Samantha Moon Phantasm, page 109
part #9 of Vampire for Hire Series
“I hit a nerve, I’m sorry,” said Rand.
“It’s not you, it’s just that...”
“The garlic is affecting you more and more?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t like that?”
“No.”
“Because it means you are slipping more and more to the dark side?”
“If that’s what it means, yes,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes and no. But it does mean that you’ve been at this vampire game for a long time now.”
“Eleven, twelve years.”
“You’ve been undead for over a decade.”
“Dead, undead. It’s subjective.”
“Can you read my mind, Sam?”
I blinked at the question... and tried to dip in. Tried being the operative word here. Although I sensed his thoughts, dipping in seemed, suddenly, a nearly impossible task. Maybe if I tried hard enough... except I didn’t feel like trying harder. I felt like I wanted to... sleep.
“I can’t. And I feel weird.”
“You feel tired?”
“Yes. Is it the garlic?”
“That and the proximity of the silver.”
“Great. I’m even more of a weirdo now.”
Truthfully, I knew this day would come. The garlic thing had been getting worse. These days, I couldn’t even go down the produce aisles without feeling shaky and weak. The other day, at Trader Joe’s, I’d even blacked out a little. I’d been keeping my reaction to the bulbous root on the down-low. I was freaky enough as it was.
“Please, put it away.”
He did so, tucking inside his shirt and sitting back. Immediately, I felt a wave of relief. “Don’t worry, Sam. It won’t get much worse than it is now. The garlic merely acts as a deterrent, a buffer, if you will. More than anything, it levels the playing field.”
“You could kill me now, and I couldn’t defend myself.”
“Oh, you could. Like I said, it levels the playing field, not destroys it.”
“Until you whip out the silver,” I said, nodding toward both hips and his right underarm, all of which I could feel the silver radiating from, coming at me in short, hot bursts.
“Ah, you can feel the silver, too?”
I nodded, suddenly realizing just how vulnerable I was.
“A handgun under my arm, and two daggers at my side. There’s a crossbow and silver-tipped bolts in the rental car.”
“And you’re giving me this rundown, why?”
“Because I don’t trust vampires.”
“Not even me?”
He stared at me long and hard, and his eyes, I realized were bluer than I remembered. Or maybe they were icier. Or deader. “No,” he said.
“I have no intention of hurting you,” I said.
“Nor do I.”
“Then can we ditch the scary talk?” I asked. “You might deal with some real shitheads, but I’m not one of them. I fight this thing in me every day, and, so far, I’m winning.”
“Until you don’t.”
“I don’t intend for that to happen, Rand. Ever.”
“Forever is a long time, Sam.”
“It’s my fight and no one else’s.”
“I know, Sam.”
“You know what?”
“I know who is inside you, and I know why she is inside you, too.”
“You get around.”
He shrugged. “Some vampires try to talk their way out of the inevitable. I listen.”
I nodded. “Then you—or your family—would be stupid to do something to let her out again.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“Besides, we are past all of that, right?”
“You helped me find my kidnapped daughter,” he said. “And for that, I will be eternally grateful.”
“Am I still on your no-kill list?”
“You, and others you know.”
“Then you will be excited to hear that you’re on my no-kill list, too.”
He grinned at that. I knew Rand now led the Brotherhood of the Blade, a group of elite assassins who made a habit of targeting the worst of the worst. His team was well-trained, well-armed, and ready for just about any situation. I suspected he had a team member nearby, keeping a lookout, which was customary. No members traveled alone, if they could help it, not even their fearless leader. Rand was a man who had launched a silver-tipped bolt into my shoulder and basically wrecked my night. In return? He got a free trip to Hawaii. Hardly even fair. Maybe he owed me one. Or two or three, since I also helped test their castle’s security and tracked down his brother’s killer. Is it possible that I’m too nice?
One didn’t just become an elite vampire hunter, overseeing a crackerjack team stationed in Switzerland. Rand’s journey had been long and torturous, a journey I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. Of course, a half a decade ago, I had thought Rand was my worst enemy. But as damaged as he was, as hurting as he was, he had accepted me for who I was. Good for me, literally. Maybe even good for him, too. Turns out, I can kinda hold my own in a fight, garlic be damned.
“I’ve been hearing stories about you, Sam.”
“That I’m a great mother? That I can still make a helluva garlic-free spaghetti sauce, or so I’m told. Tastes like tangy mush to me, though.”
He laughed. “Are you quite done, Sam?”
“My list goes on.”
“I’m sure it does. Is the devil’s destroyer on your list of accomplishments?”
I ducked at the question, glanced around. That the world was now absent its devil was something few realized. That people still believed in him was troubling. With belief, a dark one would step forward again and fulfill the role. At least, that’s what I was told. For now, though, the world was devil-less, and, yeah, I supposed I knew the reason why. Okay, I was the reason why. I had personally killed the devil with a sword called, fittingly, The Devil Killer. Matter of fact, I still had it. Matter of fact, it was on my person now, hidden in a secret compartment that was technically a mini-parallel world. Why did I have it? Technically, I was still on the job as the Angel of Death’s right-hand woman. Yes, the devil may be dead, but his many demons—created by him—were still on the loose. Call it mop-up duty. That said, the sword helped vanquish them. My new wings—presently in the form of black tattoos on my back—evened the playing field.
