by J. R. Rain
“Maybe he smells my sister’s cat on me,” I said, since it seemed safer to say than: It’s probably because I’m a blood-sucking fiend, and dogs, for some reason, can sense us.
“Maybe,” said Charlie. “But dogs are going to be dogs, ya know? You can’t get mad at them for being dogs.”
I smiled at his simple philosophy. I asked, “Do you ever leave Rocko alone?”
“Sometimes, but he likes to ride in the car with me.”
“So there are times when your house is completely empty?”
“I suppose so, yeah.”
As he cleaned, I asked him how often he checked on the safe. He looked up at me from the floor, a little sweat already appearing on his brow as he worked at the dog pee. “Well, I don’t really check it.”
“What do you do?”
He looked away, suddenly embarrassed. He stopped scrubbing the floor. His balding head gleamed. “I guess I sometimes look at it.”
“Look at it?”
He thought some more. “Well, I guess it reminds me of my dad, you know? And my grandfather. We all had the at one time or another. We all talked about it. And sometimes...” But Charlie suddenly got choked up and couldn’t continue.
So I finished for him. “And sometimes when you looked at it, or when you touched it, you could feel your father and grandfather nearby.”
Charlie wiped his eyes and nodded and looked away.
Chapter Seven
Admittedly, the blood wasn’t very Christmassy.
It was late and I was alone in my office with a packet of the good stuff, freshly delivered today from the slaughterhouse in Norco. As I slit open the top of the plastic bag with a fingernail that was a little too thick and a little too sharp, I reflected on what I knew about blood.
Fresh blood energized me, lifted me, made me feel more than human. With fresh blood flowing through my veins, I felt like I could do anything. And for all I knew, maybe I could.
Acquiring fresh blood is another issue altogether.
I’m not a killer, although I have killed. To drink fresh blood implies two things: it has either been taken...or freely given. The freely given part was a concept I was still wrapping my brain around. One of the perks of dating Kingsley these past few months was that he always kept a fresh supply of hemoglobin for me. Where he got it, I may never know, and he wasn’t telling. All I knew was that it made me feel like a new woman. Hell, like a new species.
But I will not take blood unwillingly from humans, although I certainly could if I wanted to. I imagined there were others like me out there who took from others when and where they wanted it. I suspected that many of the missing person cases around the world were a result of this, although I could be wrong, since I’m not exactly immersed in the vampire sub-culture. I’m immersed in my kids and school and work, and dealing with an ex-husband who had revamped his efforts to bring me down. How he would do this, I don’t know, but if ever there was someone who ran hot and cold, it was Danny.
Bi-polar, as my sister put it.
I studied the semi-clear packet of blood. The packet was no bigger than my hand. I didn’t need much blood, and a packet this size would keep me going for three or four days. I didn’t need to drink nightly, although I could, if I chose to. As I studied the packet, a thick animal hair rotated slowly within. Shuddering, I fished it out and flicked it in the waste basket.
Blech.
Hating my life, I brought the packet to my mouth, tilted it up, and drank deeply as the thick blood filled my mouth. I ignored the bigger chunks of flesh, and only gagged two times. I kept drinking until the packet was empty, until I’d squeezed out every last drop.
When I did, I shuddered and closed my eyes and willed the blood to stay down. I kept my fist over my mouth and kept shuddering. When I opened my eyes, I saw him standing there, in the far corner of my office, watching me.
The man from the dollar store.
Or, as Fang put it...my guardian angel.
Chapter Eight
I gasped.
I might be a creature of the night, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get startled. My first instinct was to dash toward the door of my office, which is what I did, blocking the stranger from further access into my house. One moment I was sitting at my desk, downing a packet of cow blood, gagging, and the next, I was standing guard at my office door.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, Samantha.”
“Of course not, asshole. Which is why you appeared suddenly in my office. You have five seconds before I throw you through that wall.”
I was a mixture of rage and confusion. The adrenaline-fueled rage for obvious reasons. The confusion because my inner alarm system had been completely bypassed. What the hell was going on?
I kept an ear out towards my kids, listening hard, but all I could hear was Anthony’s light snoring. Tammy wasn’t snoring, but I could sense her there in her room, curled up in her bed, one arm tucked under her pillow.
“Your extrasensory skills are progressing rapidly, Samantha.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, perplexed, angered, wracking my brain for an explanation of how he had appeared so suddenly in my office. I found none.
He watched me from the corner of the room, hands folded in front of him, smiling serenely. His blondish hair seemed to lift and fall on currents of air that I sure as hell didn’t feel.
He cocked his head slightly to one side. “Your image of your sleeping daughter, of course. Your psychic hit is completely accurate.”
At any other time I might have rushed the guy. At the least, slamming him up against the wall to get some straight answers. But I held back. For now.
“Who the hell are you, goddammit?” I asked.
“God never damns, Samantha.”
