Samantha Moon Phantasm, page 28
part #9 of Vampire for Hire Series
The pop came again...and it worked much better than I had hoped. When I opened my eyes again, Elise was still holding me tightly, and now we were standing in the shadows of the sign, just a few hundred feet from the town of Arrowhead.
Next, I slipped inside Elise’s mind and removed all her memories of the night. I replaced them with a suggestion that she had been lost for the better part of this day. I told her to count to ten before opening her eyes again, and to head straight into town. I told her to give her marriage another chance and reminded her that her husband loved her deeply.
And then, I was out of her mind and, shortly, amazingly, I teleported myself back inside my minivan, in Gunther’s driveway, not entirely sure I hadn’t dreamed all of this.
I started the van and drove home.
***
I headed straight to my sister’s and gathered up my kids.
I bought two Hot N’ Ready pizzas at Little Caesar’s on the way home. One for Anthony and one for Tammy and myself.
Once home, I told them they could watch whatever they wanted, just so long as we watched it together. They looked at me funny. Then again, they usually did.
Tammy’s hangover was mostly gone, and if I ever thought the words “Tammy’s hangover” again, I was going to cry.
In fact, I did cry. With my kids on either side of me, both munching on pizza and with the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie on Netflix, I cried quietly, holding both of their hands, and not releasing them.
Tammy looked at me at some point, obviously wondering what had gotten into her mother, then her eyes widened in horror at what she must have seen in my thoughts. I shook my head slightly and motioned toward the TV.
She set her pizza slice down and curled up next to me, holding my hand tightly.
We would deal with her drinking later. But we would deal with it with love. All the love I have...and then some.
The End
Samantha Moon returns in:
Moon Shadow
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MOON SHADOW
by
J.R. RAIN
Vampire for Hire #11
Moon Shadow
Published by Rain Press
Copyright © 2016 by J.R. Rain
All rights reserved.
Dedication
To Jason and Alberto.
You two clowns make life interesting.
Acknowledgment
A special thank you to Mariah! Welcome aboard!
Moon Shadow
Chapter One
I was missing Judge Judy, and I wasn’t happy about it.
Instead, I was being treated to a ninety-nine-cent cup of coffee at a McDonald’s in a city called Lake Elsinore, which boasts the biggest natural lake in Southern California. The problem with Lake Elsinore is that it’s in Lake Elsinore. One has to drive out of Orange County (where I happily live) through 60 miles of desert (where I had no business living), and there, shimmering like a mirage, is an honest-to-God lake. It sits at the foot of a mountain chain called, inexplicably, the Cleveland National Forest.
The city of Lake Elsinore is rough around the edges. It sports a downtown that feels forgotten and dismal. It also sports a lot of homes that have beautiful views of the lake, homes that look just as dismal and forgotten. Which is strange. In Southern California, any home with any sort of water view, be it a beach, lake, pond, inlet, outlet, river, stream or reservoir, is worth, exactly, ten million dollars. Give or take.
But not here. In Lake Elsinore, homes with a lake view seem to be an afterthought. In fact, one gets the impression that the residents of Lake Elsinore don’t fully appreciate the beauty of the lake—or the sheer unlikeliness that such a body of water would be out here anyway. Had this lake been in, say, Orange County, lakeside restaurants with shaded patios would abound, and so would storefronts boasting designer doggie treats. In no time flat, had this lake been in Orange County, few people would actually have access to the lake... unless they paid for it.
The man sitting across from me was Roy Azul. He was the owner and operator of a group of vacation cabins along the west side of the lake. He was also friends with Detective Sherbet. When I asked how he knew Sherbet, Roy explained that he and the detective were part of a model aircraft flying club. I made a mental note to ridicule Sherbet about that. Then added a follow-up note to make sure I did so to no end.
“Sherbet said you could help me.”
“Sherbet is paid to say that—in greasy pink donuts, no less.”
“He also said you could be sassy, and that you would mention the pink donuts.”
