Moon Shadow (Vampire for Hire Book 11) (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

“Excuse me for my, ah, indecency,” said the pointy-faced man, who didn’t seem to really care that he was, in fact, squatting before me naked as the day he was born. A day which just so happened to be half a millennium ago.

Talos’s eyes were better than mine in every way; indeed, through his eyes, I could even see the vampire’s dull aura, which pulsated weakly from his body in a bluish light. With my own eyes, I could never see another immortals’ aura.

“I’m pretty sure you can understand me in this form, but I won’t be able to understand you. Try as I might, I don’t speak screeching dragon.”

I considered transforming, but I doubted Kingsley would be okay with me and the King Bad Boy Dragon himself hanging out on a rocky ledge in the buck. Dracula had come here to talk. So, he could talk, and I would listen.

Truthfully, the Count made me a little nervous. He did, after all, host the most powerful of the Dark Masters—and Elizabeth’s lover. Of course, Dracula had been nothing but a gentleman; indeed, he’d saved my hide just last year when I’d found myself in an arena full of ravenous werewolves. Dracula had proven to be scary deadly. Within minutes, the arena had been full of
dead
werewolves.

To his credit, Dracula wasn’t giving me the full show now. He mostly kept his hands laced over his groin, and mostly presented me his side, rather than the full monty.

Dracula was not a big man. Well under six feet, I suspected he was closer to maybe five-nine. He didn’t need to be tall, or hulking. He had an undeniable presence, even when buck naked.
Magisterial
, came to mind. He had been, after all, a warrior king for Romania. He had commanded thousands—and many thousands more had worshiped him. And he had, by all accounts, watched many thousands perish in gruesome deaths... and had enjoyed every minute of it.

Yes, he had been a fitting host for the worst of the worst, the most powerful of the Dark Masters.

But something seemed to happen on the way to the twenty-first century. This Dracula seemed surprisingly banal, shockingly well-mannered, and, pray tell, polite. Dracula wore his hair long, most of which was presently billowing in the hot wind. He was muscular enough, but a little scrawny for my tastes. Then again, Kingsley had something to do with that, meaning, the big oaf had somehow altered my tastes in men. More and more, I find myself attracted to bigger guys, hairier guys, hulking guys. The Liam Neeson types. The Jason Mamoas of the world. Lord help me, the son on
Pawn Stars
. Then again, few stacked up against Kingsley. Correction, no man did.

Dracula didn’t need to be big or hulking to command my presence. He also didn’t need much clothing, and, polite as he was, I still saw his junk more than one time.

Which led to this surreal thought:
I just saw Dracula’s junk
.

My life,
I thought, and shook Talos’s massive, diamond-shaped head.

“I hadn’t realized just how, ah, intimidating our winged friends are, Samantha Moon. My God, you are massive. And frightening. And beautiful.”

He kept his hands clasped before him, but had taken to pacing along a very small area on the ledge next to me. I turned my head to watch him, my claws digging deep into the earth. At some point in time, someone was going to stumble across these very claw marks—and wonder what the hell had been watching them.

If they only knew
, I thought.

I suspected that Prince Dracula, or whatever he referred to himself as these days, had seen plenty of dragons in his day. I suspected he had, in fact, seen it all. Tasted it all. He had five hundred years under his belt at this undead business. I had ten.

I suspect Dracula had journeyed to his dragon’s home planet, had shifted from this world into the next. I suspected he was only now trying to seem accommodating, normal, real, approachable. I also suspected he had done things and seen things that no one would ever know—or would want to know. The killer was still in him, I had to remind myself of that. I also had to remind myself of the ease with which he had dispatched the pack of werewolves that night. He had killed easily, wantonly. Yes, he had saved me, but he also hadn’t hesitated or tried to negotiate. Dracula, in short, had been a killing machine.

He moved over to the lip of the cliff and stared out over the sparkling light of Lake Elsinore. That Dracula was here, on this forgotten cliff face, facing a mostly forgotten city, at this time and place, was beyond surreal. It was unreal.

Now, he folded his arms over his chest and just let it all hang out, exposing himself to the world but, luckily, not too much to me. “It is a strange world we live in, Samantha Moon.”

He let his words hang out there. There was a lot of hanging going on at the edge of the cliff. I waited, unmoving, my leathery wings rippling in the wind. Overhead, a single-engine airplane droned on, its safety light pulsing. There had been no airplanes in Dracula’s time. Hell, there wouldn’t have been significant transportation improvements for nearly 250 years, with the advent of the steam engine. The man next to me had truly seen it all.

Now, he was just a naked guy with nice hair and a decent-enough body, although he was no Kingsley.

“I assume you have seen the other worlds? Or, at least, caught a glimpse? They are beautiful, and very evolved. They are perfect in their own ways, but they are boring. There is no room for improvement. Yes, perfection can be boring. There is little room for expansion, which is why some of them come here and connect with us. My dragon is such a creature. And so is yours. Whether they admit it or not, Samantha, they seek excitement. They seek to live. Why do you think they are always ready at our beck and call? It is because there is so little for them to do in their home world. Why? Because everything has been done. All obstacles have been removed. Nirvana is everywhere.

“It is only in the lower worlds, the lesser-evolved worlds, that monumental leaps of evolution can occur. And therein lies the excitement of living, Samantha Moon. It is in the
taking
of the step. Not where the step is taken.”

He squatted down and ran his surprisingly long fingers through the loose dirt at the cliff edge, his skin pale, smooth and blemish-free. Muscles rippled as he trailed his fingertips in the dirt.

“I did not ask for Gerard to join me.” Gerard, I knew, was the name of Elizabeth’s love interest, the entity who had possessed Dracula so many years ago. “But I was not surprised when he did so. I had been asking to be given the secrets of eternal life. I had been asking the sorcerers and charlatans alike. I had been praying to God, the devil, you name it. I sought to live. I sought to continue to expand, to improve, to spread, to...” He caught himself, but I knew what he was going to say next.

