s all we know. This might not be about Carni vs. Mani. It might be as simple as good versus evil.”

Yari looked at both of us and it was obvious that she cared deeply for both us. “Nonetheless, we all need to get the hell out of here. It’s bad enough we have Krull after us, now we have the Carni Nation after us, too.”

“We did what we had to do,” Tommy said indignantly.

“I know, boys, you’re the good guys. I know that much for sure. Regardless, we all need to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Great” I said. “More running. For being the supposed chosen few, we sure do a lot of running and hiding.”

“Get everybody up, Josiah,” Yari said. “We all need to transition and head to Los Angeles.”

“Why Los Angeles?” I asked.

“I’ve had a place there since the 1940s.”

“Of course you do,” I said sarcastically.

Chapter Seventeen

I got Hector and Wyatt up and then walked down the hallway to my room. Lena was still asleep in my bed. I walked into my bedroom and sat in my computer chair next to my desk. I closed my eyes and just took a moment for myself. I haven’t had too many of these moments in the last few days.

Lena laid in my bed peacefully and had no idea what Tommy and I had just been through last night. As far as I was concerned, I wanted to keep her as far away as possible from that world. I knew I couldn’t. In the end, she was in this as deep as I was. She was willing to do whatever it took to help the cause. Would I be able to protect her? Or was it both our fates to become martyrs? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was staring at the most beautiful woman I had ever seen sleeping in my bed like a princess from a fairytale. I just wasn’t sure if this fairytale had a happy ending. All I knew was that I would die trying. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to fight for the Mani people as a whole, but I was certain I was ready to lay my life down for her.

I calmly walked over to her. “Lena, sweetie,” I whispered. “We need to leave.”

Lena opened her eyes. “I’m nobody’s sweetie,” she said with a smile.

“You know what I mean.”

She sat up and stretched. “Are you okay, Josiah?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, but some crap went down at the cabin.”

“What happened?”

“Some of Tommy’s old werewolf buddies from the other night came looking for me. Or maybe, they came looking for him? Maybe they were following a smell? We weren’t quite sure. We ended up killing or injuring all of them.”

“Are the two of you okay?”

“We’re both fine. We were able to isolate them. They didn’t have a chance.”

Lena brushed back my hair. “You’re a tough son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you?” She looked at me in a way she never had before. She had looked at me lovingly before, but this was different. She seemed to be looking at me with a different kind of energy. I could feel her sexual attraction toward me. It was the first time I had ever felt that coming from her. I just had my first erection as a Mani.

This wasn’t the time or place, so I decided to talk about what I came to her room to talk to her about. “Yari thinks we just started an all-out Carni/Mani war. She thinks all of us need to leave.”

“Where are we going to go?”

“Some place in Los Angeles. Yari apparently has a place.”

“In Los Angeles?” Lena asked, surprised.

“She’s a woman with many secrets.”

“Do you trust her?”

That was a weird question for Lena to ask. Especially, since she had been living with her the last 72 hours.

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

Lena looked at me for a moment and didn’t say anything.

“Is there something I need to know? Why wouldn’t I trust her? She saved my life and Tommy’s, too.”

Lena nodded. “You’re right,” she said.

“Do you know something?” I asked.

Lena shook her head.

“We can’t afford to second guess each other right now. The six of us is all we have.”

“You’re right, Josiah.” Lena smiled.

I took her hand. “When all of this is over, you and I are going to be all right. I know it in my heart.” I leaned in and hugged her. I closed my eyes and just took her in.

After a moment, Lena asked, “Are we leaving right now?”

“It looks that way.”

“It’s daytime. We are going to have transition if we are going to Los Angeles.”

“I know. Tommy is going to drive separately. Put your things in my truck and Tommy will take them down.”

“All right, I’m going to take a shower.”

“Okay.” I got up and headed back to the kitchen. Tommy, Yari, Hector and Wyatt were all in the kitchen talking.

“Lena is taking a shower,” I said to the group.

“And you didn’t join her?” Yari said with a smirk.

“No, I didn’t.” I replied with as little sense of humor as I had ever displayed in my life. “When she’s finished, we can all leave.”

“I’ll bring the truck up later today,” Tommy said as he got up and went into the living room.

“Why later?” I asked.

“Cause I want to sleep.” Tommy said laying on the couch and closing his eyes.

“You can sleep at Yari’s place.”

“Are you really going to make a big deal about this, Josiah?”

“I just want everyone to be safe.”

“I am a big boy, Josiah. I am going to be all right.”

