Blood of the Third
Richard's friends and family prayed that Andre's threat ended with the rising of the sun that fateful morning. Years later they discover to their horror that Andre's bloody influence has transcended distance and time.
In book two of the "Heralds of the Culling" series, Tim, Major, Detective Weller and Father Burns must once again confront the living dead to protect the world against Andre's dark legacy.
Major's Story
I have a story for you. A doozy of a story. You probably won’t believe it. Either way, your belief or lack thereof doesn’t change my reality. And if you don’t believe it I hope you’ll at least find it an interesting tale. And cautionary.
I’ve already forgotten more about my life than I can remember. As the years pass - and believe me, many more years will pass while I walk this earth - I know that I will forget much more. There are three moments in my life that I will never forget; memories that not even an eternity can diminish.
The first is what I call my dark baptism. To be more accurate I’ll call it the loss of my virginity. I’m not talking about the loss of sexual innocence. That was great. It was awkward and terrifying, but terrifying in a good way. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is the loss of my spiritual innocence. I lost that in a way no one should.
Richard, Camillia, and Andre - son, mother, and father respectively - revealed to me a side of this world that I never believed existed. Richard was one of my two best friends. My other best friend was Tim. He was right there with me through it all. There were a couple of older guys there, too: Detective Weller and Father Burns. I can’t remember their first names. Hell, I don’t think I ever knew their first names. Before all hell broke loose I didn’t know them well enough to care. Afterwards, well, their first names didn’t seem to matter much anymore. They were who they were, a cop and priest.
I can’t speak for Weller and Burns, but what Richard, Camillia and Andre showed all of us would change Tim and me forever. When we made the idiotic choice to play a part in it we ended up seeing things that neither of us would ever forget, no matter how bad we might want to.
I Know You
An Asian woman strutted out to center stage. She was stunning. Her skin was like porcelain, white, smooth and flawless. Tiny, perfect feet were adorned by platform heels about six inches high yet she moved so smoothly it was as if she floated. The crowd roared and continued to roar until the dancer raised her hand for quiet. The club fell deathly silent and the woman slowly surveyed the attentive crowd. I leaned over to Tim.
I briefly wondered what Richard would say if he were here. He used to have a kinky fetish for Asian women. He never actually had one as far as I knew, but he had talked about it more than once.Right at that moment Madame Lotus’s eyes found mine. It was as if she’d heard what I said or what I was thinking. It was then that I realized that I recognized her. I turned to Tim.
“I know her, man.”
“Yeah, right,” Tim scoffed.
She gave a quick hand signal and the music started. It didn’t take long for me to see what all the fuss was about. Sensuality radiated from her with every fluid movement. Her musculature was perfect: firm but not hard. I guessed her measurements were thirty-four, twenty, thirty-two with hips and an ass so absolutely perfectly round they did not seem natural. She looked about five feet seven inches tall in those ridiculously high and sexy heels, which meant barefoot, she was about an inch shorter than Denise.
All thoughts of my wife were soon expelled as my mind suddenly clouded with sexual images and emotions more intense than any I had ever felt. As she danced she moved slowly in our direction and it seemed as if she repeatedly stared at me.
I whispered to Tim. “She’s coming this way.”
“I can see that.” As she eased toward us it was evident that she had focused on me. I expected her to try to ignore or avoid someone she obviously recognized from her other more mundane job. But then again, if she were overly concerned about others’ opinion of her she probably wouldn’t have been working at a place like The Dungeon to begin with.
She gave a few cursory leers to the rest of the assembly but was obviously singling me out. The crowd noticed as well. I got a few congratulatory pats on the back and head.
Tim sneered. “Lucky mother...”
By the time she reached me she had stripped down to her G-string and platform heels. She turned her back to me and did a few insanely seductive and limber moves that had me at full attention within seconds. And then she got down on all fours and turned to face me. The stage was only a few feet high, so with her on her hands and knees and me sitting on a stool, we were nearly at eye level.
“I know you...” she whispered seductively.
With those words, my mind was gone. All I could see were her deep, ocean green eyes and her soft crimson lips as they formed the words. I was breathless and speechless. I could only nod in agreement. I must’ve seemed like a newbie to strip clubs with the way I acted. The people around me laughed at my expression and speechlessness.
Su-Yin raised an eyebrow and smiled. She leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. I tried to lean away but I was frozen by her hypnotic gaze. Our lips touched. My tongue involuntarily darted into her mouth and Su-Yin bit down softly. The move startled me but there was very little pain.
I tasted blood. The taste was initially familiar. I had bitten my tongue countless times over the years, but then the taste changed. There was a quality about it was indescribable and utterly alien and seemed to go straight to my head. I had a fleeting suspicion that maybe Su-Yin had kissed me with some kind of drug in her mouth yet I made no attempt to pull away. Her tongue twirled around mine like a snake for what seemed like minutes but was probably only a few seconds. Even if it had been hours it would’ve still ended way too soon. When she finally pulled back she said:
“See you at work, handsome.”
She stood, turned slowly, and glided back to center stage to finish her dance.
Savagery
I lost track of time as I ran. When I couldn’t run anymore, I walked. With no idea where I was or where I was going, I just kept moving. I tuned out the thoughts of the people around me and concentrated on my predicament. A deep craving lurked in my gut and my mind. The vampire growing within constantly reminded me how hungry I was.
The pain came back with a vengeance. It took all of my strength to stay upright. My breath grew labored from sharp pains repeatedly striking my stomach. The throbbing ache made me dizzy, made me stagger like a drunkard. I was in such a daze I barely noticed a man walking deliberately toward me.
The stranger punched me hard in the face one time, grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me roughly behind a building. He drove his forearm into my throat and forced me against the wall. I looked into his eyes and saw madness. His mind was a drug-induced kaleidoscope of hatred, paranoia, rage and addiction.
He moved fast, and in my weakened condition I couldn’t stop him. No words were spoken. There were no threats, no taunts, no nothing. There was only violence. He pulled a hunting knife from his pocket and stabbed me again and again in the stomach and chest. I slid slowly to the ground and he stooped down with me, stabbing all the while.
I looked down at the knife in stunned disbelief. My blood was all over him, spattered across his face and torso. He got a kind of sexual satisfaction from the massacre. After twenty-seven piercings of my midsection, he finally stopped. My eyes bulged and my mouth hung agape. Blood oozed over my bottom lip and down my chin.
The would-be killer took a few breaths to compose himself before searching my pockets. He took my wallet, keys and loose change. Only then did his frenzied thoughts settle into exhausted satisfaction.
I was his eighth victim in as many nights. All of his previous victims had been women. He chose me for his first male victim because I was smaller than him. My drunken appearance made me look like an easy kill. Pride filled him and the bastard had the nerve to crack a smile. He planned to cut my picture out of my driver’s license and tape it to the underside of the lid on a chest he kept in his apartment. Thinking I was dead or surely dying, he turned his back to me and headed for the street.
He took one step onto the street just before my bloody hand reached around and clutched his face. I covered his mouth with one hand, my extended claws digging into his cheek, and dragged him back to the scene of the stabbing. I pinned him against the wall the way he had just pinned me. He pulled his knife, but this time I grabbed his hand and squeezed. His bones shattered like brittle glass.
My upper and lower fangs extended. His pain and terror-stricken face was awash with the crimson glow of my eyes. I smiled with all the dark mirth of Satan himself. His eyes bulged until I thought they would pop out of his head. I remember thinking how cool that would’ve been. The fear exuding from his mind and his scent made me stronger and hungrier still.
“Now it’s my turn,” I growled.