Moon Shadow (Vampire for Hire Book 11) (21 page)

Chapter Forty-seven

We were in one of Roy Azul’s lakeside cabins.

The cabin was nicer than I’d expected, and bigger, too.

Then again, I suspected we wouldn’t be in the cabin for long. At least, not tonight. I didn’t have to be psychic to know that I might have a very, very long night ahead of me. Still, it was good to have a base of operations, so to speak, and this was it.

“What time is it?” I asked.

Kingsley was laid out on the bed, his belly noticeably rounder, but that could have been my imagination. He glanced at his Rolex. Yeah, I didn’t know they made them that big either. “Six-forty-five,” he said, and slipped his hands back behind his big, shaggy head. Somewhere under all that hair was an obliterated cabin pillow presently wondering what the hell it had done in a past life to deserve this.

I paced in front of the bed. I caught a glimpse inside the adjoining bathroom, where the housecleaning service had made the most adorable elephant out of the extra towels. Despite myself, despite my worry and confusion and frustration, I had to smile each time I saw that dopey elephant.

“What the hell is going on?” I finally asked, out of pure frustration.

Orange County’s most famous defense attorney didn’t bother to open an eye. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Is Lichtenstein here, in Lake Elsinore?”

“The presence of three of his monsters seems to suggest so.”

“With two of them working at the same restaurant.”

“Maybe more, if he owns the place. According to Franklin, Lichtenstein had gone out of his way to educate his monsters, to make them presentable. He really believed he was creating a new race. He wanted to present them in a favorable light.”

“Is Lichtenstein a vampire? Or is he a monster, too? Did he somehow use his own mad science on himself?”

“I would say anything is possible.”

I made a very noncommittal comment, bordering on rude, and continued pacing. This time I didn’t smile at the cute-ass elephant. After a few moments of this, I stopped by Kingsley’s side and slapped his meaty thigh. He was now wearing loose-fitting work dungarees. The fly was unbuttoned. Kingsley always unbuttoned his fly. I thought it was my open invitation.

“Ouch!” he yelped.

“Will you get up, you big buffoon?”

He accommodated me by opening one eye, then winking at me. I growled, sounding a lot like my daughter.

“I thought I was the only one who growled,” he said, rousing himself into a sitting position.

“Is he really picking us up by boat?”

“Someone is.”

“And we’re just going to let him?”

“I don’t see why not. There’s no easier way into the castle than to be escorted in. You said he has a private dock.”

The castle did. It was a dock that stretched straight out from the cliff, where a small outboard boat was often tied up. I’d seen it on my many fly-bys. Perhaps strangest of all was that the chef had known where we were staying. We’d only checked in an hour or so before heading to dinner.

“How did he know we were staying at the cabins?”

“I don’t know,” said Kingsley. “But Lichtenstein might have eyes and ears everywhere. No pun intended.”

I thought about that. Thought about it hard. Then got up and peeked out the curtain. Nothing was out there, but my warning bell pinged once. Just once. There was someone out there. I waited, holding my breath, although I didn’t have to. Old habit. I waited, waited. Kingsley was about to say something and I promptly shushed the crap out of him. He lay back on the bed, butt-hurt.

And there it was. Across a sort of courtyard between the cabins, was a man pulling a garden hose from a shed. Maintenance, no doubt. He looked my way once, paused, then looked away, and resumed rolling up the hose. More importantly: no aura.

“There’s another one.”

“Another what?”

“Lichtenstein’s monster.” I paused. “I remember now. Ivan, my client’s groundskeeper, is probably one of them. No aura. He’s the one who likely tipped off Lichtenstein that we were here.”

In a blink, Kingsley was off the bed and next to me, moving fast enough to make me gasp in surprise. I should be used to all this supernatural stuff, but I just wasn’t. Not yet. Someone as big as Kingsley should not be able to move that fast. Yet, here he was, by my side in a blink, looking out the curtain, using his own brand of perfectly wonderful night vision.

“Yup, that would be one of them.”

“What’s going?” I asked.

“I think,” said Kingsley, dropping the curtain, “that Edward Lichtenstein might have taken over Lake Elsinore.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I have a feeling we’re going to find out.” He pointed off to the right. “The boat’s here.”

Chapter Forty-eight

After helping me into the small skiff, Kingsley followed behind, sinking the small skiff another foot or two into the water. I think the lake’s overall waterline might have crept up an inch or two.

