Under a Ghostly Moon (Jerry Moon Supernatural Thrillers Book 1) (12 page)

Moon sauntered through the Broadmead shopping centre amid the flow of homeward bound workers.  A lot of the shops were holding closing down sales because there were plans to drastically remodel the area.
One of these was Ethnicity, a store that sold South American, African and Indian clothing and jewellery, where he found a very nice amber bracelet for Sonia for half price.  He also purchased the matching pendant and earrings, which he thought would make good birthday presents.

He whiled away the next hour
, browsing bookshops and comic shops, and then headed across town towards Hotwells.  The skies had darkened while he had been shopping and now the occasional drop of rain was falling from the ragged grey sky.  Moon considered catching a bus in the centre but quickly abandoned the idea when he saw the length of the evening bus queues.  He would just have to hope that the rain wouldn’t be too bad by the time he got to Sonia's place.  So he headed for the waterfront and struggled his way along the covered walkway by the Watershed building, which was crowded with post-work pub-goers. By the time he reached the other end it was raining bucket loads.  Frowning with disgust, he pulled an old brown suede baseball cap out of his inside pocket, crammed it onto his head and plunged into the rain.  The roadway that ran behind the university was marginally more sheltered than the quayside route so he dashed towards the minimal shelter of the buildings along its western side.  Pulling his collar up around his ears, he trudged through the worsening rain.  This was one of the worst things about of living in Bristol, he thought - every now and then the skies would open in biblical proportions – it was the penalty they paid for being so close to the Atlantic.  He arrived eventually at Sonia and Avril's door, sodden to the core and wondering if he was in danger of evolving webbed feet and gills.  He rang the bell and a few seconds later Avril opened the door.  "God, you're soaked.  You'd best come inside quickly.  Sonia, your beloved's here, and you'd better bring some towels!"

Avril
ushered him into their kitchen where Sonia had briefly stopped cooking to take some towels down from one of the cupboards.  "Shit, Jerry, you look like a drowned cat!"

"
Don't you mean 'rat'?" replied Moon, conscious that he was dripping a sizeable pond onto the lino.

"
No cat - definitely cat - cuter but more miserable when wet.  We'd better get you out of those wet things.  You know where the bathroom is, don’t you?”  Moon nodded. “Good, you can borrow my bathrobe, it's the dark purple one with the hood."

It was fifteen minutes later and a much warmer and drier Moon was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea in his hand.  The mug, shaped like a dragon's head, glowered at him disapprovingly.  He was wearing his boxer shorts and Sonia's dark purple bathrobe.  It had a black furry trim around the hood and a bat on the pocket.  He felt like the vampire Father Christmas.  "You should have taken the bus," said Sonia in a motherly tone.

"
They were full," replied Moon, "and it didn't start raining heavily until I was half-way here.  Sorry, I'm just not weather-wise I guess." Sonia shook her head while working busily at the cooker.  "Didn't you say it was just going to be turkey burgers?" Moon commented as she threw diced courgettes into a frying pan.

"
I thought I'd surprise you with my culinary expertise," answered Sonia with a hint of pride.  "Garlic chicken stir-fry sound okay?"

"
Wonderful," replied Moon, sipping his tea and enjoying watching Sonia fuss with her cooking.  "You never said you could cook."

"
Well, a girl has to keep some mystery in her relationships.  Anyway, this is recipe number two in a huge repertoire of five, so enjoy the novelty while it lasts."

"
I'll buy you a recipe book for your birthday," said Moon, cocking a mischievous eyebrow at Avril, who tried to hide a grin.

"
You bloody well dare!" Sonia rounded on him with her spatula raised in killing position.

Moon laughed
.  "It's okay love.  I've had to fend for myself long enough to have a few recipes of my own up my sleeve.  Together we should be able to manage oh, ten at least."

Sonia bent to kiss him
.  "A couple more and we can open our own restaurant.  Perhaps I'll buy
you
a cookbook then you can really be my ideal man."

Moon aimed a light slap at her rump
.  "You never told me you were into ‘D and S’."

"
You never asked me, slave!" Avril, who was feeling a bit left out, coughed and pointed at the frying pan, from which the first thin wisps of smoke were rising.  "Bloody hell!" Sonia grabbed a jug of water, which she had wisely left within handy reach on the counter top, and poured some into the sizzling pan before the contents could burn.  "Just caught it!  Any more of your lip, Jerry Moon, and it's burnt offerings for tea."

