by Kim Petersen
Blood Legends
Undead
Kim Petersen
Blood Legends: Undead. © copyright 2020 Whispering Ink Press
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage & retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters & incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, any resemblance to persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is coincidental. WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI & punishable by up to 5 years in prison & fine of $250,000.
This is a Whispering Ink Press book brought to you by Whispering Ink Press.
eBook IBSN: 978-0-6485491-5-4
Paperback IBSN: 978-0-6485491-6-1
Edited by Paul Vander Loos
Cover by Paradox Book Cover Designs & Formatting
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to lovers of new energy, beauty and creatures of the night – this series is for dreamers.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Blood Legends: Undead
Introduction
1. Footprints
2. The Hawkers
3. Sun
4. Hollow City
5. Dead Air
6. Rare Blood
7. The Proposition
8. Cry to Me
9. Dead Inside
10. The Void
11. Score
12. Black Heart
Excerpt - Rebirth Excerpt:
1. Dark Chambers
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I initially wrote this book as an introduction to my Blood Legends world which was written in the same world albeit fifty years in the future from when this story takes place.
Alas, I am continuing to charter Jett’s story because I think it will be really cool to explore the very beginning – why the notorious vampire clans – the Mysticus and the Cruentus - came to be bitter rivals, and why they fear the emergence of an elusive and mystical relic.
Stay tuned for the next book set to release following Undead – Blood Legends: Rebirth, as well as more instalments from the Blood Legends series.
I wish to thank editors Dan Moore and Kay Bolden from Medium publication, P.S. I Love You for publishing Undead as weekly instalments on their amazing corner of the web. Their support has been encouraging and humbling.
A huge thanks to my editor, Paul Vander Loos who teaches me endlessly while enjoying fruitless and (amusing) attempts at anticipating where I’ll take my stories.
Patti Roberts for her beautiful artworks and even more admirable energy.
Xavier Eastenbrick for his amazing ways and unrelenting support – the world needs more like you. I am forever grateful.
And to you; who has picked up this book to discover a new vampire world: Blood Legends. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have creating it.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Kim xx
Introduction
What if Saving Humanity Meant Facing Your Greatest Fears?
A deadly virus has claimed the lives of millions and ravaged the earth. Human survivors spend their days and nights fighting to stay alive in a world now owned by vampires.
Jett’s plans to get further off-grid fall apart when his woman suddenly disappears at the hands of the hawkers – the most deplorable and dangerous humans to survive the apocalypse.
Now, Jett is forced to confront evil head-on as he faces choices that he never dreamed possible. Can he survive long enough to retrieve his woman before she is slaughtered? Or will he succumb to the bloody wrath of the Undead?
Undead is a new urban fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic world from bestselling author Kim Petersen, the first book in the Blood Legends series.
1
Footprints
“Did you ever want to step into someone else’s feet?”
I tore my eyes from the gulls screeching above the waves that crashed against the jagged rocks, their wings beating against the briny air as they swooped the water’s surface looking for a meal. A faint smile played over my lips.
“Don’t you mean shoes?”
The breeze captured Scarla’s platinum locks as amber eyes settled on me. Her smile was as meek as mine, dissolving just as fast when she dropped her gaze to grab a handful of sand. My throat restricted. The wind instantly carried a chord of torment as I watched her.
“No.” She allowed the golden grains to fall from between her fingers. She raised her chin toward the sky and squeezed her eyes shut. “Thousands of footprints have marked this beach over just as many years; I’d give anything to step in any one of them.”
My stomach hollowed.
“But then you wouldn’t be here with me in this moment.” I reached to catch a tear as it splashed over her cheek, folding my palm against her smooth skin while my gaze melted into her. She was all I saw in a disintegrating world. She was everything. “You would rather be elsewhere?”
She leaned her chin into my palm, her lashes dewy when she met my stare.
“Yes, with you, Jett.”
“Where should we go?”
My gaze instantly fell to her lips when she smiled. Pale pink and plump. They reminded me of blossoms and lifted my heart in much the same way. She had a way of doing that. She had a way of bringing me undone.
“Florence.” She pulled away from my touch, combing a hand through unruly hair as it wisped across her face. Her white blouse rippled and clung to her breasts.
“Ah, you want to immerse yourself in some Italian Renaissance, Bella donna? Where should we start? The Galleria degli Uffizi?”
She laughed.
“That will do just fine, signor. We’ll spend our days exploring galleries, eating crostini di fegato and drinking chianti while we marvel at the architectural masterpieces. Afterwards, we will put on our best threads and go to the opera.”
I feigned a frown.
“The opera? Hmm…”
“What?” She gave me a gentle nudge. “I’m sure you can conjure up your inner-aristocrat for a few hours if need be.”
