FREE! READ ME BEFORE YOU PURCHASE! Chapter One: The Cursed Wound
Hello and Welcome to S.L. Kirby's New Release for her new series! The Secret Lives of Angels & Vampires is Copyrighted from 2023 and now available on Amazon! Please enjoy the free sample!
Chapter One
April 10th, 2024
New Castle, New Hampshire
Water dripped from the decaying stone building roof from one of hundreds of cracks, holes or broken beams sticking out like a rib bone from a corpse.
The rectory hallway stunk of mold and dead animal, likely rats or raccoons that had been scrounging. An image of the broken stained glass windows reflected in a large puddle of standing water flooding the floor. Drops of black water falling from a leak in the wall above a broken door jam caused small ripples to give it an eerily calm wavy effect. Rolf stared at it and focused on his breath while the sounds of the night attempted to pull his attention everywhere but where he wished he was, which was sleeping. Nightingale songs offered little comfort in the abandoned building, not that he was seeking it, he could only hope for a few moments of rest when he was able to get it. It was the very definition of quiet otherwise. Something occasionally made clicking or tapping noises out in the ruined chapel, but he’d investigated it so often it became second nature to tune it out. Likely more raccoons or skunks rummaging for garbage through the litter that blew in from the storms.
Otherwise, the abandoned church probably had a few ghosts in it. The sun hadn’t really shone yet today, nor could it in here. He wished he could get some rest. He surveyed the area for any signs of life beyond his own and then went back to his makeshift room. One of the few spaces left in the building with the roof still intact. And he drifted off. For a minute.
The sound of smashing wood bolted him out of bed as if the noise itself had the power to yank his large frame from it. So much for a few more minutes. He’d probably have his nightmare again anyway. He woke ready to face them, almost always sleeping in jeans to be ready for them. He grabbed and pulled on his t-shirt while cramming his stake in his belt.
The sound of something breaking against the hardwood floors echoed throughout the whole area! Like someone had picked up a pew and dropped it. Damnit! Someone was definitely moving stuff around out there! By the sound of it, they were rummaging. The smell of thick mold became stronger as the air flow changed. Death still smelled worse. It wasn’t death. He felt his body ease but decided to keep his stake at the ready anyway. Footsteps… the sound of heels knocking. Light ones. Like little shoes. Women’s shoes?
“Wh-?” He stopped short of the paint chipped arch leading into the chapple. There, kicking around the flotsam of busted pews and fallen roof pieces was exactly what his ears detected… that and the sudden smell of the one thing he struggled to avoid! Thin, blonde hair fell down her back. Form fitting jeans and Carhart boots moved around shit and took pictures with a phone like some government busy body… and the smell of every temptation he’d ever known coming from her skin, hair, and her coincidentally really pretty ass. Not good! The smell of her demanded his attention above every other damn thing in this hell hole! He let an audible grumble escape from his throat as he shifted his focus from his efforts to rest to fighting the urge to fulfill his thirst and something else. He didn't like it. He grit his teeth in disgust and heard himself growl in annoyance again before he could stop it.
The hunger of his lust had already begun to rattle his hands and it was working his nerves next. He watched her for a moment longer knowing he had to be careful to avoid getting too close. He only had one good civil option here and he prayed she went away quickly so he didn’t have to get nasty. She did not. And instead, she just kept picking through the garbage as if searching for something. She was dressed way too nice to be in here scavenging.
Great. He cleared his throat, “Uh… Miss?”
She startled, “Huh?” And looked around for the voice. Green eyes? She looked up at him with eyes the color of the stained glass that was still intact over the altar when the sun shone through it.
“What are you doing in here!?” She turned to face him and raised her camera up to snap a picture.
“I live here.” He fought the urge to snatch it and squeeze it to bits with his fist. Pissing her off would only make her stay longer, even if she had a voice like an angel, which unnerved him more than he cared to admit.
“You live in a rundown church?” She looked at him genuinely confused?
“No. I live in an abandoned church, in the rectory, temporarily. And why, is not your concern. But I am going to ask you to please explore somewhere else.”
“Do you own it?”
“No. But...”
“Do you know who does?”
“I’ve been staying here long enough that no one has…”
“Then I’ll only be a minute.” She cut him off sharply.
