I sat down on the floor in front of him. I said, “You saw the dog again today.”

  He nodded. My son was many things, but one of them wasn’t telepathic, although his actual hearing seemed to be stronger than most.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “You weren’t hurt?”

  Anthony shook his head.

  “This was the second time you turned into the fire man, right?”

  “Fire warrior, Mom. And yes.”

  “Do you... do you have any questions?”

  “Where does he come from? Is he always waiting for me?”

  I thought about how to answer that, fully aware that Danny was also looking through my son’s own eyes, fully aware that I was talking to two people at once, and not liking any of it. Then again, that’s how Allison felt, too, wasn’t it? Allison felt that she was talking to two people: myself and Elizabeth. No matter how deep I stamped down the demon bitch within my mind, she was always there, listening. Which was why Allison had cut me off from her thoughts. And I didn’t blame her one bit, although it annoyed me to no end.

  It was the same with Kingsley, Fang, Dracula, Franklin... we all had entities within us. We all had entities listening and conspiring later, while we slept. One thing I had learned in the past few years was that all immortals, or partial immortals like Kingsley, slept like the dead, whether during the day or night. Either way, we were dead to the world—and during that time the entities within us were free to leave, and free to return from whence they came. And from whence they came was a place beyond time and space, apparently, a space safe from the devil himself. Where this place was, I didn’t know. But I suspected it was created from the ether and given life, somehow, similar to how Charlie Reed had created his own fantasy world.

  With enough vision. With enough determination. And enough love—and perhaps even hate—a world could spring forth from those adept at such things.

  I thought of all of this and more as my son looked on, and just behind his eye, I could see a small flame dancing. A very, very small flame. Nearly nonexistent. Surely, I would have missed it before, had I not known to look for it. The flame, I knew, was an indicator of my son’s possession. Of Danny, his own father, watching us.

  “You can ask him,” I finally said.

  “Ask the fire warrior?” Anthony’s eyes widened.

  “Yes. When you are ready, try talking to him. He will tell you who he is, and where he’s from, because I don’t know.”

  “Is he an alien?”

  “In a way, yes. But you will need to ask him.”

  “You think he speaks American?”

  I gave my son a half smile, waited.

  “English! I meant English.”

  “He will understand you,” I said. “And you will understand him. Language won’t be a problem.”

  “Okay, I will do that someday. Maybe. The problem is, he’s so dang big. I mean, I could see on top of the roof, Mom. You should have seen me.”

  “And no neighbors saw you?”

  Anthony shook his head vigorously. “No one. The street was empty. It was like the devil knew.”

  “The jogger?”

  “Yes. It was the same person I met in the warehouse. Just different bodies. She had the same weird tattoo. And the same dog!”

  “And you weren’t afraid?”

  “With the fire warrior, I don’t think I will ever be afraid again. And even without him, I think I can take care of myself. In fact...”

  He paused, turned red.

  “What, baby?” I asked.

  “I think I can take him.”

  “The devil?”

  Anthony nodded, vigorously at first, but then looked away, perhaps hearing his own words again. I let it go. That my son was confident was a good thing. I had seen the video where he had taken on four or five men at once—and not just any men—unchanged werewolves. Like me, Kingsley was supernaturally strong in his day-to-day life, too. And so had those men, many of whom had been flattened by my thirteen-year-old son.

  “Anthony, do you know why the devil came today?”

  “He’s looking for Daddy.”

  I nodded. Anthony knew that, of course. Hell, the devil himself had spelled it out to Anthony back in the warehouse months ago, back when the devil had given my son a fighting chance to live. The devil had—and this was something I was still processing—saved my son. Granted, the piece of shit had merely freed my son, leaving my boy alone to fight against a half dozen fully transitioned werewolves. Still, he had given my son a fighting chance.

  I said, “Not just your dad, baby. He’s coming for you too.”

  “Why?”

  “Remember how he helped you?”

  Anthony snorted. “Some help. He just ripped the arrows out, meat and all. But I guess he did free me. He didn’t actually, help, though. He left me to fight the werewolves alone.”

  “He did, yes. But the devil never does anything for free. He always, always wants something in return.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, baby.”

  “Mom, don’t call me that.”

  “Sorry, baby. Oops.”

  I laughed, and so did he. We needed something to lighten the moment here. And as we laughed, something occurred to me, and it occurred to me in a flash of insight that I would ponder later: the devil had been created to fulfill a role. If he could be created, he could also be destroyed, too. The problem, of course, was that he could body-jump. I had come across such an entity before in the Pacific Northwest.

  To destroy him, I had to destroy not his current body, which was only fleeting, but the source body. The original body. I nodded at that. Yes, find the devil’s home base, and you found the source of evil. Kill the base, and you killed the devil—

  Anthony’s door opened. Standing in the doorway was Tammy, staring at me.

  “Mom, her eyes,” said Anthony.

  I saw it too. The flames had grown, lapping just behind her pupils.

  “The world needs the devil, Mom,” she said, almost automatically. “You cannot know the light without the dark. Sound familiar?”

  “He wants to use you. He wants to use Anthony too. If the devil had his way, he would take both of you from me.”

