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.