Moon Child (Vampire for Hire #4) (7 page)

I had only one answer.

I reached into my purse and removed the small
legal pad I now kept tucked in a side pocket. I also removed a
favorite pen with flowing, liquid black ink. I love flowing, liquid
black ink.

As a small wind rushed over the van, swishing
the tree above and scattering a few precious leaves from its sparse
branches, I spent the next few minutes going through a meditation
exercise that both grounded me to the earth and opened me to the
spirit world.

Once grounded and open, I sat quietly with
pen in hand, waiting. Shorty, I felt the familiar tingle in my
right arm. The tingle turned into something more than a tingle. In
fact, it turned into an electrical impulse and my right arm
involuntarily spasmed. It spasmed again and again, lightly, and
soon the pen in my hand was moving, seemingly on its own. Writing.
Two words appeared on the mini-sheet of legal paper before me.

Hello, Samantha.

“Hello,” I said within the empty minivan,
feeling slightly silly.

In the past, two different entities had come
through in this form of communication, what many call “automatic
writing.” I asked now who I was speaking with. My hand twitched
once, twice, and the name Sephora appeared before me. Sephora, I
knew, was my personal spirit guide.

Whatever the hell that was.

“I might have done a bad thing,” I said.

My hand jerked and spasmed and more words
appeared on the notepad on my lap.

You are only as bad as you feel,
Samantha.

“Well, I feel like shit and I’m scared to
death.”

My hand flinched rapidly.

Did you act out of love or fear when you
saved your son?

I thought hard about that. Sweat was now
breaking out on my brow. It took a lot for sweat to break out on my
brow. The car was heating up rapidly. “I acted out of instinct,” I
said. “For me, it was the only answer. I had a means to save my
son, and I took it. Some would call that love, others would call it
selfishness.”

The electrical impulse crackled through my
arm.

What would you call it, Samantha?

“Love. It has to be. I love my kids more than
anything.”

Then so be it.

Interestingly, had I not possessed the
medallion, I don’t think I would have done it. In fact, I know I
wouldn’t have done it. I would not have sentenced my son
to...this...if there was no way to turn him back.

“Does my son know what’s happened to him?” I
asked.

Your son sleeps deeply while the change comes
over him. In the physical, outer world, no. But, yes, his greater
self, his soul self, knows exactly what you have done.

“Does he forgive me?”

My child, he loves you with all his heart. He
understands this was a difficult decision for you, and that you
made the best choice you could.

I stared down at the words on the pad,
wondering again if I was making them up or if they were really
flowing through me from the spirit world.

“You make it seem like there’s two of him,” I
said.

There is his higher, spiritual self,
Samantha, and his lower, physical self. The higher self resides in
the spirit world, and the lower self in the physical world, your
world.

I thought about that, then got to why I was
here. “I have a name of a man who might be able to help me,” I
said.

There was no response. No weird electrical
impulse. My arm rested lightly on the center console.

“Is there a way you can help me find
him?”

Precious child, there is always a way. To
find what is missing, lost or hidden, requires great faith,
patience and perseverance.

I waited, but apparently that’s all I was
going to be given.

“Is that it?” I asked.

It is enough, Samantha.

I slammed the pen down and tore out the sheet
of paper. A few seconds later, the paper was nothing more than
confetti. I knew I was acting like a baby. Losing control was
exactly what I shouldn’t be doing. But I didn’t need riddles and
spiritual platitudes. I needed Archibald Maximus.

And I needed him now.

Chapter Eighteen

The only other vampire I knew—outside of my
newly anointed son—had led me to the world’s creepiest man, which
cost my son two years of his life. As shitty as that sounded, a
name had been gleaned, which was more than I started with.

The only other immortal that I knew was
Kingsley Fulcrum, a beast of a man in more ways than one. He had an
office a block or two from the hospital, across the street from the
opulent Main Place Mall, which I was driving past now. The mall
gleamed and sparkled and apparently emitted a siren call to Orange
County housewives everywhere.

