Does the priest survive an encounter with Juliana? You’ll find out soon enough.
- John Hennessy, January 2015
Innocent While She Sleeps
A Tale of Vampires – Book 3
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Books by the same author
FICTION
Dark Winter (I): The Wicca Circle (2013)
Stormling (Book One of the Mordana Chronicles) (2014)
Dark Winter (II): Crescent Moon (2014)
Murderous Little Darlings: A Tale of Vampires: I (2014)
The Blood and the Raven: A Tale of Vampires: II (2015)
Innocent While She Sleeps: A Tale of Vampires: III (2015)
Dream the Crow’s Black Dream: A Tale of Vampires: IV (coming 2015)
Clara’s Song (coming 2015)
Dark Winter (III): Last Rites (coming 2015)
NON-FICTION
The Essence of Martial Arts (2011)
The Essence of Martial Arts: Revised Edition (2012)
The Essence of Martial Arts: Special Edition (2013)
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Copyright
Copyright © 2015 John Hennessy
Cover and back design © Images courtesy of Depositphotos.com
Typography © John Hennessy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews – without the permission in writing from its publisher, John Hennessy.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. The author is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2015.
Text copyright John Hennessy 2015
The right of John Hennessy to be identified as the author of this work is asserted by him.
ISBN-13: 978-1508479406 (CreateSpace-Assigned)
ISBN-10: 1508479402
A CIP Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade of otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author, John Hennessy.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Inspiration for Innocent While She Sleeps
Does a vampire truly sleep, when at rest in their coffin? In this story, without seeking to humanise the vampires involved, I wanted to explore the psyche of the vampire, should the creature actually have one.
It seems reasonable to me that a creature that was human at one time, would retain a small shred of its humanity. After all, they would take a human guise in order to fit in around others.
Around those they wished to kill.
When I watched vampire movies as a child, especially the Hammer Horror films, vampires could be found in their coffins, almost serene in their appearance.
Of course, this was usually a prelude to one of the film’s protagonists attacking the vampire while they lay in their coffins. In this story, I wanted to explore what a vampire might be thinking as they rested.
A vampire’s day often consisted of several kills, and even though they would sometimes sit down to a meal, and eat as humans would, it was more a case of going through the motions than anything else.
Perhaps they liked these daily human rituals more then they would care to admit.
That is where the similarity ends, for end it must. A vampire is a significantly different creature to a mere human.
Unless they are killed, they remain immortal. They drain the blood, and often, the life, from those unfortunate enough to cross their path.
The vampires in my stories will not romance another person. They will not enter into idle chatter, and even though they kill, they cannot be dismissed as being one-dimensional entities.
They are to be feared, and at the same time, respected.
We should be thankful they remain fictional.
Innocent While She Sleeps: A Tale of Vampires III is the sixth fiction book I have had published.
To readers of this story:-
Thanks very much for purchasing Innocent While She Sleeps. I hope you enjoy the story, and do let me know, as I love to hear from fellow readers.
You can contact me here:-
●http://www.johnhennessybooks.blogspot.co.uk/
●http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6869934.John_Hennessy
●https://www.facebook.com/john.hennessy.94009
Innocent While She Sleeps
Table of Contents
Contents
Table of Contents
Copyright
No Rest for the Wicked
Child of Satan
The Blood is the Life
Cast No Shadow
Innocence Lost
Sleep, Little Darling
Innocent While She Sleeps
Tormented by all the wicked and evil deeds she has committed in her life, Juliana has never known what it is like to rest in peace. At Castle Dreymuir, a most unlikely source offers her a way out of the life.
Initially, Juliana dismisses it out of hand; stating the cost is too high for her to possibly consider. But as time goes on, she has one overwhelming desire - a return to innocence in both her waking hours and whilst she sleeps.
Will Juliana accept the offer, so that she can finally put her deadly existence to rest?
No Rest for the Wicked
Her footsteps made no sound on the ground as she walked. The cobble-stoned footpath, which widened out towards a humpback bridge, led to the only building left standing on that side of town. The ash and dust had settled on the Inn of the Blood and the Raven.
Only the church remained.
