Vampire Dawn

by J. R. Rain

  Then again, I had a tendency to not show up in photographs or video.

  So much for my talk show circuit, I thought, as I circled the area where the body had been found. As I did so, the wind picked up, lifting my hair, flapping my jacket.

  I tried to get a feel for the land, for what had been here. For who had been here, but these psychic gifts of mine were relatively new and I was only getting fleeting images. One of those fleeting images was that of the body still lying undisturbed on the ground, wrapped in the dirty sheet.

  I went back to the spot where the body had been found and knelt to examine the ground. There was nothing left of the crime scene, of course. The investigators had been all over it.

  Most telling, there hadn't been any blood. As I knelt in this spot with my eyes closed, feeling the wind, hearing the rustle of dried leaves, I heard something else.

  A voice. No, a memory of a voice. A hauntingly familiar voice. Deep and rich. Telling someone to dump the body here. Good, good. Let's go.

  And that's all the psychic hits I got.

  No, not quite. Another memory came to me. Another image. A snapshot, really. I saw a bag. Lying deep in a deep ravine.

  Except there were damn ravines everywhere. Hell, there were ravines within ravines. I only had to think about it for a second or two, before I started stripping out of my clothes.

  Right there at the crime scene.

  Chapter Five

  There's nothing like being naked in the desert.

  Seriously. With my clothing folded on the hood of my van, I stepped across the cool dirt, picked my way through a tangle of elderberry and carefully stepped around a patch of beavertail cactus. I moved past the general area where the body had been found and headed deeper into the empty hills.

  The desert scents were heady and intoxicating. Sage and juniper and creosote. Pungent, sharp and whispery. The desert sand itself seemed to have a scent all its own, too. Something ancient that hinted at death, at life, of survival and of distant memories. This place, so close to civilization, yet so far removed, too, smelled as it had for eons, for millenniums. The sand, I knew, was sprinkled with the bones of the dead. Dead vermin, dead coyotes, dead anything and everything that ever ventured into these bleak hills.

  I continued through the empty landscape. I was alone. I could sense it, see it, feel it.

  I moved over springy, green grass that stood little chance once the brief winter rains ended, once the heat set in again. Southern California is mostly desert, and never is it more apparent than in these barren hills.

  The moon was nearly full. Uh oh. That meant Kingsley would be, ah, indisposed for a few days.

  My body felt strong. As strong as the wind that had now whipped my hair into a frenzy. Sometimes I felt elemental, too. Tied to the days and nights, to the sun and earth. Tied to blood.

  Elemental.

  Like a dark fairy. A dark fairy with bat wings.

  I headed deeper into the desert, following a natural path that might have been a stream bed in wetter times. The rock underfoot was loose, although I rarely lost my balance. Down I went, down the slope, following the rock-strewn path, until before me a deep blackness opened up. A ravine.

  I stopped, breathing in the cool, desert air, although these days I no longer needed much air. I opened and closed my hands, feeling stronger than I ever had. Then again, I always feel like that, each and every night. Stronger than I ever had.

  I continued on, skirting a copse of stunted milkwoods along the edge of the ravine. I felt a pair of eyes watching me. I turned my head, looked up. There, a coyote sitting high atop a nearby boulder, eyes glowing yellow in the night. Its eyes, amazingly, like Kingsley's. Now I saw more movement from around the boulder. Heard claws clicking, scratching. More coyotes. I could smell them, too. Intoxicatingly fresh blood wafted from their musky coats. They had just feasted on a recent kill.

  My stomach growled.

  I cursed and moved on as the pack watched me silently, warily, keeping their distance. Soon, I reached what I had been searching for: the cliff's edge. Here, light particles swirled frenetically, seemingly caught in the updraft of wind gusts that moaned over crevasses and caves and outcroppings of rock.

  My toes curled over the edge. Loose sand and rock tumbled into the ravine. Behind me, I heard the coyotes turn and leave.