“Fine, Tom. Do it your way.” It must had been bugging Tommy to death that I was calling the shots. I’d let him have this one.

I packed a suitcase and put it in my truck. Tommy got the directions from Yari. Soon after, the five Mani all transitioned into our bird forms and headed to Los Angeles. We flew as a group. I flew higher than the rest to be less visible. I didn’t feel like making the morning news. A white eagle sighting might cause traffic accidents. We made our way over Orange County and I could see Angel Stadium and Disneyland.

I looked down below me and Yari and Lena were flying next to one another. Yari’s feathers were a dark red with streaks of orange—the color of fire, while Lena’s feathers looked like the rocks from Sedona, Arizona—a pretty reddish-orange color that had streaks of black in it.

As we passed over Orange County, we made our way to Los Angeles. Yari flew ahead of us and squawked loudly—her famous squawk. I looked down and saw the Los Angeles skyline. It wasn’t like New York City’s skyline, but it wasn’t too shabby.

I was extremely cautious now that we were in the big city to not to be seen from the ground. Yari circled over us and motioned with her wings for us to fly down and land by the giant Hollywood sign. The five of us glided past Griffith Park and landed right in front of the giant letters. None of us transitioned because the sun would fry us like bacon. She apparently needed to rest. She squawked and aimed her beak north.

After we rested, Yari flew up again and we followed her, making our way toward West Hollywood. Yari squawked a final time and flew down for us to follow her into a nice gated townhouse community. Yari scanned the ground to make sure no Tandra were outside. When the coast was clear, we all headed down with her and landed. Yari quickly transitioned to her Mani form and turned over the doormat in front of a white and brown home. She grabbed a key that was under the mat and opened the door quickly so she wouldn’t get burned by the sunlight. We all went in the front door and transitioned alongside her.

“It’s just three rooms,” Yari said. “So we will have to double up.”

“Hector and I don’t need a room. We barely sleep,” Wyatt said. “The living room will be fine for us.”

“I can barely keep my eyes open,” I commented. “I’m going to crash in the room with the biggest bed.”

“That would be mine,” Yari said. “It’s a California king.”

“Then I’ll take the one with the second biggest bed.”

“It’s okay, Josiah. You can sleep in my room.”

Lena’s eyes shot across the room. She was apparently not okay with me sleeping in Yari’s bed.

“No, I’ll be okay. Just give me any room that has a bed.”

“The guest room in the back has a queen,” Yari answered.

“That will be fine.” I headed to the back of the townhouse. I called out, “Wake me up when Tommy gets here.”

I entered the guest room. It was a very interesting room. Apparently, Broadway musicals from the 1980s were the theme to this room. Giant posters of Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and Miss Saigon wallpapered the room. I wasn’t a show tunes kind of guy but, interestingly enough, Tommy was.

There was a lock on the door, so I decided to lock myself in. I hadn’t rested or slept in more than 36 hours, I really could use some sleep.

I looked at the clock. It was 11:00 am. Tommy should get here in a few hours. I closed my eyes and laid there for about 45 minutes and then heard a knock at my door.

“Is Tommy here?” I yelled out.

No one responded. Instead I heard another light knock.

“Sheesh,” I got up and went to the door and opened it. “Is Tommy—” It was Lena.

“Hey there,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“You want company? I’m not exactly Miss Popularity with these people.”

“Sure, come in.”

Lena entered the door and locked it behind her.

“Wow, you really don’t want to socialize with them,” I said laughing at the fact she locked the door.

“I’ve spent the last three days with those people. I need a break. Wyatt is weird and Hector is just plain creepy. And if I didn’t know any better, I’d think Yari is watching me when I sleep and imagines putting a silver stake through my heart.”

“Was it that bad?” I sat on my bed. Lena stayed standing. “Have a seat.” Lena sat at the end of my bed. I propped myself up so my back was leaning up against the head board.

“So, what happened with Tommy?” Did your little experiment go the way you wanted?” Lena laid her entire body across the end of the bed. She was so tiny that she almost didn’t have her feet hanging off the width of the queen size bed.

“It actually went really well, we really connected. To what extent I don’t know yet.”

“That’s great.” Lena seemed uncomfortable.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“This whole thing is nuts. I don’t even know what we’re running from. It’s becoming overwhelming.”

I looked straight ahead and nodded. “If I wanted to,” I said, “I could spend all day tripping out about all of this shit. But I can’t do that anymore. At some point, you have to accept that your life as you knew it is completely over. And now you need to make the most out of your new one.”

