Samantha Moon Phantasm, page 72
part #9 of Vampire for Hire Series
(Second in the Devil’s Triangle Trilogy)
Midnight Moon
Published by Rain Press
Copyright © 2017 by J.R. Rain
All rights reserved.
Dedication
To Jason and Lee.
Midnight Moon
Chapter One
“I trust that anything discussed between us will be held in the utmost confidentiality,” said the uptight man sitting across from me.
“It will unless I deem otherwise.”
“You mean, unless I give my consent.”
“That’s not what I mean nor what I said.”
The uptight man, whose name was Charlie Reed, studied me long and hard. I didn’t like to be studied long and hard, or at all. Studying me long and hard might bring into question, say, my particularly sharp nails. Or the fact that I didn’t, you know, breathe. Or that I was presently not casting a reflection in my office window, or on my computer screen, or even on the glass of beading water in front of me.
Charlie Reed was an electrical engineer for Raytheon. He was maybe forty-five years old. He was trim and well-groomed. He smelled good too. There were no laugh lines around his eyes. If anything, there were dark circles around his eyes, and actual bags too. The man needed a nap, like pronto.
“Ms. Moon, you don’t seem to understand. I don’t want my confidential information discussed with anyone.”
“Duly noted, and I will do my best to comply.”
“I’m not sure that’s good enough. Can you give me any other assurances?”
“If I don’t get questioned by the police, you should be okay. If I don’t need to stop a crime, you should be okay. If I don’t need to report you, you should be okay. That’s all the assurance I can give you.”
He sat back in my client chair, tilted his head to the right and took in some air from the position. He thought about my words, then he started nodding. “I get it. You’re neither an attorney nor a doctor.”
“Nope.”
“So there’s no client or patient confidentiality.”
“None to speak of.”
“And should you need to go to the police, or the police come to you...”
“I’ll decide how much I will tell them, if anything.”
“You’ve been in this business a long time.”
“Ten years and counting.”
“And before that?”
“I was a federal agent.”
He nodded. His nerves were settling. He hadn’t liked me asserting myself. Whether or not that was because I was a woman, I didn’t know. Granted, I could have found that out easily enough. Yes, I’m one of those super-duper weirdos who can read minds. But I don’t read minds willy-nilly. Mostly because doing so sort of opens up a mindlink, and sometimes my own personal thoughts get through to them too. As in, he could know what I was thinking. I didn’t think Charlie Reed wanted to know what I was thinking.
I waited for him to process the information provided. While I waited, I noted his slicked-back hair and neat suit and perfectly manicured nails. Now he started nodding. He was coming around to the idea that he needed my help more than he needed to tell me how to run my business.
“Okay,” he said. “Your terms are reasonable. And Detective Sherbet had good things to say about you.”
“Did he mention anything about my uncanny knack for getting out of sticky situations?”
“No. But you are joking.”
“I am, but I kind of do.”
“Get out of sticky situations?”
“Yes.”
“Good to know. He also said you were, ah, particularly qualified to help me with my, um, situation.”
“That’s a lot of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs,’” I said.
Charlie rolled his head from one side to the next, which resulted in a number of pops and cracks. Next, he adjusted his position in the client chair, shifting from one cheek to the next, probably because my client chairs weren’t too comfortable. Or maybe because the conversation had taken a direction in which he felt less sure-footed.
Of course, any time a client came recommended to me from Sherbet for my “particular qualifications,” there were going to be a lot of “ums” and “ahs” and neck-cracking and butt-shifting.
“Ms. Moon. Do you believe in ghosts?”
Chapter Two
“Yes.”
“So you’ve seen them before?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you see them often?”
“Yes.”
“Every day?”
“Yes.”
“Do you see one now?”
“No, not now. My house isn’t haunted.”
“Where do you see them?”
“Just about everywhere else.”
“Are you prone to delusions, Ms. Moon?”
“Would I know it if I were?”
He thought about that. “Maybe not. But you think you see them?”
“I know I see them.”
“And if you were to come to my house?”
“I would see it, too, if it were there. I might even see a number of them, depending on how extensively your house is haunted.”
“Have you always been able to see ghosts?”
“No.”
“And one day, it just happened?”
“You could say that.”
“May I ask what prompted this change?”
“You may not,” I said. “But it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
He had settled in evenly on both cheeks, which was never a bad idea. The topic, I suspect, interested him enough to ignore his apprehension. And as he sat and studied me, I studied him, too. In particular, his strange aura. Never had I seen a completely red aura before. Just red. Pure blazing roja, as they say in Spanish. Why I felt a need to think in Spanish at that moment, I didn’t know. Why his aura was red, I didn’t know that either, but I felt it endlessly fascinating.
“Seeing ghosts on a regular basis...” Charlie shook his head. “I don’t envy you, Ms. Moon.” He was loosening up, which I liked to see. I don’t do well with uptight. Still, there was something off about him, and I wasn’t just talking about the massive bags under his eyes, or the weird red aura. He seemed... lost. Unsure of himself. It was the way he sat, the way his eyes sort of seemed to look through me. I would have guessed he wasn’t all here, despite his earlier tough-guy act.
