With the box sitting safely on the seat next to me, I had just pulled out of Charlie's mobile home park when my cell rang. It was Fang.
"Merry Christmas," I said.
"That sounds odd coming from a vampire," said Fang.
"Why, because I'm a creature of the night?"
"Something like that."
"I'll remind you that Santa does his best work at night."
"Santa isn't real."
"I thought the same about vampires," I said. "And someone recently told me that if people believe in something hard enough and long enough, it becomes true."
Fang laughed. "Enough about Santa Claus. I've got news. Your watcher friend is likely a fallen angel."
"He's no demon, Fang."
"Have you ever met a demon, Moon Dance?"
"I don't know," I said, recalling meeting Kingsley in my hotel room when he had fully transformed into a werewolf. The thing living inside him was as close to a demon as I've ever met. "I just know he's not evil."
"At least not yet."
"What, exactly, is a fallen angel?"
"A spiritual being that no longer commits itself to helping others evolve. In fact, quite the opposite."
"A being who helps others devolve?"
"Close. A being who spreads fear. Living in fear, any kind of fear, separates the individual from the Creator."
My head began to throb. Headaches, for me, rarely lasted more than a few minutes. I chewed my lip and drove and didn't like any of this. I said, "And so, what, one day he decides to turn bad?"
"It probably wasn't just one day, Moon Dance. It had probably been a long time coming."
"He said he's no longer bound to me..."
"If he was your guardian angel, that makes sense. Why should one immortal protect another?"
"Now that he's not bound to me..."
"Right," said Fang, picking up on my thoughts. "Now that he's not bound to you, he's free to approach me. A sort of metaphysical loophole." Fang paused. "I had a thought, Moon Dance, and a not very pleasant one."
"Tell me."
"What if he allowed you to be attacked?"
"What do you mean?"
"What if he not only allowed you to be attacked, but he had planned the whole night?"
"But why?" But even as I asked the question, I knew the answer.
Fang voiced it for me. "To turn you, Moon Dance. To turn you into that which he could finally approach. Or that which he could finally love."
I shuddered as I drove on into the night, wending my way now through the streets of Yorba Linda. "But he said my destiny was to become immortal. To become a vampire."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps he wasn't telling you the truth."
"But isn't he, you know, obligated to protect me?"
"I don't know, Moon Dance. We're talking about the spirit world, something I'm not privy to. But I am familiar with the concept of spirit guides and guardian angels. From my understanding, yes, such beings are generally there to guide and protect and nurture. Unless..."
"Unless what?" I asked.
"Unless they decide not to."
"A fallen angel," I said.
"Exactly."