by Heather Knox
The Becoming
Vampire Wars: Book #1
abdopublishing.com
Published by EPIC Press, a division of ABDO, PO Box 398166, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55439. Copyright © 2019 by Abdo Consulting Group, Inc. International copyrights reserved in all countries. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. EscapeTM is a trademark and logo of EPIC Press.
Printed in the United States of America, North Mankato, Minnesota.
052018
092018
Cover design by Candice Keimig
Images for cover and interior art obtained from iStockphoto.com
Edited by Jennifer Skogen
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018932895
Publisher’s Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Knox, Heather, author.
Title: The becoming/ by Heather Knox
Description: Minneapolis, MN : EPIC Press, 2019 | Series: Vampire wars; #1
Summary: The death of Ezekiel “Zeke” Winter, an Elder Keeper, marks the uprising of the Praedari and the inclusion of humanity in their war. His descendant, Delilah, reveals his death as a murder and is given the opportunity to avenge him—and to potentially make a name for herself with the Keepers. With only her visions to guide her, Delilah must decide if the lives of four teenage captives and the promises of vengeance and glory are enough reason to risk her unlife.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781680769043 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 9781680769326 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Vampires--Fiction. | War--Fiction--Fiction. | Search and rescue operations--
Fiction--Fiction. | Adventure stories--Fiction | Young adult fiction.
Classification: DDC [FIC]--dc23
This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.
For Sylvia Quinn
WHEN THEY TELL ME ZEKE HAS DIED I GO WILD. I become gravity, heavy, pitching forward, falling. Two someones hold me just above the elbow, one on each side, maybe so I don’t collapse into earthquake. Maybe so what happens next doesn’t happen: I wrench free, shaking the someones off. Sob-screams rise from my stomach and tear from my throat as I see his torpid body. No one else sees. They see ash. I see Zeke’s eyes widen slightly, exactly how it’s written in cheap airport thrillers. He gasps, unaccustomed to needing breath, but whatever human is left inside him, vulnerable as a child, surfaces and tries not to die again.
You’d think the end would be more primal, the predator within fingering the shaft of wood before ripping it from his chest only just too late. But he dies gasping, uselessly, his human self finally won out against the monster—but they, the someones, see only ash and imagine the rest, if they care to. I’m sobbing, my cheek resting in a mirage of the pile of ash that is his chest which I feel and no one sees.
I’m left alone with my grief, wailing until the someones return. They pull me to my feet as though I may shatter. They’re too late, I think, but I shuffle obediently to my room. A part of me no longer me murmurs thank yous. Still dressed, I lie in bed. The sky blues, ink diluted by the moment by water. Morning threatens from behind curtains I didn’t close but that are somehow now closed. I sleep.
For twenty-seven nights I rise from my bed and cross to the double doors that lead to the balcony. Pulling aside the thick curtains I catch a glimpse of someone in the glass, myself, logically, but also improbably not. Her hair falls in perfect dark curls, framing a puckered and grotesquely marred visage, like scar tissue, shiny and raw-seeming. Her eyes seem dull, a streetlight caped in fog. I leave the doors open behind me, slump to the cool tile at the balcony’s edge and stare from between the wrought iron grates over the city.
For too many nights the city buzzes below, unaware of his passing. Unaware of him, of me, of us—the monsters that hunt them and feed from them but also protect them. Each morning, just before dawn, someone carries me, unresponsive, to the bed. Draws the curtains. Disappears. By his smell I recognize Caius, an Elder of the Everlasting probably being punished with this babysitting for some imperceptible offense or another in the Council chambers. Or maybe he cared for my Usher and takes care of me not out of obligation, but genuine fraternity. I soften at this, though improbable. Still, he feels more familiar to me than he should, as if we’ve shared a life I can’t quite remember. Zeke often called me a romantic, a dying breed, he said, another of my many secrets. He told me this is probably why I survived the Becoming.
