Blood Moon (Samantha Moon Case Files Book 2)

  BLOOD MOON

  by

  J.R. RAIN &

  MATTHEW S. COX

  Samantha Moon Case Files

  #2

  Blood Moon

  Published by Rain Press

  Copyright © 2018 by J.R. Rain, LLC.

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A Note From J.R. Rain

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Reading Sample: Silver Light

  Other Books by J.R. Rain

  Other Books by Matthew S. Cox

  About the Authors

  A Note From J.R. Rain

  Hi there! As some of you might recall, the events in Moon Bayou (Case Files #1) take place between Moon Dragon (Vampire for Hire #10) and Moon Shadow (Vampire for Hire #11). Blood Moon, by necessity, is a direct sequel to Moon Bayou. With that said, I believe a bit of a refresher course is necessary. At the end of Moon Dragon, Samantha Moon has just begun to get the hang of teleporting. By the next book, Moon Shadow, she is quite proficient at it. Additionally, at this point in the series, Sam has yet to meet Dr. Lichtenstein and his cadre of patchwork monsters, nor has she met the Devil himself. Anthony isn’t yet the Fire Warrior, and Sam certainly hasn’t traveled to the Land of Dur. With that in mind... enjoy!

  Return to the Table of Contents

  Blood Moon

  Chapter One

  I hate cows. Lately, I’ve been fantasizing about killing them all.

  Well, let me back that up a step.

  More accurately, I hate the watery half-dead mush of cows’ blood. Of course, it’s not the cows’ fault that some tormented twist of fate decided vampires ought to be real and not merely creatures of fiction. I mean, I can’t even really do the proper vampire thing. While blood from another person tastes the best and can make me even more powerful, I’ve sworn off human blood for a good reason―an “I’d rather not destroy the world” type of good reason. See, vampires happen when an ancient practitioner of dark magic, or at least what remains of their soul, jumps in at the moment of a person’s death. Human blood makes them stronger, too, and might just lead to them gaining power over the host body (that’s me) and taking it over completely. Guess what I don’t want to have happen? Anyway, when that vampire attacked me during my night jog, I picked up a hitchhiker. And not just any hitchhiker―I’m stuck as a living prison for one of history’s most evil souls.

  You say the sssweetest things, Sssamantha.

  Yeah, years ago, I used to have a job I loved as an agent for HUD, but this whole dead thing kinda got in the way. Being deathly allergic to sunlight has a slightly negative effect on my ability to hold down a day job. Especially one where slow reflexes and squinting all the time can get people killed. So, I decided to become self-employed as a private investigator. I did manage to come into possession of a magic ring that lets me survive in sunlight, which is so much easier to deal with than going through ten gallons of SPF five million sunblock every week.

  Listen to me. “Hi, I’m a vampire with a magic ring!” If I wasn’t living this, I’d think anyone who said that and meant it ought to get fitted for a straitjacket. But, as bizarre and unbelievable as it is, it’s not even the weirdest thing that’s happened to me as of late. Not by a long shot.

  Speaking of my old job, I’d almost be tempted to try to get it back if not for the risk that I could lose this ring at any time and wind up having to once again paint myself head to toe in sunscreen every morning. Plus, then I’d have to sit in those mind-numbing status meetings again.

  Nah. Hell with that.

  Besides, my life has gotten way too weird for a normal job.

  Every now and then, I get a case that goes off the rails. Like this one. Only this case went so far off the rails the train landed in the Pacific Ocean… or more accurately, in the 1800s. It started off with me trying to find a missing college student named Wendy, but led me to another missing-person issue, her friend, Angela Jenkins. And dumbass me decides to try and help that poor lost soul pro bono, ’cause, you know, that’s who I am, and sometimes I really, really hate that about me.

  Anyway, I walk (more like fly) straight into a voodoo ritual gone wrong. At least, I think it went wrong. How many voodoo rituals intentionally throw an approaching vampire back almost two centuries in time? Honestly, I don’t think the priestess doing the ritual even meant to hurl me into the past. She murdered Angela as a sacrifice and boom—magic shit happened.

  My naked ass landed in a field right around the time of the Civil War. But I’m not in Louisiana anymore. I’ve gone elsewhere. And not just anywhere. Chasing down rumors that there might be someone in this area powerful enough at voodoo to send me home, this modern California girl has recently arrived in Richmond, Virginia, in what I think is about 1862. You know, the absolute worst place to be during the Civil War―ground effing zero.

  Sucks to be me.

  And at the moment, I mean that literally, as I’ve got my fangs embedded in the neck of a cow. Never in my life did I imagine I’d be anywhere near an animal like this, much less biting into one. Fortunately, animal blood works just fine for keeping me going, even if it does taste like watered-down crap. I used to like the occasional rare steak, but sinking my teeth into live beef? My jackass ex-husband, Danny, managed to arrange a deal with one of his former clients to provide a steady supply of animal blood in plastic bags. I’m not used to having to actually use my fangs to feed. In truth, I’d almost forgotten I even had them. I know, right? A vampire who forgets her fangs? Still, they unsettle me.

