Dominion (Book 1 of The Dominion Series)

by S. E. Lund

  DOMINION

  S. E. LUND

  Copyright © 2012 S. E. LUND

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  ISBN-13:

  DEDICATION

  Dedicated to Suzanne whose critical eye and supportive words pushed me to always strive to be a better writer.

  RIP

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to all the support and encouragement from my family and friends while I was on this journey to published author and for overlooking all the dirty dishes. Many thanks to my editor Michelle and for all my beta readers for their willingness to review this book and help improve it. Your help is greatly appreciated. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone. Finally, thanks to all my Twitter followers and readers for your encouragement. This is for you.

  And death shall have no dominion.

  Dead mean naked they shall be one.

  With the man in the wind and the west moon;

  When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

  They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

  Though they go mad they shall be sane,

  Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

  Though lovers be lost love shall not;

  And death shall have no dominion.

  Dylan Thomas

  "That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."

  Emily Dickinson

  CHAPTER ONE

  "What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle."

  Rumi

  My mother never lied to me about the existence of monsters. When I'd awaken with nightmares and dreams of shadows that moved in the darkness, she'd stay with me until my terror passed.

  "I'm here," she'd say, stroking my hair. "I'm faster than them and I'll protect you. One day, I'll kill the monsters forever."

  My great tragedy was that she couldn't protect herself. A decade after her death when I was only eleven, finding her killer and discovering a way to eradicate all vampires is the only thing that keeps me going. Today I take up the work that ended her life.

  ~~~

  The late spring evening is rainy and cold so I bring my umbrella and stand at the bus stop outside my building. A professor of linguistics offered to translate an ancient illuminated manuscript I found in my mother's files. My mother started to translate it but never finished, dying the week she received it. The murder was never solved and I need to know if the manuscript had anything to do with her death.

  The evening bus isn't crowded because classes and finals are over. I take out my mother's notebook and read it over once more for her notes from the week before her death describe the document that I have tucked in a large manila envelope in my backpack.

  By the hand of Julien de Cernay, former Knight, identical twin brother to Michel, former Bishop of Carcassonne, bastard sons of Guillaume, Vicomte de Clarmont. Written 1224 – 1229 A.D. Interviewed on 22 December at Boston University.

  Included in the file is a card with a handwritten note to my mother, the script bold, masculine.

  Natalia,

  I've enclosed this manuscript as promised. It documents my making and that of my twin brother, Michel. I hope it provides you with insight into our existence at a time when life was very different than it is today.

  Best regards,

  J.

  My mother knew this vampire?

  That shocks me. She was a vampire hunter, dedicated to killing them off. As a geneticist working for the Council of Clairveaux, she studied genetic diseases, searching for the cause of vampirism – ostensibly so she could find a cure, but I know it was really so she could find a magic bullet and destroy them all. Her files describe the Council – a joint Human-Vampire group appointed by the ruling families involved in its creation. Dedicated to ensuring that the fragile peace between the two species remains in place, the Council ensures that both vampires and humans follow the terms of the Treaty of Clairveaux, signed almost seven centuries earlier.

  From what I can gather, the Treaty was created in order to stop the bloodshed between the two species that had been a constant state since, well. Forever. The Inquisition and the Church's concerted effort to hunt down and kill all vampires under the claim it was after 'witches' and 'warlocks' sparked a desire on the part of vampires to find a compromise. Humans were gaining ground on vampires, beginning to beat them, developing new weapons, and vampires felt under threat. The Treaty was a compromise between extinction of vampires or enslavement of humans. Vampires could continue to exist, but they could no longer kill humans for their blood unless under very specific circumstances. Humans couldn't hunt and kill vampires unless they broke the terms of the Treaty. And above all, like Fight Club, those who knew the truth about vampires and the existence of the secret Treaty of Clairveaux were not allowed to speak of it upon pain of death.

  This fragile peace persisted for almost seven hundred years until genetic technology evolved far enough so that it became possible to eradicate all vampires once and for all. Faced with the growing threat to their species, some vampires decided on their own path to ascension - Dominion. Vampire rule.

  So, while vampires are still firmly in the closet, some of them don't want to stay there and I think that's why my mother died. The vampire who wrote the manuscript, Sir Julien de Cernay, gave the manuscript to her for a reason and I'm hoping if I can translate it, I'll learn why.

  She managed to translate the first paragraph, but then stopped, and it's tantalizing.

  "A full moon rises" her handwritten translation starts, "stained red from fires in the village square where five heretics burned at the stake. The Crusades broke my family, estranged me from my brother and now killed me. I died, not on the battlefield as befitting a knight protecting my father's estate, but in a bed in an abandoned castle at the hands of an ancient vampire who bewitched me… "

