The Arcadia Falls Chronicles: Omnibus (Books 1-6)

by Jennifer Malone Wright

  I pulled out a chair and plopped down into it. “Well, you seem to know us, now tell us who you are.”

  His lips curled into a smile. “Of course you would want to know, it’s only fair, I suppose. My name is Anthony Christos.”

  Drew’s eyes widened and Anthony smiled with satisfaction. “Ah, you know of me?” He directed the question to Drew.

  “Of course I know who Anthony Christos is, but that doesn’t mean that you are who you claim to be.”

  “I have no reason to lie.”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. “I don’t know who Anthony Christos is. Why is that so important?”

  Drew actually had the audacity to roll his eyes while we held this guy at gun point and interrogated him. “Didn’t you learn it in school?”

  Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “You mean while I was held captive in my evil father’s mansion for a year? Oh wait ... no, you must mean after I got back and spent a few months back in classes, and then the vampire apocalypse started. I’m so sorry, I must not have been paying close enough attention.”

  “You probably just missed it somewhere. And you do all that research on your own, too.”

  “Drew, just tell me.”

  Anthony raised his eyebrows. “She is truly a feisty one. I have always taken a liking to women who have a bit of fight in them.”

  Drew raised his eyebrows at that last part. “She’s not a woman.”

  “Really, Drew?”

  He shrugged. “I mean that you’re young.”

  Anthony grinned. “Long ago, when I was a human, girls were married off when they were very young and considered women at an early age.”

  “Forget about it and start talking,” I blurted out, fuming over how blunt this guy was.

  Drew picked up the conversation since he seemed to know so much about the topic. “Anthony Christos is one of the very first vampires. After discovering how evil his kind was, he fought against them with the Hunters, but the evil offspring had become too many for them to win the battle. Ever since, Anthony Christos has lived in hiding or a chosen seclusion. Either way, no one has heard of him or from him since that battle long ago.”

  I almost rolled my eyes again. Really, why was that such a big deal? He was the same as the next vampire in my book.

  Anthony clapped his hands in a slow arrogant manner. “Well done, Hunter. At least you know your history.”

  I wasn’t at a point to even consider moving my weapon away from him. “This doesn’t mean anything. You are still a vampire, making you a threat and part of the problem.”

  Surprisingly, he nodded. “Yes, I am part of the problem.”

  Drew took a step forward. “You say that you want to help, that we need you. What do you know that can help us?”

  “I am actually quite shocked that none the fearsome Hunters have discovered the answer to that question, especially since you are all supposed to be so educated on vampire lore.”

  Drew ignored the jab.

  “Tell us,” I demanded.

  He smiled that half gentle, half scary smile again. “To kill the vampires ... all of them, you have to kill the first in the bloodline. You do that and the entire line will cease to exist.”

  I sat back a little bit in the hard wooden chair. It seemed so simple. How could the answer to all of this chaos going on around us be something so freaking easy. And here, in front of us, sat the first in the line of many. “Do you know what this means?”

  He nodded, his smile suddenly replaced with a solemn expression. “I am willing to accept my final death. After so many years of seclusion from my own kind, as well as humans, my time has come.”

  Drew didn’t look convinced. I know I sure as hell wasn’t. “So you’re just giving yourself up to us? That is why you found us?”

  “Not entirely.” He leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. “You cannot possibly think that I am the only vampire that is first in a bloodline.” He lifted his hand, giving us a dismissive wave. “This ... problem you are facing right now did not start with my line. In fact, there are very few left in mine.”

  It was my turn to lean forward. “Do you know whose it is?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Of course I do.”

  “And you are going to help us find them?”

  “I will do my very best. However, I stay alive until the other lines are taken down. That is the deal.” Anthony looked to Drew for confirmation of the deal.

  I didn’t like this at all. He was a vampire! I knew some were worse than others, but at this point a vampire was a vampire and I just wanted to kill them all. Regardless, I had a feeling that Anthony was telling the truth, and if there was any way that he could help us find the head of each line, we were going to have to keep him alive.