  However, I’m a couple hundred years away from of the invention of plastic bags or reliable refrigeration. Blood doesn’t keep long outside of a body so my only option is direct from the tap. Prior to my ride back in time, I hadn’t actually put fang-to-flesh since the early days of being an undead. And I avoid human blood at all costs after I learned about the whole Dark Master thing and how my entity, Elizabeth, becomes more powerful if I consume human blood.

  Which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if she wasn’t like the most evil thing imaginable.

  You’ve been in the heat too long, Sssamantha. Your brain is going in circles.

  True. Overbearing August sun makes me feel like I’m seconds away from melting, and that’s quite an accomplishment since I lack body heat. I’m sweating because my body thinks it should be sweating. Perhaps on some cellular level, it remembers sweating in such heat. Truth be told, I’m still frighteningly cold to the touch.

  Another thing I never imagined I’d ever do is mind-control a bovine. As a vampire, I’ve got more than a little affinity for affecting the minds of other people. Turns out, it sorta works on cows too, but only enough to leave them dumbfounded and paralyzed in confusion. I can’t read their
minds to find out what deep, dark cow secrets they’re keeping from us, nor can I command them to do anything. Well, I suppose ‘stand there and ignore me biting you’ is a command.

  After taking my fill, I seal the bite wound, hike up this God-awful dress, and march across the meadow away from the pasture. All right, I admit fresh cow blood is a ton better than the refrigerated crap I get from the butcher with bits of hair and flesh still floating in it. It’s a good thing I’m no longer vulnerable to salmonella or tapeworms. I’ve probably eaten enough of both to depopulate an entire small country.

  You know what sucks more than August sun in Virginia? Randomly coughing up a chunk of pig skin that still has hair attached to it. That’s not easy to explain to people. But it’s reasonably simple to make mortals forget bizarre things they’ve witnessed. How else could vampires have maintained the idea that they’re mythological for so damn long? I wonder what weird, frightening things the vampires of antiquity had to make people forget seeing.

  Slowly but surely, I think I’m going native. I mean, I get that it’s natural to want to fit in, but I’m starting to seriously talk and even think all formal and old-fashioned like these people. It might be the effect of the magic that threw me back in time. I’m even getting used to the all BO, too, and how everybody’s shorter than modern people and they all wear such thick, uncomfortable clothes. I’m even tolerating the lack of cell phones, the Internet, and TV. The constant preaching and churchiness is a little annoying, but it’s so pervasive it’s essentially part of the ambiance. And don’t even get me started on my new table manners. But worst of all… I think the magic messed with my head, making me forget where I came from and the people who matter most to me. The case I’d been involved with back in Louisiana feels like a blur in my mind, one of those things that I’m no longer sure if it really happened or I dreamed it. Okay, I’m sure it really happened but my head is so... damn... foggy. The other day when I randomly thought of my kids, it hit me that I hadn’t been thinking about them much at all.

  That scared the shit out of me.

  I mean, all the crazy things that have been happening to my family as of late, I can barely tolerate spending more than an hour away from my kids before I worry that something bizarre is going to threaten their lives. That I’ve been toddling around the 1800s with nary a thought of them hit me like a four-horse carriage at a full gallop.

  Fortunately, (or unfortunately, as it’s left my brain spinning with worry) I’ve managed to overcome whatever mental block the magical detonation left in my head. Of course, that means I’m now going nuts trying to figure out how the hell to get home to my own time before something bad happens to Tammy or Anthony.

  Or to me.

  By the way, nobody here says “Civil War.” They just call it “the rebellion” and call themselves Rebels or Confederates. The hated Northerners are “the Yankees”—or “Damn Yankees,” for short. They’re also called the Federals or the Unionists. Technically, as a Californian or “Westerner,” I’m also a Unionist, but it doesn’t seem to matter to these people. There are plenty of Union sympathizers here, even a fire-breathing abolitionist on the Richmond town council, but there’s no talk of jailing anybody, at least none that I’ve heard. Southerners are hospitable to a fault.

  Vampires don’t cry much, but I’d had tears in my eyes the day I left New Orleans.

  I was going to miss the heck out of the three people I’d come to care about most in this time period: Colonel Bart—Barthelemy Macarty, Deputy Mayor of the city of New Orleans and superintendent of its police department, his daughter, Pelagie Jouelle, or “Lalie,” and her new husband, Dr. James Gordon Bell. Not only had the three of them taken me in and treated me like family, but they’d all learned my secret. And therein the problem lay. They’d seen me change into my big flying half-dragon shape, had witnessed the fury of my claws and fangs, and watched me tear out the throat of the vampire who had kidnapped Lalie. I’d seen in their eyes that they’d never be able to fully trust me again—or even look at me in quite the same way. So I’d decided to get out of Dodge. Or, in this case, New Orleans, as soon as I caught wind of a rumor about a possible source of help around Richmond.

