by J. R. Rain
“He’s part something, Sam. Which parts of what, I don’t know just yet. A new breed, perhaps.”
“Breed of what?”
“Quasi-immortal.”
“Why quasi?”
“He has elements of humanity, too, which is why I can still see the silver serpent in his aura.”
I nodded, although this all hurt my head. Immortals did not radiate an aura. For my son to have an aura, it meant he was still human… at least, partially.
“Try to see this differently, Sam. Try to see that you and your children—and your blood family—have been entrusted with secrets that reach down through the ages.”
“Except, I’ve gone rogue.”
“Unintentionally, Sam. There’s something to be said about that.”
“That I didn’t seek to be a vampire?”
“Yes. You are not so susceptible to their, um, charms.”
“You mean I can better resist your mother?”
“Yes, Sam. And I see you are thinking of your friend, Fang.”
I was, of course. Fang had invited the entity within him. Fang had asked—begged—to become that which he had always longed to be—mostly thanks to one hell of a messed-up childhood—a vampire.
“The inviting process removes many roadblocks for the dark masters.”
“Which means what?” I asked.
“The entity within him will have an easier time gaining control.”
I shook my head. “Fang made an agreement early on. He and the dark master share his body.”
The Librarian nodded. “For some, such an agreement is just… easier.”
“But if I made such an agreement with your mother...”
“She may honor it, or she might not, Sam. She might actively seek to bury you forever, and use you to cause cataclysmic destruction.”
“And it will look like I did it,” I said.
“Of course, Sam. You will look like the monster. No doubt, you will have to flee and start a new life elsewhere.”
“That is, if I ever regain control of my body.”
“Yes, Sam.”
“By the way, she wants you to shut your big fucking mouth,” I said, feeling her agitation bubble up faster than I could stop it, or stop her words. Yup, I’d given her way too much leeway these past few days. “She wants you to know that she is ashamed to call you her son, and looks forward to the day where she can bury you once and for all.”
“Always nice talking, Ma,” he said.
But I saw the hurt on his face. Real hurt. Then it was gone, and he rolled his head along his neck, regained some composure. I did all I could to push his mother back down. Elizabeth went down, kicking and screaming and spitting vitriol. I ignored her insults and threats and regretted ever having let her out. I stuffed her into a dark hole in my mind, and slammed shut a heavy trap door. I mentally wrapped it with thick chains and metal bands and locked it with a padlock the size of a small car.
Imagination is a wonderful thing.
Finis
Bonus Scene 13: Ishmael
(Deleted from Moon Angel)
Author’s Note: Sam has a love/hate relationship with her guardian angel. Okay, it’s mostly hate, but if Ishmael would just get his shit together, she might start seeing him in a different light (and his final scene with Sam in Moon Angel might have gone a long way to helping him rebuild his tarnished name). Anyway, I opted not to use his insights for the book. I wanted the scene with the Angel of Death, Azrael, to feel fresh. By consulting with Ishmael, I felt some of that freshness was taken away. Also, I used two different openings to the scene, as you will see below. Both got cut.
***
Calling on Ishmael, my one-time guardian angel, was always dicey. The big beautiful bastard could be anywhere. Well, anywhere but the sun, which he’d been exiled from, which he had once called home.
Now that he was unshackled from me, and had made the unilateral and questionable decision to no longer watch over my son, I saw him and less, although he claimed to always be near. Of course, I didn’t see his silver ass last night on the streets of Santa Ana. And where was he when the devil came to town, literally right in front of my house?
I didn’t know, although Tammy claims she sensed him nearby. Fat lot of good that did. And by sensing, she could briefly dip into his mind, although his mind wasn’t anything like anything she’d dipped into before. His mind, she informed me, was closer to a hive mind, a universal mind. His mind, quite frankly, was attached to other angelic minds, and some decisions were made as one, and all knew, seemingly, where all other angels were at all times. A fascinating concept, surely. Except I still had a beef with Ishmael, and I didn’t really care just how fascinating his hive mind was. Not when the devil was mindlinked to my daughter, and had suckered her into a deal.
How he planned to use my daughter, I still didn’t know...
***
I always felt foolish summoning my guardian angel, mostly because I didn’t how to summon him.
The bastard had a direct mind-link with me, yes, but was it always turned on? Meaning, could he be too far away to hear me? To my knowledge, Ishmael existed in that gray area of being considered fallen, but not yet evil. Then again, he had fallen for the sake of love. At least, that’s what he’d told me. I doubted he had an evil bone in his big, beautiful, angelic body; then again, he had stepped back and allowed me to be attacked ten years ago. And that just wasn’t cool. Worse, he might have even helped orchestrate it. Maybe there was a kernel of darkness in the bastard.
With that said, he was the only angel that I personally knew, and that was how I found myself locked in Kingsley’s spacious upstairs office, pacing the space between his desk and his wet bar. As I did so, I noted the similarities between his home office with his work office. The oversized desk, the wet bar, the conference table, pictures of the moon everywhere. The moon, I knew, gave him comfort. Where I was attached to the sun cycles, he was attached to the moon phases; indeed, every full moon rocked his world, and let loose his own dark master. For one night a month, Kingsley was gone to the world, hidden in the shadows of his own mind—and deep underground—while something else took him over, something hungry for the putrid and rotten.
Anyway, enough about the love of my life. I was alone in his office now, and I was presently doing all I could to summon the entity who had been charged with keeping me safe for all eternity. An entity who had, instead, fallen in love with me. Without my knowledge, mind you.