The vampire’s threats had turned out to be just that. Threats. The priest remained safe within the church of St Peter and St Paul. He would not hear her approach, not this time, nor at any time before. Inside the church, he had readied many barriers, though he knew full well that they were only the kind of barriers that kept humans from entering.
What the priest was dealing with, was anything but human.
When she walked, it was not always when the night was at its blackest. It was a kind of half-night, with the sky not betraying whether it was dusk or dawn. Still, in these small hours, she would appear to be wandering aimlessly, yet in truth, there were only two places she could go. Ahead, to the church, or even further ahead, to the Castle Dreymuir, which housed the soil that nourished her while she would sleep.
Knowing only one reason to exist – to feed on human blood; the vampire was troubled as she lay in rest. Images of those she had killed, so many of them, so many, began to haunt her. Then, as the time came for her to rise from her slumber, she would forget all the evil deeds she had committed.
There was one other entity who had, unknown to the vampire, been observing her behaviour. This was not a vampire at rest, for Juliana would rise, sometimes at 2am, or 3am, sometimes when the clock struck four, or perhaps five. But resting for hours at a time was no longer something she was able to do.
The one who rested with her in the mausoleum had been just eight years old when she had been made into a vampire. She had been given no choice in the matter. Juliana’s brother
s had been there when it happened.
They had called her ‘a gift’. At the time, she had not known what they had meant by that. Their description of her as a gift was sickening to her now. But on that day, her existence as she knew it had died.
Over the time that had passed, she had observed that Juliana took little pleasure in finding a victim. She preferred her victims to be placed right in front of her. Then, she would move in, quick-as-thought, before draining almost every last drop of blood from their body.
If she took a liking to them, she would offer them death, or a chance at a new way of living.
But the little girl had not been given any choice. Juliana took her blood, leaving just enough to become one of them. The newly made vampire learned quickly, and within moments of her new existence, she followed Juliana into the sky, joining her mother in the form of vampire bats.
They hadn’t meant to catch Juliana’s brothers, Marcus and Rocco. That could wait for another day.
All the same, the little vampire, Nina, was now stuck in a small girl’s body, whilst Juliana and her mother could execute different forms without restrain.
This was the fifth night in a row that Nina had heard Juliana rise up from her coffin. It was not the kind of sound that a human could hear. You would have to be a vampire to know, and those that knew how to do such things, would not tell others how to do them.
Nina could tell Juliana had returned. On this occasion, she was brave enough to rise from her own coffin, only to see Juliana completely ignore her, and return to her slumber.
Even then, that was not the end of it. Nina could hear Juliana mumbling in her sleep, with various names being mentioned. Some of them, she knew, of course, because on occasion, Juliana would take Nina with her into the town.
It was under the pretence of shopping, but many of the locals knew different. Juliana knew what they were thinking too; so she would look for someone who was maybe from London, or further North.
“Just wait here, Nina,” Juliana would say. Then, she would chat, oh so briefly, to the one who took her fancy. On that morning, it was a young boy, of maybe no more than fifteen years of age.
“I couldn’t possibly come along with you, my lady,” said the boy politely. “You are older than me, and well, I don’t know about such things.”
“So I’ll teach you about such things,” smiled Juliana.
That - was pretty much that. The boy, or whoever it happened to be, would follow Juliana wherever she happened to go. Sometimes, if it was early in the day, it was back to the castle. Other times, it was at bars and restaurants like these.
Juliana ushered the boy into the ladies restrooms. He looked as if he wanted to protest, but there were none alive to say they had protested against Juliana with a modicum of success. Then she would fix her gaze on him, capturing him under her wicked spell, before sinking her teeth into his flesh. He would cry out, but no-one could hear him. There was far too much hustle and bustle in the town for anyone to hear him.
When she had finished, she took a napkin from his coat pocket, and dabbed her mouth and lips until they were dry. Then she was ready to go. She would collect Nina, and if she had fed enough for one day, they would return to the castle. Juliana laughed as she could hear the screams in the distance.
“I suppose he’s been found. Oh well, gives them a story to tell their friends, doesn’t it? I’d show you how I do it, so you could learn. But you don’t want to learn, do you Nina?”
Nina shook her head.
“Say it, Nina. Come on! Say it! Say you don’t want to be like your evil Juliana.”
“That’s right. I don’t want to be like you.”