  Drew met Anthony’s eyes. “I don’t understand why you even want to help to begin with.”

  Anthony merely shook his head a tiny bit. “You, young man, were raised as a Hunter, raised with the understanding that all vampires are inherently evil. But, there are some ... very few, in fact, who are not. Yes, we drink blood and have a lust for it that drives us to do the most ungodly acts, but the few who can fight the demon inside do not like the creatures that we are and want to rid the world of the evil ones just as much as you do.”

  I almost laughed. Did he seriously think we were buying this garbage? “I don’t believe you.”

  “Whether or not you want to believe me is your choice. I have no reason to lie, even more so since I have agreed to let you eventually kill me for good.”

  Drew rubbed his forehead. “All right. Tell us about the other lines.”

  “Yes, of course.” The solemn yet wistful expression returned to Anthony’s face as he leaned back and prepared to tell his story.

  “In the beginning, the original lines consisted of six vampires. No, we weren’t related. We were simply in a bad place at a bad time ... chosen by the woman who cursed us. This woman, like the race of Hunters, was also the daughter of a god a descendant of Hades. With his blood running through her half human veins she was very, very powerful.

  “Now, as most stories go, love and deceit played a very large part in how it ends. This woman, who was named Chryssa, was born into a wealthy and prominent family. Not only was she extraordinarily beautiful, but she wanted for nothing ... and when she fell in love with a commoner it was no exception.

  “The man she fell in love with was called Lavrentios. As a commoner, he was obviously taken with Chyssa from the very beginning. He may have been from a poor family, but he was indeed as handsome and strong as the males from more prominent families. Chryssa, even though descended from the God of Hell, was human enough not to deny what she thought was true love.

  Lavrentios would have been a fool to deny Chryssa; she was everything he could have ever wished for. Along with the inheritance of her family line she was a rare beauty with her long, dark mane, eyes just as dark, and flawless golden skin. So, Chryssa took this man as her husband, and more than willingly, he came to live with her among all her wealth and power.

  “It was only after a few years of marriage that Lavrentios, who never had any sort of wealth nor power, eventually let both of these troublesome things go to his head. Chryssa caught him fornicating with two of her handmaidens. Now, understand ... these women were under Chryssa’s rule, which meant her husband was able to make them do whatever he wanted them to. They were slaves, with the title of handmaiden. Just as the servants were slaves with the titles of servants. All of the slaves were obligated to do as their master’s ordered. If they refused to comply, he would have whipped them or perhaps worse, depending on his mood.”

  Anthony paused and took a deep breath before he went on. “I was there, I was one of their servants who bore witness when she discovered her husband’s infidelity, when she went mad with jealousy and rage. There were two handmaidens and four servants in attendance of the incident. Two men were standing watch over him and I, as well as another male servant, were always wit
h Chryssa.

  “Insanity followed Chryssa’s initial shock of finding her husband with two other women. She screamed and threw things, telling him that she gave him everything. Lavrentios, a changed man since his commoner days, merely dismissed her with a wave and instructed the servants to remove her from his presence. I will never forget the next moments, for they are seared into my memory, but they happened so quickly and in such a blur of time.

  “Lavrentios had absolutely no idea of the power that his wife was able to wield. It is entirely possible that even she had no idea until that tragic day. The magic of the gods swarmed up around her in dark, oily smoke and she ordered us to bind his hands and feet together. Immediately, we complied. He fought us and he put up a good fight, but the last few years of laziness had made him weak. We were slaves, which meant that we were stronger, plus there were more of us. Even Lavrentios’s own servants had to heed her word and helped us to subdue him. Once he was bound, she ordered us to kill him.

  “We were a gentle people, the slaves. Everyone has a line they will cross and murder was that line for all of us, which was the reason we hesitated when she demanded that we kill her husband. I was not going to kill a man over adultery, which happened on a day to day basis in those days. Many wealthy men took mistresses. I floundered, as did my fellow friends.

