I had only one answer.
I reached into my purse and removed the small legal pad I now kept tucked in a side pocket. I also removed a favorite pen with flowing, liquid black ink. I love flowing, liquid black ink.
As a small wind rushed over the van, swishing the tree above and scattering a few precious leaves from its sparse branches, I spent the next few minutes going through a meditation exercise that both grounded me to the earth and opened me to the spirit world.
Once grounded and open, I sat quietly with pen in hand, waiting. Shorty, I felt the familiar tingle in my right arm. The tingle turned into something more than a tingle. In fact, it turned into an electrical impulse and my right arm involuntarily spasmed. It spasmed again and again, lightly, and soon the pen in my hand was moving, seemingly on its own. Writing. Two words appeared on the mini-sheet of legal paper before me.
Hello, Samantha.
"Hello," I said within the empty minivan, feeling slightly silly.
In the past, two different entities had come through in this form of communication, what many call "automatic writing." I asked now who I was speaking with. My hand twitched once, twice, and the name Sephora appeared before me. Sephora, I knew, was my personal spirit guide.
Whatever the hell that was.
"I might have done a bad thing," I said.
My hand jerked and spasmed and more words appeared on the notepad on my lap.
You are only as bad as you feel, Samantha.
"Well, I feel like shit and I'm scared to death."
My hand flinched rapidly.
Did you act out of love or fear when you saved your son?
I thought hard about that. Sweat was now breaking out on my brow. It took a lot for sweat to break out on my brow. The car was heating up rapidly. "I acted out of instinct," I said. "For me, it was the only answer. I had a means to save my son, and I took it. Some would call that love, others would call it selfishness."
The electrical impulse crackled through my arm.
What would you call it, Samantha?
"Love. It has to be. I love my kids more than anything."
Then so be it.
Interestingly, had I not possessed the medallion, I don't think I would have done it. In fact, I know I wouldn't have done it. I would not have sentenced my son to...this...if there was no way to turn him back.
"Does my son know what's happened to him?" I asked.
Your son sleeps deeply while the change comes over him. In the physical, outer world, no. But, yes, his greater self, his soul self, knows exactly what you have done.
"Does he forgive me?"
My child, he loves you with all his heart. He understands this was a difficult decision for you, and that you made the best choice you could.
I stared down at the words on the pad, wondering again if I was making them up or if they were really flowing through me from the spirit world.
"You make it seem like there's two of him," I said.
There is his higher, spiritual self, Samantha, and his lower, physical self. The higher self resides in the spirit world, and the lower self in the physical world, your world.
I thought about that, then got to why I was here. "I have a name of a man who might be able to help me," I said.
There was no response. No weird electrical impulse. My arm rested lightly on the center console.
"Is there a way you can help me find him?"
Precious child, there is always a way. To find what is missing, lost or hidden, requires great faith, patience and perseverance.
I waited, but apparently that's all I was going to be given.
"Is that it?" I asked.
It is enough, Samantha.
I slammed the pen down and tore out the sheet of paper. A few seconds later, the paper was nothing more than confetti. I knew I was acting like a baby. Losing control was exactly what I shouldn't be doing. But I didn't need riddles and spiritual platitudes. I needed Archibald Maximus.
And I needed him now.
Chapter Eighteen
The only other vampire I knew - outside of my newly anointed son - had led me to the world's creepiest man, which cost my son two years of his life. As shitty as that sounded, a name had been gleaned, which was more than I started with.
The only other immortal that I knew was Kingsley Fulcrum, a beast of a man in more ways than one. He had an office a block or two from the hospital, across the street from the opulent Main Place Mall, which I was driving past now. The mall gleamed and sparkled and apparently emitted a siren call to Orange County housewives everywhere.
I somehow managed to ignore the call, and soon I was turning into the parking lot of Kingsley's plush, red-brick office building, which brought to mind the last time I was here.
Last week, I had stormed into Kingsley's office, scaring off a wife killer that Kingsley had been set to represent. Exactly. I'd never been more proud. Anyway, the last I heard Kingsley had dropped the piece of shit. Unfortunately for the killer, I had gotten a very strong psychic hit from him. I knew, without a doubt, that he had killed his wife. Now he was on my radar, and I intended to follow through with my threat to make sure that he spent a lifetime in prison.
But that was for another time. For now, I had a son to save.
From what? I asked myself. From an eternity of life? From an eternity of not experiencing death?
No, I answered. From an eternity of childhood. From an eternity of consuming blood. From an eternity of questioning his sanity.
It was mid-day and I was at my weakest and frailest. I also felt vulnerable and clumsy. As I stood there on the bottom floor, inside the glass doors, blinking and waiting for my eyes to adjust to the gloom within, I realized something else. I had condemned my son to a lifetime of shunning the sun.
My son would never again go to the beach, never again go on a field trip with his class, never again play Frisbee in the park. Granted, he never played Frisbee in the park, anyway, but that possibility had been removed.
For now, I thought. Only for now. There is an answer. There has to be an answer.
I moved heavily through the building, all too aware that my legs felt unusually heavy, that each step was an effort, that I did not belong with the day dwellers.
A tall man wearing an outdated blue blazer smiled at me sadly as I boarded the elevator. He asked what floor and I noticed we were going to the same floor, Kingsley's floor. As we rode up together, I touched my brow and winced. Despite my wide-brimmed hat, some of the sun had made it through. There might have been a small area near my hairline where I had missed some sunblock because the skin there was burning. I ignored the pain, knowing it would go away in a few hours.
We rode the elevator in silence. I was aware of the man in the old business suit watching me. I hated to be watched and self-consciously moved away, ducking my head, wishing like hell he would look away, but too weak to do anything other than shrink away like a frightened puppy.