Moon decided not to mention what he had learned about Uri or to discuss his visit to the Hangman's Rest over tea.  Partly because he didn't think Avril would take what he had to say seriously, but mainly because he thought it best to keep the matter of Uri's secret nature between Sonia and himself for the time being at least.  So the conversation over the meal, which turned out to be very tasty despite its earlier brush with incineration, was restricted to small talk and general banter.  When the meal was finished Avril insisted that it was her turn to do the washing up so the others retired quickly to Sonia's room with cups of tea.

T
hey sat down and cuddled on Sonia's bed.  "You look really cute in that bathrobe, you know," said Sonia playfully tweaking Moon's left nipple, which was partly exposed by the gaping robe.

"
Ouch! Do you think so? I was going more for the Grim Reaper option myself."

Sonia shook her head
.  "Too fluffy, anyway the robe Death wears is black and I don't remember hearing anything about him wearing white boxers with red hearts on them; how romantic."

"
They were a gift from my Mum," insisted Moon with embarrassment.  He covered the garish garment with a fold of the towelling robe.  "I hadn't bargained on this amount of exposure for tonight."

"
Well, I'm really glad you decided to walk then." She slipped her hands inside the robe and felt Moon's response to her touch through his romantic boxers.  "Damn! I'll be glad when that week's over!"

"
Me too!" replied Moon, kissing her deeply.

A passionate ten minutes later, Sonia pushed Moon gently away,
"Okay, okay, I can see where this is heading and we need to calm down a bit.  I'm still black and blue down there and we're not going to risk making it worse! Sorry."

"
Damn!" Moon released his hold on parts of Sonia's anatomy, sat up and re-tied the bathrobe.  "Sorry, I just got a bit carried away there, in the heat of the moment…"

"
You and me both." Sonia buttoned up her blouse and zipped up her jeans.  “Okay." She cuddled back up to him primly.  "To take our minds off ‘you-know-what’, tell me what you did today while I was fending off abusive phone-calls from unhappy customers." Sonia worked as a team leader for a telemarketing call centre.

"
Actually, it's a long story," replied Moon and he told her about his encounter with Uri and the shadow beast.

"
God, Jerry, you almost died! You've got to promise me you won't go wandering through graveyards on your own at night ever again."

"
It's not something that I'm intending to take up as a pastime, you know." Moon was a bit taken aback by Sonia's protectiveness.  "Anyway, that shortcut is definitely off the map for me in the evenings from now on."

"
And Uri told you that the monster that attacked you exists just because people believe in it?"

Moon shrugged
.  "He seemed to imply that a lot of things exist just because people believe in them."

"
Including vampires?"

"
Yes, including vampires, but in their case you need to have a human being involved as well. They provide the raw materials, so to speak."

"
And Uri really is a vampire?" Sonia shook her head.

"
Yes, and Charli and Roanne too - I told you as much last night."

She looked up at him sheepishly
.  "Yes.  But it's a lot to take in without harder evidence than your ‘spook sense’.  You know this means that they really could have murdered Dominic..."

"
Uri gave me some very good reasons to believe otherwise.  Sonia, the guy saved my life, that's not something I'd expect from a cold-blooded killer.  He also asked me to investigate Dominic's murder for him.  That's what I was doing all afternoon.  I talked to some of the resident spooks at the
Rest
about Dominic and, guess what… we have a description of the guy who dumped the body."

"
Really?"

"
Yes, really.  According to one of the ghosts until a few months ago he was one of the Goths who regularly hang out at the
Rest
.  He used to spend a lot of time in the poolroom apparently.  But now he's changed.  He's cut his hair short and is growing out the black dye so his yellow roots are showing.  Any ideas who it might be?"

"
He's probably one of the other guys that have disappeared off the scene in the last few months, which narrows the list of suspects down quite a lot.  I don't know everyone who goes to the
Rest
but, as far as I know, the people who have left recently include four blokes, including Dominic, and two girls.  I didn't know any of them very well, so I couldn't give you names for them, but I can find out."

Moon shook his head
.  "It's a pity we can't tell all this to the police.  Oh, and speaking of the police, on my way over here I also ran into our favourite sartorially challenged copper, Detective Inspector Whatley.  He let me in on a few things about their progress with Dominic's case because he hoped I might be able to provide him with a lead.  The evidence is making it look more and more like a vampire attack.  Whatley thinks it's probably some loony who thinks he's a vampire.  Apparently, in the past, there have been other murders in that 'genre' - is that the right word? Can you have a genre for murder?  The thing is that we know that it could be the real thing."

