Monsters and Mortals - Blood War Trilogy Book II Read online

  MONSTERS

  AND

  MORTALS

  BOOK II OF THE BLOOD WAR TRILOGY

  Copyright © 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book or the stories herein may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover art is by Kari Klawiter.

  BLOODLINES

  Book I of the Blood War Trilogy is available NOW

  Werewolves—savage and brutal. Vampires—ruthless and deadly. For almost six hundred years the immortal clans have been sworn blood enemies, locked in vicious battle within the darkness of the mortal world. But a new threat has arisen, one with the potential to eradicate both species from existence: hybrids, offspring of forbidden unions between werewolf and vampire.

  From violent beginnings in the fields of Romania, the conflict remains hidden by shadow in the ancient cities of London, Paris, and Rome. Hanging in the balance, the supernatural war is poised to explode as each species searches for a way to sever the bloodline of the other.

  In a world filled with honor and nobility, treachery and betrayal, six centuries of hatred and bloodlust has consumed all.

  The war will not end until one side claims victory—yet none are willing to yield. Here, there will be no winners or losers, only victims and survivors. Do you believe in monsters?

  Available on Kindle from Amazon.

  MONSTERS

  AND

  MORTALS

  ONE.

  Venetian Lagoon

  Venice, Italy

  Moonlight sparkled off the lagoon’s undulating surface in a fractured path extending across the water. The motion of the gentle swell would have kept him asleep if the wind blowing off the Adriatic Sea hadn’t been so cold.

  Beppe Santoro stirred with the breeze’s bitter touch, opened his eyes, and stared at a dark sky. It took him a moment to sense his surroundings: his wooden fishing vessel creaking with its movement, his father’s old jacket wrapped around him in a failed effort to keep away the evening chill, and the salty tang of the lagoon’s waters. A heavy sensation of annoyance settled into his stomach. He’d done it again, and his wife would be angry.

  This wouldn’t have happened if his son had kept his promise and made the trip with him. Francesco said one of the waiters had fallen ill and he needed to fill in, but even after nineteen years Beppe still couldn’t tell if his only child was lying or not. Beppe’s fish quota had been down all week so he had no choice but to head out onto the water on his own. The last time he’d made a solitary trip—two weeks ago now—he’d fallen asleep and had not wakened until after midnight. He didn’t wear a watch but felt sure it wasn’t so late this time.

  It didn’t matter though—Renate would be mad as hell. Fifty-six years ago he’d been given the name Giuseppe but had become Beppe on his first day in school. He’d fallen in love with the name and it had stuck ever since. To this day only his mother could get away with calling him Giuseppe. Sometimes, when she became angry enough, his wife would use his full name in an effort to assert some form of authority. It became Beppe’s cue to switch off and ignore the rest of her tirade. He was Beppe, and no amount of anger on his wife’s part would change that fact.

  He knew even now that if his wife inscribed the name Giuseppe on his tombstone, he’d turn in his grave.

  Beppe sat higher in the small craft and gazed across the mass of water.

  The lagoon and sky echoed each other, but the heavens didn’t reflect the lights of Venice in its surface. The city’s northern districts lay about a hundred meters off the boat’s port side, its illumination splitting the horizon of water and sky. He couldn’t hear Venice’s life, the only sound accompanying him being the smack of water against the boat’s hull.

  He glanced in the opposite direction, to the north-east, towards the island of Burano where his home lay smothered by darkness. It would take him less than forty minutes to reach it once he started the outboard motor, but first he had to drag in his nets. The small floats extended in a meandering pattern away from the vessel, dark blobs on a black sea highlighted by subtle moonshine.

  He shook his head and cursed. “Merda.”

  Beppe sat on the bench seat and sighed heavily. If it wasn’t midnight already, it’d surely be so by the time he finished hauling in his catch.

  Making his way cautiously to the stern, Beppe groaned in pain as his aching muscles stretched after spending hours curled up on the floor of the boat. It had been daylight when he’d settled down for a ten minute break after laying out the nets. His boat had drifted too far. He knelt against the side of the craft, found the first float sitting on the surface, and began pulling in the nets.

  The first twenty feet contained no catch and he figured it’d be another disappointing night. Some of the other fishermen who lived on his island had suffered reduced weights in their catches too, so Beppe knew it had nothing to do with his nets or methods. There were others who were still bringing in sizeable hauls even though Beppe couldn’t fathom where they went to yield a better harvest of fish. Maybe they were pillaging a number of the lagoon’s fish farms. Those men were much younger than he—Beppe wouldn’t put it past them to be so underhanded; today’s youth resorting to cheating.

  He reached the tenth float, dragged the net onto the craft, and wrestled two fish from the meshwork. After placing them in the holding bucket, he shook his head and dragged more of the net clear. Three fish weren’t worth the hassle of pulling their wriggling forms from the net’s snare; he tossed them back into the lagoon. He added three more fish to his catch, and then ran the back of his hand across his brow. The air remained chilly but the thick coat made him sweat. He considered taking another short break, but the fact he’d slept most of the night away in the boat and still had the wrath of Renate to face when he got home made him decide it would be better to get the insignificant catch hauled in as quickly as possible.

