Chapter Twenty-two

I swooped around my minivan once, twice, waiting for a security guard to move on. When he finally did, I landed softly atop the rocky cliff nearby, tucking in my wings. As usual, my wings' thick, leathery membranes hung limply, this time in the dirt. And if I wasn't careful, I could step on my wings, which I had done before and it wasn't the most graceful thing to witness. A vampire stumbling on her own wings didn't exactly grace the covers of supernatural romance novels the world over.

With the salt-infused wind hammering me atop the cliff, the flame in my mind's eye appeared again. But this time a horrific creature wasn't standing in the flame. (Unless, of course, you asked my ex-husband.) No, instead, a naked woman was standing in the flame.

A cute little curvy woman with long black hair.

It was one of the few times I actually got to see myself without heavy make-up on. Granted, it was a smallish image of myself, and perhaps only an avatar of myself, but it was me and I always loved looking at it.

And I didn't look half bad. Personally, I think Danny is crazy. Think about it, he could have had a young-looking wife for the rest of his life, a wife who never aged. Granted every decade or so we would probably have to move and make completely new friends, and he would have to put up with my cold flesh, and the fact that I drink blood, but still....

Okay, maybe I wasn't such a great prize, but I still think it's his loss.

The asshole.

And as I gazed on that image of myself, as I stood on the edge of the cliff like a living gargoyle from hell, something occurred to me, something that had been bothering me for the past month or so.

Amazingly, I still cared for Danny.

Yes, the man had made my life an absolute living nightmare. Remember, until recently we had been trying to make things work. And if he hadn't cheated on me, I would still be with him. I had planned to be with Danny for the rest of my life.

Well, the rest of his life.

But he had turned into his own kind of monster, which is more than ironic, and even though he began to openly cheat on me, and even though he hurt me more than I had ever been hurt in my life, I still had feelings for the bastard.

Yes, I understood why he did what he did. I get it. I'm a freak. He wanted out. But did he have to be such an asshole about things? Couldn't he have treated me with compassion and love? Did he have to act like such a douchebag all the time? Did I want to hurt him often?

The answer, of course, was yes to everything.

I sat quietly on the cliff edge, surveying the beach below. There was no one behind me, or anywhere around me for that matter. My hearing in this form was phenomenal.

Danny was the father of my children. As much as it pained me to admit it, I knew he was doing the best he could given the circumstances. How many fathers would have taken their kids from something like me? Probably many of them. How many husbands would have sought a warm body elsewhere? Probably many of them.

Yes, it would have taken an extraordinary man to get through this with me.

Danny wasn't him.

In my mind's eye, I studied the woman in the flame. She stood there passively, naked as the day she was born, watching me in return. I loved that woman. I loved her with all my heart. Life had dealt her a shitty hand, but she, too, was doing the best she could.

A moment later, I was moving toward the woman in the flame. She grew rapidly bigger, taking on much more detail. And then she was rushing at me, too, and a moment later I found myself standing on the edge of the cliff, naked, cold and crying, and staring down into the churning dark depths below, where the surf pounded rocks into sand.

Chapter Twenty-three

"I think I'm in love with her," said Chad.

It was nearly four in the morning, and we were standing just inside my hotel doorway. It had been a hell of a long night for Chad. Apparently, though, he had loved every minute of it.

"Thanks, Chad. I owe you."

"I'm not joking," he said. Chad was a tall guy, easily six-foot-three. Maybe taller. When you barely scrape five-foot-three, just about anyone looks tall as hell. Except for Tom Cruise, of course. Chad added, "There's something about her."

"She's vulnerable and cute," I said. "And you're a man. It's a simple equation."

We were whispering since Monica was asleep on my bed. We were also whispering because it was four in the morning and we were in a hotel and we weren't assholes.

He glanced over at her sleeping form. I glanced too. Mostly under the comforter, she looked tiny and child-like. Just a little bump in a big bed. Say that five times in a row.

