Enchanted Immortals Series Box Set: Books 1-4 plus Novella

by C. J. Pinard

  ∞∞∞

  Andrew Davies and one of his new coven members, Hank Sorenson, were hanging around outside Joe’s Tavern, smoking cigarettes. Jim Blackwell was sitting in a parked car across the street, watching the Immortals, hoping the vampire would take the bait.

  The incidence of vampire attacks outside that particular tavern had been frequent over the past two years, and both the BSI and the Immortals believed it was the work of one or two vampires.

  Not only that, they had an eyewitness.

  The night Paul was killed, as both he and poor Ronnie lay on the sidewalk dying, they were discovered by a couple of college students passing by. Only Paul was dead, though; Ronnie still had a faint pulse and was rushed to George Washington Hospital, where he eventually recovered.

  Physically, anyway.

  Ronnie had said the vampire was definitely a Caucasian-looking male, short brown hair. He had some kind of scar on the left side of his face, like a knife wound. He wasn’t even very tall or big in stature. Just very pale and very, very frightening.

  This was the third night in a row they were out there, and as it turned out, third time’s a charm.

  Andrew and Hank stood in a purposely dark area outside the pub where the streetlights didn’t quite reach. Before the vampire even turned the corner, Andrew heard his thoughts.

  I’m starving and something smells like dinner. Followed by a demented laugh.

  Andrew nudged Hank. “Get ready.”

  Sure enough, the vampire came sleazing around the corner very slowly and smiled at the two men standing against the building, the scar on his left cheek wrinkling as he grinned.

  “What do you want?” Andrew asked the vampire, faking fear.

  The vampire said nothing, just got very close, showing no fear at all to the two men he made the mistake of thinking were merely human.

  Jim Blackwell got out of his car and quietly crossed the street. He gripped the sharpened wooden stake in his sweaty fist, his whole body shaking with rage, fear, and adrenaline.

  As the vampire got close, Hank put him up against the tavern’s brick wall and the vampire hissed. Hank was a big boy, two hundred pounds and a former boxer, whose Immortal gift was strength.

  “Let me go, prick,” the vampire sneered.

  Hank laughed, holding the vampire against the wall one-handed. “Nah, not today, bloodsucker. Today’s your unlucky day.”

  “I’m gonna kill you slowly,” the vampire hissed through his fangs.

  “You sound real stupid,” Andrew laughed.

  “Oh look, our friend Jim is here,” Hank said as Jim approached.

  “Who the hell are you?” the vampire asked, eyeing the stake, his cockiness gone.

  Jim stood in front of the vampire and studied him, both of them staring each other down.

  Jim raised the stake, and with both hands wrapped around it said, “This is for my Pauly.” He plunged the stake into the vampire’s chest and it let out an ungodly screech, disturbing the quiet, dark night.

  Andrew and Hank stepped back, pulling Jim with them as the vampire’s body fell to the ground and began to turn brown, then gray, then to ash, leaving nothing behind but a pile of clothes and a wooden stake.

  Jim tried to maintain his composure but a stray tear did slip out.

  Andrew put his arm around Jim’s shoulders. “C’mon. I’ll buy you a beer.”

  THE END

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE:

  If you reached the end of my wild and crazy series – congratulations! These were the first books I wrote, the insane story of cops who police the supernatural swirling around my brain, begging to be let out. I’ve been asked if there are more stories, and the answer is, I don’t know. I have started a 5th book, mainly about Jessica-Angel and Jason, but it has been put on the back burner for now as other projects are requiring my attention. It’s a crazy-brained author thing. Don’t try to understand it!

  I really do thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my stories. Paranormal and supernatural stories are my first love, and while I do write romance too, I have a lot more paranormal books planned. You may enjoy my Rebel Riders series (here’s a hint: The BSI has a cameo in each book!). Please friend me or like me on Facebook or check my website for updates on new releases!

  Thank you to Emma Shade for saving me from hours of arm pain by formatting this for me! Thank you, Cyndi and Kellie for the beautiful book covers. And thank you, Tim O’Rourke for being an awesome encourager and supporter. This life and these books don’t mean much without good friends like you.

  ~CJ

  Please enjoy a free preview of “Lotus: Daughter of Darkness Part I” – paranormal romance

  Lotus

  Daughter of Darkness

  (Part I)

  ¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨(¸.•´ (¸.•

  By C.J. Pinard

  Copyright 2015 C.J. Pinard

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Art by Kellie Dennis@ Book Cover By Design

  Four authors will each take a different daughter born from the Prince of Darkness, Vlad Montour. (Also known as Vlad the Impaler, an evil villain from history.)

  Blair – Chrissy Peebles

  Jezebel – Kristen Middleton

  Victoria – W.J. May

  Lotus – C.J. Pinard

  Blair can be downloaded here!

  Victoria can be downloaded here!

