by Leanna Ellis
Levi took a breath and released it slowly. “Many…no, most wouldn’t understand. But, yes, I know the risk I am taking. I know the wrongs I’ve committed. You and I know the risk of not doing so. Would you have had me not do anything? Not help the woman I love from being devoured by that roaring lion? Or what about Roc? Should he have not gone after Rachel, not saved her? What would have happened to our family then?”
Samuel had no answer.
Levi took one step toward Samuel, leaning heavily on his cane. “There is a time, Samuel, when we all have to grow up. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
“You have choices, Samuel, as a man, that you must make now. Are you going to run, like our father did? Try to hide from the truth? Try to evade evil and ignore its existence? Are you going to keep reading this filth”—he nudged the book—“and follow in Jacob’s footsteps? Because if you are, I can guarantee the outcome.”
Samuel jerked his chin upward. “Are you going to kill me then?”
“It won’t matter if it’s me or Roc or someone else. But the end will be the same. And you don’t want that.” Levi placed a hand against his chest. “I don’t want that. You are playing with fire.”
Frustration boiled inside Samuel. “I am simply trying to understand.”
Levi picked up the book and placed it in Samuel’s hands. “Get rid of this. Only bad comes from it. I don’t want it in my house.”
“Are you telling me I can’t read it?”
For a long moment, Levi remained silent, as if gauging his answer. “It’s your decision. You’re a man, Samuel. But you cannot read this book or anything like it here in my house. Opening a door like this threatens my family.”
The fierceness in Levi’s eyes ended Samuel’s arguments. “Are you asking me to leave too?”
“No. No, I’m not.” Was Levi convincing himself? “But maybe you need to spend more time at Roc’s. Maybe he can explain to you the dark side of evil. Maybe you can understand the battle we are in. Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
“I’m not sure that’s what they’re doing at Roc’s, Levi.”
“Go see more for yourself.”
***
The barn structure had been built recently and smelled of raw lumber. But the usual earthy odors of a conventional barn did not accompany Samuel as he followed Roc inside.
His last trip to Roc’s, Samuel had taken him up the cliff where he’d left his motorcycle, then, sharing a ride, Roc showed him another road to the training center. It was still far off the beaten path. It would be hard to find, even if someone was searching for it. The easy laughter and shared interest in motor vehicles had reestablished their friendship.
“Where’s that fancy car of yours you told me about, Roc?” Samuel had asked, hoping he could drive it.
Roc shook his head. “I sold it. I’m a family man now. Had to buy a kid-friendly car.”
Samuel had climbed aboard his motorcycle and revved his engine. “That’s a shame, Roc.”
“Go on, get out of here.” They’d shaken hands and agreed Samuel should return in a couple of days and learn more about the center.
Now, they walked through a room crowded with wooden cots stacked three high.
“Our dormitory,” Roc explained.
Samuel noted the beds were all made, the blankets tucked neatly around mattress corners. A row of lockers stood like soldiers. Then they passed a bathroom with showers and sinks, folded white towels, and an industrial-sized washer and dryer.
At the end of the room, they came to a door, which Roc opened. “This is our training facility.”
Samuel stared at the knotted ropes hanging from the rafters like long jungle vines. Storage shelves held not only boxes but also ropes, knives of all shapes and sizes, and stakes, the likes of which he’d seen Roc carry and use. An oversized gun case sported a sturdy wheel lock. Along another side of the building, weights and workout equipment took up considerable space. In another area, chairs gathered around a chalkboard.
“We start here each morning.” Roc indicated the few plastic chairs stacked and pushed against the wall. “Father Roberto takes care of us.”
“Just a few prayers,” the priest added, joining them on the tour, “along with confession and communion. We discussed it, Roc and I, before we began. Surprisingly, Roc agreed.”
“Not surprisingly,” Roc shot back. “Remember I’ve seen our enemy.” Roc’s gaze remained steady, not looking away with embarrassment. “The spiritual is as important as the physical, if not more so.”
“If you’re going to fight evil,” the priest added, “then your own soul should be purged and purified first.”
Samuel looked up at the rafters above as if they might hold the answers to his many questions. Thick boards bisected the ceiling. Pulleys were attached, and they held the dangling ropes, which were hanging as loose and wide apart as the statements Roc and Roberto were making. “I don’t understand. Who are you training and for what?”
“Those you met earlier.” Roc grabbed a clipboard and flipped through a few pages. “We’ve made a lot of progress, but we have much yet to do.”
Samuel huffed out an exasperated breath.
Roc looked up from the papers and burned Samuel with a heated gaze. “We’re fighting vampires.”
Vampires. Even the word sent a chill through Samuel. But could such a thing exist?
“Exactly like we did in Ohio,” Roberto added almost nonchalantly, swiveling a chair around on one leg and then sitting on it like a cowboy riding a horse. He hooked his arms on the back of the chair. “But we’re taking better precautions this time. And our training has been more thought-out and organized.”
For months, Samuel had tried to push away the memories of the fight in Ohio, which ended with the death of his brother. Roc and Roberto had insisted the man Samuel killed was not Jacob because he was “changed.” He went by the name Akiva. But Samuel hadn’t wanted to listen. He hadn’t wanted to believe. He hadn’t wanted to think about any of this. And yet, at some base level of consciousness, he knew.
