Bloodliner E-Book

Robert Jeschonek

• Herausgeber: Pie Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Jonah Ivory has a family tree crawling with vampires. Guided by the sexy paranormal genealogist Stanza Miracolo, he must dig up his family's twisted roots to crack an ancient conspiracy and beat the forces of darkness to a lost paradise. As Stanza traces Jonah's undead family tree, she brings him and his cousin Mavis face to face with one vampire ancestor after another. In a wild hunt around the world, they search for the shocking answers to an ancient mystery, all while fighting for their lives against bloodsucking enemies who attack from the shadows. Even with a vampiric Shakespeare and King Arthur on their side, can Stanza and Jonah win an eternal war between ancestors and descendants for possession of a heaven stolen by sin? Don't miss this thrilling and romantic vampire epic now available from Pie Press. Award-winning fantasy writer Robert Jeschonek will take you on a tour of the secret vampire empire that thrives all around us...and rises up to take our world by storm in a blood-drenched crimson tide.

Leseprobe

Bloodliner

A YOUNG ADULT HORROR NOVEL

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Contents

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Part II

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Part III

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Part IV

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Part V

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Part VI

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Part VII

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Epilogue

About the Author

Special Preview: Unbullied

BLOODLINER

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

http://bobscribe.com/

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Blastoff Books, an imprint of Pie Press Publishing

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com

Also by Robert Jeschonek

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PartOne

ARIZONA & NEW MEXICO

ChapterOne

As Jonah Ivory sat between his parents' caskets in the parlor of the funeral home in Tucson, he finished his eighth beer of the evening. His goal was to drink a whole case.

Eight down, sixteen to go.

Crumpling the eighth empty can in his fist, he tipped his chair back and chucked the can behind the caskets with the other seven. Before he could tip forward and reach for number nine, however, his chair rocked off balance, and he fell back and down to the floor.

Perfect.

After the impact, Jonah lay there for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling. His eyes burned as the tears he'd been holding back tried to force their way out.

But he wouldn't let them.

I'm too young for this. Too young to lose them.

In fact, Jonah was seventeen years old...not that he looked it. He was skinny, with a boyish face, and he wasn't exactly wearing responsible grown-up clothes for a viewing: a black Jethro Tull concert t-shirt, ratty faded blue jeans, and sneakers.

But then there was his shoulder-length hair, which was prematurely white. It had been scared that way five years ago.

That was when he'd lost his two brothers, who had been abducted right in front of him. He'd been thirteen years old when it had happened...so maybe he wasn't too young at seventeen to lose his mother and father, after all.

First the twins, now my parents. I ought to be getting used to this by now. So why do I miss them so much?

It was a mystery to him.

Jonah hadn't been close to his mother and father for ages. Though they'd been living in the same house in Tucson, seeing each other every day, they might as well have been living in separate towns for the past five years. The loss of the twins had driven them apart.

But in the few days since the car accident that had killed his mother and father, Jonah had been feeling completely and irretrievably lost. All he could think to do was drink himself into a stupor and stumble through the motions of the prearranged viewing and the preparations for the funeral.

Why does it matter? We were practically strangers.

The biggest question of all, though, the one that loomed up in the gaps between lazy drunken sparks and ripples, was this:

Now what?

Jonah rolled off the upended chair and got to his feet. He pulled his ninth beer out of the red and white cooler that occupied two chairs in the front row of seating.

As he snapped open the tab on the can, he looked around the empty room.

At least I don't have to deal with anybody.

Jonah and his parents were alone. Other than the undertaker, who had strolled through a few times, not one soul had shown up for the viewing.

Nice turnout.

After a long drink of beer, Jonah righted the chair he'd knocked over and sat back down on it. He glanced over at the closed caskets beside him, then quickly looked away as the reality smacked him in the head again.

I hate this.

Just as he lifted the beer for another drink, a young, black-haired woman walked into the room.

She was beautiful. As soon as Jonah caught sight of her, he lowered the beer from his lips. Her body was slender and shapely under her waist-length red leather jacket and short black dress. Knee-high red leather boots accentuated the curves of her long, lean legs.

As she approached, Jonah saw that her features were even prettier than they had looked from a distance. She had a long face and angular nose that gave her an exotic look—Italian, maybe, or Greek or Arab. She must have been wearing contact lenses behind her black horned-rim glasses, because her eyes were two different colors: one hazel, the other amber flecked with red.

Simply put, she was a knockout.

As bad a day as Jonah was having, he still automatically assessed his chances with her before she'd even said a word. He knew it in a heartbeat: she wasn't just out of his league, she was out of his universe.

Even if he hadn't been having the second shittiest day of his life, he probably wouldn't have bothered to make a play for her. That was why he didn't bother to get up when the woman approached him. He just stared out from behind his long, white bangs and burped softly.

"Hello, Mr. Ivory." She stopped a few feet away and didn't offer to shake his hand. She had a slight accent—Italian, maybe? "My name is Stanza Miracolo."

"Don't mind me." Jonah waved at the two closed caskets. "Go ahead and view all you like."

"Not here for that, thanks." Stanza slid two fingers into a vest pocket of her red leather jacket. "Here for you," she said, tugging out a business card and offering it to him.

When Jonah didn't take the card, she flipped it at him. The card landed face-up on his stomach, and he stared down at it.

Stanza Miracolo, it said. Bloodlines Genealogy & Beyond.

