Christmas Moon (Vampire for Hire #4.5)

Once again, I gasped.

"I didn't mean to startle you, Samantha."

"You have a way of doing that."

"Sometimes, I forget how easily humans startle. Humans...and vampires."

"I'm not human?"

"You haven't been human for many years, Sam."

"I feel human."

"Do you feel human when you're soaring above the earth?"

He stepped closer to me, hands clasped behind his back. To my eyes he seemed a little taller than I remembered.

He nodded. "I am taller, Sam. I am whatever I choose to be."

Glowing particles of light swarmed around him...and disappeared into him. He was a being unlike anything I had ever seen. And to be clear, I've seen some weird shit.

But as he drew closer, walking casually with his hands behind his back, his movements so fluid and smooth that he appeared to be walking on air, I saw something else. Intermixed within the light particles were darker particles. The darker particles were new to me...and alarming. Never had I seen anything so black. Worse, the dark particles seemed to contaminate the light, spreading like a disease.

"A disease?" he said, nodding thoughtfully. "An interesting choice of words, since you yourself often call the darkness living within you a disease."

"There is no darkness in me."

Ishmael threw back his head and laughed, and it was the first time he had expressed real emotion. His first seeming loss of control. Everything prior to that, every move, every word, had seemed almost rehearsed.

"What do you think keeps you alive, Samantha Moon? What do you think you feed each and every time you consume blood? You're feeding the thing that lives within you."

"I am still me."

"Or so you think."

"I want you to leave."

He continued to approach me, continued his slow glide over the street tarmac. "You know so little, my dear. But I can show you so much. I can reveal it all to you. I can help you fight that which lives within you, that which is slowly consuming you."

Now he stood before me and, son of a bitch, he was even taller than just a few seconds before. By at least another six inches. Surely, he was taller now than even Kingsley.

I must be dreaming, I thought.

"You're not dreaming, Sam."

"Get the hell out of my head."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Why?"

He reached out and touched me, running his fingers under my chin, lifting my face up to his. I shivered. His touch was hot. Almost superheated. "I don't want to get out of your head. Your thoughts are the only place I have sanctuary."

"I know what you are, and I'm telling you to leave me alone."

"Oh? And what am I, Sam?"

"A demon."

I could see the heartbreak in his eyes. He thought he could see me, but for the first time I was seeing him. He was lost, just as I felt lost sometimes. He had needs and desires, just as I did, and on this night, in the middle of this street, his eyes told me everything I needed to know. He was in love with me.

Could demons love? I didn't know, but I doubted it.

"Demon is such an ugly word, Sam."

"Then what are you?"

"I said it was ugly, I didn't say it was inaccurate."

I shuddered. The blackness swirled around him like black worms, weaving in and out of the light. "You look different."

"I am different. I gave up much to be with you, Sam."

"And you took much from me."

"I gave you immortality."

"You stole my humanity. You abused your power in the name of love. Or what you think of as love. You have put a curse on me that will never be fully released. You put me in danger and my own children in danger."

He laughed. "Your own immortality saved your boy from an agonizing death."

"If I had known that my immortality would be the only thing that would save my child, yes, I would have begged you to allow me to be attacked. To allow me to become what I am. But you can't claim responsibility for a twist of fate."

Then again, maybe he could. I was in uncharted territory here. How much of the future did Ishmael know? Had he known that my son would acquire a terminal disease? I didn't know. Truth was, I didn't know what watchers were capable of and not capable of. But I knew something about free will, and I suspected Ishmael was pulling my strings like a puppet master. He was a person, a being, who had abused his influence.

"No," he said, reading my thoughts. "A person in love."

"You turned me into a monster," I said.

"Not a monster, Sam. An immortal. And the darkness that lives within you can be controlled. I can show you how. I can show you so many things."

"You could show me how? You could show me many things? Your love is conditional. Your love is not real. Whatever illusion you have about you and me ends tonight. You were given an amazing gift by the Almighty and you squandered it over illusions of love. You might have been able to read my thoughts, but you lacked something. Subtext. Hearing my thoughts isn't the same as experiencing my heart. Because if you ever had, you would have never done what you did to me on that night seven years ago."

"You have it all wrong, Sam. It was your destiny to become that which you are. I only helped...facilitate the process."

"I don't believe you."

"Believe what you will. But we are destined to be together, Samantha Moon. And when you are done playing with your dog, Kingsley, I will return for you."

And what happened next challenged my sanity. The solid man who had been standing before me, faded from view, and the particles of light that had been swarming around him winked out of existence, too.

I was left standing alone in the street.