Sitting at the outboard motor wasn’t a living man. He was dead and probably cold, and at one time in his distant past, he’d probably spent some time buried six feet under. Probably parts of him were from other bodies, too, and perhaps that was how Lichtenstein helped keep his monsters immortal: replacing body parts when necessary. Hands, arms, hearts, you name it. The thought should have repulsed me, but I was oddly interested in the process. And so was the demon bitch inside me. I had literally felt her perk up inside my head, watching all of this unfold, undoubtedly interested.

For his part, Kingsley took all of this in stride. Of course, he’d been living with such a monster for years. Still, motoring across Lake Elsinore in the dark of night, with only a small lantern swinging on the skiff’s prow to guide us, and one of Lichtenstein’s freaks at the helm, had to be one of the creepiest experiences of my life.

Wind beat our clothing, mussed our hair. Small waves slapped the hull. Water spray sprinkled our faces. The motor seemed obnoxiously loud, seemingly the only sound in the world. Cars moved around the lake, their headlights occasionally flashing our direction. Still, the only noise I could hear was the incessant throb of the outboard.

Kingsley sat behind me, one hand on my lower back. Occasionally, his own long hair blew over my shoulder and into my face and mouth. I spit it out. The man-thing at the helm said nothing, nor did he do anything other than guide us, invariably, over the mostly calm surface of Southern California’s largest natural lake. Before us, out of the gloom and only lit sporadically, was the massive, hulking, walled castle that sat above the lake, upon a small cliff. It looked out of place and out of this world. Its domed pavilion was silhouetted against the mostly starless sky. Brighter lights lit the exterior walls of the structure, but the castle itself was dark, brooding, foreboding. Then again, I’d had my face beat in there just a few days ago. I might be a little biased.

As we approached, the wind picked up some more, and the slapping waves hit with more regularity and force. I knew a rare fall storm was coming tonight. I just didn’t know it would hit so quickly. The lantern swung wildly, its yellow light catching the foaming crests of the black lake water. The rain came quickly. At first, I didn’t distinguish it from the spray of waves bursting over the hull, but soon, the drops grew in size and came with more regularity. By the time the narrow dock materialized out of the mist, we were in a full-blown rainstorm.

Our skiff captain cut the engine and drifted in next to the first pylon. He tossed a rope expertly around a bolted anchor and pulled us in. He stepped easily out of the vessel and first helped me out, and then, Kingsley.

Once we were on the floating dock, which rose and fell and creaked and jostled, the man-thing unhooked one of the lanterns. He then led us along the rocking dock, through the driving rain, and toward the black castle that rose above us.

Ominously, I might add. Again.

***

The dock segued into a sandy beach, as if this weren’t the middle of the desert. Our host, who still hadn’t uttered a word, and who didn’t even have the good decency to turn his head away from the driving rain, stomped through the dampening sand and straight for, well, the cliff face.

I looked at Kingsley. He looked at me, shrugged, and stomped right behind our guide. Both, I noted, completely lacked an aura. I lacked one, too, which was a damn shame. I was willing to bet my aura had, at one time, been bright and fairly cheery.

Although I didn’t stomp, I followed along, ducking my head away from the rain, and wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

***

It was an elevator.

Although I can see easily into the night, I wasn’t entirely prepared for an elevator door opened at the base of the cliff. Neither was Kingsley. In fact, after the man-thing had pressed something in the cliff, and the door hissed open, Kingsley jumped. Straight into Lichtenstein’s mute monster. The monster only grunted and brushed Kingsley off and stepped into the dimly lit elevator.

Kingsley, once again composed, motioned toward the open elevator. “Ladies first and all that.”

“How chivalrous,” I said. “And cowardly, too.”

I headed inside and he followed behind, grinning from ear to ear. You would have thought that the big ogre was heading up to the penthouse suite at the Luxor in Vegas.

The elevator itself wasn’t very big. In fact, I was fairly certain Kingsley and the monster were rubbing shoulders. Yeah, awkward and silent and weird. This “monster” was of average size and build. Not like the thing that had beaten me into vampire mush. Certainly not all of Lichtenstein’s creations were going to be hulking. Undoubtedly, he took the bodies as they came, and mixed and matched parts as he saw fit.

Meanwhile, the elevator creaked and rumbled up through the sandstone cliff. The structure was ancient and probably not very well kept, either. I saw no inspection stickers or safety certificates. I tried reminding myself that I was an intrepid vampire mama who laughed in the face of death. Then again, getting stuck in an elevator in the middle of a forgotten cliff, with two monsters—a werewolf and a Frankenstein, no less—was anything but funny. Especially when one of the monsters—I’m looking at you, Kingsley—took up more than half of the elevator.

