Vampire Moon (30 page)

 
      
 
And, if I do say so myself, I looked striking. Not beautiful. But striking.

 
      
 
As the video played out, I must have said something with some finality because I ducked my head slightly and reached for my purse. As I did so, Ira said something to me, and I immediately sat back down again. I leaned closer to the window. Ira did, too, grinning stupidly from behind the protective glass.

 
      
 
Now my face looked terrible. I suddenly didn’t look like me. Truth be known, I didn’t recognize the woman in the video clip at all. She seemed strange, otherworldly. Her mannerisms seemed a little off, too. She moved very little, if at all. Every movement controlled, planned, or rehearsed. In fact, the woman in the video seemed content sitting perfectly still.

 
      
 
But now I wasn’t sitting still. Now I was motioning with my finger for Ira to come ever closer. And he did.

 
      
 
One moment I was sitting there, and the next I was reaching through the destroyed glass, grabbing Ira, slamming his face over and over into the glass. What I saw didn’t make sense, either. A smallish woman reaching through the glass, manhandling a grown man, a convict, a killer. Slamming him repeatedly against the glass as if he were a rag doll.

 
      
 
None of it made sense; it defied explanation.

 
      
 
It defied
normal
explanation.

 
      
 
A moment later the guards burst into the room. The final clip was an image I had not seen since I was struggling under a sea of guards. It was an image of Ira’s face, partially pulled through the glass, his skin having been peeled away from his forehead like a sardine can. Also, the glass was cutting deeply into his throat, and he was jerking violently, gagging on his own blood, which flowed freely down the glass, spilling over both sides of the counter, dripping, dripping. He would have surely died within minutes if he had not been given emergency help.

 
      
 
Sherbet reached over and easily turned off the player and sat back, watching me some more. He said, “The guards reported that you were nearly impossible to tackle to the ground. That it took three of them to do so, and even then you wouldn’t go down easily.”

 
      
 
I said nothing. For some reason, I was remembering what I had looked like in the security video. My passive expression. My inert features.

 
      
 
Sherbet went on, “As you can see in the video, you punched through the glass so fast that there was little or no indication that you moved at all. One moment you’re sitting there, and the next you are reaching through the glass. We were certain the digital video had skipped a few seconds ahead, but the timer on it never missed a beat. One second you are sitting there. Two-tenths of a second later you are reaching through the glass. Two-tenths of a second, faster than a blink of an eye. And during those two-tenths, you are seen flinching only slightly. The broken glass itself can be seen hurling through the air at the same time you are holding Ira by the neck.” Sherbet shook his head. “It defies all explanation. It defies natural law.”

 
      
 
Beyond my hotel balcony, the sky was alive with streaking particles of light, flashing faintly in every direction. Thank God I can mostly ignore these flashing lights, or I would go crazy. Vampirism and OCD do not mix.

 
      
 
Sherbet looked at me. “Do you have anything to say about this, Samantha?”

 
      
 
I continued looking up at the night sky, at the dancing lights. No jokes, no nothing. I needed this to go away. “Obviously there was something wrong with the video, Detective.”

 
      
 
He nodded his head as if he had expected that answer. “And the fact that you broke through the security glass?”

 
      
 
“The glass was already broken.”

 
      
 
“We can’t see any breaks in the image.”

 
      
 
“You yourself said the image is not the clearest.”

 
      
 
He nodded again. Now he turned his head and looked in the same direction I was looking. I doubted he could see the zigzagging lights.

 
      
 
I asked, “Why were you shown the video?”

 
      
 
Sherbet chuckled lightly. “Are you kidding, Sam? The video has made its way through our entire department. Hell, half the police in the state have seen it by now. You’re lucky it’s not on
BoobTube
.”

 
      
 
“YouTube,” I said, and thought I was going to vomit. So much for keeping things on the down-low.

 
      
 
Sherbet went on, “You can imagine my surprise when I discovered the freak in the video was, in fact, you.”

 
      
 
“Probably so surprised that you nearly dropped your donut,” I said.

 
      
 
“I’m never that surprised.”

 
      
 
“So why are you here?” I asked.

 
      
 
“Just chatting with an old friend.”

 
      
 
“I’m not so old,” I said.

 
      
 
He nodded as if that somehow answered a question he had. Now we were both silent. Inside the hotel, Monica had turned on the TV—a comedy show judging by the sudden bursts of laughter. Monica giggled innocently.

 
      
 
“I’m your friend, Sam.”

 
      
 
“I know.”

 
      
 
“Anything you tell me will remain between us.”

 
      
 
“Anything?”

 
      
 
“Anything.”

 
      
 
“That’s good to know,” I said.

 
      
 
“I worry about you, Sam.”

 
      
 
The surprising tenderness in his gravelly voice touched me deeply, and I found words temporarily impossible to form. I nodded. My vision blurred into tears.

 
      
 
“If you ever want to talk,” he said. “If you ever need a friend. If you ever need help of any kind, I’m always here for you. Always.”

 
      
 
And now I was weeping.

 
      
 
He reached over and hugged me tight, pulling me into him, and I smelled his after shave and the donut grease and the smallest hint of body odor. The body odor went with the manliness. After all, this was the end of a long day of crime fighting. A man
should
have a hint of body odor at the end of a long day.

 
      
 
His hairy arms smothered me completely and for a few seconds, a few rare seconds, I felt safe and comfortable and cared for.

 
      
 
Then he pulled away and carefully packed up his mini-DVD player in his scuffed briefcase. He then gave me the softest jab you could ever imagine on my chin, smiled sadly at me, and left me on the balcony.

 
      
 
Inside the hotel room, through the sliding glass door, I watched as he quietly spoke to Monica. As he did so, he held both of her hands in one of his. He said something else, jerked his head in my direction, and she nodded. He was reassuring her, I knew. Letting her know she was in good hands.

 
      
 
When the door shut behind him, Monica came out and sat beside me. She reached over and took my hand, and we sat like that for a few minutes.

 
      
 
Finally, I said, “They caught a guy hanging around downstairs.”

 
      
 
“The guy Ira hired to hurt me.” Her voice sounded so tiny and lost and confused. Her simple, sweet, innocent brain was trying to wrap itself around why a man she had loved at one time would actually hire another man to hurt her. To kill her.

 
      
 
And as we sat out there together, as we held hands and watched the quarter moon climb slowly into the hazy night sky, I suddenly knew what I had to do.

 
      
 
Chapter Forty-two

 
      
 
I was flying. I was free. Life was good.

 
      
 
The moon, still about a week from being full, shone high and bright. Any thoughts of the moon automatically conjured images of Kingsley. And any thoughts of Kingsley automatically conjured images of the beast he was, or claimed to be. Admittedly, I had never actually seen Kingsley transform into a werewolf, and a part of me still wanted to believe that, in fact, he
wasn’t
a werewolf, that this was all one crazy hoax. Or that he was delusional.

 
      
 
I mean, come on, an honest-to-God werewolf? Really?

 
      
 
This, of course, coming from a creature flying slowly over Orange County.

 
      
 
Actually, a part of me—a big part—still hoped that I was in the middle of one long, horrific nightmare, and that I would wake up at any moment, in bed, gasping, relieved beyond words that this had all been one bad dream.

 
      
 
I’m ready to wake up,
I thought.
Please.

 
      
 
I banked to port and caught a high-altitude wind. I flapped my wings easily, smoothly, comfortably, sailing along in the heavens like an escaped Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float from Hell.

 
      
 
Still, just because one monster (me) existed, that didn’t necessarily mean all
other
monsters existed.