“Oh, ghosts aren’t so bad,” I said. “They mostly keep to themselves, except when they don’t. Are you married?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Well sorta.”
I waited.
“She left me four months ago.”
“When did you start seeing the ghost?”
“About two weeks ago.”
“Tell me about your ghost.”
He did. The sightings were few and far between at first, and never did he see the ghost full on, which I found interesting. He could only see her from his peripheral vision, and then only in his hallway, which was adjacent, apparently, to his home office.
“Can you describe the ghost?” I asked.
“It’s a she, and she’s surrounded by blue light.”
“Anything else?”
“Whenever I turn to look at her, she disappears.”
I nodded, trying to understand, but couldn’t. I said, “And you only see her in your hallway?”
“Yes.”
“Is she doing anything?”
“Sometimes she appears to be standing.”
“And other times?”
“Kneeling. But it’s hard to say. I only get fleeting images of her.”
“And you did say blue light?”
“I did, yes.”
I considered dipping in his mind to see what he saw, but I suspected I would probably see soon enough firsthand, if he elected to hire me. Besides, dipping into his mind opened my own up to him, and that was never a good idea.
“Oh, there’s one other thing.”
I just loved when there was one other thing. “Go on.”
“I only see her at midnight.”
Chapter Three
Kingsley and I were at the brightly lit Mulberry Restaurant in downtown Fullerton. Perhaps too brightly lit.
“Don’t you think The Cellar should be our hangout?” I asked, squinting, referring to the popular subterranean restaurant just down the street. “I mean it’s dark and atmospheric and kind of perfect for two freaks like us.” I pointed up. “These are Christmas lights, no? It’s only September.”
“They’re not Christmas lights.”
“They look like Christmas lights.”
“They’re a string of lights. Patio lights, I believe. They add atmosphere.”
“And light,” I said. “Lots of light.”
“You are becoming sensitive even to artificial light?” asked my big (and hairy) boyfriend.
“Maybe. I hadn’t thought about it.”
“You’re squinting,” he said.
“I’m doing my best Clint Eastwood impression.”
“Or not,” he said.
“Is the light thing a problem?” I asked.
“Not for me, but it might mean there’s a change going on in you.”
“What sort of change?” I asked, but suddenly I didn’t want to know the answer.
“It might mean the thing within you—”
“Elizabeth,” I said, surprising myself when I corrected him with her name. I usually called her far worse.
“Yes, Elizabeth. It might mean she is, ah, asserting herself in ways you might not be consciously aware of.”
“Asserting as in, taking over?”
“Not quite, but perhaps closer than before.”
“Not over my dead body,” I said. “Or my deader body. Or whatever.”
“Wanna change the subject?” he asked.
“Very much so, yes.”
He asked about my newest case and I told him what I knew, even as I stamped Elizabeth back down into the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind.
“Have you considered the possibility of a succubus?” asked Kingsley.
Yes, I might be undead and, to some, creepy as hell. I might have seen things that no mortal would ever want to see, but that sure as hell didn’t mean I walked around with an Undead Dictionary app on my cell phone, although that wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I said, “Suck a what?”
“Succubus. It’s a beautiful female demon who has sex with men.”
“How fortuitous,” I said.
Kingsley gave me a huge, wolf-like grin. “I imagine the succubi were invented to explain a man’s indiscretions.”
“And later were summoned into existence for real,” I said.
I had been told that we vampires—and no doubt the werewolves and Lichtenstein monsters and everything in between—had been summoned into existence because enough people believed. Belief was a strange thing. Belief conjured real things from the ethers. Belief brought forth monsters. And angels, too.
“And for women?” I said. “Is there a demon counterpart?”
Kingsley nodded. “The incubus. A male demon.”
“How convenient. And for homosexuals?”
“Both succubus and incubus have been known to sleep with their own genders.”
“And for the gender neutral?”
“Oh, I assume there’s a gender-neutral demon out there too. Or on its way.”
I grinned. “Ordered up by humanity.”
“In a way,” said Kingsley, who had been at this immortal game a good deal longer than I had, like seven decades longer. “But think of it this way, the Universe can’t not deliver what man has summoned.”
“Or woman. Go on.”
“The summoning of new things is what keeps this universe from atrophying.”
“Even new demon things?”
“Anything, Sam. If humans can think it, or want it, or believe in it, the Universe will deliver it.”
“Like the devil,” I said, recalling a conversation I’d had a few months ago with, well, the dark lord himself.
He nodded. “Speaking of the devil, literally, have you heard anything from him these days?”
“Nothing since our last meeting.”
“At the train station?” said Kingsley. “When he blew himself up, so to speak.”
I nodded. The devil, in a dramatic exit, had stepped in front of an oncoming train, and wastefully destroyed what had been a rather sexy bad boy host body, even if he had been a full-blown devil worshiper.
“And how’s Anthony doing?” Kingsley asked.
“Still keeps to himself.”
