Vampire Moon (19 page)

 
      
 
So what did the warden say?
asked Fang.

 
      
 
He asked me why I didn’t kill the bastard?

 
      
 
Was he joking?

 
      
 
I don’t think so.

 
      
 
And what did you say?

 
      
 
I told him he should have given me another few seconds.

 
      
 
Jesus. What else did he ask?

 
      
 
He asked me how did I punch through bulletproof glass?

 
      
 
And what did you say?

 
      
 
That I was a vampire, and that if he asked me any more questions, I was going to suck his
blooood
. (Insert cheesy
Bela
Lugosi impression.)

 
      
 
Not funny, Moon Dance. You have put yourself at grave risk. There’s going to be legal implications to this. He can press charges. There’s going to be an investigation.

 
      
 
Maybe,
I wrote.

 
      
 
What do you mean, maybe?

 
      
 
The warden heard Ira Lang threaten me.

 
      
 
Still, it’s only a threat.

 
      
 
A threat from a known murderer. A threat from a man who has also been known to do anything he could to carry out such threats.

 
      
 
So his threat is much more than a threat.

 
      
 
Yes,
I wrote.

 
      
 
So if Ira Lang did press charges, a DA may likely decide not to prosecute.

 
      
 
Right.

 
      
 
So what did you really say when he asked how you punched through the glass?

 
      
 
I reminded him of all those stories of mother’s lifting cars off their injured children and such.

 
      
 
He bought that?

 
      
 
Probably not. He was in a state of shock himself. Everyone was.

 
      
 
So is that the end of the case?
asked Fang.

 
      
 
No. Ira Lang made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t rest until his ex-wife was dead.

 
      
 
I could almost see Fang nodding, as he wrote:
Not to mention he could still try to carry out that threat on you and your kids.

 
      
 
Exactly,
I wrote.

 
      
 
So what’s the plan?
asked Fang.

 
      
 
If he won’t rest until he’s carried out violent crimes against his wife, or even me and my kids, then I think there’s only one answer.

 
      
 
Don’t tell me.

 
      
 
I went on anyway:
Perhaps I should hasten his rest.

 
      
 
Chapter Twenty-eight

 
      
 
The backyard to my old house abuts a Pep Boys.

 
      
 
When I say
old house
, I mean my house of just over a month ago, where I had lived with my kids and husband. A house, by some weird turn of events, I had been kicked out of, even though my husband had been the one caught cheating.

 
      
 
Since our house sits in a cul-de-sac, we have an exceptionally large and weirdly-shaped backyard. In fact, our backyard is bigger than most little league baseball fields, which was always fun for the kids and great for parties.

 
      
 
On the other side of our backyard fence was the parking lot to Pep Boys, with its massive, glowing sign of Manny, Moe, and Jack in all of their homoerotic glory. I hated that sign, and thank God they shut the damn thing off at closing time.

 
      
 
It was well after closing time and the lights were off.
Thank God.
Manny, Moe, and Jack were sleeping. Probably spooning. My ex-partner Chad was happily watching over a sleeping Monica—at least, I hoped he let her sleep. No doubt he was watching her in more ways than one. Let’s just hope he didn’t creep her out too much. Chad was a great guy, even if a little love-starved.

 
      
 
We’re all a little love-starved
, I thought.

 
      
 
I was sitting on our backyard fence, my feet dangling down, looking out across the vast sweep of our backyard, toward where I knew my children were sleeping.

 
      
 
Or where they
should have
been sleeping. A flickering glow in Tammy’s room meant that she was up well past her bedtime since this was a school night. Her laughter occasionally pierced the air. At least, pierced it to my ears. Actually, I could tell she was trying to laugh quietly, perhaps laughing into a pillow, but occasional bursts of laughter erupted from her.

 
      
 
Most remarkable, and surreal, was that my daughter was laughing at Jay Leno. I could hear his nasally laugh and wildly ranging voice—which went from high to low in the span of a few words—even from here.

 
      
 
Jay Leno? Seriously?

 
      
 
And since when did my ten-year-old daughter watch Jay Leno? And since when was Jay Leno ever laugh-out-loud funny? Perhaps a mild chuckle here and there, sure. But
ha-ha
funny?

 
      
 
At the far end of the house I could hear Danny’s light snoring. His snoring never bothered me, since I was a rather deep sleeper. Supernaturally deep, some might say. Anyway, mixed with his snoring was something else. Another sound. Not quite snoring. No, a sort of
wheezing
sound, as if someone was having trouble breathing through one nostril. Along with the wheezing was an occasional murmur. A
female
murmur.

 
      
 
My heart sank. Jesus, his new girlfriend was sleeping with him, in our bed. The fucker. Probably sleeping naked together, their limbs intertwined, touching each other intimately, lovingly. All night long.

 
      
 
Just a month earlier I had been sleeping in that same bed, although Danny had long ago stopped sleeping naked and had made it a point not to touch me.

 
      
 
The fucker.

 
      
 
I stared at my old bedroom window at the end of the house for a long, long time, and then I forced myself to find another sound, and soon I found it. The sound of light snoring. A boy’s snore. Little Anthony was sleeping contentedly, and I found myself smiling through the tears on my face.

 
      
 
A small wind made its way through the Pep Boys parking lot, bringing with it the smell of old car oil, new car oil, and every other kind of oil. Living here, you get used to the smell of car oil.

 
      
 
I folded my hands in my lap and lowered my head and listened to the wind and my son’s snoring and my daughter’s innocent laughter, and I sat like that until her laughter turned into the heavy breathing of deep sleep.

 
      
 
I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text message:
I’m sad.

 
      
 
The reply from Kingsley Fulcrum came a minute later:
Then
c
ome over.

 
      
 
Okay,
I wrote, and did exactly that.

 
      
 
Chapter Twenty-nine

 
      
 
I drove east on
Bastanchury
, winding my way through streets lined with big homes and big front yards, the best north Orange County has to offer.

 
      
 
It was past midnight, and the sky was clear. The six stars that somehow made their way through southern California’s smog shined weakly and pathetically. The brightest one might have been Mars, or at least that’s what a date once told me in college.

 
      
 
Probably just trying to impress me to get into my pants.

 
      
 
Speaking of impressing me, Kingsley Fulcrum was an honest-to-God werewolf. Or, at least, that’s what he tells me.

 
      
 
Maybe he just wants to get into my pants, as well.

 
      
 
Granted, I’ve seen the evidence of his lycanthropy in the form of excessive hair the night
after
one of his transformations, and so I tend to believe the big oaf. But Kingsley is a good
wolfie
. Apparently, with each full moon, he preferred to transform in what he calls a
panic room
in the basement of his house.