Samantha Moon Phantasm, page 32
part #9 of Vampire for Hire Series
Outside, through Jacky’s closed office door, I could hear grunting and some hee-yawing. Jacky also ran a kickboxing studio. Jacky was a businessman, too, although I doubted he would go so far as to provide spin classes. I closed my eyes and saw light just behind my pupils, swirling and morphing and forming and reforming. Even with my eyes closed, I am never truly in darkness.
We are the darkness, Sam... came a distant, hissing voice in the deepest recesses of my mind.
“And your son?” asked Jacky.
I opened my eyes and the swirling stopped and the old boxer came instantly, sharply into view. 20/20 vision for the rest of my life. Not a bad deal. Jacky had wiped his brow, and the turmoil in his energy field had steadied, although the occasional green spark blasted through it.
“My son is a lot like me,” I said.
“You did say ‘vampire,’ right, Sam?”
“I did, Jacky.”
“We know of vampires where I’m from.”
I nodded, waiting, suddenly tired. It was still early afternoon. The sun was still out. In the gym behind me, my son was sparring with one of Jacky’s top young recruits. My daughter, now a freshman in high school, opted to walk home with her friends these days. I had asked who her friends were, but she wouldn’t tell me. Bad move. But I had my ways.
“We had stories from the town I grew up in. Rumors of a young man who may or may not have been a vampire. Some sheep had ended up dead. One person had gone missing. Months later, the young man went missing, too. Some claimed he was a vampire. I didn’t know. I was only a kid. I didn’t get out much. No TV, only newspapers, books and magazines.”
I nodded, listening. I had no doubt that vampires have been among us for centuries. At least for as long as the great purging, or whatever the hell Archibald Maximus, aka The Librarian, called it. Back when a sect of highly advanced dark masters had been banished from the Earth.
How the hell did they get banished? And who had banished them?
The answer was an order of highly advanced alchemists, of which I was an extension. The Librarian was such an alchemist, too. Very powerful, very adept, and the son of Elizabeth. Yes, the same Elizabeth who currently paced like a hungry tiger within the cage of my mind.
There had been, I suspect, a great war of some sort five hundred years ago, a war of good and evil, a war that had set the stage for today’s currently supernatural climate. A war that, I suspected, wasn’t quite over. And somehow, I’d found myself in the middle of it, with a bloodline that went all the way back to the greatest Alchemist of all time, Hermes Trismegistus—and now, his greatest enemy was currently residing within me.
A tangled web we weave, I thought.
Except, of course, all I had done was gone for my nightly jog. I had been unaware of any of this. Unaware that vampires were among us. Unaware of werewolves and angels and alchemists. And witches.
I only wanted to go for a run, I thought. That, and no more.
“You say you were attacked ten years ago, Sam?”
“Yes.”
“You want me to kick that sumbitch’s ass?”
I laughed, but it came out kind of funny. I laughed again, and now it definitely came out funny. In fact, it came out as a sob, and now I quit trying to laugh and found myself crying into my hands, sitting there in front of Jacky, in his back office. Except, of course, he wasn’t sitting there for long, was he?
No, he had come around the desk and pulled me in close and held me tighter than I deserved, and he kept holding me, even as I turned my face into his shoulder, and stained the crap out of his shirt with my flowing tears...
Chapter Eight
“Are you done blubbering, lass?”
“No,” I said, and held him tighter.
I heard him sigh, but he continued patting my head. I wondered briefly if my hair felt cold, then nearly laughed at the thought of it. These days, I kept a semi-permanent shield in place to block my thoughts. The shield was a bit of a pain, but better to keep it in place, then have errant thoughts slipping out.
“Did you just say something about your hair being cold?”
I sighed. Apparently, when I cried like a baby, my shield wobbled a little.
I pulled away. “No, Jacky. You heard my thoughts.”
He opened his mouth to speak. Then closed it. Then opened it. Then closed it again.
