Samantha Moon Phantasm, page 22
part #9 of Vampire for Hire Series
Each time he did so, I hated myself more and more.
We’d been lying like this for the past two hours. I kept waiting for Anthony to drift to sleep, but he hadn’t yet. Every so often, he let out a pitiful, cat-like mew that broke my heart into a thousand pieces. My son had been reduced to a frightened, shivering newborn kitten, and it had been all my fault. Not to mention, he kept apologizing, over and over, which he did again now.
“I’m so sorry, Mommy,” he said into his pillow, and the words came out hoarse and barely discernible.
“It’s not your fault, baby.”
“But I let it out, Mommy. It was all my fault.”
Again, I told him it wasn’t and patted him and quietly wiped tears from my cheeks with my free hand. It was all I could do to not cry in front of my son. I knew that it was important to be strong for him now. He needed to know that his mother could protect him...from anything.
“Mommy,” he asked after a few minutes, “what was that thing?”
I knew exactly what it was. The Librarian had filled me in, and now I considered just how much to tell my boy. I decided not too much.
“It was something that can’t hurt you, baby. Not now. Not ever.”
“It asked me for help.”
He had told me this a dozen times before, but I let him get it out again, if he needed to.
“I didn’t know what it was. I know you told me not to touch anything, and not to listen to anything, but I...”
“I know, baby.”
“I guess I wasn’t expecting something to ask me for help...and it was coming from a book.”
“I know—”
“A book, Mom. Do you know how crazy that is?”
“About as crazy as it gets.”
“You were so busy talking to Max, and he was holding your head like you had a headache or something, and all I did was open the book...” His voice trailed off and he whimpered again.
I knew what happened next, of course. The voice had asked him to repeat a word or two. And my son had...and that had been all the demon needed.
At the time, I had been worried that something else might have happened, that somehow, my son had gotten possessed, but the Librarian had waved it off, insisting the demon was back where it belonged, sealed within the book. Still, I had him check out my son, although I wasn’t sure what we were looking for. Max had given my son a clean bill of health—or, rather, a clean bill of possession-free health.
Another hour of whimpering and patting and mewing later, my son finally turned to me and said, “I’ll be okay now, Mommy. You can go to bed now. Or go to work. Or whatever it is you do all night.”
I smiled and kissed him on his warm forehead.
Two hours later, after finishing up some work in my office and clearing out my email—I always wondered what people thought about getting emails from me at 3:28 in the morning—I found myself standing in the open doorway of my son’s bedroom, watching him sleep, relieved all over again that all seemed to be well.
That had been close, and scary as hell, even for me.
I was about to turn away—about to get some shuteye of my own—when my son rolled over onto his side...
And looked directly at me.
Except, he wasn’t looking.
He was staring.
I blinked, sure I was seeing things—and when I opened them again, his eyes were closed and he was sleeping soundly.
Rattled—and apparently still shaken from the night’s events—I headed off to bed.
Chapter Twenty-two
I couldn’t sleep.
And since dawn was still a few hours away, I stripped down in the shadows of my backyard orange tree, and transformed into something giant and alien and most definitely out of this world.
For those unlucky few, they would have seen a giant, hulking creature leap from the shadows of my back yard...and straight up into the sky, flapping its huge, leathery wings hard.
Now, I followed the coastline, which was always my favorite route. The cresting waves foamed and glowed under the quarter moon. The full moon was just under a week or so away.
When the werewolves play.
Well, some of them, at least. According to Kingsley, most werewolves tended to stay indoors and locked down, which made sense, since there really weren’t a lot of “vicious wild animal attacks” reported in Southern California.
There were, of course, dozens and dozens of missing persons in California...and just about everywhere else, too.
Kingsley called tonight and, in much coded language, had let me know that little was known about Gunther Kessler in the werewolf community. Kingsley suggested, in even more coded language (he never liked talking about this stuff over the phone), that many of his wolfie friends had been somewhat guarded when he approached them about Gunther. This confused Kingsley. He’d never known his friends to be guarded. He didn’t know what to make of it, and neither did I, although he told me again, for the umpteenth time, to be careful.
I flapped lazily, continuously.
I could have been a giant manta ray, sailing through the heavens. What I was, exactly, was not clear. I knew a creature from another world was summoned to be exchanged with my own body. A sort of parallel universe swap. I knew that my own body would be resting comfortably—and, hopefully, safely—in this other world. Presently, I did not have access to my human body, wherever it was. At least, I hadn’t figured out how to have access to it yet. Talos, on the other hand, did have access to his body here on Earth, a body he permitted me to take over completely.
Could I die in his world? I didn’t know. Could Talos die in our world? It was hard to say. I knew Talos could kill in our world, as we had done together on that remote Washington island, years ago.
It was, of course, enough to make my head spin.
