“Or, if you had chosen to utilize the diamond medallion.”

  “His fate is tied in with my vampirism?” I asked.

  “More than likely. I cannot imagine how a mortal would take down the devil.”

  “Well, I can’t imagine how I would take down the devil, either,” I said. “It’s something I’ve never imagined.”

  “And yet, you are imagining it now. Funny how this all works.”

  “But if he had just stayed away...” I began.

  “Maybe it was impossible for him to stay away, Sam. Maybe his looking into the Amazing Disappearing Danny Moon led him inevitably to you. And then, his fate, as they say, was sealed.”

  We were quiet for a heartbeat or two. Which was damn near a full minute.

  Finally, I said, “But how do I do it? How do I kill the devil?”

  “The Angel of Death, of course,” said Fang.

  “What do you know about him?” I asked.

  “Not much more than Archibald Maximus,” said Fang. “Higher immortals, especially those who roam between worlds—and live between worlds—have been created to serve specific purposes.”

  “Created by who?” I asked.

  “A Creator much more powerful than all of us, I suspect.”

  “But why the need for the Angel of Death?”

  “A good question, Sam. I suspect some of these higher creatures don’t know how to die, not really. These aren’t reincarnated entities. They are one-offs, so to speak. Very powerful one-offs. Also, I suspect, they might be extremely hard to kill.”

  “Then why kill them at all?” I asked. “Why not leave them be?”

  “I think ‘kill’ is too strong of a word, Sam. ‘Return them to the light’ is probably closer. And to answer your question, I suspect their end will come when they have completed their purpose here on Earth. Or elsewhere.”

  “Or if belief in them fades,” I said.

  “For some entities, Sam. Not all have been created by humankind’s common collective. Take the Angel of Death. He would have been created by the Creator himself. Unlike your devil, who was created through mankind’s belief and fear.”

  “He’s not my devil,” I said. “So you’re saying the devil might have outlived his usefulness?”

  “Either that, or belief in him is significantly fading. Or...”

  “Or what?”

  Fang looked at me. “Or he’s gone AWOL. Breaking the cosmic rules.”

  “You think that’s happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, not with certainty. But I suspect he is bending the rules of his creation.”

  “Rules of his creation?”

  “Every creature has rules governing their creation, Sam. Look at humans. They have an acceptable lifespan, an acceptable range of physical and mental abilities, and an acceptable range of spiritual and creation abilities. Sure, there are a few exceptions.”

  I thought of Charlie Reed and his world of Dur. Boy, were there exceptions!

  “But,” he continued, “most humans stay within an acceptable range.”

  “So the devil has gone outside the acceptable range?”

  “Perhaps, Sam. But I also suspect something else is going on. I suspect an exit point was created for the devil.”

  “And what’s an exit point?”

  “A known time of death, Sam. We all have them. Many of them, in fact. Most near-death experiences, near-fatal car crashes, near-fatal sicknesses or diseases, were exit points that were diverted through sheer force of will. Through sheer force of life force, too. If a being has decided they’ve had enough, they will likely succumb, say, to their cancer. If a being decides that, ‘Hell no, there’s more to live for,’ they will likely push through. Upon his creation, there might have been such an exit point built in for the devil as well.”

  “Well, it looks to me like the bastard isn’t done living,” I said. “He’s fighting back like a cornered hellcat.”

  “Hellcat, indeed. But tell me, maybe he is pushing just to get you to fight back. Maybe you are his only answer to leave this plane of existence. Maybe, just maybe, he’s tired of being what he is. Remember the old vamp beneath the Los Angeles River?”

  I nodded. I said, “He allowed you to kill him, even though you were just a newbie.”

  Fang chuckled at that. “He did. And he did it because he was tired of living, Sam. Tired of killing. Tired of drinking blood. Tired of it all.”

  “And you think the devil is tired of being the devil?”

  “I don’t know, Sam. But I do know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I miss you.”

  “I kinda miss you, too.”

  “Just kinda?”

  “Kinda is all I have in me.”

  He nodded. “Kinda is good enough.”

  I said, “Tell me more about the Angel of Death.”

  Fang looked at me, squinted, then said, “Follow me.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “What about your customers?” I asked.

  “They’re used to me dashing off,” he said over his shoulder, as he led me through a side door behind the bar, then through an unused kitchen, down a flight of rickety stairs. He made a right, then another right, then down a long brick-lined hallway, and then finally into an old room that served, I suspected, as his office. Or his vampiric lair. Had I not been what I was, I might have been concerned. This looked like a murder room if I’d ever seen one. Which I had, once or twice.

  Except this murder room had an old desk, a chair, a dented filing cabinet and wall-to-wall bookshelves, all packed with books of varying sizes. Not quite as big as the Occult Reading Room, but damn close. It gave off the same creepy vibe. Luckily, though, no whisperings.

  Rather than going to his books, Fang opened a middle drawer in his filing cabinet, thumbed through a few manila folders, all while I watched as a half-dozen ghosts flitted through the room, many dressed in clothing from yesteryear. One watched me as I watched him. He seemed to clear his throat, then gave me a deep bow. There were, I noted, a half-dozen bullet wounds—exit wounds—in his back. I bowed as well and he faded away. My life.

