The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 1): Death of an Immortal:

by Duncan McGeary

  DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL

  Vampire Evolution Trilogy #1

  By

  Duncan McGeary

  “If you like your undead to be more Fright Night than Twilight, the Vampire Evolution Trilogy will be your cup of gore.” ~ Steve Perry, New York Times Best-Selling Author of Men in Black, The Mask, and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

  - BOOKS of the DEAD -

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, events, dialog, and situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of reprinted excerpts for the purpose of reviews.

  DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL

  BOOKS of the DEAD

  Copyright 2013 by Duncan McGeary

  Edited by Lara Milton

  Cover Design by Small Dog Design

  For more information, contact: Besthorror@gmail.com

  Visit us at: Booksofthedeadpress.com

  * * *

  Dedicated to Wes Hare, who was always encouraging, from the beginning.

  Chapter 1

  Terrill awoke to an empty mirror. Empty but for the bland motel décor: the disheveled bed, with its too many pillows and overstuffed bedspread; the innocuous framed picture of leaves on the wall. Empty, though the mirror was right in front of his face.

  She probably thought he was dead. Sometimes when he slept, he forgot to mimic the motions of breathing. She was probably trying to see if his breath would fog the mirror. Oh, God. Why had she done this? The part of him that was human struggled to control the part of him that was immortal. No! he shouted at himself in his mind. Leave her be!

  His vampiric instincts, the same instincts that had kept him alive for a millennium, were in full command. The small vessel of empathy he’d managed to fill, drip by drip, in recent years disappeared in an overpowering bloodlust. His fangs fully extended, dripping with the venom that would paralyze her.

  The little white hand holding the mirror looked bloodless, though Terrill had yet to take her blood. The female was naked and pale with fright from head to toe. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated, her chest quivering. No predator could have passed up such a pure victim. Terrill instantly flushed with the thrill of the hunt, his sleepiness evaporating in a surge of hunger.

  Again his mind fought against his overwhelming urges. Don’t do it! Let her go! Let her live, damn you!

  She screamed, dropping the mirror to the floor with a crash. It shattered: seven years of bad luck––or in Terrill’s case, probably more like seven hundred years. In the girl’s case, it wasn’t even seven seconds. She made it halfway across the room before Terrill flew out of the bed and sank his fangs into her neck.

  Don’t… oh, God. It was so good. He had missed this so much. Why had she woken him? Why had she roused the monster inside him?

  His mind was still screaming Stop!, but now it was too late. Once a vampire started feeding, he couldn’t stop until he was finished.

  She was dead in seconds.

  Terrill saw himself in her dying eyes––the only way he could ever see his reflection. He hadn’t seen himself in twenty years. It didn’t matter; he still looked the same––sharp saturnine features, eyes glowing with bloodlust, frowning in his hunger, black hair immaculate even amid his wild feeding.

  He laid the girl’s lifeless body gently on the floor. Guilt wrapped around his shoulders like an old familiar shawl. He nearly staggered. Inside, he felt a savage rush, an exhilaration he hadn’t felt in a very long time. But the thinking part of him, the part to which he’d sacrificed the past twenty years, was sickened. It was gone; all his effort had come to nothing. He was the same soulless creature he’d always been. Nothing could change that.

  Joy. That was the name she’d given him. When she’d signed into the motel, she had used the name Jamie. She should have stuck to Jamie––a prettier name, a name that was real––just as she should’ve stuck to her hometown origins, gotten a job as a waitress, attended community college, met a nice, stupid boy––who knows where she would have ended up?

  Not here. Not dead.

  Her scream still hung in the air, and Terrill extended his hearing to the neighbors on either side and to the street outside. Nothing. The people who inhabited this seedy motel were no doubt used to screams in the night––and used to ignoring them.

  Quiet as a tomb, Terrill thought.

  He took a shower, got dressed, and left. Considerate of the people sleeping nearby, he closed the door quietly and walked softly down the rickety stairs and out into the empty street. He was always considerate.

  #

  Terrill made it to the end of the block. The streetlamp was at half strength, flickering. There was a false dawn on the horizon, but real dawn would follow within the hour: in thirty-four minutes, to be exact. Terrill could calculate sunrise nearly to the second.

  He turned and walked back to the motel and made his way to the top of the landing. His senses were on full alert, but there was no one about, no one watching. He slipped back into the room.

  The girl lay in an unnatural tangle, her arms flung overhead, her legs drawn up behind her. Terrill straightened her body, smoothed her hair. He took the heavy bedspread and tucked it around her. He closed her frightened eyes.

  She was almost completely drained, but he was able to suck up one last mouthful of blood. He went to the bathroom and spit the blood into the bathtub drain.

  At the last second, he took her necklace from the table by the bed. The crucifix burned into his hand before he put it into his pocket. Even there, he could feel its power.

  Why had he taken it? He didn’t know. He just knew that he needed some part of her to come with him, and the crucifix had been important to her.

