This time Upton howled so loud and so long several monk guards came to his door and shushed him. He roared into their faces, throwing himself this way and that around the cell his chains rattling like thunder.
Seeing they would not subdue him, the monks left again, just as if he were no threat. No one could hear him beyond the monastery enclave. No one would ever search for him. He had been outwitted and imprisoned.
Well! He would find a way to extract his revenge on both the old Predator vampires who had done this to him. If it took a thousand years, he would find satisfaction.
He stopped fighting and sat back quietly to think. His considerable intelligence would save him.
All he had to do was think his way out of this. He had all the time in the world at his disposal to put a plan into motion.
~*~
Mentor was alerted when Upton went crazy. He kept a very minor watch on the vampire, but even if he hadn't, the monks would have sent word. He knew Upton planned escape some way, some day. He'd have to watch him closer now.
It did not surprise him to discover Ross had taken over Upton's enterprises. He cared little about that, feeling Ross would always be pliable to some extent. He was no Upton.
Mentor sat in the backyard of Bette's house. Inside, she slept in the arms of her husband. Outside, the trees rustled and the moon went in and out of cloud cover.
Mentor's thoughts moved to Dell. He gently probed the fetus she carried, touching it with his consciousness. She would give birth to a dhampir, half vampire, half human, and the half-breed would grow to loathe his mother's clan. It would want to eradicate them from the Earth. She didn't yet know these things, not truly know them, but she would learn when it was too late.
But no matter, no matter, the world would go on. God might listen, or He might have gone on a vacation. Ross would continue being rambunctious and often deadly, his power growing as Upton's billions burgeoned. Bette would love Alan, and she would be loved in turn throughout all the days of her life. Upton would rage and plot, his heart growing ever darker.
Arid the world would continue to turn. That was all Mentor knew with any certainty.
He looked around once more at the peaceful Japanese garden before sailing above the Earth where he paused, looking down upon it. He then looked up, into the vast reaches of dark, endless, cold space where the universe twirled. None of them had ever tried to go farther out than where he was now. What if they tried? What if there was another habitable planet they could migrate to? But they would just die there, cut off from mankind.
He sighed and looked down again at the blue, swirling globe of his home, the prison where human and vampire were caught in a timeless struggle. If he must have solace, then this was it.
The world would go on, whatever happened to him and his kind. It cared little for the affairs of the creatures living upon it as it spun through space and time.
It would always go on, with or without him, through all the risings of all the red moons.
The End
Thank You For Reading! This was the first book of the Vampire Nation Chronicles. Please continue reading the trilogy.
RISE OF THE LEGEND
Book II in the Vampire Nation Chronicles
By Billie Sue Mosiman
Smashwords Edition published at Smashwords by Billie Sue Mosiman
Copyright 2010 by Billie-Sue Mosiman
This book was recreated from OCR scans and copy-edited by David Dodd
This book is dedicated to my son
Brandon Lee Mosiman,
lost but not forgotten.
"Stranger by whom these lines be read,
Weep for the living, not for the dead."
—Tombstone Inscription
BOOK I
THE RAISING OF THE CHILD
Chapter 1
“Who are you?" Malachi asked.
In the dream he was no longer a little boy of three, but a grown man. His mind was adult and full of experience. In sleep, he had somehow stepped into the future.
Looking around, he saw he was standing in a dark wood with a rising red moon. Beside him, looking out over the blasted landscape of a forest of bare trees and putrid ground glowing with scarlet light, stood a giant creature in black clothing, an ankle-length cape shrouding his shoulders, a hood covering his head.
"I'm the Master," the creature said.
"Why am I here?"
"To be instructed in the ways to bring about my victory on Earth."
"Victory? Over what? Will I lead a war?"
"Yes, a war between my creatures and the Others who are weak. We are made of three kinds. I am Predator. I am as ancient as the world and have been here from the beginning. Until now we have shared the world with those Others, the Naturals and Cravens. Your coming is a sign my battle to reign alone is at hand. You'll lead this battle, a captain in my campaign."
Malachi began to tremble from the inside out, his muscles dancing beyond his control in fear. Somewhere deep in his mind he touched the child he was, lying in his bed, sleeping. Even as he stood here, in a world so real he could feel the debris beneath his shoes and the intimate brush of the fetid wind against his manly face, he knew it was all wrong. He shouldn't be in this dream or having this conversation. The giant creature that called itself a Predator wasn't human, but he wasn't the Christian God or an alien either. He was as he had described his enemies—Other. His power was tangible, projected as it was from the statuesque figure so that it engulfed Malachi, who, even as a grown man, was dwarfed by the being.
"I must go, I can't stay here." Malachi turned away from the horrid red moon filling the sky and the Predator that dictated his future as if it were predestined. He stumbled along the path, shaking as if a gale blew at his back.