He said, "Sure, but there's something else." He stopped talking. Chad, I knew, wasn't used to expressing his emotions; he needed prodding, like most men. Well, those men not named Fang.

So I prodded. "You feel an overwhelming need to protect her, to help her, to save her."

Chad looked at me funny. "That's pretty much it, yeah. How did you know?"

"Because I had the same reaction," I said.

He nodded and looked back at her sleeping form. "How could anyone do that to her?"

"There are bastards out there," I said.

Chad didn't say anything at first. When Chad and I were partners we didn't talk much, but we always had a comfortable silence. When he spoke, his words weren't empty. They were full of a lot of forethought.

"I would kill him," he said. "If he ever came within a mile of her."

"That sounds like love to me," I said. "And just think, I was only gone for six hours.

"And we talked nearly the whole time."

"You mean she talked and you listened."

Chad grinned, but kept looking at her sleeping form. "Something like that."

"Get out of here and get some sleep, you love-struck puppy dog," I said. "Before you propose to her in her sleep."

"I guess I am being a little ridiculous, huh?"

I shrugged.

"This has never happened to me before," he said.

"Welcome to love-at-first-sight," I said. "Now go on."

He nodded and told me to call him anytime I needed help. I said I would and practically shooed him out of my hotel room. As I locked the door behind him, I resisted the urge to look out the peephole to see if my ex-partner was hugging and kissing the door.

With Monica sleeping nearby, I did some more work on my laptop. In particular, I got the visiting hours to Chino State Prison. On a whim, mostly because the bastard was on my mind, I headed over to my ex-husband's law firm's website. Danny was your typical ambulance chaser. He screwed insurance companies...and anyone else, for that matter.

I broadened my search on Danny Moon, chaser of ambulances extraordinaire. His name was all over the net, usually in association with some case or another, usually a case that actually went to court. You see, Danny didn't like to go to court. Danny was a lazy SOB, and his firm did all they could to keep cases out of court. But sometimes the negotiations went bad and cases actually did go to court. When they did, Danny and his firm actually had to do real legal work. Which generally made him grumpy as hell to be around.

Poor baby.

I next went to his Facebook page. I generally don't go on Facebook. It's not like I have a lot of new pictures to post, right? Anyway, I do keep an account because my daughter has one and I like to see what she's doing. Besides, Farmville is a hoot.

No, Danny and I are not friends on Facebook; apparently, divorcing someone is also grounds for dropping them as Facebook buddies. So I guess you could say I've been defaced.

Anyway, Danny kept his pictures public. Maybe he didn't know the intricacies of Facebook privacy, or maybe he didn't care.

He should have cared.

Although his pictures were very professional, everything a respectable attorney's pictures should be, there was one very unprofessional picture. Apparently Danny had been tagged at a party. And not just any party. A party at a strip joint in Riverside. And not just any party at a stripjoint, but a Grand Opening party.

Now, what was a respectable attorney doing at the grand opening of a cheesy strip club in Riverside?

I didn't know, but I was going to find out.

Chapter Twenty-four

It was almost sunrise and I was feeling my energy fading.

I had already warned Monica of my "condition". That is, she thought I had a rare skin disease that kept me out of the sun, which, of course, necessitated me keeping odd hours. She promised she would let me sleep during the days, and that she would not leave the hotel room on her own. I told her to wake me if she needed anything, but that I didn't awaken easily; she would have to give me one hell of a good shove, or two. I told her she could do just about anything she wanted, other than leave the suite, open the curtains, or answer the door.

She agreed to my terms, and for her sake, I hope she honors them.

My body was shutting down. Quickly. I felt vulnerable and weak and easy to subdue. But even at my weakest, I still couldn't be killed, unless someone drove a stake through my heart.

And why would anyone want to do that to such a sweet little thing?

