by Lillian Sage
Natalia walked out of the elevator and into the cavernous vault of a room, suddenly drawn to the large floating glass walled cube in the middle of the room.
Tears began to stream down her cheeks as she stared mutely at the creature in the box; a creature that glowed with a brilliant white light that filled Natalia with a sense of unbridled hope and near limitless sadness.
"What are you doing in here?" said the curt voice of Alexander, having just stepped out of another elevator on the opposite side of the room.
"I...the elevator stopped here...I waited but it....what have you done here Alexander?" answered Natalia, deep sadness in her voice.
Alexander paused to consider his words. He had been in his office when the intrusion alarms had sounded. When he saw that the intruder was Natalia, he had rushed down as fast as he could, but she had already seen the creature. He wasn't sure what to make of this intrusion but still wanted to trust Natalia.
"To tell you the truth, we have no idea who or what this creature is." replied Alexander, "We captured it several hundred years ago and have been holding it in that cage ever since."
He continued, "The light it emits is deadly to our kind, just as sunlight is. Were it not for the specially tempered glass we used for the cage, you and I would be dust right now."
"You've had him in that cage for several hundred years? How could you be so cruel? Couldn't you at least have put him in a cage that was large enough to let him fully stretch out?!" cried Natalia.
"Stretch...out? What are you talking about my love?" answered Alexander, confusion in his voice.
"His wings Alexander, how could you bend his wings like that to get him into that tiny box? They must each be fifty feet long!" screamed Natalia, her anger rising.
Alexander looked at the cage and then looked intently at the woman he had come to love, "...what wings Natalia?"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jason Grey sat behind a large marble table next to floor to ceiling windows overlooking a tranquil lake.
In the months since the release of his new technology, life had taken on a surreal quality. This was now the eighth safe-house he had moved in to.
Things were going just as he had planned, in fact, they were going better than planned...much better.
The companies that he had shorted on the stock market were in freefall. His two billion dollar fortune had skyrocketed to just over nine hundred billion in the first week alone.
And he had yet to sell a single new product. Once production began in earnest, there was literally no telling how rich he could become.
Nine hundred billion dollars, nearly a trillion...the figure boggled his mind. Bill Gates was only worth about fifty billion.
Jason's paranoia had paid off as well. One of his decoy identities, someone who he had hired to pretend to be him, had already been killed under mysterious circumstances.
He knew that he was a hunted man, and it wasn't just the competition that wanted him gone, soon world Governments would be looking for him as well.
...Especially when they discovered how he had structured his stock market investments so as to owe virtually no taxes on any of his earnings.
With enough foresight, planning, and a fleet of the highest priced tax attorneys in the world, Jason had managed to structure his purchases through offshore accounts in a way that cut out Uncle Sam completely.
For the first time, he wondered if it was all worth it.
He was ten times richer than the richest man in the history of the world. He could quit right now and do whatever he wanted. Or he could sell his technology to the highest bidder and walk away even richer still...
But he knew he couldn't do that. His plans were far grander and a trillion dollars just wasn't going to cut it. He needed more, he'd have more, and no one was going to stop him.
It was time to move onto phase two...
Jason pressed the intercom sitting on the table, "Send him in."
Moments later two members of his security detail walked in, half carrying, half dragging a beautiful creature who was bound hand and foot.
The creature's eyes were wide with fear as it stared at the windows and the light beyond.
"Oh yes, don't worry. The bulletproof nature of the glass also filters out the Sun's UV rays...you should have nothing to fear...from the sunlight at least" said Jason.
"Remove his gag, I want to speak with him".
The guards removed his gag and fastened his leg restraints to a series of meta clasps in the floor.
"So..." began Jason "You've come here to kill me, is that true?"
The creature merely stared back.
"And they tell me that you think that you're a vampire" he continued, "do you really expect me to believe that?"
Defiance flashed through the eyes of the bound creature, and then he began to laugh, quietly at first and then louder "Why don't you remove these chains and let me show you?".
Jason smiled in spite of himself.
The notion that this person was a vampire was absurd to him. The very notion that vampires existed at all was laughable. But his people assured him that it was true.
Jason didn't really know what to make of the whole thing.
Corporate espionage and good old fashioned murder were things he could understand, even come to expect. But vampires?
Still...
The scientific mind took all possibilities into consideration and if vampires really did exist, then several potential opportunities presented themselves to his crafty mind.
"Well my friend" continued Jason "We have plenty of time to get to the bottom of this..."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Markus and Lynn had walked for hours without speaking. When they had first began their journey downwards, Markus had tried to ask many questions but was met with stony silence.
"Your questions will be answered by others, there's nothing I can tell you till we get there" Lynn had said.
So they walked in silence. Lynn wouldn't even say how long it would take to get wherever they were going.