“Only for you, Bella donna.”
I shifted, positioning myself behind her on the sand and pulling her between my legs so that her back molded against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her, burying my nose near her ear and breathing in her scent. She stiffened, her voice barely audible over the sound of the rumbling waters.
“Do you think the virus has spread that far?”
I shrugged.
“If it has, we’ll get love-drunk on chianti at the opera with them. I hear the undead love high society.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.” I pressed my lips against her temple. She tasted salty. Sensually salty. My voice was husky when I spoke next. “Can’t we just pretend a little longer?”
She arched her neck so that her throat stretched beneath the afternoon sun. Her eyes closed as she leaned further into me, reaching to claw her fingers through the dark hair curling at my nape. I wanted her now, but I knew this wasn’t the time nor the place for intimacy. We were alone on the beach, yet that could change at any moment. People were seldom friendly these day
s. Especially those that we call the hawkers.
My gaze drifted toward the horizon as I held her in my arms. If I could pretend on anything, it would be any place but here as long as she was by my side. It would be some place where the Vampiric virus ravaging the earth couldn’t reach.
They say everything happens for a reason. Yet, I could think of no justifiable reason for the horror our world had become. Almost overnight, the lives of millions of people worldwide had turned into a living nightmare. A harsh reality where those infected by the virus feasted on humanity during the dark hours. Now, it was the kindred that were fast staking supremacy over the earth; humans had become the minority.
My thoughts shifted to my daughter, Avila, who we’d left behind in our hidden cottage; the meager refuge we’d sought after fleeing the city when it became obvious that I could no longer help contain the rapid spread of the virus. We were among the lucky ones who got out just in time.
“We should get back to the cottage,” I said, knowing that she wasn’t ready to leave. It wasn’t often that we stole time away from the cottage. I’d come here for her. Sometimes, she needed to dream.
She squirmed in my arms, swinging around to face me. Her brows creased.
“Just a little longer? I want to trek through some footprints before we go back.” She motioned toward the sand etched with shallow prints. “Will you join me?”
I held her gaze, smiling behind the pain of all I knew she’d suffered and lost to the outbreak. She’d lost her little boy at the hands of a vampire. I shook my head.
“Go find your rainbow, Bella donna. I’ll wait here.”
“Okay.” Her eyes deepened against the blue of mine as her lips slightly parted and she leaned toward me. I groaned inwardly as the sweet taste of promises to come found my mouth with her kiss. They say that the eyes are the gateway to the soul. I think lips are the same for the body. She pulled away and leapt to her feet, casting me a grin. “I’ll be ten minutes. You can watch my rainbow from here.”
I scanned the beach again, pushing away the apprehension that shadowed my every waking hour.
“Stay where I can see you.”
My words were swallowed in the wind and the space between us as she walked toward the shore, but I knew she wouldn’t wander far from me. She was more than aware of the lurking dangers in the form of hawkers. They were the ones who polluted the daylight hours by terrorizing the survivors. The profane remains of humanity who relished the aftermath with unspeakable acts of violence. Thankfully, we hadn’t encountered any hawkers this far from the city. Still, you can never be too vigilant.
I watched Scarla for a few minutes as she stomped between prints, and looking back at me every now and then, smiling. She was safe enough that I took a breath and sprawled back into the sand. The warm grains cushioned my head as I closed my eyes beneath the sun, inviting the false sense of well-being its rays provided.
For the millionth time since the arrival of the V-Virus, I thought about the continuation of life. It isn’t until you are faced with endless death and chaos that you realize the earth will stop for nothing and no one. There are no free rides out of here when evil comes calling. No help lines to pull you from the brink of insanity.
A few moments passed and I became aware of the breeze gathering speed, catching clumps of my hair as the sand sprayed like sharp needles against my skin. Suddenly, I felt cold all over, the breeze blowing in a sense of dread. I sat up abruptly, looking back to the place I’d last spotted Scarla scouring the shoreline but she wasn’t there.
Scarla?
My heart thumped hard against my chest as I stood up and scanned the beach. I was confronted by a stretch of bronze sand in every direction as far as the eye could see, barren of life apart from the gulls that squawked and hovered above the waves licking the shore.
I could feel my head begin to spin as I called her name, but my words were instantly stolen by the wind as panic gripped me and my feet dug into the sand to seek out her footprints. Prints that I knew would haunt me for the rest of my days.
2
The Hawkers
A thick cloud of dust billowed above the road behind me as I slammed my foot against the accelerator of the pickup. Any other day, I would have taken extreme care to disguise the sound of the engine, much less leave an obvious path of smut leading toward the cottage. But today wasn’t any other day. Today Scarla had vanished without a trace.
