Chapter Forty-three

As I rapidly approached the building, I was suddenly filled with doubt. Was I doing the right thing? Should I veer off now and forget this whole crazy, horrific, stomach-turning plan? Was I even heading toward the right section of prison?

I shook my head and blasted aside the self-doubt.

The decisions had been made hours ago, and I knew, in my heart, they were the right ones.

Now, of course, it only remained to be seen if I was heading towards the correct section of prison wall.

We'll see, I thought.

I flew faster. The west side of the wall grew rapidly before me. I adjusted my wings slightly, a flick here, a dip there, and angled toward a particular spot on the second floor, near the corner of the building.

It just feels right.

I picked up more speed. The massive, oppressive structure grew rapidly in front of me. Behind those walls were the worst of the worst. Killers, cutthroats, and the not very kind. Wind thundered over me, screeching across my ears.

There was a final moment when I could have chosen to veer away, and avoid the building altogether.

I didn't veer away.

Six years ago, I was busting loan swindlers and thieves and low lives. Now I was hurling my nightmarish bat-like body at a maximum security prison.

Would this kill me? I didn't know, but I was about to find out.

My last thought before I struck the wall were: I love you Tammy and Anthony...if I don't make it, I'll see you on the other side.

The gray wall appeared directly before me. I could see the fine details of thick cinder blocks and heavy bricks. I lowered my head and turned my body slightly and struck the building with such force that I suspected the whole damn building shuddered.

* * *

I sat up in a pile of rubble.

My thick wings were draped around me like a heavy, dusty blanket. Chunks of wall continued to fall and clatter behind me. I should have been dead many times over. I should have been flattened outside on the wall itself. I should have been many things...but here I sat, in a prison cell, surrounded by massive chunks of cement, bent re-bar, and bricks that looked better suited for a medieval dungeon.

As I sat up, and as the dust still settled around me, I closed my eyes and saw the single flame in my forethoughts. I next saw the woman in the flame, standing there impatiently, and quickly I felt the familiar rush towards her....

And when I opened my eyes, there I was. My old self again - completely naked in a maximum secure prison in a cell on Death Row.

Outside, through the massive hole in the prison wall, I heard dozens of men shouting and a cacophony of running feet. A moment later, a siren wailed, so loud that it hurt even my ears.

I stood slowly. Dust and debris slid off my flesh.

Had I guessed right? Was this the right cell? Had my sixth sense led me to the man I wanted?

My eyes needed no time to adjust to the darkness.

There, huddled at the far end of the single cot, was Ira Lang, staring at me with wild, disbelieving eyes. Believe it, buddy boy. Ira was a royal mess. His face and forehead were nearly covered in bandages, and if it weren't for his signature bald head, with its deep grooves and odd lumps, I might have wondered if I had the right room. His face, what little of it I could see puffing out between the bandages, was horribly swollen and disfigured. A multitude of pins and bolts and screws were holding the whole thing together.

What a waste, I thought, of all that work.

There was no way of knowing what Ira was thinking. Hell, what could he be thinking? One moment he was lying in bed, no doubt plotting his ex-wife's death, or perhaps sleeping, and dreaming of her death, and the next a massive hole appears in his jail cell, filled by a hulking, nightmarish creature. A creature who then turned into a woman. A woman he loathed.

I didn't know what he thought, nor did I care.

I brushed off some dirt and smaller chunks of concrete from my shoulder and shook out cement dust from my hair. A small, grayish cloud briefly hovered around me, and then drifted to the floor.

People were shouting within the prison itself, their voices echoing along what I assumed was a long hallway just beyond. Lights were still out. No one could see me. No one, but Ira.

Now he was blinking at me hard. He then sat forward a little, straining to see through the dark and dust. He breathed raspily through his misshapen and swollen mouth.

Footsteps pounded from somewhere nearby. Sirens blasted from seemingly everywhere. A spotlight flashed through the opening, catching some of the swirling dust.

Ira's eyes widened some more. "You!" he suddenly hissed. His swollen lips never moved, and the sound itself seemed to come from somewhere in his throat. "How the fuck did you get in here?"

I said nothing. There was nothing to say. Things were about to end badly for Ira and there was no reason to joke or elaborate or waste time.