Lena reached her hand out to me.

I took her hand and held it. “You’re going to have to just let everything go, otherwise you will make yourself crazy. Everything that we have ever been taught is wrong. Our reality is what and how we are living today. We’re both 20 years old and have been given the keys to this world.”

“Have we?” Lena asked. “Have we been given the keys? Or did someone throw us in a cage and throw the keys away?”

“We have been given the truth, or at least what the truth is for us. People run around all their lives clinging on faith and hope. They never truly know if what they believe in is their true calling. They won’t know till they die. Not us. We get to live in our faith. We get to defend it.”

“I can’t believe you’re the same guy who questioned everything two months ago.”

“Well, turning into a vampire and needing those skills to save your life three times would make anyone a believer. I have to embrace all of this. It’s all I can do now. Otherwise, I’m fighting who I really am.”

Lena crawled over and laid down next to me. I put my arm around her back and she put her arm around my waist. We both let out a sigh at the exact same moment.

“I feel safe with you.” Lena tightened her grip around my waist. “I feel safer with you than anyone in my entire life.”

“Even Atticai?”

“Especially him.”

“Really?”

“I was always unsure of what he was doing. I thought I loved him, but in the end I think that was why I cared about him. The mystery.”

“I get it. You spend all your time trying to figure a person out. Before you know it, you find yourself having intense feelings and you’re never quite sure when it started happening.” In a way, I was referring to Lena. My uncertainty had led me to a place in my heart I never knew existed.

Lena adjusted her head so her face was at the same level as mine. My heart was beating very fast. This was the most intimacy we had ever shared. I looked deep into her eyes. My feelings for her were so intense. I didn’t know for sure what she truly felt about me and that was killing me inside.

“Josiah,” Lena paused.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Are you going to leave me?”

I took a deep breath. “Why would you ask that?”

“I need to know. When this is all over, do you plan on going away?”

“Lena, I will always be here for you.”

“Always?”

“Always,” I said.

“I believe you.”

“What are you afraid of?” I asked.

“You’re all I have, Josiah. I have no true friends, no more family.”

I nodded my head at her. “Lena,” I said, “we are forever bonded.”

“Is that all it is? A bond?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Are we only bonded by this experience?”

I calmly looked at her. “No, Lena. We’re not. I feel bonded with you by something way more powerful.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“So do I,” she said.

We were quiet. We had an amazing way of opening up to one another and then shutting down when it reached a certain point. Fuck it! I wasn’t letting it shut down this time. “You are becoming my world.”

“What about Yari?”

“I needed Yari and she needed me.”

Lena paused. “Why did you need her?”

“I needed her because she led me to you.”

We just stared at one another with a new kind of energy. It built up slowly and just held in the air like a bubble waiting to pop.

Lena leaned in and put her head on my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight.

“I might be falling for you, Josiah.” Lena looked up at me with tears in her eyes. I took my hand and gently wiped her eyes. I already knew I had fallen for her.

Chapter Eighteen

We had both fallen asleep and Lena’s head was still on my chest. As I slept, I could feel Lena gently touching me. She was touching my chest, my stomach, and my legs. It was like being brushed by an angel. This lasted for hours. I was going in and out of sleep each time feeling Lena’s touch. I’m not sure if she ever slept.

I looked at the clock on the dresser, it read 5:00 p.m. Tommy must have shown up by now. I didn’t want to leave the room. Lena was still gently rubbing my abdomen. I leaned up.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m great,” I said.

“Josiah,” Lena said

“Yes.”

“Why haven’t you kissed me?”

I paused. I really didn’t have an answer.

“Do you want to kiss me?” Lena asked

“Very much so,” I whispered.

“Okay, then.” Lena smiled.

This was it. My heart was pounding. I turned my head, and leaned into her face. In the dark she looked like a pixie with her short black hair. I very gently slipped my head closer to her mouth and softly kissed her lips. As our lips touched, I was overwhelmed by my senses. Every touch, every smell, seemed magnified. I took my right hand and placed it on the back of her head. She aggressively leaned forward, pinning me to my back. She was taking control and I was letting her do it.

She lay on top of me, kissing my face, my neck, and my lips. I could feel the fire burning from inside her. It was as if a tiger had been let out of her cage.

“Can I bite you?” she asked.

“Do whatever you want,” I whispered back.