I somehow managed to ignore the call, and
soon I was turning into the parking lot of Kingsley’s plush,
red-brick office building, which brought to mind the last time I
was here.

Last week, I had stormed into Kingsley’s
office, scaring off a wife killer that Kingsley had been set to
represent. Exactly. I’d never been more proud. Anyway, the last I
heard Kingsley had dropped the piece of shit. Unfortunately for the
killer, I had gotten a very strong psychic hit from him. I knew,
without a doubt, that he had killed his wife. Now he was on my
radar, and I intended to follow through with my threat to make sure
that he spent a lifetime in prison.

But that was for another time. For now, I had
a son to save.

From what? I asked myself. From an eternity
of life? From an eternity of not experiencing death?

No, I answered. From an eternity of
childhood. From an eternity of consuming blood. From an eternity of
questioning his sanity.

It was mid-day and I was at my weakest and
frailest. I also felt vulnerable and clumsy. As I stood there on
the bottom floor, inside the glass doors, blinking and waiting for
my eyes to adjust to the gloom within, I realized something else. I
had condemned my son to a lifetime of shunning the sun.

My son would never again go to the beach,
never again go on a field trip with his class, never again play
Frisbee in the park. Granted, he never played Frisbee in the park,
anyway, but that possibility had been removed.

For now, I thought. Only for now. There is an
answer. There has to be an answer.

I moved heavily through the building, all too
aware that my legs felt unusually heavy, that each step was an
effort, that I did not belong with the day dwellers.

A tall man wearing an outdated blue blazer
smiled at me sadly as I boarded the elevator. He asked what floor
and I noticed we were going to the same floor, Kingsley’s floor. As
we rode up together, I touched my brow and winced. Despite my
wide-brimmed hat, some of the sun had made it through. There might
have been a small area near my hairline where I had missed some
sunblock because the skin there was burning. I ignored the pain,
knowing it would go away in a few hours.

We rode the elevator in silence. I was aware
of the man in the old business suit watching me. I hated to be
watched and self-consciously moved away, ducking my head, wishing
like hell he would look away, but too weak to do anything other
than shrink away like a frightened puppy.

“Pardon me,” he said in a thick French
accent, leaning in front of me and pushing the button to the floor
just beneath Kingsley’s offices. “Wrong floor.”

The elevator doors opened immediately, and he
stepped out. As he did so, he turned and looked at me again. He was
a tall man wearing a bow tie. I hadn’t noticed the bow tie before.
His age was indeterminate, anything from 48 to 78. Then he did
something that shocked the hell out of me.

He smiled.

The elevator doors closed and I headed up to
see Kingsley.

Chapter Nineteen

Like I said, the last time I was here, I
stormed Kingsley’s office like a mad woman.

Or a desperate mom.

This time I waited patiently in the lobby
while Kingsley finished up with a client. Oh, I was still
desperate. I was still driven. It’s just that I had eased up on the
panic button. A few days ago, when I had stormed in here, my son
was close to death. Now he was very much alive, although I was
faced with a whole new dilemma.

Had I been anything less than what I am now,
my son, I knew, would be dead. He would have fulfilled his life
mission, a mission that included checking out early, apparently,
and the rest of us would have been left to pick up the pieces of
our own lives, if that was even possible.

There were a lot of unanswered questions. The
use of the medallion was so vague, so strange, and just so damn
weird. That I was pinning my son’s eternity on a golden coin
hanging from a leather strap was mind-boggling and disturbing, at
best.

And what was I working so hard for? To ensure
that my son would someday die? Where things stood, he would survive
and keep surviving forever. Wasn’t that a good thing? And how did I
know that he would stop growing? Maybe he would continue to grow.
Maybe he would reach adulthood. Maybe he would thank me every day
for the rest of his life, for all eternity, for sparing him from
death, and for giving him great physical gifts, too. Knowing my
son, in the least, he would thank me for getting him out of
school.