  I listened to the wind moving over the land, to the insects scurrying and buzzing, to my own growling stomach. I inhaled the last of the lingering, haunting scent of blood before the coyotes were too far off for even my enhanced senses.

  I looked out over the ledge. The cliff dropped straight down, disappearing into blackness, although I could see an outcropping of rock about halfway down. I would have to avoid that.

  I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. If my life hadn't been so weird over these past seven years, I might have been surprised to find myself standing naked at the edge of a cliff, in the high deserts outside of Orange County.

  But now weirdness was the norm, and so I just stood there, head tilted back a little, hair whipping in the wind, hands slightly outstretched, until the flame appeared in my thoughts.

  Within the flame appeared something hideous. . . and beautiful. The creature I would become.

  With that thought planted firmly in mind, I leaped from the cliff's edge and out into the night.

  Chapter Six

  I arched up and out.

  I hovered briefly in mid-air at the apex of the arch, my arms spread wide, my hair drifting above my shoulders in a state of suspended animation.

  From here, as I briefly hovered, I could see Lake Mathews sparkling under the nearly full moon. I could also see the barb wire fence, too. Only in southern California do they surround a lake with barb wire. Beyond, the cities of Corona and Riverside sparkled like so many jewels. Flawed jewels.

  And then I was falling, head first, like an inverted cross. The bleak canyon walls sped past me, just feet away. Dried grass swept past me, too. Lizards scuttled for cover, no doubt confused as hell. Dry desert air blasted me, thundered over my ears.

  I knew the protrusion of rock was coming up fast.

  I closed my eyes, and the creature in the flame regarded me curiously, cocking its head to one side.

  Faster, I sped. My outstretched arms fought the wind.

  The creature in the flame, the creature in my mind, seemed somehow closer now. And now I was rushing toward it - or it was rushing toward me. I never knew which it was.

  I gasped, contorted, expanded.

  And now my arms, instead of fighting the air, caught the air, used the air, manipulated the air, and now I wasn't so much falling as angling away from the cliff, angling just over the rocky protrusion. In fact, my right foot - no, the claws of my right foot - just grazed the rock. Lizards, soaking up what little heat they could from the rock, scurried wildly, and I didn't blame them.

  Here be monsters.

  I continued angling down, speeding so fast that by all rights I should be out of control. Wings or no wings, I should have tumbled down into the ravine below, disappearing into a forest of beavertail cactus so thick that my ass hurt just looking at them.

  But I didn't crash.

  Instead, I was in total control of this massive, winged body, knowing innately how to fly, how to command, how to maneuver. I knew, for instance, that angling my wings minutely would slow me enough to soar just above the beavertail, as I did now, their spiky paddles just missing my flat underside.

  Yes, completely flat. In this form, I was no longer female. I was, if anything, asexual. I existed for flight only. For great distances, and great strength, too.

  Now, as the far side of the canyon wall appeared before me, I instinctively veered my outstretched arms - wings - and shot up the corrugated wall, following its contours easily, avoiding boulders and roots and anything that might snag my wings or disembowel me.

  Up I went, flap
ping hard. And with each downward thrust, my body surged faster and faster, rocketing out of the canyon like a winged missile.

  In the open air, I was immediately buffeted by a strong wind blowing through the hills, but my body easily adjusted for it, and I rose higher still. I leveled off and the thick hide that composed of my wings snapped taut like twin sails.

  Twin black sails. With claws and teeth.

  Below, I saw dozens of yellow eyes watching me silently. I wondered just how much these coyotes knew. . . and whether or not they were really coyotes.

  The wind was cold and strong. I was about two hundred feet up, high enough to scan dozens of acres at once, as my eyes in this form were even better, even sharper.

  I was looking for the ravine that I had seen in my vision. Only a brief flash of a vision, of course, but one that remained with me, seared into my memory. In particular, I was looking for what had been tossed into the ravine.