“Maybe Sherbet is a mentalist,” I said. “Whatever that is.”
Roy was dressed in cargo shorts and a black t-shirt, wearing one of those old-school paperboy, duck-billed caps that I think are actually cute. Roy looked good in the hat. Then again, most everyone did. In particular, Roy looked relaxed, calm, and excited to talk about whatever was on his mind. Sherbet wouldn’t tell me details. Sherbet had called yesterday and said he had a job for me, if I wanted it. He only told me that it wasn’t another cheating spouse case and that I should get a kick out of it. Sure, I could have plumbed Sherbet’s mind—even through a phone line—but I let him have his fun and his little secret.
So here I was, in the back of beyond, sitting across from a lake no one seemed to care about. His “fun” had cost me my afternoon and a half-tank of gas. Not to mention, I had to make arrangements with Mary Lou to pick up my kids. That is, if Tammy even finished school today. These days, she missed more classes than she attended, and was proving to be a major pain in my ass.
“Thank you for meeting me,” he said. “I know you came from Orange County, but Sherbet thought it would be important for you to see the scene of the crime, so to speak.”
“Sherbet seems to have this all figured out.”
“Not exactly. When I told him about it, he only laughed. Most people laugh, which is why I quit talking about it. Except now, I’ve seen it twice—and both times after I’d seen it, someone in town went missing.”
“Okay,” I said. “This just got a little more interesting.”
“Sherbet says that you sort of specialize in the strange and the unusual. The Queen of Strange, he called you, actually.”
“Did he now?”
“I don’t think he meant any harm by it. He said it sort of, I dunno, endearingly.”
“Well, as long as it was said endearingly. So how can I help you, Mr. Azul?”
“Please, call me Roy.”
Yes, I could have dipped into his mind, but I decided not to. At least, not yet. These days, I dip into minds when needed, and, in turn, kept mine mostly locked up. No more accidental telepathy for me, thank you very much. In fact, the less often I used my powers, and the more often I embraced my humanity, the more the demon within me lay dormant. No, she wasn’t really a demon—more of a highly evolved dark master who’d been banished from Earth by forces much greater than her. Or me. Except she—and others like her—had figured out a loophole back into Earth. The loophole? The possession of others. And possession by such powerful forces led to vampirism, lycanthropy, and other supernatural oddities.
And, yes, I was a supernatural oddity.
Anyway, she liked for me to read the thoughts of others; she liked for me to control others, to use my great strength, to hurt and kill and destroy. Mostly, she liked when I fed on others. Oh, yes. She really, really liked when I fed on others. Human blood gave her strength and boldness. It gave her, in fact, the ability to control me, too. But no more. Now, I’d learned to use my powers sparingly. To fly sparingly. To use my telepathy sparingly.
But most of all—which frustrated her to no end—I quit feeding on humans. Live humans, dead humans. Any human.
All of which had weakened her and reduced her to nothing more than a very bad memory. But she was still there, waiting in the shadows of my mind, waiting for me to screw things up, waiting for me to let her in through that cracked door. What happened once she got in, I didn’t know. But Samantha Moon, as I know her to be, as I know myself to be, might just cease to exist altogether.
“How can I help you, Roy?”
He looked at me. I looked at him. He seemed about to speak, thought better of it, then shut his mouth. I nearly gave him a telepathic prompt to start speaking, but I waited. Patience was good for the soul.
He nodded to himself, clearly conflicted, then steeled himself, looked at me, and said, “Do you believe in monsters, Ms. Moon?”
Chapter Two
“Call me Sam, and why do you ask?”
His hesitancy returned. I might have shot him a “Go on” prompt, but I’d never admit to it. Finally, he said, “Well, if you laugh at me, you wouldn’t be the first. Even Sherbet had a chuckle or two. Or five.”
I waited. McDonald’s smelled like McDonald’s: grease and potatoes and frying meat, coffee and recently mopped floors. Two kids were running in circles around their mother. One of the kids stopped and stared at me, then continued running, although flashing me furtive glances. I get that sometimes: kids who just somehow know.