  Standing and then straightening his back in an effort to stretch out the pain, Beppe adjusted his stance and gripped the rope tightly once more.

  He pulled on the net and strained against its weight. It must have snagged on something near the bottom, maybe a heavy object lost from one of the many boats that crossed the lagoon every day. Yawning, Beppe stood with the net in his hands and splayed his legs wider so he could give sufficient leverage. He tugged hard, the weight shifted, and the lagoon’s surface writhed as something surged from the water.

  Moonlight glinted off its wet skin as it thudded into the side of the vessel. Enough light spilled from the ancient city to throw shadows across the face and illuminate an eye. An arm stretched upwards, as if the limb sought purchase on the edge of his craft.

  Beppe screamed, dropped the net, and fell back onto his rump. “O, mio dio!”

  He sat uncomfortably on the wood and stared at the edge of the craft. Had the moonlight distorted what he’d pulled from the water? He couldn’t believe the object had resembled a human. It had to have been something discarded from a passing boat—Beppe didn’t want to contemplate the thought of a dead body in the lagoon.

  Fear settled heavily into his stomach, forcing a chill to swarm over his skin despite the thick jacket. His breath exited in short gasps, throat taut, eyes wide, his gaze locked onto the boat’s stern. While he sat there, stunned, trying to fathom what he’d really s
een in the lake, his mind kept expecting a skeletal hand to grip the edge of the vessel and a soaking corpse to pull itself from the water.

  Beppe forced himself to move. He edged his rump up until he sat on the bench seat, his stare never leaving the section of net draped into the lagoon. Reaching out, he grabbed a battery-powered lantern. His hand shook, the metal components of the lamp rattling in an almost rhythmical accompaniment to the gentle lap of waves. Flicking the switch, a subtle glow filled his boat. It cast shadows around the craft, and Beppe glanced from side to side, waiting for a cadaver to fall from the darkness and crawl towards him.

  He shook his head.

  An intense dread seemed intent on locking his muscles as he leaned against the side of his boat and held the lantern out above the water.

  He expected to see it, but a shocked gasp left him anyway. A gentle current fluctuated around the body but the cadaver remained motionless, trapped in the netting.

  Hair flowed about the head and face, adding surreal movement to the static view of death. The man’s skin appeared blacker than the surrounding lagoon, although he was clearly Caucasian. The skull pressed against the flesh, each bone’s contour visible beneath the skin. The fingers were curled, betraying an agonizing death.

  Beppe thanked God the cadaver’s eyes remained closed.

  He couldn’t leave the deceased man in the water. It would be easy to travel the short distance to Venice and get the police to investigate but it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. Not for Beppe anyway. He would take the body to the police himself; after all, they were his nets, his responsibility.

  Glancing out at the darkened lagoon, Beppe couldn’t spot another boat on the water to aid him. He’d have to haul the body in on his own.

  Beppe stood uneasily, adjusted his balance against the gentle swell of the lagoon’s waters, and pulled on the net again. The body broke the surface with a rush of water, the arm reaching into the dark. The sight of the poor man repulsed Beppe, made him groan aloud, but he leaned forward and grabbed the shirt hanging from the cadaver. Slipping his hands beneath the corpse’s armpits, Beppe heaved the body from the lake. The dead man didn’t weigh much and the emaciated remains were easy to handle despite its rigidity.

  Two small fish clung to the tight skin of the dead man’s neck. Beppe removed them and tossed them back into the water. In the soft glow of his lantern, he glanced at the figure. He had no idea how long the man had been in the water, but black skin stretched tight across the body. The man’s shirt had decayed and fallen open at the chest, allowing Beppe to see rib bones protruding under the flesh. The skin didn’t appear to have rotted in any way, instead looking taut—dehydrated and devoid of blood.

  He’d seen his beloved father laid out in the chapel back in his home town of Milan, but the sight before him was totally different: macabre and grotesque.

  Sadness churned slowly in his stomach and an empty feeling of regret flowed through his body.

  “O, mio dio,” Beppe repeated. He made the sign of the cross over his body. “Santo cielo.”

  Despite not being much of a religious man, Beppe figured the best thing to do would be to pray. He began to recite Padre Nostro.

  The body on the bottom of Beppe’s boat moved: eyelids flickered then opened, thin lips peeled back to reveal its teeth, and fangs surged from the gums—it all happened in an instant long enough for Beppe to take it all in, but not long enough that he could react to it.

  Gaunt hands reached out and grabbed the lapels of his jacket, then pulled him down. Cold, wet lips closed around his neck and an intense pain flashed through his body. A chill spread into Beppe’s throat then flooded into his muscles. Calmness extended with it. Air left Beppe’s lungs, issuing a whispered moan as it squeezed between taut lips. Pressure gripped his body and a sensation crawled through him: the feeling that all his essence was being pulled towards the mouth locked around his throat.

  Soon, the uncomfortable pressure faded too, and numbness drifted in.

  The lights of Venice flickered then died, and the moonlight sparkled then disappeared. A heavy, deep emptiness filled him, and Beppe was gone.