“We are what we are, and we do what we do,” said Juliana. “You may not believe that right now, but one day, I promise that you will. Oh look, Nina! Look!”
An uncharacteristic grunting sound escaped from Nina, before she added with exasperation; “What is it now? I just want to go back to the castle.”
“It’s more practise,” smiled Juliana, who started to skip ahead of Nina.
Nina observed a woman, who was provocatively dressed, disappear down the corner of a street to her left. The lighting was poor, but the woman paused under the only street lamp that was lit on the entire road.
A man who had seen far too many summers approached the woman, and asked her how much.
Before the woman had the opportunity to give an answer, Juliana appeared in front of the man, and knocked him to the ground. “If I ever see you around here again, I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I do.”
The man gathered himself to his feet, cursed at Juliana, and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him.
“Lady, what are you doing?” asked the woman, whose chest was almost escaping from her dress. “That was my week’s money tonight. You’re not the police, are you?”
“No,” said Juliana, slowly turning to face the woman, who at twenty-five was older than Juliana appeared to be. “I don’t follow the laws that mere men set. Let me make it up to you. I’m rich, you know. I was only going to ask you the same question he did.”
“No,” said the woman, who could barely disguise the discomfort in her voice. “No girls. I don’t suffer women. I have a rule about that.”
“You will suffer me,” said Juliana. “I do not follow the rules that women set either.”
“What do you want, then?” The woman’s composure was all but gone.
“Your blood.”
Juliana pushed the woman against the wall, before consuming her blood, gorging on her to the point that she could take no more. The dark red fluid splattered onto the cobbled street.
She placed her two little fingers in her mouth, and whistled. Nina was scared as two black hounds bounded towards Juliana, who patted both dogs on the heads, then pointed to the body of the stricken girl.
“Feeding time, boys. Aren’t I good to you?”
She left them to tear the girl’s body apart. Her mother, the vampire Mariana, would be pleased that Juliana had at long last learned to clean up her mess.
“Come on Nina, we’ll go back to the castle now. I’d have offered you the girl, but like you said, you’re not interested. Oh, the things you miss out on!”
Nina fought the temptation to comment. Juliana would simply dismiss anything she said anyway, so she said nothing. But things were going to change, they could not stay the same forever.
Mariana may have managed to elude decapitation for centuries, but Nina did not believe that good fortune would extend to Juliana. She was making too many errors, for all blood spilt left a trail. Juliana’s arrogance would trip her up one day. Nina did not merely wish for that day to come, she wanted to do all she could to make it happen.
Another night in the castle, and Juliana continued to be restless. Nina decided that before the morning sun broke, she would have to act.
Child of Satan
The priest looked up at one of the Via Crucis, the Stations of the Cross, and blessed himself not once, but three times. He was observing the 5th Station, where Simon of Cyrene assisted Jesus with the carrying of the cross.
As he was unable to leave the church for fear of his own safety, he cursed himself for his cowardice. Even if it was not observed by others, it was still cowardice.
The three-hundred and fifty-year-old church was a haven of peace. It had a strong congregation of three hundred people. Had.
Just a few months earlier, the faithful had all been killed, or turned into vampires. The priest shook his head, and looked to the floor ahead of him.
“Truly, these are Godless times,” he said, sadness weighing down his every word.
He blessed himself again. He found fear threatening to overwhelm him. If she came for him, there was little he could do to stop her. Her kind were not supposed to be able to breach a House of God. They would have to be welcomed over the threshold, so went the convention.
For this creature, there would be no welcome. But she was unlikely to be bound by con
vention.
“They are what they are, and they will do what they will do,” said the priest out loud.
He gripped the cross in front of his chest and felt confidence renew within him.
“So I must do, what I must do.”
Darkness fell through the stainless glass windows, and even though the church was never the warmest of places, the temperature was dropping rapidly. The priest’s belief was being tested. He felt his heart rate quicken; pea-sized beads of sweat appeared upon his brow. His arms tensed up, whilst his hands shook uncontrollably. With clammy fingers he grasped at the cross on his chest, only for it to slip from his hand, clattering to the floor. He quickly retrieved it, for he knew he was not alone.
Three Tales of Vampires (The First Three Books in the Tale of Vampires Series) Page 10
