Except that I was standing next to such a creature. A beautiful creature, at that. And what, exactly, were guardian angels? How did they work? Who assigned them? How did they know when to protect you...and when not to protect you? Obviously, there were a lot of people getting hurt and killed in this world. Were all the guardian angels derelict in their duties?

  “All good questions, Sam.”

  “Either someone starts answering,” I said. “Or I’m going to start knocking some heads.”

  Ishmael gave me a rare smile. His mannerisms and gestures were...off. He was not used to holding a normal conversation. I suspected most of his existence had been spent observing humans, but rarely participating, rarely interacting. The truth was, I didn’t know the extent of his abilities. He had told me he could save me from my vampirism. I wondered if that were true. There was so much I didn’t know about him.

  “You have lots of questions, Samantha. Perhaps we should start small.”

  “Perhaps you should start by telling me why you’re interested in my son.”

  He didn’t answer immediately. Not because he was gathering his thoughts, or trying to determine how much to tell me, or not tell me. No, he didn’t answer me immediately because he was staring at me, through me. Deep into me.

  So weird, I thought.

  Finally, after an uncomfortable silence, he said, “I made an egregious mistake that night, Sam. I could have saved you. I could have directed you to go elsewhere.”

  “Directed me how?”

  “With an impulse, with a call from a friend, with a feeling of uncertainty. I could have done something, anything, to save you from what was coming. From what I knew was waiting for you.”

  “But you didn’t,” I said, knowing the answer, of course. Knowing it all too well.

  “I knew my bond would be broken with you. My covenant, if you will.”

  “And so you allowed me to be attacked.”

  “Yes, Sam. I did it—”

  “I know why you did it,” I said. “You’ve told me before. Now I want to know why other guardians for other people sit back and watch their own charges be harmed. Why? I understand you made a choice to allow me to be forever changed. But why are others doing this? Why are others allowing their humans to be harmed? Why, dammit?”

  “The reasons, Samantha, are far-reaching and complicated and involve universal laws of attraction and karma, all wrapped around past lives and previous agreements.”

  “Agreements?”

  “Yes, Sam. Believe it or not, there are some who have an agreement to kill another. Just as there are some who have an agreement to love another, or to raise another, or to help another.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. “I just...no, that’s crazy talk.”

  “Perhaps, Sam. But it’s true.”

  “Fucking nuts, if you ask me.”

  “I agree. But I did not create the world, Sam, or its rules. I only tried to uphold them.”

  “And failed miserably,” I added.

  He gazed at me for a long time. “Yes, Samantha. If you choose to see it that way. Yes, I failed you.”

  “So I wasn’t supposed to be changed that night? I had no past agreement with this vampire who changed me?”

  “No, Samantha. You were to be diverted that night. I was to save you.”

  “Then fuck you.”

  He looked pained, which was a rarity for him, too. In fact, any expression of emotion was a rarity for him. Ishmael the Angel was not big on emoting. I didn’t think he had much use, in fact, for expressions. Any work he’d done had been from the spiritual realm, the spiritual levels, out of sight and out of mind of mankind.

  I wasn’t sure where Ishmael ranked in the grand scheme of things. I wasn’t sure how he filled his days and nights, where he lived, who he hung out with, or who he watched over. I didn’t know if there were, say, angel bars where he knocked back some drinks with friends during their down times. I wasn’t sure where in the world he lived. This world, the next world, a world in-between?

  “A lot of questions, Samantha Moon,” he said, reading my mind. “But just know that I am not very different from you. I am a creature of the same Source, the same God. We all are. I wasn’t created to evolve. I was created to help.”

  “But you didn’t help,” I said. “At least, not me.”

  “No, Sam. I also wasn’t created to love. Not in human terms. Not in romantic terms. But I do. I love you.”

  I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. These days, Ishmael rarely made an appearance, although I would sometimes catch him watching me from afar. That he had turned his attention to my son was news to me. But not surprisingly so. He could exist in a realm beyond even my eyes, so he could literally be anywhere.

  And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

  “It’s you,” I said suddenly. “It’s you who is giving my son his great strength.”

  The angel cocked his head to one side. “Yes, Sam.”

  “So his strength is not from some latent...” I couldn’t find the right words. I was so flabbergasted, frazzled, all the “f” words.

  “The latent effect of the vampirism? No, Sam. Those effects departed the moment he was rendered back into a human. Just as his own guardian angel was released the moment he was turned into a vampire.”

  “Ah, fuck,” I said, and found myself circling in the narrow alleyway. Fullerton isn’t a big city, at least, not by big city standards. But it did have a popping downtown, and people were moving past the alley opening. Few saw me, and fewer still would see Ishmael looming over me.

  I shook my hands, then ran them through my hair. Then I spun on Ishmael, and shoved him hard against the far wall. He flew back, hitting it with a physical force I wasn’t expecting. The old building veritably shook.

  “What did you do to my son, goddammit? What the fuck did you do to my son?”