Jonah brushed the card from his black Jethro Tull t-shirt. "You picked the wrong day to try to sell me something, lady," he said, and then he polished off his beer.

"Already paid for," said Stanza. "I'm your inheritance."

"Believe it or not, this really isn't a good time for me." Jonah crumpled the latest empty and tossed it behind the caskets with the rest. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Your mother and father hired me," said Stanza. "Services deliverable to you upon their deaths. It's in their wills."

Jonah laughed. "This is a joke, right? Who put you up to this?"

Stanza pulled a folded bundle of papers from inside her jacket and handed it to him. "The contract. Check the signatures on the last page."

Jonah unfolded the bundle and flipped to the last page. His eyes went straight to the familiar handwriting at the bottom.

Isaac Ivory.Caroline Ivory.

Without comment, Jonah flipped back to the front page and scanned the text. "Genealogical services?" he said, mispronouncing it "Genie-logal" because he was drunk.

"Tracing your family tree," said Stanza. "Finding your roots."

"What's this about 'per dime rates?'" said Jonah.

"'Per diem,'" said Stanza. "It means I'll be reimbursed for costs incurred during travel."

"Travel?"

"With you." Stanza cocked her head as if she had heard something, then turned and paced around the room. "Won't find your family history sitting around Tucson, will we?"

Jonah frowned.

My two brothers were stolen five years ago, and now my parents are dead. That's all the family history I really need to know.

"Not interested," said Jonah. "Anyway, I've got work, and my band's got gigs."

It was true. Jonah worked a day job driving a delivery truck for the local Red Cross. By night, he played lead guitar for Crimson Wonder, a Jethro Tull tribute band. He had a gig that very night after the viewing, in fact.

Stanza leaned out through the open doorway, looked in both directions, and leaned back. "I get paid only if I fulfill the contract," she said.

"So fulfill it," said Jonah.

"Not without you." Stanza wagged an index finger at him.

Jonah snorted and got up from his chair. "Not gonna happen."

Just as he was shoving the contract toward Stanza, a word on the front page caught his eye. "Protection? What's that all about?"

Stanza snatched the pages from his hand. She winked her red-flecked amber eye at him. "You'll see."

Then, she turned and whisked off down the hallway.

As Jonah watched her go, he suddenly felt bad. In spite of all the negative shit that had happened in his life, he wasn't usually so rude.

Once things calmed down, would it be so bad traveling around with a hot-looking woman?

Maybe I should apologize and tell her I'll call after the funeral.

Unfortunately, by the time Jonah thought of saying something else to Stanza, she was through the front door and outside. She seemed to disappear as soon as she hit the shadows, red jacket and all.

Jonah took a step after her, then stopped. Wobbling in the parlor doorway, he looked back at the closed caskets at the far end of the room.

It was the end of an era over there, the end of a lifetime. Mom and Dad were gone forever.

I'm alone.

No one left. No parents, no brothers, no family.

I'm an 18-year-old orphan.

No girlfriend, either. No friends, unless he counted his Crimson Wonder bandmates, who were always feuding with him anyway.

I'm completely alone.

And the thing was, Jonah thought he deserved it. He hadn't saved his brothers, the twins, when they were taken. He'd just stood there, frozen, and watched.

He'd suffered for what he'd done—not done—but was it ever enough? He relived it nightly in his dreams, but that didn't change a thing.

He was still a coward who hadn't even tried to save his own brothers.

So now I'm alone. At least I don't have anyone left to lose.

Jonah's eyes flicked back and forth from one casket to the other. "When you see the twins," he said, his voice a trembling whisper. "Tell them I'm sorry."

ChapterTwo

Jonah was drunk, pissed at the world, fresh from his mom and dad's viewing at the funeral home...and he was playing what might have been his best gig ever.

He had always been good, but he was great that night. He ripped through every song with unusual precision and ferocity. Instead of note-perfect renditions, he brought each solo alive with newfound fire and surprise. He pushed the whole band to a new level, and he could tell they loved it.

As they drove through one Jethro Tull classic after another, from "Locomotive Breath" to "Thick as a Brick," all four musicians grinned with rare and predatory intensity. It wasn't just a run-of-the-mill gig.

Too bad hardly anyone was there to see it.

The bar, a downtown Tucson dive joint called Halcyon, was tiny...and nowhere near full. Not counting the bartender, Jonah didn't see more than ten people in the room at the same time that night.

But he played for those ten people like he was playing for a full house. Like he was playing with something to prove.

Something to forget.

The audience, small as it was, definitely caught the vibe and egged on the band. It was the kind of give-and-take that Jonah thrived on, with band and audience equally focused and serious and unified.

And some were more focused than others. One, in particular, was focused hard on Jonah.

She looked twenty-something, with shoulder-length blonde hair and impossibly bright blue eyes. A tight-fitting white tank top and black leather skirt hugged the curves of her perfectly sloped and rounded body.

If she ever took her eyes off Jonah, he didn't see it happen. She watched every move he made and locked eyes with him every time he looked out at her.

She didn't seem to be with anyone. She just stood with a bottle of beer in her hand, six feet away from Jonah, dancing to every single song with supple, undulating movements.

Which, naturally, made him play with even more fire. He had a pretty good idea what might be coming next.

Sure enough, at the end of the first set, the girl made a beeline for him. With a silent, knowing smile, she wrapped his hand in her own and led him out the back door into the alley outside.

Then, she closed the door behind them and pinned him against the wall.