Lena kissed the top of my forehead softly and made her way down kissing me inch by inch until reaching my neck. I was in complete ecstasy. She kissed my neck passionately. With each kiss, she tightened her lips more and more. Her kisses turned into nibbles and her nibbles turned into bites. She bit down and I let her. It was me giving myself back to her. She had trusted me and now I trusted her. The pain felt delightful. I wasn’t even sure what flowed through my veins now that I was a vampire. Whatever it was ignited her with passion. My entire body began to quiver. I was in complete submission to this woman. She had me; she had every inch of me. And I loved every second of it.

I had secretly longed for this moment for months. I never imagined that she’d be this daring, this adventurous. She stopped biting me and her mouth made its way back to my lips. My fluid was dripping from her mouth. I could feel whatever it was dripping on my chin. She then went back to kissing my mouth. I could taste my Mani blood inside her mouth. This was the hottest thing I’d ever experienced.

We continued kissing. I was very mindful to allow her to control the pace. Every now and then I would take a little bit of control and then release it back to her. Each time I had control, I held her tighter. I loved her deeper. Finally, I pulled her tightly to me. I gently flipped her over so now I was on top of her.

I kissed her chin, her cheek, her forehead. As she laid on her back, I kissed her neck and the top of her collarbone.

Lena once again took control. She took my shirt from the bottom position. She tore off her own tank top. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Our upper bodies were bare pressing up against one another; our skin sticking to each other. She kissed my neck, my face, my chest, she licked my stomach. As she did I tightened up my six pack, and that seemed to excite her. She began kissing every inch of my upper body. I just laid back and allowed her to discover me—to discover every bit of me—on her terms.

Her hand dropped and she cupped my groin. I was at full attention, and just the slightest touch put my entire body into an exhilarating euphoria that I had never experienced before.

I whispered, “Only do what you want to do.”

“Oh, Josiah. I’ve wanted to do this since high school.”

Lena slowly unbuttoned my 501 jeans and slid them off. She buried her face up against my boxers. Her hand slowly reached inside the peep hole, and she got a hold of me. She proceeded to pleasure me with her hand. She was gentle and attentive. I didn’t know if this was her first time experiencing a man, so I let her find her way. It was as if my body was her very own private amusement park. I was thrilled to be the main attraction.

She stopped before I could climax, and I didn’t care. I reached down and lifted her up so she was lying completely on top of my body. We kissed and kissed—we held each other tight. We were here, we were in the moment—and we were alive.

* * *

We laid there in each other’s arms. Seconds became minutes, and minutes became hours. I didn’t want to leave and nobody was going to force me. I wanted to lie there forever, and so did she. If there was a way to do it, we would have.

I had so much to say to her, but I had no idea how to tell her. All I could do is show her how much I cared for her until I was ready to share it out loud. She would know by my actions how I felt about her.

“You think we should get up?” Lena whispered. It was weird hearing her voice. Neither one of us had spoken in hours.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Almost six in the morning.”

“Wow, we have been lying here for a long time.”

“I know.” Lena got up and put on her black tank top. I put on my white t-shirt. She turned on the light and it felt like someone flashed a spotlight on our faces.

“Come here,” I said softly to Lena. Lena walked over to me and I stood up and hugged her. She pulled back and looked at my neck.

“Sorry about your neck, you have some hickey.”

I felt my neck and it was a tad tender. I smiled at Lena and said, “Next time I’ll have another taste.”

“Oh, you will?”

I grinned. “I’m going to see what Tommy is doing.”

“Okay.”

“Josiah?” Lena murmured.

“Yeah.”

“Can we keep this between us?”

“Sure. No problem. But the hickey is a big giveaway.”

Lena nodded and a part of me felt like maybe she was marking her territory as far as Yari was concerned. I opened the door and headed to the living room. Yari was duct taping the curtains and the doorways.

“Where’s Tommy?” I asked

“Your guess is as good as mine. He’s not answering his phone, and he should have been here a long time ago.”

“He never came over?”

“Nope.”

“Why didn’t you get me up?”

“The two of you seemed like you needed your rest.” Yari raised her eyebrows at my neck. “Apparently, there wasn’t much resting.”

I ignored her and continued about Tommy. “This isn’t good,” I said.

“Do you think he did something stupid?” Yari now appeared to be worried.

Hell, I was worried. “I wouldn’t put it past him. This sucks! It’s almost daylight and someone needs to go find him.”

“You can’t go,” Yari said. “You need to limit how many times you transition up here. This is a highly populated area. It isn’t like the Inland Empire. There are people everywhere up here. You’re not exactly discreet when you transition.”