I said, “Why don’t you sit here?” And I eased him down into the chair I’d just been using.
“Sam,” he said, finally finding his voice, “I heard your voice, but really. It was almost as if... you were thinking for me.”
“A scary thought, to be sure,” I said. “But yet, another example of who I am.”
“So you’re saying this is all real, Sam?”
“I am. Unless it’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, a part of me thinks I might be imagining all of this. I might be, in fact, crazy.”
He laughed and wiped his brow. He blinked a few times at his own pale hands, the backs of which were mostly covered in age spots. “Is there room in your padded cell, because I’m seriously thinking I’m losing it, too. I mean, did I just see what I thought I saw?”
“You did, Jacky.”
“Your hand, let me see it again...”
I showed him my palm.
“You mind?” he asked.
I shook my head and he traced the rapidly-healing scar with a none-too-steady finger. He pressed the scar, pushed on it, and finally leaned down and examined it.
“Doesn’t seem fake, Sam.”
“Ya think?”
He next examined my nails, and I was certain no one, not even Anthony and Tammy, had examined them so closely. He ran an increasingly shaking finger over my right index nail. Tapping the tip. Looking under. Examining the cuticle. He saw, as I saw, a thickly grotesque nail that reached a little beyond the tip of my finger. A sharp triangle that I did all I could to hide from the world. Why the long, sharp nails, I didn’t know. But it spoke of the evil within me. On that note, I thought of the man I’d met many months ago, a man I had not seen, a man who was not a man at all, but the king vampire, so to speak.
Dracula.
Wasn’t he also called the Dragon? Wasn’t Dracula, in fact, translated as “Son of the Dragon”? His father, if my shaky history was correct, was Dracul, which, I’m guessing, probably meant Dragon. And didn’t dragons have claws, too? And didn’t I sprout claws every time I summoned the giant bat within me, Talos? But maybe Talos wasn’t a bat after all. Maybe Talos was a dragon, too. Or maybe something in-between.
I didn’t know. But it felt right...
Jesus, was I, too, a dragon? Even if only sometimes? And what, exactly, was a dragon? A flying lizard? Did that mean, I dunno, that I could breathe fire, too? Or, rather Talos, could? And weren’t Talos and I one and the same when I summoned him from his world into mine? Never mind what happened to my own body during those exchanges. I didn’t really want to think about it. Such thoughts hurt my head.
A dragon, I thought.
Of course, I’d been turning into Talos now for years. That I turned into something epic and awesome wasn’t the question. But going from a giant vampire bat... to a dragon, took some getting used to. I mean, dragons had cache.
I recalled again the flying creature I’d seen a few months ago, the creature that had been keeping pace with Talos and me in the skies high above. It had very much looked like a dragon. But it had been far away and there was a very real chance I had imagined it.
And didn’t dragons guard, you know, treasures?
They also ate virgins, if I was correct.
“Sam,” said Jacky, releasing my hand and sitting back in his client chair. I had slumped down on the corner of his desk. “That was a lot of dragon talk.”
“Dragon thinking,” I said.
“This is a lot for me to take in.”
“I bet,” I said, and zipped up my mind nice and tight. “Any chance you can forget that I can also turn into a dragon/bat thing?”
“I don’t feel so good, Sam.”
“I bet you don’t.”
I slipped into his mind quickly and gave his subconscious mind a suggestion to remove his memory from the last thirty seconds. The old guy didn’t need to know about Talos.
He blinked and looked at me. “What were we talking about, Sam?”
“We were talking about my son, and how he has an unfair—and supernatural—advantage over other fighters.”
“Ah, yes. ’Tis a shame.”
“It wouldn’t be right, Jacky.”
He nodded. “I know, and are we really having this conversation, Sam?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “Can you keep this to yourself, Jacky? Not even your wife?”
He snorted. “I wasn’t exactly in the church choir growing up, Sam. The wife doesn’t know about half of what I’ve done.”
