Mostly, I loved that quiet moment just before I leaped, just before I was about to cascade out into the night, just before I was about to turn into something much greater than I am.
I felt the animal within me wanting out. Nothing that I couldn’t control, no. More of a polite request. A mild urging. Was the animal me? Maybe, maybe not. Whatever it was, I briefly inhabited it as this body of mine slipped away. To where, I didn’t know. And from where the creature came, I didn’t know that either.
Another world, I’d heard. Summoned from elsewhere.
Sanchez, who had been leading the way along the trail, looked back at me. “I’m hoping like hell that you just made all of that up.”
Oops. I probably should have closed off my thoughts. I didn’t want to overwhelm the poor guy. Better to break him in slowly. This was, I suspected, only the beginning of the freaky crap he was about to face.
Then again, maybe a part of me wanted the detective to see a little more, to know a little more about me. Why, I didn’t know. I felt a connection to the man. A professional connection, yes. Maybe even a brotherly connection. Or, maybe I wanted him to know what he was in for. What he had signed up for, so to speak.
Or maybe I had a crush on the man and had simply forgotten to shield my thoughts.
Maybe.
So, I did so now, shielding them with an imaginary wall that wasn’t so imaginary. It really worked.
“Yes,” I said, as I kept pace behind him. “Just a flight of fancy.”
“It didn’t seem fancy. It seemed real. I saw it. Or I saw you become something...huge.”
“Well, we all dream of being something a little more than we are, right?”
“That was a lot more. That was actually quite fucking cool.”
Soon, we were following a narrow trail that wound up into the park. Although the trail was dimming rapidly as the sky darkened, Detective Sanchez picked his way over the trail like a true expert. Myself, I wasn’t much of an expert. Although I had spent the early part of the summer hiking through trails on a remote and private island up in Washington State, I hadn’t sniffed a trail since then. And, if it hadn’t been for my enhanced reflexes and my own version of night vision, I was fairly certain I would have hit the dirt a few times. After all, if there was a tree root, I seemed to find it. Who knew vampires could be so clumsy?
We continued along, picking our way quickly, brushing past only slightly overgrown bushes and plants. For the most part, the trail was well-maintained. Beyond, through the trees, I could hear the steady hum of L.A. traffic. It was an angry hum.
Finally, after about twenty minutes of this, as the dusk was beginning to turn into night, Detective Sanchez fished a small flashlight from his pocket and clicked it on. He shined the beam just off the trail, to a flattened clearing that I suspected had been trampled to death by police activity.
And sitting next to the clearing, shimmering in and out of existence, was a ghost.
A young woman who was watching us.
Chapter Five
To my eyes, ghosts appeared as concentrated light energy.
How and why I could now see into the spirit world was still a mystery to me; although, truth be known, it’s probably one of the least mysterious things in my new life.
Well, relatively new life.
I’d been a vampire now for over seven years, long enough that I almost—almost—forgot what it was like to be mortal. To be normal. To sleep normally, to eat normally, to exist normally.
Then again, what was normal?
Certainly not me, I thought, as I approached the ghost sitting there on the boulder.
She wasn’t fully formed. In fact, she was exactly half there. As in, I could see one of her arms, but not really the second. One of her legs hung below her as she sat on the rock...and the other, not so much. The staticy light particles that composed her ethereal body crackled with bright intensity, which signaled to me that she was a new spirit. Then again, what did I know? I was still fairly new to all of this.
Still, I’d seen my share of ghosts. Hell, I saw them every day. But rarely, if ever, did I talk to them. Most didn’t seem capable of communicating. Most, I suspected, didn’t even realize they were ghosts. And those that did, had, quite frankly, seemed to have forgotten how to speak. Mostly, I ignored ghosts, because my life was freaky enough as it was.
But I didn’t ignore her.
I approached her carefully, nervous that she might disappear into the ether-sphere, as ghosts are wont to do. But she didn’t. She jerked her head up as I approached, and that made me wonder...could ghosts actually hear? Surely, they could. Or did she catch my movement? Perhaps they sensed sound waves, or vibrations.
So much I didn’t know.
I recalled a little boy ghost who’d come to my front door last year, a lost boy who had been murdered by a sicko who’d lived just down my street. Yes, the boy had definitely heard me and responded to my words.
Ghosts are weird, I thought, as I got closer. Then again, talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
“You’re all weird,” said Sanchez behind me. “And is there really a ghost here?”
“Yes, now shush. Don’t scare her way. Stay right there.”
I glanced back as he stopped in his tracks, holding up his hands. “Far be it from a homicide investigator to get in the way of a murder investigation.”
Shh, I thought to him, and added a mental wink. I liked him. Too bad he was married.
“I heard that.”
Oops.
As Sanchez chuckled lightly behind me, I continued along the dirt path, and soon approached the young lady who’d watched me the entire way. She wavered in and out of existence. What prompted a ghost to appear or disappear was beyond me, but I very much wanted to talk to her. I approached carefully, non-threateningly.
I knew there was a difference between ghosts and spirits. Ghosts were still tied to this world. Spirits came and went as they pleased. All looked the same to my eye...except spirits tended to be more fully formed and didn’t appear lost or confused or frightened.
This girl was all three.
Also, ghosts tended to take on the look they had at the time of their death...and as I approached the young lady, I could see the gaping wound in the side of her neck.
Vampires, I thought.
Or something mimicking a vampire. Or someone who wanted us to believe it had been a blood-sucker. Vampires, I knew, didn’t have to go for the jugular. The jugular was messy. Blood pumped uncontrollably from the jugular. It splashed on clothes and shoes and just made for a helluva cleanup. Much easier to drink from a controlled cut, on the arm or wrist, with no biting involved.