by J. R. Rain
I looked again at the man at my feet. He’d mercifully quit twitching.
I considered my options, and realized I didn’t have many.
Now would have been a good time to cast my mind out, to search what lay beyond this door, to search for enemies and, most importantly, to search for my sister.
Good plan, except for one problem.
I couldn’t calm down. I couldn’t focus. My mind was racing too fast. Blood pumping too hard.
As I listened to the sounds of distant water dripping, I fought to calm down. Took deep breaths. I thought of my sister somewhere behind this door, and my mind went off into a rage again. I nearly threw the door open and charged inside.
To do that would have been death to me... and to my sister.
I told myself to relax, to calm my mind.
Finally, finally, I was able to clear it enough to cast my thoughts out. Casting my thoughts into an ever-widening gyre was my ace in the hole. My edge. Without it, I was walking into a death trap.
Except I wasn’t as calm as I would have liked. The images that were returned to me were fuzzy and incomplete. Still, good enough. There were three of them in the massive room beyond. Three living, that is. Three moving. There were others. Many others... hanging. Dripping blood.
The dripping sounds I’d been hearing.
Sweet Jesus.
Calm down, Sam. Relax. You can do this. Your sister needs you. Hell, you need you.
I breathed deeply, filling my useless lungs with useless air. Useless or not, it was a technique that still worked to calm me down. To help me focus.
From somewhere far down the hallway to my right, I heard a distant sound. It could have been anything. Rats. Earth shifting. Or someone approaching. Hard to tell. Either way, whatever or whoever it was, was still far away.
The others I couldn’t recognize, although I suspected the tall one was Robert Mason. The other was smaller, thinner. Stood straight. Impossible to know who she was. At least, for the time being.
I would know soon enough.
I continued my remote search through the massive room beyond. The room was set lower than this hallway. Down some steps. I saw earth everywhere. It appeared to be a cavern... but an unnatural one. Long ago, it had been dug out. By whom and for what reason, I didn’t know. Maybe it had always been used to kill and drain and feed the local vampires.
I continued searching the room, looking for anything that would give me an edge, anything that would help me not step into the world’s most obvious trap. The tall man I assumed to be Robert Mason was standing very near the door. He was holding something. I assumed it to be another crossbow.
The smaller figure was standing nearby. He or she was unarmed, as far as I could tell.
I continued mentally scanning the big room—the room of horror—until I saw what appeared to be more doors. No surprise there. I was certain there were many ways into this underground chamber beneath the theater.
A balcony high above. Accessed by a door to my right.
Another door? Oh?
My eyes shot open. Indeed, behind more junk and behind where the dead man now lay at my feet, was a barely discernible door.
I quietly moved toward it. It was locked. A quick flick of my wrist took care of that.
It opened quietly enough. I slipped inside and headed up.
***
The stairs were narrow and suspect.
I kept to the far edges, never stepping in the middle, and swept up them as quickly and quietly as I could. I wasn’t alone on the stairs.
A
steady procession of faded entities appeared and disappeared. These chambers and tunnels, hallways and stairs were easily the most haunted locations I’d ever seen.
No surprise there, I thought. This was, after all, a human blood factory. A death factory.
At the upstairs landing, dim light spilled over the railing, illuminating a loft-like area filled with crap. I stepped past shovels and filthy buckets and weird-looking glass containers. The scent of blood was everywhere. New blood. Old blood. My stomach growled.
Great.
I ignored the growling, hating myself all over again, but releasing the hate immediately. It was, after all, time to save my sister.
I stepped as lightly as I could through the mess, until I found myself on the balcony I had seen in my mental scan. Once there, I looked down at the scene below... and gasped.
The sight was overwhelming, but not unexpected. Human corpses filled the room. They hung from the rafters, many chained, although some were suspended by thick ropes. All were naked. All hung upside down. All with slit throats.
My knees threatened to give. Hell, my whole world threatened to give. If I had to breathe normally, I would have been gasping. I probably would have fainted.
But I held onto the railing, searching the area below until I spotted my sister near the far wall. She was alive. Mercifully, she faced away from the carnage.
Some corpses twisted gently, as if blown by a breeze. A few of the freshest corpses had buckets beneath them to catch the dripping blood.
Many of the men looked like local bums. One of them, I was sure I recognized: a bum I had seen near the post office. Some of the women, if I had to guess, were prostitutes. Career prostitutes. Banged up and used and abused. Some had fake breasts. Many were still wearing makeup. All had their throats cut so badly that I could see all the way to their spines.
Many of the corpses were frozen in rigor mortis. Some had begun bloating. Most had been hanging for quite some time, the flesh having long ago peeled away from the ankles, revealing bone and rotting muscles. I counted twelve corpses. No, fourteen. There were two stacked on top of each other along the far wall.
If there was a hell, this was it.