“Well, she doesn’t need to know this half, either. Deal?”
“Deal.”
He looked at me. I looked at him. He said, “Your face, Sam, it was so cold. Even your tears were cold. Like ice, really.”
I nodded. “Welcome to my life.”
He nodded sadly. “Are you going to be okay, lass?”
“I hope so.”
“If you ever need anything, Sam, come see me. I can still kick some arse.”
“Thank you, Jacky.”
“And your son...” his voice broke off, and he turned away.
“He’s going to be okay, too,” I said. “I think my son might, just might, be part superhero.”
Jacky tried to smile, but all of this was just too much for him. Too much for anyone. He wiped his eyes and looked away.
“You care about him, Jacky.”
“More than you know, Sam.”
He nodded and now, I was the one swooping down, and holding the old Irishman tight, an old Irishman who had sort of adopted my son right here in his boxing gym...
God bless him.
Chapter Nine
It was late and I was running.
The run had started as a jog, but I got bored with the jog. With my knapsack secured tightly to my back, I soon found myself sprinting down street after street.
It was just past 2 a.m. Probably not the vampire hour, but pretty damn close. I sped down Bastanchury. Had I continued for another five miles or so, I would reach Master Kingsley’s stately manor. Except, of course, tonight was a full moon, and Master Kingsley—as Franklin, his butler, referred to him—would be highly indisposed. Kingsley, after all, dealt with a darkness of a different kind, a darkness that emerged once a month, every month. A darkness that took hold of him completely and totally. A darkness that would destroy anything living in its path, a darkness that preferred to feed upon the rotting dead.
And I kiss those lips, I thought, shuddering, as I turned left and headed up Imperial.
Kingsley had reached a sort of agreement with the darkness within. He fed it rotting meat (which Franklin hunted in the hills behind the estate home), and the thing within Kingsley left him alone throughout the month. How much inner torment Kingsley went through, I didn’t know, and wouldn’t ever know. But I suspected the darkness within him—a darkness I’d personally spoken to before—no doubt slipped into his thoughts here and there. Hard to say. On the outside, Kingsley seemed normal enough.
Of course, the very nature of Kingsley’s supernatural existence—a werewolf—dictated that the thing within would make a full appearance each month. Kingsley, of course, didn’t have to be so accommodating. He could have chained himself up all night, rather than let the creature roam within a secured cell. He could have denied it rotting meat, too. Kingsley didn’t give it much, but the agreement seemed to work, and my werewolf boyfriend led a mostly normal life.
I, of course, had no guarantee that Elizabeth would ever relinquish her hold on me. I suspected her goal would be, and would forever be, to gain complete control of my body, mind and soul, forever and ever.
I shook my head at that, and picked up my speed. How I picked up speed, I don’t know, since I was already blazing down the empty sidewalk. But I somehow willed myself to go faster, somehow willed my legs to run faster and faster, and they responded. Boy, did they respond.
Of course, my situation wasn’t all bad. Elizabeth had given me much of her strength and supernatural abilities. From where she had gained such abilities, I didn’t know. My guess: a pact with the devil. Or something damn close to the devil. Or not. Maybe they had tapped into humankind’s limitless potential. Maybe she and others like her had figured out how to unlock the inner superhero in all of us.
Again, I didn’t know, but I knew a handful of people who might know. And I was getting closer and closer to needing more answers. This was, after all, personal. Damn personal.
Anthony and Tammy were with Mary Lou tonight. I hadn’t gotten to the point where I trusted the kids alone, all night. Okay, I didn’t trust Tammy. Not these days. Not with all the skipping class and questionable friends. Not with the drinking last year and now the cigarette smoke I smelled on her. Not with her coming home way past her curfew.
I’m losing her, I thought, and somehow, some way, found yet another gear. I sped past parked cars and driveways and houses and lamp poles. I sped through green lights and red lights, through intersections and around bends and over hills. Imperial is scenic... and quiet at night. I soon found myself running through Brea and then, Placentia. Over the 57 freeway, which sped below me in a blur. At an intersection, I leaped over a car turning left in front of me. The driver never knew I was there. Hell, maybe I wasn’t.
