Under a Ghostly Moon (Jerry Moon Supernatural Thrillers Book 1) (18 page)

"
So how do I use this to fight?"

"
You're keen!"
Anna laughed.

"
No, I'm just eager to preserve my hide."

"
Right, well all I can give you is a bit of theory I’ve worked out for myself.  I haven't had to put this into practice but the way I would use it to fight is to turn it into a weapon in the same way you can turn a touch into a slap.  Instead of reaching out tentatively I would strike out hard with my ghost sense, using it like a whiplash to snap energy away from your target.  Like this!"

Moon saw a vague tendril of blue fire strike forth from the tiny ghost
's forehead and slash across his extended hand.  It felt like a blade of ice cutting through the top layer of his skin.  "Ouch! That stung."

Anna
looked as surprised as Moon felt. 
"It actually worked? That's wonderful!"
she squeaked.

"
I thought you were supposed to know something about this sort of thing," complained Moon.

"
Only what I've managed to figure out for myself over the years but I
was
right, wasn't I?"

"
Only by accident," replied Moon sarcastically.

"
No, by a work of careful deduction,"
replied Anna firmly. 
"Why don't you try to do it to me now?"

"
Okay," agreed Moon, attempting to narrow his ghost sense into a fine whip the way Anna had.  The first attempt merely brought forth a peal of mocking giggles as his effort dispersed harmlessly before reaching the ghost. Moon’s the second attack, however, was fuelled by his frustration.  The resulting slash of spirit energy brought forth a keening wail from his target.

"
You hurt me,"
sobbed Anna accusingly, her face crumpling into a tearful mask of resentment.

"
But you told me to!" replied Moon defensively.

"
I didn't mean you should do it so hard."
Anna rubbed her left hand over her right forearm, which was haemorrhaging a cloud of bluish energy as a result of Moon's attack.

"
I'm sorry Anna; I guess I don't know my own strength." Having just begun to get used to the new mature Anna this sudden reversion to the four-year-old had caught him off guard.  Concentrating the way she had taught him, he reached out his hand and gently stroked her hair.

Anna
composed herself, drying her eyes with her small fists.  She looked up at him. 
"It's alright, Jerry.  I just wasn't prepared for such a powerful attack so I reverted to type for a moment there.  It's so difficult to stay focused on being adult when your soul's trapped in childhood."
She rubbed her small head against his hand.
"This is the first time someone has touched me for nearly a century, Jerry.  Thanks, it's nice."

She crawled up onto his lap and he cradled her to him
.  "A hundred years is a hell of a long time to go without a cuddle, isn't it?" he replied with tears forming in his eyes.

Shortly later Moon’s fatigue caught up with him again and he fell asleep with Anna in his arms.  He woke again at about six o'clock.  Anna was nowhere to be seen. Moon hoped she was okay, wherever she was. The last few minutes that they had spent together before he dozed off had been deeply emotional.  He felt that some kind of special bond had formed between the tiny ghost and himself in that short time and he wasn’t certain what it meant for the future. 

He
decided to phone to see if Uri was available.  He wasn't sure just how early the vampire would be able to rise during daylight hours.  Uri had said that he was like Count Dracula in this respect. From what could remember of Bram Stoker's creation, Count Dracula was able to move around in daylight like any other nocturnal creature.  So perhaps Uri was similar to a human and had to 'sleep' a number of hours to regenerate but was able to wake if necessary.

He phoned the mobile number that Uri had given him and a female voice on the other end of the line said,
"Hi, Uri's phone, who's speaking?"

Moon detected a slight Spanish accent
.  "Hi, Charli isn't it? It's Moon here, I'd like to speak to Uri if that's possible."

"
Hi, Moon," replied Charli brightly, "he's in the shower at the moment, can I get him to call you back?"

"
Okay, but please tell him it's quite important that I speak to him."

"
I will do.  Something to do with our poor Dominic is it?"

"
I think it's connected, yes."

"
I'll get him to phone you right back - do we have your number?" Moon gave her both his home and mobile numbers then hung up.

Five minutes later the phone rang
.  It was Uri.  "Hi, Moon, Charli says you might have a lead?"

"
Yes, I have a name for our Ghost Eater…”  Moon paused.  He didn’t want to say too much because he wanted to hear how Uri would react to his news.

“Oh, and what is the name of this puzzling creature?”

“His name is Rurik and he sends you his regards."

There was an entire second’s pause before Uri’s stunned reply: 
"Rurik? My God, it can't be, he's dead.  I put an end to him centuries ago."

"
Well, that explains why he doesn't seem to like you very much.  He must be a ghost of some sort then?  I thought he might be another generic supernatural, like the boggart."

