American Vampire Page 2

  As if to cover two massively prominent canines. Two unnaturally long canines.

  “Those teeth,” I said, motioning to his chest. “Are yours.”

  “Why, Moon Dance,” he said, and I sensed his old charm. “You are quite the detective.”

  Chapter Three

  I knew the story of the American Vampire, of course.

  In essence, a young man with two extraordinarily long canine teeth had sucked his girlfriend dry. His trial had been as sensational as they get, and who could forget the images of the young man opening his mouth and exposing those two insanely long canines for all the world to see.

  And here he was. In the flesh. Sitting across from me. A young man who had been tried and convicted of murder. A young man who had been deemed criminally insane. And there were very few who would argue that point.

  And he’s Fang, I thought. This is crazy.

  If I looked hard enough I could see the similarities, but the truth was, he looked nothing like the tormented young man whose image had been broadcast across the airwaves and newsrooms and the early Internet. Now his thick beard would make him nearly impossible to place, and I was almost certain he had had some nose work done. And as I looked again, I could see he was wearing brown contact lenses. Almost certainly his eyes had been blue originally. But the biggest difference was his great height. He had not been quite this tall when he was eighteen years old. Then again, it was hard to know for sure, since he had often sat petulantly next to his attorneys. Still, I would guess he had grown another five inches…perhaps enough to completely throw authorities off his trail.

  He was, after all, an escaped convict—and allegedly responsible for two more deaths. A guard at the criminally insane prison and the owner of a creepy museum in Hollywood who had purchased Aaron’s teeth for a morally questionable display.

  A sick display. There had been an outrage, of course.

  But the outrage turned moot when the owner had been found dead some months later, and the teeth had been stolen.

  The same teeth that now dangled from Fang’s neck.

  The same fangs.

  “You are a killer,” I said.

  “As are you, Samantha,” he said, sitting back and sipping casually on a drink that smelled strong enough to preserve a warthog. “We are both victims of circumstance. Never forget that.”

  His faux brown eyes continued scanning my face. I could see the wonder in them; I could sense his awe. His thoughts were alive to me, nearly registering in my mind as my own. After all, I had a deep connection to Fang, deeper than I had ever thought possible with another human being, and although the man in front of me was largely a stranger, now that we’ve met in the flesh, our connection seemed only to intensify.

  He closed his eyes and took in some air. “I can feel you, Moon Dance.”

  I blinked. “Feel me how?”

  “In my head. You’re there. In my thoughts. Just off to the side. Listening. Picking up words here and there.”

  He cocked his head slightly to one side, like a dog listening to something on the wind. Now it was my turn to study his face. The man was gorgeous. Of that, there was no doubt. After all, there was a reason why my sister turned into a gibbering idiot every time he served us a drink. His brown hair was jauntily disheveled, or perhaps messily windblown. Mostly, it was his lips that commanded my attention. So full, especially the lower one. There was a spot of liquid on the bottom one and all I could think of doing was tasting that spot. Just that one, sexy spot.

  His eyelids quivered, where I saw a brief flash of white, and realized his eyes had rolled up into his head. “Yes, there you are, Moon Dance.”

  I said nothing. Music continued pumping through the bar. A very old drunk man got up from his stool and started slow dancing with himself. He spun himself once, twice, and I thought he might even dip himself, but luckily he bumped into the bar and grabbed hold of it. No one seemed to notice him but me.

  And seemingly inside my skull, I heard a very faint, yet very distinct whisper: Hello, Moon Dance.

  Fang opened his eyes and smiled at me.

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s never happened before.”

  Chapter Four

  “It is common knowledge that vampires can control others with their minds,” said Fang.

  “But I’m not trying to control you,” I said.

  “Yet,” he said. “But if I find myself suddenly giving you a pedicure, I might suspect otherwise.” He winked.

  I lifted my hand. “Trust me, there isn’t a file strong enough for these nails.”

  “Let me see your nails, Moon Dance.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  I sighed and held out my hands. He took them gently and did not flinch at the extreme cold of my flesh like most do. Indeed, shivering and smiling, he seemed to revel in the iciness. He next tapped the tip of my index finger. I felt like a horse being sold at auction. “You could disembowel a rhino with these things.”

  “Or a bartender who lets my secret out.”

  He grinned again. “I didn’t realize how feisty you were, Moon Dance.”

  “We never had this much at stake, Fang.”

  “We both hold equally damaging secrets. I, too, am trusting you to keep my secret safe.”

  “You’re a convicted murder and an escaped prisoner.”

  “And you’re a blood-sucking fiend.”