To kill.

“I was a wild man back in those days, Sam, reckless and full of anger and hatred. The anger and hatred is long gone. But the desire to expand, to grow, to challenge, to change, and, believe it or not, to help, never leaves. And I suspect if it did, I would die. One way or another, I would die.”

He rested both elbows on his bare knees, his legs spread away from me, sitting casually, relaxed, never mind that he was naked or sitting next to an honest-to-God dragon.

“So, where does that leave us, Sam?” he asked, not bothering to look at me, his voice barely above a whisper. Turned out, Talos’s hearing was rather exceptional, and I suspected Dracula knew that, hence, the near-whisper. “Of course, there would be no we, if I hadn’t appeared suddenly in your life. Or if I hadn’t helped you. But that sounds manipulative. I have manipulated my way over this planet, and I refuse to do so now. You might have handled those werewolves fine, especially in your changeling dragon form. I cannot take full credit for your getting out alive. But perhaps I can take a little. Again, that sounds manipulative and, well, a little needy. I would like to think that I am beyond such base needs. Then again, I know what you are. I know who is in you. And I know the deeper importance of our meeting, our connection, our past and what might lie in our future. I know all of this and more, and it is bringing out, within me, a juvenile need to be accepted by you, to be held in some esteem, to be valued and appreciated. I hate that I think such things. I was a king, for Christ’s sake. A warrior. I killed with reckless abandon. I took what I wanted, when I wanted, and then I took more for no good reason at all. I killed for no good reason at all. I was terrible and I hope to never be that man again. Power is a terrible thing, especially for those with little patience and bloodlust.”

Dracula spoke crisply, enunciating perfectly. A hint of a European accent of the likes I had never heard before. Then again, I didn’t get out much. But still...

“I have been a bastard. I have been a devil. I have been a saint, too, but few know that. I have stopped advancing armies with blood in their hearts and, yes, saved all of Europe, but few remember what it was like in those years, with an enemy breathing down one’s neck. I did what I had to, and I destroyed many lives in the process. I believe many more would have been destroyed, and much of the landscape of Eastern Europe would have been changed, if not for me. But how many bloodlines have I ended? How many good people met their end, often on my silly whims? Too many. I was a true psychopath, I believe. But over time, I started to feel. I started to care, and I am haunted every hour of every day for my past transgressions.”

The wind whipped up some of the dust along the ledge. The dust swirled and danced and formed mini dust devils, then dissipated again.

“So, where does that leave us, Sam? It doesn’t have to leave us anywhere, quite frankly. I could leap from this cliff and fly off and you would never hear from me again. Perhaps this is something you wish. If so, I do not blame you, or anyone. I am hardly anyone’s type. You surely did not ask me to be here, or to help you, or anything. Yet, here I am, shoehorning myself into your life. Or, at least, entertaining the idea, and asking you to entertain the idea, too. Maybe. Quite frankly, I am not sure what I am asking of you, or even of myself. I am truly thinking out loud; so, perhaps, it is a good thing that you are in your changeling form. It helps me do all the thinking and talking. Trust me, I have spent decades alone. I do not mind your company, even if it’s silent and regarding me with big, monstrous, black eyes.”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
came a voice in my head.
Beware of this one, Sam.

You know of him?

I do, of course. There are only so many of us who connect with you. And those that do have been specially selected. I am told that the entity within the one you call Dracula is particularly dark, and particularly cunning.

I had no doubt about that, being, from my understanding, the strongest of the dark masters. I thought:
Can you tell me more?

Like you, Dracula is free of the entity within while in his changeling form. Unlike you, the entity within has control over much of what he says, although the man called Dracula does occasionally fight free. It is only when he has transformed into one of us that he is truly free, and even then, it takes many minutes, often hours, for Dracula to find himself again. It is only in the brief minutes following his return to human form that you are most likely to trust the man. It is only then that he is, as you would say, his old self again.

Until the entity within regains its grip on him,
I thought.

Correct, Sam.

I thought about this. Indeed, the man before me seemed clear of mind, clear of speech. I didn’t sense an internal struggle. Then again, he had also just transformed into his human form.

I waited for Dracula to continue, and as he continued squatting on the cliff edge, free as a bird and as naked as the devil, I couldn’t help but note that the hands that had been idly running through the loose dirt, had recently turned into something closer to claws. Now, they dug harder, leaving deeper furrows.

He’s fighting it,
I thought.

I believe so, Sam.

“So, why am I here, Sam? When I have not much interest in you, although, from all appearances, you seem a delightful creature?”

I continued waiting, noting the blood that now trailed in the dirt, blood that poured from his bloodied fingertips.

“Why am I here when I have much better things to do? No, that’s a lie. I have done everything I wanted to do. I have seen everything I wanted to see. I have killed and raped and pillaged the entire fucking world, Samantha Moon.”

Dracula shook his head and his long hair billowed forward. Now, I could see red splotches appearing over his bare skin. This was a first for me. I had not seen such splotches before, even on myself. What it meant, exactly, I didn’t know.

It’s indicative of his internal struggle, Samantha Moon. There is a war going on for his mind, even now.

Dracula continued, unaware of my internal dialogue with Talos. “But I am here because
he
wants me here, Sam.
He
wants me to appeal to your sensitivities.
He
wants me to persuade you to allow us into your life, into your world. To allow us to be a part of what you are building.”

I wasn’t aware that I was building anything. But I was aware that Dracula’s voice was changing. He was going from mild-mannered and, dare I say, polite, to something closer to agitated. The smoothness of his voice was giving way to something gravelly and angry.