“You’d better start talking, mister. Or Ishmael. Or whoever the hell you are.”
He smiled again, so warmly that at any other time, he might have won me over. Any other time, that is, other than appearing in my office in the dead of night, while seemingly knowing the details of my sleeping daughter.
“Who do you think I am, Samantha?” he asked.
“A dead man, unless you start talking.”
His hair, which hung just over his ears, lifted and fell again, and I was beginning to wonder if I was dreaming. The light particles that formed brilliantly around him seemed to disappear into him, which was a first to me.
“You have grown stronger over these past seven years...and more violent, too. The violence is part of your nature now, I suppose, but my hope is that you learn to suppress it. Violence has a way of getting out of control, controlling you.” He stepped slowly out of the shadows of my office, away from the bookcase, and stepped around my old recliner. When I don’t use the office for work, it’s my escape from my kids, where I come to read...or sometimes just to cry, although no one knows about the crying.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“I am that which you think I am, Samantha.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
He smiled, but did not answer.
I waited. He waited. My conversation with Fang came roaring back. I shook my head in disbelief. Ishmael smiled even broader and held out his hands a little.
“You’re my guardian angel?” I said, unable to hide the disbelief from my voice.
He continuing smiling as he stepped around my recliner. “You sound incredulous, Sam. This coming from someone such as yourself.”
“Such as myself? And what would that be? Exactly?”
“A vampire, Samantha Moon. At least, that’s what this present generation calls your condition. It has, of course, been called many other things, over many centuries. Admittedly, the curse has flared darker and stronger in this generation.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When enough people speak of something, read of something, believe in something, watch something, ingest something...this something begins to take on a life of its own. This something is called in
to existence.”
My head was spinning. “Called into existence from where?”
“From the nether-sphere, Sam. From out there. From the great soup of all ideas and thoughts and creative expressions.”
He continued toward me and I held up my hand. “I think you should stop right there.”
He did stop. Next to one of my client chairs. “I will not hurt you, Sam. It’s against my very nature to hurt you. In fact, quite the opposite.”
“Opposite?”
He nodded once, sharply. “My nature is to protect you.”
“Because you’re my guardian angel.”
“Yes, Sam. Because I’m your guardian angel.”
Chapter Nine
“Perhaps we can sit and I can explain,” he said. “Your children are safe. Perhaps more safe than you know.”
I stared at his pleasantly handsome face as he regarded me in turn. His bright green eyes could have been emerald flames, if such things existed. He radiated waves of strength and confidence and...love. My mind reeled.
“Okay, let’s sit,” I said finally.
We did so, he in one of my client chairs, myself behind my desk. Ishmael was wearing a light-colored sweater and slacks. Both were unremarkable, although both looked good on him. He sat collected and at ease, his hands folded loosely in his lap. He looked at me calmly, staring into my eyes, although sometimes his eyes would shift to take in other aspects of my face. A small part of me wondered what my hair looked like.
“So,” I said, “they call you Ishmael.”
His eyes, which shone like twin sparks of emerald fire, flashed brightly with mild amusement. “Yes, they do.”
I watched with interest as the bright streaks of light that seemingly only I could see, the bright streaks that illuminated the night world for my eyes, flared brightly the closer they got to him. Flared, and then disappeared into him. As if the being seated across from me was the source of the light.
Or perhaps its destination.
“So, why are you here, Ishmael?”
He sat perfectly still, perfectly composed, perfectly at ease. He nodded once before he spoke. “I’m here, in part, to tell you that my service is no longer needed.”
“And what service is that?”
“The protective service.”
My cell phone chimed. I had a text message from someone. At this late hour, it was either from Fang or Kingsley. I ignored it. Truth be known, I kept waiting to either wake up or be told that this was all some big practical joke.
In the meantime, I noted that Ishmael’s thoughts were closed to me. In my experience, only other immortals were closed to me, as I was to them. And yet, he seemed to have read my mind.
I tried an experiment and thought: You’re in the protective services because you’re a guardian angel?
His bright green eyes, which had been regarding me serenely from across the desk, widened a little. “Yes, Sam. But we don’t call ourselves guardian angels.”
You can read my thoughts.
He smiled. “Of course.”
To date, only Fang had access to my thoughts, and even then his access seemed limited by my willingness to let him in. Kingsley, a fellow freak, did not have access, nor did I have access to his. Same with the few other immortals I had encountered, who were all closed off to me.
“So, there are others like you?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“And what do you call yourselves?”
“We are watchers.”
I nodded. “And what do you watch?”
“I watch you, Sam.”
“Just watch?”
“Watch and protect and guide.”
“Then you’ve done a shitty job of it,” I said suddenly, thinking of my attack seven years ago.
Ishmael kept his eyes on me. After a moment, he said, “I was with you, Sam. Always with you.”
“Even while that animal attacked me?” I couldn’t help the anger in my voice.
