A terrible plan, granted. But a plan, nonetheless.

  ***

  A demon appeared before me and swiped with its claws. I parried, lost my balance, nearly plummeted, and righted myself.

  Another demon, another clash. Its claw found my throat, and I felt the skin open up and blood pump out. Had I needed to breathe, I would have been dead.

  The devil watched all of this from behind his swarm of red-eyed creations. His expression was unfathomable, but I sensed his unease. He should feel uneasy. After all, as the next demon swooped down, claws ready to strike, I summoned the single flame—and saw within it the only place on this Earth that could end this madness.

  ***

  Within the flame, I felt myself rushing to this place, and just as something swiped where my head had been, I found myself in another location altogether.

  A space just in front of the devil’s massive, heaving, black, molten chest. A space just inside his ring of protective demons.

  The devil reared back at my sudden appearance—evidence that my daughter had kept the bastard in the dark. He roared and reached up as if to swat a mosquito away. Except this mosquito was armed to the teeth.

  With all my might, I plunged the Devil Killer deep into its swirling black and fiery chest. All the way to the hilt.

  His swatting, clawed hand paused in mid-swat, and he looked down with burning eyes at the sword handle protruding from his chest. He looked back at me, and almost appeared to smile, but what I did know? As the devil began to drop, he also began fading away. Except this time, no inky, oily black smoke rose up from him. Nothing rose up at all. The devil disappeared completely.

  One by one, the demons, who looked on, winked out of existence. They were not dead, I knew. Their connection to their master was gone. Unbound, they, too, disappeared. I suspected I would meet them again someday. Each and every one of them.

  I alighted on the grass, where I found the Devil Killer protruding like an arrow in a bullseye. I took it up, and re-sheathed it in my secret pouch. I summoned the single flame again, and within it, I watched my wings fold in on themselves. In the real world, they did exactly that, too. Somewhere on my back was the mother of all tramp stamps. Two of them.

  There were dead Lichtenstein monsters everywhere, and before me, the Fire Warrior had taken a knee, holding his shoulder. A short while later, my son was in his place, kneeling similarly. He stood, momentarily confused, and touched where the wound had been, but it was gone, of course. Indeed, it was the Fire Warrior who had been gravely wounded.

  My son spotted me and rushed over and threw his arms around me, weeping harder than I’d ever seen him weep. And soon, my own tears were flowing. Now here was Allison, wrapping her arms around both of us. I called out to Tammy, and soon heard her running across the gravel, accompanied by the Lichtenstein monster who had been guarding her. A still-injured Kingsley swooped her up in his massive arms and joined us.

  All around us, beautiful angels dropped from the sky. They landed on bent knees, wings outstretched. Closest to me was Ishmael, who rose to his full height, nearly as tall as Azrael, but not quite. He caught my eye and nodded.

  Somewhere, nearby, sirens blared.

  The End

  Samantha Moon returns in:

  Vampire Sire

  Return to the Table of Contents

  VAMPIRE SIRE

  Vampire for Hire #15

  by

  J.R. RAIN

  (Red Rider: Part 1)

  Vampire Sire

  Published by Rain Press

  Copyright © 2018 by J.R. Rain

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  To Diwamani. He laughs a lot, reads my books, and sports a robust beard. Everything I look for in a friend.

  Vampire Sire

  Chapter One

  I was folding laundry and watching Judge Judy when I came across Anthony’s latest masterpiece.

  At first glance, it looked like any other pair of tighty-whities. Upon second glance, it was obvious there was something very, very wrong here. For instance, that wasn’t a shadow I was seeing.

  Nope, just nope.

  Nope, nope, nope.

  I had fought wolf men, demons and even the devil himself, but none gave me more pause than the rolled-up abomination tucked in the far corner of the laundry basket.

  “Lord, give me strength,” I said, wondering idly if my prayers fell on deaf ears. And if they did, well, screw it. I’d answer my own damn prayers.

  Truth be told, while loading from washer to dryer, I suspected there had been something amiss: a strange, dark swath seen in my peripheral vision. But I ignored it, hoping like crazy that what I was seeing had been my imagination. That maybe, just maybe, my washer was haunted by a shadow man.

  But there was no denying this.

  This was epic. This made me question my parenting skills. Obviously, something, somewhere had gone off the rails somewhere. A disconnect. Somehow, the proper use of toilet paper must have fallen on deaf ears... or through the butt cracks.

  I sighed, said another prayer... and reached for That Which Should Not Exist.

  But it did. And it was in my laundry basket.

  “Lord, help me.”

  ***

  Judge Judy was on point, as usual.

  Her ability to size up someone was uncanny. In fact, it was positively supernatural. At present, some punk was trying to convince her that he wasn’t stoned, and that he wasn’t responsible for a loan his friend had given him. Except, of course, he kept laughing, and talked way too much, and his eyelids might have been mostly closed... or made of lead. Judge Judy even cracked a smile, which always makes me smile. In the end, the stoner lost but didn’t seem to care that he lost—in his exit interview, he asked where the closest Taco Bell was.