  Chapter 1

  The boarded up warehouse smelled like shit. I’m not using that in a figurative sense, it literally smelled like shit. Like a group of squatters had hunkered down here and had taken up residence. Sucking another deep inhale of air through my mouth and not my nose – and holding it before my partner figured out what I was doing, I stroked a finger under my nose and pretended to be rubbing some Vic’s Vapo-Rub under there – a little ‘trick’ my partner had suggested to me when dealing with the horrific smell of dead, decaying bodies.

  Of course I couldn’t tell him I was half vampire and that my sense of smell was stronger than most, and that ol’ Vic’s would probably do more harm than good on my sensitive nose. So I just smiled in mock sheepishness and turned my head forward as I surveyed a body that had once been human but now resembled more of a zombie. Its mouth hung open like it was trying to catch flies, but the eyes were milky white – and open. If I could have gagged, I would have.

  Which didn’t stop my human partner, Stephan Waters, from gagging himself. I bit back a laugh.

  “Nasty,” he murmured.

  "You can say that again,” I replied under my breath, moving toward the corpse.

  Its pallid, shriveled body sat propped in the corner of the warehouse, the filthy rags he’d once called clothes hanging on his emaciated frame like a hanger displayed in a gory shop window.

  I approached the body with trepidation as I always did in these situations. Stephan beside me had no problem marching straight up to the corpse, but being as old as I was, I had learned the hard way that things weren’t always as they seemed – especially when it came to dead bodies.

  “Why is he so thin…?” Stephan asked.

  “Duh, he’s homeless,” I replied in annoyance, pointing at the rags he wore.

  The truth was, I could see the poor dead dude had been most likely drained of every pint of his blood and we had yet another serial killing on our hands. A serial killer with a lust for drinking blood who seemed to have no qualms about leaving dried-out bodies that were nearly husks in o
dd locations for me to find.

  I knew we had a vampire serial killer on our hands – just like in the 1800s when Jack the Ripper was on the loose in London and nobody could explain it – we now had another. Could I tell Stephan or anyone else at the Denver P.D. Local 318 Precinct of my suspicion? Nah, I’d get fired from the job I loved so much and then committed to a funny farm.

  Nope, I’d solve these murders on my own, just like I always did. I knew they’d been committed by a vampire, one not too dissimilar to my biological father, and once I found the sadistic bastard, I’d kill him slowly.

  And I speak of both this undead serial killer and my biological father.

  After all, I was Lotus Arden Smith – fifty percent faery, fifty percent vampire, and one-hundred percent bad-ass.

  Crouching down near the body, I pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of my gray slacks and shoved it over my nose as I examined the body closely, all the while trying to remain businesslike, when really, all I wanted to do was dry-heave. Not that I’d ever dry-heaved. I’d just read about it in books and saw Stephan do it a couple times at the other crime scenes.

  The body was the same ol’ song and dance. A poor schmuck homeless guy who’d fallen victim to some vampire who was on the loose on the streets of Lo-Do – Lower Downtown Denver. And I was gonna catch him – oh yes him. The bastard always left his manly cologne scent behind. I could always smell it, even if nobody else could.

  The body was decaying, and therefore, beginning to wrinkle and prune, but that did not stop me from seeing the two faded puncture wounds in the victim’s neck. They’d never had the chance to heal since the dumbass vampire killed his victims immediately after feeding. If he was smart, he’d let them live for a few minutes, hypnotize them into forgetting about it, let their body heal – and then kill them. Then the puncture wounds would be gone. But no, this jackass was either very new or very, very stupid. My guess was a combination of both.

  “What do you see?” Stephan asked me, staring at me intently, hoping I had some sort of magical answer. Little did he know I did hold some magical power, but telling him the truth about this victim’s puncture wounds wasn’t going to be anything I’d divulge to him today. Or ever.

  Lifting a shoulder and letting it fall, I pulled the gum from my mouth and tossed it into a trash can nearby that looked as though it had had fires burning in it recently. “No idea. Let the M.E. figure it out.”

  “This is the fifth body we’ve found like this. Obviously, someone is murdering the homeless of this city,” Stephan replied, his arms crossed over his narrow chest, his brown eyes regarding me suspiciously.

  I eyed the blonde hair flopping over his head to one side and his shirt and pants that had clearly not seen an iron in a while. I swallowed down a grin. I definitely wasn’t telling this guy my vampire secrets, so I was gonna have to play as dumb as he was looking right about now. “No clue, Waters.”

  We left the scene once the medical examiner and the crime scene unit showed up. My partner wanted to stay but I didn’t need to hear any of their theories. I had my own clues to chase down and I didn’t need human babble and speculations messing with the cop-vampire mojo I had going on right now.

  As we walked back outside the warehouse, I pulled the collar of my coat up around my neck to fight off the biting cold. Getting into the passenger seat of the boring police-issued sedan, I closed the door and reached over to crank up the heat on the dash. Stephan put the car in drive and headed back toward the precinct.

  We soundlessly made our way through the cold and into the station. I went straight to my desk, and before sitting down, I pulled off my wool coat and hung it on a hook on the wall near my desk. It was only late October, but that just meant the snow would come in the next couple weeks and we were definitely deep within the fall season.