  I studied him. The corner of his mouth lifted in a small smile, along with some of his beard. “Fair enough,” I said, sitting back. “So what’s this mind control business you’re talking about?”

  He finished his drink and waved the waitress over. I had barely touched my own wine. When she was gone, he sat forward, resting his weight on his sharp elbows. “You have already mentioned your sixth sense, Moon Dance. You have even mentioned that you felt it is getting stronger.”

  I nodded; it was.

  He went on, “Well, your sixth sense is a little more far-reaching than you have thought; at least, that is my understanding.”

  “How far-reaching?”

  “Telepathy. Hypnosis. Mediumship.”

  “One at a time,” I said. “Hypnosis?”

  “You’ve seen Dracula, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Did you read the book?”

  “No.”

  “A vampire whose never read Dracula?”

  “I’ve been busy raising kids and trying to keep a husband happy. At least I’m batting .500.”

  He smiled sadly. “I’m sorry he hurt you, Moon Dance.”

  “So am I.”

  “Want to change the subject?”

  I nodded.

  “Back to mind control. Dracula, you see, has the ability to induce hypnosis with just his gaze. You might want to look into it.”

  I shook my head at his silly pun. “Fine. What about mediumship?”

  “That’s speaking to the dead, either to those who have passed on or still linger.”

  “Linger?”

  “Ghosts, Moon Dance. You should be able to see ghosts.”

  I scanned our surroundings. The electrified air, usually so alive with light filaments, seemed particularly erratic in here. To my eyes, the streaking lights zigzagged even more crazily, sometimes coalescing into bigger shapes. As I scanned the air around us, Fang continued speaking.

  “You are a supernatural being, Moon Dance. A supernatural being in the world of mortals. You should be seeing things I could never, ever imagine.”

  The squiggly lights in the bar flashed and zigzagged like thousands upon thousands of electrified fireflies. I watched as they whipped crazily around a nearby stairway, a stairway that led up into the black depths. The flashing lights began gathering together, collecting other squiggly lights. I had seen such things before but had dismissed them. They were just strange lights, right? Nothing more.

  “Creatures of the night seem to attract each other, Samantha, whether they know it or not…or whether they want it or not. It is
not a coincidence that the werewolf came into your life. Soon, I expect others like yourself to make appearances.”

  “Like myself?”

  “Vampires, Moon Dance. You cannot be an island for long. Not in this world of fantastical creatures.”

  I continued studying the glowing object at the foot of the stairway. More light gathered around it. Now, if I looked hard enough, I could see shoulders, hips, and a head forming. Even what appeared to be longish hair. And then, amazingly, the light creature turned toward me. I couldn’t see its features, but I sensed its great pain. And then, buried deep in my mind’s eye, I saw a flash of a knife’s blade, heard a strangled cry, then weeping, and then…nothing.

  “I see a ghost,” I said. “There by the stairway.”

  I saw Aaron turn out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t see anything, Moon Dance. But I’m not surprised. This is supposedly one of the most haunted buildings in Fullerton.”

  And just like that the vaguely humanoid column of light dispersed, scattering into a thousand glowing, fluorescent shards of energy.

  Son of a biscuit, I thought, reciting my son’s favorite expression.

  After a moment, Aaron Parker looked back at me. “So does it feel strange finally meeting me, Moon Dance?”

  “Yes and no. A part of me wants to run back to my computer and continue this conversation there. I felt safe there. I felt open. I felt free to be me.”

  “You don’t feel free now?”

  “I don’t know how I feel, to be honest.”

  “Do I feel a bit like a stranger?” he asked.

  I nodded and I felt the tears come to my eyes. “Yes.”

  “A stranger who knows your deepest and darkest secrets.”

  I nodded, suddenly finding it hard to speak.

  He said, “Do you regret meeting me, Moon Dance?”

  I sat motionless for a long time before I reached out and took his warm hands in my mine. As I did so, he curled his long fingers around mine. “I don’t know,” I whispered, and it was perhaps the hardest three words I have ever spoken.

  He continued holding my hands. Now he rubbed his thumb along my knuckles. His thumb was rough, calloused. He was a grease monkey, no doubt. Tending bar at night, fixing up his classic muscle car during the day.

  Fang tilted his head slightly. “Grease monkey is not a politically correct term, Moon Dance. We prefer to be called lubed primates.”

  I snorted. “Sounds like a bad porno.”

  “There are no bad pornos, Moon Dance.”

  “Eww, and you just read my thoughts.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I heard a few snatches here and there.”

  “So how is it that you can read my thoughts?”

  “I don’t have all the answers, Moon Dance.”

  “Well, give it your best shot, big guy.”