I’m here, I thought, and I was running faster than anyone had any right to run.
The speed. The wind. The pounding of my Asics. The streaking lights. Total control of my body, of my legs. Seeing everything. I could have been running backward through time, or forward. Everything a blur, a big blur. Yet, I saw everything, too. Everything.
Backward in time... something tugged at me, but I let it go, or tried to, and continued forward.
Faster, I prodded myself. Go faster and faster.
Time, I thought again. Had I gone backward in time? I didn’t know, couldn’t remember, but the thought felt right. What the hell had happened to me in New Orleans? I didn’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to know.
In one movement, I reached around and pulled off my backpack without breaking stride. And as I crested a hill and headed down toward Yorba Linda, I leaped as I high as I could, and saw the single flame in my mind. And the creature within.
A moment later, my clothing exploded from my body. I lost more workout clothes that way.
I gasped and arched my head back and felt myself become something much, much more—and caught my backpack with a curved, black talon. I thrust my wings and, just missing the concrete, flew low to the ground. I beat my wings again and again, and swept straight down the center of Imperial Boulevard, gaining speed and altitude.
And loving every second of it.
Chapter Ten
Hello, Talos.
Hello, Samantha Moon.
I was flying high. The full moon appeared and reappeared through the stratocumulus clouds, blasting its reflected light over me. For someone who hated the sun, I sure didn’t have a problem with reflected sunlight. I knew, deep down, it wasn’t so much the physical light—after all, I lived easily within a lighted home at night. I knew, in fact, it was what sunlight represented: life, joy, community, love, companionship, support, working, playing, existing. All of which the creature within me shunned.
Samantha Moon, I repeated in my thoughts. I didn’t know giant vampire bats were so formal, Talos.
I didn’t know I was a giant vampire bat.
Wind didn’t so much as blast me, as flow over me. The body I became—Talos’s body—was perfectly, wonderfully, ingeniously aerodynamic. I glanced down at myself, over the thick skin, the thick, leathery wings, my massive claws far below—claws that had dismembered a demonic entity a few years ago.
I just always thought...
I know, Samantha.
But you never corrected me.
There was no need to correct you. Your interpretation was close enough. What I am, exactly, was far less important than you wrapping your head around our connection.
Well, I have wrapped my head around it. I love our connection. I love this body swap thing that we do. This merging that we do. I love that I can be you, and you can be me, if that’s how it works.
Indeed it does. In a way.
I tried imagining my physical body on another world, in, possibly, another dimension, too. Then I nearly became dizzy. Not good when flying.
And what am I doing in this other world? I asked, as I flapped a little harder, gaining altitude and speed. In your world?
We are sitting together on a rocky crag.
Like before?
Like always, Samantha. You wouldn’t fare very well in my world, I’m afraid.
What do you mean?
I live in a challenging world, to say the least, at least, for land dwellers.
I knew that Talos and others like him were nearly immortal. I knew they were advanced spiritually, beyond our world. I knew they lived in peace, and I knew they lived in cities among the clouds.
Yes, all true, Sam.
And as I thought these thoughts, a mental picture appeared in my mind, and there I was, sitting naked on a rocky precipice, high above the clouds. Talos was sitting next to me, perched on a rocky overhang, wings tucked in at his side. My perspective was from his perspective, as he saw me. My arms were hugging my bare legs as I peered down, down over the ledge, down into the swirling misty depths.
Is that where your city is? I asked.
No, Sam. Look up.
And now, my perspective changed as Talos looked up and there... rising high above me, supported by structures that seemed oddly organic and rocky and fabricated all at the same time, were massive edifices mushrooming up into the clouds. They were of different levels, different shapes, different sizes. But all composed of the same organic material.
