Patten Brookwater's Curse Volume One

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9907917-9-9
Verlag: Laughing Black Vampire Productions, LLC
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten

Christian Brookwater is a former Georgia plantation slave who became a vampire during the 1860s. His long, tumultuous life takes a complicated turn when he is forced to travel to modern-day Senegal to rescue a child from a vengeful werewolf prince. It is here that Christian uncovers a plot that would throw the entire vampire nation into a civil war. To stop this, Christian must betray his best friend and mentor, an influential Italian vampire who nurtured him during his vampiric infancy. Christian is a member of a nocturnal law enforcement community that safeguards the secrets of the creatures of the night. This involves the killing of werewolves and other deranged monsters; something Christian excels at. But his fraternization with humans and his incessant need to kill racists vexes his superiors, who threaten to execute him if he doesn't curtail his 'racial impulses'. Christian also suffers from a rare condition that makes intercourse with human females especially dangerous. Christian's other mentor is a four hundred year old vampire samurai lord who teaches him the arts of war and sacrifice, and has a knack for appearing whenever things become desperate. Of course, the warrior's code can't replace the desire for love, as Christian discovers when he becomes enamored with a human female in the 1940s. Despite Christian's affliction, the two lovers raise a child together and for a while, our vampire gets a taste of true happiness. Some years later, his family life ends tragically as Christian loses his great love and becomes estranged from his teenaged son. Heartbroken, Christian embarks on a series of illuminating, yet sinful adventures as he migrates to a new home: Harlem, New York.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Patten, Steven Van

Leseproben

Prologue

August 14th, 2003 12:08 AM

Before he heard a knock at the door, Christian Brookwater had been sitting in his hotel room absently gazing out the window at a patch of clouds swirling around a half moon. He was stretching out on a love seat, his feet resting on a small ottoman. Two inches away from his crossed feet lay his favorite Bowie knife.

“Room service,” a voice that was trying, and failing miserably, to disguise itself as a human’s, called from behind the door.

He snatched up the Bowie knife in his left hand and shook his head in dismay. It upset him that faking a room service delivery was the best trap his would-be captors could come up with.

“It’s an insult to my fuckin’ intelligence,” he muttered as he stood up, closed the curtains in front of him and headed for the door.

On a rooftop a quarter of a mile away, the individuals who were spying on Christian were profoundly disturbed.

“We should have set up the guns first,” someone barked into a walkie-talkie.

But they hadn’t. The time they would spend setting up tripods would be all Christian needed to launch his offense.

Christian didn’t know about the would-be snipers across the way, but he did know that there were at least two vampires behind his hotel room door. He whirled the door open fast enough to startle them, then buried his Bowie knife deep into the abdomen of the one on his right.

The second vampire opened his mouth, hissed and thus revealed his extended fangs. Undaunted, Christian stepped forward and headbutted the second attacker, but held on to the knife hilt that jutted out of the first.

Before either of the two vampires could recover, Christian pulled them both into the room and kicked the door closed. Then he flipped the second assailant over his shoulder and slammed him hard on the floor.

Turning on his first victim, Christian let his own fangs extend, turned his head sideways and leaned in. When Christian pulled his head back the first vampire’s larynx was torn away. Blood spurted everywhere and Christian found himself swallowing some, even as he spit out the removed chunk of bone and flesh.

“Uggh,” Christian cried, as he realized he had also managed to get spinal fluid in his mouth.

As the first vampire collapsed, Christian jumped at the second, who was trying to scramble to his feet.

“I didn’t call for room service,” Christian said as he kicked the unnamed vampire in the ribs, and then pinned him to the floor on his stomach by planting a knee in his back. As Christian spoke, his voice filled with unearthly resonance- a gift most vampires have.

“If you move or resist me in any way, I’ll take that knife I used on your friend and split you like a fuckin’ coconut. Now, I’m going to ask you some simple questions and your continued survival depends on whether or not I like your answers. Now, let’s hear your name and rank, pretty boy.”

“My name’s Robert Abernathy. I’m a constable, working out of Winthrop,” the wheezing vampire answered.

“Your superiors must not like you very much if they sent you after me. How’d you know I was here?”

Nearby, the mutilated corpse with the spurting hole in its neck convulsed twice, then lay still.

“I really don’t know how we found out. We were actually getting ready to go to New York to arrest you when we got the word that you’d come to England. But we do know that the World Vampire Council considers you a criminal and want you brought in alive.”

“Why alive?” Christian asked. It was a valid question. Normal procedure for any vampire constable going after a suspect is to kill their target. Only under the most exceptional of circumstances is a fugitive vampire or any other creature brought in for questioning. Christian knew that his circumstances were exceptional, but he wanted to know if everyone else knew it.