That horrific day, Samuel had brought the priest named Roberto from the bus station in Kentucky to his parent’s Ohio homestead. The moment they arrived, the priest warned Samuel to leave. “There’s imminent danger.”
“But—”
“Leave, Samuel! Go now. Quickly, before it’s too late.” The priest had rushed to a hiding place and worked his way toward the side of the house.
Samuel stood transfixed for a moment. His father would have demanded he leave. But he couldn’t. He thought of the pregnant Rachel in that house. And Roc. Who were they fighting? Who were they running from? Samuel wondered. What would happen if he left? Could he live with himself if Rachel and Roc died? If her unborn baby never had a chance? No. He had to stay and help if he could. But how?
He’d raced to the barn where Pop kept the rifles they used for hunting. His hands fumbled with the latch. Then someone grabbed him from behind and slammed him against a wall.
He must have blacked out because when he came to, his head pounding, he lay on the hay-strewn floor, his face pressed into the dirt. It had taken him a minute or two to reorient himself, each breath chasing the next, then he pushed himself into a sitting position. Light poured through the doorway, silhouetting a man he’d never seen before. He paced back and forth, in and out of sunlight, through shade and shadow, his footsteps agitated and brisk.
Samuel stood, but the barn tilted. He lurched toward the wall. A pail clattered.
The stranger whipped around, black eyes fixed on Samuel.
The world tipped sideways again, and he braced a hand against the wood-planked wall. It felt as if he was falling but never hitting bottom. “Who are you?”
Those black eyes bore into him, and Samuel felt as if flames licked his body. He heard himself cry out. Pain engulfed him with such intensity he thought he might black out again.
As quickly as the attack began, the man released him. Samuel’s legs gave out beneath him, and he plummeted to the floor. Then the man shrank into nothing and disappeared.
Since then, Samuel had read enough to truly know that evil existed and mystical things were possible. He’d read of depravity and wickedness. Maybe he’d even experienced a small token when he’d looked into that stranger’s black eyes and felt as if he was falling…falling into a deep pit.
“Levi knows about all of this?” he asked, looking around at the expansive building.
Roc nodded. “He helped build it.”
“Was that how he was hurt?”
“He fell during one of our exercises,” Roberto explained.
So his brother was making up stories too. Nothing was as it seemed, which disturbed Samuel the most. Had everyone lied to him or misled him? He rubbed his forehead, trying to put the pieces all together. Where would it all end?
Roc tossed the clipboard back on the table. “We’re working not only on the physical aspects with strenuous workouts and fighting techniques, but also with the mental, emotional, and spiritual preparation. For this plague we are dealing with, we must be as fully prepared as we can be.”
“So why the surprise attack when I arrived?” he asked.
Roc crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the table. “We take security very seriously.”
“I got that.” Samuel rubbed his still sore shoulder.
“Unfortunately, because we are new, we only have a few rudimentary security measures set up to surprise and detain. What we are doing here is top secret and there are many who would like to destroy us. Hopefully, once we have more funds, we’ll add security cameras and other high-tech measures. But that all takes funding.”
“Funding from where?”
“We rely on donations,” Roberto said without elaborating.
Samuel glanced back at the room with the cots and remembered all the men who had pounced on him when he’d first arrived at Roc’s. “Where do these folks in training come from?”
“All over.” Roberto scratched his jaw with his thumbnail. “We get referrals from priests, those who believe in evil, those who’ve experienced these supernatural events, or some of our members we’ve acquired by word of mouth.”
“Most of the men here,” Roc added, “have experienced the supernatural and have personal reasons for wanting to see this evil eradicated. Most have lost loved ones.”
Roberto nodded his head. “But so far, many men of the cloth have closed their minds to this pandemic. It’s a sad state when the church has quit believing in evil and quit training in exorcisms and combat. Because make no mistake, we are in a war.”
Samuel nudged one of the ropes, which swung sideways and back. “What do you do with these?”
“Training.” Roberto smiled.
Roc straightened. “You’re welcome to find out, if you want to join our fight.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fog crept in over the valley like a serpent surveying the land and readying itself to strike. Brydon watched from his perch in a crypt of a room that wasn’t much larger than a coffin. There was nowhere for him to run. No one whom he could run to. The only vamp capable of helping him was Giovanni. And he was dead. Besides, vamps only acted if it benefitted them, and Brydon had nothing to offer. He was completely and utterly alone.
From New York, he’d headed north to one of the most remote locations he could find. All in an effort to stay alive. If that’s what this changed life could be called. Or maybe it was simply a different kind of hell. But he feared what worse torment awaited him if he was eventually destroyed. When he’d almost died at the hand of Roc Girouard, he’d glimpsed darkness, true darkness, and the endless torture awaiting him in the hereafter.
