Moon River (5 page)

I saw Russell about twice a week, which was enough for me. Maybe I wasn’t ready for more, I don’t know. Or maybe Russell and I didn’t have enough chemistry. We were always comfortable, relaxed, friendly...and yes, passionate, too. But the passion didn’t extend much further than the bedroom.

The evening was warm. It was early summer. School had just gotten out. I would have my kids for the next three months. A good thing on the one hand: I could sleep in. My kids knew my super-secret identity, and kept it brilliantly, including secrets of their own.

That my kids had to go around keeping so many secrets was something of a burden for me. I hated knowing that I had inconvenienced them. Lord knew I tried to keep it all from them...I just couldn’t. Not consistently.

Granted, it hadn’t all been bad. Truth be known, our combined freakiness—my immortality, my son’s super-strength, and my daughter’s ability to read all minds—had brought us closer. It was a sort of
us versus them
, and it was nice.

For now.

We’d see how this all played out.

As we jogged, Russell and I chatted amicably, easily, neither of us out of breath. My shield was up with him, as usual. It was always up. Otherwise, he would probe, unknowingly, deep into my psyche. He would have been surprised as hell by what he found in there.

No, Russell did not know my super-secret identity. I had purchased a lifetime supply of hand warmers, which I kept in my pockets at all times, so that when he and I held hands, there was some semblance of warmth. Granted, there wasn’t much warmth when we were body to body, but I didn’t think Russell had noticed how cold my flesh might have felt in those intimate moments.

Afterward, I rarely lay naked next to him. I would jump up, pretend to use the bathroom, then get dressed and lay next to him again.

It was weird. He knew it was weird, but never said anything about it.

For us to work, for us to make it to another level, I would have to trust him with my Big Secret. And I would have to trust him without controlling his mind, which I swore to myself that I would never do.

He knew about my inability to go into sunlight, and he knew I wasn’t much of an eater. I also suspected that he knew I was keeping something important from him.

Boy, was I.

Hardest of all was that Anthony had fallen in love with Russell. And why wouldn’t he? Russell was a professional fighter...and we had gone to his last two big fights. One in Los Angeles, and one in Vegas. Anthony was Russell’s biggest fan.

Not to mention, I had spent the last six months shielding my thoughts from him, which got exhausting. Russell and I had developed an almost immediate psychic link, much like I had with Detective Sanchez. Except, with Russell, I could never fully
go there
with him.

I wasn’t sure why. I think, perhaps, out of a need to have a
real
relationship. To be as normal as possible. Except, being normal was proving exhausting and almost impossible. I spent half my time lying to the poor guy. Yes, lying came easily to private investigators. We lied to get what we wanted—we pretended to be other people, other occupations, whatever it took to close a case.

I’d found that once the lies had started with Russell, I just couldn’t take them back...and I didn’t want to be known as a liar. I didn’t want him to think he couldn’t trust me.

But, nevertheless, I was indeed fibbing to him. I was a fibber. The whole damn relationship was built on fibs.

“
You’re quiet this evening, Sammie. Are you okay?” Russell asked. His voice was silky smooth. His movements were silky smooth, and they were in the bedroom, too. The man had full control over his body...and what a body it was.

Sadly, he also thought that we were closer in age than we really were.

He thought I was mortal.

I lied about the food I ate.

The drinks I drank.

I lied about my friends.

About my kids.

About the real reason for my divorce.

I lied about everything to him.

Yes, I probably should have come clean about it all...but once the lies started, I couldn’t take them back. And I didn’t want him to know what a monster I really was. He adored me. I knew he did. His interest was genuine, real.

He didn’t deserve me or my lies.

As we jogged, I turned to him. “No, I’m not okay,” I said. “We need to talk.”

Chapter Ten

We stood together on a little bridge.

The bridge spanned a stream that flowed into the bigger pond...or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe the pond flowed into the stream. Hard to say since the water was mostly stagnant and smelled. Beneath the dark surface, I could see glowing torpedo-shaped fish swimming idly. I could see other forms glowing, too. Water spiders and flying insects. Most life gave off a sort of bio-luminescence, at least to my eyes. I could see anything living at night. And sometimes things not living, too.

I see all,
I thought.

I was, I suspected, the ultimate hunter.

Anyway, Russell and I were both leaning against the wooden railing. The park was mostly empty at this hour, as it should be. No one but vampires and professional boxers should be out jogging in a city park at night.

There was, however, a man who strolled casually off on the far edge of the lake, hands behind his back, whistling softly to himself. To my eyes, in the dark, he looked very bright, his aura shining a radiant blue. I knew of such auras, although I rarely saw them.
Blue
meant that he was deeply spiritual, and the brighter the blue, the more spiritual. His was a brilliant sapphire blue that extended far beyond his body. Who he was, I didn’t know, but I suspected he was a true master. As such, he had nothing to fear from the dark. Indeed, all good things were attracted to such masters, and they, in turn, radiated good things. I wondered what he would make of me.

I sensed Russell’s rising anxiety. He knew that nothing good was going to come from the talk. I could almost hear his heart beating, too. Lord knew it certainly wasn’t my own lackadaisical heart, which tended to beat once every ten seconds or so, if that.