  “Ah, here we go,” said Fang. He removed what appeared to be a drawing from a folder. He handed it to me.

  “You brought me down here to look at an old drawing of what? A temple?” I asked. In the old picture, a row of Corinthian columns marched down either side of what appeared to be a long, marble hallway. There was a bright light above, which reflected off the marble below. The edges of the drawing were crumbling and the whole thing just looked damned old. If I had to guess, maybe over a hundred years old. A yellowish haze sort of washed out the drawing. Something tugged at me, hard.

  “I think it’s a temple,” he said, “although it’s one that I don’t recognize.”

  I didn’t either. Then again, I didn’t know much about temples. Or anything about temples, for that matter.

  “So why show me?” I asked.

  “Such temples are associated with archangels.”

  “Are they now?”

  He nodded and proceeded to select a handful of books from his shelves. He flipped through them, and showed me two or three examples. Each depicted a classical archangel within such a temple.

  I pointed to the illustration. “How did you get this?”

  “Three months ago, a man came in here and gave it to me. He said that I would know who to give this drawing to, and that that the initiate would know how to use it.”

  “He said, ‘initiate’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he order a drink?”

  “Nope. One minute, I was looking down at the drawing and the next minute—”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “He was gone.”

  “Not quite, but he was walking out the front entrance.”

  I studied the picture, and as I did so, something continued to awaken within me. I had seen these pillars before, but not in the book Fang had just shown me. No, these pillars were situated differently, the hallway longer, too. “What did the guy look like?”

  “Short. Balding. White tufts of hair. Long white jacket.”

  “Vampire?” I asked.

  Fang shrugged. “I dropped the ball on that one, Moon Dance. I don’t remember if he had an aura or not.”

  “I’m leaning toward not,” I said absently. “So you just decided to file the drawing away?”

  “Seemed nicer than just tossing it out.”

  “And what made you want to give it to me now?”

  Fang’s longish face stared at me, unblinking, the fire in his pupil veritably crackling. Finally, he nodded. “You see the light above?”

  I did see it, and, yes. Fang, I also noted, suffered from the same long-pointy-fingernail syndrome that I suffered from.

  “You said that in the drawing the Librarian showed you, the Angel of Death was high above and looking down into the temple, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but that looks like angel light to me.”

  “Or maybe it’s just a drawing,” I said.

  “Or maybe it’s the same place but a different perspective.”

  I frowned at that. Indeed, this perspective was from the floor looking up into the bright light. But why a picture of the wide-open floor?

  “Maybe your own angel might know where this is?” said Fang. “Ishi or something.”

  “Ishmael,” I said, and nearly grinned. Fang had always been jealous of the angel. I said, “And the old guy said that the initiate would know what to do with this drawing?”

  “Yes—hey, what’s with that look in your eye?”

  “I think I know just what to do with the picture,” I said.

  Chapter Twelve

  I told Fang about it, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  Now, alone in his creepy murder office—well, plus two or three ghosts and me—I summoned the necessary nerves for what I was about to do. Yes, I knew what to do with the picture, and it scared the shit out of me.

  I’d done blind teleportation before. I’d teleported to an Alaskan mountain based on a picture, and to the red planet based on another. Not to mention the moon. Turned out, I needed only the image of a landing spot. In the past, I had used photographs. This would be my first time using a drawing.

  Crazy, I thought. Just nuts. Not to mention, it probably wouldn’t work.

  It was, after all, just a drawing. Nothing real. I had a brief image of me landing in a music video, like that waitress did in the “Take On Me” video by A-ha. God, I hoped not. Although that singer was damn cute, drawing or not.

  I studied the drawing, 99% certain it was the same majestic hall I had seen with Maximus. Except this was from ground level, and contained no archangel, although a light shone from above. It also contained, I was certain, a clear landing spot for me.

  Fang had been very much against this idea of teleporting. Tough shit. It was my choice, and my problem, and he wasn’t the one dealing with the devil.

  Luckily, he had a bar to run, and didn’t stand around trying to talk me out of it for too long, although he had tried. What if the temple had been demolished? he had asked. Or what if it was filled with, say, furniture? Or with people and pews? Hell, what if it was in another dimension? A parallel world? The last two didn’t concern me as much. As I’d proven with my jaunt to the land of Dur, I had learned that I could teleport back easily enough. Not to mention, I didn’t need air, and the cold never bothered me anyway. At least, not for the last decade. Yes, I should be fine if it was another world or, as Fang had suggested earlier, between worlds. Whatever that meant. Although his point about the temple being destroyed concerned me. If I teleported into, say, a pile of rubble, I was pretty sure that would be the end of Samantha Moon and her story.

  Then why do it? Fang had asked. Why take the risk?

  A good question, and I had thought about it for a few minutes. The mysterious circumstances of the drawing’s arrival intrigued me to no end, although it wasn’t enough for me to make such a dangerous jump in and of itself. No, I was willing to risk everything because I was pretty damn sure I would find the Angel of Death there, the one entity who could purportedly help me.