We are together, and we are separate, Samantha Moon, came a deep voice inside me. And not just inside my head. It seemed to surround me, fill me. Your world is not used to the concept of duality. Or, rather unwilling to accept it.
Well, hello, Talos, I thought. Fancy meeting you here.
An earth idiom, I assume.
You assume correctly, I thought.
Your inability to understand duality is expected.
Because of the physical world we live in, I thought.
Indeed. Time and space render such concepts difficult to comprehend.
I thought: Well, few of us—outside of our most advanced mystics—will ever fully wrap our brains around the idea that we can be in two places at once.
And yet you are, in fact, in two places at once, Samantha Moon. I would even argue three.
You’re referring to my higher self, I thought.
Indeed, Sam. The higher self or soul or the spark of the divine or whatever you choose to call it, that which is truly you exists elsewhere.
Where?
Beyond the physical, in what some would call the energetic realms. Although, as a vampire, there is a chance that...
What, Talos?
That your soul may have been removed from what those of you call Heaven, to, instead, fully reside in you now. But I am not privy to such information, and cannot be certain.
I thought about that, and realized I didn’t know what to think about that. Instead, I asked Talos to tell me more about his world.
My world is a hybrid world.
And what the devil does that mean?
Both physical and spiritual exist side by side. We have long since mastered how to be in two places at once, and sometimes three or four places.
Now my head really hurts.
Careful, thought Talos, it’s my head, too. The truth is, your world is a hybrid world, too, although your kind is slanted primarily toward the physical. But at any time, humanity could make the leap to embrace the spiritual.
Well, don’t expect that any time soon.
You might be surprised, Sam. There is greater good going on in your earth than is presently being reported.
You would think, I thought, from the news we see that war is just around every corner.
And is it? Is that your experience?
No, I thought. But it’s the experience of others—
Not the vast majority of others, Sam. The truth is, a slight shift is occurring in your world as we speak. A shift toward peace.
Not if the thing within me has any say in it.
Oh, there will be a few who will fight the shift to their last breath...but their days are numbered. But do not think of this as a war, Sam. Remember what you were once told: defeat the enemy with love.
And how do you know what I was once told?
Because I am you, too, Sam. We are one in this moment.
And you have access to my memories?
Of course.
And I have access to yours?
If you so choose.
I’m not sure I can handle your memories, I thought. I kinda have a lot to juggle on my end.
So it seems.
What is a demon? I suddenly asked.
A lost entity, one that has been lost for so long that it chooses to never, ever find itself.
Were they good once?
It’s hard to say, Sam. They are from God, so of course they were once good.
Because we’re all one and all that jazz?
Exactly. But not all entities evolve. Some choose to do the opposite.
To devolve?
Something like that. But if you ask me, I secretly suspect such entities are fulfilling a role for God.
So they were created on purpose? I asked.
Perhaps, perhaps not. I do not know. I am only postulating an hypothesis.
And since when did giant flying vampire bats postulate hypotheses?
I might be the first. Well, here on earth. My kind, on my planet, are brilliant beyond words.
If you do say so yourself, I added.
He smiled.
Perhaps they were created to be a foil? I suggested.
Or to show us darkness.
Because without darkness...
You cannot see the light, finished Talos. But make no mistake, Samantha. Demons are real. They are powerful. And they are everywhere. Some believe the devil himself created the demons but that’s only half true.
Half true? And the devil is real?
Yes, Sam. At least, in your world.
Wait, what?
There is an entity that has risen to fulfill the role of the devil. This should not surprise you. With enough belief, anything can be summoned into creation.
Great. And what’s this half true business?
The devil created a version of the demon, mindless creatures to serve him.
You are saying there are two kinds of demons, then? Those who were created by God and are fallen, so to speak. And those who were created by the devil himself?
That’s about the whole of it.
Gee, thanks for that pick-me-up.
There was a long silence as I continued up the coast, now flying high above Santa Barbara. I would have to circle back soon, but not yet. In the far, far distance, I caught sight of something else. A shadow moving through the heavens. A shadow in the shape of a...
No, I thought. That can’t be.
But it was, I was certain of it.
It was a dragon.
Chapter Twenty-three
We were in my minivan.
I’d forgotten that this evening was “ghouls’ night out” as Allison liked to call it. I’d compromised with her and now here we were on a stakeout together...and she wouldn’t stop talking.
“Stakeouts,” I said, “are generally done in silence.”
“That was a rude thing to say, Sam. Besides, tonight was ghouls’ night out—”
“Will you quit saying that?”
She continued, without missing a beat, “—and you know damn well I look forward to this night all week. Besides, it’s also been a week since, you know.”
