Samantha Moon Phantasm, page 54
part #9 of Vampire for Hire Series
“Like Lichtenstein’s monsters?”
“Those and others that defy classification. Powerful others, and they walk—and swim— among you.”
“Great.”
“We are preparing for what might be the next great battle, although we hope to maintain the peace..”
“Similar to the battle five hundred years ago?”
“Yes, Sam.”
“When you guys first banished the dark masters?”
“Correct.”
I drummed my long, pointed nails on the help desk, inadvertently pecking holes into the wood. Oops. I quit drumming.
“And Luke?” I asked.
“He will be enrolling in our school.”
“And it’s definitely not Hogwarts?”
“Sadly, no. But it’s quite a place, nonetheless. There, his education will continue, with an eye toward the real history of our world, and his place in it. He will be taught alchemy. He will be taught self-defense and mastery in all weapons. He will be shown the hidden mysteries of this world, too. Some of the greatest secrets will be bestowed upon him. All in due time, of course. We have made all the necessary legal arrangements.”
I nodded. “You are adopting him?”
“So to speak. As far as Anthony—”
“What about Anthony?”
“We want him to join us, Sam. Sooner, rather than later.”
A range of thoughts and conflicting emotions gripped me, from ‘hell, no’ to ‘maybe it’s for the best,’ to fear to sadness to anger to missing him already. Finally, I said, “I will need to think about that. FYI, I am leaning toward probably not.”
“It could save his life.”
I took in some worthless air, let it out. “And where is this school?”
“That information is confidential, Sam. The entity within you could use the intel against us. Surely you understand.”
“I understand that you’re proposing to take my son away from me to God knows where.”
“I know where, and it’s perfectly safe and pleasant. Most students have the time of their lives there.”
I looked over at Luke, and he looked at me, too. I smiled at him, and he smiled back for the first time. Then, he surprised the hell out of me by getting up and running over and hugging me tightly around the waist. His thoughts and emotions poured out of him. I felt his appreciation for being saved, and his excitement for his new life. He was going to miss his mother, but not the mean men who came to see her. He missed his friend, Johnny, and he wanted to make Max proud. He didn’t know me, but he knew I had saved him, and he didn’t want to stop hugging me, even as he cried like a girl. His thoughts, not mine.
I didn’t want him to stop either, and I hugged him back tightly, and let my own tears flow.
Just like a girl.
Chapter Sixty-eight
I’d recently watched The Martian with Kingsley. He watched it for the riveting tale of survival. I watched it for entirely different reasons.
As a commercial, of sorts. A commercial that just so happened to star Matt Damon as the pitchman. Hell of a yummy pitchman.
By the end of the harrowing movie, I’d made a decision. A decision I kept to myself. After all, Kingsley tended to worry when I ventured to other planets.
Now, with the latest picture of the Mars Rover firmly planted in my thoughts, I sat comfortably on my living room couch. The kids were asleep. Kingsley was asleep, too. It was a little past two in the morning.
I’m really doing this, I thought.
I really was.
With legs crossed, I rested my hands on my knees. I took in some air, held it, held it some more, and then let it go because I was tired of holding it.
Then, I summoned the single flame.
***
I felt the wind first, and the intense cold. I smelled the ancient dust, not so foreign from our own... but lacking something. Something organic, perhaps.
I opened my eyes, and found myself high upon an untouched cliff. The rock beneath me was flat and windblown and blasted smooth over the eons. It was also a richer red than I was expecting.
I didn’t bother breathing, although I did inhale some of the scents, some of the dust, some of Mars itself.
The wind was icy and strong. I rocked gently on my perch.
And as the updrafts and crosswinds continued to rock me, and as the smell of something ancient and forgotten permeated my nostrils, I smiled and settled in for the night.
It’s good to be me.
The End
Samantha Moon returns in:
Vampire Fire
Return to the Table of Contents
VAMPIRE FIRE
by
J.R. RAIN
Vampire for Hire #12
(First in the Devil’s Triangle Trilogy)
Vampire Fire
Published by Rain Press
Copyright © 2016 by J.R. Rain
All rights reserved.
Dedication
To H.P. Mallory, and six years of friendship.
Vampire Fire
“They say hell is real. They say the devil is real, too. I say, we are all devils.”
—Diary of the Undead
Chapter One
“You don’t have an aura,” I said.
“Nor do you, Samantha Moon.”
I nodded, and thought: Touché. I thought it because I don’t usually like to say “touché,” mostly because I’m not entirely sure if I’m using it correctly, or what it means, exactly. I also thought about the continuous buzzing in my head, in the space just behind my eardrum. Either a worm was burrowing into my brain, or the man sitting before me had just tripped my inner alarm system. I was betting on the latter.
His name was Buck Taggart and he was as good-looking as they came. Messy black hair. Smooth forehead that seemed devoid of lines. Powder-blue eyes. A plain white T-shirt, snug jeans, ostrich-hide boots. At least, I hoped they were ostrich. With their pale-yellow hue, they looked disturbingly similar to the rarest of the bound books I’d seen in the Occult Reading Room. Books bound in human skin.