"
That is the only possible explanation.  It must be Rurik's ghost.  This is terrible!”

“Why, exactly?” asked Moon.

“Rurik is the single most ruthlessly evil creature that I have ever known, Moon. Even as a ghost, I would consider him deadly dangerous. Does this unwelcome revelation mean that you've actually encountered him?"

"
I met him last night..." Moon recounted the full tale of his previous night's experience to Uri.

"
Ah, so it seems Rurik's spirit seeks revenge.  This is all beginning to make a strange kind of sense now.  You see when he was alive Rurik was a vampire.  He was a very evil and powerful vampire who held others of our kind, including myself, in thrall. The evidence suggests that, as the ghost of a vampire, Rurik can suck the life force from ghosts like a living vampire is able to draw blood from the living." There was a slight pause at the other end of the phone.  "Moon, I need to consider this new development further.  Could we meet later so that we can discuss any fresh notions that may have come to my mind?"

"
I'm meant to be spending this evening with Sonia, Uri,"

replied Moon unhappily.

"This is important, Moon.  If Rurik is involved we need to consider a plan of action.  People...
many
people, will be in great danger."

Moon thought of the victims of the
previous night's storm of madness. Uri seemed to be suggesting that without their intervention this was going to escalate beyond measure. "Okay, we're meeting at the Rest in just over an hour, I'll try to explain to Sonia why we won't be able to just have a fun evening together."

After they said their goodbyes Moon attired
himself to go out.  A while ago he had bought himself a dark blue, velvety textured, long-sleeved shirt, which brought out the darker colours in his eyes to good effect.  He had decided that this would be a good occasion to try it out on Sonia.  He also chose a pair of black dress trousers, tooled black slip-on shoes and a mid length black coat.  "Not so bad," he said as he winked at his reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of his wardrobe door.  "Looks quite Gothy too so I shouldn't be such an obvious outsider tonight." He wondered if he should grow his hair.  Sonia would probably like it but from past experience he knew that he hated his hair at medium length.  It tended to stay at that anoying stage so long he usually gave up and had it shorn to within an inch of its life out of sheer frustration.

, Moon decided to take a taxi into the town centre to avoid the foul weather.  A fifteen minutes cab ride later and he was dodging king sized raindrops as he dashed the ten metres or so across the
Hangman's Rest's
courtyard to the door of the bar.  By the time he entered his hair was plastered flat to his skull and the shoulders of his coat were soaked through.  The bar was very quiet even for this early on a Friday evening because of the rain.  It took no time to locate Sonia, who looked very bedraggled, sitting on her own at a table near to one of the ancient radiators, which had various bits of steaming clothing, including Sonia's black trench coat, hanging over it to dry.  "Hi, love, how're you doing?" Moon hung his own coat over the back of a vacant chair.

Sonia looked up and smiled
.  "Hi, Jerry! I'm soaked to the skin but I'm fine otherwise.  Love the shirt!" she reached up to stroke its soft folds, "it goes well with your eyes."

Moon grinned then bent down to kiss her
.  "That was the general intention.  Can I get you a drink?"

Sonia pointed to her full glass
.  "I'm fine for the moment, thanks."

At the bar Moon bought himself a pint of Ostrich
.  He didn't recognize either of the on-duty bar staff but raised his glass to Kate, who was sitting on a stool at the other end of the bar chatting with friends.  She waved back cheerily, nodded in the direction of Sonia and gave him a thumbs-up.  He gathered the manageress approved of the fact that he and Sonia seemed to be on the way to becoming an established couple.

When he got ba
ck to their table he told Sonia that Uri would be gate crashing their night out. "I'm sorry but we're not going to have this evening to ourselves.  Something important has come up and Uri's coming in to see me later."

Sonia frowned and he could almost see the fires building behind her eyes
.  "What! But, Jerry, this was going to be our special night."

"
And it still can be... later," replied Moon with a calming gesture.  "I wouldn't have let Uri butt in on us at all, except that he insists that it's very important.  If it isn't I'll be standing nearby and ready to hand you the stake."

"
So what's so all fired important that he thinks he can spoil our night out?" asked the less than mollified Sonia.

"
I came face to face with the Ghost Eater last night. It seems he and Uri are old acquaintances… but not friends."  Moon emphasised this with an exaggerated shake of his head.

"
You've seen the Ghost Eater?" Sonia's eyes went wide with surprise.  "How did that happen?"

"
It was last night during my shift.  It came into a patient’s cubicle and gobbled up one of the hospital's resident ghosts right in front of me. Then it told me to give its regards to Uri.  When I phoned Uri and told him that its name is Rurik he sounded really terrified.  According to Uri, Rurik was some kind of master vampire that he killed hundreds of years ago.  He thinks that the Ghost Eater could be Rurik's spirit coming back for revenge."

