With
Vampire Apocalypse: Revelations, we get to the last books I originally published with Dreams Unlimited. The Vampire Apocalypse series was originally envisioned as a series of novellas. The first two,
Julian and
Nicholas, were published under separate cover, and I was working on the third,
Lucien, when DU went out of business.
I decided to stick to the original plan of connected novellas, but finished
Lucien and wrote one more,
Lorelei, and sold them as a package to ImaJinn. Then
Book Two: Apotheosis, followed with four more connected novellas:
Lilith,
Rafael,
Tara, and
Julian--Redux. Both books are still in print through ImaJinn. Overall, it's one of those worlds I keep thinking about revisiting, but I'm not sure if I should.
From
Vampire Apocalypse Book One: Revelations--Julian
Lorelei
Fletcher was in over her head.
She
should have followed her instincts from the beginning. Too late for that now—she just hoped she
could get the hell out of here somehow.
On
any other night but Halloween, she never would have followed Dina east of
Tompkins Square Park, dance club or no dance club. But Halloween and her vampire costume made her feel invincible,
so she’d agreed.
They’d
never made it to the dance club. Instead, following directions given Dina by her latest boyfriend, they’d
ended up here, in a bizarre tenement building where all the rooms seemed to be
connected, and where no hallway seemed to be the same shape from moment to
moment. Lorelei was beginning to wonder
if the weird smell in the place was some kind of hallucinogen.
It
would, at least, be a logical explanation for why everyone was so weird. Everybody
in the place was dressed like a vampire. It hadn’t seemed strange at first. It was Halloween, after all. Lorelei herself made a stunning vampiress, or so she thought, with her
black hair and naturally milky complexion. But, unlike the weirdoes at this party, she only played vampire one day
a year.
She
had to admit the image of the vampire intrigued her, sometimes to the point of
obsession. She could spend days
watching every vampire movie she could find, tracing dim, elusive memories. In twenty years, she hadn’t found a mirror
to the scene she remembered from childhood. But
compared to these nuts, she was a paragon of sanity.
She’d
been accosted half a dozen times by guys with razor blades, and, looking for
the bathroom, she’d stumbled into a couple of leather-clad women sucking each
other’s wrists with an enthusiasm Lorelei reserved for sex or good
chocolate. She’d heard about things
like this, but she’d never really believed people could be so freaky. So much for unbridled optimism.
She
wished she knew where Dina was. Lorelei
had lost track of her about an hour ago, when they’d split up to find the front
door. They were supposed to meet at a
designated bathroom fifteen minutes later, but Lorelei hadn’t seen Dina
since. Nor had she seen the front door.
Somewhere
a clock began to strike. Lorelei looked
at her watch. Midnight. A woman in a bright red cape brushed by her,
a coppery smell of blood drifting in her wake.
“Excuse
me,” Lorelei said, but the woman only cast a grin over her shoulder and kept
walking.
“Thank
you so much.” Lorelei came to a halt
and crossed her arms. This was
ridiculous. She could swear she’d been
down this stretch of hallway at least twice. Where the hell had the front door gone? She thought a minute. If she
went this way, she should end up back at the bathroom...
The
voice, faint but frantic, seemed to come from around a bend in the hall.“No! Stop it, Nicky!”
“Dina!” Lorelei broke into a run.
“Get
your hands off me, you bastard!”
“Dina!” Lorelei ran full-tilt into the closed
door. She was certain it was the
bathroom—or
a bathroom—and behind it Dina’s voice rose, frantic.
“No! Nicky, no!” >The voice sobbed now, in terror. >
Lorelei
slammed herself into the door. >“Dina! Dina, hang on
Hang
on to what? Lorelei had no idea what
was going on. Her breath tore in her
throat, heaving toward panic. Visions
of razor blades and blood swam in her vision. >She smashed herself again and again into the door until she thought her
shoulder would shatter. Suddenly the
door came open with the sickening sound of splintering wood.
There
was Dina. There were no razor blades,
but there was blood.
A
big, dark-haired man had her pinned against the wall, face buried in the bend
of her throat. Of course, Lorelei
thought fleetingly. If they thought
they were vampires, of course they’d go for the throat. Shallow cuts, probably, like the wrist cuts.
“Get
away from her, you freak!” Lorelei
grabbed the man by the shoulder and dragged at him, trying to haul him off
Dina. But he was heavy, and stronger
than she could have imagined...
Panic
clawed up her throat. This wasn’t like
the wrist-sucking girls in the bathroom. Something more was going on here. >The room reeked of blood. From
this angle, Lorelei could see it, winding in a thick, red line down Dina’s bare
shoulder, down the length of her arm, dripping steadily from the end of her
index finger. Dina’s head was thrown
back, the man’s mouth fastened to her throat...
