by S. E. Lund
Table of Contents
Kier
Calla
About the Author
Also by S. E. Lund
The Vampire’s Pet
Part One: Prince of the City
S. E. Lund
Acadian Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017 by S. E. Lund
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 978-1-988265-25-4
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Kier
2. Calla
3. Kier
4. Calla
5. Kier
6. Calla
7. Kier
8. Calla
9. Kier
10. Calla
11. Kier
12. Calla
About the Author
Also by S. E. Lund
Kier
An earthquake brought me to San Francisco to check the condition of my family's properties after fires ravaged the city. That earthquake ultimately led to my imprisonment after I was accused of a murder I didn’t commit, abducted from my hotel room, and trapped in an underground cell in the hills along the northern coast far from civilization.
Another earthquake ultimately freed me from that prison more than a century later.
One hundred and ten years of captivity, deprivation and despair. The only thing that kept me alive during those long years of darkness?
A strong will to live and an intense desire for revenge.
I had been touring the city of San Francisco, checking out the building where our investment company had been located. It had been razed to the ground in the fires and nothing was salvageable. Our employees had fled the city or been killed in the aftermath.
We would have to start from scratch.
I was ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work, rebuilding the San Francisco office. I could have sent one of my staff to oversee the work, but I loved that part of business. I was a builder, someone who liked to start with an idea and see it take shape before my eyes. It was the only thing that kept me sane, and gave my existence meaning, with an eternity before me.
After the fires finally died down, once night had fallen, we scouted out locations for the rebuild. We checked out three potential sites and when finished, I went back to our family friend’s mansion outside the city for the rest of the night, to discuss our options and what our next moves were. We had to rebuild, we had to find new staff. We had to run our business out of a temporary office.
I spent that evening discussing all of this with my benefactor, not suspecting for a moment that I was being set up for a fall. Yes, there had been several beautiful young female mortals in attendance, acting as donors for the family and for me. I had partaken of some of their blood, but I had retired early that morning, alone, to go over my papers, write letters to my family about what I had seen.
Mid-way through the long day, I was interrupted from reading the local papers by the sound of knocking at my chamber doors.
"Enter," I said, folding up the newspaper, expecting that it would be a servant come to provide me with a light meal. Instead, several soldiers barged into the room, their weapons drawn. At the head was the local magister for our kind, wearing the black robes and a thick gold chain around his neck marking his office.
"Kier McDermott, I hereby charge you with the murder of a mortal outside of the terms of our laws and regulations. You will be taken from this place and imprisoned pending a trial by your peers."
"What?" I stood, shocked at the magister's words. I glanced around the soldiers, looking for my benefactor, but he was not in attendance. "Where's Mr. Henderson? He's my solicitor. I have a right to speak to him first."
"Due to the fire, we're taking you north to an area unaffected by the destruction. We can't follow the usual protocols due to the damage. You must understand."
"I don't understand," I replied, angered that I would not be afforded the basic rights my kind were given when charged with a crime. "Surely we can wait here until Mr. Henderson can attend…"
"We must take you now," he said, shaking his head. He nodded to one of the guards, who came to me and grabbed my hands, pinning them behind my back before I could respond. The guard attached silver manacles, which burned my skin, causing a great deal of pain and sapping me of my ability to resist.
When I protested further, one of the other guards struck me on the side of my head with his weapon, and I fell into darkness.
During my imprisonment, I held out hope that one day I'd escape or be freed, so I could hunt down those who gave false testimony against me, depriving me of even the most basic of a defense. No solicitor was there to advise me, no investigator gathered the evidence that could prove me innocent, no impartial judge sat at the bench to weigh the matter and come to a just decision.
I was summarily charged and found guilty, forced into the dank underground cell in which I remained for over one-hundred and ten years…
There had been other earthquakes over the decades, rumbling the ground beneath my cell, but none had been strong enough to destroy the walls or bring down the ceiling. The one that freed me almost killed me, the roof caving in as the ground beneath me swayed and buckled, the ancient wooden beams that supported the underground cavern collapsing on top of me.
Only my adamantine nature kept me alive.
Even in my desiccated state after all that time without blood, I managed to drag myself into the shade, saving myself from burning to death when the sun broke through the clouds.
I waited all day like that, jammed under fallen timber and dirt until just after dusk when a mortal came by who happened upon me quite by accident while exploring the cliffs. He had been checking for a place to stop and watch the coming storm, finding the cave in and calling down to where I lay.
“Is someone in there?” he called out, shining a torch of some design into the pit. I gazed out at him and saw that he looked to be in his seventies, his hair and beard grey. He wore a pair of overalls and a cap, and looked every inch a workman.
