Vampire Sun (Vampire for Hire Book 9), page 1
VAMPIRE SUN
by
J.R. RAIN
Vampire for Hire®
Book #9
Other Books by J.R. Rain
STANDALONE NOVELS
The Pale Cold Light
All the Way Back Home
Winter Wind
Silent Echo
The Body Departed
The Grail Quest
Elvis Has Not Left the Building
The Lost Ark
Broken Ice (with Matthew S. Cox)
The Spear (with Randy Keys)
Ice Wolf (with H.P. Mallory)
The Journey (with Piers Anthony)
The Worm Returns (with Piers Anthony)
Lavabull (with Piers Anthony)
Jack and the Giants (with Piers Anthony)
Dolfin Tayle (with Piers Anthony)
Dragon Assassin (with Piers Anthony)
Lost Eden (with Elizabeth Basque)
Judas Silver (with Elizabeth Basque)
The Vampire Club (with Scott Nicholson)
Cursed (with Scott Nicholson)
Ghost College (with Scott Nicholson)
The Black Fang Betrayal (with multiple authors)
VAMPIRE FOR HIRE®
Moon Dance
Vampire Moon
American Vampire
Moon Child
Christmas Moon (novella)
Vampire Dawn
Vampire Games
Moon Island
Moon River
Vampire Sun
Moon Dragon
Moon Shadow
Vampire Fire
Midnight Moon
Moon Angel
Vampire Sire
Moon Master
Dead Moon
Lost Moon
Vampire Destiny
Infinite Moon
Vampire Empress
Moon Elder
Wicked Moon
Winter Moon
Moon Blade
Sasquatch Moon
Wild Moon
Moon Magic
Moon World
Vampire Deep
Moon Matador
Sun Dance
SAMANTHA MOON CASE FILES
Moon Bayou (with Rod Kierkegaard)
Blood Moon (with Matthew S. Cox)
Parallel Moon (with Kris Carey)
SAMANTHA MOON ORIGINS
with Matthew S. Cox
New Moon Rising
Moon Mourning
Haunted Moon
SAMANTHA MOON ADVENTURES
with Matthew S. Cox
Banshee Moon
Moon Monster
Moon Ripper
Witch Moon
Moon Goddess
Moon Blaze
Golem Moon
Moon Maidens
VAMPIRE FOR HIRE SHORT STORIES
Teeth
Vampire Nights
Vampire Blues
Vampire Dreams
Halloween Moon
Vampire Gold
Blue Moon
Dark Side of the Moon
Vampire Requiem
Moon Love
Moon Musings
Moon Beast
Vampire Widow
VAMPIRE FOR HIRE
COLLECTED SHORT TALES
Moon Tales
Moon Shots
Vampire Vacation (coming soon)
VAMPIRE FOR HIRE EXTRAS
Vampire Alley (poem)
Moon Extras (Bonus Scenes)
Moon Dance (Deluxe Edition)
JIM KNIGHTHORSE SERIES
Dark Horse
The Mummy Case
Hail Mary
Clean Slate
THE WITCHES SERIES
The Witch and the Gentleman
The Witch and the Englishman
The Witch and the Huntsman (with Rod Kierkegaard)
The Witch and the Wolfman (with Rod Kierkegaard)
The Witch and the Hangman (coming soon)
NICK CAINE SERIES
with Aiden James
Temple of the Jaguar
Treasure of the Deep
Pyramid of the Gods
THE WATSON FILES
with Chanel Smith
Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Shakespeare
Sherlock Holmes and the Lost Da Vinci
Sherlock Holmes and the Werewolf of West End
WINTER SOLTSICE SERIES
with Matthew S. Cox
Convergence
Containment
Catalyst
Catacombs
ALEXIS SILVER SERIES
with Matthew S. Cox
Silver Light
Deep Silver
Silver Quarrel
Silver Cauldron
MADDY WIMSEY SERIES
with Matthew S. Cox
The Devil’s Eye
The Drifting Gloom
Dark Mercy
DEAD DETECTIVE SERIES
with Rod Kierkegaard
The Dead Detective
Deadbeat Dad
THE PSI QUARTET
with A.K. Alexander
Hear No Evil
See No Evil
Speak No Evil
Touch No Evil
THE SPINOZA TRILOGY
The Vampire With the Dragon Tattoo
The Vampire Who Played Dead
The Vampire in the Iron Mask
FOUR ELEMENTS TRILOGY
with Matthew S. Cox
The Elementalist
The Black Rose
The Wakefield Curse
THE ALADDIN TRILOGY
with Piers Anthony
Aladdin Relighted
Aladdin Sins Bad
Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman
THE WALKING PLAGUE TRILOGY
with Elizabeth Basque
Zombie Patrol
Zombie Rage
Zombie Mountain
THE SPIDER TRILOGY
with Scott Nicholson and H.T. Night
Bad Blood
Spider Web
Spider Bite
TEAM QUANTUM TRILOGY
The Accidental Superheroine (with Kris Carey)
My Big Fat Accidental Superheroine Wedding (with Kris Carey)
Accidental No More (with Matthew S. Cox)
SHORT STORIES
The Vampire on the Train
Easy Rider
Skeleton Jim
The Bleeder
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Dark Rain: Stories
Blood Rain: Stories
Black Rain: Stories
Red Rain: Forty-One Stories