  With Anthony’s underwear now in the “burn” pile, and Judge Judy just signing off, a car pulled up outside my house, a car I had been expecting. Through the mostly closed window shades, I watched the driver try to figure out the angles of the cul-de-sac curb, then watched as she gave up and basically parked with her car’s ass sticking way out into the cul-de-sac. Then I watched her get out, straighten her skirt, brush back her hair, and head up the driveway toward the gate in the chain-link fence. It’s a short gate, but she fumbled with it a few times, pushed it the wrong way, then pulled it the right way, then stepped through. She collected herself again, took a deep breath or two, and headed along the short path to my front door.

  I pulled it open before she could knock. “Lauren Skinner?” I asked.

  “Samantha Moon?”

  “Boy, we’re good at this game,” I said. “Come in.”

  She did and I showed her to my back office with its bookcase and sliding glass door. Little did she know that an angel had once appeared to me here, or that ghosts sometimes materialized in the very same chair where she was now sitting. Or that a vampire was sitting across from her now. Or that, just a few months ago, I’d killed the devil himself. No, I’m not crazy. At least, I don’t think I am.

  “Cute office,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You work from home?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “As a private eye?”

  I nodded. “And an international woman of mystery.”

  She laughed sharply at that. “I’m not even sure what that means.”

  “It’s from a Mike Myers movie.”

  “I see.”

  “You never saw it.”

  “No.” Pause. “I told you who I work for on the phone, correct?”

  “A probate attorney.”

  She nodded. “Michael Lansky, to be exact.”

  Of course, the moment she had mentioned the name over the phone, I had researched the man and confirmed he was legit enough to at least meet with her, his assistant.

  “Are you an attorney, too?” I asked.

  “Not quite. I am his lead researcher... or fact-gatherer.”

  She handed me a card: Alaine Juni, Researcher

  “In essence, I unofficially act as the executrix for our distinguished clients.”

  “Distinguished in what way? And is that the feminine for executor?”

  “Yes. And as far as what way, we will get to that, Ms. Moon, I promise. I’m not trying to be coy, but I do need some information first.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I liked her, so I was willing to wait. Interestingly, although I could read her mind, it was... well, impenetrable. In fact, a song was looping in the foreground of her thoughts, a song that I found nearly impossible to push through. I probably could if I tried hard enough, but I didn’t want to or need to. At least not now, not with the promise of more information later. I studied her again and saw her aura plain enough. A sure indicator that she was definitely mortal.

  “About six years ago, our client was killed. He left behind a very large estate.”

  “And you are telling me this, why?”

  “Because you are named in his will.”

  I mentally went back in time six years. Not a good time in my life, admittedly. Danny had just left me. I had found myself living in a hotel. Of course, during that time period, I had also flown for the first time, too. What else had happened six years ago? Hmm. I plumbed my memory. I might have superhuman strength and teleport around the world—and even off-world—but I didn’t have a super memory. Let’s see. Well, I had been shot by Rand the vampire hunter six years ago. I had met Kingsley six years ago, too. Oh, and I had met Sherbet six years ago. I drummed my fingers, my nails clacking away, thinking hard. I had been given the first of a series of medallions six years ago. The ruby medallion, in fact. A medallion worn by my attacker. An attacker who had been killed by the same hunter who had shot me. Lots was going on, six years ago.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “You never formally met my client, but you did, in fact, meet.”

  We were talking about my attacker. I was sure of it. So I said nothing, reliving those terrible few minutes on a trail at Hillcrest Park in Fullerton, a few minutes that would forever—and I mean forever—change my life.

  I felt my jaw clenching. “Go on.”

  “Like I said, you never formally met him, but he knew of you. In fact, he knew a great deal about you.”

  My mostly dormant heart kicked in, and I could feel it thudding dully in my chest. Sometimes, I wondered if the whole purpose of my heart was to help me gauge my emotions. Well, it was beating now, and for good reasons. A very scary time in my life was playing out in my head, from my attack on the trail, to waking up in the hospital, to the confusion that followed. So. Much. Confusion.

  “What’s his name?” I heard myself ask.

  “Jeffcock Letholdus.”

  I said nothing. Not at first. Then I asked her to repeat it, and she did. I asked her to repeat it again. She did, again.

  “You are saying Jeffcock, correct?” I asked.

  “I am, yes.”

  “And that’s a name people give their actual kids?”

  “Not so much now, no. But in the Middle Ages, yes.”

  “The Middle Ages?”

  “Yes, Ms. Moon.”

  I drummed my nails on my desk and caught Alaine watching me drum my nails. I nearly snatched my hands away and hid them in my lap, as was my custom. Instead, I left them there—along with my ghoulishly misshapen nails. Hands someone would see on, say, a horror poster. Hands and nails and fingers of something that might snatch one’s ankles from under the bed. The sort of claws that left deep and bloody furrows in their victims. These weren’t nice hands, and these certainly weren’t nice nails.

  Still, I drummed them slowly, noting again the thickness and sharpness of the nails. And maybe for the first time, I also noticed their purpose: to strike fear in the hearts of man. Except the woman before me—the woman with the looping song in her thoughts—wasn’t afraid. No, not at all.

