Venom & Vampires: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Casey Lane

  Dragon lore has been around since forever. It goes all the way back to the Bible, where dragons are portrayed as creatures of evil. There’s a church in Atessa, Italy, that claims to have the rib bone of a dragon slain by one of their saints. There could be a similar situation here in Ethiopia. Beasley told me to check for dragon bones hidden in a lost Coptic shrine in the Omo River Valley. The Copts are old-school Egyptian Christians, and they love their relics.

  I’m not sure why I chose the dragon gig. The payroll stash was probably more of a sure thing, but I can always get to that later. There’s just something about dragons. I’ve always thought they were cool. A year ago, after a drunken night in Cardiff, I got a dragon tattoo on my ass. It’s hard for me to see it without a mirror. It’s got a tail that curls into a series of Celtic knots. I remember getting the tattoo, but I’m still fuzzy about why. It had something to do with the dragon on the label of the beers that plastered me.

  I feel excited as I walk through this airport, its ceiling covered with a network of thin steel girders. It’s time to find the charter company with the Cessna that will fly me to Arba Minch, a small city just east of the Omo Valley. Ethiopian Airlines actually has a daily flight to Arba Minch, but I’ve already missed it, and flying a charter is better anyway because security won’t pick through my gear.

  From Arba Minch, it’s a day’s ride by Jeep to one of the most remote areas on the planet, where I intend to find a relic that’ll make Beasley squeal like a schoolgirl.

  The weather in Arba Minch is perfect. Dry and sunny, with the temperature around seventy. This is supposed to be typical for December. I’m tempted to sit outside for dinner, but I don’t want to share my meal with the flies. I’ll soon be roughing it, and I want one more night of civilization before heading out into the unknown. After that, I’ll be coated in a thick layer of bug repellent for the rest of the trip. I did my research and found that the tsetse flies here can give you sleeping sickness, causing anything from fever to death. Africa is an unforgiving place.

  I’m eating dinner at my hotel, the Paradise Lodge. The place has a lot of rough-hewn wood furniture and a great view of a huge lake. A bone-thin waiter brings me a meal I’ve been looking forward to since I started reading about Ethiopia. I’m an adventurous eater, and kitfo is as adventurous as it gets. It’s basically raw hamburger soaked in butter and spices, with some cheese on the side. It’s not recommended for Western stomachs, but I can eat anything short of wet dog hair.

  There’s a spoon on the plate to help get the cheese and raw meat onto the flatbread, but if you want to be cool, you don’t use the spoon. I try to use the bread as a scoop to load up some meat and cheese, but half of it goes tumbling off the plate.

  I hear laughter and see a beautiful Ethiopian girl, maybe in her late twenties, at the bar on the other side of the room. When our eyes meet she quickly turns away. She was laughing at my lame eating skills, but I don’t mind. Mom always says that making a woman laugh is the way to her heart.

  I feel a little guilty when I think about Mom. She doesn’t know what I do. I lied and told her I won the lottery. She thinks I’m living the life of a world-traveling playboy. The truth is, I’ve used most of my Beasley money to get Mom out of her shitty apartment in Pueblo and into a nice house in Colorado Springs. She deserved it after everything she’s gone through. Dad left us when I was four years old, and the struggling steel mill laid her off six times. For weeks on end we’d eat ramen noodles cooked on a hot plate. Sometimes, to fancy it up, we’d add cheese and sunflower seeds.

  The waiter interrupts my sad reminiscing with a carafe of tej, Ethiopia’s famous honey wine. It looks like peach juice. I’m actually not sure you’d call the container a carafe. It’s more like a science beaker with a fat bottom and a long neck.

  I take a drink from the bottle and the wine shoots down the long glass neck, splashing my face. Shit, I probably should have poured it into the empty glass sitting near the bottle.

  The girl laughs again as I wipe my face with a napkin. I call out to her. “I could use some help here. Stranger in a strange land.”

  Still smiling, she slides off her barstool and approaches my table. I see she has a nose ring with a thin gold chain connecting to an earring. God, that’s hot!