  I can't imagine what it must be like to live eight centuries and despite my hatred of vampires, there's a part of me that wants to meet the writer, Sir Julien, just to see what he's like.

  The bus drops me off and I enter the linguistics building's unusually empty corridors, the sound of my boots echoing off the walls. I take the stairs to the third floor, shaking the late spring rain off my umbrella. A tag on room 304 reads Steve Cormier, PhD. I knock and hear papers shuffling inside. The door opens and I'm face to face with perhaps the most beautiful man I've ever seen and for a moment, I'm filled with dread.

  Is he a vampire? His skin is so pale.

  He smiles, holding a mug of coffee in his hands as if to warm them. I stand open mouthed, debating whether to run. I've only seen one vampire before that I know of – the one who killed my mother – but he's just a vague memory of a bloody mouth and white skin. I was only eleven, and I don't even know what he really looked like due to shock, my memory lost into some kind of psychological black hole. I was there when she was murdered, but I have no memory of him or the events. My psychiatrist says I have PTSD-induced amnesia and that one day I will remember. All I know is that I found her lying on the floor, her neck ripped open, blood foaming at her mouth.

  That image I can't escape, no matter how I try.

  If Professor Cormier is a vampire, he doesn't look like the un-dead of my imagination. Whatever he is, he's wearing an ornate gold crucifix around his neck and now I wish I'd read more of my mother's research. Do vampires really hate religious symbols like crucifixes and holy water?

  His skin doesn't look like a corpse, but like he's ill, his skin white like some 17th century nobleman with a powdered face. Actually, it's beautiful in a strange way — the way I imagine Keats would have looked before his tragic death.

  He'
s younger than I expected. Thirty five at most.

  "Are you Professor Cormier?"

  "Eve?" he says, extending his hand. I look down at it briefly, reluctant to shake but I don't want to be rude. His touch is a little on the cold side, but not corpselike — not like dead chicken as I imagine a vampire's hand would feel. He holds mine and doesn't let go even after we finish shaking. It's far too forward, and my heart does a little flip-flop because he's so beautiful I can barely stand to look at his face. I feel incredible guilt that I find him so attractive – if he's a vampire, he's my mortal enemy.

  Finally, when my cheeks are hot with embarrassment, he releases my hand.

  "Hello. Nice to finally meet you."

  Finally? I just exchanged texts with him about this meeting an hour ago…

  He has this very soft accent somewhere between continental and Cajun French. He's smiling, one side of his mouth turning up just a bit and I can't tell if it's a smirk or if that's just the way he smiles.

  "Hello." I smile back to be polite and hold up the envelope. "I have the manuscript for you to translate."

  "Please, come in." He opens the door wider and waves into the interior.

  "Thank you." I force another big smile, trying to look like I'm pleased to be here, when what I really want is to turn on my heel and run away.

  I have to squeeze past him sideways for he's standing in the doorway and when I walk by I catch a scent of something masculine, and not like the usual cheap cologne I smell on the guys at the university. More like sandalwood or incense. He smells good and not like he's fresh out of the grave the way I imagine a vampire would smell, all earthy and wormy and old blood.

  I kick myself mentally. He's probably just got that really pale skin you see with some Europeans but given the profession I intend to follow, I'm suspicious of everything.

  Inside, it's a typical Boston U junior faculty office – bookshelves on either wall, and a desk in front of a large window looking out over the rotunda. A black leather sofa and chair with a coffee table sit to one side of the office. On the coffee table and on every surface sit piles of research papers and books. There's a chalkboard with words translated from one French dialect to another and into English.

  I turn around and he's staring at me, his gaze extremely intense, his blue eyes huge, pupils dilated.

  "Please, let me take your coat."

  I remove it and hand it to him and he hangs it on a coat tree by the door.

  "Have a seat," he says after a pause, motioning to the sofa. "Can I get you anything to drink? It's a damn cold night. There's fresh coffee in the pot."

  "No, thanks."

  I take a seat and he's staring at me with the strangest expression on his face – half amused and half perplexed. He's so attractive, I don't want to stare at him for fear I blush, which I have a bad tendency to do when I'm nervous. But of course I can't help but check him out from the corner of my eye. He's wearing black jeans with a thick black belt and a white button-down shirt. The contrast between his black hair and white skin highlights his blue eyes.

  His hair is longish and a bit wild, just below his chin and tucked behind his ears, and his blue eyes are rimmed by thick black lashes. I have to look away from his intense gaze, and lift up the envelope containing the manuscript and clear my throat, unsure if I can actually speak without my voice cracking.

  "Here it is."

  He takes the envelope and sits on the chair across from me but doesn't look inside it yet. He's still looking at me with those way-too-blue eyes.

  "Eve," he says, drawing the name out. "That's such a lovely name. Is it short for Evelyn?"

  I shake my head, surprised at the personal question.

  "No, I was named after the biblical Eve. My mother wanted to name me Lilith but my dad said no. Lilith was too defiant, too opinionated, and too independent and he was hoping for a sweet-natured girl." I bite my tongue. I don't know why I'm telling him this except that I'm suddenly nervous.

