The Chronicles of a Vampire Hunter (Book 1): Red Ashes
Page 28
“Well then…” Thanatos said, struggling to his feet. His body was a roadmap of cuts and broken bones, each one slowly regenerating as if by turn. “Did you think you had won? That somehow a lowly dog would be able to challenge me? It will take more than simple reinforcements to turn the tide here, my young friend.” He said as he strode forward and grabbed me by the front of my jacket. I felt better from the brew I had drank, but that was the only benefit, I had burnt myself out.
“This is a war, John, unlike anything you’ve ever been a part of. In this, of course, I will induct you. Whether you want it or not,” He said and then opened his mouth. I tried to push him away as his face grew closer to my neck, but his grip was frightfully strong. Suddenly he stopped and I heard a crunching noise. He jerked once and the noise repeated as I saw my uncle’s face rise over his shoulder.
“Sorry, pal. Your ride’s over.” My uncle said as Thanatos dropped me and the end of a stake—the one I had dropped—sprouted from his chest. He felt at it feebly and stumbled away from my uncle, who collapsed onto all fours on the floor.
Thanatos didn’t speak as the stake began to smolder in his chest. He looked at me as fire began to gout from his chest and mouth, and I saw a hellish grimace on his face as he spoke.
“Die with your questions unanswered, John Magnus,” Thanatos said, and with rush of fire and wind, was gone.
EPILOGUE
I woke to the smell of bacon frying. My arms and legs were heavily bound in gauze and I wore only underwear. I groaned and sat up with every bone in my body making its complaints well heard. I saw my bag from the hotel at the foot of my bed—I was in my room above the pawn shop—and rifled through it for a shirt and some shorts. Properly clothed I slowly made my way downstairs. The door was still fixed with a patchwork of cardboard and duct tape that made me smile, and the moon illuminated the street outside. I heard laughing from the living room behind the shop and walked through the door, seeing exactly what I expected.
“Well, look who it is,” Cassie said as she stood up. Hazel smiled and stood also, and Lily practically leapt from the chair and up to me, hugging me much too roughly.
“Ouch. Hi there,” I said as she squeezed me, smiling up at me.
“Well I’ll be damned.” I heard my uncle’s voice boom from the kitchen. He walked in with two plates stacked with bacon and eggs and set them on the center table.
“Oh, let me help,” Hazel said as she rushed into the kitchen.
“How did you find us?” I asked Cassie. The question burned in my mind an instant after the roof had caved in on the cistern. I knew she had followed the locket, but I should have asked how she planted it on me.
“I sewed that little beauty into the lining. Hazel was furious.” Cassie cackled and then hugged me herself.
“Do you remember? You know, the fight.”
“Bits and pieces, like a dream. But I remember you—” She looked left and right comically, Lily was listening closely. “Wet yourself.”
“Not my fault.” I grunted. It really wasn’t, truly. That shit was scary as hell.
“Of course not, baby.” She chuckled as Hazel and my uncle walked in with a plate stacked with toast, another with eggs, and bare plates for serving along with a huge pitcher of orange juice. My mouth watered as I realized, almost literally, that I was hungry enough to eat a horse. We all sat at the bar, going over the finer points of what had happened over the last week and enduring ridicule from each other over missteps or parts incorrectly told. When everyone had eaten their fill and said their goodbyes—including Lily—I sat across from the bar looking at my uncle. He frowned and looked down.
“You know what you did,” I said.
“I didn’t mean it, hoss. I swear to you.”
“And yet you did it, before I could build up any kind of resistance. So thoroughly that it couldn’t have been planned any better by the very enemies we fight.”
He raised an eyebrow. “We? You mean, you’ll stay?”
I sighed and drank a swallow of orange juice. “Yeah, I might as well. I’ve still got a lot of questions, but…” I made a gesture like I was squeezing the old gripper he’d given me and focused on bringing my power into my left hand until sweat beaded on my forehead. Nothing happened. My uncle understood immediately.
“Jesus… it’s gone?”
“Yep, completely.”
“But… you still healed. It took a day, but you healed…”
“All the recovery time in the world isn’t gonna help me punch a monster’s ticket.”
He just stared at me for a solid thirty seconds while I drank my juice. “You’ve still got power.”
“Somewhere down deep, sure.”
“But you can’t reach it.”
“I tried. There’s nothing to draw on. Not anymore.”
“Doesn’t make no damned sense…” he muttered and then handed me a cigar. I took it and shrugged, letting him light it with a match.
“We’ll find a way to make it work. Maybe it’ll come back on its own.”
“Never heard of no damned such thing in my life; a hunter losing his power for good… fuckin’ impossible,” he said. It worried me. But not too much. I was still smiling. “What are you grinnin’ about, boy?” he asked, looking at me with disbelief.
“I’ve got family. Real family.”
“Yeah… I guess you do.” He laughed for a moment then blew a smoke ring.
“What’s next?” I asked, and followed suit with a smoke ring of my own.
“Huh. Thanatics are almost completely gone. Leon dyin’ pushed out a lot of Malkuthians. Lily will probably be movin’ on, soon enough. Dunno, but I have a lot of questions as to what Thanatos was talkin’ about. You?”
“Same.”
“Well, I guess we oughta start lookin’ then.”
“And in the meantime?” I asked as he pulled two bottles of beer out from under the bar and popped the tops with his thumbs.
“Well, there’s never really a shortage of monsters to hunt; I’m sure we’ll find something to do,” said my uncle, the badass vampire hunter.
About the Author
J. A. Moore is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and currently attends college in Helena, MT. Working on a degree that will allow him to teach English in secondary education, he endeavored to write a series of novels on someth—aw hell, I might as well go with something authentic, right? Hi, I’m Justin. I really hope you enjoyed the book. Seriously. The book has been an off-and-on labor of mine for the last two years, and it took me forever to find the resources I needed in order to put it together. I finished writing this book about two minutes before throwing together this “About the Author” spiel that I know a lot of people never read. I won’t waste page space with it, other than to tell you something very important. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for buying and reading this book. I endeavor to please, so maybe I’ll throw up a twitter account or something if enough of you kind folks end up following the adventures of our hero, John Magnus. I hope you’ll stay current, because I plan on putting out more books in this series (about every 9 months if I can wrangle it, a year at most) and we’ll see what comes of it. I really have no idea what’s going to happen. Honest. I haven’t even planned ahead for the next novel. Okay, well, maybe I did a little planning… Stay safe out there, guys. And, if you really like this book, tell a friend! A little shameless plug couldn’t hurt, right?
Love,
Justin
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
PROLOGUE
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
EPILOGUE
About the Author