“No one explained why they want you alive,” Abernathy answered. “My orders were to ask you to surrender quietly after I got you to open the door.”

“This must be that English wit they warned me about,” Christian said.

“Mister Brookwater, surely you’re intelligent enough to see that your current course of action will lead to your ruination. And I feel I should warn you that while we were ordered to take you alive, there are others with us who are prepared to use deadly force.”

“Are any rachasas with you?”

Some of the fear that gripped Abernathy seemed to dissipate upon being asked such an offensive question.

“For your information I am a constable, just like you used to be, before you murdered Counselor Caramano. I don’t work with rachasas and I certainly can tell the difference between rachasas and vampires.”

Christian used to believe that he could tell the difference between rachasas and vampires. His inability to do so a few weeks ago is one of the reasons he was now a nearly captured fugitive. The untimely demise of Antonio Caramano, a high-ranking member of the World Vampire Council and one-time friend and mentor to Christian, was another.

Christian grabbed Constable Abernathy’s arm and twisted it behind him.

“Just one more question. Do you think I have time to kill you before your backup gets here?”

* * *

Christian was wrong; Constable Abernathy’s superiors were actually very fond of him. In fact, when the Brookwater assignment came in, it was made clear that someone’s career would benefit from its successful completion. Inspector Nikolai Burta wanted that someone to be his friend, Constable Abernathy, and not the gun-happy maniacs from the Winthrop Strike Squad.

The members of the Strike Squad were just like any S.W.A.T. team in the world, except they were vampire constables working under Nikolai. They were all trained in demolitions, marksmanship and mortal combat, but their recklessness in the name of bravado earned them a bad reputation. So Nikolai, who was never a fan of the squad, told them that they were only along to observe. When the Strike Squad balked, he explained to them that the only reason Christian Brookwater would have come to England, the home of the vampire government, would be to surrender peacefully. There would be no reason to be heavy-handed about this.

“Besides,” Nikolai explained, “having a heavily-armed, four-man team of storm troopers raid a hotel full of humans in the middle of the night to capture one African-American vampire gone astray is a recipe for disaster.”

Now, as the sounds of Constable Abernathy being murdered by Christian Brookwater started coming through their earpieces, it was clear that the recipe for disaster was available in different flavors.

There were six of them on the roof: Nikolai, the four members of the Strike Squad and Constable Helen Reese. She was Nikolai’s assigned partner in law enforcement, and more recently, his chosen partner in the bedroom. As the Strike Squad began putting the group’s ‘Plan B’ in motion, Helen couldn’t help but give Nikolai the kind of concerned look that only a lover would give. Unfortunately, he was too busy listening to Abernathy being killed to notice.

One of the squad members positioned himself on the edge of the roof with what gun experts would recognize as a British made, AS50 12.7mm sniper rifle. The sniper’s crosshairs were aimed at Christian’s hotel room window. Another squad member was armed with a large tranquilizer gun mounted on a tripod, a few feet behind his teammate. To insure that the window would not deflect the delicate tranquilizer round, the plan was for the sniper to fire a single round to shatter the window, thus clearing the way for the sharpshooter to fire the tranquilizer round into Christian.

“He has to stand up for me to get a clear shot,” the sharpshooter explained from his position behind his teammate.

“You can see into the room?” Nikolai asked.

“We both can,” the sniper answered. “The scopes on these rifles enhance our natural infrared vision to the point where we can see through the curtain he closed. But we still need him to stand up.”

“If you would’ve let us finish setting up the guns before you sent Abernathy, he’d still be alive,” Braithwaite, the Strike Squad’s tactical leader, chimed in from behind Nikolai, as Abernathy’s screams continued over their walkie-talkies.

“Tell us again why we have to take this asshole alive?” the unoccupied fourth squad member asked as he pulled a pair of binoculars away from his face.

“Direct orders from the Council,” Helen answered, trying to draw attention away from Nikolai.

“Shut up, all of you,” the sharpshooter snapped. “He’s almost done killing Abernathy. We need to be ready.”

Unfortunately, Christian stayed on the floor drawing blood from Constable Abernathy’s neck for several minutes before making any attempt to rise. The vampires on the roof all listened in silent agony as Christian broke Abernathy’s neck.

“He’s doing this to rub our noses in it,” Braithwaite said to Nikolai.

“You sure you don’t want us to kill him?” the sniper asked.

“Do it the way I told you to,” Nikolai said as he closed his eyes in frustration.

* * *

“Nothing personal,” Christian said through half a...