Markus's mind was reeling. At best he had hoped to discover a lone Forsaken here or there. Never in his wildest dreams did he expect to find a group, no matter how small Lynn's family ended up being.
He began to re-evaluate his plan. If there was a group here, there could very well be small groups scattered all over the world. It seemed like Brenden had been right after all!
"We're here" said Lynn "Just through that doorway." with that he motioned to the doorway ahead.
"Aren't you coming with me?" asked Markus.
"Nah, I've got to get back to lookout duty" answered Lynn. With that he turned and began to walk back the way they had come.
Markus was more confused now than ever. "Lookout duty?" he thought to himself?
Markus walked through the doorway.
As soon as he entered, he knew something was wrong. The door behind him slammed shut as a metal blast door descended from the ceiling.
Across the small room that he found himself in, Markus discovered another blast door sealed tight. He was trapped.
Suddenly the air around him began to hum and vibrate and Markus's body began to tingle. The walls lit up with a flash of light that burned every inch of his body. The flash lasted only milliseconds, and suddenly the humming noise dropped away.
Markus stood gasping, the hint of pain vanishing as quickly as it had occurred.
Suddenly the door on the opposite wall opened.
Warily, Markus walked through the door and onto a balcony overlooking a cavernous vault. Below him stood hundreds if not thousands of vampires, heads tilted up, all staring quietly towards him.
"Welcome Markus..." said the voice of a tall vampire standing on the far side of the balcony, "Welcome home."
EPILOGUE
After what felt like an eternity, Tym finally touched down on the moon sized orb that had slowly been moving towards him, or rather; he had been moving towards.
As soon as his foot
touched the ground, all sense of motion stopped. The space surrounding the orb was lit up like a sunny afternoon, though the sun itself was nowhere to be seen.
Tym looked around himself. The landscape was barren and smooth with no trees or hills as far as he could see.
After waiting a few moments for something to happen, he began to explore his new environment.
After a few hours he had walked across the entire orb without finding anything noteworthy.
"Well," he thought to himself with a chuckle "guess I got here early!"
"Hello brother" echoed the voice.
"Hello to you" said Tym "feel like showing yourself yet?"
"Not just yet" intoned the voice "Are you ready to remember?"
"Remember what," asked Tym "and where are we anyway?"
"We're in the space between" answered the voice "Are you ready to remember?"
"How am I supposed to know if I'm ready when you won't tell me what I'm supposed to remember?" asked Tym.
The voice began to chuckle "Ah Tym, I've missed you. You're here to remember what you've forgotten of course... To remember where vampires came from and why they exist at all."
"...what?" intoned Tym, confusion evident in his voice.
"It's time Tym...time to finally set things right again, and we don't have much time..."
THE END
Look For
Book Two of the
Forsaken Realms Trilogy
ForsakenRealms.com
February 2013
BOOK TWO OF THE FORSAKEN REALMS TRILOGY:
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GLOSSARY OF CHARACTERS
Alexander Graves - Ruler of the Elder Council, head of the Medai Clan, leader of the House of Graves. Lord Graves is the single most powerful vampire in the world.
Ruark Graves - Father of Alexander Graves, he was killed during the culling of the Forsaken by Natalia's father, the leader of the Forsaken.
Gabriel - Lieutenant and confidant of Alexander Graves. Gabriel acts as Alexander's second in command, helping to run the Medai's sprawling business empire.
Natalia - Exiled daughter of the leader of the Forsaken, she lives in the sewers with a band of refugee Forsaken and is their nominal leader.
Tym - Forsaken vampire and friend of Natalia. Tym is one of the oldest vampires in the world and may or may not be completely crazy.
Brenden - Forsaken vampire and member of Natalia's current family. Brenden is a hothead who burns to reunite the Forsaken.
Markus - Forsaken vampire and member of Natalia's current family. Markus is a friend of Brenden's who agreed to begin searching the world for any remaining Forsaken.
Quinn - Forsaken vampire and member of Natalia's current family. Quinn is looked upon as a sort of mother figure, or older sister by the members of Natalia's family.
Lynn - Forsaken vampire living in the sewers under London, England.
Yuri Vostrof - Member of the Elder Council, Ruler of the Morinof Clan and leader of House Vostrof, Vostrof is easily the second most powerful vampire in the world behind Alexander Graves.
Nikolai - Chief lieutenant and aide to Yuri Vostrof, Nikolai is in charge of special projects for the Morinof Clan, reporting directly to Vostrof.
Jason Grey - Twenty four year old billionaire technologist and human, Jason Grey made his fortune building social media apps before turning to cutting edge visual projection technology which has vaulted him into the ranks of the wealthiest and most powerful humans in the world.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EPILOGUE
GLOSSARY OF CHARACTERS