by J. R. Rain
VAMPIRES &
WEREWOLVES
Four Supernatural Novels
MOON DANCE
VAMPIRE MOON
VAMPIRE LOVE STORY
THE WEREWOLF WHISPERER
J.R. RAIN
H.T. NIGHT
Vampires & Werewolves
Copyright © 2011 by J.R. Rain and H.T. Night
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Susanna at:
[email protected]
www.photogravity.de
Ebook Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.
Dedication
To Scott and Diana.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Moon Dance
Vampire Moon
Vampire Love Story
The Werewolf Whisperer
About the Authors
MOON DANCE
Vampire for Hire #1
Copyright © 2009 by J.R. Rain
All rights reserved.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to mothers everywhere:
Our amazing, selfless, unsung heroes.
Love you, ma.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Eve Paludan, Liisa Lee (and all her i’s) and Sandy Johnston for their generous assistance with this book.
Moon Dance
1.
I was folding laundry in the dark and watching Judge Judy rip this guy a new asshole when the doorbell rang.
I flipped down a pair of Oakley wrap-around sunglasses and, still holding a pair of little Anthony’s cotton briefs in one hand, opened the front door.
The light, still painfully bright, poured in from outside. I squinted behind my shades and could just made out the image of a UPS deliveryman.
And, oh, what an image it was.
As my eyes adjusted to the light, a hunky guy with tan legs and beefy arms materialized through the screen door before me. He grinned at me easily, showing off a perfect row of white teeth. Spiky yellow hair protruded from under his brown cap. The guy should have been a model, or at least my new best friend.
“Mrs. Moon?” he asked. His eyes seemed particularly searching and hungry, and I wondered if I had stepped onto the set of a porno movie. Interestingly, a sort of warning bell sounded in my head. Warning bells are tricky to discern, and I automatically assumed this one was telling me to stay away from Mr. Beefy, or risk damaging my already rocky marriage.
“You got her,” I said easily, ignoring the warning bells.
“I’ve got a package here for you.”
“You don’t say.”
“I’ll need for you to sign the delivery log.” He held up an electronic gizmo-thingy that must have been the aforementioned delivery log.
“I’m sure you do,” I said, and opened the screen door and stuck a hand out. He looked at my very pale hand, paused, and then placed the electronic thing-a-majig in it. As I signed it, using a plastic-tipped pen, my signature appeared in the display box as an arthritic mess. The deliveryman watched me intently through the screen door. I don’t like to be watched intently. In fact, I prefer to be ignored and forgotten.
“Do you always wear sunglasses indoors?” he asked casually, but I sensed his hidden question: And what sort of freak are you?
“Only during the day. I find them redundant at night.” I opened the screen door again and exchanged the log doohickey for a small square package. “Thank you,” I said. “Have a good day.”
He nodded and left, and I watched his cute little buns for a moment longer, and then shut the solid oak door completely. Sweet darkness returned to my home. I pulled up the sunglasses and sat down in a particularly worn dining room chair. Someday I was going to get these things re-upholstered.
The package was heavily taped, but a few deft strokes of my painted red nail took care of all that. I opened the lid and peered inside. Shining inside was an ancient golden medallion. An intricate Celtic cross was engraved across the face of it, and embedded within the cross, formed by precisely cut rubies, were three red roses.
In the living room, Judge Judy was calmly explaining to the defendant what an idiot he was. Although I agreed, I turned the TV off, deciding that this medallion needed my full concentration.
After all, it was the same medallion worn by my attacker six years earlier.
2.
There was no return address and no note. Other than the medallion, the box was empty. I left the gleaming artifact in the box and shut the lid. Seeing it again brought back some horrible memories. Memories I have been doing my best to forget.
I put the box in a cabinet beneath the china hutch, and then went back to Judge Judy and putting away the laundry. At 3:30 p.m., I lathered my skin with heaping amounts of sun block, donned a wide gardening hat and carefully stepped outside.
The pain, as always, was intense and searing. Hell, I could have been cooking over an open fire pit. Truly, I had no business being out in the sun, but I had my kids to pick up, dammit.
So I hurried from the front steps and crossed the driveway and into the open garage. My dream was to have a home with an attached garage. But, for now, I had to make the daily sprint.
Once in the garage and out of the direct glare of the spring sun, I could breathe again. I could also smell my burning flesh.
Blech!
Luckily, the Ford Windstar minivan was heavily tinted, and so when I backed up and put the thing into drive, I was doing okay again. Granted, not great, but okay.
I picked up my son and daughter from school, got some cheeseburgers from Burger King and headed home. Yes, I know, bad mom, but after doing chores all day, I definitely was not going to cook.