We were at a Jamba Juice, which was my new passion these days. Drinking smoothies, that is. Tammy, the little vixen, had gotten me hooked on the blended goodness. Never had I tasted such yummy smoothness before this. Now, I was sucking down a chili mango, replete with a half-dozen boosts—because, why not?—and watching the handsome freak sitting across from me.
An hour ago, Buck had called me to request a meeting. I’d told him I had a one-hour window before I had to pick up my kids from school. I was fully intending to spend that hour at a local Jamba Juice, and told him that he was welcome to join me there, especially if he liked all things delicious.
Apparently, he liked all things delicious.
And yes, I’d chosen Jamba Juice over the last half-hour of Judge Judy, which should prove just... how... much... I... love... these... damned... things.
He watched me as I drank my smoothie. I watched him watching me drink my smoothie. When he’d sat across from me, he had declined my offer for a smoothie of his own, which was fine by me since I wasn’t entirely sure if I had been offering to buy him one or not. To mask the awkwardness, I had suggested that it was his loss. He had only shrugged. I had noted his narrow shoulders under his T-shirt, shoulders that hinted at some muscle, but not a lot of it. I had also noted the proliferation of tattoos just inside his collar, tattoos that extended down to his elbows. Not a full sleeve, as the kids call it today. A half-sleeve. I let him watch me drink until he gave me a reason to set down my smoothie. So far, there was none. One awesome thing about being me is that brain freezes come and go in a blink of an eye.
“You are enjoying your smoothie,” he said.
“More than you know.”
“Would you call your need for a smoothie an obsession?”
I thought about that. “Yeah. My new obsession.”
“Is a smoothie obsession common?” he asked, and, yeah, the question sounded strange to me, too.
“If not, it should be.”
He nodded and a hint of a smile touched his thin lips.
I checked my cell. There was an unread text from Allison. It was going to stay unread for now. Texts from Allison tended to be needy and, well, boring. That is, unless she was off on one of her witchy adventures. Then, shit got real—and got real fast. At present, she wasn’t on a witchy adventure. She was undoubtedly sitting on her couch between psychic hotline phone calls, and bored.
I said to the man sitting across from me, “I’m picking up my kids soon. I suggest you speak your piece, whatever that means.”
He nodded once. The gesture opened the collar of his shirt a little more, and I saw a little more of the tattoos. And from what I could see, they were as creepy as hell: horns and fangs and blood and spikes. There were skulls and tombstones.
“I’m looking for a man,” he said. So far, he hadn’t given me a name, and I wasn’t asking. At least, not until I was done with the smoothie.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said, coming up for air. No, I didn’t need air to survive. But I needed air to suck.
“Should I wait until you are finished so that I can have your undivided attention?”
“Do whatever the hell you want,” I said.
“Whatever the hell I want. Yes, I kind of like the sound of that.”
Except I didn’t. And I didn’t like the way his eyes kind of flashed, too. Maybe they had reflected the sun or a passing car’s window, but I was certain they had flashed with an inner fire. Hard to tell in the bright of day.
I said, “But if you’re going to be creepy about it, then jump on your Harley, or whatever the hell you came in here on, and take a ride.”
He nodded. “My apologies, Samantha Moon. I don’t mean to come across as creepy. I just feel at home with you.”
I didn’t exactly take that as a compliment. That this bad-boy dirtbag felt comfortable around me just might have been a sign of how far I’d descended.
“Fine,” I said. “So what kind of freak are you?”
He grinned at that. “One of the freakiest.”
As he spoke, I couldn’t help but note that the detailed dragon tattoo that had been above his elbow was now below his elbow. And where I had previously seen its triangular head along the outside of his arm, it was now peeking at me from just inside his arm.
As I wondered what life would be like in a padded cell, I said, “Don’t leave a girl hanging. What are you? Vampire? Werewolf? A hybrid of some sort? As in, you drink blood but can’t stop licking yourself?”
The man flashed what he thought was a killer smile. To me, it looked terrible. No warmth. No laugh lines. No humor. Nothing but emptiness. “No, Samantha Moon. I’m none of those.”
“Fallen angel?” I suddenly asked, mostly because I didn’t know what the hell else was out there. I checked my cell phone. We had five minutes remaining. Good timing, too, because I’d just come to the end of my smoothie. Hashtag sadness, as Tammy would say.
My last guess got his attention, and he cocked his head a little to one side. As he did so, the dragon’s head appeared around his elbow again, having done, I was certain, a full revolution around his arm.
“You’re getting warmer, Samantha Moon.”
I swallowed. Hard. I’d seen some freaky stuff in my time, but I was certain I’d never come face to face with a demon before. Right here at a Jamba Juice. In the sunlight, no less. On a Thursday afternoon.
He looked at me some more. I looked at him. In my peripheral vision, I noted the dragon tattoo creeping lower and lower down his arm. I reached for my Jamba Juice cup, then remembered it was empty. All over again, I was sad that it was empty. The ringing in my ear had picked up some, too. Not obnoxiously so, but it was letting me know that here be monsters.