  “Seeing our hesitation, she became enraged once again. I felt the magic well up within the walls as she called upon the power of her descendants to help her. It was then that foreign words escaped her lips and a curse was place on all six of us who bore witness.

  “Suddenly, I felt as if my body was afire. We crumpled to the ground while Lavrentios cried out for help, screaming for mercy from his once so doting wife. Even the handmaidens had fallen to the floor and were writhing in agony from the pain that seared their bodies from the inside out.

  “I do not know how much time passed in which we were forced to endure the pain. We all awoke feeling weak, confused ... and hungry.

  “She stood there watching us and waiting.

  “My mouth was dry, drier than it had ever been. I moved my tongue over my teeth, trying to force saliva to form, and discovered sharp points had developed on my teeth. They felt as sharp as the edge of a sword.”

  Again, Anthony stopped speaking, but this time he absently moved his hand to his mouth. His lip lifted and he touched the tip of one of his fangs as if he were remembering the first time he felt them.

  “What happened next?” Drew tried to direct him back into the story.

  Anthony swallowed and then continued, “Finally she spoke only one word. ‘Feed!’ she demanded, pointing at her bound husband.”

  Sadness filled his brown eyes as he caught my gaze. “You have no idea how it felt. Have you ever been so hungry that it literally burned in the pit of your stomach? I felt this hunger in every pore, every cell, and every part of my being. I looked to my five companions, knowing they felt as I did. As I set my sight upon them, I saw that none of their eyes were the deep, rich brown they were before. Each of them had changed from the original color to the glowing red of demons.

  “We had become demons.

  “And with her demand ... the curse was sealed ... sealed in blood.

  “As one, we attacked Leventrios, who had no possible way to escape. I was beyond comprehension of any right or wrong as I felt my fangs pierce his skin, letting his blood flow freely into my own being. We drank from his veins until there was no life left in him.”

  Anthony looked to the ceiling before finishing his tale. “And that is how the first six vampires were created.”

  I switched my gun to the other hand and rolled my eyes. “This has been an interesting history lesson, but you haven’t told us about the remaining original lines and how we find them. That’s what we want to know.” I felt a bit like I was belittling the emotion of his tale. It was an interesting story and I was actually surprised that with all of my research on the history of Hunter’s and vampire lore, that I hadn’t come by any of that particular information. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I knew that the information he had just given us would eventually be help of some kind.

  “Patience, my dear.”

  Drew stepped forward. “If you haven’t noticed, we don’t really have time to sit around telling stories. The sooner we end this, the sooner we can get society back into something that can at least function.”

  Anthony shook his head. “It will never be the same.”

  “Yes,” Drew agreed, “but if we get rid of the vampires the rebuilding can begin. People can stop being so scared.”

  The pain I’d felt from the entertainment center had finally faded away, so I stood up and paced a little bit. I still didn’t trust Anthony, but I was tired of sitting there pointing my gun at him. If he was going to try and kill us, he had already had plenty of opportunities to do that. I waved my gun at him on a pass by. “So tell us about the other vampires and their bloodlines,” and for my own personal curiosity, “and what happened to Chryssa”

  Drew took over my chair while I paced and Anthony went on with his story telling. “Chyssa, knew what she had done to us. After her husband had been drained, she ordered us into the cells and locked us behind iron bars. It was a learning experience for her as well as for us. She did not realize the superior strength of the creatures she had created, but ... neither did we. After the initial phase of hunger had been sated, the six of us were more afraid than anything. We cowered in the cells. She tried having food delivered to us, but the first of the servants she sent down ended up meeting his demise the same way as her husband. The servant came to the cell I shared with Mihalis and Pavlos, and tossed a loaf of bread in between the bars in our general direction.