Jonah's heart pounded as she flexed her body against his. Her hands, where they locked his wrists to the wall, were cold, but her gaze was filled with heat.

"You were amazing in there." Her throaty voice was a purr. "I am so turned on right now."

"I know the feeling." Jonah grinned. Playing with the band had taken his mind off his troubles a little. Maybe the blonde would take his mind the rest of the way off, if only for a while.

Without another word, the girl moved in for a kiss. Jonah's heart beat even faster as he finally made the contact he'd been anticipating for so long.

But the kiss was not quite what he'd expected.

The girl's lips were freezing cold, as if she'd just eaten ice cream or gone swimming. There wasn't the slightest trace of warmth anywhere in her kiss.

Jonah pulled back. "Are you chilly?" Even as he asked the question, he couldn't imagine that she could possibly feel cold in that alley. It was a hot desert night in Tucson, probably in the nineties...plus which, heat was rolling off an air conditioning unit in the window a few yards away.

"Low blood pressure. But we can fix that." The girl moved in for another kiss. Her fingers latched onto his belt buckle.

"We need you," said the girl.

We? That was when Jonah realized something wasn't right.

He suddenly felt much hotter than he thought he should. His lower body, in fact, was quickly becoming uncomfortable, as if he were standing too close to a hot stove.

Jonah looked down...and immediately wished he hadn't.

He'd never seen anything like it. Thin streams of blood projected from the tops of his legs—a dozen streams per leg punching right through his clothing. They met in a glistening red veil that hung suspended in midair, rippling mere inches from the girl's face. As Jonah watched, new streams burst from his legs and added their crimson liquid to the veil.

"What the hell?" said Jonah. "What are you doing?"

But the girl did not answer.

Get out of here. Now.

Jonah was in for another shock when he tried to escape: his hands were stuck to the wall, and his feet were locked to the floor of the alley.

He couldn't move.

What's going on here?

Then, it got worse.

The girl opened her mouth wide, and red filaments reached toward her from the veil. The sinuous filaments twisted and writhed as they flowed between her scarlet lips and over her jet black tongue.

Black tongue? Black tongue?!? Why didn't I notice that before?

The girl spoke without closing her mouth. The red filaments splashed against the tip of her tongue when it moved. "How delicious," she said. "I love you."

She's a vampire! Vampires are real!

"I'll blow you a kiss," she said, and then she puckered her lips and squirted a flume of blood toward Jonah's face.

The blood stopped in front of his nose and hung in midair. It curled and contorted and rotated, forming into a gleaming red shape.

A throbbing cartoon heart the size of a quarter.

Since when can vampires do this kind of crazy stuff?

The girl giggled. "Happy birthday, baby," she said. "Wait'll you see what comes next."

Jonah couldn't take his eyes off the floating cartoon heart. It changed as he watched, twisting and kneading itself into a new shape.

A skull and crossbones.

That was when Jonah finally tried to scream. He tried with all his strength to scream as loud as he could.

And when no sound emerged from his throat, he tried to scream even louder.

ChapterThree

It was as if someone had heard Jonah's silent cry. Seconds after he tried in vain to scream his head off, the sound of gunfire crackled in the alley.

Multiple impacts shook the blood-drinking girl and pitched her from her knees to the dusty floor of the alley. As she dropped, so did the veil and filaments of blood. So did the floating skull and crossbones. All of it lost shape immediately and plunged down in one big splatter on the pavement.

In the same instant, Jonah regained some of the movement in his extremities. His arms and legs still felt heavy and stiff, but at least he could finally change position.

Now, if he could just avoid getting shot.

As Jonah stepped away from the wall, a figure moved out of the shadows. The first thing Jonah saw coming toward him was the smoking barrel of a gun.

A machine gun. Pointed right at him.

Then, he heard a familiar voice. "This is what it's all about." A female voice. "Protection."

Jonah was kind of shell-shocked, but he realized who was doing the talking just before she stepped fully into view.

"Stanza." Jonah didn't rush to her side right away. For one thing, he hardly knew her. For another, as relieved as he was to see a fellow non-vampire...

How do I know she isn't a vampire, too?

"What's going on here?" said Jonah as he buckled his belt.

"Did you know I get a bonus every time I save your life?" Stanza grabbed him by the arm and yanked him around to stand behind her. "And if you die, I get nothing."

"Nothing?" said Jonah.

"Not one red cent. So stay here." With that, Stanza moved forward, keeping the machine gun pointed at the blood-spattered blonde on the alley pavement.

The blonde lifted her head and glared. "Bitch." She hissed the word through clenched teeth. "You just became my main course."

Stanza fired more rounds into the vampire's chest, flinging her back and bouncing her off the pavement. "I've got three words for you," she said, waving the machine gun. "Black ironwood points."

The vampire howled in pain and clutched at the seeping red blossom over her heart. She suddenly lunged forward, clawing with one taloned hand at Stanza...but another burst from the machine gun threw her back again.

Stanza looked at Jonah and brushed a lock of black hair behind her ear. "Ammo tipped with hardwood," she said. "Very effective. It's like stabbing them in the heart with dozens of little stakes moving thousands of feet per second."

Jonah gaped at the writhing, bloody blonde on the alley floor. "That'd kill anybody."

"But not everything that kills anybody is enough to kill someone like her." Stanza turned and fired more rounds.

The blonde lay still for a moment, then began to jerk and twitch spontaneously. Stanza placed a hand on Jonah's chest and eased him back a step.