Our meals were served. Admittedly, the serving part took a while, as plate after plate was laid out before Kingsley. Steak and veal and chicken and fish. He’d already slayed the steamed clams, shrimp cocktail, fried calamari, and fresh oysters. I was fairly certain our table just tilted toward Kingsley. He would have it no other way.
I said, “That’s one more plate of food than last time.”
“You jest, but what can I say? I’m a growing boy.”
And he was, literally. Except he was no boy. Not by a long shot.
I had just twirled the perfect bite of angel hair pasta onto my fork, with a small piece of meatball to cap it off, when Kingsley pushed aside the first of what would be many empty plates. One or two people were watching him. Next, he positioned the chicken pomodoro in the place of honor before him.
“I literally didn’t see you eat any of that,” I said, waving at the now-empty plate.
“Truthfully? I didn’t either.”
I grinned and took my first bite. As I ate, I thought of my son. Yes, he still kept to himself, and no he didn’t want to talk about that day two months ago, when he’d been kidnapped by a local pack of werewolves, a pack who’d been keen to consume his rare blood type. Or, rather, his rare blood legacy. Such blood—my blood, too, and my daughter’s and my whole family—had the added benefit of giving the consumer added strength and abilities.
Lucky us.
I was halfway through my first meal—and tasting enough of it to actually kind of enjoy it—when Kingsley pushed the last of his plates away. I knew he wanted to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. I knew he wanted to belch, too. I knew he also wanted to slam his fist down on the table and demand more grog, or whatever the hell it was that conquering Viking warlords drank. Instead, he sat back and used his napkin and wiped his mouth discreetly, and reached for his glass of wine as if he hadn’t just eaten seven full meals, as evidenced by the empty plates stacked precariously on one corner of the table.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said.
“And you’ve been busy,” I said, motioning to his stacked plates.
“No busier than normal. You gonna finish that?”
He hadn’t gotten the sentence out before I pushed my own plate over to him.
“You’re thinking about your son,” he said between mouthfuls.
“Hard not to.”
“The thing about the devil,” said Kingsley, who didn’t bother with the twirl method, preferring, instead, the shoveling method, “is that he can’t win.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s in his nature to lose. It’s how...” Kingsley shrugged and took another bite and might have swallowed without chewing. “It’s how he was constructed. Or, rather conceived. God’s foil and all that. God’s foil who can never win, no matter how clever or smart or handsome the devil is. Remember that, Sam. Remember, there’s always a way to beat the devil.”
Chapter Four
The house was big. Damn big.
This was the kind of street I should be living on. This was the kind of home I should be living in, too. My God, Danny had been an attorney. I had been a federal agent. We should have gotten a nice home. A big home, one that didn’t shake every time Anthony guffawed and slapped the floor, which he was prone to do when watching TV or playing Xbox. A home that didn’t creak endlessly, too. A home with, wonder of wonders, an attached garage. A home with a laundry room and more than one bathroom. My God, what I would give for two bathrooms. A shiny, new, beautiful home with a billiard room. Why not, right? I suddenly saw myself playing pool with Kingsley and Allison and Sherbet. Maybe that character Knighthorse, too, and his pals Spinoza, Sanchez and Aaron King, who may or may not be Elvis. Maybe some of my other cop friends I’d met on any one of my hundreds of cases over the years. Funny how I had so many police and private eye friends. Then again, I always did gravitate toward good people, honest people, and hardworking people—people who fought for truth, justice and the American way. And yeah, I’m pretty sure I would be friends with Superman, too, if he existed. Of all my friends, only Fang didn’t really mix. Or Dracula for that matter. Or the Alchemist, although I suspected he might shy away from such gatherings.
Lots of men in my life, I thought. And only Allison and Mary Lou to balance out all that testosterone. And Tammy, of course. Luckily, she was mellowing out as she got older. She was also taking her gifts a little more seriously, too. She often asked to help me when she could, recognizing her value to me and my cases. Having almost lost Anthony had been an eye-opener for her.
Yeah, I pictured all of these characters—and they were all characters, every last one of them—here at my big new house, playing pool, having a barbeque, talking shop, ready at a moment’s notice to help those who couldn’t help themselves, to fight the good fight and put themselves in harm’s way to help a fellow human being.
“Would be a helluva pool party,” I whispered as I approached the door.
It was nearly eleven p.m., which was our agreed-upon time. I’d spent the last two hours with Kingsley at his own estate, which itself was so big that even jealousy went out the door. After all, is one jealous of, say, an ornate museum? Or a glass shopping mall? Or a skyscraper? Hardly. One admired and moved on, and that’s how I viewed Kingsley’s own rambling mansion, with enough extensions and wings to form an entire flock.
We had, of course, spent the majority of that time in his bedroom. The poor guy had to work at it, as I wasn’t in the mood, or feeling sexy. Hard to care about such things when the devil has targeted your son. But I eventually came around, and I’m fairly certain the big oaf finally got what he wanted. By the time I left, he was out cold, snoring away, and looking far more like a bear than I was comfortable with.