  I could smell him. His blood pumping, churning so freshly in his veins. The sour scent of the light sheen of sweat which covered his body almost distracted me from the delicious aroma of his blood. He had barely let go of the bread before I had ahold of his arm. I pulled him flush against the bars and bit into the veins at his wrist with a brutality I never thought possible of myself. Mihalis and Pavlos were right behind me, reaching through the bars for the poor servant’s other limbs.

  “Afterward, the servant’s body dropped to the floor and once again, we were sated, if only for another short time. Each of us felt remorse for killing the servant, but we did realize that when the hunger took over, we did not feel that way. When the hunger took over we did not care about anything but feeding.

  “We spoke amongst ourselves in the cells. The girls, Korina and Elene, were in the cell next to us with Vlasis, so we could hear them even though we could not see them. We were not imprisoned long, for soon Chryssa came to see what had become of the servant who never reported back to her.

  “She approached the cells without fear, knowing that we would obey her every word. A darkness we had never seen before surrounded her, as if the summoning of the dark powers had left a stain on her aura. She found the dead servant and looked to us with no regret in her eyes or her words. She told us she would be back with a proper feeding. However ... it was too late, we detested her and not one of us trusted her word. And most important, none of us, including Chryssa herself, knew that the blood we had already consumed had made us even more powerful. With every drop of blood our strength grew and so did our ability to deny her demands.

  “She once had a power over us because she created us, but she created demons who evolved with the life force of others.

  “As she strode away into the darkness of the hallway leading away from the cell, I felt anger well up inside of me. How dare she treat us this way! It was bad enough when we were treated poorly as servants, but being locked away and fed like animals because of her own selfishness ... well, that was what sent me over the edge.

  “In a flash, I was at the bars. My hands wrapped around the thick iron, grasping them with the rugged hands of a servant. I pulled inward with my anger fueling the motion. All of us in the cell were surprised when the iron cracked an
d split in the middle. I took no time to revel in the shock of what I had done. Instead, I forced the bars even farther toward me until I had an opening and I ran. I barely realized that I had moved with supernatural speed when I found her alone in the dim torchlight of the hall. She only had time to spin to face me, her charcoal mane flowing out around her at the same instant my hands wrapped around her neck.

  “‘Stop!’ she choked out. ‘I command you to stop!’ Unlike before, I was able to ignore her wishes. When she ordered us to kill and go down to the cells, we obeyed because our bodies left us no choice, but now ... I was the one in control.

  “The others, all five of them, appeared behind me and slowly encircled her. She actually had the decency to look afraid of us. However, didn’t stop her from trying to call out commands to stop us. She called upon the powers of her ancestors as she had done before, but this time nothing appeared to help her. I grasped her neck even tighter and squeezed, feeling her heart rate quicken with fear and the blood pump even faster. I then brought my lips to her shoulder and let my fangs slip into her perfect golden skin, piercing the vein.

  “My comrades followed suit, each taking a piece of her ... our beautiful maker. And like her husband, we drank from her until there was no life left in her. Then ... well, then we had no choice. We ran. We ran as far away as we could get from the home of Chryssa and Leventrios.

  “The six of us traveled together for a long time, never staying in one place for very long at all. We discovered a lot about the creatures we had become as we traveled. Much of it was trial and error, like the fact that we could not set foot into the daylight. The day we discovered that was a sad day. You never realize how much something like sunlight means to you until you cannot have it.”

  Anthony’s gaze moved to the darkened windows as he remembered the loss. “After many years of moving around, we also found that none of us aged. We stayed exactly the same as we were the day Chryssa cursed us.

  “None of knew for a very long time that we could make more of our kind. It was an accident when it happened the first time. Korina, she drank a man to the brink of death, but did not kill him. This was the first of our offspring. The others, except for Vlasis, were thrilled to find that we could create more of our kind. Even after many, many years, they were still bitter over what Chryssa had done to us. So, they made up for the loneliness of only having each other by making others like us with the hopes that they would join our small group.