“What should we do then?”

“I should go,” Yari was adamant about it. But Tommy was my best friend and if something had happened, I wanted to be the one to be there.

“He might have just gotten lost.”

“Or, he decided to take matters in his own hands with his old Carni counterparts.” Which was very much like Tommy.

“Lena should go with me,” Yari said.

“Why?”

“Because another pair of eyes would be good.”

I thought about it. “Okay,” I answered. “You guys should go quickly. Take Wyatt and Hector, ravens are little more common.”

“Hey, Wyatt!” I yelled. Wyatt was asleep on the couch.

“Where’s Hector?”

“Stop yelling. Hector’s asleep in the bathtub!”

“Wake him up. You all need to go look for Tommy.”

Lena came out of the bedroom and we told her about Tommy and she volunteered to go look for him. I told her to be safe and the four of them left to find Tommy.

I was still very tired. My body was telling me it needed to sleep. I went back into the guest room and laid down. I did not feel good about the situation

My eyes grew heavy. I closed them.

Suddenly, I heard, “why haven’t you left?”

I opened my eyes and once again I was outside the great white castle.

“Why haven’t you left?” It was the little blue gnome. He was standing over me as I was on my back.

“Should I have left?” I asked.

“You know the location. It’s now a matter of coming to see me.”

“Am I done with the wolf?”

“Have you tamed him?”

“I’m not sure. We connected, but...”

“But what?”

“I’m not sure if that was all there was.”

“What else could there be?” The gnome said looking down at me.

“I thought if we were able to tame him, he might be able to control when he actually turns into a werewolf.”

“You don’t believe that anymore?” The gnome asked.

“Should I believe that?”

“Always trust your intuition.”

“I have been.”

“Then don’t stop now,” the gnome said. And with that, I woke up instantly.

I had been asleep a long time and it was dark outside. These vampire sleeps are eerie. Time goes by a little too fast for my taste.

It was 8:30 p.m. and there was no sign of anyone. What the hell? They had been gone almost 15 hours. This was not good. What the hell was going on? I checked my phone and it was dead. Fuck, I forgot to charge it.

I got up and went outside Yari’s front door. I stepped onto the front porch and looked up to the sky. I knew shit was about to go down. I could feel it in my...well, veins. This was the calm before the storm. Tommy had done something stupid, now I knew it for sure. He had gone back to visit his old clan. I felt it deep in my soul. I closed my eyes and for the first time, I began to see picture frames.

They looked like little short three-second films. I could see Tommy. He was at the ranch where I had fought Goliath. He was surrounded by many Carni men. Dammit, I lost the vision. Shit!

I concentrated harder. I could now see a row of trucks. They were filled with Carni; they were riding out to the ranch.

My visions seemed to be skipping time. I wasn’t sure if my second vision happened before or after the previous one. I closed my eyes again. I could now see Yari and Lena. They were trying to talk to Tommy and he wasn’t listening. Shit! Tommy! Listen to them! You fucker! I lost the vision again. Once again, I closed my eyes and concentrated with all I had. I could now see Lena. The Carni’s had Lena!

Chapter Nineteen

I immediately transitioned into the white eagle and flew up into the sky. My large wings flapped rapidly and headed south to Orange County. I wasn’t sure how fast I was flying, but looking down at the cars below on the freeway I could tell I was going about five times faster.

I got to Anaheim Hills in mere minutes and wasn’t sure what time frame my visions were in. As I got closer to the ranch, I feared my last vision was the present. I looked down and could see an all-out war going on down at the ranch. What had Tommy done? He had put everyone in danger. Where was Lena? I circled the ranch. All my friends were isolated, the same way we did the werewolves the other night. I couldn’t see Lena!

Wyatt and Hector were fighting about six Carni each at the north end of the ranch. Yari had her hands full with a number of Carni women and from the looks of it, she seemed to be doing okay.

Where was Tommy? Where the fuck was Lena? I circled and scoped the ground.

I could see Tommy by the large trees fighting three of the bastards. Where the hell was Lena? I could see everyone except for Lena.

Then I spotted Goliath; he was between two trucks. He appeared to be wrestling someone much smaller than him—extremely smaller than him. IT HAD TO BE LENA!

She was fighting off the ogre. I didn’t think and just reacted. I lunged forward with a force so ferocious I felt like a heat-seeking missile crashing into a military target. As I bolted to the earth, I extended my wings for more acceleration. I was going to kill that overgrown piece of shit! I was about a hundred feet from piling into Goliath’s back with my sharpened beak when I heard Lena yelled out, “No, Josiah, it’s a set up!”