Sonia frowned with concern
.  "Oh, Jerry, I don't like this.  This whole thing is beginning to scare me.  I've only just met you and I don't want to lose you to some... invisible monster."

Moon shook his head
.  "I can't back out of this, love.  The thing thinks that I'm a threat to its plans.  If I did try to ignore it all it would do is track me down and try to kill me.  I think my best plan of action is to learn all I can from Uri about how to get rid of it, assuming he
does
know how to fight it, that is."

"
I guess so." Sonia looked towards the door.  "Speak of the devil, here he comes now."

Uri
’s tall figure strode through the door like a gothic fashion model.  He threw back the hood of his knee-length black leather coat and his long white-blond hair streamed back from his finely chiselled masculine features.  Peeking through the open front of his coat, his hard, well defined torso rippled under the highlights of his black silk shirt.  Moon noticed that most of the female eyes in the pub, and one or two pairs of male eyes as well, turned to appreciate his graceful walk up to the bar.  The petite Kiddy Goth who was serving nearly fell over herself in her eagerness to take his order.  Say what you will about Uri you could never fault him on his sense of style.  Uri acquired a large glass of vodka and made his way directly to Moon and Sonia's table. Moon noticed that there was not a drop of moisture on him despite the storm that still raged heavily outside.  "Hello, Moon," he said in his chocolaty baritone, "and Sonia," he continued, bowing to kiss Sonia's hand.  Moon thought this was over the top but a dark flush of pink swiftly crept up from her heaving cleavage, betraying the hidden ginger nature under all that Gothic black. Sonia clearly found this open display of old world charm extremely beguiling.”

Moon gave up his chair to Uri and sat down on the leather covered
bench next to Sonia.  The vampire's larger than life presence made their small round table seem a little crowded.  "I apologise for interrupting your evening," he said to Sonia.  "Has Moon explained why I must be such a boor?"

"
He says that you've had dealings with the Ghost Eater in the past… and that you think he could be more dangerous than we originally thought," summed up Sonia.

"
My dear, that is an understatement of the most enormous magnitude." Uri took a deep sip of his vodka.  "Has Moon told you anything about my origins?"

Sonia looked over at Moon
.  "A bit," she replied.

"
Only what little you told me," Moon explained.  "That you were born into the Russian nobility nearly a thousand years ago and were changed into a vampire by a sorcerer in revenge for some kind of atrocity that you and some others committed."

"
Brief but correct." Uri smiled sadly.  "Of course there's much more to it than that.  I was born in Byelorussia, a day's journey northwest of Kiev in 1028.  I am a descendent of the brothers Rus themselves and of almost pure Norse blood.  Did you know that Russia was founded by Vikings?"

"
Yes," replied Moon, who was a bit of a history buff.  "So you were a Viking?"

"
We weren't called that by then, we were the
Varangians
.  We were merchant warriors who used the Dnepr and Volga rivers as our highways to the Black Sea and beyond there to Constantinople where we traded furs and honey for silk, spices and works of art."

"
I remember seeing a programme about that stage of Russian history on the History Channel a while back," interjected Sonia.  "Wasn't there a lot of internal strife in Russia at the time?  I remember them talking about lots of little kingdoms that didn't get along." Moon shot Sonia a startled glance. He hadn't realised she had any interest at all in history.

Uri nodded
.  "The history of Russia has always been, shall we say… interesting.  There was no strict convention for establishing succession back then so a local ruler would usually be replaced by the most powerful of his relatives when he died.  This meant they would often leave behind several disgruntled offspring who all felt entitled to lands of their own.  The customary way to prevent internal family feuds was to send these unruly children off to invade unclaimed territory, where they would terrorise the locals and establish rights of princedom for themselves.  That is pretty much the same winning formula the Vikings or their descendants have continued to use over the last thousand years."

Moon nodded, thinking back to the Norman Conquest and the history of European empire-building
.  "I suppose you're right."

"
Anyway, to continue my story, I was born into the midst of all this civil turmoil.  My father was a successful merchant and cousin to the local prince but I had been weaned on the old tales of conquest. Because of this I was not content to devote my life to the boring business of trade and I was determined to distinguish myself in the field of battle.  With this ambition in mind, I trained hard from the moment I could pick up a sword and by my late teens I considered myself a formidable warrior.

“
Rurik was the eldest son of a prince from a south-western principality and a remote kinsman of mine. His family's lands had been transferred to his uncle when his father died and I'd heard rumours that he was putting together an expedition to claim lands of his own elsewhere.  Seeing this as my chance to prove myself, I sought him out and signed on as a member of his
'drujina'
– that is his war band.  Because most of the lands near the boundaries of our homeland were already spoken for we ventured further south and west into the region bordering Poland, seeking wealth and conquest.