Moonlight & Monsters: Ten Vampires Tales
For Young Readers
STANDALONE NOVELS
The Enchantress (with Randy Keys)
Spirit Mountain (with Alexandra Swan)
The Emerald River
Forever Silent
The Angel and the Gift
YOUR CHOICE BOOKS
Deep Sea Danger
The Legend of Eagle Eye Mountain
Playoff Pressure
THE ROBOT TWINS
The Mystery of the Walking Statue
The Secret of Stonehead Island (with Randy Keys)
KIDQUEST ADVENTURES
The Secret of the Sphinx
THE DISTANT WORLD TRILOGY
Dare to Enter a Distant World
Vampire Sun
Published by Rain Press
Copyright © 2014 by J.R. Rain
All rights reserved.
Ebook Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedication
To Sandra again...and again.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Reading Sample: Hear No Evil
Reading Sample: Zombie Patrol
About the Author
Vampire Sun
“We watch you from the shadows, sometimes from within your very homes. We watch you live your mundane, dreary lives...and
—Diary of the Undead
Chapter One
I was watching Judge Judy...and wishing I was her.
I didn’t wish I was very many people—in fact, very few—but she was one of them. No, I didn’t want to be on TV (that was, if I could even show up on TV, which I didn’t think I could without copious amounts of makeup), nor did I want to deal with the steady stream of derelicts who filled her courtroom.
I wanted to be confident like her. Fearless like her. Smart like her. Hell, I wanted to talk like her, too.
I checked the time on my cell phone. It would probably have been easier to check the time on my watch, had I owned a watch. The last one I’d owned had gotten destroyed on a case. Don’t ask. Now, I had my eye out for a shock-resistant, werewolf-resistant and demon-resistant watch. Maybe Timex made one.
My client was late, which I hated. But that gave me more time with Judge Judy, whom I loved. It also gave me more time to finish sewing up Anthony’s boxer shorts. These were the third pair of shorts I had mended today. I’d seen enough skid marks to last a lifetime. Hell, this last pair looked like an aerial shot of a drag strip starting gate.
But new boxer shorts cost money, and sewing the old ones was mostly free. And so, like the good mother I was, I powered through Anthony’s homage to Jackson Pollack, and sewed the gaping tear in the crotch area. I sewed quickly, deftly, never even poking my finger. The vampire in me heightened all my physical senses, even during the day, but more so at night. Now something as mundane as sewing was almost fun. I still got a kick out of what I could do. I was learning to appreciate who I was, or what I was.
I didn’t have much choice, of course.
I either appreciated my current condition or I went mad. I hadn’t entirely ruled out the latter. I was only ninety-eight percent sure that I wasn’t in a padded cell somewhere, wearing a straitjacket, rocking absently and drooling—looking, on second thought, a lot like Anthony when he played some of his video games.
As I finished sewing the shorts, I heard a car door slam in my driveway. Synchronicity at its best.
I quickly snipped off the thread with my weirdly sharp fingernails—nails that could never, ever be filed down damn them—and hurriedly tossed the shorts in Anthony’s room just as the doorbell rang. More good timing, as Judge Judy had just pronounced her latest verdict, a verdict I couldn’t have agreed with more.
I smiled, turned off the TV and headed for the door.
I’d like to meet Judge Judy someday.
Chapter Two
My client’s name was Henry Gleason.
He didn’t look like a Henry Gleason. To me, a Henry Gleason should be a big, chubby guy with a cherubic face who gesticulated a lot, and made “to the moon” comments.
This Henry didn’t gesticulate. He sat dourly in front of me. His aura was dour, too. Yes, I can see auras. I’m a freak like that. His aura suggested that someone had run over his cat.
“How can I help you, Mr. Gleason?”
