by Jan McDonald
Table of Contents
The Beckett Vampire Trilogy
Book One
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY- FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Book Two
PROLOGUE.
CHAPTER ONE: OLD CLIENT, OLD CHAIR
CHAPTER TWO: UNCERTAIN FUTURE
CHAPTER THREE: SURRENDERING TO SLAUGHTER
CHAPTER FOUR: THE HUNGER
CHAPTER FIVE: CHAINED
CHAPTER SIX: NEW HOPE
CHAPTER SEVEN: RELAPSE
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE FARMHOUSE
CHAPTER NINE: NOT PTSD
CHAPTER TEN: SOMETHING WILD
CHAPTER ELEVEN: OUTSIDE HELP
CHAPTER TWELVE: LYCAN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE HARD WAY.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: DARK MEMORIES
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SHAMAN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE HOGAN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE ENEMY WAY
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: GENETICS
CHAPTER NINETEEN: GOING TO GREECE
CHAPTER TWENTY: AGIOS PETROS
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: THE GATHERING
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: NOT A LEFT OVER
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: DARIUS
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR: THE RETURN
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE: DARIUS AND ANGEL
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: LOST REVENGE
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN: SIGNIFICANT RISK
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT: WOLF
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: THE HEIR
CHAPTER THIRTY: BRING THE GIRL
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE: A DAUGHTER
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO: THE TURNING
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE: ALL HELL
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR: THE GOD OF HIS ABANDONMENT
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE: THE STORM BRINGER
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX: LAST STAND
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN: BLESSING WAY
Book Three
CHAPTER ONE: BLOODY HERITAGE
CHAPTER TWO: LINWOOD HOUSE
CHAPTER THREE: TRIP OF A LIFETIME
CHAPTER FOUR: THE SANCTUARY
CHAPTER FIVE: LOST CHALICE
CHAPTER SIX: DRACULA’S CASTLE
CHAPTER SEVEN: SLEEPING BEAUTY AWAKES
CHAPTER EIGHT: IMPORTANT INFORMATION
CHAPTER NINE: VISIONS OR DREAMS
CHAPTER TEN: HERO OR VILLAIN?
CHAPTER ELEVEN: DONORS
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE GRAND TOUR
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: ATTACK ON THE SANCTUARY
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE MASQUERADE BALL
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: TENSIONS RUNNING HIGH
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE TURNING
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: LUCY’S PENDANT
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE BAD HUNGER
CHAPTER NINETEEN: A WORTHY COMPANION
CHAPTER TWENTY: THE BIG EASY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: ROMAN’S SECRET
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: LAFAYETTE
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: DAVINA
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: OF THE BLOOD
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: HUNGER AND HUNTING
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: UNSETTLED OLD SCORES
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: ON THE BAYOU
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: SLEEP
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: TO TRANSYLVANIA
CHAPTER THIRTY: BETRAYAL
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: TOO LATE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: THE FIRST ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: TO POENARI
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: ANOTHER MARINESCU
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: THE WAKING RITUAL
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: TO THE DEATH
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: STARING INTO THE ABYSS
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: THE BLOOD GOD
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: LOCKED AWAY
THANK YOU!
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The Beckett Vampire Trilogy
(Midnight Wine, Lycan & Sanctuary)
by
Jan McDonald
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2017 Jan McDonald. Published By Raven Crest Books.
Cover Design by http://www.StunningBookCovers.com
Book Description
Midnight Wine
Ex Catholic priest, Beckett, is out for blood. Vampire blood.
History is repeating itself and Beckett enlists the help of Dr Lane Dearing, herself a powerful vampire, in an effort to save the beautiful Katerini from a sadistic and vicious Undead. Their struggle leads them from the mysterious mountains of the Brecon Beacons in Wales to an isolated monastery in rural Greece where they encounter one of the Ancient Ones who has his own reasons for wanting Katerini.