Hands latched onto his shoulders and spun him around. The giant Predator was inches away. It was the first time Malachi saw his face. It was a ravaged nightmare, with haughty Roman nose, full lips, and eyes that blazed with amber depths and black reflective pupils. The lips pulled back in a smile that revealed fangs lowering from red gums.
Malachi screamed, unable to help himself. He turned his head away, believing himself in the clutches of the devil and his soul in peril.
"Go, then, but remember me," the creature said, holding firmly to Malachi. "One day you will do my bidding. With your help, the world will be ours."
Malachi wrenched away, stumbled back, and, with a scream lodged in his throat, he turned to run.
It was as if he ran instantly from the dream world into reality. It was no more than a hasty step from nightmare to night shrouding his child's room. He woke in his bed, trembling and sweaty, crying out in terror. His mother and father rushed to his room, turning back the covers and soothing him, thinking to dispel his nightmare.
He hadn't the words to tell them what he'd seen or the prediction that had been laid upon him. He simply cried against his mother's breast, too scared to speak, too lacking in language to explain, too afraid to close his eyes for fear the dream would return.
By morning he had forgotten the nightmare and bounded from bed to find his parents where they sat in the dining room. He climbed into his father's lap, adoring the strong hands that lifted him. He reached for a piece of toast from his father's plate, plucking it from the contagion of the runny yellow yoke of fried eggs.
He would not remember the awful night and the conversation with the Predator again until years had passed and, as an adult, his mind opened to reveal the cryptic message told him when he was just a boy of three.
Was it true?
Was it nightmare fantasy?
Only Malachi could answer the questions in the fullness of time. When he did, his whole life would change forever.
~*~
Twilight crept into the cell through a small barred window high on the west wall. Night in Thailand brought a chill that caused the stone blocks to weep with condensation. The damp cell smelled of rusting iron from the rivets in the wall and the chains that bound Charl
es Upton.
Outside, Charles could hear temple bells and believed the vampire monks used them to indicate a call to prayer. Prayer and vampire did not seem to be a reasonable combination, but after three years of imprisonment Charles had nominally accepted the idea. His captors were some manner of creature so unlike him they might as well be aliens from another world. He, by glory, was a true, legendary vampire. Though he was newly made, compared to the ancient monks who watched over him, he felt no urge to call on God to save him.
Becoming an immortal had rescued him from an ignoble death. He had been dying of porphyria, a disease that had plagued him for the latter years of his mortal existence. It was a scourge running through his life like a firestorm, stealing away joy and hope. To become vampire was all the miracle he could have wished for. He'd been granted life eternal. He'd never fear the darkness again. His pain was lifted, the sores scarring his body disappeared, and he was stronger than any man on Earth. If there was anyone to thank, it was Ross, the Predator living a life of ease back in Texas. Meaning to kill him, at the last moment Ross listened to Charles' plea for mercy and his promise to share his vast wealth and power.
But then Ross betrayed him. Along with Mentor, the strongest and oldest vampire in the entire western portion of the United States, Ross decided to simply take what he wished rather than share it.
Charles seethed at the old memories. They set him afire just as the disease had done his mortal body. He would get his revenge. Oh, yes, he would, for he had eternity to carry out the threat, didn't he? He had never been thwarted in his life as a businessman and would not allow this to stand—this disgusting imprisonment . . . this unending silence . . . this life in death forced upon him. No creature as majestic as he should be treated this way. The difference between him and his old mortal self was as great as that between a June bug and a man. If the vampire had evolved, which he didn't, but if he had, it would have taken millions of years to bring man up to this incarnation. That some of them imprisoned their brothers seemed an insane act of treachery.
He thought the monks of the monastery deluded and superstitious anyway, them and their precious, unfeeling god who so far had turned a deaf ear to any plea for redemption. His disdain for the monks rivaled the hatred he felt each morning at six and again at noon when the bells sounded in the courtyard. There they go again, he thought twice daily, hearing the bells. Praying for control over their evil hunger.
Charles thought they ought to be out preying on victims, not praying for their dark souls. They should be taking new blood rather than going down onto their knees in the chapel and bowing their heads to a nonentity. Insane, he thought. They are absolutely mad.
Hearing the bells during the day reminded Charles where he was and why. But it was the tolling of the twilight bells that always produced an eerie shiver. One more day lost, they said. Another day shut away from the world. If he were to live forever in this prison, it would not be like living at all. He had come to abhor the end of day—and the third ringing of the bells. He had taken to covering his ears with his hands in order to shut out the resonating sounds.
However, one twilight in the thirty-eighth month of his incarceration, he was too busy concentrating on the cards spread before him on the cold stone floor to bother with the peal of bells. In the dwindling light the ancient figures on the cards seemed to shimmer and move about, changing posture and intent.
Earlier in the day he had created a ruckus sure to bring one of the monk guards running. Often they ignored his rages, knowing eventually he would spend himself and lie down in exhaustion to sleep. Charles had to devise new ways to attract their attention when he wanted something. He discovered if he drew the rage up from the center of his chest and let it explode in his brain, he could close his eyes and shout in a voice of thunder that even angels could hear.