  “I gave him the edge he will need, Sam, to exist in this life without help.”

  “He has help from me—”

  “No, Sam. Not even you can be with him at all times. Not like his true guardian angel.”

  “This is really, really fucked up,” I said, and found myself circling the alley, shaking my hands, wanting to simultaneously smash the oversized glow stick’s head into the brick wall, but needing to hear him out, too. “So what have you done to my son? What exactly?”

  “I gave him strength, Sam.”

  “But how?”

  “I gave him some of me.”

  I was feeling physically ill, for the first time in a long time. “Is that why your glow has...”

  “Diminished? Yes, Sam. That, and for other reasons.”

  I knew the other reasons, of course. I said, “So what’s going to happen to my son?”

  “He will continue to have great strength, which will only increase, but not excessively so. He will, in essence, be able to take care of himself when needed.”

  “That’s all well and dandy, but strength only goes so far.”

  “Your son, while not immortal, will live a long life.”

  “How long?”

  “That remains to be seen, but longer than most.”

  “And what if he’s...” Except I couldn’t bring myself to finish the thought.

  “Wounded or sick? He will heal faster than others, Sam. It will take a lot to mortally wound your son. He should be immune to most disease.”

  That choked me up, and I was, for the first time, grateful to Ishmael. “Thank you,” I said.

  He nodded once...and disappeared.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Three days later...

  And I was still glued to my computer screen, watching the video feeds, hour after hour, day after day. Sometimes, I watched in real time, sometimes, at 2x the speed. I’d spent most of my free time in here, in front of my computer, and had I been mortal, my back would have been aching, my ass would have been hurt and my eyes would have been crossed.

  I was none of these; mostly, I was just bored.

  Except...except one thing that kept me coming back for more.

  The light.

  A soft, muted half-light, it still occasionally turned on in the middle of the night, often at different times and often for varying lengths. Where the light came from, I didn’t know. But there it was.

  There was no good reason why the light would turn on and off. My guess was, it was a smaller light deeper within the cafe. Perhaps a refrigerator light. Or a freezer light.

  Two days ago, I had called the Starbucks manager and asked what type of premise security system they had. She told me she wasn’t at liberty to divulge that. I almost tested whether or not I could compel her over the phone line. Instead, I called Detective Sharp and had him ask her the same question, plus a few follow-up questions. Apparently, she was at liberty to tell him. Cops get all the breaks. The Starbucks system was pretty basic. Alarm goes off if anything is broken into. No interior motion detectors. No light on timers.

  Detective Sharp next wanted to know what I had found. I told him I would tell him when I knew more. He said that wasn’t good enough and started to come down on me. I told him he would be the first to know as soon as I had something concrete. He didn’t like it, but most cops didn’t like being told what to do by private investigators. I reminded him that we were on the same team. I nearly reminded him that I was kind of cute, but luckily, he changed the subject.

  “We didn’t find any prints,” he said.

  “You checked both vents.”

  “Of course. They’re both clean.”

  “She wiped them,” I said. “She had the time to clean up after herself.”

  “If she was there.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “The crime scene guys are still laughing at me,” he said.

  “You are kind of funny-looking.”

  “Look, Samantha Moon. I trusted you. You came with some good references. Hell, great references. Sherbet stands by you. And so does this Sanchez guy out of L.A. Still, I don’t know you for shit, and now the guys at the station are having a good laugh at me because I had them print a fucking vent under a fucking sink at a fucking Starbucks.”

  “You sound annoyed.”

  “Damn straight I’m annoyed. Don’t fuck with me, Sam. I’m going out on a fucking limb bringing you in on this, and giving you access—”

  “She was in there, Detective. I promise.”

  “When will you show me what you have?”

  “Soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Jesus, are you always like this?”

  “Sometimes,” I said, “and don’t call me Jesus.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The kids were asleep.

  I had already gone for a late-night jog, sometimes running so fast that I might as well be flying low to the ground, feeling invincible and untouchable.

  I took a long shower, as hot as I could make it. One thing about taking showers in the middle of the night was that there was no one waiting in line for it. So I used up all the hot water...and loved every second of it.

  Now, dressed in a robe made of human flesh—kidding, pink terrycloth—I was back in front of my computer, prepared for an all-nighter. Of course, an all-nighter for me was really nothing more than my day job, so to speak.

  Now, with my hair still wet, I curled one cold foot under me and sat at my computer, ready to dig in.

  I didn’t have to dig for very long.

  Almost immediately, as I fast-forwarded through the fifth full day of her disappearance, after I had watched, precisely, two million people enter and exit the Starbucks in Corona, I saw something that caught my eye. And not just something.

  A woman.

  Exiting Starbucks.

  No, not a big deal in and of itself. I had seen a million different women leave Starbucks up to this point. No, she was different. I unfurled my leg from under me and sat forward, pausing the video, capturing the woman just as she was stepping off the sidewalk that wrapped around the building.