  He kissed her on the forehead and left the room in the same manner as before. Dawn glimmered in the east. The skin on Terrill’s face felt taut, as if preparing for the pain the sunlight would bring.

  His car was three blocks away.

  He made it just in time.

  The windows were tinted to just the right extent: he could see the light of dawn, he could even drive, but the burning––the hellfire––was held at bay. He crawled into the backseat and closed his eyes.

  Chapter 2

  “So what’s your name?” the girl asked.

  “Really? Do people really ever give you their real name?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But I can tell something about them by the name they do give me.”

  “Then… my name is Ted.”

  She looked sad. Genuinely sad. As if she actually cared about a stranger she’d met in a bar––a meal ticket, a John.

  Curious, he asked, “What does that tell you?”

  “You want to be ordinary. You want to stay home and watch TV, eat at McDonald’s, gain fifty pounds and live out your life.” She eyed his lean, tall frame, his impeccably tailored suit, his razor-sharp haircut, his manicured nails. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, but he seemed so much older. “Everything you aren’t…”

  #

  Terrill slept less than an hour: forty-five minutes, to be exact. He woke snarling, his jaw protruding, his fangs exposed, his claws extended.

  There was knocking at the car window, and through it, he could see the outline of a head, wearing a hat he recognized as a policeman’s cap. He calmed himself. For a thousand years, he had never been able to restrain that first impulse after discovery––the impulse to kill, to feed. It was only in the pas
t few centuries that he’d been able to control it at all.

  Terrill breathed deeply as the knocking increased in force and tempo. He gauged the height of the sun, the slant of its rays, the distance he needed to maintain. He positioned himself about halfway across the backseat from the window, and reached over and hit the button. He retracted his hand just in time as the window rolled down.

  The light hit the first quarter of the seat full on; the next quarter was in the shade, but still burned. He slid over about an inch, and it was tolerable.

  “This is a no-parking zone,” the cop said. He was beefy, red-faced, and exactly the type of prey Terrill had always preferred: someone who could, on a good day and with immense luck, actually hurt him––although it hadn’t happened yet.

  “I was getting way too sleepy last night,” Terrill said. “I decided it might be safer to pull over and get some rest.”

  The policeman radiated skepticism; he probably met every response from every citizen with the same attitude. It made the guilty squirm, no doubt. Terrill kept his face blank and the cop finally shrugged. So far, so good, Terrill thought.

  “Well, that’s a good idea, sir,” the cop said. “I applaud you for it. But you need to move along.”

  “Thanks. I will.” It was a rare sunny fall day in Portland. Terrill had gravitated to the coastal Northwest because such days were unusual. The rain and clouds, the fog and the mists––all were perfect for him.

  Terrill didn’t move. He couldn’t move. Climbing into the front seat would necessitate moving into direct sunlight. So he busied himself with straightening his clothes, smoothing his hair, smiling at the cop.

  “May I see your driver’s license and registration?” The officer sounded exasperated.

  While the policeman had been thinking about his next move, Terrill had reached into his pocket, taken out his gloves, and put them on. He angled himself over the seat, trying not to look too awkward. The angle was wrong and as he struggled with the latch of the glove compartment, his sleeve rode up his forearm and he felt the sharp pain of long-dead flesh exposed to sunlight. Finally, he snatched his registration and fell back into shadow, and the pain immediately subsided as his arm healed. He handed the documents over to the cop carefully, making sure every inch of skin was covered.

  Meanwhile, he casually looked around at the neighborhood. Cops always attracted attention. There would be people watching this, from the corners of their eyes, glad it wasn’t them who had been stopped. Terrill practiced the attack in his mind: reaching out and grabbing the cop’s head, twisting his neck before the man could make a sound, leveraging the body swiftly through the window, closing the window, and scrambling over the seat and driving away.

  He reached into the light and opened the window the last couple of inches. Again the sleeve rode up and exposed part of his arm, and he grimaced at the pain. The cop was still examining the papers.

  Terrill waited for the words “Would you please step out of the car, sir?”

  Ironically, fully opening the window seemed to reassure the cop, as if it had somehow made Terrill less of threat. The cop handed him back his papers, even going so far as to reach in enough for Terrill to take them without extending his arm into the light again.

  “Have a good day,” the cop said.

  “Thank you. I will.”

  Terrill maneuvered himself over the center console and plopped into the driver’s seat, but not before his right cheek was exposed to full sunlight for a second. It sizzled and smoked. He put his gloved hand to his face and looked at the policeman, who was looking at the traffic.

  He started the car and put it into gear.

  “One more thing,” the cop said.

  Terrill almost pulled away, because the officer had that warning tone in his voice again.

  “You need to have your rearview mirror unobstructed.”

  The mirror was covered with one of Terrill’s many hats, which he had casually hung there. Terrill reached up and removed it, hoping the cop wasn’t looking directly in the mirror. But the officer had already lost interest and was waving him on.