This line of thinking had me confused. Jesus,
maybe I should let him be. Maybe with proper guidance, I could walk
him through the eternal experience, help him, teach him, guide him.
Something no one had done for me. Maybe he would indeed grow into
his adult body.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

I didn’t know; I knew so little.

Shit.

A few minutes later, Kingsley’s office door
opened and out came a familiar client. The same client I had seen
just days earlier. The same client who had prompted a powerful
vision of him strangling his wife to death in her sleep. The same
coward. The same piece of shit. The same asshole I had threatened
to bring down.

It was no threat.

And here he was. Coming out of Kingsley’s
office.

Again.

We locked eyes and I think we both gasped. My
stomach heaved at the sight of the bastard. He made a small,
whimpering sound and took a step back...into Kingsley, who was
standing behind him. Kingsley looked surprised, too. He also looked
a little sheepish and embarrassed. I was too stunned to speak.

Kingsley quickly stepped between us, and
actually escorted the bastard out of his office. A moment later, my
werewolf friend returned, all six foot, six inches of him, and
gestured toward his office.

“Let’s talk,” he said.

Numb and sick, I silently stood and headed
through his open door.

He followed behind, shutting the door.

“Have a seat,” he said.

Chapter Twenty

I did as I was told, still too stunned to
speak.

Kingsley moved around his office with an ease
and speed uncommon for a man his size. He sat in his executive
chair and studied me for a long moment before speaking. I could not
look into his eyes.

“Well, I suppose I should thank you for not
playing Whack-A-Mole with my client’s head,” he finally said, and I
could hear the gentle humor in his voice. He was referring to an
inadvertent joke he’d made the other day.

I didn’t smile. Not now.

He took in a lot of air. Unlike me, Kingsley
seemed to need normal amounts of oxygen. I know this because I had
listened to him snore once or twice. Listened, of course, was
putting it mildly. Experienced, perhaps? His snoring was unlike
anything I had ever heard before. It sounded like the bombing of a
small village.

He filled his massive chest to capacity,
which put a lot of pressure on his nice dress shirt, especially the
buttons. I was prepared to duck should buttons start flying like so
many bullets from a Gatling gun.

He studied me like that for a moment, his
chest filled, button threads hanging on for dear life, and then
finally expelled. He leaned back and crossed his legs, adjusting
the drape of his hem.

“Don’t judge me, Sam,” he said. I noticed he
looked away when he spoke.

“Who’s judging?” I said. “I’m just admiring
the fine handiwork of your shirt.”

“Every man deserves a fair trial, Sam.”

“And every defense attorney deserves a hefty
payday.”

“This has nothing to do with money, Sam.”

“Say that to your mansion in Yorba
Linda.”

“My home is the result of a lot of hard
work.”

“And a lot of freed killers.”

Perhaps in frustration, he closed both hands
into boulder-like fists, and as he did so, his knuckles cracked
mightily. Jesus, he was an intimidating son-of-a-bitch, but I was
not easily intimidated.

“What do you want, Sam?” he asked.

I found myself wanting to lash out, too. I
found myself wanting to storm out and flip him the bird. How...how
could a man represent such scum? And how could I ever respect such
a man?

The answer was easy: I couldn’t.

I continued saying nothing. I just sat there,
battling my emotions, knowing that Kingsley might be the only
person I knew who could help me find Archibald Maximus, but hating
that I needed his help.

And in my silence, Kingsley must have spotted
something. His thick eyebrows knitted and he sat forward a little.
“Unbelievable,” he said.

“What?”

“You did it, didn’t you?”

“Did what?” But I knew what he was talking
about. Kingsley was closed to me, as were all immortals,
apparently, but we both were experts in reading body language.

“You turned him, Sam, didn’t you?”

“I saved him.”

He looked away, shaking his great head. “And
you have the nerve to come in here and accuse me of being selfish.
You, who condemned your own son to an eternity of childhood.”