  He stared at me long and hard. As he did so, his tongue slid along his lower lip and seemed to be searching for something that was not there. I sensed his great sadness for what was lost. I suspected I knew the source of his sadness.

  Finally, he said, “We are connected, Moon Dance. Or, more accurately, you have allowed me access into your mind.”

  “So I can turn it off?” I asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” he said. “And you’re right, Sam, I do miss them every day. More than you know.”

  His teeth, of course.

  Chapter Five

  Instead of going home, I went to a place I was familiar with: The Embassy Suites in Brea. My home over the past month.

  I parked the minivan in my old spot, and shortly said hello to Justin who was working the front desk. He smiled and nodded and seemed to have forgotten that I had checked out a week earlier. Of course, just last week, when I had busted my husband for running an illegal strip club in Colton, I had dressed the part of a stripper. I might be little, but I’m a curvy thing, and Justin the night clerk hasn’t looked at me the same since.

  I felt his eyes on me all the way to the bank of elevators. At the ninth floor, I found a locked service door I had seen many times in the past. A service door I had taken note of. Why? Because the plaque on it read: Roof Access. Maintenance Personnel Only.

  I glanced up and down the hall, took hold of the locked doorknob, and turned steadily until the inner mechanisms shattered in my hand. The knob broke off.

  God, I’m a freak.

  I pushed the door open, and, after wiping the knob with the hem of my shirt, tossed it in the corner of the stairwell. Next I stepped over a low gate and quickly headed up a metal flight of stairs, taking them two at a time and noticing how strong my legs felt. The door at the top of the landing was locked as well. But not for long.

  As pieces of the broken door knob fell away at my feet, I stepped out onto the roof.

  Immediately, wind buffeted me. The waning moon was higher now and shone through a thin layer of pathetic-looking stratus clouds. Mostly, though, the sky was clear, and I could even see a star or two.

  At the service door, I quickly removed my clothing and naked as the day I was born, moved across the dusty roof, avoiding, of all things, a broken beer bottle.

  Hell of a party up here.

  Now standing at the roof’s edge, I stared down at the city of Brea, which shone before me like a brilliant constellation, providing me a view that the heavens could not. At least, not the heavens here in Southern California. Thousand of lights winked and sparkled. Some were brighter than others—street lamps, perhaps. Others were barely discernible—bathroom nightlights and perhaps the glows of Kindles and Nooks.

  Whatever those were.

  The wind was at the edge of the building. It rocked my naked body. But I had no fear of falling. My hair whipped around my head like so many serpents. Medusa would have been proud. Or envious. I breathed slowly, deeply, each intake spiced with exhaust and tar and the sage from the nearby foothills.

  The world lay at my feet. The normal world. Where people prayed to God and Jesus, where people worried about their kids’ health and Charlie Sheen’s career, where life went on steadily and predictably.

  Life hadn’t gone so predictably for me. Life had hung a hard right turn at “predictable” and detoured through a forbidden forest where the Headless Horseman was real, where werewolves existed, where a mother of two could be changed forever into something nightmarish.

  I took in more air and lifted my face toward the heavens. The day’s latent heat rose up from the roof’s surface, warming my eternally cold buns. I heard honking and tires squealing. The crash of a fender-bender.

  Oops.

  I heard a baby crying from the hotel below and the steady hum of a hundred or so air conditioners powering through the warm night. The building beneath me seemed alive, vibrating and swaying slightly. Or perhaps that was just my imagination.

  I stood there for a heartbeat longer.

  And then spread my arms wide and jumped.

  Chapter Six

  The drop down from this hotel was always a little dicey, although jumping from the roof gave me some extra wiggle room. But not much.

  I arched up and out over the roof…and seemed to pause briefly at the apex of the arch. From here I had a glimpse of an ambulance flashing down Birch Street, heading away from me. But there was no sound. No sirens. No honking. Nothing. Time and sound always seemed to subside in these moments.

  These wonderful, exhilarating moments.

  Now I tilted forward, arms outstretched. A falling, inverted cross.

  I picked up speed.

  Hair whipping behind me like a failed parachute. Wind thundering over me. The hotel rushing past me.

  Someone was standing at the hotel balcony, smoking a cigarette. He never saw me. Or maybe I didn’t register in his conscious brain. Maybe tonight he would dream about a curvy, black-haired woman plummeting past his balcony, arms outstretched, and naked as all get out.

  I was rapidly running out of floors.

  A single flame appeared in my thoughts. The flame burne
d bright, seemingly in the center of my forehead, no doubt in the region the New Age gurus call the Third Eye. In the center of the flame was a winged creature that would have given anyone nightmares.