Moon Child (Vampire for Hire #4) (14 page)

Anyway, the teen boy led me along the main
artery that led down the center of the hotel, past beautiful
planters and water fountains and the pool. We plunged under
Mediterranean Revival-style archways lit with hanging lanterns, and
dashed quickly over Spanish tile that looked both ancient and
impenetrable. We passed couples holding hands or sitting
contentedly on ornate benches. We passed more crackling spirits,
all of which seemed to have somewhere to go.

Now above us, shining like a mother ship
descending from the heavens, was the jaw-droppingly beautiful north
tower dome. I only had a glimpse of it before the ghost teen
disappeared through a closed door. A closed locked door.

A very bloody and sheepish face appeared a
moment later in the center of the door. Leland smiled and the
ancient blood on his lower jaw almost seemed to sparkle.

“Through here?” I asked.

He nodded vigorously. I tried the handle.
Locked.

“I don’t suppose you can unlock it from the
inside, could you?”

He nodded again and disappeared back through
the door. I next heard some very odd, lightly scraping sounds from
the other side, and shortly his gruesomely handsome face
reappeared. He shook his head sadly.

I looked from side to side, and didn’t see
anyone paying particular attention to us. I then took hold of the
doorknob and applied a smidgen of pressure.

The lock shattered and the handle broke off
in my hand. Pieces of metal fell everywhere, inside and outside the
door.

Lord, I’m a freak.

The shattering lock would surely have
attracted some attention, and so I ignored the stares and pushed
the door open like I belonged there. I kicked the broken knob
inside.

Leland took my hand again, which felt a bit
like plunging my hand in a picnic cooler, and led me up a very
narrow spiral staircase that was clearly not meant for hotel
guests, judging by how rickety and unstable it was. Who used this
staircase and why, I didn’t know, but it felt unsafe as hell.

I heard the sounds of pots and pans banging,
the sizzle of something or other, and someone shouting an order in
Spanish. We were behind the kitchen, perhaps in a forgotten storage
room, along a forgotten staircase. I suspected this old hotel, with
its many additions, had many such forgotten rooms and
staircases.

Sometimes our hands broke contact, but the
teen boy would always reach back for me. Sometimes I could see the
concern on his face, but mostly I saw his excitement. And with each
step we took, my inner warning system sounded louder and louder.
Perhaps the loudest I had ever heard it sound. So loud now that
even the ghost boy turned and looked at me.

Jesus, had he heard my own alarm system?

There was just so much to learn about the
spirit world, a world that had unexpectedly opened up to me these
past few months.

Now we were at another door. This was
unlocked and soon we were standing in a very long and creepy
hallway. The hallway had been used for storage. Now, I suspected,
it was long since forgotten. Old sinks and clawed bathtubs and
disgusting toilets that turned my stomach.

He led me deeper. I noted Leland didn’t kick
up any dust, whereas I left behind great swirling plumes of the
stuff.

We hung a right and soon came upon another
narrow flight of wrought-iron stairs. The boy floated up them
effortlessly, whereas, I climbed up them as quietly as possible. I
felt for the medallion in my pocket, suddenly wishing I had left it
in the van, after all.

Lord, if I lost this...

The few breaths I took echoed loudly around
me, filling the small space. The ladder seemed like it might creak,
but mercifully, it didn’t. I followed the boy up, sometimes looking
through a pair of ghostly buns.

We reached the upper landing and stood before
another door and I had a sense that we were very high up. As high
as the mosaic dome, no doubt.

“In here?” I asked.

Leland nodded. He had now made a full
appearance, and I could see all the fine details of his handsome
young face, a face that was now creased with concern.

Who knew ghosts could crease?

When I reached for the door knob, he seized
my wrist with hands solid enough to pull my own away. Crazy goose
bumps appeared instantly up and down my arm. He shook his head
vigorously.

“It’ll be okay,” I said quietly. “Thank you
for your help.”

“Please,” Leland said, speaking for the first
time, his voice a grating whisper. “There’s a very bad man
inside.”