She turned her head away from him and her back length blond hair swished around as if a breeze were tasseling it. She was not leaving, and this was worse than not good. The Lord could torture, couldn’t he? Her polite but firm tone could almost pass for pleasant and down right sweet, but that was getting old fast the nosier she got.
“Look miss! This is not a safe place for you to be. Not only is the building rotting but…” The smell of darkness took the place of her increasingly alluring human scent that he could almost eat right out of the air. Then… he picked up the scent of one of them! Dark death. And not just death but a nasty grotesque putrid stink that would make any normal mortal vomit if they could detect it. And it was getting closer! The two scents did a ridiculous tango around his nose! One of a delicious enticement that he had no time for, and the other of a bastard that he needed to stay focussed on in order to eliminate! Damn them both! What the hell? Is this a joke? He gave the roof a side eye as he listened to the air whisper with movement around him. His God didn’t make jokes. He prepared to turn and strike.
She turned, sending him a sharp emerald glare. “What?” She looked him up and down and stopped right at the stake shoved in his belt. “What… who are you?”
Those things were that quick! Ignorant stench! Ridiculous stench that didn’t see who he was trying to overtake. First at his right, then to his left. It tapped his shoulder. Good, just what he needed. A playful demon. She’s about to get fed on right in front of him! He reached his hand down slowly to his waist to position for the stake. One thing the stink didn’t know was that he could sense it enough to feel its position. The blonde stood in the center of a row of flattened pews, twenty feet away and partially blocked by a row of massive pillars. If he was fast, he could take it out and stay in her blind spot. Of course if she witnessed him take the bastard out, she might leave too. He somehow didn’t have the heart to totally freak her out, even though it would probably be a good idea to do so if it saved her life.
“I stay here because I need the quiet. I have a difficult time being around people but you really shouldn’t be here.” He tried to speak as gruffly as he could, in order to give her the hint to get out if his new friend didn’t kill her first.
“What’s that?” She eyed his waste, ignoring him. “And what are you doing?”
One more second and he’d have his ‘ghost’ in a pile of dust. The stink was right behind him. Good for him the bastard had the balls to toy with him. His breath stilled as his 300 year old instinct kicked in and his hand readied to move. Mister Smelly Pants was darting between pillars, between the woman, and then back to him again. His hand tore through the stale air to his left, right behind the pillar closest to him. The wooden spike sliced through the undead like a hot knife through soft butter, and his corpse, which had been moving at damn near the speed of light, stopped dead in his tracks! It splintered into gray dust to the floor beside him, and ended his hunt for good. The spike fell to the floor and the woman only caught what her human eye was capable of detecting. And her delectable scent was now the only thing in the room making him suffer again. Maybe it was the relief from the death smell, or maybe she really did smell that freaking good, he didn’t know, but fucking wow! Did she smell good! So good that he could feel the pressure of his fangs trying to break through his gums now! Damn it! His hunger surged making him feel like he hadn’t fed in days! If he’s supposed to be half human, why the hell was she triggering his hunger so intensely?
“What’s what?” he raised his now empty hands up to show her for a second and she scanned him again. In that instant, she honed in on his wrist before he could pull it down. Shit! He could have kicked himself! Since when was a set of full breasts and long blond human smelling hair enough to make him forget that?
After another pause, “You’re the only one here?”
“Yes.” He could feel his mouth grow dry.
“You don’t own it?”
“No. And I wouldn’t want to.”
“Ok. Well, that’s probably good then. I’ll go. Thanks whatever your name is.”
She turned around giving him a perfect view of her ass again and his fangs felt that much more ready to pop out! “Father Bauer… er…. Rolf. It’s Rolf!” He stumbled awkwardly. Why on earth did he feel the need to tell her that? He wasn't trying to make friends!
She stopped and shot him a glance over her aqua blue North Face shoulder, “Father… what’s a-…? Ok, well, then I’m Talon.”
And why did she feel the need to return hers? Something in his gut told him he knew why. And he prayed to God she didn’t come back to ask for it.
