Midnight Moon (Vampire for Hire #13)(43)

Charlie had cameras all around his place, hence the reason I'd dressed on his roof. Had Charlie cared to really study my image, he might have noticed I was missing ears, or part of my neck, wherever the make-up foundation had failed to reach. So far, cameras hadn't been an issue with me, although there were undoubtedly hundreds of hours of strange security footage of vampires the world over, me included.

Although Allison possessed the kind of magic that Criss Angel could only dream of, she was still only human with mostly human limitations, hearing included. As yet, she hadn't realized I was coming up behind her. She stood on a wide, lighted footpath that led from the driveway to the front door. As I approached, she checked her phone, then scanned the street, then checked her phone again. She repeated this again and again.

I crept closer, noting the smooth sweep of her neck. Most vampires would find the smooth sweep of her neck irresistible; however, most vampires didn't have their inner demon under some semblance of control. I'm proud to say that I did. Mostly.

I crept closer, then closer still.

She was just about to check her cell phone again when I seized her shoulders, and said, "I vant to suck your blood!" in my best Boris Karloff impression.

Except I had barely gotten the words out when I found myself flying through the air. And then slamming hard into Charlie Reed's front door. What little air I had burst from my lungs as I slumped to my rump. Strange electrical currents crackled over my skin like living glow worms. I thought my hair was smoking.

"Oh my God, Sam! Are you okay?"

"I think I'm dying, Allison. Tell my children I love them. Tell Kingsley I will miss him, but not so much his hairy back. That I won't miss."



       
         
       
        

"Such a bitch. I could have hurt you."

I stood, dusted myself off. "You did hurt me."

"Why are you so mean to me?"

"I'm the one that got blasted."

"Serves you right."

"He's coming," I said.

"You're still smoking, Sam."

"Well, blow on me or something," I said.

Which is what she was doing when the front door opened and Charlie Reed appeared. "Now there's a sight you don't see every day," said Charlie Reed. "Come on in."

We followed him back through his spacious home, as Allison occasionally blew on my neck or hair. I smelled the burning too. There was a small chance one of her electrified worms had ignited my hair. Once in his office, he headed straight to his seat behind his desk.

"How's the writer's block?" I asked.

"Don't ask him that," hissed Allison. "That's, you know, taboo to ask a writer."

"I don't think it is," I said.

"I'm pretty sure it is, Sam."

"Well, it doesn't matter," said Charlie. "I've been doing nothing but staring at my screen for hours, ever since I got home from work. So, I guess you can say the writer's block is going strong." He gave us an enthusiastic and sarcastic double thumbs-up.

Although we had both been hoping to read up a little more on the Land of Dur while we waited for Queen Autumn's possible midnight arrival, I suspected that the whole reason we were here in the first place was precisely because of his writer's block.

Allison caught my eye and nodded; indeed, we had discussed this earlier.

"Now?" she asked.

"Now," I said.

"Now what?" asked Charlie.

Allison and I both came around his desk and pulled up some extra chairs. I said, "Charlie, we need to talk."



***



And talk we did.

We laid on him some pretty heavy stuff. It's not every day that someone is told they are a creator, that the imaginings in his mind had sprung whole cloth into living, breathing people. More so, that an entire world had been created to support these people and creatures.

When Allison and I were done, he looked at us sadly. "Are you two okay? I mean, seriously."

"We are," I said. "Well, I am. I can't vouch for Allison."

"I'm fine, too," she snapped.

"Obviously, you two are pulling my leg," he said. He was sitting back in his office chair now, arms folded over his narrow chest, hair about as wild and unkempt as hair could be; I mean, had he looked in a mirror recently? Still, through it all, he was good looking. Bedraggled and messy, there was still no escaping that jawline. It was, I noted, thirty minutes before midnight. 

"It would be the obvious answer," I said.

"That, or you two are crazy."

Allison and I had assumed he would balk at the suggestion he was a creator, that he had inadvertently created whole lives, both animal and man, and an entire whole world to populate them on. Truth was, I wasn't entirely convinced myself, although it felt right to me, too. Either way, he needed to wrap his brain around it in his own time, in his own way.