“Okay, here goes,” said Roy.
“The anticipation is killing me,” I said.
“Really?”
“No. Spill the beans, unless you want me to wrestle it out of you. Be warned, I give wicked noogies.”
He chuckled. “You’re right. I’m making it bigger than it is, I guess. Weirder than it has to be. Okay, here goes: I’m pretty sure—no, damn sure—that I saw a lake monster. Twice.”
“Now,” I said, “that is pretty big and weird.”
“I knew it!”
“So to clarify, you did say lake monster and not late mobster. As in the ghost of Al Capone?”
“Correct, lake monsters. As in Loch Ness, I guess.”
“I think I would have preferred you’d seen Al Capone.”
“Honestly? Me, too. This thing has really rocked my world.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess we’re really doing this. Tell me about the lake monster.”
And so he did, and somehow, kept a straight face while doing so. The first sighting had been two weeks ago, when the first young boy had disappeared. Yes, I’d heard about the missing boys. They had disappeared a week apart—and each was still missing. In fact, a part of me was not very surprised when Sherbet had sent me out to Lake Elsinore. The city had been in the news, and I would have bet good money that the case would have been tied to the missing boys. Not lake monsters.
Moving on. Roy told me that he had just finished giving his cabin guests a tour of the lake—Roy, in fact, ran the only lake tour in town. Roy was busy tying up the boat for the evening... when the hair on the back of his neck stood on end... followed by a feeling of being watched. He turned, and spotted a strange ripple in the water. And there, just beneath the surface, was a dark shape. A shadow, he called it. A very, very long shadow. It circled around the prow of his boat, then went under the dock itself. He didn’t know for sure, but then he watched it turn to starboard. Then the shadow headed out for deeper water... and that was it.
I studied his aura: bluish with splashes of yellow. He was telling the truth. Or, at least, what he believed was the truth.
“How long?”
“Longer than my boat. Maybe thirty feet.”
“What time of day was this?”
“Evening. It was the last tour. It was getting dark, but there was still enough light to see.”
“How long would you say you saw it?”
“Twenty... thirty seconds.”
“And you’ve never seen anything like that before?”
“Hell, no. And I’ve lived in Elsinore all my life. Been boating on it all my life, too. Seen nothing like it.”
I nodded, picked up the McCup and took another McSip of the McCoffee. It tasted McHeavenly. I said, “Is that about when the first boy went missing?”
He nodded, looking scared and foolish and desperate. “Disappeared that night.”
I nodded. “Tell me about the second incident.”
He did. The incident took place about the same time, early evening. This time Roy was out fishing with a longtime customer. The lake had been flat, like smoky glass, as he recalled. His customer had been digging around in the cooler for a beer when the entire boat suddenly lurched, Roy nearly dropping his pole. He leaned forward, looking over the rail, just as the massive shadow rushed underneath. His guess: the thing was going about sixty knots.
“I assume that’s fast?” I said.
“Almost seventy miles an hour.”
And I almost said he could have omitted the ‘almost’ and just said seventy miles an hour, but I kept my mouth shut. “And your friend didn’t see it?” I asked.
“You blink and you miss it.”
“Because it was going seventy knots.”
“Right.”
“Did you tell him about it?”
“I did.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he felt the bump but saw nothing. He figured it was probably floating debris or the shadow of a passing cloud overhead.”
“Were there clouds that evening?”
“There were.”
“And was there debris in the water?”
He hesitated. “There was, actually. A long branch floated nearby.”
I nodded, and decided not to point out the logic of his friend’s theory. Instead, I did what any good investigator would do who could read minds: I dipped into his thoughts. I didn’t have to go very far. Right there, front and center was the shadow moving under his boat. He was right. It was a damn big shadow, and it didn’t look like any tree branch or reflecting cloud formation. It looked, if anything, like a giant worm. He was telling the truth. Then again, how trustworthy was his own memory? We would see.