  I hold out my hand. “I’m Tyler.”

  She clucks her tongue. “First lesson, the man never offers his hand. Only the woman can invite a handshake.”

  I drop my hand. “See, that’s why I need you.”

  She extends her hand. “I am Ayana.”

  I shake her hand. “Pretty name, what does it mean?”

  She looks suddenly shy. “Beautiful flower.”

  I gesture for her to take a seat at the table. “I’d say your parents were very observant.”

  Is she blushing? I can’t tell with her beautiful caramel skin. She refuses my offer to sit. “And what does Tyler mean? Clever flatterer?”

  “It means lonely traveler.”

  “I don’t believe you, Tyler.”

  “It’s true, Ayana. Can you stay for a bit, show me how to drink tej?”

  “I cannot, I’m afraid.”

  “But I have all these gift cards. Can I pay with them? How much is a birr?”

  Her face hardens. “You think I am a prostitute?”

  “What? No! I’m talking about paying for the meal.”

  She laughs. “I know what you mean, Tyler. Forgive my humor.”

  “Oh man, you totally had me going there.”

  She leans in close. She’s wearing a spicy perfume that makes me want to grab her. An erection threatens as I see the cleavage down her drooping silk top.

  She whispers into my ear. “Sorry, we do not accept gift cards.”

  Ayana turns and leaves. She’s wearing a long red skirt with some sort of geometric pattern. I can’t stop watching her ass as she walks out of the restaurant.

  After she leaves, I find my hand in the kitfo, my fingers coated with butter and beef blood.

  I’m six years old and my fingers are covered with bloody cuts. I couldn’t get the stopper out of my piggy bank, so I broke it on the concrete stairs outside of our apartment. Now I’m counting my coins as fast as I can.

  Behind me, Mom is crying and pleading with the marshals as people carry out our furniture and drop it on the sidewalk. I don’t know how much money we owe, but I might have enough to pay the rent for a couple more days.

  My tears blur the coins and I keep losing count. Some guy notices my hands and picks me up.

  “Careful, that glass is sharp.”

  I kick him in the balls and he drops me.

  I scream as I fall onto the broken shards of my piggy bank.

  My eyes snap open and I take a deep breath. It was a dream. The same dream that’s haunted me for years. I still have scars on my hand and back from that damn piggy bank.

  I’m in my hotel room in the Paradise Lodge. After dinner, I was exhausted and went straight to bed. Moonlight pours through the window and lights up the white mosquito gauze hanging over the bed.

  Why does it smell like sex in here?

  I hear soft breathing and realize there’s someone in the bed with me!

  Chapter Two

  Saint George’s Day

  ALEXANDER ARGYROS

  How long has it been since I’ve prepared for a black op? Too long, I’d say.

  I wipe the steam from the bathroom mirror, trim my gray mustache, and apply the oil-free matte that keeps my scalp from shining. Betty, in Cultural Services, thinks I look like Sir Ben Kingsley. Perhaps a younger version. He and I share the same problem, baldness caused by hypervirility.

  I gently lift my reliquary from its peg beside the mirror and hang it around my neck. The small golden tube dangling from the chain contains a bit of finger bone from Georgios of Lydda, Saint George himself, my direct ancestor. The relic protects me from dragons, but that’s not why I wear it. I wear it as a constant reminder of my duty to eradicate dragons.

  I
enter the bedroom of my modest apartment and select a weapon from the gun safe. I can’t take my standard-issue .50-caliber handgun because of the Knights of Rome logo on the bottom of the magazine. If something goes awry on this mission, it’s imperative that no one discovers I’m a Knight working for the world’s most effective hunters of paranormals. So instead, I opt to wield an unregistered Glock 22.

  In my mind, I hear the call of the chronomichani. If I want to avoid dripping blood on my clothes, I should feed it before I dress.

  I open my second safe, this one well hidden behind a sliding panel in the back of my closet.