Ishmael said nothing at first, although he slowly raised a hand to his face and rubbed his jaw. He continued to stare at me. Even his minor movements were fluid and hypnotic. “Perhaps you wonder why you were not killed that night, Sam.”
“Actually, I do.”
“Perhaps you should know that your attacker ended many lives, Samantha. He would have ended yours, too. In fact, he was just seconds from doing so.”
The so-called watcher lapsed into silence and continued rubbing his jaw. The physical movement seemed to intrigue him, and now he slowly ran his hand over his own soft lips, feeling them, using his fingertips as a painter would a sable-tipped brush. I had the impression Ishmael rarely manifested in the physical.
I was about to speak, but suddenly found speaking difficult. I was back to that moment in the park, experiencing again the ungodly strength of the thing that had attacked me, the blast of pain of being hurled against a tree...the fear of being pounced on by something so much stronger than me. Yes, I should have been dead many times over. So, instead of speaking, I thought: You saved me.
Ishmael briefly paused in his exploration of his face. “It wasn’t your time.”
“Then why let me get attacked at all? Why let me get turned into...this thing?”
“Fair questions, Sam, but we are not quite the guardian angels as you think of us. Not the static lighted angel on top of your Christmas tree, assembled by small children in an Asian country. Not the Michelangelo-ish ones painted on ceilings of cathedrals or glorified in Christmas carols and hymns galore. Not the ones in old movies on TV, getting our wings every time someone rings a bell. Not those angels. Not.”
“Then what the hell are you?”
“Think of us as custodians of destiny.”
I blinked, processing that. “You help fulfill destinies?”
He nodded. “I helped you fulfill your destiny, Sam.”
“And my destiny was to become a vampire?”
“Your destiny was to become immortal. Vampirism was one way to achieve that.”
“So, I chose this life?”
“You did.”
“Why?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Why not?”
“You are not ready for the answer.”
I fought through my frustration. “Will I ever find the answer?”
“Yes, someday.”
I drummed my fingers along my desk, my thick nails clicking loudly. They sounded fiendish, like the claws of something dark and slimy moving quickly over the floor. I said, “So, in effect, the moment I turned into a vampire, the moment I became immortal myself, you were out of a job.”
“That’s correct, Sam.”
“So, what have you been doing these past seven years?”
“Watching you, Sam. Always watching you.”
“Why?”
He looked away, and as he did so, he looked very, very human. And even a little uncomfortable. He kept looking away as he spoke. “Because I’m in love with you, Samantha Moon.”
Chapter Ten
You there, Fang?
I’m always here for you, Moon Dance.
Oh, cut the crap. Half the time, you’ve got a woman over there.
Not as frequently as you think, Moon Dance. And not since we’ve met.
But that was over six months ago.
It was.
But why?
It seems the right thing to do. Besides, I’ve lost interest in dating in general.
Since you met me?
That might have something to do with it, Moon Dance. But don’t flatter yourself. Perhaps it was time for me to slow down, to take stock of who I am and what I want in life.
You want to be a vampire.
There was a short pause before he wrote: Among other things.
I did not have to dip very far into Fang’s mind to know he was referring to me. Truth be known, I didn’t much enjoy dipping into Fang’s mind. His mind was not healthy, although he was doing an admirable job of dealing with hi
s many issues. I found it ironic that the one mind I was most linked to was a deeply troubled one.
I felt him probing my mind in return and let him do it, giving him access of the events of the night before. A moment later, his words appeared in the IM chat box.
You have got to be kidding, Moon Dance.
I’m not.
Now I have to compete with a freakin’ angel, too?
Despite myself, I laughed. I wrote: You’re not competing with anyone, Fang. I’m with Kingsley. Happily with Kingsley.
Is that what you told Captain Ahab?
Ishmael, I wrote. And yes. After I spent about three minutes getting over my shock...and another two minutes convincing myself I wasn’t dreaming, I told him I was happily with Kingsley.
And how did he take it?
He laughed and said he was infinitely patient, that we had all eternity.
Since when do angels cavort with vampires?
He calls himself a watcher.
Either way. I don’t like it, Moon Dance.
I didn’t think you would.
I need to look into this.
I figured you would.
Was he handsome?
I thought about it, still reeling from the encounter, still wondering if this was all some elaborate practical joke, and, as always, still wondering if I was still back at the hospital, lying comatose after my attack seven years ago. For now, though, I recalled Ishmael’s emerald eyes and quiet strength...and the love that emanated from him seemingly unconditionally.
I thought about it some more, then wrote: He was radiant.
Ah, shit.
Chapter Eleven
I was back at Charlie’s single-wide mobile home. Or, rather, standing just outside it.
It was evening and the mobile home park was mostly quiet. I could smell fish frying and meats baking. TV sets glowed in many of the mobile homes. Outside the window in question, where the blinds were a little too narrow and the curtains were a little too thin, I paused and took in the scene.