“ZEKE, MAN, LISTEN—IF YOU WON’T, I WILL . . . ” Tomas says, eyeing the woman with the dark curls onstage as if he could devour her with his gaze alone. A woman walking behind him toys with the hair at the nape of his neck in passing. He slips a few twenties into the tip jar she carries, winks at her.
“Do you even know her name?” I joke.
Tomas shrugs, taking a swig of blood from a contraband flask he snuck in his jacket. We’d been coming to The Slaughterhouse together most nights for a few months now, since I began infiltrating Tomas’s pack of Praedari.
The Slaughterhouse used to be a large commercial slaughterhouse, the uninspired name testament to the amount of work the owners put into restoring the building. The same tile floor, the drains now serving to keep spills and fallout from brawls tidy. Still, the pack claims this music club as part of their hunting grounds despite it being technically outside their territory. Praedari claims could be fluid like that as the strongest pack holding dominance until an even stronger one comes along.
“Name? Why would I need that? That guy’s paid to announce it so I don’t forget.” He grins before turning his attention again to the stage.
I shake my head. I know her only as Delilah, probably her stage name. It is clear no one liked her—not the other singers, not the bartenders, not the bouncers. She makes no effort to be likeable, but when she sings she awakens something feral within you making it impossible not to love her or love hating her. Silky dark curls cascade down her back, somehow managing to never hide her face no matter how vigorously the music moves her. Her biceps and calves boast the lean muscle of a classically trained dancer; this grace underscored by the filth and sleaze of The Slaughterhouse. It is no wonder Tomas finds himself drawn to her. Unlike the other girls—who make every man feel like he’s the only man she’s ever sung for—Delilah sings only for herself.
Infiltration started as a reprieve from my often stifling duties as an Elder Keeper, and these visits to The Slaughterhouse started as a reprieve from my duties to Tomas’s pack while I infiltrated, a way to take time away from them to focus on tactics and gain perspective. Then Tomas started tagging along. Rarely did others outside his pack have the chance to see through his bravado to get to know him, but his loyalty—to both his pack and the sect—could not be rivaled. I had no doubt he’d sacrifice his unlife for a packmate, which now included me.
As with Tomas, I began to notice things about Delilah that ran deeper than the surface. Something different in how the energy around her behaved. A sort of magnetism, as though many entities beyond my vision and awareness looked out for her. And, as unaware as she played at being, I noticed Delilah studying me. Perhaps she caught something predatory in my gaze. Something knowing—ancient, perhaps; intoxicating. Maybe this excites her.
Maybe I only wish for it to. Such is the spell she casts on you when she takes the stage. Still, last month she started ordering a drink—mineral water and lime; she never risks dulling her senses with alcohol in a place like this—and taking her time with it at the bar. Side by side we passed many nights, never speaking. Just strangers at the bar.
“Well, man, I’ll give you as much time as I can,” Tomas starts, standing. Manners he lacks, but charm he has in spades, a Gift of his Blood.
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“Anyway, I’ve got some scouting to do,” he says before heading out into the night.
Recruitment, how could I have forgotten? The pack’s rumblings about recruitment have turned into a plan. We each need to provide a “recruit” for the Becoming, someone worthy of becoming one of the Everlasting, worthy of becoming one of the Praedari. Failure to do so would bring my loyalty into question and jeopardize the mission. I came here tonight to forget about that.
I rub my crinkled brow, staring at the stage but not seeing—instead, worrying about a way out of the upcoming rite. The music ending interrupts my thoughts. I see Delilah approach the edge of the stage, eyes wet and empty as if in a trance. She climbs down, seemingly unaware of the bills crumpled and stuffed into the tip jar on the edge of the stage behind her.
A man notices, though, and sees an opportunity to reclaim his contribution. He rushes over, glancing around before greedily stuffing bills into his pockets. I’m on him in an instant, a feeling like boiling where my heart used to beat. I grab his arm and bend. I don’t stop bending until I hear a satisfying snap, his screams rushing around me, white noise to that predatory thing within me, unnamed.