A woman stood next to a man. A woman I had seen in my scan of the room, but who had not been distinct enough to recognize. Well, I recognized her now. Detective Hanner of the Fullerton Police Department. A fellow investigator... and a fellow vampire.
Here at the blood factory.
I began removing my clothing.
***
I had to be careful.
These people had made a business of killing. An industry. They were good at it, and they knew how to get away with it, too. Especially with Detective Hanner on the force. Perhaps she influenced the reports. Redirected evidence. Controlled minds. I didn’t know, but I suspected perhaps all of the above.
The room was vast and obscured by the hanging corpses. I knew by my initial scan that there were at least two men in the corners waiting with crossbows.
Two men, Robert Mason and Detective Hanner.
And my sister.
I had to act fast. I had to surprise them. And as I climbed up to stand carefully on the wooden railing overlooking the macabre scene, naked as the day as I was born, I suspected I would very much surprise them.
The single flame appeared in my thoughts. Unwavering, bright, dominant. I focused on it... and saw the creature within the flames. The creature that would be me.
And with that, I leaped from the railing.
***
The loft was thirty or so feet from the ground. Plenty of room to make my transformation.
Or so I hoped.
I spread my arms wide and, as the dirt floor rapidly approached, a huge set of thickly-membranous wings appeared from my arms and legs. As I plummeted, they snapped taut and, instead of slamming into the floor, I swooped parallel to it, just a foot or two from the ground.
It was as if I had always been this giant winged monster. As if I had always had its instincts and talents and appendages.
As I rushed low over the ground, I saw heads turn toward me. I saw faces form into expressions of horror. Only one didn’t. That of Detective Hanner. My sister, mercifully, kept her head down, kept looking away from the horrific scene.
I tilted my right wing, angling to starboard and went first to the man in the near corner, hiding behind a stack of barrels that I could only as
sume contained blood. I assumed the man had never seen a giant, humanoid vampire bat before. The first thing he did was wet himself. The urine seemed to burst from his loins, covering his crotch. The next thing he did was fumble for his crossbow, which he suddenly seemed to forget how to use.
He was still screaming as I slammed into him, driving him hard into the wall behind him. This was followed immediately by the sound of his skull bursting open.
Now covered in human chum, I spun around in time to see a silver arrow lodge deep into the wood to my side. Jesus, that was close. I followed its flight path to the second shooter, who had left his post against the far wall and was now rushing toward me.
As he ran, he reached behind and pulled free another crossbow. Unlike the crude, medieval weapon the name evoked, this thing was fairly high-tech: laser-scoped, fiberglass, molded grips and pistol-like triggers.
I leaped from behind the now-fallen barrels, flapped my wings hard, and lifted into the air again.
The second shooter was more brazen than the first. No spreading urine stains, as far as I could see. Dressed in actual camouflage, he charged me from across the spacious room, well away from the hanging corpses. As he ran, he leveled the crossbow and sighted along his scope.
Now, I can’t have that.
As the red laser briefly flashed across my eyes, I tucked a wing in, and rolled in mid-air just as the silver-tipped bolt whooshed past me.
Close.
Now the bastard was stringing another arrow, notching it as fast as he could. He was still in the act of notching when my talons fastened around his head and lifted. He didn’t get very far off the ground before his neck snapped nicely, reverberating throughout the massive room.
I released his broken body, and spotted Robert Mason ducking out through a side door, when I caught sight of something else. Something winged and black and rocketing up from the ground below.
It was Hanner.
Finis
Bonus Scene 4: The Librarian
(Deleted from Midnight Moon)
Author’s Note: Sam and the Alchemist have had many long and inspiring talks; after all, Elizabeth, the dark master possessing Sam, is none other than the Alchemist’s mother. For the scene below, I felt this was just one consultation too many. But I still like it.
***
I stood before the help desk in the little side reading room, a room that was hidden to most observers, but available to those who needed it. A room that housed some of the most dangerous books ever written and published. All of which were overseen by the young man before me, a young man of remarkable gifts. Not to mention, remarkable green eyes, too.
“Thank you, Sam. You have a question?”
“I do. I suspect you know it?”
“I know of it. I see it there, trying to formulate.”
“Trying?”
“An unasked question has no life. It has—” He waved his slender fingers in the air, and I could almost imagine the same such gesture as part of a complicated incantation—“no energy. No urgency. No movement. A clearly-asked question evokes and invokes a worthwhile response.”
“Okay,” I said. “Here goes: What’s for lunch?”
He threw back his head and laughed, and I might have joined him, too. It was nice to see the young-looking man laugh once in a while. He took his job very seriously. Indeed, it was a serious job.
“Fine,” I said. “Here goes: What happens when my son turns into the Fire Warrior?”
“He switches bodies temporarily, as do you, Sam.”
“But what happens to Elizabeth, your mother, while I am with Talos on his home planet?”
“She is temporarily ejected back to the Void.”
“The Void?”
“The place from which the dark masters have been banished, the place they can return to each day, while your kind sleeps.”
