‘Yeah, well, don’t count on it ever happening again. The sooner he tires of you, the better. But I told him I’d come to your house and that I wouldn’t just pop up in your living room, so here I am. He can’t give me any more grief about you. It was a pain in the ass avoiding all those humans cluttering up your street. I’ll never get why anyone would be interested in you.’
Luna’s distaste for humans, and me in particular, was easy to read, even without my intuition.
‘And to what do I owe this honour?’
‘You’ve got that right. I have a message from the Master. He has serious business he must attend to tonight and he won’t be able to see you, but he said he’ll visit your dreams and explain. He said I had to tell you that you’re in danger and not to let anyone remove your protective necklace.’
‘What does he mean, I’m in danger?’
‘Hey, I just deliver the messages, I don’t explain them. But I will tell you that something’s up – vampires are swarming into Denver in droves, and some of them make even us tough vamps nervous. Something dark and heavy is in the air, so to speak.’
‘Where’s Devereux?’ I asked.
She glared at me. ‘Not that it’s any of your miserable human business, but he’s off on some kind of inter-dimensional rescue mission. He’s always saving somebody.’ She pursed her lips and brought her face closer to mine. ‘He simply can’t resist a hard-luck case.’ She stepped back. ‘I’m guessing it has to be something big for him to tear him away from his human plaything.’ Her lips relaxed into a wicked smile, displaying fully descended fangs. ‘But who knows? You might get snatched away by the Dark One again and I won’t have to hear about you any more. Wouldn’t that be great?’
With that she laughed and vanished.
I wasn’t sure what to make of her attitude towards me. Clearly she didn’t have much use for me, but I knew she’d follow Devereux’s orders. I was sure she wouldn’t hurt me. Probably.
Leave it to Devereux to choose a pissed-off beauty queen for his personal assistant. No bug-eating, rotted-tooth Renfield for him.
I relocked the door and returned to my desk.
The next task on my list was to contact all my clients, cancel or reschedule any appointments set for the next couple of days and assure them I’d be functioning again as quickly as possible. I spoke with all but a handful and left general messages for the ones I hadn’t reached, asking them to contact me.
Tired, I rubbed the back of my neck to ease the tight muscles. I shuffled over to my comfortable chair, found the remote control and clicked through the channels, searching for mindless entertainment.
I landed on a well-known national discussion programme. The show’s host was an abrasive, politically dogmatic, argumentative bully who only had guests to give him someone to shout over. I usually didn’t have much time for television, and this show was particularly worth avoiding, but something about the topic caught my attention.
A diverse panel was talking about the end of the world. Normally discussions about that topic have a decidedly religious flavour and don’t appeal to me, but this group appeared to be comprised of all kinds of people: scientists, psychics, spiritual leaders, law-enforcement officials and politicians: quite an unexpected amalgam of opinions.
An old white-haired woman on the panel moved to the podium and spoke. ‘The world is being contaminated by a growing darkness, a cumulative negative energy so strong that it’s eliciting the worst from all the Earth’s inhabitants. The idea that thoughts and emotions hold certain vibrations is no longer speculation. According to the Law of Attraction, like attracts like, and we are witnessing clear evidence of that all over the world today.’
Where had I heard that before? It sounded so familiar. Then I remembered – Cerridwyn the tarot-reader had said almost exactly the same thing. I hadn’t realised the end of the world had become such a hot topic.
The speakers droned on and I listened to the panel’s discussion, waiting for the voices of ridicule and condescension that usually follow such proclamations, but none came. Everyone on the panel had a unique angle on this ‘growing darkness’ to share.
My ears pricked up when they mentioned Denver as one of the cities on the leading edge of the escalating negativity. According to a dark-skinned man wearing a turban, unexplained deaths and all forms of violence had increased in these cities at a higher rate than the national average. They devoted the next few minutes to comparing ideas about why those particular cities and areas of the country had become the focus of evil, and decided it had something to do with a psychic buildup of toxic human emotions: hate, fear, blame, guilt, rage, shame – conditions that prepared the ground for increased violence, manipulation, intolerance, control and destruction.
The white-haired woman explained, ‘People’s focus on fear, hatred, and violence has caused a greater vibrational accumulation of those emotions in places across the country where there are powerful concentrations of hopeful, optimistic, and enlightening energy. In other words, everything and its opposite exists equally – and in these locations, they are both increasing.
‘We are called to make a choice between love, compassion and tolerance and hate, fear and war. A true archetypal Armageddon.’
The discussion sounded so New Age, I was shocked by the host’s uncharacteristic lack of reaction. Strange. I’d never heard him be polite with anyone before. I guessed his behaviour was as clear an indication of the impending end of the world as anything. Or maybe hell had frozen over.
I thought about the reading Cerridwyn had given me and all the weird situations I’d found myself in since then. I was no longer the same person who had concrete answers about what was and wasn’t real. Maybe I should go and visit her again.
Wow. Did I just seriously consider going to a psychic on purpose?
The programme went to commercial and a group of children in costumes screamed, ‘Trick or Treat!’ as an advertisement for Hallowe’en candy filled the screen.
Hallowe’en? Was it Hallowe’en already? I didn’t even know what day of the month it was, although I’d vaguely been aware it was October. Turned out today was the thirtieth, so tomorrow was Hallowe’en.
I’d loved the holiday as a child. It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out what metaphor I was acting out by dressing up as a princess every year. Damn those Disney fairy tales!
In graduate school, I studied Samhain, the old pagan holiday that pre-dates our current consumer-driven observance; it celebrates the time of year when the veil between the worlds is most transparent – when magic is afoot.
Unfortunately, our culture became suspicious of true magic and has shrouded the holiday in fear, superstition and nonsense. I’d attended a Wiccan coven’s ritual once and walked around hearing bits of people’s thoughts for a week afterwards. Powerful stuff.
I’d read something in the newspaper recently about a big party or gathering on Hallowe’en, a yearly event. Not that I intended to go – my life was bizarre enough without voluntarily adding more occult madness.
A sudden pain shot across my forehead and my stomach seized.
The lightbulbs in both the overhead fixture and the table lamp simultaneously exploded, leaving the room illuminated only by the eerie glow of the large TV screen.
‘Harlot! Whore!’
The screeching voice from behind me startled me so badly I leaped out of the chair and landed on top of the coffee table, knocking over my glass of wine.
Creeping towards me, circling in front of the table I was crouching on, was an emaciated-looking male. The sunken cheeks of his white, cadaverous face appeared blue in the shadowy light and his floor-length black coat hung loosely on his tall, wiry frame. His head was a luminous egg, hairless, with crisscrossing veins. His coal-black eyes were rimmed with swollen red tissue, something foul and thick oozing from the corners. He looked like an experiment gone wrong. A body in search of its grave.