  The chronomichani, a clockwork mechanism from Greek antiquity, sits inside the safe. Its wooden container, about twice the size of a cigar box, holds a set of complex brass gears that drive pointers around several dials marking dates and zodiac symbols. To my knowledge, there was only one other like it, and it was destroyed millennia ago in a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera.

  I slide my finger into the chronomichani’s feeding slot and feel a jab as the ravenous device pierces my skin. It doesn’t speak to me as it drains my blood. It never speaks, but I can tell it’s pleased.

  My father gave me the device on his deathbed, and it soon bound itself to my soul. Father called it the infernal device, but I prefer its Greek name, chronomichani. I feel its anger as I withdraw my finger, but if I didn’t, it would drink me dry.

  After I stop bleeding, I peruse my clothing options, selecting a simple black suit, a shoulder holster, and a forged FBI badge. This should be adequate for the task ahead.

  My squire, Snedeker, handcuffs a trembling professor to a stair railing. I shake my head in disgust. Snedeker has handcuffed the professor to the end of the railing, where the cuffs can simply slip off. Snedeker curses and reattaches the handcuffs, lined with soft foam so they won’t leave a mark on the professor’s wrists.

  How have I become tethered to this incompetent, monkey-faced boy? I want a real squire, like Cobo has. That Hildebrand kid is all the officers are talking about.

  The captive’s home is extravagant, well beyond what he can afford on his salary. Upstairs, Spero and Kaplan, the other two misfit rookies on my team, conduct a search for anything relevant. They’re making enough noise to wake the dead. HQ is always assigning me these lackwits because no one else can whip them into shape.

  I glare at the sniveling professor. He reminds me of the haughty academic that maligned my master’s thesis in military history. My paper was an examination of Saint George and provided well-researched evidence that dragons existed during his time. The professor savaged me publicly and tried to block my path to a PhD. But I left the school anyway when my thesis caught the attention of the Knights of Rome, and I was recruited into KoR’s elite ranks.

  The professor stares down the barrel of my gun, struggling to speak. “Is … is this a robbery? Take whatever you like. There’s no need to hurt anyone.”

  “I’ll decide who gets hurt, thank you very much.”

  Spero and Kaplan descend the stairs, looking sheepish. How irritating, they’ve found nothing of use. Spero, I can forgive, due to her delightful figure, but I make a point of frowning at Kaplan, who turns his ruddy, pockmarked face away.

  I lean over the handcuffed professor, barely raising my voice above a whisper. “Where is your computer?”

  He looks both terrified and confused. “It’s at work!”

  I sigh, holstering my Glock, and remove a case from the pocket of my suit jacket. I make a show of opening the case, revealing a loaded syringe.

  He pulls helplessly at the handcuffs. “What is that?”

  I gesture for my team to hold him down. He shrieks as I place the needle near his nostril.

  “Please calm down, Professor, I haven’t injected you. Yet. And I won’t, provided you answer a few simple questions.”

  He nods, trying not to move his neck. “Anything! I’ll answer anything!”

  “Very well. First question. How is it that an anthropology professor can afford a house like this?”

  “I do consulting work on the side.”

  “Yes, you do. Well answered. Keep telling the truth and you’ll survive this night. We know you’ve been making inquiries regarding a lost cache of dragon bones. Who hired you for the job?”

  “Lord Beasley.”

  “Who?”

  “Lord Simon Beasley. He’s a British expatriate. I think he lives somewhere in Florida. I have his number in my phone. It’s in my front shirt pocket.”

  I take the phone from his pocket with my gloved hand.

  “Last question, professor. Where are the bones located?”

  His face darkens and his eyes bulge. “I don’t know. I swear to God, I don’t. I’m a cultural anthropologist. I was hired by Beasley to research the Coptic presence in Ethiopia. He asked me to stay alert for any information about dragon bones. But I discovered nothing along those lines. Dragon bones? Can you imagine? It’s ridiculous.”

  I jab the needle up his nostril and push the plunger, injecting him with a chemical that causes a heart attack. “There’s nothing ridiculous about dragons, professor.”

  He gasps like a fish as he dies.

  I see Spero avert her eyes. She’s adorable that way.