Roy was saying, “Ms. Moon. This was no cloud shadow or tree branch. This was huge, and it was living, and—”
“And I believe you.”
“I’m not crazy, Ms. Moon. I—I’m sorry, you what?”
“I believe you.”
He took in some air, exhaled, then took in a lot more. “Wow. That’s... that’s refreshing to hear.”
“I imagine so. Have there been any other sightings?”
“A handful of people have told me they’d seen something in the water.”
“How many is a handful?”
“Three or four fishermen.”
“Do you have names?”
“They asked me to keep them out of it.”
“Why?”
“Because of the shit I’ve been taking. Well, from everyone but you. But they come to me, because they feel safe talking to me.”
“And they’ve all seen something similar?”
“All of them.”
“For how long?”
“Off and on for about ten years. The oldest sighting goes back over a hundred years, though.”
As he spoke, I Googled Lake Elsinore lake monsters. And, sure enough, there had been a history of such sightings. The locals called the creature Elsie. Cute.
So I wouldn’t appear rude, I showed him what I was reading, and then added, “It says here the lake has dried up a few times. The sixties was the last time.”
He nodded. “Right. But that didn’t stop the rumors.”
“I would think an empty lake would put a stop to any lake monster rumors...”
“You would think. Keep reading.”
I did, scanning the various articles quickly. And there it was. Sightings of a creature emerging out of the water... and heading for the local mountains, to hide within caves, only to return when the lake was full again.
I wanted to laugh it all off. Except I wasn’t laughing, even when I excused myself to get a McRefill. I’d certainly seen some strange things in my time. Hell, I was the strange thing. And there was the long shadow in his memory. When I returned, I said, “This was a week ago?”
“Right.”
“Which is when the second boy disappeared.”
“That night, in fact.”
Two boys missing within a week of each other was big news, and the local police chief was under a lot of pressure to find them. The FBI was here, too, working right alongside them. I’d passed two news vans along the way to this McDonald’s. So far, very few clues had turned up. And, certainly, no boys had turned up.
“Does Lake Elsinore have a history of violent crime?”
He shrugged. “We have our fair share. Elsinore is a rough and tumble town. A mixture of cultures. Our downtown isn’t quaint or charming. Not for tourists. It’s utilitarian. It’s old. It features bars and bikers and gangs and the homeless. None in great amounts. But enough to cross paths. The lake attracts weekend warriors who drink too much, fight too quickly, and keep our police busy. Someone eventually ends up dead. Usually a fight. Usually over a girl. Occasionally, we have a murder. A body shows up dead and no one knows who did it. It happens. Our city is just big enough, hot enough, and isolated enough to attract enough people who may or may not do something stupid, or angry or vengeful. Or murderous.”
“So what would you like for me to do, Roy?” I asked.
“I-I really don’t know, Ms. Moon.”
“Please call me Sam.”
“I don’t know, Ms. Sam. I mean Sam. I grew up on this lake. I’ve lived here my whole life. This is my home. I love this place, and I’m just so pissed off that something seems to be trying to scare me away from my home. I don’t know what I want from you.”
“You want answers?”
“I guess so, yes.”
Crackling, agitated purple flames now coursed through his aura. He sat forward and locked and unlocked his fingers. His right knee bounced. Try as I might, I couldn’t keep the flood of his agitated thoughts out of my mind. He was feeling very strongly that this was all a mistake, that I couldn’t help him, being a city girl and all. He was feeling that he should have just kept his mouth shut, that his business was going to suffer, that I looked kinda cute, that I sure looked pale for a Southern Californian. He also thought that his wife would be jealous if I came around, that he liked me, that he trusted me, that I seemed competent, that I was too small, that Sherbet had spoken highly of me, that Sherbet needed to lose some weight, that the disappearances had something to do with the shadow. He thought if he could just convince someone, anyone, to help, the disappearances might stop.