I stood there, waiting, naked as the day I was born. I was certain most of my body was silhouetted by the lights coming in through the large opening in the wall behind me. How much Ira could see of me, I didn't know, nor did I care.

I don't think he cared either.

He reached underneath his flimsy bed mattress, and then hurled himself at me. As he did so, I spotted something flashing in his hands. Growling with what could have been demonic rage, he drove the metal object - which turned out to be a sharpened spoon wired to a wooden stick - as hard as he could at my chest. Whether or not the shank qualified as a stake, I didn't know, nor did I want to find out. I caught his slashing wrist as he slammed into me hard. I stumbled back a foot or two and nearly tripped on a block of cement, but mostly I held my ground. Ira brought his knee up hard into my stomach. Air burst from my lungs. He redoubled his effort with the shank, and I might have squeezed his wrist a little too hard, because I felt bones crunching. As Ira screamed, I spun him around and reached up with one hand and grabbed his already broken jaw and turned his head as hard and fast as I could. I nearly ripped his head off. His neck broke instantly, sickeningly, the vertebrae tearing through his skin and his orange prison jumpsuit like jagged shards of broken glass. Ira shuddered violently, and then went limp. His head fell grotesquely to one side.

More sirens. More running feet. Now lights were turning on in the prison itself.

They were coming for me. At any moment, someone was going to burst into this cell. I had to leave now. But I didn't. Not yet. Instead, I found myself staring down at Ira's broken neck. I wanted to drink from him so bad that I was willing to risk getting caught. I was willing to give it all up for one drink of fresh blood.

More footsteps. Just outside of the door.

I tore my gaze away, gasping, and dropped Ira's lifeless body to the debris-strewn floor. I moved quickly over to the hole in the wall, took a deep breath, and jumped.

Chapter Forty-four

Separating Chino and Orange is Chino State Park, which really isn't much of a park. Mostly it's a long stretch of barren hills. The hills are full of coyotes, rabbits, and the occasional mountain lion. And tonight, at least, one giant vampire bat.

I alighted on the roundish summit of the highest hill. From here I could see the lights of North Orange County twinkling beautifully. I folded my wings in and hunkered down on the lip of a rocky overhang.

The wind was strong up here, buffeting me steadily, slapping my wings gently against my side. Something small scurried in the grass nearby. That something popped its little head up and looked at me. A squirrel. It studied me for a moment, cocking its head, and then scurried off in a blink.

Well, excuse me.

The cool night wind carried with it the heady scent of juniper and sage, and I sat silently on that ledge and stared down into Orange County and remembered the feeling of the man's neck breaking in my hands.

Grass rustled in the wind. My wings continued flapping. Grains of sand sprinkled against my thick hide. A hazy gauze of clouds crawled in front of the moon, nudged along by the high winds.

In my mind's eye, I summoned the leaping flame, summoned the woman within. I opened my eyes a few seconds later and found myself squatting over the ledge, my long dark hair whipping in the wind, my elbows tucked against my sides.

I buried my face in my hands and wanted to cry, but I couldn't cry. I couldn't cry because something had changed within me tonight, something so damn frightening I could barely acknowledge it.

But I had to acknowledge it.

Tonight, as I had held Ira's broken body close to me, I had loved every minute of it. Every fucking second of it. It had been such a thrill killing him.

Fuck.

Double fuck.

The scariest part of tonight was that his killing had felt incomplete. Foreplay, without the pay-off. I had wanted to drink from that broken neck. Desperately. Passionately. Endlessly. Draining every drop of blood.

Sweet Jesus, help me.

I reached down and picked up a handful of cool desert sand. I let the fine granules sift through my fingers and catch on the wind, to be carried off to distant lands and far shores, even if those distant lands were just Orange County and those far shores were heated pools.

I reached up with both hands and covered my head and closed my eyes and listened to the wind and the critters and the swishing grass, and stayed liked that for a long, long time....

Chapter Forty-five

I killed a man tonight.

There was a long pause, then Fang wrote: Are you sure you want to tell me about this here?

Big Brother?

Big something. You've stirred things up enough that someone, somewhere, might be watching and listening.

I doubt it, I wrote.

Your sixth sense?

Something like that.

You don't feel like anyone's watching?