  No doubt, whoever had tossed it had thought the package was as good as gone. After all, even a team of policemen and state troopers couldn't cover every inch of this vast wasteland.

  I flew over hills and canyons, over Lake Mathews and its barbed wire fence. High above me came the faint sound of a jet engine, and in the near distance, a Cessna was flying south. I wondered idly if I showed up on their radar, but I doubted it. After all, if I didn't show up in mirrors, why would I show up on radars?

  The wind tossed me a little, but I went with it, enjoying the experience. Everything about this form was enjoyable. The land spread before me in an eternity of undulating hills and dark ravines, marching onward to the mountain chains that crisscrossed southern California. Yes, even southern California has mountains chains.

  I flapped my wings casually, without effort or thought, moving my body as confidently and innately as one would when reaching for a coffee mug. I circled some more, looking for a match to the snapshot image in my head. I continued like this for another half hour or so, soaring and flapping, turning and searching. And then I came upon a hill that looked promising.

  Very promising.

  I descended toward it, dipping my wing, feeling the rush of wind in my face. . . a rush that I would never truly get used to. Or, rather, never wanted to get used to. How does one ever get used to flying? I didn't know, and I didn't want to know. I wanted the experience to always remain fresh, always new.

  The hill kept looking promising, and now there was the same stunted tree that I'd seen in my vision.

  I swooped lower.

  There, resting next to the tree trunk and nearly impossible to see with the naked eye, was a small package. No, not quite. A bulging plastic bag.

  I dropped down, circling once, twice, then landed on a smooth rock near the tree, tucking in my wings. Feeling like a monster in a horror movie, I used my left talon to snag the bag, then leaped as I high as I could, stretched out my wings, caught the wind nicely, and lifted off the ground.

  A few minutes later, back at my minivan and naked as the day I was born, I opened the bag and looked inside.

  "Bingo," I said.

  Chapter Seven

  I was alone in my office with the dead man's bag.

  The drive back from the hills outside of Corona had been excruciatingly long, despite the fact there had been no traffic. Excruciating, because I was itching to see inside the bag. The bag, I knew, was key evidence. I also knew that I should hand it over to Detective Sherbet ASAP. And I would. Eventually.

  After I had a little looksee.

  With the kids asleep and the babysitter forty bucks richer, I sat in my office and studied the still-closed bag. It was just a white plastic trash bag with red tie handles. The handles were presently tied tight. The bag itself was half full, which, on second thought, said more about my outlook on life these days than about anything in the bag.

  I was wearing latex gloves since I didn't want to ruin perfectly good evidence. To date, there had been five bodies located. Five bodies drained of blood. Sherbet had brought me on board after the fourth. Unfortunately, I hadn't been given much access to the actual evidence, despite Sherbet's high praise for me and my background as a federal investigator. Ultimately, homicide investigators still saw me as a rent-a-cop, someone not to take seriously, a private dick without a dick, as someone had once said.

  Anyway, Sherbet had mostly gotten me caught up via reports and taped witness statements. Sadly, the witnesses hadn't witnessed much, and the four previous bodies had yielded little in the way of clues. And what clues the police had, they weren't giving me access to.

  So, this little bag sitting in front of me represented my first - and only - direct evidence to the case.

  And I wasn't about to just turn it over. At least, not yet.

  So I photographed the bag from all angles, noting any smudges and marks. Once done, I carefully used a pair of scissors and clipped open the red plastic ties. I parted the bag slowly, and once fully open, I took more photos directly into the bag, carefully documenting the layout of the items within. Then I painstakingly removed each item, setting each before me and photographing them as they emerged.

  All in all, there were fifteen items in the bag.

  Most of the items were clothing: jeans, tee shirt, socks, shoes, underwear. There was jewelry, too, a class ring and a gold necklace. The necklace had some dried blood in it. There was blood splatter on the tee shirt, too, and the running shoes.

  But, most important, there was a wallet, complete with a driver's license, credit cards, folded receipts and even a hide-a-key tucked behind the license.