“Yes,” I said, barely able to speak. “I’m trapped.”
“I’d call 9-1-1 but I don’t have a cell phone. Let me see what I can do.”
The man climbed down into the rubble and over to where I lay, several timbers covering me. When he saw me, the poor man almost jumped out of his skin. I would look like a corpse, of course, my skin white and leathery. He leaned down to me, and took my hand and it was his willingness to touch me despite how hideous I was that saved him — and me.
I had little energy remaining, but I had enough to calm him and compel him to let me feed off his wrist. Dutifully, he held out his arm and I bit down, drinking deeply, his blood reviving me immediately.
I almost lost control and drank him dry, but stopped myself in time. I felt bad about it, but he’d recover. He lost strength and had to lie down on the bare ground next to my hiding place.
Revived, my skin no longer like that of a white raisin, I was able to climb up the almost-vertical wall of rocks and lumber, until I reached freedom.
“I’ll send someone for you,” I told the man while I covered him with branches to shade him from the sun. Then, I left, tasting freedom for the first time in years.
I stood at the edge of the cliff, gazing up at the rapidly darkening sky, and watched as the first stars twinkled into view.
There would be time to enact my plan for revenge. First, I had to fin
d another blood meal and soon, or I'd never be able to find a new place to stay so I could escape the coming daylight.
I could have killed wildlife, but I didn’t want animal blood – I wanted – I needed human blood.
I walked down a road to a cabin in the woods and watched the inhabitants. Several young men in their twenties sat around a campfire and drank alcohol. They were loud, laughing and joking, taking about a ball game and various women they had been with.
I waited in the shadows until they went inside and were getting ready to sleep. When one came outside to use the outhouse, I grabbed him and fed on his forearm, calming him first so he didn’t fight me. That first mouthful of blood was refreshing for the blood of the young was much more potent than that of the elderly. It never failed to arouse a predator like me, and I drank the just enough to give me strength to last the night. When I had finished, I compelled him to return to the cabin and say nothing of what happened. He dutifully used the outhouse and then went back to the cabin, without even looking back at me.
I left, quickly moving away from the cabin in case anyone became alarmed about the wound on his arm.
Still, I needed more.
Even with that amount of blood from two victims, I grew strong enough to dematerialize and fly up the coast in search of a place to stay for the next day. I found my way out of the cliff-top forest to a small settlement a few miles away. The sign outside of town read Shelter Cove, California. It was more than one hundred miles from San Francisco. The homes were of a strange design, the streets lit up with electricity, and I knew when I stood at an intersection with flashing red yellow and green lights that I was in a different world.
Down a back alley in the center of the town, I found a vagrant passed out behind a large garbage bin. He smelled of beer and stale sweat, but was fat and otherwise healthy. I drank from him, stopping only when I could tell he'd die if I took another mouthful. I left him still alive, shocked at my own self-control given my years of deprivation. The last thing I needed was another charge of causing the unlawful death of a human. Like the other two mortals I had fed off, he’d wake up the next morning, with a headache, weak and in need of sustenance, but he'd live.
I found yet another vagrant underneath a bridge near a highway and another along passed out beside the railway tracks. Soon, I was almost back to my natural state of vigor. Although I wasn't as strong as I had been before my imprisonment, I was able to escape detection using my stealth and speed. In the town, strange motorized vehicles sped down the streets, the look and speed of which were beyond the technology I was familiar with before I was made a captive. The few mortals who passed me by in these motorized vehicles saw nothing more than shadows on shadows.
I stopped beside a warehouse and waited, watching in the darkness until the streets became quiet. I took pains to remain hidden from view by staying in the shadows, taking the back alleys until I found my way back to the cliffs along the coast. Beneath me, at the base of the cliff, waves crashed against the rocky shore, the white foam of the surf glowing in the moonlight.
Standing on the edge of the cliff, I breathed in the fresh salt air, filled with new life and new hope. I had never given up– not even in the darkest moments of captivity when I feared I’d never see my kin again. I was the eldest son of a prince of my kind, the heir to an ancient principality, and I was determined to return to the world I once commanded. Once I did, I would hunt down those who betrayed me and put them all into their own prisons.
I knew what I must do.
I must find a refuge until I could understand the current world. Once I found shelter, I would contact my family. When I did, they would send guards to retrieve me, and bring me back to The City, where my family ruled over more than a dozen covens who made Montreal their home.
I needed an ally – someone who understood the current world and could help me traverse it. I was strong enough by midnight that I could dematerialize, flying along the coast in the moonlight in search of a suitable home in which to stay, and a vulnerable mortal I could control and use to reconnect with my family.