I smiled and reached out and touched his
face. A shiver went through me again.

“I’m pretty bad myself,” I said, and opened
the door.

Chapter Forty-three

The door opened loudly enough to wake the
dead.

Hell, maybe it did.

Although I doubted I would ever sneak up on
the vampire, any hope of doing that went out the window.

Or through the squeaky door.

The ghost teen stayed behind, clearly
worried, and anything that worried a ghost should seriously worry
me, too, I figured.

Except, I rarely backed down from a fight,
even back in the days when I was very mortal. Bullies and assholes
never scared me, and this French vampire piece-of-a-bitch was
clearly both.

A narrow catwalk encircled the entire area,
branching off in both directions. Above me was the inverted arch,
sealing off the night sky. A small pinprick of moonlight made its
way through a window. An open window, actually, and I suddenly
realized how the vampire had been coming and going.

Below, the floor dropped down about twenty
feet, to what appeared to be more storage. With the dome arching
two stories above, there was, in total, about forty to fifty feet
of open space here. Big enough for one’s voice to echo, and
certainly big enough for a giant vampire bat to take flight.

As my eyes fully accustomed to the big, open
space, I heard the sound of breathing. Short, frightened gasps.
Coming from seemingly everywhere at once.

There, on the far side of the catwalk. A
small figure was curled in the fetal position, shivering violently.
He was still wearing his thin hospital down, which was next to
useless. Fury raged through me. The boy needed immediate medical
attention. The heartless piece of shit. I couldn’t imagine the
horror this little one had endured.

The catwalk was even more wobbly than the
last staircase. As I stepped onto it, the boy’s head rolled in my
direction. My instincts were to run to him. Hell, anyone’s
instincts would have been to run to him. Running to him would have
entailed racing along the metal catwalk, which curved around the
inside of the circular dome and hugged the gently sloping wall.

But I forced myself to stop. To think. To
wait. Hard as it was. As nearly impossible as it was. I would be of
no use to the boy if I died.

Although I couldn’t sense him, I knew the
vampire was here. He had to be here. The only beacon of light
energy that I could see formed around the boy. The vampire, like
other immortals I had seen, was immune to my detection.

But he was here. Somewhere. Watching me.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end,
and that was a completely human response to the feeling of being
watched. I listened for breathing—other breathing—but heard
nothing.

Wait, a flutter from above.

I looked up sharply. The tiny silhouette of a
bat crossing in front of the window in the upper dome.

I remembered his words: I’m here with the
other bats.

I turned right onto the catwalk, although I
could have just as easily gone left, since the boy was directly
opposite me. As I walked, I held onto the rusted guardrail, all too
aware that the mesh flooring beneath me felt unsafe at best.

My footfalls echoed metallically. The whole
damn catwalk seemed to sway. I scanned above and around, searching
for a winged creature or the tall man with the bow tie.

I considered the possibility that I was
dealing with a very powerful vampire. How long had this vampire
been alive? Hundreds of years? Thousands? In that time period, what
dark secrets had he uncovered? Invisibility, perhaps?

I had no clue, but I hoped like hell I didn’t
bump into him unexpectedly. That would just suck.

Something scuttled from above, too heavy for
a bat. I snapped my head up.

Nothing there, other than beams and rafters
and larger, seemingly random planks of wood. No vampire bat.
Although the hiding spots were few and far between, he’d certainly
had enough time to pick a good one.

He was watching me now. From somewhere. Of
that, I had no doubt.

I was halfway to the boy, who was now trying
to sit up. He couldn’t see me in the dark, but he could certainly
hear me coming. Hell, the dead could hear me coming, with all this
rattling.

“It’s going to be okay, Eddy,” I said,
although I was still thirty feet away. “I’ll get you home
soon.”

“Oh, it’s most assuredly not going to be
okay,” said a voice with a French accent above.

I looked up again, and this time, crawling
down through the hole in the dome like a four-legged insect, was a
man.