"
We were nearly a hundred fighting men, all well trained and riding on horseback. We fell upon those unprotected pagan villages like the wrath of our new God.  Where we struck we killed all those who fought back, took anything worth having and had our way with any of the wenches we found fair.  Any male prisoners of fighting age were killed painfully and messily before the eyes of what was left of their village as a hard lesson in what awaited anyone who thought to oppose us." He met Moon and Sonia's disapproving eyes with a sad but steady blue gaze.  "Yes it was wicked, bloody work, my friends.  But you must understand that this was the way we were taught to behave in that time and it remained the normal way of things up until nearly the present day.  I did nothing that the members of my culture would consider evil and it has taken me centuries to learn to think otherwise."

"
Sonia shook her head.  But how could you be so callous? Didn't you feel guilty about what you had done?"

"
About some things, yes, I did.  One cannot harm and use others, especially women, the way that I did then without eventually feeling remorse.  Not if one possesses any shred of humanity anyway.  I quickly tired of that kind of sport, regardless of how lustily my comrades pursued it, and it was that pursuit that eventually brought about our downfall." Pinkish tears formed at the corners of Uri's eyes as he drained his glass.  "This tale calls for more lubrication, my friends, may I get them in?"

As Uri headed for the bar to replenish their drinks Sonia turned her angry gaze to Moon
.  "The man's a monster.  How can we dare trust him after hearing about the terrible things he's done?"

Moon thought it ironic that Sonia could accept Uri
, knowing that he was a vampire, but that when he confessed to his ancient acts of human cruelty he suddenly became a 'real' monster.  "He's in good company," he replied with wry a smile.  "Most of the heroes of British history would probably be considered war criminals or worse if they did what they became famous for today.  I've spent enough time studying the past to understand that Uri was just a man of his time." He put down his glass, touched Sonia's hand and looked deeply into her eyes, which were still filled with icy outrage.  "Try to cool it a bit about what he's done in the past, love, and have a good look at how it affects him now.  Even after nearly a thousand years it still torments him to think about it."

Sonia sighed and grimaced at Moon
.  "I suppose he might have changed.  It just sounds so horrible, Jerry."

Uri returned with a tray of drinks including, Moon noticed,
another large vodka for himself.  Noticing their expressions, he said: "So, you are wondering whether you can trust this evil beast?" A deep shadow passed behind his eyes.  "I can't say I blame you.  Even I have trouble coming to terms with it sometimes, and I have had a long time to do so, but I assure you that I am no longer the person I was in my teens and twenties.  Even then I was not truly the person I was trying to be; ruthlessness and cruelty were considered admirable traits in a warrior back then."

Sonia nodded
.  "I guess we'll just have to take you at your word for that… for now.  So, you were telling us how your partiality for rape got you into trouble." Sonia didn’t bother to hide her disgust as she said the word 'rape'.

"
Actually, I had no active involvement in that part of it," Uri replied defensively.  "My crime was simply being a member of the
drujina
band that conquered a largish village just to the north of the Carpathian Mountains." Uri's eyes took on a far-away look as he focused his inner eye on the past.  "We had decided it was time to build ourselves a base of operations.  We had discovered an excellent site for a fortification on a craggy foothill above a small lake and we bullied the men folk from the village into felling trees, hauling rocks, digging and building.  Shortly we had the beginnings of a decently fortified keep, which overlooked the lakeside village from an acceptable height.  We felt smugly secure once we had a tall palisade surrounding us on three sides with a sheer cliff at the rear.  It was a nearly perfect stronghold.

"
One day. when the work was nearing completion, Rurik decided to ride out to supervise the building work on horseback.  As he was riding along the makeshift dirt road to the keep, a peasant suddenly lost his footing in the mud and tipped a handcart full of rocks in the path of Rurik’s horse.  It was a thoroughbred and nervous at the best of times, so the shock made it rear and stumble, breaking its right fetlock.  Rurik was furious and demanded payment for his horse. Of course the peasant, who was a fisherman named Gern, was unable to provide recompense for such an expensive beast.  Rurik then slyly asked Gern if he had any children.  The old man replied that he had two daughters and a son.  Rurik laughed and declared that he would take Gern's two daughters as 'mares' in payment for the stallion that he would have to put down that day.  The poor man was deeply distraught about this and begged repeatedly for mercy but Rurik was determined to have his revenge.  He had the two girls brought up to the keep where he commanded that they should be used by the entire
drujina
in any way they wished, which of course meant that those poor maidens were to be subjected to a continuous ordeal of rape and abuse until he saw fit to release them."