Vampire for Hire Read Free

certain Aaron and I were being watched. I glanced over his shoulder, searching for the source, but there was only an empty stairway leading up to God knew what. Still, the electrified field that only I seemed to see, a field that consisted of glowing streaks of light that helped me see into the darkest of nights, seemed to be buzzing with more than usual activity. Light streaks zipped about as if energized by something unseen.
     
               Something’s coming, I suddenly thought. What that I was, I didn’t know.
     
               I turned back to Fang. “So how did you find me?” I asked, although I had already intuited the answer. Obviously, I had given the man enough clues about my life—in particular, the cases I had worked on—for him to find me. Quite simply, he had put two and two together. Even if two and two had come over the course of years.
     
               He confirmed my hunch, and explained. To his credit, he looked a bit sheepish. Anyway, it had been one of my bigger cases four months ago that had gotten some national attention, a case that involved a runaway girl and a murderous dad. Despite my best efforts to remain anonymous, my name had appeared once or twice in the newspaper. I had, of course, mentioned to Fang that I was working on an important missing person case. By this point, I had already inadvertently dropped enough clues over the years to direct him to the general region where I lived. And once he knew the general region, well, it had just been a matter of scanning the local headlines for any news about a runaway.
     
               I said, “So everything I ever told you....”
     
               “I made notes,” he said. “I saved our messages. I poured over them later, searching for hidden clues about you. About how to find you. In the beginning, you gave me very little to work with. But you loosened up over the years.”
     
               I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. There was a creep factor here that was hard to ignore. But I also understood human nature. Or, at least, tried my damned best to. Yes, of course he had been curious about me. Who wouldn’t have been? I was a woman who was professing to be much more than a woman. And, admittedly, I had certainly been curious to find him, too, but I had never acted on it. I was a married woman at the time, working hard to keep things happy and seemingly normal.
     
               Too hard.
     
               A marriage shouldn’t have to be so much work. Love shouldn’t crush your soul. A relationship should add to your life, not take away from it. Something I’m only now beginning to understand.
     
               But it was hard to remain mad at Fang...or Aaron. There was a gentleness to him that I never saw coming. His instant messages to me had exuded confidence. But I wasn’t seeing the confidence here. No, I was seeing a man, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, who had anything but confidence. I was missing something here, and I wasn’t sure what it was.
     
               I looked again at the teeth dangling from his neck. They were long and thick—but not quite as thick as shark teeth. They looked like dog canines. Big dog canines. I looked again at his twitching mouth, and saw him curl his upper lip down as if to....
     
               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