A bouncer approaches. He wears a gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans. I lock eyes with him. When he reaches where the man and I stand, he merely grabs the man by his uninjured arm and moves to drag him from the club.
“Wait,” I interrupt. “He’s got her money.” I jerk my head towards the bar where Delilah sits.
The bouncer reaches roughly into the man’s pockets and pulls out wads of bills, handing them to me before dragging him outside.
Delilah sits at the bar, her usual drink in front of her.
“Thanks for that, back there. Let me buy you a drink.”
“No need.” I keep my voice low, barely above a whisper.
“Shoot. Seems there’s a bit of blood on your shirt,” she says dipping a napkin into her glass and leaning forward to grab my collar. She moves like silk, dabbing at something I can’t see. Her fingers rest against my neck a moment. I clear my throat.
She pulls her hands away, dropping the crumpled napkin on the bar. “Our options here are limited for how I can show my gratitude.”
“I don’t drink much.”
“No, I suppose you don’t.” She smirks.
She finishes her mineral water, letting the glass meet the bar with a satisfying thunk before winking an invitation and heading backstage.
I wait a few minutes, then follow. One meaningful look and the bouncer waves me through the worn velvet rope. Backstage looms darker than I anticipated, and quieter.
“I bet you’re thirsty.” Delilah’s voice, low and confident, comes from a room to the right. A light flickers above, dim, casting a flattering glow that illuminates her curves.
“What?”
“Don’t play stupid.”
I enter the dressing room to find her leaning against the wall next to a vanity covered in makeup, glitter, hairspray, Victoria’s Secret bottles. Reflected in the too many mirrors, I see myself through the lens of the curse: a marred visage of puckered, decaying skin barely covering bone. For the first time in a century I find myself self-conscious, momentarily forgetting that should she catch my reflection, I’ll appear just as I do in the flesh—young, strong, smooth. Such is the curse I’m intended to suffer alone. I narrow my eyes and turn away, back to her.
“Who are you?” I demand.
“Delilah—stage names are for those who’re hiding from something.”
I take a few steps toward her.
“I didn’t mean your name and I’m guessing you know that. What are you?”
“Don’t you mean who am I?”
“I asked what I wanted answered,” I quip. “Twice now.”
“Someone who isn’t blind.” She adjusts her hair in the mirror, then catches my eye in the reflection. I notice a copy of Anna Karenina, pages dog-eared, cover creased and worn and faded, half-buried by makeup compacts and dresses strewn carelessly between lounge acts. “You’ve been coming here for months and ordering drinks you don’t really drink. You snapped a man’s arm like a candy cane. You didn’t bat an eye when I said you had blood on your collar. You don’t breathe, and you have no pulse.”
The napkin. No tinge of blood on it or my collar. She lingered to see if she could feel a pulse.
“The real question is,” she continues, “how has no one else noticed?”
“What is it you think I am?” I ask.
“I’ve heard it’s intense, more intense than anything.” She turns to face me, dragging her hand slowly down her throat. “You can drink of me if you like.”
The predator within me still lurks dangerously near the surface, riled up from before. I lunge for her, slamming her into the wall. She is right and this angers me, rouses that thing within that we Keepers fight so hard to swallow and dismiss. But we are alone. Why not? No. Her eyes grow wide for only a moment, her posture stiffening almost imperceptibly before relaxing once again.
“I’ve known others, companions to your kind. They became addicted.”
“I could kill you with one hand,” I snarl in her ear. My hand moves to around her throat. I can feel her pulse. “You’re so—”
“Delicate?”
“Helpless.”
“Hardly,” Delilah snorts. “I’m not some doe-eyed waif who’s been chewed up and spat out by the city. But I wonder if you know that?”