I relished the freedom, pleased to return to my vampire nature after being practically immobile for so long. Emboldened by my escape, I allowed myself to feel real hope
As I flew, I scanned the coastline, looking for a suitable refuge far enough away from civilization that I would be undetected. I flew as far as my strength would take me, as far away as I could get from San Francisco and the enemies who would no doubt be looking for me once they realized that my prison had been destroyed and I had escaped.
I found such a place after several hours, nestled in a copse of redwoods at the edge of an old forest. An abandoned shack, the roof still intact and offering enough shelter that I could stay during the day, protected from the sun's killing rays. I broke open the floorboards and crept under the timbers, wanting to ensure I would be safe while I slept and recovered my strength.
The next day I would find a place for a longer stay.
With another day behind me, and hundreds of miles from San Francisco, I set off to search the coast for a suitable place to stay until I could contact my family. I was heading towards Portland – I knew that from having studied maps of the Western Coast of America before my trip. I should arrive soon, if my strength held out.
Finally, about an hour after sunset, I found it.
A house on a cliff at the edge of a small redwood forest, the windows overlooking the ocean. In addition to the main house, there was a small cottage and a private road that led away from the coast to the main highway. The home was secluded and perfect for my needs, so I stopped at a nearby cliff and watched for an hour, counting three people in the house – a man and what I assumed was his wife and their daughter. While I watched, the parents loaded the motorized vehicle with suitcases while the girl assisted. She looked to be nearing adulthood and I guessed that she was at most seventeen or eighteen by her height and level of development.
As I flew around, planning my approach, I watched her leave her home and walk along the lonely coastline, her long dark hair blowing in the brisk wind that blew off the ocean.
She was vulnerable.
Now was my chance.
I truly didn’t want to involve her in my drama. She was an innocent, unaware of the darkness surrounding her, but I had no other choice. Not only did I need blood, I needed someone who knew how to maneuver this new world into which I had been suddenly thrust. I needed someone who knew how to help me, to rescue me from the oblivion in which I had been trapped for all those years. I craved contact with others, even if they were mortals, for I knew that they – that she – would be the only way I could find my own kind.
As I watched her walk along the pathway leading between the dunes, I felt such sympathy for her. She was young and unaware of the predator watching her, coveting her blood, planning to use her for my own ends. Becoming a vampire’s next meal was probably the worst fate she could imagine. I would be kind. I would take away her fear so her time with me wouldn’t be so terrifying.
Most of all, I would not harm her more than was necessary. That, I promised myself. I would not start my new life a murderer. That accusation — a false accusation — cost me over a century in near-stasis in the cliff-top prison.
I had my freedom now and I wouldn’t risk it for anything.
Even a beautiful young woman full of blood…
From where I stood, high above on a nearby cliff, I could see she was a beauty and young enough that her blood would revive me. I hated myself for what I was about to do, but it’s impossible to escape our basic nature.
I was a predator — the supreme predator of humans.
I needed blood the way trees need sunlight or fish need water. I transformed and flew off the cliff, on my way to the first human contact with a woman I’d had for over one hundred years…
Calla
Our cottage perched at the edge of a cliff facing the pacific where it rained practically every day. I stood on the beach
and threw rocks at the surf, which broke a few yards from my bare feet. They say every seventh wave was special – supposedly bigger. I counted them, but they all seemed the same size to me.
I grew up in Sonoma, California but after my mom and dad divorced, my mother and her new husband Todd moved us all to Portland, Oregon. Here, a few miles north Waldport, Oregon, at our summer cottage, I felt like a ghost wandering the beaches, the grey clouds blocking out the sun. We had eight days of sun that month. Eight days...
Chelsea would soon arrive -- thank God. My best friend from forever, she was driving up from Sonoma for the last two weeks of summer before school started. Mom and Todd were going to some hippie music concert in Berlin that week and didn't want to leave me here alone, so at least I'd have some company.
Then school would start again -- my senior year at Cleveland High in Portland. I was one of the oldest grads, having been kept out of school for a year when I was six because my mom thought it would be better that way. My birthday always screwed me up. January 1. New Year's baby. It sucked because I was a whole year older than everyone else. Mom said it was why my grades were so good but it was really because I didn't have a life.
Mom was a teacher before she married Todd and stayed home to write her great American novel. She policed my life like a hall monitor, checking whether my homework was done, my project timelines drawn neatly on a whiteboard in our home office.
"You'll be happy I was such a slave driver when you get into CalTech or MIT," she said the last time I complained. Like every other senior, I'd be applying to colleges around the country this year. My grades and SATs should be great and thanks to Todd, I had some really fantastic community service on my record. I should get into MIT to study engineering.