  Once the professor stops flopping around, I return the syringe to its case and Snedeker removes the handcuffs.

  I hand the professor’s phone to Kaplan, who carries a device to clone it.

  As Kaplan works on the phone, Snedeker frowns at the body. “He peed his pants, boss. It’s supposed to be a heart attack. Do people with heart attacks pee their pants?”

  “Perhaps you should call a cardiologist.”

  “Really? You think that’s a good idea?”

  My anger flares. “Sarcasm, Snedeker!”

  Snedeker parks the team’s black SUV in the motor pool outside Fort Adams, the regional headquarters of the Knights of Rome.

  The fort, located near Newport, Rhode Island, is a historical site open to the public. Beneath it lies the secret multilevel KoR command center. KoR is the only serious organization dedicated to eradicating paranormals, and we’ve been doing it since the reign of Roman emperor Constantine the Great, who was a contemporary of Saint George himself.

  It’s December, and as we exit the vehicle, we’re blasted by a frigid wind blowing in from over the bay. We go through security at the north visitor gate. It’s early morning now and the tourists still haven’t arrived.

  We pass a Civil War–era naval gun emplacement, stoop under a brick arch, and make our way down a corridor and a set of hidden stairs, finally arriving at a secret entrance. There are several of these entrances, but this one is closest to where we parked.

  The door handle reads my biometric signature and opens to my touch. Once inside the topmost level of the base, Level Blue, I dismiss my team and head off to file an after action report.

  Cold-faced guards with silverweave body armor and assault rifles eye me as I pass. I need to get out of this business suit and into a uniform.

  I enter my report at a console in the operations center and discover that I’ve been summoned to Preceptor Stockhausen’s office. That’s troubling. Why would the base commander want to see me? In my entire career, I’ve only had a few conversations with her, and never in her office.

  I take the elevator down to Level Red and change clothes in the locker room. It’s unthinkable to meet the Preceptor in civilian clothes. I immediately feel more comfortable when I’m in my black officer’s uniform.

  After a quick security screening, I step onto the elevator and descend to Level Black. I’ve only been there twice: once to the Hall of Records to take my vows, and once to the Hall of Regents to be knighted.

  I step off the elevator and enter the shadowy hallways of Level Black. The Knights of Rome emblem hangs across from the elevator, a gold laurel wreath on a crimson background. Even after all these years, it fills me with pride when I see it.

  Level Black is a notorious
labyrinth. On my own, it would take some time to find the Preceptor’s office. Fortunately, an escort approaches and guides me there.

  I step into her office and find the Preceptor awaiting me at a glass desk.

  I’ve heard about Stockhausen’s ant map, but it’s much bigger than I imagined. The entire wall on the left side of the room is a giant ant farm that forms a map of the United States, showing KoR field offices and paranormal hotspots. The crawling ants form the borders between the states. It’s quite the bizarre spectacle.

  The Preceptor gestures to a chair across from her. “Have a seat, Sir Argyros.”

  How annoying. After my decades of work here, she still can’t pronounce my name properly. It’s Ar-yee-ROS. No point in correcting her, I suppose. She’s probably doing it intentionally.

  She taps her fingers on the desk as she stares at me with her bright blue eyes. She looks unsure of how to begin.

  “Colonel, I’m afraid I have some upsetting news. Our budget has been cut, and we’re being forced to shut down your department.”

  My heart quickens and I leap to my feet. “You can’t do that. Dragons are the single biggest threat to humanity!”

  She looks at me with what must be pity. “With respect, Colonel, there haven’t been any confirmed dragon sightings since the nineteenth century.”

  “They’ve gone into hiding, thanks to our efforts. But I warn you, they’ll reemerge if we fail to remain vigilant.”

  “Please sit down, Alexander.”

  I hear my first name so infrequently that I’ve nearly forgotten it. It takes me aback, and I sit.

  “Please, Preceptor, you have to stop this. I’m in the middle of an important investigation.”

  Her voice grows cold. “I’ve just read the report you filed. You can’t go around eliminating every academic who’s researching dragons.”