I sensed, right off the bat, that there was something drastically wrong. Not even sort of wrong, but chaotically wrong. His aura was literally spitting fire, snapping around him like solar flares, or so many dragons breathing fire. I kept seeing the image of a small, pleasant-looking woman. These days, I got psychic hits with the best of them. I could also catch fleeting thoughts...words and images. But only those who were tuned into me could catch my own thoughts. This man, this stranger who was about to become anything but a stranger, was not privy to my thoughts. He also wasn’t privy to what I was. Or, rather, what I really was.
Judging by his mental condition—or lack thereof, as he appeared to have hit some sort of rock bottom—I doubted he would care what I was. Mr. Gleason needed help, and he would have taken it from the devil himself. Little did Henry Gleason know how close he really was to that.
“I need help...” he began, and that was about as far as he got for the next few minutes. He broke down completely, and his aura snapped and flared and shrank in on him. That Henry was a total mess, I had no doubt. Ever the good hostess, I pushed a box of Kleenex his way, although he didn’t see it at first.
I waited as he struggled to get hold of himself. I get this sometimes: clients who come into my office and lose it. Generally, it’s because a loved one is cheating on them. I don’t always take cheating spouse cases. The truth is, I wouldn’t take any of them if I didn’t have to. However, I had something called a mortgage to deal with. And a car note and bills and two kids.
And food...oh God the food. Who knew twelve-year-old girls could eat so much? Anthony I was prepared for. But not Tammy.
Anyway, I mostly took the jobs that came my way. Mostly. Some cases I turned down. Some prospective clients, however, I never heard from again. It sometimes turned out that they just needed a shoulder to cry on. So the sympathy seekers who came to my home office and cried and got it out of their systems, well, I never saw them again.
You win some, you lose some.
But Henry Gleason wasn’t airing his marriage’s dirty laundry. He wasn’t walking me through, step by step, his wife’s sordid affairs or the intricacies of her deception. No, he was weeping for one of two reasons: he was truly hurting, or he was putting on a show.
I would know soon enough which it was. And I was growing more certain it had to do with his wife.
No, I didn’t know all. I wasn’t God. In fact, I was about as far from God as one could get. But these days I could tell if someone was lying to me. It wasn’t very hard for me to learn their secrets. What exactly was going on here, I didn’t know. But one thing was becoming obvious: Henry Gleason wasn’t putting on a show. His pain was real.
So I waited. As I waited, I sent him a mental nudge to reach for the box of tissues which, after pausing briefly and cocking his head slightly, he did. He hadn’t known I had given him a mental nudge. It was probably better that he didn’t.
He blew his nose and gathered himself and said, “I’m a total and complete mess. I’m sorry.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
He tried to smile, failed miserably, and gave up. I noted his shaking hands and his darting eyes that never seemed to settle on anything longer than a few seconds, if that.
I decided to kick things off.
“What happened to your wife, Henry?” I asked.
“I-I don’t know. How did you know?”
“Never mind that,” I said, and gave him another mental nudge to drop it. I asked, “Did you hurt her?”
He looked at me sharply. “No. Never.”
His aura briefly flared green. A partial lie. Now I used my demon-given gifts to dip into his thoughts, and slip just inside his aura. Yes, I was cheating a little. Then again, the sun was also stolen from me, along with Oreos and cheesecakes, fettuccine alfredo and mango margaritas. Or mangoritas, which just so happened to be Allison’s favorite drink these days. So if the demon inside me—the thing that fueled this supernatural body of mine—could actually give me something back, could actually add value to my life rather than steal from it, then I would take it gladly. Lord knows enough had been taken from me.
“Cry me a river, Mom,” as Anthony would tell me these days. Kids, they grew up so fast.
Anyway, the ability to read thoughts was a decent trade-off for having to give up dinner at The Cheesecake Factory—not to mention the ability to quickly discern truth from lies was invaluable to my profession. I no longer had to guess if someone was jerking my chain or not.
Now, as I psychically slipped inside his personal space, without him knowing it of course, I dipped into his thoughts, which turned out not to be an entirely good idea. The guy was borderline losing it. No, correction, he had lost it. Weeks ago. He’d lost it when his wife had seemingly disappeared at a Starbucks just outside of Orange County, which I had pieced together from his own chaotic memories.
No, not quite chaotic. His mind, I quickly realized, was continuously looping the crime scene. Over and over, even for the few minutes I was inside his head, he relived his last moments with her.
Sit back, I commanded, relax.
Henry Gleason looked at me, blinked, and then sat back in my client chair. His thoughts calmed a little and I was able to piece together what I saw. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