  “No one can use me, Mom,” said Anthony. “No way, no how.”

  “You see, Mom,” said Tammy. “No one will be using us. They can maybe try but they won’t succeed.”

  “Baby, you do realize we’re talking about the devil,” I said, and heard myself all over again. The devil? Really?

  “Yes, Mom. Yes, the devil. And, yes, your life is much different than it was ten years ago. All of our lives are. All because of you. Do you think I want to be a freak? Do you think Anthony likes being a freak? The kid has no friends. None, Mom.”

  “Hey, I have some—”

  “And the friends I have all think I’m weird. Look at the burden I have. Every day I listen to stories of self-doubt, self-hate, of running away, of disappearing, of suicide, of hurting themselves and others. Every day. And all because of you.”

  “Baby, you know I didn’t have control over what happened to me—”

  “I know that, Mom,” Tammy said. “But you decided to stay around. You decided to raise us normally. Except there was no normal, not anymore. Dad knew that. He knew you would hurt us in the end. And look at all the trouble you caused us. Anthony is a walking freak show—”

  “Hey—”

  I said, “That’s not nice—”

  “No, it’s not nice,” said Tammy, cutting me off. “It’s a terrible thing to say about your little brother. A brother who could beat up a dozen men at once—”

  “Well, it was like four. Maybe five—” Anthony said.

  “A son who can turn into a goddamn monster—”

  “That’s enough, young lady—”

  “The fire warrior isn’t a monster,” said Anthony. “He’s a warrior. It’s in his name. Duh.”

  “A name you gave him, dumbass.”

  “You will go to your room, young lady—”

  “You know I’m right. And you know that you have been selfish by staying around. You know that we would have been better off if you had run away. Far away. I wouldn’t be what I am. And Anthony would be—”

  “Dead,” said her little brother. “I would be dead.”

  “Or so Mom says. We have to take her word for it, don’t we? The doctors might have saved you. You were at St. Jude’s, the best children’s hospital in the world.”

  Except I knew my daughter could see what I had seen in those dark hours. The black halo of death around my son. He had been on the brink of death, and she knew it. But was there a sliver of truth to what she said? Could he have survived and I unnecessarily and irrevocably altered my son’s life?

  “The answer is yes, Mom. You are selfish and terrible, and you are the real monster here.” And with that, she marched out and slammed the bedroom door. Then slammed her door too.

  Anthony looked at me and whistled. “Bitches be crazy.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  After chastising Anthony for calling his sister a bitch—and implying that all women were bitches—I called Kingsley and asked him to come over. Kingsley reminded me that he was a very important defense attorney with many high-stakes cases pending. I reminded him what we’d done a few nights ago, in bed. He said he would be right over.

  Kingsley was with them now, and she wasn’t very happy about it. Kingsley arrived bearing pizzas. Lots and lots of pizzas. Enough for ten people. Hell, twenty people. I made the boys promise to save a slice or two for Tammy. She still wasn’t talking to me, and that was fine. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to her either, not right now, not after her outburst.

  Besides, she had given me a lot to think about.

  Which is exactly what I had done, high overhead. In fact, I spent the rest of the evening flying and thinking and mulling over just about every decision I’d ever made. Talos listened and offered advice, and in the end, I knew I had to accept responsibility for everything. Maybe not for my initial attack, but everything after that.

  Talos reminded me that I needed to be easy on myself and that I had done the best I could, under the circumstances, and I thanked my flying friend, but, ultimately, I knew Tammy was right. I had been selfish, and I had put everyone in harm’s way. I liked to believe that I had also been loving and kind and helpful, that I had been there for them in ways that other mothers couldn’t, but that didn’t stop the burden of guilt from weighing me down and making me feel like shit all over again.

  I flew and I flew and I might have kept on flying—and giving my daughter her wish—except I still had a job to do, and it was almost midnight.

  ***

  I dropped down on Charlie Reed’s roof, alighting quieter than most people would believe. There, I saw myself in the single flame—a rare chance for me to actually see myself from head to toe—and immediately transitioned from something big and scary, to something cute and maybe a little scary.

  I’d carried with me a small tote bag with my essentials: rolled jeans and sweater, Asics, wallet and my phone. No bra and no panties. I was changing on his rooftop, for crissakes. Who had time for all that? Besides, I’d been blessed—or cursed, depending on who you asked—with a small chest, which only seemed to have shrunk in my immortality. They don’t tell you that in all those vampire romance books.

  In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, as my mother would say, I was dressed and dropping down from the roof. That it was two stories high mattered not at all. I landed easily, my knees painlessly absorbing the drop. I stumbled maybe only a fraction. Good enough.

  Charlie had cameras all around his place, hence the reason I’d dressed on his roof. Had Charlie cared to really study my image, he might have noticed I was missing ears, or part of my neck, wherever the make-up foundation had failed to reach. So far, cameras hadn’t been an issue with me, although there were undoubtedly hundreds of hours of strange security footage of vampires the world over, me included.

  Although Allison possessed the kind of magic that Criss Angel could only dream of, she was still only human with mostly human limitations, hearing included. As yet, she hadn’t realized I was coming up behind her. She stood on a wide, lighted footpath that led from the driveway to the front door. As I approached, she checked her phone, then scanned the street, then checked her phone again. She repeated this again and again.