Not a word was spoken. The silence, if possible, only seemed to deepen as the rickety cage climbed up, up—perhaps twenty-feet or more. The mushroomy smell also seemed to deepen, too, or enrichen. It was the smell of death, of course. And it was coming off the dude at the other end of the elevator. The dude who didn’t seem to care that he smelled like wide-open ass. Then again, he didn’t seem to care about anything, let alone small talk.

Probably for the best. I remembered the thing screaming at me that night, his voice barely intelligible. I really, really didn’t want to hear that voice again.

And then, mercifully, the elevator dinged open. Yes,
dinged
.

The man-thing waited, and so did Kingsley. I didn’t need to be told twice. I stepped out of the elevator and into the castle’s courtyard.

Chapter Forty-nine

The courtyard belonged in another time and place. Certainly not here in present-day Lake Elsinore.

High stone walls surrounded us, all lined with small windows flickering with candlelight. Before us, cobblestone paths, interspersed with thick grass, wound through perfectly trimmed hedges and gardens of flowers. Along the base of the inner walls were stone walkways, complete with interspersed walkways. This could have been a Scottish castle. Or a monastery high in the Himalayas. The people milling about could have been monks deep in silent worship or prayer, or on their way to meditations. But we were in the deserts of Southern California, and the people moving through this courtyard weren’t people at all. They were Lichtenstein’s monsters. Every last one of them.

“They look like zombies,” I whispered to Kingsley. I didn’t have to whisper loud. The big guy had pretty good hearing.

And it was true, too. For every Lichtenstein monster who walked normally, two others lurched or limped or lumbered. I counted nine total. Most seemed to wander aimlessly, although some moved purposefully through hallways and under archways, disappearing into the various entryways deeper inside the castle.

We followed our guide, who ambled smoothly enough, and seemed to be of one body—which, I think, would be preferable. I gave Lichtenstein credit for creating what he created. It couldn’t have been easy re-building a human being—or giving life to the dead. I knew the dark masters had helped him at some point. Still, the man was devoted to his craft. As evidenced by the walking dead around me.

Some of the hedges, I saw, actually formed a central labyrinth. We passed the opening to one, and I spied a Lichtenstein monster seemingly stuck in one corner, his face pressed into the dense brush, his feet walking, walking. I wondered how long the poor bastard had been stuck there.

We followed a cobblestone path past a small pond where, you guessed it, I spied a man-thing just emerging out of the water. Rather than going around the pond, the creature had walked
through
it. He didn’t seem to care. Hey, if he didn’t care, I didn’t care. I watched him cut across the grass, his shoulder knocking into a small tree. I found myself holding Kingsley’s hand, tightly. I might be a bit of a badass myself, but this—well, this was just too damned freaky.

It was at that moment my cell phone vibrated. I keep said cell phone in my front pocket—never understood people who kept it in their back pockets—and saw immediately that it was a text from Allison.

Tam Tam is on the move.

My heart wanted to skip a beat, but it didn’t, couldn’t. Instead, I instantly felt sick to my stomach. My fingers flew over the keyboard.

Stay close, keep me updated.

Will do, babes,
came her response.

We crossed the courtyard and up some stone steps, where we were led along an exterior tunnel. Archways dotted the tunnel every ten feet or so. I didn’t see the point of such archways, but I guessed rich people had to spend their money somehow.

Lurch opened a heavy-looking double door and stepped aside. I let Kingsley go in first and then followed behind. Our escort continued down a darkened hallway, and we followed like the idiots we were. A vampire, a werewolf, and Frankenstein—all together in one creepy castle at the edge of a lake with a real live lake monster. Where were Abbott and Costello when you needed them?

That there were ghosts flitting through walls and drifting languidly down the corridor was a given. I knew Kingsley could see them, too, because we both stepped out of the way of one such specter who appeared up out of the floor and just stood there, staring at us. I quickly noticed a trend.

“Most of the spirits are men,” I whispered to Kingsley.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” he whispered back, although his whisper might have sounded more like a guttural growl.

“You just said that because I did,” I said. “Admit it.”

He grinned and pretended to whistle. Once again, I wished I could slip inside his thick skull and see what the devil was going on there. But, alas, his thoughts were closed off to me.

We passed many doors, some with light flickering under the heavy wooden doors. In some I heard speaking. In others I heard screaming. In still others, I heard moaning and weeping. Some a combination of all of the above. Kingsley could undoubtedly hear more of what was going behind the closed doors than me. Then again, I’d heard enough. I didn’t want to know what was going on. I didn’t like this place. Not at all. Not one fucking bit.

We came to another door, set into another arch. If I never saw another arch again, that would be great. Our fearless and mute guide turned the lever, pushed it open, and what I saw inside was enough for even the demoness within me to squeal.

It was, I was certain, the laboratory from hell.