"Don't get too close," she said. "Here's where it gets ugly."

You mean it hasn't already?

As Jonah watched, the blonde spasmed repeatedly, then stopped. For a long moment, nothing moved or made a sound in the alley except the air conditioning unit in the back window of Halcyon.

Then, suddenly, the hacked-up flesh of the vampire's chest began to squirm. Shreds of skin and bone flexed up from the place where her heart should have been. Something was pushing its way through from underneath.

At first, as the thing emerged, Jonah thought it looked like a baby's head, bloody and covered with dark, downy hair.

Then, it unfurled.

The gruesome mass bloomed like a flower, poking through the chest wound and popping open. Its true form lay revealed, pulsing and glistening on the blonde's upper body.

Twelve tentacles swayed and twined around a central bulb the size of a fist. The bulb's slimy pink flesh rippled with eyes and jagged-toothed mouths that snapped and gnashed and oozed.

The tentacles were lined with suckers and fluttering cilia strung with slime. Oily black fur streaked the outer skin, barely concealing clusters of blisters and running sores.

"They say you never forget your first look at a feratu," said Stanza.

Jonah was transfixed. The creature Stanza had called a feratu was like something out of a horror movie.

"Now you know." Stanza replaced the ammo clip in her machine gun. "That's why it takes a stake through the heart to kill a vampire. Because that's where the feratu sits."

As Jonah watched, the feratu flipped itself over and crawled across the blonde on its hairy tentacles. It left a trail of bloody slime in its wake.

Stanza followed it with the barrel of her machine gun. "A vampire doesn't have a heart," she said. "The feratu eats it and takes its place. Pumps the blood, everything. Perfect setup for a creature that thrives on drinking blood."

The feratu hopped off the blonde's head and scuttled toward Jonah. He backed away and glanced behind him, sizing up his escape route.

"Two ways it can make you a vampire," said Stanza. "One, it infects your bloodstream with its babies through the bite of a host. Two..."

Suddenly, the feratu scrambled forward with a burst of speed. Adrenaline surged through Jonah's body, and he started to run.

That was when Stanza fired the machine gun. The feratu danced in a hail of ironwood-tipped bullets, exploding in a flash of flesh and fangs and fur and blood.

When the thing had been blown to sufficiently tiny bits, Stanza released the trigger. "Two, it jumps on you, burrows in through your urinary tract, and eats its way to your heart."

"Geez." Jonah was shaking. He tried to stop looking at the gruesome mess on the alley floor. "Ever hear the expression 'too much information?'"

"More on the way, Jonah." Stanza gazed up at the rooftops on either side of the alley. "They're hunting you. In force. They need you."

Jonah stared at her. "That's what the vampire said. 'We need you.'"

"Sure you're not up for some travel?" said Stanza.

"What makes you think I'll be any safer traveling than staying put?" said Jonah.

"They know where to find you now." Stanza kicked at the shredded remains of the feratu. "Wouldn't a moving target be harder to hit?"

Jonah frowned. "You're leaving when?"

"Right now," said Stanza. "Trust me, they're already closing in on you."

Jonah shook his head. "Mom and Dad's funeral is tomorrow."

"Would they rather have you alive or undead? What do you think?" Stanza marched over and lifted the dead vampire's head by her bloody blonde hair. The head tore away, and the rest of the corpse slumped to the pavement. "This isn't a joke, Jonah. Want to end up like her?"

Jonah shifted his weight from one foot to the other. What he really wanted to do was run, all right...run away from Stanza and the blonde and the feratu and the funeral and everything. Just start over without all the noise.

"I need to think about it," said Jonah.

"There's no time." Stanza tossed the head aside and stomped over to stare him in the eye. "We've got to leave now."

"And go where?" said Jonah. "What's the first stop?"

"Church, of course." Stanza smiled. "Where did you think?"

ChapterFour

“And so the hunt begins." James watched from his perch on the rooftop ledge as Stanza and Jonah ran from the alley far below. "'Neath a moon so full and low it fairly reeks of mortal sins." James looked over his shoulder. "How's that?"

His companion nodded from within the hood of his cloak. "Very pretty, James. You may yet find that poetic immortality you seek."

James, who as a vampire was older than the ten-year-old boy he appeared to be, bowed to the man in the hood. "I am nothing without you, master."

The hooded man patted James' shoulder. "And I am fortunate to have found a friend and apprentice like you in this dark and sour life."

This life of madness.

Somewhere, deep in his soul, the hooded man felt a pang of longing for the life he had lost. That ancient life that felt at least twice as many centuries ago as it actually was.

That glorious life, all sawdust and sunburn, of which this moment on the rooftop was but a pale imitation. A sad facsimile tasting of ashes and heartbreak.

If I but had a heart instead of a monster in its place.

The hooded man placed a hand upon his left breast. Instead of the rhythmic beat he'd known long ago, he felt the constant grinding of the creature's teeth, gnashing in ceaseless hunger.

This is not a song. They call it so, but it is not.

Only mindless and meaningless, it is, lacking both reason and rhyme. Bringing but suffering and desperation in the guise of a miracle.

If only I had the will to tear it from my chest, still squirming and screaming, and with my last breath cast it to its death on the street below. Indeed, I have seen a man do that exact thing once, long ago, in the days before my change.

But if I have proved one thing throughout the years, it is that I am not such a man.