“My kind being vampires?”
“Yes.”
“And this would be the case with Danny?” I asked.
“Yes and no. Your son has atypical vampire traits. When he sleeps, he does so normally. As such, Danny remains trapped within him.”
“Except when my son turns into the Fire Warrior.”
“Except then, yes. Danny would be ejected the instant your son transformed.”
“Because my son temporarily switched places with the Fire Warrior.”
“An aspect of your son, yes. His mind—or an aspect of his mind—stays with the Fire Warrior.”
“Who makes these damn rules?”
“We call him the Writer in the Sky.”
“Really?”
“No.”
I shook my head. Damn, I was gullible. I said, “Is there a way to keep Danny in the Void?”
“No. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you traveled to the Void and...”
“And what?”
“Severed his ties to your son.”
“How do I do that?”
“I have some thoughts... But Sam, should you be severed yourself...”
I knew what he was going to say, so I said it for him. “Elizabeth would take over my body.”
“Yes, Sam. And you would be exiled forevermore.”
“Unless I returned as a vampire possessing another’s body.”
“Something like that, Sam.”
“But how do I get to the Void?”
“You would have to switch places with Elizabeth.”
“So, she would have possession of my body after all?”
“Temporarily, until you return.”
“She could do a lot of havoc in two minutes. Hell, one minute.”
“Of that, you have no idea, Sam. Perhaps it’s better to concede that having Danny around isn’t so bad...”
Finis
Bonus Scene 5: Dinner
(Deleted from Midnight Moon)
Author’s Note: In Midnight Moon, I felt this family dinner slowed down the story. I tried like heck to wedge in some family time, but the pace of the story didn’t quite allow for it. But, independent of the novel itself, the scene works.
***
The four of us were eating dinner together as a family again. Myself, Tammy, Anthony... and Danny, of course.
It was later that same day, and Tammy kept stealing glances at me. Although I couldn’t read her mind—and nor had I heard her thoughts—I knew she could read the hell out of my own, including anyone’s mind within a few hundred yards in every direction. How she managed to not go insane, I didn’t know. She called it “background noise” and seemed to be able to tune it out, even as her range continued to expand.
I had no doubt she had relived everything I had seen and read today, including my visions of heaven. Which might have been why she kept stealing glances at me. Or why her face was so white.
Tammy had recently turned sixteen. Anthony would soon be turning fourteen. Yes, I had two teenagers living in my house. Two super teenagers, with super-sized problems. I never thought I would be left alone to raise them. Then again, I wasn’t really alone now, was I? Danny was in there somewhere, watching from the depths of our son’s own mind, through my son’s own eyes. Thanks to Tammy, I knew that Anthony sometimes let his daddy out; meaning, Danny took control of his own son’s body, even if briefly.
Although this angered and sickened me, I sensed that my son needed his father, needed this ungodly connection. Ripping Danny away from Anthony now didn’t seem the right thing to do. Besides, according to Tammy, the internal conversations between Anthony and Danny were actually kind of sweet. His father, apparently, encouraged him, supported him, loved him, and even seemed to be Anthony’s best friend.
And then the devil came along.
To get to Danny, I knew the host needed to die. The host being Anthony, and that wasn’t going to happen. For now, the devil, having somewhat saved my son, seemed content with knowing that he might have a potential ally in Anthony, which was a terrible thought indeed. What the devil planned on doing wit
h such a bond, I didn’t know. That the devil was intimately aware and felt connected to my son was enough to make anyone vomit.
“I made your favorite, Anthony,” I said. “Breakfast for dinner.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
“You’ve barely touched it.”
“I guess I ain’t hungry.” He cocked his head a little, as if listening to something. I knew the gesture, and I knew it wasn’t something. He was listening to his father. “I mean, I guess I’m not hungry. Ain’t ain’t a word.” He giggled at that.
I gripped my napkin and twisted it a little. We’d been playing this game for a few months—with me pretending that Danny wasn’t right here, too, listening to us all. Except this was too blatant. It was better back when Danny had remained out of sight, out of mind, back before he’d reached out to make a connection with Anthony, back before the devil came knocking. By revealing himself to his son, Danny had also exposed himself to Cerberus, the devil’s hounds, who’d sniffed out Danny.
Tammy was dressing more and more goth these days: thick mascara encircling her eyes, white foundation, black lipstick. The thing was: I thought it looked good on her. I also thought she resembled me a little. Or what I remembered looking like at that age.
She rolled her eyes at that, but what could I say, the look matched my daughter’s quirkiness, and sort of matched our family’s overall strangeness, too. And, I had to admit, I enjoyed watching my children express themselves as individuals. Besides, I thought Tammy looked, well, beautiful.
Now, she made a gagging motion with her finger, and Anthony snapped his head around to look at her, then looked at me, then squinted a bit like Clint Eastwood, which, I had to admit, my son was looking a bit like these days: tall, handsome, angular, tough as nails.