It was too late. Goliath turned around and was holding a ten-foot lead pipe in his hand. I tried to stop, but couldn’t. My momentum carried me forward like an out-of-control freight train. I was going too fast and was too out of control. There was no way to stop!

I tried to veer out of the way of Goliath, but there was no chance. As I came up on him, Goliath swung the lead pipe like Albert Pujols during batting practice and whacked me directly in my stomach. I ricocheted backwards off the pipe.

I fell to the ground about fifteen feet away. I couldn’t move. He had hit my stomach with the full force of the pipe. My stomach felt like it exploded. The pipe had torn up my insides and I could feel my bones breaking inside of my body. I was on my back and automatically transitioned from eagle to Mani. I laid on the ground, spitting out blood.

I couldn’t see anything. I could hear bodies surrounding me. I took my hand and felt my rib cage. All my ribs were broken. My Mani blood poured out of my mouth. There was nothing I could do and I was fucking helpless. What the hell! This wasn’t the way this was supposed to end.

I didn’t know what to do; I was dying and knew it. The pain was excruciating. I couldn’t just lay there and have Goliath kill me. I did the only thing I could do—broken ribs and split innards and all—I stood up.

I opened my eyes and could now see. All my friends were being held by mobs of Carni. Ten to one was the only way they could handle any of us. Well, except for me. All it took was Goliath and a lead pipe.

Lena broke free from her mob and ran toward me and another Carni grabbed her before she was able to reach me. “Josiah!” Lena cried out to bring me down and use my friends for bait, my lover.

What the fuck, Tommy. You led all of us to a fucking slaughter. I couldn’t stand any longer, I was too weak. I was in too much pain and I fell to my knees.

I looked to my right and saw Goliath slowly walking toward me, savoring each moment with each step he took closer to me. His back apparently was still hurting as he winced when he walked. I looked to my left and saw Tommy doing all he could to try to break free from his own Carni mob holding him back. There were too many of them. There must have been over a hundred Carni out here. They loaded up and we were all going to pay for it. Goliath walked up to me. “What happened, Eagle man? You don’t have any more magic?”

I was too weak to even concentrate. I couldn’t do anything. I was in too much pain. I looked up to the sky and called out into the night. I yelled out to whatever force—whatever had been giving me these visions to spare me. “Please,” I yelled out. “Not like this!”

Then I heard Tommy’s voice. “Josiah! I’m sorry!”

He can’t give up, I thought. Was Tommy giving up?

Goliath reached down with his giant hands and picked me up. He raised me over his head like a prized kill. With a giant warrior yell, he chucked my mangled body thirty yards in the air. I landed on the ground in a heap of misery. Every bit of me hurt. Every inch of me ached.

Wyatt and Hector had transitioned into ravens, but they weren’t able to get away. They were being held down like wild animals. They were put in steel birdcages that seemed specially designed to catch Mani birds. There was nothing any of us could do and the Carni knew it. So they let Lena go and she ran over to where Goliath had tossed me. They let her go for sick sport. To watch her see me die...

Lena dove on the ground next to me and held my head as I laid on my back. “Josiah, try and do something, anything. There has got to be something you can do.”

I looked up and saw my angel. I shook my head. “Lena, please leave. They have let you go; you can transition and get out of here.”

“I won’t leave you,” she said holding my head in her lap. “Just like the needlepoint picture in the cabin...”

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. I tried to remember where that saying came from. It seemed like it came from another life of Josiah Reign, one that happened so long ago that I began to forget who I was, as who I am took point.

The entire Carni mob had now made a wall around us. They all seemed amused that Lena seemed to care for me so tenderly. They were all calling out for Goliath to kill me.

Lena covered me with her body. “No one touch him!” she yelled. But Goliath once again made his way to me.

“Lena, if you love me, please leave!” I yelled.

“I won’t.” she said. “I’ll die here with you tonight.”

“Oh, you will die, sweet Mani ass. All of you will.” Goliath laughed.

I tried to sit up one last time, but I couldn’t. Goliath grabbed Lena and tossed her to the side.

I looked up and for the first time, I saw Yari. Our eyes met. She was saying something to me. Her lips were moving but I couldn’t hear her.

Then Goliath’s giant body was all I could see. Four other Carni came over and pinned down my arms and legs. Goliath had a silver stake in his right hand. He was going to kill me. He raised the stake up in the air and I could see it sparkle in the moonlight.