I suspect no one knows anything about her unless she intends them to, myself included despite the hours that have slipped silently between us at the bar, despite the hours that have slipped silently between us as she takes the stage, despite feeling like she’s as much a part of Tomas’s pack passively and by circumstance as I’ve become intentionally. The mentality of a voyeur. She looks like she could be eighteen, nineteen—what am I doing? Even when I was made, centuries ago, I had more mileage on my mortal shell than she does now.
I relax my grip, take a step back. Was that—is she disappointed?
“Fine. I bet your friend will be back soon.” She takes a deep breath. Was she shaken? “He looked . . . hungry.”
I watch the bruises bloom on her biceps.
“Don’t worry,” she says into the mirror. “They’ll be gone soon enough.”
My Beast clawing for a way out, shredding every ounce of willpower so I don’t take her up on her offer. I can almost feel the delicate skin of her shoulder as my fingers dance along the ridge there, brushing her hair aside, her flesh giving way just as my fangs—no. Delilah knows too much for the comfort of the Keepers, courts disaster too much to go long unnoticed by the Praedari. If she moves in on one of my pack my cover will be blown—either when Tomas claims her for recruitment and I must violate his claim by killing her or when the pack questions my dedication to them because I showed the girl mercy and did not claim her as my own. The Praedari may tolerate a lot of dissent, but mercy and selfishness always meet a swift punishment. I know what I must do. Besides, a girl going missing in the city is hardly a headline and I need a recruit. There’s no way she could survive the Becoming.
Less cleaning up to do.
ON THE TWENTY-EIGHTH NIGHT I WAKE TO CAIUS sitting in the overstuffed chair in the corner of the room, one hand’s fingers tapping impatiently on the arm, the other’s mangled and knotted, dangling, limp. Likely an injury he incurred while alive, though the alternative, that he came up against something that powerful and survived, excites the predator within me.
Either the room or Caius smell musty, like damp earth tilled to the surface that hasn’t properly dried in weeks. Spring after winter’s thaw. I rise, as I have for weeks, and cross to the double doors that lead to the balcony. Pulling aside the thick curtains, I have a vision of Caius that dances over the glass where my reflection should be—younger, ugly, but not yet hideous. I blink longer than usual to clear the vision and leave the doors open behind me. The Gift of Sight often comes in short, murky flashes, sometimes a few times a ni
ght and then not again for months. Standing at the wrought iron grates, I feel him enter the doorway.
“The Council has summoned you,” he states.
I. THE VISION OF THE FIRST ELDERS AS PERTAINS TO the Council of Keepers
The founding of the Council of Keepers, amended on this [day redacted] of [month redacted], [year redacted], ensures the continued vision of the First Ones.
i. That only from the shadows may we protect;
ii. That only by hiding our nature may we remain in the shadows;
iii. That only in controlling our Beast may we hide our nature;
iv. That only by strict observance of the Corpus Rituum Perpetuorum may we control our Beast.
As it is written, so shall it be enforced.
II. The Purpose of the Council of Keepers
The purpose of the Council of Keepers is to uphold the vision of the First Ones as set forth above. In doing so, it is the duty of the Council of Keepers to:
i. Maintain a strong presence in their territory so the enemy does not recruit from within;
ii. Meet dissent with swift-but-just means so protection of the mortal world is not compromised;
iii. Observe the Corpus Rituum Perpetuorum without err so the Council may be looked to as living the vision of the First Ones;
iv. Strive for consensus among the Council members in all major judgments so as to bolster the perception of cohesion.
As it is written, so shall it be observed.
III. The Structure of the Council of Keepers
The Council of Keepers shall be comprised of the seven eldest Keepers in the territory. In the case of an Elder Keeper of significant age moving into a region, there shall be a formal contest between this Elder and the youngest serving on the Council. This contest shall include:
i. A test of wits;
ii. A test of endurance;
iii. A test of politesse;
iv. And a test of knowledge of the Corpus Rituum Perpetuorum.