Once at home, the kids went straight to their room and I went straight to the bathroom where I removed my hat and sunglasses, and used a washcloth to remove the extra sunscreen. Hell, I ought to buy stock in Coppertone. Soon the kids were hard at work saving our world from Haloes and had lapsed into a rare and unsettling silence. Perhaps it was the quiet before the storm.
My only appointment for the day was right on time, and since I work from home, I showed him to my office in the back. His name was Kingsley Fulcrum and he sat across from me in a client chair, filling it to capacity. He was tall and broad shouldered and wore his tailored suit well. His thick black hair, speckled with gray, was jauntily disheveled and worn long over his collar. Kingsley was a striking man and would have been the poster boy for dashing rogues if not for the two scars on his face. Then again, maybe poster boys for rogue did have scars on their faces. Anyway, one was on his left cheek and the other was on his forehead, just above his left eye. Both were round and puffy. And both were recent.
He caught me staring at the scars. I looked away, embarrassed. “How can I help you, Mr. Fulcrum?”
“How long have you been a private investigator, Mrs. Moon?” he asked.
“Six years,” I said.
“What did you do before that?”
“I was a federal agent.”
He didn’t say anything, and I could feel his eyes on me. God, I hate when I can feel eyes on me. The silence hung for longer than I was comfortable with and I answered his unspoken question. “I had an accident and was forced to work at home.”
“May I ask what kind of accident?”
“No.”
He raised his eyebrows and nodded. He might have turned a pale shade of red. “Do you have a list of references?”
“Of course.”
I turned to my computer, brought up the reference file and printed him out the list. He took it and scanned th
e names briefly. “Mayor Hartley?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“He hired you?”
“He did. I believe that’s the direct line to his personal assistant.”
“Can I ask what sort of help you gave the mayor?”
“No.”
“I understand. Of course you can’t divulge that kind of information.”
“How exactly can I help you, Mr. Fulcrum?” I asked again.
“I need you to find someone.”
“Who?”
“The man who shot me,” he said. “Five times.”
3.
The furious sounds of my kids erupting into an argument suddenly came through my closed office door. In particular, Anthony’s high-pitched shriek. Sigh. The storm broke.
I gave Kingsley an embarrassed smile. “Could you please hold on?”
“Duty calls,” he said, smiling. Nice smile.
I marched through my single story home and into the small bedroom my children shared. Anthony was on top of Tammy. Tammy was holding the remote control away from her body with one hand and fending off her little brother with the other. I came in just in time to witness him sinking his teeth into her hand. She yelped and bopped him over the ear with the remote control. He had just gathered himself to make a full-scale leap onto her back, when I stepped into the room and grabbed each by their collar and separated them. I felt as if I had separated two ravenous wolverines. Anthony’s fingers clawed for his sister’s throat. I wondered if they realized they were both hovering a few inches off the floor. When they had both calmed down, I set them down on their feet. Their collars were ruined.
“Anthony, we do not bite in this household. Tammy, give me the remote control.”
“But Mom,” said Anthony, in that shriekingly high-pitched voice that he used to irritate me. “I was watching ‘Pokemon’ and she turned the channel.”
“We each get one half hour after school,” Tammy said smugly. “And you were well into my half hour.”
“But you were on the phone talking to Richaaard.”
“Tammy, give your brother the remote control. He gets to finish his TV show. You lost your dibs by talking to Richaaard.” They both laughed. “I have a client in my office. If I hear any more loud voices, you will both be auctioned off on eBay. I could use the extra money.”
I left them and headed back to the office. Kingsley was perusing my bookshelves. He looked at me before I had a chance to say anything and raised his eyebrows.
“You have an interest in the occult,” he said, fingering a hardback book. “In particular, vampirism.”
“Yeah, well, we all need a hobby,” I said.
“An interesting hobby, that,” he said.
I sat behind my desk. It was time to change the subject. “So you want me to find the man who shot you five times. Anything else?”
He moved away from my book shelves and sat across from me again. He raised a fairly bushy eyebrow. On him, the bushy eyebrow somehow worked.
“Anything else?” he asked, grinning. “No, I think that will be quite enough.”
And then it hit me. I thought I recognized the name and face. “You were on the news a few months back,” I said suddenly.
He nodded once. “Aye, that was me. Shot five times in the head for all the world to see. Not my proudest moment.”
Did he just say aye? I had a strange sense that I had suddenly gone back in time. How far back, I didn’t know, but further enough back where men said aye.
“You were ambushed and shot. I can’t imagine it would have been anyone’s proudest moment. But you survived, and that’s all that matters, right?”
“For now,” he said. “Next on the list would be to find the man who shot me.” He sat forward. “Everything you need is at your disposal. Nothing of mine is off limits. Speak to anyone you need to, although I ask you to be discreet.”
“Discretion is sometimes not possible.”
“Then I trust you to use your best judgment.”