Now, the man before me smiled bigger than anyone should ever smile, like ever. The corners of his lips curled up and up, and I was reminded of the body-hopping entity in Washington State, an entity that had possessed an entire family.
“You’re a demon,” I said.
The thing before me shook his head and continued smiling. If anything, the smile had grown in size, now stretching from ear to ear. So. Damned. Creepy.
“No, Samantha Moon. But you are close. Oh, so close.”
My minivan was parked just across the way, just a hop, skip, and a jump. Except something was telling me that there was no escaping the thing in front of me. At least, not in a minivan.
With a sickening, nauseating, and terrifying dread—and feeling more fear than I had ever felt—I suddenly knew, without a shadow of a doubt, who or what was sitting across from me. How I knew this, I wasn’t sure. Maybe the burning eyes. The smiling. The confidence. The living tattoo.
“You’re the devil,” I said.
And his smile grew bigger still...
Chapter Two
I reached for my phone again, and, with suddenly shaking fingers, I brought up the text message app—my family used WhatsApp these days, if only to confirm when and if my daughter received and read a text.
I suddenly found it nearly impossible to control my fingers as I texted: You need to pick up your brother.
Two red checkmarks appeared on the screen—one to indicate I had sent the message, and one to indicate the target device had received the message. Step one completed. I waited. While I waited, I refused to look up or acknowledge the person sitting across from me. My peripheral vision—which seemed to be enhanced these days—suggested that he had quit grinning like a fool. Or like a maniacal serial killer. This was probably good. No one should smile like that, ever.
My heart beat slowly, deliberately, powerfully, rocking my body, thumping in my ears, nearly drowning out the buzzing in my head, my internal warning device. I swallowed, noting that my throat was dry for the first time in ten years. A second or two later—an eternity, really, when you’re sitting across from the devil—the word “Online” appeared on my screen, indicating my daughter had logged on to WhatsApp. Step two completed. Next, the two red checkmarks turned blue, indicating that my daughter had read my message. Step three completed.
Got you, I thought. I loved this app. Of course, it was usually step four that caused me headaches. That was, her responses. This one was no exception.
No way. I’m busy!!!
No arguments, young lady.
He’s like a mile away!! Maybe two miles!!
Then you’d better get started.
I’m with my friends, Mom. MY FRIENDS!!
They’ll understand.
FINE!!!
Thank you, sweety.
I hate you.
Love you, too.
Oh my God!! You make me like so mad!!
I also like ‘made’ you. Like in my womb.
Eww! Gross. Goodbye!!!!
Grinning, I clicked off the phone and set it in front of me. For a nanosecond, I’d forgotten just who I was sitting across from. That was, until I looked up into the handsome face—and the dead, unblinking eyes. The dragon tattoo was now down around his wrist.
“Sorry about that,” I said, my voice squeakier and higher-pitched than it had been in a long time. I hadn’t felt this rattled in quite a while.
“Kids,” he said, tilting his head toward me ever so slightly.
How he knew I was texting my daughter, I didn’t know. That the devil even knew I had kids was disconcerting at best. That there was even a devil in this world was a terrible, terrible, unreal, and messed-up thought. Then again, I had seen angels and demons and highly evolved dark masters. A part of me suspected I might have even met God, too, in a Denny’s a long time ago, but that could have just been wishful thinking. Hell, I was friends with immortals and alchemists and witches. I’d channeled St. Germain, and sat in the presence of she who might be Mother Earth, or Gaia. Why wouldn’t there be a devil, too?
Because I found the idea of hell was just too far out there, even for me. Then again, wasn’t I being eternally punished, too? That is, if one would call my life a punishment. After that latest round of texting with Tammy, maybe it was.
All these thoughts and more crossed my mind as I sat there in the shade, outside of Jamba Juice with a nearby Target sitting across the far side of the expansive parking lot.
“How did you know I was texting my kid?”
“You had an appointment to pick up your kids. I assumed you were texting one of them—”
“Or I could have been texting my sister to pick them up,” I said. “You lie to me again and I get up and leave and you can go back to hell.”
The smile returned, creeping slowly up his face. “Yes, Sam. I lied.”
“You can read my texts.”
“I can read most things.”
I caught the meaning of his words. “Including minds?”
“Mortals, yes. Immortals, not so much.”
“Why are you smiling like that?”
Indeed, his smile had grown bigger than ever. He looked like a cross between Jack Nicholson’s Joker... and Heath Ledger’s Joker. Only more insane. A woman coming out of Jamba Juice paused when she saw us, then looked sharply at me, then hurried into the parking lot.
“The smile is an unfortunate side effect.”
“An unfortunate side effect of what?”
“Possession, of course.”
I nearly texted everyone I knew at that moment to come here, like now. Suddenly, Allison’s needy texts didn’t sound so needy. They sounded heavenly, reassuring. Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed. Maybe I should have gotten up and left. But two things kept me here: First, I wasn’t entirely convinced he was the devil. Second, he needed help... whoever he was. I would at least hear him out. Lord help me, I would hear him out.
I reached into my purse for a packet of cigarettes. Talking to the devil seemed to warrant a smoke. Fitting, somehow. I noted my hands were still shaking as I lighted up the flame.