  I crept closer, noting the smooth sweep of her neck. Most vampires would find the smooth sweep of her neck irresistible; however, most vampires didn’t have their inner demon under some semblance of control. I’m proud to say that I did. Mostly.

  I crept closer, then closer still.

  She was just about to check her cell phone again when I seized her shoulders, and said, “I vant to suck your blood!” in my best Boris Karloff impression.

  Except I had barely gotten the words out when I found myself flying through the air. And then slamming hard into Charlie Reed’s front door. What little air I had burst from my lungs as I slumped to my rump. Strange electrical currents crackled over my skin like living glow worms. I thought my hair was smoking.

  “Oh my God, Sam! Are you okay?”

  “I think I’m dying, Allison. Tell my children I love them. Tell Kingsley I will miss him, but not so much his hairy back. That I won’t miss.”

  “Such a bitch. I could have hurt you.”

  I stood, dusted myself off. “You did hurt me.”

  “Why are you so mean to me?”

  “I’m the one that got blasted.”

  “Serves you right.”

  “He’s coming,” I said.

  “You’re still smoking, Sam.”

  “Well, blow on me or something,” I said.

  Which is what she was doing when the front door opened and Charlie Reed appeared. “Now there’s a sight you don’t see every day,” said Charlie Reed. “Come on in.”

  We followed him back through his spacious home, as Allison occasionally blew on my neck or hair. I smelled the burning too. There was a small chance one of her electrified worms had ignited my hair. Once in his office, he headed straight to his seat behind his desk.

  “How’s the writer’s block?” I asked.

  “Don’t ask him that,” hissed Allison. “That’s, you know, taboo to ask a writer.”

  “I don’t think it is,” I said.

  “I’m pretty sure it is, Sam.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Charlie. “I’ve been doing nothing but staring at my screen for hours, ever since I got home from work. So I guess you can say the writer’s block is going strong.” He gave us an enthusiastic and sarcastic double thumbs-up.

  Although we had both been hoping to read up a little more on the Land of Dur while we waited for Queen Autumn’s possible midnight arrival, I suspected that the whole reason we were here in the first place was precisely because of his writer’s block.

  Allison caught my eye and nodded; indeed, we had discussed this earlier.

  “Now?” she asked.

  “Now,” I said.

  “Now what?” asked Charlie.

  Allison and I both came around his desk and pulled up some extra chairs. I said, “Charlie, we need to talk.”

  ***

  And talk we did.

  We laid on him some pretty heavy stuff. It’s not every day that someone is told they are a creator, that the imaginings in his mind had sprung whole cloth into living, breathing people. More so, that an entire world had been created to support these people and creatures.

  When Allison and I were done, he looked at us sadly. “Are you two okay? I mean, seriously.”

  “We are,” I said. “Well, I am. I can’t vouch for Allison.”

  “I’m fine, too,” she snapped.

  “Obviously, you two are pulling my leg,” he said. He was sitting back in his office chair now, arms folded over his narrow chest, hair about as wild and unkempt as hair could be; I mean, had he looked in a mirror recently? Still, through it all, he was good looking. Bedraggled and messy, there was still no escaping that jawline. It was, I noted, thirty minutes before midnight.

  “It would be the obvious answer,” I said.

  “That, or you two are crazy.”

  Allison and I had assumed he would balk at the suggestion he was a creator, that he had inadvertently created whole lives, both animal and man, and an entire whole world to populate them on. Truth was, I wasn’t entirely convinced myself, although it felt right to me, too. Either way, he needed to wrap his brain around it in his own time, in his own way.

  “Sam, I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. I just hired you to investigate a haunting—”

  “You’ve seen her, Charlie,” I said. “Kind of.”

  He opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again, as, I assume, the real possibility that one of his characters might have come to life, truly occurred to him for the first time. “I-I never got a good look at her.”

  “It’s Autumn,” said Allison, jumping in. “And she’s here for help.”

  “That’s just crazy, Allie.” He held up the phone bill. “I mean, yes, this is an uncannily accurate representation of the woman I see in my mind, but that still doesn’t mean she’s showing up here in my hallway.” He paused, looked at me. “Perhaps the stress of this job has been too—”

  “The stress of hanging out with my new favorite writer. The stress of relaxing in his beautiful home? The stress of meeting one of my favorite new characters, as well?”

  “Well, maybe I misspoke. Perhaps the stress of your job, in general, is affecting your—”

  “Sorry, Charlie. You’re my only client.” Which was sad but true. Unless one works in a big firm—and Moon Investigations, to be clear, is not a big firm—a private eye generally works one case at a time. Although we may get lucky and a few might overlap, there are usually whole days, sometimes whole weeks, where I wait for work.

  “Maybe this job finally pushed you over the edge,” he suggested.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Except you know there’s a chance we might be right.”

  “Just to be clear,” said Allison. “The stress of my job hasn’t been too much for me, either.” We both looked at her, and she sort of sank back into the couch. “Just saying,” she mumbled. “But no one asked me, of course.”