Midnight Wine is a vampire tale of love, revenge and sacrifice. Vampires are real. They exist.
And they are out there...
Lycan
Vampires... and a werewolf
Acceptance didn’t sit well with ex-Catholic priest Beckett. And being a vampire wasn’t going to come easy. Struggling with his new life he finds himself helping another whose life has been dramatically changed. Jude Mason is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; but Beckett and the elegant vampire Lane Dearing believe that there is more to it. Much more.
Their efforts to understand and help the man are hampered by unfinished business. In the tiny monastery in Greece, where they believed they had ended the killing spree of ruthless and savage vampires, one has survived. They must return to finish what began years previously with the death of the beautiful newly turned vampire, Katerini.
In Greece, there is as much to lose as to be won and with the stakes high someone has to pay the price.
Sanctuary
High in the Carpathian Mountains, Beckett’s nemesis, Vasile Tepes, is contemplating the unthinkable – the resurrection of his ancestor, Vlad Tepes, better known – thanks to the fiction classic – as Dracula.
Meanwhile, Lane, Beckett’s partner and love, still lies in Greece in the Long Sleep, healing from the near-fatal wounds received at the hands of Tepes, leaving Beckett to watch over things back home, and w
ait.
Vasile Tepes has invited the elders of the other vampire Houses to a meeting at his mountain home where war is on the agenda – war between the Born and the Created vampires. And he has his eye on his first target – The Sanctuary, where newly-turned vampires can find help.
In this final part of the Father Beckett Trilogy, the future of the Created vampires hangs in the balance. Lives will be lost, lives will be changed forever, and bonds will be strengthened in the final battle in the depths of the Transylvanian winter.
Fans of the Mike Travis novels will be pleased to find him here in this cross-over story.
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Book One
Midnight Wine
“There from thy daughter, sister, wife
At midnight drain the stream of life.”
Lord Byron. (The Giaour.)
CHAPTER ONE
It was four in the morning and Beckett was still awake; insomnia had developed into an art form. He lay on his bed charting the progress of a spider as it made its way across the cracked ceiling, grateful for the diversion from images that made nightmares seem like fairy stories designed to lull the innocent to sleep.
Ten years ago his life had been turned inside out and every which way, and ten years ago all he held dear had been snatched from him. Back then vampires were a product of Bram Stoker’s imagination – now it was different; now he knew the truth.
They existed and they were out there.
He’d walked away from everything that night, away from the priesthood, away from his life and away from God; Father Paul Beckett was now just Beckett. Dr Beckett to be strictly accurate, as a PhD in Psychology was the result of his search for his own sanity.
The telephone at his bedside shrilled, jerking him upright as he made a grab at the receiver. There was sobbing coming from the other end, then a pitiful, “Help me, Beckett.”
He was out of bed the instant he heard her voice, the telephone cradled between his shoulder and his ear while he dragged on his discarded jeans. He hopped from foot to foot, wrestling with socks and losing his balance as he kicked the empty Jack Daniels bottle that had been over half full earlier that night..
“Stay where you are, Kat, I’m coming. Please stay there.”
He pushed his fingers through his shoulder length hair, prematurely silver, it was a defiant reminder of things he’d rather forget.
“Kat?”
He grabbed the roll neck sweater that he’d tossed onto a chair earlier, his slate grey eyes betraying the alarm that rippled through him and those that knew him would see the old pain behind them.
“I’m sorry, Beckett,” she whispered.
He heard a soft thud as she dropped the telephone and began sobbing again. Beckett tossed his phone onto a chair and snatched his keys from the side table, mentally crossing his fingers that this wouldn’t be one of the times his old Jeep refused to start.
After a couple of graveyard coughs, the dilapidated four by four juddered into life and climbed the narrow road over the mountain, from the Welsh market town of Abergavenny to the old mining community of Blaenavon. More by Beckett’s will than the power of its old engine. Beckett knew Kat was on the edge and minutes could make a difference, so he floored the accelerator, ignoring the plume of smoke that emerged from the exhaust pipe, along with the smell of burning clutch.