  Sitting down at my desk, I shook the mouse to rouse the sleepy computer and waited as it flickered to life. I looked down at the lotus flower tattoos that decorated my right arm and smiled. I’d gotten them to remind me to just be me. I’d grown up in foster care with no real parents and the first set had given me the name Lotus. I don’t know why and probably never would, but I gathered from a young age that I would only have myself to rely on and nobody else. The tattoos reminded me to stay strong and keep blooming, even when the days were dark and cold.

  I had always wished that I’d known my mother but made peace with that a long time ago. I’m 104 years old and I’m sure my poor, faery mother was long dead. I just hoped she had lived a happy life. My father, on the other hand, was a vampire, and a very evil one, of that I was sure. I was also sure he was alive somewhere. I just had no clue where he was. I had been told once that his name was Vlad, but had laughed that off at the time.

  The only reason I knew that my mother was a faery was because I’d gone and visited a psychic once about fifty years ago when I was living in New York City. The minute I’d walked through the door, a wide-eyed woman had come bursting through the thick, red velvet curtains that blocked the doorway to her shop and had ignored all the customers in the waiting area. I hadn’t even called or even spoken to her receptionist yet when I’d come face to face with the strange woman.

  She plopped me down in a chair opposite to her desk and didn’t even bother going back behind it to sit down in it. She had sat in the gold velvet wooden-legged chair beside me and stared intently at me, grasping my hand in hers while she stared at me.

  “Another faery,” she had breathed at me, green eyes unblinking as she studied my face.

  “Faery?” I stared at her in horror. She had freaked me out so I got up to leave but she pushed me back down in the chair with a smile. “No, stay. You’re here for answers. I can give them to you.”

  That got my attention. I sat back down and stared at the strange witch.

  “You are faery but I can sense you are something else, too.”

  “Vampire, probably,” I said dryly. “I drink blood, and I like it.”

  Her eyes got wide. “That’s why I can’t get a full read on you. Vampires are dead. Faeries are full of life. What a curse you’ve been given to be half. Where is your faery mother now?” she asked excitedly.

  I smiled slightly at her. “How do you know my mother wasn’t the vampire?”

  Her face darkened at my question. “Female vampires cannot bear children, only males, and only very old ones, if the legends are correct. Female faeries are very fertile, so your mother was most likely the faery, while your father was most likely the vampire. He probably tricked her into bed, too.”

  I made a face at her bluntness. “That’s disgusting.”

  “It’s true,” she said, still staring into my eyes. “You also bear the glowing green eyes of the fae. You are definitely part faery.”

  “Can you help me find my real mother?”

  “How old are you, Lotus?”

  “How did you know my name?” I blinked at her disbelief.

  She smiled. “I’m Maggie-Mae and I really am psychic. Truth be told, it’s simply my faery gift, but those people don’t need to know that.” She jabbed a thumb behind her toward the waiting area.

  “Faery gift?” I asked, now completely enraptured by this woman.

  She got up but her eyes never left mine, except for a few brief seconds as she pulled a large, brown, leather-bound book from the gigantic bookshelf behind her. She set it down and flipped through the pages while still looking at me. It was starting to freak me out again, but I was too enthralled to leave.

  Maggie-Mae’s green eyes briefly flicked down to the book, then back to me. She flipped the book around and slid it across her desk to me. She tapped a purple fingernail at a diagram on the middle of the page:

  There were four strange and almost frightening hand-drawn pictures. They were titled “Gifts”, and the first depicted a person – as I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman – with their hand to their ragged head, and next to it was printed “Mind and thought gifts.”

  Mind-reader,
like this lady, I thought.

  The next one depicted a full-length drawing of a woman in a white dress, and next to it was the woman again, but just silhouette of her, and by it was written, “Invisibility gifts.”

  What! People can make themselves invisible?

  The third picture was of a woman – a faery – who had her hands on the belly of a man lying on what looked like a slab of stone. He appeared to be in pain. The drawing next to it was the man lying peacefully. Written by it was “Healing gifts.”

  Wow, that is so cool! I thought.

  The fourth and final drawing was what looked like a woman with wings protruding from her back. Beside it showed the same woman flying through the clouds. Written by it was: “Gifts of flight.”

  My head went dizzy and I had to grip the armrests of the chair I was sitting in. I never told Maggie-Mae this, but from the time I hit puberty, I had found out the very, very hard way that I could fly.

  Although I looked absolutely nothing like the beautiful drawing I saw in front of me when I did fly. And I most certainly didn’t have wings.

  “Interesting, right?” Maggie-Mae asked, breaking me out of my shock.

  I nodded.

  “Which one do you possess?” she asked excitedly.

  I hesitated. I didn’t even know this woman, yet she seemed to know me. She did say she was psychic, too. So I responded, “I bet you already know.”

  She smirked. “Not really. I know your name but I can’t get a read on your gifts.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s the flying one. But I sure don’t soar through the air like that.” I pointed at the book.

  “Oh my,” she breathed. “I bet that was a hard one to master with nobody to show you how.”