  “I think we both know to whom we are referring, Ms. Moon,” she finally said, her gaze sliding up from the desktop and deep enough into my eyes that I wondered if she also saw the flames that existed therein. I had it on good authority that such flames represented Elizabeth herself, the dark master who possessed me. “And I think we both know what he did to you twelve years ago.”

  “And what did he do to me twelve years ago?” I asked.

  For some reason, I wanted to hear it from her. No, I needed to hear it from her. Hearing it from her would be the confirmation I needed that the events on that fateful night so long ago were, in fact, real. That I hadn’t made them up, or filled in the gaps. That, in fact, they had happened as I remembered them happening. Not that I ever questioned my own version of the story, but all I’d had was my memory... and that was it. My memory, and the resulting aftereffects, of course. Never before had anyone corroborated my version. Indeed, who could? Just me... and my attacker. And now, amazingly, this woman. This stranger.

  There went my heart again, beat-beat-beating in my chest.

  “You were attacked twelve years ago, Sam. You were attacked ruthlessly, deliberately, and with reckless abandon. You were left to die, but you wouldn’t die, of course. You would do the exact opposite. Live forever. Twelve years ago, my client—now deceased—rendered you into a vampire, and your life has never been the same since.”

  Chapter Two

  “No one likes a know-it-all,” I said.

  “I don’t know it all, Ms. Moon. But I know enough.”

  “Since when do vampires make wills and retain attorneys?” I asked. I felt oddly deflated. This wasn’t the closure I’d been looking for. No, not by a long shot.

  “Many do, Sam. May I call you Sam?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “My employer is sympathetic, shall we say, to the undead.”

  “Your employer is a vampire?” I asked.

  “Werewolf.”

  I nodded. For some reason, The Hairy Ones seemed to gravitate toward the practice of law.

  “My employer helps those like you navigate the world of mortals. After all, special care must be considered if one is immortal... or close to it. Not all immortals run through graveyards and aimlessly stalk city streets at night. Like you, some have families. Many own extensive properties. And many fake their deaths to properly bequeath such estates to those they love or care about. As you know—and someday will discover firsthand—supernaturals such as yourself will outlive loved ones and friends. Sometimes, they will outlive governments and whole countries. An astute attorney can help a vampire or were creature start over again.”

  “But that’s not what happened here,” I said. “Jeffdick—”

  “Jeffcock.”

  “Same thing, did not fake his death.”

  “No, Sam. He was killed. By the very same hunter who attacked you.”

  “And you know this, how?”

  She smiled warmly at me... and a little knowingly, too. Her lip quirked up and it hit me. I had seen that same expression on my daughter.

  “Yes, Sam. I am a telepath. A particularly strong one. No, not as strong as your daughter, but I, too, can dip into the minds of immortals.”

  “So there are no secrets from you?”

  “No, not really.”

  “And you effectively block your own thoughts with the looping song.”

  “I do, Sam.”

  “Fine. Whatever. Then you know all about me.”

  “Not all, Sam. Unlike you or your daughter, I can only catch flashes of the strongest hits across the prefrontal cortex. I can’t dip further than that.”

  “But you are mortal.”

  “Yes. You are wondering how I developed such abilities.”

  “Lucky guess,” I said.

  “Not so lucky. Oh, I see you are joking. You could probably surmise how such abilities develop in humans.”

  I could, actually. My daughter’s own abilities were due to her close proximity to me, and, in particular, the power level of the entity possessing me. Turned out, Elizabeth was one helluva powerful bee-atch.

  “Yes, Sam. You are correct. Turns out, my boss is pretty damn powerful too. One of the most powerful of shifters. And yes, he is friends with Kingsley Fulcrum.”

  “Small world,” I said.

  “Indeed.”

  “Now get the fuck out of my head,” I said, and threw up the most powerful barrier I could, one that had been taught to me by my daughter herself, one that caused enough interference to sometimes give even her fits.

  “Very well, Sam,” she said, blinking. “Now, shall we get down to business?”

  I knew she was here for business. I also knew she was here because I had been included in someone’s will. What I hadn’t known was that certain someone just so happened to be the very same bastard who had attacked and turned me. Admittedly, a number of thoughts raced through my mind. Admittedly, they all took a backseat to one: curiosity.

  “Okay,” I said. “Fire away.”

  She nodded, reached into her briefcase somewhere by her feet but below my eyeline. She withdrew a few sheets of paper and laid them on the desk before me. “First off, Mr. Letholdus has left you a sizable inheritance.”

  “Sizable in what way?”

  “He left you his home in the Fullerton Hills, including everything within and everything below.”

  “Below?”

  “Mr. Letholdus had... exquisite tastes, you could say. He is leaving you his collection to do with as you wish.”

  “In his basement?”

  “Not quite a basement, but close.”

  “And you know what’s in this basement?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “And you won’t tell me?”

  “No.”

  “I have ways of making you tell me,” I said.

  “I know, Sam. I’m hoping none of this results in violence. I am, of course, outfitted in silver, and have on my person a number of weapons, including a silver-tinged spray that you wouldn’t like at all.”