  And worst of all, leaving Louisiana put more and more distance between me and the only person in this time period I knew for a fact could get me back to my own time: Marie Laveau, a famous voodoo queen. For some reason I still don’t understand, she hates my guts and refuses to help me, even though it had been her great-great-great-granddaughter who’d punched my one-way ticket back in time in the first place.

  Actually, worst of all is that I’ve been running around Richmond and the surroundings for a few days now and haven’t come up with a single lead. No one knows anything about any voodoo practitioners in the area, and even asking about it caused a few of the local gentry to get some rather sadistic ideas about punishing their slaves for what might be going on unnoticed.

  Fortunately, I can play with the minds of mortals.

  Still, as much as it settled my conscience to make them forget about torturing those poor people, it didn’t get me any closer to returning home to my children.

  I wander into a grove of trees abutting the pasture and flop down to sit in the shade. It’s gotta be damn hot for me to be feeling this light-headed. If not for the sheer effort it would take to remove without destroying it, I’d fling off this ridiculously cumbersome dress and try to relax. What I wouldn’t give for a sports bra and yoga pants right about now. Ugh.

  The longer I sit, the more hopelessness invades my thoughts. I’ve been stranded here for weeks, and now my thoughts are damn sure set on making up for all the time I somehow managed not to constantly worry about Tammy and Anthony. Anything could’ve possibly happened to them since I’ve been gone. What are they thinking happened to me? What’s even going on back home right now while I’m stuck here sitting under this tree? Did Mary Lou step in and take them home? Did something else go wrong and put their lives in danger?

  “Laveau’s just as likely to destroy me as help me.” I rake my fingers through my hair in sheer frustration.

  It wouldn’t take much for me to influence Laveau, especially if I caught her off guard with an ambush. If I could find her again… but with my luck, she’s got a talisman or something to protect herself. Mortals who know about vampires’ existence and also happen to be powerful voodoo practitioners aren’t going to be walking around unprotected.

  Grr.

  I seem to be getting nowhere in a hurry. Not like I’m going to grow old or anything, but I can’t help but shiver with worry for my kids. Seems not a week can pass without something bizarre happening in the Moon household. And for us, bizarre often means deadly.

  A spot of cow blood on my left hand catches my eye, so I lick it, then stare at my skin.

  I’m thirty-one years old. Or at least, I died at thirty-one. Still, I look closer to twenty-five thanks to vampirism. Or maybe that’s a side effect of my particular Dark Master. I have a sneaking suspicion Elizabeth might actually be the soul of Countess Bathory, who had a thing for youth and beauty. Maybe she can’t stand being trapped inside an “old maid” of thirty-something and made me look younger.

  At the same instant it hits me that I’m going to look like this forever, I wind up laughing out of sheer morbidity. The voodoo ritual sent me to the past. I can simply wait and I’ll eventually get home. It’s not as if I’m going to die of old age. And heck… You know, this time-travel thing might not be a bad thing after all. If I’m going to pass through time naturally again, I might be able to locate my mortal self in the future before I’m attacked. Without even having to convince myself not to go out jogging that night, I could command myself to stay home and stay safe. Heck, I could even command my mortal self to go find my alchemist friend years before the attack and seek protection from the ‘forces of evil.’

  I could go back to being Samantha Moon, federal agent. Danny wouldn’t freak out. My kids would still be normal. Holy shit, this migh
t actually be the best thing that ever happened to me!

  That is, if I can put up with waiting like 150 years.

  Sssamantha, you shouldn’t give up. That is a long time to be without your family. Do you really want to be ssseparated from them for that long? There is one close who can help you.

  My eyes narrow. The odds of Elizabeth being genuinely helpful are about the same as a politician turning down free money. Either she’s messing with me, or my plan to wait a century and a half and stop myself from ever being turned into a vampire could work―and she’s scared.

  I know you better than you think I do. You will not be able to tolerate such a long absenccce. Anything could happen to them before you return. Anything...

  Did I mention time travel makes my head hurt? I bite my knuckle, torn with the worry that I’m not there for my kids and they need me. But at the same time, if I can simply wait things out, does that mean that time isn’t actually passing in the future right now? I think it just might be.

  That is not my ssspecialty. But I can assure you, Sssamantha, your fate cannot be sssignificantly altered.

  I rub the bridge of my nose, barely suppressing the urge to growl. Desperation must be at an all-time high since I’m not doing everything I can to tamp her back down into the mental box I try to keep her in. There’s about a ninety-percent chance the best thing for me to do is let time flow and spare my entire family from having to deal with this supernatural rollercoaster from hell. But I can’t shake that twenty-percent doubt that I’d wind up doing nothing at all, other than waste a century and a half only to still be attacked somewhere else and turned into a vampire. Who knows what could change? The one who turned me might hurt my children or Danny—or my sister, who I later learned, had been a viable target—to get to me if I didn’t present myself as such an easy target while out jogging in the middle of the night.