  "And are you?" he says, his French accent soft.

  "Am I what?" I have to say for I've forgotten the direction of the question.

  "Sweet natured or defiant, opinionated and too independent? Was his naming you after the biblical Eve successful?"

  I frown at his too-personal questions and my too personal answers.

  "I don't know," I say. "That's for someone else to say, not me."

  "You don't know yourself?" He gives that lopsided grin again, as if he already knows. "I'm sorry. It's just that it would be ironic if you turned out exactly as he feared despite the more innocuous name. Besides, Eve ate of the forbidden fruit and led Adam to his downfall." He raises his eyebrows at that. "Sounds to me as if Eve was a bit too independent as well."

  I don't respond for fear I say something even more personal.

  Finally, he turns to the envelope and opens it methodically, removing the manuscript with extreme care. He takes in a deep breath when he sees it in its entirety.

  "Oh, it's very old." He runs his fingers over the extremely fine vellum on which the text is written. "Beautiful," he says in a soft voice. He turns the pages, his index finger tracing the lines as if he's greedy to translate it already and on his finger is a thick gold signet ring. I try to make out the initials, but can't from this distance.

  "I should have gloves on to even touch this." He looks up at me. "Where did you get it?"

  I look at his nose, at the space between his dark brows, and an imaginary point in the distance – anywhere but in his eyes.

  I swallow. "My mother?"

  "Is she a collector? How did she come by this? It's priceless."

  "She was a researcher," I say and glance away.

  "Do you have any idea where she got this?"

  "I don't have a clue." When I look back at him, he's staring at me expectantly as if he wants more of an explanation – or doesn't believe the one I've given. "I didn't steal it or anything, if that's what you mean." Actually, I'm a bit insulted by his expression, as if he doubts my story – which, of course, he should given I'm being deceptive.

  "I mean no offense," he says quickly, his voice still soft. "I'm just curious how this manuscript came into your hands. It should be behind glass in an archive somewhere in a temperature and humidity-controlled environment."

  "That's all I can tell you."

  Of course, I could tell him that it belonged to the vampire who wrote it eight hundred years earlier, and that he gave it to my mother a week before she died so she could use it to understand vampires so she could better kill them, but that's not going to happen.

  "So, any idea how long it will take to translate?" I say, hoping to move on from personal questions. "I'm really interested in reading it. I think it was important to my mother's research."

  "What was she researching?"

  I hesitate. More lies. I truly hate telling them, because I don't have a poker face.

  I swallow again, my throat dry. "Medieval literature?"

  "Of course." He closes the manuscript and replaces it in the envelope. "It won't take long to translate. I can dictate it and have it printed out fairly quickly using new software. But I'm afraid there's a bit of a problem," he says and pats the manuscript. "I have to investigate this a bit more. This document is extremely rare and valuable. I want to authenticate it, just in case it was stolen and given to your mother illegally." He looks at me pointedly. "You must understand."

  "No, actually. I don't." I don't want him to take it and start digging into it. For all I know, no one's ever even documented its existence. "I happen to know that the original owner gave it to my mother."

  "The original owner?" His voice sounds amused, that grin that could be a smirk starting again.

  "I mean," I say, fumbling to recover. "The legitimate owner."

  "And how do you know the owner is," he says and pauses, tilting his head to the side. "'Legitimate?'"

  "There was a note enclosed with it from the owner. He gave it to my mother to use in her research."
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  "Yes, but how do you know that this – person – was the legitimate owner?"

  I sit silent, my mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for breath.

  "Well…" I stand, reaching for the manuscript. "Maybe I'll just take it back and find someone else."

  He shakes his head and grabs the manuscript, holding it in his arms.

  "My apologies, Eve, but I really can't give this back to you until I'm certain."

  "Listen, Professor, this was my mother's property." I'm starting to get angry. "When she died, it became mine. Give it back to me or I'll have to call the authorities."

  He's really smirking now but it's not a rude smirk, more of a knowing smirk. Like he knows he's got me.

  "I'm curious. Which authorities would these be? The stolen ancient documents authorities?"

  His accent is just so superior in its soft Frenchness that I hate him. I reach out to grab the manuscript, figuring I'll just run. Surely he wouldn't actually chase me like some cop after a bank robber. I get only the corner in my fingers before he pulls it back.

  I'm really flustered now, my cheeks hot. We're standing across from each other, staring each other down, but he's almost a foot taller than me and much stronger, the manuscript in his arms protectively. There's no way I can wrestle it away from him without looking like a complete crazy person.

  "I'm not very happy about this," I say, digging my nails into my palms to control my emotions.

  "I can tell, Eve. I'm truly sorry."

  I stand there fuming, worried that he won't give it back to me and then I'll never know why the vampire thought my mother should have it.

  "Look, that's sensitive material. I do know that it's supposed to remain in private hands. I don't want its contents becoming public knowledge." I struggle to find the right words without giving too much away.