No, I wrote. Not yet. Maybe someday I will have to be more careful.

But not now?

No.

Can we be careful for my benefit? he wrote.

Sure. We can pretend I killed a man tonight.

That's better. Pretend is better. Why did you pretend to kill him?

Because he was a bad man.

You can't kill all the bad men, Moon Dance. What did he do that was so bad?

I told Fang about it, writing up the case quickly, hitting just the high notes. Two seconds after I hit "Send", Fang was already writing me back.

Someone had to die, Moon Dance. Better him than your client.

We were both silent for a long, long time. I tried to imagine what Fang was doing at this moment. Probably sitting back and studying my words. Probably drinking from a bottle of beer, although he had never mentioned if he drank beer or not. Call it a hunch. I imagined Fang taking a long pull on his beer, maybe crossing one leg over the other, maybe reaching down and scratching his crotch, as guys are wont to do.

He wrote, Does your client know about the killing?

Not yet.

Where is she now?

With me in bed, sleeping.

You sleep together?

Get your mind out of the gutter. This is the first time she has slept so deeply since I have been protecting her.

People are more psychic than they realize. Perhaps a part of her knows she is finally safe.

But I had to kill a man to keep her safe.

Better him than her.

Tonight I had bought a pack of cigarettes. I opened the package and tapped one out and lit it with a lighter. The tip flared and the acrid smell of burning paper and tobacco reached my nose nearly instantly. I loved the initial scent of a freshly lit cigarette, even if I wasn't smoking it. I looked down at the burning cancer stick. It was my first cigarette since before I was pregnant. I had given up smokes completely, being a good preggo. I had thought I had given them up for good, but with the fear of cancer removed, well, what the hell? Why not? I just wouldn't smoke them around my kids. Or if I was about to kiss a man.

I've never killed before, I wrote.

How do you feel?

I sucked on the cigarette and thought about that. I feel nothing.

No guilt?

No. Not right now, but it might hit me later.

How did you feel when you were killing him?

Why do you ask?

It is commonly believed that vampires enjoy the kill, that vampires sort of get-off on taking another's life.

I took another hit, inhaling deeply, and came clean. I enjoyed it so fucking much that it scares the shit out of me.

Because you might want to do it again?

Exactly.

Did you feed from him?

No. I didn't have time. But I think I would have. I paused, then added: And now tonight feels incomplete.

Because you didn't feed?

Right.

You hunted your prey...and then lost him to the hyenas.

I shuddered at the imagery. Something like that.

Can you control yourself, Moon Dance?

I nodded, even though he couldn't see me nod. Yes, the feeling passed as soon as I left the cell.

A good thing it passed.

I nodded again. I knew what Fang meant. If the hunger hadn't passed, if it still gripped me, there was a very good chance that something else - or someone else - would be very dead tonight.

Do you think of me differently, Fang?

Do you think of yourself differently?

I finished the cigarette, stubbed it out in the glass ashtray on the night stand next to me. I've never killed before. Anyone or anything. I always had that to fall back on. Now I don't.

Now you're a killer.

Yes.

You killed a bad man who, if given a chance, would have hurt or killed your client.

Yes.

So, in effect, you acted in self-defense of your client.

You could say that.

You had asked him politely to leave her alone, and what did he do?

He threatened me and my children.

So, in effect, you also protected your children.

I'm not sure how serious his threats were.

The man was on Death Row, Moon Dance.

But I still killed him in cold blood, Fang.

That is something you will have to live with, Moon Dance. Can you live with it?

I guess I have to.

An eternity is a long time to carry guilt, Moon Dance.

Our fingers were both silent. I contemplated another cigarette, then decided against it. Now Fang was busy writing something, and so I waited for his response. A minute later, it came.

You did what you had to do. You acted in the best interest of yourself, your kids and your client. You rid the world of an animal who made it his life's goal to destroy other people's lives. You ask me, you had a pretty good night's work.

We were silent for a long time. I gazed out the sliding glass window at the rising moon. I turned back to my laptop.

Get some sleep, Fang.

You know I'm a night owl, Moon Dance.

Yeah, I know.

See you in a week?

My heart pounded once, twice in my chest.

Yes, in a week.

I can't wait, Moon Dance.

I bit my lip. Neither can I.