Hawkers. It had to be. But how they managed to slip past me to grab Scarla undetected in a matter of minutes was beyond my comprehension. And all without so much as a sound from her to alarm me.
Since when did those lowlife pilferers possess such stealthy tactics?
My thoughts harrowed over the severe truth. Since vermin infected our streets and claimed most of the population.
Anarchy and destruction have a way of bringing out the best and the worst in humanity. Eventually, you cultivate the ability to ignore the suffering when desperation becomes second nature to every surviving human. But ignorance isn’t an option when you’re targeted by the wicked.
My knuckles whitened as I gripped the steering wheel and the tires slid over the rough terrain, just missing one of the dense and twisted tree trunks that fringed the road. I was covered in sweat and a thin layer of grime from searching the grassed hinterlands near the beach for signs of her. My face stung with the moisture that clung to the scratches I knew marked my face, but I barely felt it. It was all I could do to keep it together as I raced back to the cottage to get what I needed before starting back out to look for her.
Damn it! How could I be so foolish? How?
I let loose a barrage of four-letter words, fighting to keep control of what little resolve remained. I should have known better than to yield to Scarla’s desire to escape the confines of the cottage. Dying dreams on broken wings cannot fly. There is no room left in this world for the dreamers. They were poached the moment the virus murdered most of humanity.
Avila was already out front and standing at the foot of the cottage porch stairs when the truck skidded around the final bend to emerge into the clearing. Her aqua eyes narrowed toward me while her usually chiseled features scrunched beneath the thick tawny hair framing her face. As I yanked the parking brake lever and moved to get out of the truck, her olive complexion paled as she rushed closer and pulled on the truck door to face me.
“Dad?” Her gaze drifted beyond me to the empty truck cabin. My breath felt like steel when she looked back at me. “Wha … where’s Scarla?”
Her voice quavered but I could barely look at her. I shook my head fast before climbing out of the truck and pushing past her. I marched toward the cottage, bounding up the few stairs leading to the front door as she raced after me.
“Dad, stop!” She grabbed my arm, sinking her nails into my flesh as I reached the threshold. It was difficult to tame my racing mind when I turned to face her. Even more difficult to form the words I knew I had to say. Her brows dipped over a pinched expression. She clutched onto me. “What happened? Where is she?”
“I don’t know, she vanished.”
Her jaw gaped as I tore my arm from her and walked into the cottage. It was a modest dwelling with timber floors and burnt orange curtains that Scarla thought gave the place a cheerful vibe. I’d never agreed with that notion. I hated those curtains.
But curtains were the last thing on my mind as I stomped through the cluttered space that passed for the sitting area, heading for the room at the end of the short hall that stocked our supplies. The small room was filled with stockpiles of canned and dried foods, loads of water, kerosene, and piles of spare bedding among other things. It was here that I’d kept the few weapons I had managed to salvage before deserting the city.
Admittedly, there wasn’t a whole lot, and none of it would be of any use in the face of a vampire. Humans, on the other hand, could bleed when facing the blunt end of the few rusty hunting knives I’d collected. There was also a small-bladed axe, a cleaver and my pr
ized possession, a machete that I used frequently to cut and gather firewood. I’d heard machetes were particularly useful for cutting limbs in addition to wood. Somehow, I got the feeling I might soon discover how to dismember a hawker or two. It was limbs and blood that I craved right now.
The blades were discreetly stacked on the shelf in the corner behind rows of water bricks, cans of fuel and oil, and dozens of bottles of bleach and candles. I began pulling them out as Avila burst into the room, stopping just short of me. I ignored her glare as her arms outstretched to take the knives as I pried them from the shelf.
“Hawkers?” Her boots squeaked on the timber floor as she swung around to place the weapons on an old coffee table pushed against the shelves.
“I didn’t see them.”
She took the cleaver from me, catching my gaze with solemn eyes.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find the bastards and cut off their limbs, that’s what I’m going to do.” I swung my gaze from her and reached for the machete, stiffening when I felt her hand on my arm.
“It’s too late, dad. She’s gone. We can’t get her back.”
My entire body felt as if an explosion was shredding every organ. But my heart fought ceaselessly against the onslaught. As much as I loved my 22-year-old daughter, those were the words I didn’t want to hear.
I dropped my chin and sighed, the machete heavy in my hand as I allowed the blade to swing to my side. The inside of my head throbbed against my temple. It was pain that consumed me as Avila’s hard stare begged for my acknowledgment. The moments stood as still as a tomb on a starless night. They were the same moments that forever sealed our fate like an impenetrable vault. When I looked back at her, it was the pain that thickened my voice.