Vampires might be immortal, but we sure as hell felt human about this time; that is, just before sunrise. (And, no, I didn't sleep in a coffin. Just give me a bed, darkness, and some peace and quiet.)

When I shut down, I do so in waves. The first, a draining of energy, always hits me about a half hour before sunrise. And ten minutes before the sun came up, the second wave hit.

That was always a rough wave. I was stuck between exhaustion and sleep. I usually lay down at this time, because within minutes I would be out cold. But when the third wave hit, I absolutely had to lie down and sleep. I was out of options.

For now I was in the middle of the second wave. The sun was minutes from rising and my body was exhausted. And that's when my IM window popped up on my laptop.

Are you up, Moon Dance?

Yes, but not for long.

First or second wave? asked Fang.

Second wave. Almost third.

So I have only a few minutes.

Yes.

I like knowing that I'm sometimes the last person you think about before going to sleep.

You've said that before.

When I was in the second wave, I was often short and to the point and didn't feel very flirty. I felt exhausted. I felt as close to dead as a person could feel.

I also like knowing that you might dream of me.

I rarely dream, Fang. And besides, what am I supposed to dream about? Words that appear in a pop-up window?

There was a long pause. Almost too long. I felt myself going catatonic. If Fang didn't say something soon, it was going to take all my last energy to shut the computer down and crawl over to the couch in the pseudo-living room.

Then perhaps we should meet someday, Moon Dance.

Now it was my turn to pause. I sat back, and as I did so, I had the peculiar sense that something wanted to leave my body. What that something was, I wasn't sure. A part of me. Perhaps my soul, if I still had one. Within seconds I would be out cold.

Through a narrow gap in the curtain, I could see the sky lightening with the coming of the sun.

Are you being serious, Fang?

Yes.

I drummed my fingers on the wooden desk. My brain was fuzzy, thoughts scattered.

Did you say meet? I asked.

Yes. Now, sleep, Moon Dance. Goodnight, even thought it's morning.

Goodnight and good morning, Fang.

Chapter Twenty-five

"You're sure you're okay?" I asked Monica for the tenth time.

She nodded but looked a little overwhelmed. I didn't blame her. We were at Chino State Prison in Ontario, California, sitting in a stark waiting room with a few other people. I had made special arrangements with the warden for a late evening visit. Both he and the inmate agreed. Being an ex-federal agent has its advantages.

The plain waiting room was smaller than I thought it would be. We sat in plastic bucket seats that were covered with gang graffiti. Took some balls to carve gang graffiti in a prison waiting room.

Monica looked lost and fragile, and I wondered again at my logic for bringing her here. Chad was busy tonight and I had had no one else to turn to. As I was contemplating calling the private investigator Kingsley and I had met at the beach, brainstorming out loud, Monica had volunteered to come with me, telling me she would be fine. "After all," she had said, "I'm just going to be in the waiting room, right? I won't be seeing him."

I reached out now and held her hand, forgetting for a moment that my own was ice cold. She flinched at the touch, but then gripped my hand back tightly.

"Sorry," I said. "My hands get cold."

"So do mine. Don't worry about it." She squeezed my hand again, tighter, and looked at me. "So what are you going to say to him?"

"I'm going to convince him to leave you alone."

She nodded and looked down. I didn't want to mention that maybe her ex-husband's next attempt to find someone to hurt her might slip past prison officials. Although all his calls were monitored, there is more than one way to smuggle information out of a prison.

"How are you going to convince him?" she asked.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I'm going to kind of feel my way through it."

"He'll want to kill you, too, you know."

"I'm not worried about him."

She kept holding my hand. Hers, I noticed, was shaking. I shouldn't have brought her -

But maybe this was a good thing for her. Maybe on some level, she was facing her fears.

Just then the heavy main door into the prison opened and a young, serious-looking guy wearing a correctional uniform stepped into the room.

"Samantha Moon?" he asked.

I gave Monica's hand a final squeeze before I released it. "I'll be back," I said.