“Get him to his knees. I want to see him beg. I want to see his eyes as he dies.” Goliath got right in my face. “See these eyes; I want them to be the last thing you see before you go ‘poof’ in the night.”

Then he spoke to his Carni cohorts. “Hold his head tight.” And then looked back at me again, his eyes filled with hatred and menace, bloodlust and rage. “I’m going to pound this deep through your pretty little neck.”

Goliath snapped his fingers and someone had tossed him a sledge hammer.

This was it. He was going to kill me and there was nothing I could do. I had already cried out to the Triat. There was no way I was going to beg for my life. I was too weak. I inhaled air and with my last breath I yelled, “TOMMY! SAVE ME!” I turned my head to the crowd and could see Tommy’s eyes. He was still being held back, but I could see his eyes—his bright yellow eyes! TOMMY WAS TURNING!

Suddenly, Tommy howled at the top of his lungs!! Everyone stopped and looked at him! Then it happened! The freaking miracle happened! Everything came together in one moment; my visions, training Tommy, the bonding, everything.

“I’m coming, Josiah!” I heard Tommy’s voice inside my head!

In an instant, Tommy transitioned from Carni to a giant gray werewolf. Goliath stopped in his tracks and turned to face Tommy. Tommy had lunged forward in his werewolf form and began biting and throwing Carni around with his enormous canine mouth.

The four Carni’s had let me go to save themselves from this crazed werewolf. I just fell to the ground because I had no more strength. Tommy bit, clawed, and tore into every Carni in his path.

All the Carni who were still alive ran. And all the ones who died, disappeared. All except Goliath; he stayed.

“What kind of bullshit is this?” It’s not even a fucking full moon. What the fuck, Tommy? Did they make a Mani out of you?”

I watched as Tommy dove on top of Goliath. Goliath kicked Tommy off of him.

Tommy flew ten feet forward. Goliath charged into Tommy still holding his silver stake. Holy shit! If anyone can kill a werewolf with just a stake in his hand, it was Goliath. Tommy bit Goliath’s hand and he cried out in pain as the bones in his hand was crushed and then...he dropped the stake.

I was losing consciousness. Lena and Yari both ran to me. I looked up and saw both women. Yari looked down at me and told me what she was trying to mouth to me earlier.

“What is it, Yari?” I asked, barely being heard.

“Heal yourself, Josiah.”

“Heal myself?”

“It’s been done before. It might work.”

I looked up at Lena.

“Please Josiah, try.” Lena whispered. “It’s your only chance.”

I closed my eyes and placed my hands over my stomach where most of the pain was coming from.

I felt my own body. I put my hands over my injuries. I imagined my body healing itself.

Nothing was happening. I could heal myself as much as I could walk on water. Walk on water? Was that it? Did I need to submit?

Then I yelled out loud, “Please heal me.” It was less of a command and more of a prayer. I was saying it to whoever was in control. I may have been ‘The Chosen,’ but I wasn’t the one in control.

Then I felt an amazing peace come over my body. A power far greater than anything I had ever known. I could feel my ribs tightening. I could feel my legs and arms getting stronger. I must have had twenty broken bones in my body. Each one hardened, each one was being rebuilt.

I was still on my back, but not for long. Something supernatural was lifting me off the ground. I saw bright light going through me. I was floating in midair about ten feet off the ground. Something had taken over my body—something far greater than myself—far greater than anything of this world.

Yari and Lena had stepped aside. I looked up in the sky and I knew I was being blessed not by only the Triat, but by a higher power. My entire body had been healed. Then as fast as it happened, the light went away and I landed on the ground.

I stood up and felt taller, stronger, and more muscular than ever before. I felt like I could eat steel. I looked over at Goliath and Tommy. Goliath was manhandling Tommy and had gotten a hold of the silver stake again. He didn’t waste any time. He tried to stab Tommy in his chest, luckily he missed. He stabbed Tommy in his right shoulder. Tommy fell backwards and Goliath removed the stake from Tommy’s shoulder and raised the stake over his head to pierce Tommy’s heart.

That was not going to happen. In a blink of an eye, I flew over and kicked Goliath’s hand and the stake went flying. I looked over at Tommy and he was really hurt.

“Get Tommy out of here!” I yelled to Yari and Lena. Wyatt and Hector were still trapped inside the birdcages.

I jumped on top of Goliath and grabbed him with all my might. I held him with my hands and flew him up into the air. He was a giant beast, but I felt stronger than ever. Goliath punched me in the face in midair. I drop-kicked him and he fell to the ground from twenty feet up. The bastard was so fucking huge; he landed on his two feet.