I’ll say it again. I have to say it. Such words keep me grounded...
My life is weird.
I told Rand that he’d heard correctly, and gave him as much of a rundown as I felt he needed to know. And when I finished, there might have been some awe on his face. I’ll admit, I liked seeing awe on his face. He bowed slightly and said, “Regarding the demons, I would like to formally offer you the services of the Brotherhood of the Blade.”
I was grateful for the offer, but I said, “Demons are hard to kill.”
“Perhaps, but we can aid you in other ways. We can hunt them, track them, report back on them. The world would be a far better place without these bastards.”
Of that, I had no doubt. Since my battle with the devil three months ago, I hadn’t heard again from Archangel Azrael, nor had I battled any actual demons, both of which were probably good things. I had a meeting tomorrow with Anthony’s principal, and I didn’t need to go in there fresh off a demon kill. (Anthony had “accidentally” driven the school’s bully’s head into a locker door.) Besides, I wasn’t sure what my parameters were just yet. Meaning, did I just kill any ol’ demon I spotted? Or did I wait for an official hit list from the Angel of Death? I suspected I would be used as needed, and when needed. One thing I knew: the demons were free radicals now, meaning, their leader and creator was gone. They were left to their own devices, and the devil had created many, many of them. Hundreds, from what I understood. Did they all have to die? I mean, were they all terrible? Did any of them have any redeeming qualities? I didn’t know, but the ones I had seen made the Dementors in Harry Potter look like Casper the Friendly Ghost.
“Thank you, Rand, but I’m sure you are busy with your own agenda.”
He nodded and reached inside his jacket. I held my breath, although that wasn’t saying much since I didn’t officially need to breathe. When a well-armed vampire hunter reaches inside his jacket, vampires should hold their breath and prepare themselves for anything. I exhaled when he pulled out a small note.
“You okay, Sam?” He gave me a sly grin. Truce or not, I thought the man in front of me had a real hate for vampires—and, for good reason—and it was all he could do to uphold his end of the bargain. That he put a scare into one just now was, well, amusing to him.
“I think my heart might have stopped.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s a saying, and you would do well to remember that I’m one of the good ones.”
“I know, Sam. I admire and respect you.”
“But sometimes you don’t?”
“Sometimes, you scare me, too.”
“I scare you?” I asked.
“Of course, Sam.”
“I’m five-three and cowering at your necklace of garlic.”
“It’s not your height, Sam. It’s that you are even cowering at the garlic at all. It just shows how far you’ve descended.”
“Ouch.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. But it is obvious you are different from even the last time I saw you, a few years ago.”
“Different how?”
“It’s your eyes. They are not... human. No, they are far from human. The fire dances there almost permanently now, easy enough to see in this darkened room. Worse, you are forgetting to blink more and more. When last we met in L.A., you blinked often. You blinked almost normally. Now, not so much.”
“Well, you know what I am, so why bother?”
“Exactly. Your disregard to maintain normalcy is... intimidating.”
“You are intimidated?”
“Yes.”
Okay, for some reason, that sent a thrill through me. Geez. Maybe I had descended further than I thought. I motioned to the paper. “Can we just get back to the list?”
“Right.”
As he pushed it in my direction, I spotted the various names on it.
“It’s a hit list,” I said.
“Yes, Sam.”
“Vampires?”
“And werewolves. One Lichtenstein creation. And one merman.”
“Merman?”
“Him, in particular. We have evidence of his misdeeds for many, many decades. Over a century, in fact. He’s a ruthless killer, and needs to be stopped.”
“You plan to track him in the ocean?”
“Many of the mers are land-based, Sam. Like many of the weres, they can shift at will. There is evidence of him hanging out in Huntington Beach.”
“The kayakers...”
“Likely victims.”
I blinked. Mermaids and mermen were popping up now in my experience. Great. And, one of them, Kingsley had actually been married to in the last century. Married.
“And you plan on killing this merman?”
He held my gaze. “Yes, Sam.”
“Does the garlic work on him, as well?”
“We do not know that, not yet. We’ll see. We’ve only recently added other creatures to our kill list.”
“Lucky for them.”
“Very far from lucky, Sam.”
“Do you enjoy killing?” I asked.
“I enjoy keeping people safe.”
I knew he was lying, of course. The instant I had asked the question, a darkness rose up in his aura—Rand was human, after all, and his aura was obvious to me. The darkness was... interesting. I suspected all the killings had attracted a low-level entity—not a dark master—perhaps your everyday serial killer. It appeared and hovered near the surface, then slinked away to be reabsorbed in the otherwise bright green and red aura.
“You can see him, can’t you, Sam?”