"
I thought Uri told you that he'd know if another vamp was in the area."

"
Yeah, but he doesn't have to be in the area does he?  Not if he's got a flunky with a car to move the body for him.  Anyway, I think Uri was right, dumping Dominic pretty much on Uri's doorstep does look like an attempt to frame him."

"
So you think it's a rival vampire trying to 'out' Uri?"

"
It could be." Moon thought for a second, "Look, do you have any way of contacting Uri? I think it would be best to warn him about this."

Under the pretence that Moon needed to ask Uri some questions to clarify a few things from the previous night's interview, they asked Avril to phone her boyfriend, Roger, who reluctantly let them have the number Uri had given Unquiet Grave to contact him.  When they were back in Sonia's room Moon called the number from his mobile and, to his surprise, a cultured male voice answered, "The Maddocks' residence, who is calling?"

"
Hello, I hope this isn't a wrong number, my name is Jerry Moon and it's very important that I speak with Uri." Moon hoped that, if this
was
the right number, he wasn't about to get the brush off from the vampires' butler or whoever this person was.

"
Ah, Mr Moon, Uri has mentioned you.  It may be a little early to disturb him; I'll just go and see if he's up." Moon cursed and looked at his watch, it was shortly after eight-thirty, out of the bedroom window the sun still hung low and red above the horizon.

"
What's up?" asked Sonia looking up from the magazine she had been flicking through.

"
It's still daylight.  Uri may not be out of his coffin yet."

Sonia
chuckled, "Not something you normally have to worry about, is it?" She looked up thoughtfully from her magazine.  "You know, whether vampires are vulnerable to daylight is one of the things the whole mythology is a bit unclear about.  The main theory seems to be that the older they are the more they're able to stay active during daylight hours but they can be killed by direct sunlight.  But then a lot of it's probably been invented fairly recently by Hollywood.  I don't think vampires were all that bothered by the sun before Christopher Lee played Dracula."

"
If what Uri has to say is true they probably have to stick with the current mythology, which, sad to say, is probably
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
... Ah! Uri?"

"
Hello, Moon." Uri's voice was still as deep and resonant over the phone as it had been in person.  "How can I help you?"

"
Hi, Uri, I was just wondering if I'd phoned too early for you to be awake."

"
It is early, yes.  But, like Stoker's Count Dracula, I can be active in the daytime if I so choose.  Now, what can I do for you so early in the evening?"

"
It's more a matter of what I can do for you.  First of all, the police want to talk with you.  I suggested they might be able to contact you via Kate at the Rest.  I hoped that she might be able to warn you before they got to you, because I was worried that it might cause problems, if they were to start looking into your background."

Uri
laughed gently.  "Thanks, Moon.  But it's okay, my ladies and I all have birth certificates registered at Somerset House just in case of such emergencies.  It is one of the advantages of having doctors and lawyers 'in the family', as you English say."

"
Oh, right." Moon hadn't considered how widespread the vampires' human family's influence might have become after three hundred years.  "The other thing I wanted to warn you about is that I ran into the police Inspector who's working on Dominic's case today and the evidence seems to be pointing towards some kind of vampiric attack.  His body had been drained of blood and Forensics are saying the bite on his neck looks like it was made by some kind of ape."

"
...Or a human with fangs, perhaps? Well, maybe another vampire
is
involved after all but I would have expected to have sensed one of my brethren if he entered our territory."

"
What if Dominic was killed elsewhere and then driven to the Rest by an accomplice?  I did some detective work myself today at the
Rest
, as you suggested.  The ghosts there say that Dominic's body was deposited in the alley by someone who used to be a regular at the pub.  The police also think he was killed somewhere else."

"
This is very strange.  If you want to hide a body you don't just leave it in open view in the middle of a city.  The only explanation I can think of is that someone is attempting to draw attention to Charli, Roanne and myself." Uri said a few words in rapid Russian.  From his tone of voice Moon assumed he was swearing.  "We have to find this lunatic, Moon, and stop him before he does anything else to expose us."

“Of course we must!
  From the description the ghosts gave me, the accomplice is one of the Goths that have recently left the scene around here, which narrows the search down to a handful of people.  I hope you don't mind but I thought it best to let Sonia in on your secret. She's going to see if she can come up with some names."