Just then, James tapped him on the arm. "Here they come," he whispered. "Our new allies."

"Of convenience, perhaps," said the hooded man. "And for the moment. Even so, you'd do well to remember that they shall ever be our enemies most foul."

The hooded man turned to look where his charge was pointing. He saw the wicked man glide toward them, all red feathers and razor-sharp talons silhouetted against the full moon.

He would pluck it from me if I asked, and gulp it down and belch out a gobbet of fur and claws.

He may yet pluck it from me if I don't ask.

"You know him, don't you?" James was still whispering.

"I have met him." The hooded man nodded. "But knowing him is quite another story."

How many other vampires were able to take the form of something other than a wolf or batlike creature? How many others soared through night skies in the guise of a blood-red hawk?

Genghis Khan alone. The one and only scourge of the Asian steppes, now scourge of the 21st century night. Endowed with vampiric immortality and no less a terror for all his antiquity.

Here then was the face of the enemy, the leader of the other side that the hooded man's faction had long fought. Destiny's darkest suitor, wound from endless skeins of coal-black thread, inflicting disaster with naught but his passing shadow.

The power of a vampire fused with the ferocity of the infamous Mongol warlord he once was.

And now he is my ally. The truce has made it so.

As Genghis circled overhead, the hooded man turned to his apprentice. "Trust nothing he says. Look always for the dirk concealed in his sleeve and the poison on his lip."

"Master," said James. "What's a dirk?"

"Later." The hooded man shushed him and watched the blood-red hawk settle onto the rooftop. "Say nothing now, hear? No good can come of pressing out an ill-considered word."

James nodded.

The giant hawk shuddered and screeched, fixing the hooded man in the alien gaze of its fathomless eye. The hooded man subdued a shiver and refused to look away.

This memory is baked deep in the bread of us. The raptor's eye peering through primeval mists, unblinking.

Diamond-sharp beaks the size and shape of hatchets, swinging. Streaked with blood.

The hawk ruffled its wings and folded them close around its body. As the hooded man and James looked on, the great bird began to change.

Feathers melted into flesh as russet brown as the last good potato before famine. The scarlet hood, a deeper red than all the rest, became the gleaming black of char flaking from a burned body and twisting away on the breeze.

The down-curved beak flowed into rows of teeth, bone-white as the stranger's smile rising over your shoulder in the bedroom mirror.

Leave the door open at midnight and this is what wanders in. Set a trap with corpse-meat and he shall lick it clean, then dig you out between your ribs.

And when he has finished, not even a spot of grease shall stain your bedclothes. You never existed.

"To the truce." Genghis raised his empty hand in a mock toast. "Without it, I would have killed and devoured you already."

"As always, you excel at setting the tone," said the hooded man. "At least our alliance has not dimmed your gift for uplifting all around you."

"Just my luck." Genghis beamed at James. "I don't suppose he's a peace offering?"

"Look elsewhere for your food," said the hooded man.

Genghis snorted. "Soon enough, I'll have who and what I want, and when I want it."

At least we'll leave no room for misunderstanding. Our feelings and intentions are clear.

We hate each other no less, and we shall show each other not one drop more of mercy when this ends.

With a laugh, Genghis strode between them. Naked, he leaned over the rooftop ledge and gazed down into the alley.

"You have a good reason, I suppose?" said Genghis. "For not following our quarry?"

"Hounds aplenty run that trail," said the hooded man. "They shall drive the quarry onward, and we shall catch up soon enough."

Genghis sneered at him. "No wonder you people are a joke. Hard to believe we're part of the same society."

"Cruentus Estus has long thrived on rivalry," said the hooded man, "though lately, that coalition has been sorely tested." He spoke of the secret organization whose name was Latin for "Bloody Tide," a worldwide church of vampires that lately had been split apart by internal strife. Cruentus Estus had sent out both the hooded man and Genghis this day, leaders of two competing factions bound by truce to work together this one time for the common good.

"You people have never 'sorely tested' anything in your life," said Genghis. "I could murder the lot of you myself if it wasn't for the truce."

"Who's to say how long the truce shall last?" The hooded man stepped closer to Genghis. "Perhaps I'll lay hands on you sooner than you think."

"Now there's an interesting road." Genghis' eyes began to glow with reddish light. "But we've been down it before, haven't we, you and I?'

He is wrong.

He thinks, by raising the ghost of our last meeting, that he can diminish me. Remind me of the beating I took, and so inflict it once again in ways not bound by the truce.

But all he's done is refortify my will. Add block to the wall and ball to the cannons.

"I treasure the memory," said the hooded man. "I've written another act to follow it, and I shall stage it as your reward upon completion of our task."

Genghis grinned with all the malice of a murderer who has just thrown away the key to his victim's handcuffs. "All the more reason to race our venture forward."

The hooded man raised a finger. "But we must not be reckless, else the quarry sense the snare."

"We'll drive him forward fast enough that he won't have time to think," said Genghis. "He'll lead us to the prize, and then we'll snatch it away."

"We shall regain what is rightfully ours," said the hooded man. "Standing together, we shall have what our two lines divided could not muster."

"Just one question," said Genghis. "Who gets Jonah's blood when we're done with him?"

The hooded man ignored the question. "And what of the troops you've promised? I've seen no sign of them—or do you fancy yourself an army entire now?"

Genghis smiled and scrubbed the cap of black hair atop his head. "My troops stand ready," he said, "though I do indeed consider myself an army in one body."