  I didn’t have time to explain all of this to Fang, not with my daughter locked inside a tiny corner of her mind, doing all she could to resist the entity who had inserted himself into our lives.

  All to get to me.

  All to flush me out.

  Before Fang had left me in his office at my request, he’d said, “Just be careful, Moon Dance. You happen to be one of my favorite people in the world.”

  I’d smiled at him, and felt what could only be love for him. I’d thought he felt it too, and we had a nice moment—and if his loving face was the last thing I saw in this world, I would take it.

  Now that I was alone, it was time to kick the fucking devil out of my life for good. I looked at the old drawing, studied it closely...

  And summoned the single flame.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She is in a safe place. She can reach out beyond the room any time she wants, but in doing so, she opens herself up to that which she knows is nearby.

  Indeed, even now she can hear it sniffing, searching, scouring her mind.

  She is safe here. But she can’t do much. Nope. Sleep would be good. She could sleep right here in this corner of her mind, and she could forget that the devil is just outside her door, so to speak, waiting to get in, desperate to get in, hungry to get in.

  Her physical body is curled up on her bed, and she can hear the others in the house, hear her brother laughing with Kingsley, hear the heavy-footed monsters lumbering down the hallway, hear Allison talking on her cell phone.

  Sleep, she thinks.

  Yes, sleep.

  And just as she feels herself slipping away, safe in her little room, and safe from the outside world, too, thanks to Kingsley and the monsters—and her own brother, who might be the most bad-ass of them all—she senses the thing stopping just outside the door into her mind.

  She hears it sniff.

  Then scratch.

  She waits for it to move on, but it doesn’t.

  The devil is here, and he’s found her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I stumbled and nearly tripped.

  And when I found my balance, the first thing I heard was my own gasps echoing all around me. And the first thing I saw was a long row of massive Corinthian columns, made from highly polished marble, each topped with beautiful, floral motifs. They continued on as far as the eye could see.

  Above was an arched ceiling decorated in what appeared to be stone reliefs that depicted a battle with men on horses, wielding swords and spears and bows and arrows. As far as I could tell, I was alone. Where I was, I didn’t know. But it seemed real enough, as in, not a drawing. And I didn’t seem stuck in an 80’s music video, either. So far, so good.

  A bright luminance appeared high above about halfway down the hallway. In the drawing, the light had been the Archangel Azrael. Here, it seemed to be just that—a light. Either way, like a moth to the flame, I set off in the direction of the light source.

  Each footfall echoed a dozen times over in seemingly every direction. Had I been breathing, I was sure my breathing would have been echoing too. As I walked, and as I passed column after column, each more ornate and beautiful than the last, I had the very distinct feeling that I wasn’t anywhere on Earth. At least, nowhere that I had heard of or been before. I knew there were beautiful palaces on our planet, some of which were not on display to the general public, but this was unlike anything I had ever seen—or imagined.

  It could have been God’s house. Like his real house. Except there was a very good chance I had met God, and he’d been a homeless man. In fact, the God I had met didn’t need this... palace, or whatever this was.

  The air seemed different, too. I inhaled, held it, tasted it. It was denser. I could almost taste it. Indeed, it seemed to be a static charge on my tongue.

  Nope, I was definitely not in Kansas anymore, nor California, for that matter.

  Or even Earth itself.

  Just a few days ago, I had taken a similar off-world trip. And not just off-world, but straight into the imagination of another man. A Creator.

  No, I thought. It wasn’t his imagination. I mean, it had started off as his imagination, but it had come to life with real people, real concerns, real hope and real love… and real fear.

  I shook my head at all of it. That had been less than a week ago, and I was still processing it. Now, I was processing this, too.

  Yes, the World of Dur had to take a back seat with my concern for my daughter. The devil had locked on to her, dug in deep, and wasn’t going anywhere. Not until I forced him to go. I was up for the challenge. I had to be. Indeed, the devil had made it a point to bring the fight home. This was happening, one way or another.

  Whatever this was.

  A fight, I thought. A fight for my daughter. For me. For all of us.

  I continued walking. Yes, now the air around me genuinely crackled with energy. Interestingly, I saw no spirit activity here, no curious ghosts flitting in and out of existence, no old haunts wandering this way and that. Indeed, the light energy that passed through here, passed through cleanly, unhindered, smooth wave after smooth wave.

  The hall was longer than I had thought, too, but at least the light source was getting closer and brighter.

  Elizabeth was not happy. She did not like such bright light. I heard her protesting. Hell, I sensed her burrowing deeper into my mind, far away from the light.

  But to me, it felt comforting. I think my own soul—which I now knew to be fully contained within me—was reacting positively to the light. I felt a sense of joy, of going home. That this was what heaven might be like. Or as close to heaven as I would get.

  It wasn’t heaven, of course. I had seen heaven. I had walked its golden streets, even if briefly. No, this place had real air and gravity and density. Heaven had been ethereal. Heaven had been without boundaries, without weight, without effort, or worry.