Chapter Forty-four

As I watched him crawl through the hole,
briefly blotting out the night sky, an uncontrollable shiver raced
through me. He looked so inhuman, so unnatural, so alien.

I picked up my pace, moving rapidly now along
the narrow catwalk, my weight causing the whole damn thing to
shudder.

“Mommy?” cried the little boy.

“It’s okay, baby,” I said, moving faster
still. The old catwalk wasn’t designed for running. I could see the
screws in the walls giving way, dust sifting down everywhere.

Sweet Jesus.

The man scuttled down along the inside of the
dome, defying gravity, defying logic, defying sanity. I actually
paused, watching him moving rapidly over beams and I-beams, around
planks and fasteners, down the smooth inside paneling with no
obvious handholds.

And all of this he did upside down. He should
have fallen a hundred times over.

The angle he took was a good one, because now
it put him directly between me and the boy. Within moments, the man
in the bow tie flipped down and dropped smoothly to his feet. He
turned to face me, straightening his dinner jacket and adjusting
his bow tie.

“A pleasure to finally meet you, Samantha
Moon,” he said, his voice so heavily accented that he was difficult
to understand. “I believe you have something I want.”

The little boy had found his way to his
knees, where he now sat on the mesh flooring. He turned his head
this way and that, trying to see us, which I doubted he could. The
interior of the dome was pitch black.

I had no intention of leaving here without
the boy—and without my medallion. Yes, I wanted my cake and I
wanted to eat it, too. I realized I needed more time. I needed to
know what I was up against.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Now,” he said in his heavy French accent,
“is that really important?”

Behind the gaunt figure, I saw for the first
time the outline of a narrow door, maybe just a few feet from the
little boy. Where the door led off to, I hadn’t a clue. For all I
knew it was a storage closet.

I said, “Then I guess you wouldn’t mind if I
call you Shithead.”

He cocked his head slightly and his lips
might have formed a smile. He was taller than me by a lot. Tall and
thin and ghastly, the quintessential vampire. He advanced toward
me, which was a good thing, I realized. Anything to get him away
from the boy.

I held my ground.

The far less selfish thing for me to do was
hand over the medallion and save the sick boy. But what about my
son? How could I at least not first pursue another alternative?

Yes, I wanted my cake and to eat it, too.

It was then that I felt a heavy presence
surround me, a sticky, sickly, foreign presence. It pushed on me,
prodding me, trying to gain entrance. And just as suddenly the
presence retreated.

“You are a strong one, mademoiselle,” he
said, frowning, clearly not happy. “Stronger than most. Too strong
for even me to gain access.”

“Lucky me,” I said.

Whether or not the vampire could feel the
ghost behind me, I didn’t know, but I sure as hell could. Leland
was clearly agitated, watching all of this from the shadows of the
door, and I had an idea, recalling how the teen ghost had nearly
manifested a physical hand for me to grab.

Leland, sweetie, I thought. I need your
help.

Although behind me, I saw in my mind’s eye
the young man suddenly perk up, his countenance brightening. He
didn’t speak, but I had his attention.

When one is open to such communication, words
and thoughts tend to be the same, and so I focused my thoughts on
the door behind the boy.

Where does this lead to, Leland?

An image was returned to me, one of a long
and narrow hallway, similar to the one that had granted us access
to within the dome. Leland had recognized the door.

Good, I thought. Thank you.

As quickly as I could, I explained what I
needed. He nodded eagerly and disappeared. To where he went, I
hadn’t a clue. Would he help me? I didn’t know that, either. I was
noticing that ghosts, although quite social, weren’t the best
communicators.

I turned my attention back to the tall man
who was watching me curiously. “I have lived a long, long time,
Miss Moon,” he said. “I’m tired of these old bones. I’m tired of
this world, of this race. I’m tired of feeding...constantly
feeding. Mostly I’m tired of the loneliness. The eternal
loneliness. You will feel it someday, Miss Moon, if you haven’t
already.”