"By all means, dispatch them," said the hooded man. "Send them along on the trail to join my own force."

"As you say." Genghis plunged two fingers into his mouth and whistled.

A second later, someone new joined the three figures on the rooftop. He leaped up from below and landed on the ledge as nimbly as a cat.

James inhaled sharply.

The hooded man betrayed no surprise, because he felt the eyes of Genghis upon him...but he was surprised, too. He had known this one was out there somewhere, adrift and in play, but he had not expected to see him on this night in this place in this way.

The figure on the ledge appeared to be a ten-year-old boy with short blond hair.

"Say hello, Thomas," said Genghis.

"Hello, dipshits," said Thomas.

James stared at Thomas without a word, but the hooded man knew what he was thinking.

He looks just like me.

In fact, Thomas and James looked so much alike, it would have been hard to tell them apart if they were standing side-by-side wearing the same clothes. And if Thomas wasn't covered head-to-toe in tattoos.

They were twins. It was impossible to think otherwise.

More games.

That was exactly why Genghis had brought him, of course. To gain an advantage over his erstwhile ally, an edge in morale if not physical strength. To prepare for the moment, at journey's end, when each side double-crossed the other as they'd known all along they would in a final grab for the glorious prize.

Thomas is a pawn intended to neutralize my own pawn, James...or perhaps he has a greater role to play.

Either way, I pledge he'll come to naught.

"Master?" said James, gaze still stuck upon the tattooed boy on the ledge.

"Ma-a-a-sterr?" Thomas said it mockingly, in an exaggerated baby-talk falsetto.

"Look to your work now, James." The hooded man placed a hand on James' shoulder and steered him away from Thomas. "We must all of us play our appointed parts if the prize is to be ours."

"Pla-a-ay your part, Jay-yay-mes," said Thomas. This time, the baby talk was more effeminate, complete with an English accent and mincing flicks of his hands.

He mocks me. I am his master's equal in influence, yet he mocks me just the same.

Careful, now.

Such impunity could not remain unanswered, but therein lay a deadly ground. Genghis watched and waited; Thomas was protected and knew it too well.

But the land between protected and invincible can be vast.

Suddenly, the hooded man's hand lashed out and clamped around Thomas' ankle. Before Thomas could do more than yelp, the hooded man had upended him and hung him over the ledge.

It was no threat at all to a vampire boy, of course. Even if Thomas had not had the power to shape-shift, a fall from such a height could not have killed him.

But unnerve him, it did.

He writhed in the hooded man's grip, yipping and swinging. He twisted and bent and grabbed for the hooded man's hand but couldn't quite reach it.

"How do you think I became lord of my line, boy?" said the hooded man. "By being a laughingstock for whelps like you?"

"Screw you," said Thomas.

The hooded man slammed him against the side of the building, then wrenched him away again before he could grab hold of anything.

"Do not mistake my poetry for weakness," said the hooded man. "Pull aside the curtain on this stage, and I vow you'll find a much different play than you suppose."

Suddenly, Thomas' body began to curdle and change, sprouting leathery wings and stiff gray fur. The hooded man refused to let go as the boy became a flapping, screeching bat-thing.

"I have brought more horror into this world than you can imagine," said the hooded man. "More pain and terror than words can express or nullify. Think twice before adding your name to the cast of my next great tragedy."

Thomas wailed and thrashed, but the hooded man did not loosen his grip or even flinch. Instead, just as Thomas gained some altitude, he swung him overhead and hurled him across the rooftop.

Thomas crashed into a chimney stack so hard he brought it down around him.

"Finally." Genghis grinned and shifted his fingers into talons. "I was starting to think that truce would never end."

The hooded man pressed his palm against Genghis' chest. "It still lives, I assure you. Doling out a friendly lesson to a novice must not end this nascent union ere we take our prize."

The moment of truth is upon us. Will he forego his violent pleasures for the greater good?

Genghis thrust one hand's talons forth...and stopped when the tips rested against the hooded man's belly. "I have dreamed of gutting you," he said. "Feasting on the entrails of history's most overrated playwright and poet."

"You'll have your chance later," said the hooded man. "When the prize is found and open for the taking. I'll set aside the minutes as you like, though we both know you'll go without supper that day."

Genghis stroked a single talon in a circle on the hooded man's belly. The two locked gazes for a long moment, passing silent fire back and forth.

Then, Genghis swept the talon up to point over the hooded man's shoulder. "No, Thomas," he said. "The truce stands." Genghis' lips curled in a wicked grin as he held the hooded man's gaze. "For now."

The hooded man heard Thomas' disappointed growl close behind him. "Aw, come on," said Thomas. "Please, can I eviscerate him?"

"You're welcome to try and fail just as your master," said the hooded man, "but only after our hunt is done and this dark union dissolved."

"You heard the man." Genghis laughed. "Hunt now, gut later."

Thomas stomped over and glared up at the hooded man. "William Shakespeare," he said with disgust. "What a dick."

Shakespeare lowered his hood and smiled. "When this labor's ended and the truth is out all 'round, I'll yet see you wish you'd never said those words."

"Yeah?" said Thomas. "You gonna beat them out of me again?"

"I'll not lay a finger on you, but you'll see." Shakespeare rubbed his bearded chin and nodded. "You'll of your own accord convert, renouncing curse and condemnation with the fervor of a priestly vow."

Thomas sneered. "Dream on."