Good answer. He took out a business card and wrote something on the back. “That’s my cell number. Please call me if you need anything.” He wrote something under his number. “And that’s the name and number of the acting homicide detective working my case. His name is Sherbet, and although I found him to be forthcoming and professional, I didn’t like his conclusions.”
“Which were?”
“He tends to think my attack was nothing but a random shooting.”
“And you disagree?”
“Wholeheartedly.”
We discussed my retainer and he wrote me a check. The check was bigger than we discussed.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” said Kingsley as he stood and tucked his expensive fountain pen inside his expensive jacket, “but are you ill?”
I’ve heard the question a thousand times.
“No, why?” I asked brightly.
“You seem pale.”
“Oh, that’s my Irish complexion, lad,” I said, and winked.
He stared at me a moment longer, and then returned my wink and left.
4.
When Kingsley was gone I punched his name into my web browser.
Dozens of online newspaper articles came up, and from these I garnered that Kingsley was a rather successful defense attorney, known for doing whatever it took to get his clients off the hook, often on seemingly inane technicalities. He was apparently worth his weight in gold.
I thought of his beefy shoulders.
A lot of weight. Muscular weight.
Down girl.
I continued scanning the headlines until I found the one I wanted. It was on a web page for a local LA TV station. I clicked on a video link. Thank God for high speed internet. A small media window appeared on my screen, and shortly thereafter I watched a clip that had first appeared on local TV news. The clip had gone national, due to its sensationally horrific visuals.
A reporter appeared first in the screen, a young Hispanic woman looking quite grave. Over her shoulder was a picture of the Fullerton Municipal Courthouse. The next shot was a grainy image from the courthouse security camera itself. In the frame were two men and two women, all dressed impeccably, all looking important. They were crossing in front of the courthouse itself. In football terms, they formed a sort of moving huddle, although I rarely think of things in football terms and understand little of the stupid sport.
I immediately recognized the tall one with the wavy black hair as Kingsley Fulcrum, looking rugged and dashing.
Down girl.
As the group approaches the courthouse steps, a smallish man steps out from behind the trunk of a white birch. Three of the four great defenders pay the man little mind. The one who does, a blond-haired woman with glasses and big hips, looks up and frowns. She probably frowns because the little man is reaching rather menacingly inside his coat pocket. His thick mane of black hair is disheveled, and somehow even his thick mustache looks disheveled, too. The woman, still frowning, turns back to the group.
And what happens next still sends shivers down my spine.
From inside his tweed jacket, the little man removes a short pistol. We now know it’s a .22. At the time, no one sees him remove the pistol. The short man, perhaps ten feet away from the group of four, takes careful aim, and fires.
Kingsley’s head snaps back. The bullet enters over his left eye.
I lean forward, staring at my computer screen, rapt, suddenly wishing I had a bowl of popcorn, or at least a bag of peanut M&Ms. That is, until I remembered that I can no longer eat either.
Anyway, Kingsley’s cohorts immediately scatter like chickens before a hawk. The shorter man even ducks and rolls dramatically as if he’s recently seen duty in the Middle East and his military instincts are kicking in.
Kingsley is shot again. This time in the neck, where a small red dot appears above his collar. Blood quickly flows down his shirt. Instead of collapsing, instead of dying after being shot point blank in the head and neck, Kingsley a
ctually turns and looks at the man.
As if the man had simply called his name.
As if the man had not shot him twice.
What transpires next would be comical if it wasn’t so heinous. Kingsley proceeds to duck behind a nearby tree. The shooter, intent on killing Kingsley, bypasses going around a park bench and instead jumps over it. Smoothly. Landing squarely on his feet while squeezing off a few more rounds that appear to hit Kingsley in the neck and face. Meanwhile, the big attorney ducks and weaves behind the tree. This goes on for seemingly an eternity, but in reality just a few seconds. A sick game of tag, except Kingsley’s getting tagged with real bullets.
And still the attorney does not go down.
Doesn’t even collapse.
The shooter seemingly realizes he’s wasting his time and dashes away from the tree, disappearing from the screen. No one has come to Kingsley’s rescue. The other attorneys are long gone. Kingsley is left to fend for himself, his only protection the tree, which has been torn and shredded by the impacting stray bullets.
Witnesses would later report that the shooter left in a Ford pickup. No one tried to stop him, and I really didn’t blame them.
I paused the picture on Kingsley. Blood is frozen on his cheeks and forehead, even on his open, outstretched palms. His face is a picture of confusion and horror and shock. In just twenty-three seconds, his life had been utterly turned upside down. Of course, in those very same twenty-three seconds most people would have died.
But not Kingsley. I wondered why.
5.
I was at the Fullerton police station, sitting across from a homicide detective named Sherbet. It was the late evening, and most of the staff had left for the day.