Yes, I knew well. It had been a week since I’d last fed from her wrist and I could feel the effects. A little lethargic. A little less than what I knew I could be. True, I’d drunk my fill of cow and pig blood from my supply in the garage, but it wasn’t the same. That was equivalent to living on McDonald’s. Eventually, it wore you down and sapped your energy. Sadly, normal food didn’t help. At all. I could eat ten scones from Starbucks and still feel depleted. I needed blood, and I needed it about every other day.
Yeah, a true ghoul, I thought.
I heard that, came Allison’s thought.
“You caught me,” I said. “And we’ll take care of that later.”
That being, of course, me drinking from her wrist, usually from the same old scar. Luckily for her, she healed almost instantly as soon as I pulled away from her. Vampire saliva had that effect.
We were sitting in the front seat of my minivan, parked in the same spot down the road, in front of a house that mostly appeared empty, which was why I had chosen it.
“Is he always this busy?” asked Allison.
“Not so far,” I said.
Indeed, we saw the silhouette of a man—Gunther, no doubt—flashing back and forth behind the glass of his front door. We saw lights turn on and off. At one point, we heard him in the garage.
“So what do you think he’s up to?”
“Hard to know,” I said.
“The full moon is in, what, three nights?”
“Two,” I said. “Sunday night.”
“Why don’t we, you know, confront him? Before he hurts someone else?”
“And make him tell me what I need to know?”
“Well...” she thought about that. “Yeah, I guess.”
“If he’s a werewolf—and it’s looking more and more like he is—then he’ll be as strong or stronger than me. Besides, if I confront him, he could go into hiding, or disappear altogether.”
“So you’re waiting to flush him out, or catch him in the act.”
“Something like that.”
“To think there are actually these things running around at full moons, hungry for people.”
“Most aren’t running around at full moons. Most are responsible. Most don’t want to get caught. Most lead fairly normal lives and want to continue leading them.”
“Like Kingsley,” she said.
“Right.”
“And maybe this guy, too.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“So you’re saying that they practice safe transforming?”
Sometimes Allison, despite her neediness and clinginess, made me laugh, which I did now. “Responsible transforming, yes.”
“I can see the public service announcement now,” said Allison and adopted a mock announcer voice: “Transform safely and comfortably in a padlocked cell deep beneath your home...”
“The More You Know...” I said.
Now, we were both snickering, although I really didn’t feel like snickering. Not after seeing what I had seen last night: Vlad Tepes, the escaped demon, and my son staring at me, although that last one could have been my imagination. Still, the laughter felt good, and it might have been my first laughter in the last 24 hours.
When we were done, we both smiled at an old lady walking her labradoodle past our parked minivan. She gave us a good, hard look, and I waved to her and smiled. So did Allison. The old lady didn’t smile back.
“She’s going to be trouble,” said Allison.
“Probably,” I said.
“Then why don’t you do your vampire-mind-trick on her? Or whatever you call it.”
“I don’t call it anything. Besides, I already called the Orange Police Department days ago. They know I’m in the area doing surveillance.”
“Gee, you private dicks think of everything.”
I was about to comment when I saw it again: a car sporting a mustache attached to its grill, driving slowly by.
“You see that?” I asked, pointing.
“What? The car with the mustache?”
“Yeah, that. What’s the deal with that?”
“I don’t know, but I feel like I’ve seen those before.”
“I have, too. In fact, three of them on this very street.”
“Three different cars?”
I nodded and thought about that and nearly Googled it again when Allison suddenly turned and faced me. My friend was quite lovely. Dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, caramel skin. She reached out and took my cold hand. I flinched involuntarily, as I always do when people touch me.
“There’s something about this case that you’re keeping from me, Sam. Something buried so deep that I can’t quite see it.”
“You don’t get to know all my secrets,” I snapped, pulling my hand free.
Allison, to her credit, didn’t take offense. She also knew that I could get pretty damn moody sometimes. She got it. She also knew when my snapping wasn’t about her. Of course, having a mostly open telepathic connection helped, too.
So instead of being hurt or snapping back, she blinked and calmly said, “Nor do I want to, Sam, but I can feel the conflict within you. It’s bubbling up to your surface, then sinks down again. I’ve felt it ever since you took on this case.”
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. I almost wished Gunther would make an appearance, just so I wouldn’t have to answer Allison’s question.
“That bad, huh?” asked Allison.
“I’m afraid so,” I said, and let the full extent of my misgivings percolate to the surface of my thoughts.
“Just know that I’m here for you,” she said. “And I don’t mean that in a needy way.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Bitch,” said Allison.
Had we been guys, I might have socked her in the arm. But we were girls so, I winked at her and blew her a kiss and she shook her head, then grew somber again. “So what gives about this case?”
I drummed my nails on the steering wheel...and decided to come clean. “I’m just having a hard time caring,” I said.
“Caring about what?”
“About catching Gunther Kessler.”
“But...but you have to care, Sam.”