There were many things he could do now that he was vampire, and though he had been without instruction, he was slowly acquiring knowledge of those powers. He could throw his voice, making it seem he was on the other side of the cell, talking to himself. He could speak with insects and rodents when they invaded his space, frightening them away. He deeply despised the roaches, silverfish, spiders, lizards, scorpions, and mice that came with wriggling antennas and whiskers to quiz him in his sleep, creeping as they did onto his eyelids or snuffing curiously at the white hair in his ears.
Using his voice to its fullest extent and backed with his rage, he could force the monks to attend his needs, as he had done this day. Joseph, one of the regular monks who brought his daily ration of blood, appeared at the cell door, unlatching the small iron grate covering the window.
"What is it you want now, Charles?" he asked in exasperation.
All the monks disrespectfully addressed him by his first name, which Charles found annoying, but less annoying than their neglect.
"I am bored," Charles said. "Could you bring me some cards to play with? It would keep my mind entertained." Charles had asked for other small items during his time in the cell, and usually his wishes had been granted. Once, in the dim past of his youth, he remembered playing solitaire aboard a merchant ship, and how the cards helped pass the time at sea.
Joseph brought a deck of cards covered with worn velvet cloth and thrust them through the window bars. Dust motes flew from his hand and the package, creating a small swirl in the air before Charles' face. Joseph said, "This is all I could find. Brother Hadeem said they've been on the library shelves forever, perhaps since we took over the monastery, and no one has found any use for them. They're yours if you want them."
Once Joseph had left, bolting the iron grate over the bars, and Charles had removed the soft, dusty cloth from the cards, he could see they were not normal playing cards. He couldn't play solitaire with them. He couldn't do anything with them. They were some sort of tarot divination cards. They were so old the parchment and cardboard edges flaked off in his hands and the prominent colors of gray, violet, and ruby were muted and aged with an overall yellow cast.
Charles nearly raised his voice again in rage, demanding a regular American pack of playing cards. The monks could surely send for a deck at some nearby village, if they wanted. They might be in the wilds of Thailand, the monastery hidden in the jungle at the base of mountains, but they could reach into the modern world for their needs any time they liked. What was he supposed to do with tarot cards so ancient they might crumble to dust if he shuffled them?
Then, just as he was about to return to the door and yell, the cards grew warm in his hands. He looked down and, fanning the cards out, saw the figures on the cards begin to shift slightly, taking on more vibrant colors. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, thinking he was imagining things or maybe the dim light in the cell was playing tricks on his vision. Still the figures moved, some of them presenting their backs to him, some bending to fetch an item from the ground or a table, others backing up from their position on the card face so they appeared to be farther distant, as if walking off into another dimension.
Charles sat down on the stone bench that served as his bed. What did he have here? What sort of magic had the monk innocently placed into his hands . . . and how might he use it to release himself from the monastery prison?
He had gotten down onto the floor and spread out his long, skinny legs. Between them on the rough stone he began to place the cards, turning them over one by one and lining them up in columns of eight. The figures had ceased their movement as he did this, but as soon as they were all laid out in a grid, the shimmering began again, the figures moving about as if alive.
"Who are you?" he whispered, leaning over to watch the figure. "Where are you?"
He knew the question he should be asking. What can you do for me? But he would come to that if he could ever find a way to communicate with the cards.
Even as twilight descended and night rushed on, long after the bells had been silenced and into the late darkness, Charles leaned over the magical cards, running his fingers over them. His brow
furrowed as he quested for understanding. What were they trying to tell him? What gave them life and what dimension were they locked in?
He forgot the usual hunger that sometimes drove him to claw at the stone walls and beg for relief. He forgot the betrayal that brought him to this horrid place where he was chained; watched over, and sentenced for life. Time did not exist, the hours speeding past unnoticed. Charles didn't sleep until he passed out, falling right where he sat, legs spread-eagled, the cards between them, his head lying on the stones.
~*~
At the ringing of the morning bells, Charles woke and remembered the cards. His tossing and turning in his sleep had scattered them about. Reaching to gather them, he sensed something happening in the corner of his cell. He saw a mist seeping through the stones there, rising in a gray cloud that elongated within seconds to touch the floor. From the mist twirled tiny electrical storms of twinkling lights that came together even as he watched, mouth agape. The mist formed into a human form and finally into a female.
Before him stood a tall slim woman with wild long hair covering her shoulders. She wore an ankle-length brown dress with tattered wisps of beige lace at the high throat and wrists. She appeared to be a woman transplanted from Victorian times.
"Where did you get the cards?" she asked.
"Who are you?"
"Madeline. I occupy the cell next to you."
He had heard the monks call her name over the months, admonishing her for a volatile temper. He had never seen or spoken to her, however, and did not know she could migrate through walls.
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