I’m so very, very weird.

At the far side of the lake, the bright blue light stopped. Within the blue light, I saw the man turn and face me, his hands still behind his back.

As I stood there on the ridge debating what I needed to do, I sensed a warm tingling come over me. Almost never does the word
warm
ever apply to me, and so I perked up at the rare sensation.

Russell hadn’t moved, and there was no wind. There was, in fact, no obvious source of the warmth, which now surrounded me gently, as if with loving arms. The hair on my neck and arms stood on end, too, but not because I was cold, but because something alive and warm was moving around me.

It’s him,
I thought, looking again at the figure at the far side of the lake, a figure who was still facing us, hands still behind his back.

I knew that no one but a fellow creature of the night should be able to see us. In fact, I doubted that Russell even knew there was a man watching us.

But he wasn’t a creature of the night.

He was, I suspected, just the opposite.

Something holy, something filled with light, something that repelled creatures like me.

But he wasn’t repelling me now.

No, he was reaching out to me. It was, in fact,
his
warmth surrounding me.

“
So, what did you want to talk about, Sam?” said Russell. He didn’t turn his handsome face toward me. He continued looking out over the bridge, out toward the black lake. The lake wasn’t so black to me. It was alive and well, and shining with more light than I would ever have dreamed possible.

“
Release him, child,”
I heard a voice say. A voice, I was certain, that had come upon the wind.

For a moment, I thought it had been Russell who had spoken to me...but no, the voice had come from over the lake, drifting to me on warm currents.

Drifting to me from
him
.

Was that you?
I thought, looking out toward the man who was still watching us.

I didn’t get a response, but I still felt the warm current moving over the water, enveloping me completely. As I reveled in it...after all, it was so rare that I felt warm these days, the full impact of the words hit me: “Release him, child.”

Release who?
I thought. But I didn’t get an answer.

I looked again at Russell, who was now watching me. I could see the concern in his eyes. He knew what was coming.

“Sam,” he said. “I know what you’re going to say, but please don’t say it. Please. I’m happy. We’re happy. Don’t say the words, okay?”

When I looked back over the water, the figure had continued on, moving slowly. His blue aura shined brighter than ever.

Release him...release Russell?

“
Russell, I haven’t been entirely honest with you—”

“
Samantha, I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re a mass murderer. I can’t lose you.”

I blinked, processing. “You don’t care if I’m a murderer?”

“No, Sam. I need you. I love you.”

We had, of course, never talked about love, although I sensed that we had been getting closer.

Release him, child...

As Russell stared down at me, as he took my hand and held it tightly, I suddenly realized why he didn’t care if my hands were cold, or that my body was cold, or why I never ate. Russell didn’t care if I was cold, or different...or even a mass murderer.

I suddenly knew what the words meant, words spoken to me on the wind by a blue-aura master.

Russell, I suspected, was bonded to me.

Chapter Eleven

“What, exactly, does
bonded
mean?” asked Allison over the phone.

It was later and I was heading home. Unfortunately, I had been unable to release Russell Baker as the voice had asked. I hadn’t intended to
release
him...I had intended to
break up
with him, as normal people do.

But you’re not normal, Sam...and you never will be again.

Truth was, I had been too stunned by the revelation that another human being was bonded to me, to think clearly. I had made up some lame excuse of wanting to talk about him and the dangers of fighting...and Russell had said he would give up fighting for me.

Give up fighting.

For me.

My head was still spinning.

Yes, I had intended to break up with Russell Baker, although he’d done nothing wrong—and I had done
everything
wrong. I had lied to him from day one...but, I now knew, he would forgive me for the lies. He would have forgiven me for anything.

I saw the look in his eyes, heard it in his voice.

Bonded.

“
You never noticed it before?” Allison was asking.

“
No,” I said. “I just thought he was, you know,
into
me. I just thought he was agreeable. Sweet.”

“
And the more he agreed to, the worst you felt.”

“
I always felt bad,” I said. “I mean, he has no idea who I really am.”

“
So tell him, Sam.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. The road before me was empty as I drove through the night along the hilly Bastanchury Road, heading home. Yes, I’d considered telling Russell a hundred times about my super-secret identity, and a hundred different times I had talked myself out of it. His life was normal. His life was pure, uncomplicated. Sure, he’d chosen a rough route as a professional fighter. But it was still
normal
. The moment I had opened my mouth about who and what I was, his sweet, simple, uncomplicated life would be thrown upside down.

“
Well, your uncomplicated life was thrown upside down,” said Allison, following my train of thoughts.

“
Yes,” I said, “and the one person who could have stepped in to keep it that way, didn’t.”

“
Ishmael,” said Allison, referring to my one-time guardian angel who had, in fact, set me up. Yes, Allison knew my entire story inside and out. Hell, she knew me inside and out.

“
Yes,” I said. “And I hate him for it. And I’ll hate him forever.”

Even as I spoke those words, something flashed across the sky through my windshield...something that could have been an errant headlight, an advertising spotlight...or something else. A fallen angel, perhaps.

“What the hell was that?” said Allison.