He
was killing her.
Lorelei
struck him again, fruitlessly. Then, so
deep into panic she had no awareness of it anymore, she grabbed a handful of
his silky black hair and jerked as hard as she could.
The man’s head snapped
back. Blood sprayed everywhere. He turned toward Lorelei as Dina’s body
slumped down to the floor, filling the small room with a rhythmic spray of blood
that suddenly subsided.
The
man grabbed Lorelei’s hair on either side of her face, holding her
riveted. She’d thought the paleness of
his skin was makeup, skillfully applied. >Now she saw it was only his skin, smooth, seamless, painfully white. He opened his blood-filled mouth and she saw
white again, slender fangs.
He
struck.
***
Julian
Cavanaugh had been sitting in the alley for hours, chain smoking and smelling
blood. He came here every Halloween, to
remind himself of what he'd been, and what he'd become.
Sometimes
he wondered why he did it. With the
blood-smell in his nostrils the craving became almost unbearable even with the
aid of the cigarettes, which weren’t exactly over-the-counter Marlboros. But if he could sit here from dusk until
dawn, smelling the blood and not giving into the need, he knew he could make it
another year.
As of
tonight, it would be two hundred and thirty-six.
Sometimes
he thought it was a waste of time, namely the hours he invested every week
making the cigarettes. The tobacco he
could buy at the mall, nicely dried and prepared, but three of the other
ingredients were herbs which, as far as he knew, had been extinct on this
planet for a millennium. Except for the
few plants preserved by a Native American shaman, given to him by a god of
blood, then passed on to Julian two hundred and thirty-six years ago.
Deep,
throaty laughter came from a second-story window. Julian recognized the voice. >Nicholas had been made a vampire three years ago tonight, during the
annual Halloween bloodbash. Vivian had
made him. As Julian recalled, she’d
found him in a bar and brought him home for the party. It was strange to Julian how many humans
were willing to come, to slash their wrists and lap each others’ blood,
pretending to be something they couldn’t begin to imagine.
Julian
lit another cigarette from the tip of the butt in his mouth and listened to
Nicholas’ voice. A woman answered him,
first laughing seductively, then, suddenly, in fear.
“No. Stop it, Nicky.” He heard scuffling. “Get
your hands off me, you bastard!” Then
she screamed, “No!”
Julian
closed his eyes tight and sucked hard on the cigarette. He’d promised himself a long time ago to
stay out of the business of other vampires. >But he hated to hear the taking of an unwilling victim.
He
should get up and walk away. Inside, the
voices rose. Another woman’s voice
screamed from the other side of the door. >Julian snubbed the cigarette against the brick wall and put the butt in
his jacket pocket. Gathering himself,
he leapt, catching the sill and levering himself up on it. The cigarettes had stilled the need for
blood, but hadn’t affected his strength.
The
victim’s head lolled against the partly-open window. All Julian could see was a mass of gold-brown hair and Nicholas’
face pressed into her neck. Julian
grabbed the window and shoved upward. >He should have moved faster. Now
it was too late to save her.
Suddenly
the bathroom door burst inward and another woman half-fell into the room. With an astonishing show of strength, she
tore Nicholas away from the dying blonde woman. And Nicholas, predictably, turned on her.
Julian
launched himself through the window and onto Nicholas’ back, breaking him loose
from his victim and knocking him to the floor. >The woman fell in a heap to the ground, all pale skin and black hair,
unconscious, not from blood loss, but from the beginning of the vampire’s
trance. Her throat had been pricked,
but not penetrated.
Nicholas,
interrupted at the beginning of a new feed, stumbled. Julian grabbed his shoulder and shoved him down. The younger vampire glared up at him, eyes
glinting black.
“You,”
he said, his voice still wet with blood from the first girl.
“How
observant,” said Julian dryly.
Nicholas
leaped at him. Julian hadn’t expected
that and he threw up an arm to ward Nicholas off, but he landed hard against
him, threw a punch that smashed Julian’s lip against his teeth. The taste of his own blood made Julian
momentarily dizzy.
“Stop,”
he said, his voice pitched low and deep. >
Nicholas
stopped. He was young, his three years
no match for Julian’s eight centuries. >He gaped at Julian, then struggled to formed words. “There’s a Call out for you, man.”
Julian
stared. There had been no Call put out
for a vampire for nearly two centuries. >But under the compulsion, Nicholas had no choice but to tell the truth.
“Sleep,”
Julian said finally, and Nicholas slumped to the floor.
Julian
turned to the dark-haired woman. She
was alive. He could still help
her. It was far too late for the other
woman. All he could do was get away
from the smell of her blood as quickly as possible. Gently, he lifted the living woman from the floor.
