“I do my best thinking here.”

  “I see, well, never mind all that. Take my hand. Let’s get you away from that edge. You’re making me nervous.”

  Gravere, against his better judgment—after all, he still didn’t know who or what this entity was—held out his hand. A yank later, and Gravere found himself face-first in the cold mud. Gravere never cared much for mud, and he certainly didn’t care much for falling face first in the stuff. As he stood, wiping himself clean, he said, “What manner of being are you and why are you here?”

  The fire-spirit smiled and his pearly teeth gleamed in the night. “There’s some spunk in you yet, my boy! My name is Chianti and I will be your mentor.”

  “Mentor for what?”

  “All in due time, lad. For now, you need only to know that you are part of something much bigger than either of us, so big that few mortals and only a handful of immortals could ever wrap their minds around it.” Chianti smiled and some of that inner fire seemed to shine through his face. “Why, a grand plan played across the biggest stage of all, a grand plan of epic proportions, and you, young sir, are at the center of it all. You need only to take my hand...to begin this marvelous journey.” The fire spirit reached out his hand.

  “I have some questions first.”

  The fire spirit’s hand wavered a little. “Yes, of course.”

  “What if I don’t want to be part of something so big that few mortals and only a handful of immortals could ever wrap their minds around it?”

  “You can’t not be part of something so big when you are already part of it.”

  “But who says I’m part of it?”

  “It has been written.”

  “By who?”

  “By the gods.”

  “Where is it written?”

  “Upon the Sacred Scroll of All That Is.”

  “I would like to see this Sacred Scroll.”

  “Well, you can’t. No mortal can see it until the end of the Last Age.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I see this Sacred Scroll.”

  “Ah, I see the confusion. You see, we’ve barely begun the First Age—”

  “Then how do you know what’s on the scroll?”

  “I’m not a mortal, you see. I am a fire elemental.”

  “So you have seen this scroll?”

  “Er, no. But I have it on good authority—”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I see some proof.”

  “But...but your destiny awaits.”

  “All the more reason for me to want to see the scroll for myself.”

  “But, no mortal—”

  “Can see it until the end of the Last Age, I get it. Fine, what is my destiny, then?”

  “In short, you are to be the next great Fire Lord.”

  “Fire Lord, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what, exactly, does the Fire Lord do?”

  “Why, he does all manner of things, boy. He is the lord of all that burns. He commands all fiery elementals in this world and the next. But first you must learn to master the power within before you can save the world. That’s where I come in.”

  “Excuse me, but save the world from what?”

  “From the Dark Three, who are amassing a great army in the wastelands to the south.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “My master has told me, of course.”

  “Who is your master?” asked Gravere.

  “I am not at liberty to say, but rest assured, he is a great demigod who lives in the heart of the Frosted Mountains to the far, far west.”

  “I am not assured, and I am surely not rested. I would like to speak to your Master.”

  “He is away.”

  “Away where?”

  “Seeking counsel with the gods.”

  “Then I shall wait here until he is finished.”

  “But time means nothing to my master and the other gods. A day for them is ten years for us. It is better that you come with me—”

  “Come with you where?”

  “To the Moaning Swamp at the base of the Tranquil Tor, where your training will begin.”

  “Training to be the Fire Lord?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What does my training consist of?”

  “All shall be revealed upon your arrival, as it is written.”

  “Upon the Sacred Scroll?”

  “No, this has been smitten upon the Templar Tablet, carried down from the Mountain of Pain by the Children of the One.”

  “The One what?”

  “The One Soul—look, are you coming or not?”

  “Maybe. Now, this One Soul...where can I find him?”

  “Her. And she is found in the Land Between Lands, in the Time Between Time.”

  “Now we’re getting someplace. Where, exactly, is this Land Between Lands? And when, exactly, is the Time Between Time? Hey, wait! Where are you going?”

  For the fire elemental had begun ascending into the sky again. “Back to the Enchanted Realm of Dancing Flames. I’m too old for this shit.”

  “But I still have more questions. Now, where is this Enchanted Realm of Dancing Flames...and why is it that your skin glows white...and how do you float on the air in such a manner...and who are the Children of the One...and why is it called the Mountain of Pain...and...”

  The End

  Return to the Table of Contents

  Castle for Sale

  Once upon a time, there was an old vampire.

  He lived in a big castle in a forgotten forest, far, far away from any humans… and any unhumans, for that matter.

  He lived a quiet, uneventful life, feasting on the rodents unlucky enough to inadvertently reveal themselves or to even squeak behind a nearby wall. The old vampire could, after all, command them to show themselves… and, once compelled, they would scuttle right up to him, usually shaking with fear. Yes, mice can shake with fear. The old vampire had seen it and, secretly, quite enjoyed it. Perhaps too much.

  However, the old vampire did not enjoy death, which is why he killed the vermin quickly, plunging his teeth into their necks and biting off their little heads, flinging them off to the side, where they would roll about like so many marbles.

