Moon Child (Vampire for Hire #4) Read Free

of the
whitish electrified balls seemed to orient on me. Soon it was
behind me, keeping pace with me.
    I just hate being followed by ghosts.
    And as the elevator doors closed in front of
me and I selected the third-floor button, the ball of white light
slipped through the elevator’s seam and joined me for a ride
up.
    It hovered just in front of me, spitting fire
like a mini sun. It moved to the right and then to the left, and
then it hovered about a foot in front of my face.
    The elevator slowly rose one floor.
    “It’s not polite to stare,” I said.
    The ball of light flared briefly, clearly
agitated. It then shot over to the far corner of the elevator and
stayed there for the rest of the ride up.
    The doors dinged open and I stepped out onto
my son’s floor.
    Alone.
     
    * * *
     
    Danny was there, sleeping.
    He was sitting in one of the wooden chairs at
the foot of the bed. His head had flopped back and he was snoring
loudly up at the heavens. Probably irritating the hell out of God.
One thing I didn’t miss from living with the man was all his damn
snoring.
    Well, that and the cheating.
    My son wasn’t snoring. He was sleeping
lightly. A black cloud hung over him, a black cloud that only I,
and perhaps others like me, could see.
    And it wasn’t so much as hovering as
surrounding him completely, wrapping around his small frame
entirely. A blanket, perhaps. A thick, evil blanket that seemed
intent on obliterating the bright light that was my son.
    The lights were off, although I could see
clearly enough. The energy that fills the spaces between the spaces
gives off an effervescent light. These were individual filaments,
no bigger than a spark. By themselves, the light didn’t amount to
much. But taken as a whole, and the night was illuminated
nicely.
    For me, at least, and others like me.
    The frenetic streaks of energy often
concentrated around the living, and they now buzzed around my
ex-husband, flitting about him like living things, adding to his
own brilliant aura, which was presently a soft red with streaks of
blue. I have come to know that streaks of blue indicated a state of
deep sleep. The red was worry or strong concern. So, even in sleep,
he was worried.
    Worried for our boy.
    Danny was a bastard, of that there was no
doubt. He had proven to be particularly nasty and sleazy and
underhanded. He was also confused and weak, and neither of those
qualities were what I needed in a man. I needed a rock. I needed
strength. I needed confidence and sympathy.
    Not all relationships are meant to last
forever, I had read once. And forever is a very long time for a
vampire.
    I stepped through the room and over to
Danny’s side. His snoring paused briefly and he shivered
inexorably, as if a cold wind had drifted over him.
    Or a cold soon-to-be ex-wife.
    I touched his shoulder and he shivered again,
and I saw the fine hair along his neck stand on end. Was he
reacting to my coldness or to supernaturalism? I didn’t know, but
probably both. Probably some psychic part of him was aware that a
predator had just sidled up next to him. Maybe this psychic alarm
system was even now doing its best to awaken him, to warn him that
here be monsters.
    But Danny kept on snoring, although goose
bumps now cropped up along his forearm.
    I shook him gently and his snore turned into
a sharp snort and I briefly worried that he would swallow his
tongue. Then next he did what any woman would want to see.
    His eyes opened, focused on me, and he
screamed bloody murder.
    And he kept on screaming even as he leaped
backward falling over his chair, which clattered loudly to the
floor. He landed on his back with an umph, as air burst from his
lungs. He kept on trying to scream, but only a wheezing rasp came
from his empty lungs. He scuttled backwards like a clawed thing at
the bottom of the ocean.
    I stood there staring down at him, shaking my
head sadly, knowing that he had attracted nurses from here to
Nantucket.
    “Are you quite done?” I