  "Well, well, well," I said.

  In a slot behind one of the credit cards was a private investigator's wet dream: his social security number. With that, he would have no secrets from me.

  His name, for starters, was Brian Meeks. He was 27 years old and even kind of cute.

  But most important, the moment I began extracting items from the bag and then from the wallet, I began receiving powerful hits. Psychic hits. Haunting, disturbing, horrific hits.

  I saw his life. I saw his death.

  I saw his killer.

  And when I finally put the items away, back into the wallet and back into the bag, I sat back in my chair and pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my face between my knees and sat like that for a long, long time.

  Chapter Eight

  You there, Fang?

  When I had caught my breath and my hands had quit shaking enough to type, I had grabbed my laptop and curled up on my new couch. The new, L-shaped couch was nearly as big as the living room itself, and that's just the way I liked it. There was enough room for some serious cuddling on here, and luckily my kids were still young enough to want to cuddle with their mommy. Even if Mommy had perpetual cold feet. Hey, if I had to put up with Anthony's farts, then they could put up with Mommy's cold feet.

  A moment later, the little circular icon next to Fang's name turned green, which meant he had just signed on. Next, I saw him typing a message, as indicated by wiggling pencil in the corner of the screen.

  You are upset, Moon Dance.

  Fang, like Detective Sherbet, was psychically connected to me. He would know how I felt, and what I was thinking, especially if I opened myself up to him.

  Very upset.

  Tell me about it.

  I did. Fang, like many in Orange County, knew about the drained bodies and about the serial killer. The papers were having a field day with this story, as were late-night talk-show hosts. With the world currently in the grip of Twilight mania, a real story about real bodies being drained of blood was making some national headlines. As Fang knew, I had been hired as a special consultant to the case, I simply caught him up to date on tonight's adventures. I also caught him up on the psychic hits I'd received.

  He was hanging upside down?

  Yes.

  And he never got a good look at his killer?

  No. I thin
k he had been rendered unconscious. I only got a sensation of him returning to consciousness.

  And when he did, he was hanging upside down?

  Yes.

  Fang wrote: What else did he see before he was, you know. . .

  Killed?

  Yes.

  I rubbed my head as the images, now forever imprinted into my brain, appeared in my thoughts again. I wrote: He didn't get a good look. He was swinging wildly upside down, trying to break free.

  His hands were tied?

  I think so, yes.

  And he saw only one man?

  Maybe two. Hard to know. That's when he started screaming.

  And that's when the knife appeared, wrote Fang.

  Yes, I wrote, feeling drained, despite this being the middle of the night.

  And they cut his throat, wrote Fang.

  Yes.

  This doesn't sound like a vampire.

  No, I wrote.

  It sounds like a sick son of a bitch.

  I waited before replying. Finally, I wrote: There's more, Fang. I saw. . . other bodies. At least two more. Both hanging upside down.

  Jesus, Sam.

  They were suspended over a tub of some sort.

  A tub?

  Yes.

  They were collecting the blood, Fang wrote.

  That's what I think, too.

  But why?

  I thought about it for only a moment before I wrote: If I had to guess, I would say that he supplies blood for vampires.

  Chapter Nine

  Kingsley was waiting for me outside Mulberry Street Restaurant in downtown Fullerton.

  He looked dashing and massive, and I think my whole body sighed when he smiled at me. A big, toothy smile. Confident smile. Deep dimples in his cheeks. His ears even moved a little. The way a dog's might. He was wearing a scarf that matched his eyes and I think I might have mewed a little. Like a kitten.

  "Hello, beautiful," he said, smiling even bigger.

  "Hello, Mr. Observant," I said, grinning, and came to him. He wrapped a strong arm around my lower waist and pulled me into him, lifting me a little off my feet. I wasn't entirely sure he knew he had lifted me off my feet. One moment I was standing there, the next my heels were free of any gravitational pull.

  He set me down again. "God, you smell good. "