I paced and called out to him, both verbally and mentally. I would have signed it, too, had I known how to. I was about to resort to holding up one of Kingsley’s legal pads, with the name Ishmael on it, circled a half dozen times, when something bright appeared behind me.
I spun. There was Ishmael, standing behind the bar. Surely the bar thing was a fluke. Angels, as far as I knew, didn’t drink. Then again, what did I know about angels? What did anyone know, really? They mostly stayed out of sight, out of mind. Hell, even with an all-out battle in the streets of Santa Ana, there hadn’t been an angel in sight.
“Not true, Sam,” said Ishmael, stepping out from behind the bar. I half expected to see him holding a whiskey on the rocks. But his hands were clasped behind him. As always, he wore a sort of robe-like tunic that reached down below his knees. Everything beneath his neck was sort of hazy. Like a Google image that never quite comes into focus. All but his face, which radiated a soft light. In the bright of day, the light might have been missed. But here in the darkened office, it shone like a beacon.
It was a helluva handsome beacon.
And not just handsome, but beautiful, and inviting, and exciting. I wanted to press my face against his face. I had an image of me licking that face, but I forced myself to shut that image down. And take a deep, deep breath. His sudden, perfect appearance was a lot to take in.
“What’s, um, not true?” I asked, kickstarting my brain again.
“That we were not there. In fact, there were many angels there, in that spot, watching over
all of you.”
“For guardian angels, you guys sure do a lot of nothing.”
“We do what we can, Sam. There are rules of engagement in place.”
“And helping a vampire, witch, or werewolf isn’t in the rules?”
He said nothing, although he cocked his head a little. I was pretty sure his sandaled feet never really touched Kingsley’s carpet. In fact, I was pretty sure the beautiful bastard was floating in front of me.
“Well?” I asked.
“Your friend’s guardian angel was there.”
“Allison?”
“As was your daughter’s.”
“But not Kingsley’s?”
He stared at me, unblinking, his longish hair lifting and falling on currents of air that, apparently, only he could feel. “No, Sam. But I was there.”
“Why?”
“Your safety is of vital concern to me.”
“Now you are concerned for my safety?”
He cocked his head again, and might have risen a little as well. Hard to tell, since he was already so damned tall, and his feet were blurry, too. “Sam, your safety is always a concern of mine. That part of me never leaves.”
“But you leave, sometimes.”
“I am free to leave now, yes.”
“And where is it you go?”
He rose and fell ever-so-slightly, but I knew I wouldn’t get an answer from the golden oaf. He was master of the awkward silence.
“Forget I asked.”
He only stared at me with a look that could only be described as pure love.
Now I felt my face heating up, and I cleared my throat.
Finally, he said, “The guardian angel is aware of the human’s exit points.”
“Exit points, as in death?”
“Yes, Sam.”
“And if the human is at an exit point?”
“The angel will not step in.”
“And should a human be in danger of death?”
“If it’s not an exit point, the angel will guide the human to safety.”
Ishmael studied me for a long moment, then made an awkward nod with his head. I suspected angels didn’t have much use for human gestures, what with all the mind reading and staying mostly invisible. Of course, he wasn’t invisible now. But I also knew he could summon a human form from the ether, instantly gathering the necessary oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus elements. In his present manifestation, I knew he would be invisible to others, just as he had been invisible during my previous encounters with him. Ishmael could project himself so that only I could see him. True angel magic.
As I studied him, I knew he had been reading my mind. He said, “You seek the Angel of Death.”
Finis
Samantha Moon returns in:
Vampire Sire
Vampire for Hire #15
Coming soon!
~~~~~
Also coming soon:
New Moon Rising
Samantha Moon Origins #1
Mother, housewife, federal agent... mortal.
by J.R. Rain and Matthew S. Cox
~~~~~
And look for:
Blood Moon
Samantha Moon Case Files #2
by J.R. Rain and Rod Kierkegaard
(Coming soon!)
~~~~~
Also in the pipeline:
Silver Light
by J.R. Rain and Matthew S. Cox
She’s Seattle best private eye. She also happens to be a mermaid.
Welcome to the underwater world of Alexander Silver, P.I.
(Set in the world of Samantha Moon!)
~~~~~
And finally:
The Witch and the Wolfman
The Witches Series #4
by J.R. Rain and Rod Kierkegaard
Coming soon!
Need More Sam Moon?
Then check out:
The Witches Series
Starring her best friend, Allison!
Moon Bayou
Samantha Moon Case Files #1
Samantha Moon Short Stories
There’s ten of them!
Brotherhood of the Blade
Featuring Rand the vampire hunter from Moon Dance!
Chronicles of the Immortal Hunters
A fan-fiction Samantha Moon series available through Kindle Worlds.
The Jax Series
More fan-fiction available through Kindle Worlds.
Vampire Crimes Special Unit
Still more Sam Moon fan fiction!
Anthony Moon for Hire
Yes, Sam’s son has his own series! Written by my brother!
About the Author:
J.R. Rain is the international bestselling author of over seventy novels, including his popular Samantha Moon and Jim Knighthorse series. His books are published in five languages in twelve countries, and he has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.
Please visit him at www.jrrain.com.
Add him on Twitter.
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Read his blog here.
~~~~~
Check out all of J.R. Rain’s ebooks here:
And his audio books here:
And his paperbacks here:
~~~~~
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