  Terrill eased into traffic. He headed east on Burnside Street, and when he looked in the rearview mirror, he saw that the cop was following him. He kept heading east, finally reaching the airport and turning into the parking lot. The police car kept going.

  Terrill sat back and closed his eyes.

  Time to leave town? He always left town after a kill.

  He’d stayed in Portland longer than anywhere else. Twenty years of drinking cow’s blood and that of an occasional stray dog. Twenty years of existing peacefully among humans.

  Damn her. Why had she woken him like that? What had made her suspect him? And why couldn’t he have had just a second to think, to pause, before he killed her?

  “Jamie Howe,” she had written on the motel registration form. A small-town girl, too honest to lie even for one evening, except to her John, and even then, she had caught him looking and shrugged at him with a wistful smile.

  He pulled out his phone and looked her up. There was a Jamie Lee Howe from Bend, just on the other side of the Cascade mountain range. He pulled out of the parking lot and headed southeast, toward Mount Hood.

  Terrill had sworn he would never kill again. But he had. He was still vampire, not human. All he could do now was try to make up for it somehow, to make amends to the girl’s family and friends. To rebuild what little shreds of humanity he still contained by learning all he could about Jamie Lee Howe. Who was she, and how had she ended up in the bed of a vampire?

  Chapter 3

  Jamie had wanted him to find her, Carlan was sure of it. She had signed in with her own name. Had she suspected there was something wrong? Was it a cry for help?

  “You knew her?” one of the techs asked. It was quiet in the motel room, except for the shuffling sound of the plastic shoe covers they wore and the occasional squeak of latex gloves.

  She was exposed to the world, naked. There was little blood. She looked pale and lovely. Peaceful, Carlan thought. Peaceful at last.

  “She was like this when you found her?” he asked the tech.

  “We untangled her from the bedspread. We’re thinking whoever killed her knew her, because they carefully covered her up. They crossed her arms across her chest.”

  Carlan shook his head. Jamie didn’t know anyone in Portland. Why had she come here? What was she doing in a seedy motel? Why had she left him? He’d taken care of her for years––she had wanted for nothing. That last time, he’d even offered to marry her.

  Damn her and her obstinacy. What had gotten into her?

  He wanted to lie down beside her, lay his head on her chest. He struggled for a moment to contain his impulse, turning away from the tech.

  Someone opened the curtains and the room flooded with light. Everyone in the room flinched. Carlan put his hand up, shielding his face from the light, and turned away. He looked down at Jamie again. Her eyes seemed to be staring at him. Accusing him. It was his fault she was here. His fault she was dead.

  She looked tiny, deflated. He always called her “Short Stuff,” but she had been a dynamo in a small package. Now she looked like she’d been soaked in bleach, all the color drained from her.

  “Close the damn curtains.” The voice was commanding, and as soon as the room dimmed again, Carlan saw a very large, very fat man in the doorway. The guy had a huge bald head and small, narrowed eyes that surveyed the motel room, landing on Carlan. “Who are you?”

  “Richard Carlan. Bend Police.”

  “What’s your interest in the case?”

  “I dated her for a while. Her family asked me to find her.”

  “How long have you been in town?”

  “I drove over the pass this morning.”

  The big cop stared at him. They both knew that in cases like this, the boyfriend or husband was always the primary suspect. Finally, a big beefy hand was extended. “Detective Brosterhouse.”

  Carlan shoo
k the hand. His eyes went back to Jamie. “Why is there no blood?”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not going to believe this.” The older cop leaned over and gently turned Jamie’s head, revealing two deep punctures in her neck.

  “So you’re thinking?”

  “The lab guys found some blood in the bathtub. I think he probably drained her there and then wanted us to think ‘vampire.’ Or he thought he was a vampire. Who knows what these nutcases think?”

  Carlan was trying to act professional, like it was any other crime scene, any other murder he’d seen. But it was Jamie. His Jamie.

  She looked utterly defenseless on the floor, her nakedness… he closed his eyes.

  “Can’t…” he faltered. “Can’t you cover her up?”

  Brosterhouse nodded to the tech, who flipped one of the corners of the blanket over her.

  Just like that, she was gone. Forever.

  Carlan would find the person who did this and kill him. She was his––no one else’s. She’d run away from him, but it was all a misunderstanding. Things had gotten messy, complicated. He’d lashed out, but he hadn’t meant any of it.

  She hadn’t given him a chance to explain, to apologize, to make up.

  Brosterhouse was watching him. He struggled to keep his face impassive.

  “The only real mystery here,” the Portland cop said, “is why the vampire charade. Other than that… well, it’s obvious she was a working girl.”

  Carlan’s face flushed and his jaw clenched. He couldn’t help it.

  Brosterhouse nodded as if confirming something to himself. “I’m willing to let you help us,” he said. “But you need to check with me before you do anything, got it? Meanwhile, give me the number to your station in Bend.”

  Carlan rattled off the number. They were going to check on him, he knew. They’d find out that she had had a restraining order on him. Once, that would’ve been embarrassing, but with Jamie dead, he didn’t care.