  I checked the time on the video: 1:17 pm.

  I rewound the video a few seconds—hell, I’d gotten quite adept at manipulating the video controls, having spent the past three days working them—and watched her step out of the Starbucks again, this time closely watching her.

  She was smallish, about the size of Lucy, if I had to guess. And I did have to guess. It was my job to guess...to make an informed guess. The woman on the screen was walking with her head down, and talking into a cell phone. The woman had black hair. Very black hair. Almost too black for her skin tone.

  Interesting.

  Lucy, of course, had light brown hair. The woman was also wearing different clothing, too. Shorts and a tank top. She carried a medium-sized handbag under her arm.

  A different handbag than what Lucy came in with.

  Maybe it wasn’t her.

  The woman paused briefly and actually shaded her eyes, even though she was wearing Jackie-O-type sunglasses. She paused and waved her hand. A red SUV, whose license plate was unreadable, pulled up next to the curb, and the woman with the sunglasses, with the pitch-black hair and pale skin, got into the passenger seat, and shut the door.

  The SUV pulled away and was gone.

  I frowned at the whole scene, replayed it twice more, and then did what any detective would do. I rewound to the early part of the day and painstaking went through each minute of the video.

  And at no time did a dark-haired woman with the big sunglasses actually come into Starbucks.

  She only exited.

  It was Lucy; I was sure of it.

  I could have kissed someone.

  Even Kingsley.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “So the broad’s alive,” said Detective Sharp.

  “Yes,” I said, “And no one says the word broad anymore.”

  “Too bad. It’s a good word. My pops used to say it.”

  It was midday, and we were in his brightly lit office. A few minutes earlier, gasping and whimpering, I had dashed across the half-empty parking lot, only to push through the heavy glass doors. Once inside, I did all I could to compose myself as quickly as possible, although I might have whimpered a little.

  Now, in his too-bright office—and sitting as far away from the direct sunshine as possible—I said, “Let me guess, your father was a cop, too.”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Because you sound like a cop stuck in the seventies.”

  “What can I say? I grew up with ‘the boys,’ as my father used to call his cop friends. They were over all the time.”

  “No mom?”

  “She died young. Just me and my pops.”

  “He’s dead, too?”

  “Five years now. Ain’t a day goes by that I don’t miss him.”

  “He’s here now,” I said.

  “Say again?”

  “Your pops is here now. He’s standing behind you. His hand is on your shoulder. You can probably feel a tingle there.”

  He reached up and made a small movement toward his shoulder, and then pulled up short. “Not cool. Who the hell sent you—”

  “Shut up and listen,” I said. Mercifully, his office door was closed. I hadn’t expected to do a reading today, or to give a message from Spirit. I didn’t have a TV show where a camera crew was following me around, waiting eagerly for me to give a stranger a reading. And I sure as hell wasn’t from Long Island. But, nonetheless, I could see into the spirit world, and I think spirits took the opportunity, sometimes, to relay a message through me.

  Your friendly neighborhood vampire.

  I said, “I can see spirits, you big boob. I’m kind of like a medium, only cooler.”

  “Wait. What—”

  “Your dad is here. He’s a big guy, bald. At least, that’s how he’s projecting himself to me right now. He’s still holding your shoulder. You should be feeling a serious tingling there right about now. He’s telling me, over and over, how proud he is of you.”

  “If this is a joke...”

  “No joke, Detective,” I said. In the past, I couldn’t hear spirits. These days I could, especially vociferous, loud spirits. His father was such a spirit. I relayed his loving message to his son, and when I was done, Detective Jason Sharp was left sobbing at his desk, a real mess. Spirits have that kind of effect on people.

  His father seemed to nod, patted his son again, and faded out slowly.

  ***

  Detective Sharp finally looked up from all his blubbering and said, “That was so unfair.”

  “I don’t make the rules,” I said. “And your father wanted to come through.”

  “He’s pushy like that.”

  “Oh, and he also wanted me to tell you not to be such a dick when you talk to me on the phone.”

  “Did he really—oh, bullshit. You’re messing with me.”

  “I am.”

  “I guess I was a bit of a douche on the phone.”

  “A bit, and I hate that word.”

  “Sorry. Guy talk.”

  “If you haven’t noticed yet...”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re a broad.”

  “That I am, and like I said, no one says that word anymore.”

  “Well, I’m bringing it back. Now, can we get back to work?”

  We did. I first showed him the various points when the muted light had turned on in the back of Starbucks, then progressed quickly over to the fifth day.

  “Now watch.”

  “I’m watching.”

  When the woman with the dark hair and big sunglasses appeared on the screen, Sharp said, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “Any mention in the report of anyone with a red SUV?”

  “No,” said Sharp.

  “What about her phone records?”

  “She never used her phone again, neither calls nor texts after she disappeared.”

  “She’s using a throwaway phone, then,” I said.

  “Would be my guess.” He looked at me. “So if we find the red SUV...”

  “We find the broad,” I said.