For the first time, Brydon was the hunted, not the hunter. During his days as a police officer in New Orleans, he’d hunted criminals. Not always easy, but sometimes easier than he admitted. It mostly took patience and determination. Then he’d been changed, changed into a predator of a different kind. His hunting skills had come in handy as he fed off the indigent, lost, and helpless. At first, he’d kept to those who wouldn’t be missed or who had such a crappy life that death seemed a step up. It hadn’t required much patience or skill to find prey. But now, life had once again flip-flopped on him. And he was the prey.
Those he’d chased in a previous life—murderers, robbers, rapists—deserved hell. He knew that unequivocally. Yet now, he too had killed. Was he to blame as well? He hadn’t killed out of rage or passion or anger or plain ol’ meanness, only as a matter of survival, no more or less than when a wolf killed a rabbit. Was he now to suffer the same fate as the scum he’d tracked down, arrested, and put in prison for so many years? Could the good he’d done as a cop outweigh his sins?
And who was this Jezebel? A leader like Giovanni? What did she want? He’d probably violated some secret vampire code, the way Akiva had. Forgiveness wasn’t common in the vampire community. The only forgiveness was death.
Brydon had never feared death, at least not when he was alive. He’d faced the wrong side of a gun and the pointed end of a knife when he’d been a cop, often enough to know death wasn’t an if but a when. He’d accepted his own inevitable death when Roc had sliced his throat. He’d allowed it. He’d wanted to die—until the darkness began to swallow him.
Then Akiva saved him, provided a sacrificial lamb, whose blood had healed his fatal wounds. Of course, he’d owed Akiva and had helped him find Rachel. But that was where his allegiance ended. When Giovanni arrived on that tiny homestead in Ohio, he had fled, knowing Giovanni was there to kill Akiva. Brydon hadn’t been willing to die for anyone. Now, he wasn’t about to be some patsy or die at the hand of another vamp.
Maybe all wasn’t yet lost. Maybe he could still get away, make a life, and live alone. This wouldn’t be such a bad place.
Holed up in a cold, stone monastery high in the mountains of Nova Scotia, he stared out the open window, watching the slow progression of fog. The crimson morning sunlight gave it an eerie iridescence and enflamed the valley. The chill rippling through him had nothing to do with the weather.
A knock on the door turned him away from the window. A monk usually brought coffee, boiled egg, and scone for breakfast. All of which he discarded. Otherwise, they left him alone. “Come in.”
The heavy key turned the lock and the wrought iron handle creaked. Head lowered, a monk entered the room, carrying a tray. He wore a brown tunic. Brydon faced the window again. The monks were accustomed to visitors not being verbose, as many sought spiritual renewal and tranquility here among the mountains and valleys. They respected one’s privacy.
At the click of the door closing again, he moved to the desk, finding the tray on the desk as he had expected. But he stiffened at the sight of the monk still in his room. Not just one monk, but two others had joined him. Together, they moved forward. Instantly, Brydon recognized the black gazes.
He took one backward step toward the open window. “Hello, boys.”
The three did not speak. They separated, the two on the outside arcing around the edges of the room to outflank him.
“How do you like the cold—”
In the middle of his question, Brydon lunged for the window, morphing into a winged creature. But before he could completely transform, talons sunk into his neck. The valley stretched out before him, and like a squadron of fighter jets, the group soared over the tree line with Brydon helpless to escape.
Chapter Twenty-Th
ree
Sweat rolled down his sides, and still Samuel raised the ax, swung it over his shoulder in a high arc, and brought it down with a hard slant. The blade bit through the pulpy wood, splitting it down the middle, until the ax hit the chop block and jarred his arms, shoulders, and back. He tossed the spliced wood into a pile, grabbed another thick piece, and chopped it in two.
The heavy scent of smoke hung in the air, and he paused long enough to throw more feed bags onto the burning trash pile. With the wind almost nonexistent on this sunny spring day, it was a good time to get this chore accomplished. It, coupled with the wood chopping, helped him burn off his confusing emotions.
Anger and fear wrestled within him. Periodically, one got the upper hand. He often felt the prickly sensation of being watched. Noises startled him. Nightmares haunted him. Then his thoughts lingered on the lies Pop had told, how he’d packed up his family and wrenched them away from home, family, and community. Part of Samuel had always wanted to return to Pennsylvania. But now, where did he belong?
He wasn’t sure he believed in what Roc was doing. Should he discuss it with Levi? Or not? Levi had also lied. Confused and unsure, Samuel didn’t know what he believed or who he trusted.
He’d hoped a change of location—the land of his childhood, the growing fields and yielding crops, the pastures dotted with docile cattle—would settle whatever had been stirred up inside him months ago and he’d feel at peace once more. But now tension knotted his muscles and uncertainty rocked his stomach.
What was he to do? What should he believe? Should he shun whatever knowledge he’d garnered or did it require him to act? Levi lived in both worlds. But could Samuel? He felt caught between the two.
Footsteps sounded behind him. His heart jolted. Without another thought, he whipped around, raising the ax in a defensive motion, surprising himself and Naomi.
Her prayer kapp in place, her apron clean and ironed, she greeted him with a calming smile, not seeming to notice his wild look and agitated stance. She carried a tray with apple slices, muffins, and a tall glass of lemonade and set it on the chopping block. “I thought you might be thirsty.”