I flew down to the ground and once again ate shit when I hit the earth. Damn, I needed to learn how to land. Goliath ran up to me and kicked me in the chest. I flew back five feet.

“All right, Goliath. Just you and me, no flying, no lead pipes. It’ll just be an old-fashioned street fight.”

“Are you serious? You will have no chance.” Goliath came at me with a haymaker and clocked me in my chin. I once again fell back, but didn’t fall to the ground and that seemed to really surprise the overgrown shithead.

I came back and kicked him in his chest. That was as high as my high kick would reach. He fell back a couple of steps.

“Screw it! Let’s box, motherfucker,” I said to Goliath and I stepped up and gave Goliath multiple five-punch combinations and landed nearly all of them. Goliath took each punch and seemed to love to get hit, he fed off it.

We then began trading punches. I would punch Goliath, and then his gigantic ass would punch me back. It was almost a test to see who could handle the better punch, who could withstand more pain. I was known for being able to take a punch, but this was ridiculous. His fists felt like lead pipes themselves.

We continued to battle. I hit his nose, he hit my right eye, I hit his mouth, he hit my chin. This went on for twenty minutes. Neither one of us would quit. This wasn’t going anywhere. This guy tried to kill me. He tried to kill Tommy. He hurt Lena. He deserved to die. I dug deep as I sensed Goliath finally tiring.

“Fuck the street fight!” Goliath said, tackling me with his enormous frame and I landed on my back, right next to the damn silver stake. Goliath jumped on top of me. I could see Wyatt and Hector charging him from about two hundred feet away. Goliath and I both grabbed for the silver stake at the same time. I got it first and rammed it directly into his heart. I struck him with all the remaining strength I had. His entire body landed on top of me. I pushed him off of me and he fell beside me. I rolled over and looked him right in the eyes and said, “Surprise, motherfucker!” It was he who would see my eyes with his last breath. As he took his last breath, he vanished as the others had before him. Hector and Wyatt came up on me. Hector leaned over and helped me up.

I walked over to Tommy. He was still a werewolf and bleeding badly. I placed my hand on my injured friend’s shoulder and simply said, “Please heal him, too.” Suddenly I felt a burst of heat leave my body and enter his. Tommy’s wound had been healed. Tommy instantly transitioned back to his Carni form.

“I should be pissed at you, Tommy,” I said. “But I think everything that happened tonight was according to plan.”

“You’re not the only one with visions, Josiah,” Tommy said.

“That’s what I figured.” I hugged my best friend.

Chapter Twenty

I was about to board my plane. I was at LAX Airport in Los Angeles.

“You sure this is what you’re supposed to do?” Tommy asked.

“I’m certain,” I said.

“Good luck, brother,” Tommy shook my hand. “You sure you don’t want me to go with you? What if the blue gnome turns out to be a weirdo?”

“I have to do this alone.”

Wyatt and Hector both came over to me and shook my hand.

“Hey,” I said to Wyatt and Hector, “you two look after my three favorite people in this world.” Wyatt and Hector both looked at me, sadly. “You two are definitely fourth and fifth,” I assured them and they both smiled. “Even though you both tried to kill me,” I laughed. “Kidding, I am just kidding.”

I grabbed my bag and Yari came over to me. “Hurry back, Josiah.”

“I will. I promise.” I gave Yari a giant hug. I looked behind her and saw Lena. She was looking at me with tears in her eyes. I dropped my bag and walked over to her. I smiled gently and said, “I’ll be back.” Lena looked up at me. I took my hand and wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Be safe, Josiah.”

I leaned over and kissed her on the lips. I held her tight in my arms. I didn’t want to let her go, but I knew I had to. At the same time we both let go. I turned around and picked up my bag and began to board the plane.

“Josiah,” Lena called out. I turned around.

“I love you.”

I stopped in my tracks and turned around to face her.

“You’re my heart, Lena. Forever and always.”

I turned and boarded the plane for Transylvania.

The End

To be continued in:

Forever and Always

(Vampire Love Story #3)

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About the Authors:

H.T. Night is the #1 bestselling author of the Vampire Love Story and Entwined series of books. He lives in southern California, where he’s hard at work on his next novel.

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~~~~~

J.R. Rain is an ex-private investigator who now writes full-time in the Pacific Northwest. He lives in a small house on a small island with his small dog, Sadie, who has more energy than Robin Williams.

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