Of course, I knew what he was talking about, and he knew what I was looking at. “Yes.”
“It’s a man, I think. I can feel him sometimes, hear him other times. He takes great delight in my killings.”
“I see.”
“It’s not possession, Sam. It’s attraction. He just hangs around, or so I believe.”
It reappeared now, poking through the swirling staticky light surrounding his body. It dipped down below the roiling, ethereal colors. Such deep dives meant more than just a passing attraction. This thing was worming its way into him. How deep and how much influence it had on Rand, I didn’t know. But it was there, and it was something to watch out for.
“How bad is it, Sam?”
“He’s deeper than you think.”
He nodded. “I will deal with him, whoever he is. For now, I have bigger fish to fry.”
“A merman pun?”
“No, but it is now.”
I grinned. “And why are you showing me this list?”
“Simple, Sam. I respect you, and I respect your friends, too. You are doing good work out here, amazing work, unheard-of work.”
“You’re referring to my killing the devil and hunting his demons. Not my time following cheating husbands.”
He smiled. “The former. I don’t want to detract from that.”
“By inadvertently killing one of my friends?”
“In a word: yes. Know anyone on the list?”
I took it and scanned it. There were nine names on the list. Two with “W” next to them, and one each with “M” and “L” next to them. I instinctively understood the letters to mean werewolf, merfolk and Lichtenstein monster. The name corresponding with the “M” was Barnaby. It was a name I didn’t know. Neither did I know the others. I pushed the list back.
“Kill to your heart’s content.”
His was a dark grin, with just the corners of the lips moving, if that. And somewhere, deep, deep, deep inside his pupil, I might have seen a flash of light. His love for killing had opened him up to other dark forces that loved killing, too. I didn’t need to read his mind to see it. There was going to be blood spilled—and soon—and it was going to be immortal blood. He might have been born into the hunter’s bloodline, but this crazy son-of-a-bitch killed for the thrill of it, too.
“Now that we have that out of the way,” I said, “I want to talk about my sire.”
“What do you want to know, Sam?”
“I want to know why you gave his medallion to me.”
Chapter Twenty-one
He didn’t ask for clarification. He didn’t ask me to repeat myself. Rand knew what I was talking about, and he leveled his considerable gaze at me. “Easy, Sam. He asked me to.”
Like an allergic reaction, my tongue suddenly seemed too big for my mouth. But it wasn’t allergies, since I hadn’t had a sniffle in over a decade. When I finally found my voice, I asked, “What else did he say?”
“You’re emotional, Sam.”
“Do you care to share?”
Truth was, I wasn’t sure how I felt about Rand in this moment. That he had extinguished the light of an amazing man, I had no doubt. But I also knew that Rand was just doing his job, fulfilling a role he’d been compelled to do for some time. And not just him... his bloodline. No reason to add this extra burden on the man, not that I cared too much if Rand carried such burdens. It just seemed... unnecessary, and a part of my life I didn’t feel inclined to share with a man who had killed my one-father, even if he hadn’t known J.C. was my one-time father. Then again, had he known, I doubted he would have cared, since, at the time, I had been his next target anyway. Just too much to process, and Rand wasn’t the man I wanted to process it with.
Despite my reservations, he was right. I was emotional, and there was no holding it back. Not now. Not anymore. “I can’t do this,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Be civil,” I said.
“I don’t under—”
“You killed him, you motherfucker.”
He blinked, sat back, and made an unconscious movement toward his jacket, stopping just short of reaching inside, which was a damned good idea, probably for both of us.
“You killed a great man and a loving father, a man who doggedly pursued the worst piece of shit on this planet. You killed him because it was in your fucking blood. You killed him because, yes, I can see you enjoy killing, no matter how much you claim it’s your heritage. You’re a cold-hearted, reckless, murderous piece of shit.”
“Sam, calm down.”
“The only thing keeping me from killing you now is the very man whose life you extinguished. He was a good man who hurt no one, ever. Who lived to avenge my death.”
“I know that now, Sam. Please, you’re making a scene.”
His hand was in his jacket, where the revolver was. Truth was, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to rip his throat out. Yes, I was weakened by the damn garlic and a proximity to silver, but fuck all that. I would fight through it, and I would fight him, too. No matter that he was nearly as fast as me, no way was he as strong, and no way could he stop me. No way, just no way...
I felt the tears streaming. The injustice of it all was just too much. I made to stand, but a hand lashed out and grabbed my wrist; it was Rand.
“Please, Sam. Don’t leave.”
I nearly ripped my hand away, but I sensed his strength. Wow, was he strong. But it was the look in his eyes that got me to finally, finally take a deep breath. Then another.
“Please, Sam. Sit.”
I did so, slowly, noting all eyes were on us. Hell, even the music had stopped. The manager, I noted was coming our way, until I gave him a quick suggestion that he had to pee, and badly. He crossed his legs and grabbed his pee-pee, and veered off toward the restrooms.
“You do that?” asked Rand.