"Life's full of surprises." Shakespeare grinned, his vampire's fangs glinting in the moonlight. "Or hadn't you noticed?"

ChapterFive

Mavis Kirkellan stood in the church pulpit and shook out her long, red hair, letting the gleaming, crimped locks fall around her shoulders.

She cleared her throat and straightened her white button-down linen blouse. She smoothed her tan slacks over her slender hips.

Then, she patted the four-leaf clover taped to the underside of the podium. She rubbed the rabbit's foot that lay on the ledge on the other side.

A minister using good luck charms...in the pulpit, no less. This is so wrong.

Mavis' father, who'd been pastor before her, had put them there. He'd used them to get him through every church service until he died.

And now Mavis would end up using them to get through a service on Sunday...her first official solo service as pastor of her father's church.

It wasn't a big church by any stretch. In fact, the congregation of Desert Wind Christian in Tucson, Arizona topped out at sixty-three on most Sundays.

But Desert Wind Christian had been her father's church. After his death a month ago, Mavis had stepped in by the terms of his will to take over Desert Wind.

She was only nineteen years old, with zero formal religious education and even less religious calling—and she had to take over for her father.

How is that even possible?

She'd never been able to do much right for her daddy before. Why he hadn't left his congregation to someone else was a mystery to her.

Unless he was trying to force me to measure up.

That was one theory. For as long as Mavis could remember, her father had been pushing her to develop an interest in the church—an interest in anything. The truth was, since her mother's death, Mavis just hadn't cared much about applying herself. Why bother, when life can end so fast and without meaning?

So Mavis had become a ball of bad attitude, getting into trouble again and again, not caring about school. She'd barely graduated and hadn't even considered going to college—all in spite of her father's nagging and constant attempts to straighten her out.

So why was she in his pulpit now? Why was she even making an effort?

I don't want to be here! I can't even do this!

Mavis shut her eyes and flung up her hands. She took deep breaths, trying to steady her out-of-control nerves.

Why am I doing this?

Slowly, she lowered her hands and opened her eyes. She pictured the congregation fanned out in the pews in front of her...all sixty-three members, with a few curiosity-seekers thrown in for good measure.

They didn't look happy. In fact, they looked downright hostile.

Her heart pounded. She fiddled with the good luck charms and shuffled papers on the podium.

She stopped and read one of them—a list of public speaking tips from her father.

Picture family members and friends in the audience.

Great idea, she thought. Just one problem: she had no family members or friends to picture.

Her father was dead, and her mother had died long ago, when Mavis was just twelve years old. She had no brothers or sisters. Other relations were out there somewhere, but she'd hardly known them.

Maybe the next tip on the list would be more practical.

Picture your audience naked.

Mavis tried it, but it didn't work out so well. With or without clothes, her imaginary audience glared at her with the same hostility.

The front row had big red letters painted on their chests, spelling out, "LOSER."

"Even my own figments hate me," said Mavis, and then she dropped her head to the podium. Her long hair fell around her in a shroud of red.

I'm just not cut out for this line of work.

"I have to try."

Why? To make up for treating your dad like a jerk? To prove you measure up?

To find out if you're good for something after all?

Tears burned Mavis' eyes. "How do I know what to do?"

You're in church, right? What do people do in church?

They pray.

Still white-knuckling the pulpit railing, Mavis bowed her head. "Sure. Why not?" She hadn't prayed since before her mother died. "Um, okay. Send me a sign, God. Tell me what to do."

Nothing. No answer.

The church was silent except for her breathing. It was about what she'd expected, but still...a direct answer would have been nice.

Keep trying.

"Come on, God. Just a little sign?"

It was just then that the heavy oak door in the rear of the church swung open.

Hot desert air swelled the room. Mavis' head leaped up, and her eyes flew straight to the two figures in the doorway.

One was a woman with long, black hair and dark horn-rimmed glasses. She wore a red leather jacket over a short, black dress.

The other was a scrawny young man in a black Jethro Tull t-shirt and bluejeans. He must have dyed his shoulder-length hair, because he didn't look anywhere near old enough for it to have gotten pure white like that naturally.

They look like they just came from a nightclub.

"Hello, Pastor." The woman closed the door behind the young man. She had a slight Italian accent. "My name is Stanza Miracolo."

"Yes?" Mavis frowned, instantly suspicious. It was after eleven-thirty on a weeknight—not usually a big time for drop-ins with good intentions.

Can't believe I didn't lock that door.

There was no one else in the building, so she was outnumbered two to one. If her guests had trouble in mind, Mavis wasn't crazy about her chances.

Stanza took a few steps down the aisle, then stopped. "Look, Mavis," she said. "Don't mean to freak you out, but I have to move things along here."

Mavis was surprised when Stanza used her name...but then she remembered it was on the marquee outside. "Okay," she said, glancing around the church as casually as she could.

What if they have a partner?

"Thing is, your life's about to change," said Stanza.

"Really?" Mavis continued looking around, wondering what nearby objects she could use as weapons. "How's that?"

"For one thing," said Stanza, "you're about to meet family you might not have known about until now."

Stanza turned and swept an arm toward the young man at the door. "Meet Jonah Ivory," she said. "Your cousin."

"What?" Mavis stopped looking for weapons and locked eyes with Jonah.

"What?" Jonah looked surprised.

"Now we've got to get out of here fast," said Stanza. "A pack of vampires will be here any minute now."

ChapterSix

I knew it.