  Okay, maybe he liked death sometimes, but certainly not enough to kill humans. Okay, that was a lie. He loved killing humans, too, which is why he had forced himself to live in this castle, far away from anyone, especially humans. The old vampire, you see, loved seeing fear in the eyes of men—and women and children, too, for that matter. He also loved to see the sweat on their brow and loved, perhaps too much, when they sometimes pissed or shit themselves in fear. He would, of course, never admit to the latter.

  Anyway, he loved death and killing and fear too much… so much so that he had nearly wiped out a small village in a remote Alaskan harbor. Which is how he ended up here, in a castle in the forest, far, far away from all those lovely humans who could sweat and show fear and piss and shit. The old vampire thought he was doing a noble thing, giving up human blood. In fact, he had convinced himself he could live without it. And so far, he had lasted, precisely, nine hours.

  This was, after all, his very first day in his new castle in the damnable woods that were just too far away from prying human eyes. Eyes that could show fear. Blessed fear.

  Once upon a time, there was an old vampire who lived, precisely, nine hours and fifteen minutes in an old castle in a forgotten forest far, far away from any humans… an old vampire who put said castle on sale just before feasting on his real estate agent… and everyone else in the office.

  The End

  The Collections continue in:

  Moonlight & Monsters

  by J.R. Rain

  Amazon Kindle * Amazon UK

  ~~~~~

  If you enjoyed Red Rain, please help me spread the word by leaving a review. Thank you!

  ~~~~~

  Return to the Table of Contents

  Also available:

  The Witch and the Gentleman

  The Witches #1

  by J.R. Rain

  (read on for a sample)

  Chapter One

  “Hi, this is Allison. Thank you for calling The Psychic Hotline. How can I help you see into the future?”

  As I spoke and waited, I reached for my protein drink, which I had just whipped up a few minutes earlier. I found that protein drinks helped me connect with the spirits.

  Yes, I’m a telephone psychic. A pretty good one, too. I’m also a personal trainer and hoped to someday start my own gym. A gym that focused on the body and the mind. Lofty dreams, but we all need them.

  I set aside my protein drink, cleared my thoughts and glanced at my computer screen. According to my screen, I had a call on the line, a local number, too. I worked from home, plugged into my company’s switchboard, so to speak. I wore headphones with a microphone, and as soon as I clicked on the number blinking on the screen, we were live.

  The wonders of technology.

  I adjusted my headphones. The previous callers were already out of sight, out of mind. A couple of kids wanted to mess with me. Except, of course, I sensed their names quickly enough to blow their minds. Then again, they were high and it wasn’t very hard to blow their minds.

  Yeah, we got a lot of jerks who liked to mess with us. It was part of the business. We also got a lot of people who needed real help. Little did the callers know they were getting a real psychic. A powerful psychic. One whose gifts were enhanced nearly daily, thanks to my unusual source of power. From a friend of mine who just happened to be a vampire.

  Now, I focused on connecting my energy to the person on the other end of the line. I heard crackling in the background, followed by faint street noise.

  It wasn’t hard to connect with others on a psychic level once I learned how to do it. I practiced like a kid who had just learned how to ride a bike. It was a sort of mental reaching out. However, I knew it went further than just the mental. It was a brief connecting of souls. My soul connecting with the caller’s. Except he didn’t know I was connecting. Yes, I already knew it was a “he” on the other end of the line. And he had a very, very heavy problem weighing on his heart.

  “Can you hear me?” asked a hesitant voice.

  “Loud and clear,” I said. “How can I help you?”

  Through my living room’s sliding glass door, the posh apartment building across the street caught some of the mid-afternoon sun, and glittered magnificently. A seagull swooped in that moment over my balcony, which was unusual because my Beverly Hills apartment was at least ten miles from the ocean.

  “I’m not sure,” said the man.

  “Then let’s start with your name,” I said.

  “My name is Pete.”

  I sensed his crackling nerves on the other end of the line. This wasn’t going to be your everyday phone call to a psychic. What it was going to be, I didn’t know, but I sensed a lot of pain on his end. A friggin’ lot.

  “Don’t be nervous,” I said, and was not very surprised when the big seagull landed on my balcony wall. The big bird was missing a leg, but did a fine job of balancing on just one. How in the hell a seagull could lose an entire leg was beyond me.

  No, not beyond me. Not these days. Just as I speculated on the leg, I saw an image of a young man holding what appeared to be a BB gun. The projectile went through the seagull’s leg, breaking it and nearly severing it. Nearly. The poor guy had spent weeks in agony until he’d finally chewed off his own leg with his beak.

  The animal kingdom endures horrors that few of us could fathom, I had once read. I believe it.

  “Well, how much information do I give you, and how much information do I, you know, wait to receive?” he asked.

  “We can do this any way you want.”

  “Well, I would prefer not to say much.”

  “To test me?”

  “Yes, sorry. But it’s the only way I can know if you are legit.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. The truth was, I would do the same. His only ace in the hole was that he hadn’t told me anything yet, other than his name. “Give me a moment.”