April 11th, the next night:
The sleep he’d known as a mortal hadn’t happened quite the same ever since his bite, and yet he still had the audacity to hope for it. He lay in the dank dark crumbling rectory feeling his body go into blackness with the sound of the stupid birds at it again, wapping their wings against the office window. The escape never lasted.
It was difficult to be grateful for being only half vampire. But being that he could still get some rest whenever he wanted, and wake whenever he detected sound, he’d grown ok with it. Not accepting, just ok. The insomnia, like now, he could do without. He lay still, and waited. It’d come. And sure enough it did. The shadows danced in circles under his lids taking him into what he’d prayed would be a deep sleep.
The colors of his dream, as faded as they always seemed to be, flashed by the inner sight of his subconscious. Now, they all formed into one mass conglomerate glob of black as the color faded behind it. His slumber was too deep to move now and wake. He was paralyzed and just as always, it came to him. His heart pounded in his chest, but he couldn’t move! The glob formed into something. It reached out to take his wounded wrist in its claw, sending a hard hot painful streak of fire through his hand and arm! It spoke to him, inaudibly, “Do not…” What? Do not what?
He hadn’t known of any vampires that could tear out of a deep sleep like he could! Like he was busting out of Hell! He’d break into a cold sweat while doing it but he sure as hell could do it! Though mostly it was due to the fact that he’d killed them before they could get to him, but that was beside the point. He bolted upright grabbing his wrist, still on fire, and screaming so loud the birds finally flew away from the window! Their wings like the sound of papers being blasted off of a desk from a powerful wind!
The sun had barely begun to come up and there was no power in the building, and no medicine that could ever dull the pain of his centuries old inflamed bite! The cursed shadow tormented him for eons! Every time it showed up, it made his bite bleed nasty black, oozing, dead blood that resembled old motor oil. He trifled through the dark of his duffel bag to find his role of bandages wishing for a stiff drink to go with it. It was dried up for once yesterday when the blonde… Talon… saw it. Though there was always the chance she didn’t. And he forced himself to assume that she hadn’t. He found the bandages but not the sewing kit he used to properly cut the cloth. Where the fuck was it?
He glared at his garment bag hanging off the floor next to it in the dark space where he’d hidden all his other possessions. He was filthy and still covered in vampire dust and did not want to get any soot on his suit. But he needed his kit. He reluctantly reached into the bag to the pockets of his vestment, cringing and hoping not to stain it. It was one of the only things he put extra care into keeping pressed, cleaned and ready in case he might be called to service again, for any reason. It was the one thing he maintained that got more respect out of all of his belongings. Being a man of God was the ultimate calling in his opinion and nothing could ever top it, even if he didn’t have a reason to wear it ever again. It was his and he’d cherish it until the day he finally died. Being a half-vampire, who knew when that would be? He’d even hadn’t expected to live this long. He was barely through his twenties when he was first bitten.. His hair was still black, and the skin under his eyes was still smooth. His stubble needed to be shaved once every other week. His bone structure changed over the centuries to age him a bit, but only a bit. He guessed he had to look somewhere around thirty years old by now, though he was in his third century. He was aging. Just… really…. Slowly.
His small sewing kit with his scissors should not be in there but it wasn’t in the duffel bag and he had recalled dropping it in a pocket before, since the suit was the only reason he carried it besides needing it for his wound. It had to be in the pockets if nowhere else. He was not using a dirty pocket knife to cut his bandages when it was just as gross as he was at the moment.
Found it! He pulled off the old cloth, tossed it into a bag he’d been using to hide his trash and wrapped up his wound again. Good as new until it started to seep again!
He called out into the darkness after the presence that followed him for the last three hundred years of his life, “Do you hear me you son of a bitch!?” He looked over his clean dressing, “I will keep going! I will not stop! I will take out as many of those bastards as I can until my life ends!” He turned around to his night stand and picked up his belt and slipped it through the loops of his jeans.
And that went for Malum too. “Malum...” If you’re out there, I’ll find you.. Then you’ll get yours. He went back out to the pile of dust in the chapel and grabbed his stake out of the mess and crammed it back under his belt, his usual tool for hunting the fully dead, and then went out into the early morning darkness. If he was lucky, his sense of smell would lead him to stumble across a few coming in for the day. He cussed at his hand, still frying in a painful sting by his side.
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