Mavis rubbed her eyes and smiled to herself. She had been worrying so much about her first day as Pastor, it was kind of a relief now that the other shoe had dropped.

I knew something was going to go horribly wrong.

"Hmm." Mavis stared at a tall brass candlestick beside the altar as if she were considering what Stanza had told her. In reality, she was thinking about using the candlestick to club Stanza and Jonah on the head. "When you say vampires..."

"Bloodsucking creatures of the night, yes." Stanza drummed on her hips and looked impatient.

Jonah stepped in front of her and hiked a thumb in Mavis' direction. "When you say cousin..."

Stanza looked at Jonah. "Mavis's grandmother was your grandmother's sister," she said. "The two of you have the same great-grandfather. I told you we were going to trace your family tree, didn't I?"

Jonah frowned back at Mavis. "But I've never even heard of her."

Mavis nodded as if she shared his lack of information. As if she hadn't heard of him, either.

It was better that way.

The truth was, she did know about Jonah. She hadn't recognized him, because she hadn't seen him since he was a child, but she knew who he was. She knew about his parents, too.

How could she forget the people who had ruined her life?

"Why didn't I know about her?" said Jonah.

"There was a family split," said Stanza.

Mavis raised her eyebrows with mild interest...but on the inside, she was burning and churning.

Family split. That's one way to put it.

More like family abandonment.

"Wow." Jonah shrugged and smiled at Mavis. "Well, nice to meet you, cousin."

"Likewise," Mavis said with a smile of her own.

Be sure to thank your parents for screwing me over.

Years ago, when Mavis' mother and father had died, Jonah's parents could have taken her in and given her a home. They were her closest relations, her own aunt and uncle; there was no reason they should have turned her away.

But they had. Jonah's parents had refused to take her in, sentencing her to a succession of abusive, loveless, and/or just plain irresponsible foster parents.

Mavis had survived, no thanks to Jonah's parents. She'd gotten through the darkest times and made something of herself...but oh, the precious memories. Oh, the scars.

Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Ivory.

And now, the son of the very people who could have given her a good life but had chosen not to stood there in front of her.

It was enough to make Mavis redouble her determination to get away from Jonah and Stanza as soon as possible.

Mavis folded her hands behind her back and eased out of the pulpit. She still had her eye on that candlestick.

"Back to the vampires." Mavis thought, if she could keep Jonah and Stanza talking, that she might distract them from her hit-and-run escape plan. "You said they'll be here any minute now?"

"Yes," said Stanza.

Mavis stared thoughtfully at her. "And you know they're coming because...?"

"I have a sixth sense." Stanza tapped the side of her head. "About vampires. More like a seventh sense, I guess."

"You can feel them," said Mavis.

"Among other things." Stanza nodded. "Your only chance is to come with us."

"What about crosses?" As nonchalantly as she could, Mavis kept moving toward the candlestick. "Don't crosses drive them off? This place is full of crosses."

"Wives' tale," said Stanza.

"I have some holy water around," said Mavis. "That hurts them, doesn't it?"

"If you drown them in it, maybe." Stanza checked her watch. "We'd better get going."

Mavis stopped two steps from the candlestick and second-guessed her plan.

Since when am I a warrior princess? I haven't been in a fight since the third grade. And I've never been bulletproof at all, which won't do me any good if one of them has a gun.

Stymied by indecision, Mavis stalled for time. "I've got garlic downstairs in the kitchen. Vampires hate garlic, don't they?"

Stanza shrugged. "No more than anyone else."

"Okay, then." Mavis clapped her hands together. "Sunlight!"

"Their pupils are permanently dilated," said Stanza. "Any bright enough direct light source blinds them. Of course, sunglasses take the edge off."

Mavis gathered her courage and took the last steps over to the candlestick.

Count of three. Come on now.

She swallowed hard and pretended to straighten the candlestick. Her heart pounded, and blood rushed in her ears.

Wait a minute. Bloody candlestick, bodies in the nave, blood on my hands, police investigation. Front page headlines. Why do I have the feeling this might not go a long way toward me keeping my job?

Mavis let go of the candlestick.

"Look," she said. "Forget the vampires. What do you really want?"

Stanza stared at her, a smile nipping at the corners of her mouth. "You're so cute," she said. "It must be nice, being so totally naïve."

Mavis smiled and reached for the candlestick again.

"We need to go now," said Stanza. "Chop chop."

"Go where?" said Jonah.

"Trace your roots," said Stanza. "Family history. It's our only chance."

"To do what?" said Mavis. "Do vampires have a weakness for family trees?"

Stanza grimaced again. "Long story."

Mavis frowned and rubbed her temples. The weirdness was giving her a headache.

"Look, I'm going to get some aspirin from my office." Mavis turned, fully intending to do exactly what she said.

And maybe dial 911 on the way.

But she didn't get far.

Stanza's shout stopped her before she'd taken a single step. "Don't move!"

"But I'm just..." Mavis didn't finish her sentence.

As she turned, she saw Stanza swing a machine gun over her shoulder on a strap. Until that moment, Mavis had thought the strap belonged to a backpack or bag.

"You're coming with us!" said Stanza.

Oh God! I knew I should have used the candlestick!

"Now get down!" Stanza aimed the gun in Mavis' direction. When Mavis hesitated, Stanza shouted again. "Do it now or you're dead!"

Mavis dropped and threw her arms over her head.

She closed her eyes as the machine gun chattered, opening fire in the middle of the church.