  I really didn’t need a moment. I was already linked into the guy pretty well. But sometimes, it took a moment to make sense of what I was seeing, feeling and hearing. And yes, I experienced all three. A true rarity for a psychic.

  Then again, most psychics weren’t a source of blood for vampires. Especially powerful vampires. And my very good friend might have been just one of the most powerful vampires ever, although she didn’t quite believe it yet.

  As I made sense of what I was seeing, as a sort of story unfolded before me, two things happened: the first was that the seagull hopped a little closer on one leg and cocked its head a little to stare at me, and the second was that I gasped.

  “You’re looking for the person who murdered your daughter,” I said to my caller.

  There was a long pause. A very long pause. Before sound ripped into my ears. And I suddenly realized that what I was hearing on the other end was the sound of the man sobbing.

  Chapter Two

  I waited for him to regain control of himself.

  While I waited, I reached out further, expanding my mind, but I wasn’t God. I didn’t know all, see all. I was also not a medium. I didn’t see the dead or talk to the dead. I did, however, have other gifts, many other gifts. One of them was remote viewing, which happened to be my strength.

  In my mind’s eye, I saw a man sitting on a couch in the dark in a living room. The shades were drawn and no lights were on. His phone was pushed up against his ear as he sort of hugged himself in an upright fetal position.

  I expanded further out. It was a big home. Nice furniture. A robust leather couch banked one wall. Elegant glass tables reflected light. Framed photos were arranged across the top of a slick, black lacquer piano. I shifted my focus to the photos.

  The photos mostly consisted of the man who was now presently huddled on the couch, and also featured an unnaturally blond wife and a naturally blond girl. The girl might have been the cutest thing I’d ever seen. Dozens of pictures lined the piano, and the nearby fireplace mantel, too. I quickly glanced at all of them. The girl sitting at this very piano, the girl in soccer and softball. The girl clowning around with her dad and mom. The girl who ripped his heart with unspeakable agony.

  One of the frames said Penny on it.

  “Was your daughter named Penny?” I finally asked.

  He quit crying immediately, gasped. “Jesus. How did you know?”

  “You called The Psychic Hotline, remember?”

  In my mind’s eye, I could see the man desperately wiping away his tears and nodding. He sat up straight.

  “You are married.” No, wait. That didn’t feel right. I got psychic ‘hits.’ Strong impulses. Strong feelings. This didn’t feel right. “You were married,” I corrected. “To the fake blond. Oops, sorry. Didn’t mean to say that. Anyway, you were married to the blond in the photographs along your piano and fireplace mantel.”

  “Jesus.”

  I waited for more information to come through. It always came through in a variety of ways. With Peter, the information was coming through in feelings, too. Sometimes it came through in symbolic images. Or, if I was getting a particularly clear remote viewing hit, I could just have a look around the tangible environment. I was doing that now, combining my seeing with feeling.

  Yeah, I was weird like that.

  But I wasn’t getting a hit on the daughter. No surprise there. Not being a medium, I couldn’t see or feel the dead. Also, I wasn’t a mind reader, so I wasn’t privy to what Peter was thinking or what he knew. I got impulses of information. Also, I could not control how much information came through, or what kind of information was revealed. I simply opened myself up to the information...and hoped for the best.

  Peter stood and wiped the tears from his face. I saw him pacing in his big living room. I even saw his footprints forming and reforming in the elegant white carpet. He ran his fingers through his hair with his free hand.

  As he did so, I began getting more hits, this time flashing images. Horrific images, and as I received them, I spoke with rising alarm. “Your daughter was killed. Strangled to death. She was found in a park nearby. Jesus. Local kids found her. The police don’t have a suspect. This was years ago. Maybe two or three years ago. Your wife has long since left you. I’m so sorry. Jesus.”

  I saw him bury his face in his hands as he sobbed even harder than before.

  “You still wear your wedding ring,” I said.

  As I sat in my cozy chair in my living room, with my protein drink next to me and my eyes closed, I saw him look down at his hand and study the diamond-encrusted band. “How...how could you possibly know that?”

  “My strength lies in remote viewing,” I said.

  “I’m not following...”

  “It means I’m watching you now.”

  He shivered so much he nearly dropped the phone. He began turning in circles, looking around in a panic. As he did so, which I reported seeing, he next went to the front door and looked out, which I also reported seeing.

  “That’s incredible,” he said. “You see my every move.”

  “My boyfriends all hate it,” I said.

  “Have you always been like this?”

  I thought of my vampire friend. “It’s been getting stronger lately.”

  “What am I doing now?”

  I laughed. “You just touched your nose.”

  “Are you looking into my house somehow?”

  “That’s one way of putting it, but not in the way you’re suggesting.”

  He sat heavily on the big couch. “I guess you know I just sat down.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I called the right person to help find my daughter’s murderer.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I can’t guarantee anything.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I can’t control my psychic hits. You do realize, Peter, that most of my clients are lonely women wondering if they’ll ever find true love.”