  TWO

  Knightsbridge, North Kensington

  London, England

  Deformed beasts, wolfen demons, and blood-thirsty vampires hunted her under the brilliant light of a full moon. She ran through an urban district with a terrain that changed with each corner she turned: a darkened industrial estate with deserted alleys and overflowing trash containers; the busy avenue of a major city illuminated by lights in skyscrapers and cars queuing on the road; a quiet suburban street decorated with picket fencing and well-maintained lawns. Her breath heaved, muscles screaming with exhaustion, yet the faster she tried to run the slower her stride became. Innocent bystanders on the sidewalks began to change, transforming into grotesque monsters altered by talons on their fingers and fangs in their mouths. The tarmac beneath her feet moved, sliding backwards, and she found herself sprinting on an enormous conveyor belt spinning faster than she could run. Glancing over her shoulder, she screamed as the crowd of hungry monsters gained on her. She slipped onto the blacktop, and in a heartbeat the beasts surrounded her, tearing away her clothing before fangs ripped through her flesh.

  Deanna Matthews awoke with a scream bellowing from her lungs. She sat upright and stared into darkness. Bed sheets clung to her naked body; skin layered with sweat. Her panting breath hurt in her dry throat, tongue glued to the roof of her mouth. She lurched to her right and snapped on the table lamp. The bedroom materialized in the soft lighting, the room’s cream colored walls amplifying the brightness. The alarm clock on the bedside table read three-forty in the morning. Deanna grabbed a glass of water by the side of the clock and gulped back a mouthful.

  The dreams came to her every night. Three years had passed since she’d discovered the bodies of her murdered parents, and yet the nightmares continued to plague her. The visions of monstrous animals and baleful wolf-men had invaded her waking thoughts as well, until about six months ago. Only through an extended session of hypnosis did she manage to suppress the images and begin to live a normal life—not that her life could ever be normal again. The visions continued to rain into her sleeping thoughts however, and they were horrifically realistic.

  Her partner stirred beside her. “You okay?”

  Deanna nodded, although she doubted the woman was looking at her. “Yeah, I’m fine; it was just another bad dream.”

  Her partner mumbled something incoherent, and then the waterbed rippled as she rolled over and found a more comfortable position.

  Deanna grabbed her nightgown and turned off the light before the woman she’d met four weeks ago started snoring again. She closed the bedroom door behind her, knowing her presence in the bed wouldn’t be missed. If she packed her bags and left for good she doubted her lover would notice—which wouldn’t be a bad thing. If it wasn’t for the fact she couldn’t sleep alone, Deanna wouldn’t have anyone in her life at all.

  She pulled the nightgown onto her shoulders and tied the band around her waist.

  Deanna walked down a short hall into the living area and switched on a free-standing lamp in the corner. Soft lighting filtered through the room, illuminating a leather armchair, a small sofa bed, a television in the corner next to a decorative fireplace, and a small coffee table placed on a sheepskin rug.

  Hugging her arms beneath her breasts, Deanna crossed the room to the window, parted the Venetian blinds with her fingers, and peered through the gap. Rutland Gate slumbered; vertical rows of buildings shrouded in darkness. Street lighting illuminated parked cars, but no one ambled along the sidewalks. In the middle of a working week, everyone with jobs was sleeping.

  She wished she could hold on to sleep so easily.

  Deanna pulled on the cord and raised the blinds. Daylight would enter the apartment sooner that way, and the first rays of a new-born day offered her a strange sense of comfort. Deanna turned from the window and walked into the c
ramped kitchen. Long and narrow, there wasn’t enough room for two people to prepare a meal, which meant she did most of the cooking while her partner watched soap operas or the music channels on satellite TV. She’d met Joanne outside a gay bar in Soho and although she didn’t consider herself a lesbian, Deanna had sworn herself off men ever since that awkward relationship with her high school sweetheart. Joanne leased the apartment, and at nine hundred pounds a month Deanna was glad she didn’t pay a penny towards it. She helped with the cost of utilities, but didn’t look upon the flat as her own. She could turn around and walk out on this place, her relationship, and her life in London at a moment’s notice. As a result she wouldn’t allow herself to feel settled. The way things were stagnating with the woman in the bedroom, that move would come sooner rather than later.

  She flipped the lid back, filled the compartment with a rich-smelling Columbian blend, poured water into the holder, and switched on the coffeemaker. Deanna sighed and leaned against the kitchen bench. Any form of tiredness had left her when she’d bolted upright in the grip of another horrific dream. She wasn’t an insomniac, but felt pretty close. Sometimes she wished she could always stay awake, if only to control the thoughts and memories invading her mind.

  Deanna poured a mug of coffee, the aroma stirring her senses. She walked into the living area and set the cup on a placemat on the coffee table. Sitting on the edge of the sofa’s seat, her fingers trembled as she ran them through her hair.

  A metallic jingle invaded the room’s silence: the ring tone of her cell phone muffled within the pocket of her coat she’d draped over the armchair after arriving home earlier in the evening. Deanna glanced at the clock above the ornamental fireplace. The hands read five to four in the morning.