He slowed down as he turned into the unmade road that wound itself back down from the top of the mountain to her cottage. The place was in darkness and the front door was standing wide open; Beckett felt his chest tighten.
No. Please don’t have gone out. Not like that. He daren’t think about what may happen if she had. Not again. Not this time.
He stepped inside, not breathing, past images melding with present cold dread.
“Kat?”
There was momentary silence before he heard her whimpering softly in the darkened interior of her sitting room. He exhaled all the air in his lungs in one hit – she was still home. He stepped softly into the room and over to her side.
She was sitting on the floor, hunched against the far wall, hugging her knees and rocking slowly back and forth. He didn’t speak or move, allowing her to become aware of his presence without startling her. She suddenly became very still.
She was in pyjamas and a fleece jacket and Beckett guessed from the spoiled make-up and her usually immaculate, short blonde hair that was now standing up in chaotic clumps, that she’d been this way for some time. He picked up the telephone from the floor, put it back on its cradle on the sideboard and switched on the lamp beside it. She still didn’t move or speak.
“Kat, look at me,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
He didn’t touch her, knowing that to do so could send her over the edge of her own abyss; he needed to bring her back from her inner world slowly.
Squatting beside her, he said gently, “Kat, it’s me, Beckett. Let me help you up.”
He held out his hand but still he didn’t touch her. She lifted her gaunt face to him, her eyes unable to contain the pool of tears that blurred the amethyst dazzle which had once lived there. Her cheekbones were more prominent and she looked even thinner than when he’d seen her last; barely three days ago. His gut twisted at the sight of her, his worst fears made manifest.
It was happening again.
“Kat,” he said softly.
She peered at him, struggling to focus and it was several moments before he saw recognition dawning slowly.
“I had the dream again,” she said, “I could taste it. I tasted the blood and I can still taste it. The things I did …”
Her voice was trembling and she balled her hands into fists, pushing her knuckles hard into her temples, as if to block the images that only she could see.
“Make it stop, Beckett. Oh, God, please make it stop,” she begged as she reached out for him.
He took her arm gently, blanching as his fingers felt her bone through her skin. “There’s no blood, Kat. It was a nightmare – just a bad dream.”
Beckett knew all about nightmares.
Kat shook her head vigorously. “It’s more. I don’t know how or why, but I know it’s more than that. And I can’t take it any longer. You have to help me, I’m going crazy.” Her eyes pleaded with him.
He pulled her to him gently, still careful not to send her back into her own hell. “It will be okay. I promise.”
She allowed herself to rest her head against him and he sensed her panic subsiding.
“You’re sweet Beckett. Are you this good with all your weirdo patients that call you in the middle of the night?”
He smiled and the storm in his eyes dissipated. “Of course I am; especially the beautiful ones.” He lifted her to her feet and guided her to the sofa. “Come and sit down.”
Her weak smile didn’t fool him as she closed her eyes on the fragments of the dream that so obviously still lingered.
“I need a drink,” she said. “There’s brandy in the kitchen.”
Alcohol was the very last thing she needed, but he said, “Stay there, I’ll get it for you.”
In her kitchen, he sighed as he poured brandy into a small tumbler. He wanted to put his arms around her and tell her it didn’t matter; that he’d take care of her, no matter what. But that wasn’t about to happen now that she was this far gone, or while she was his patient. He felt as if he’d failed her, just like he’d failed Grace.
Not for the first time he faced the possibility that his feelings for Kat had more to do with wanting to save her when he’d been unable to save his own sister, than anything else. He shook his head. It was way past time he sent her to Lane.
Dr Lane Dearing was the best in their field and, if anyone could help Kat now, it was Lane. For too long he’d blocked out the possibilities of her condition, refusing to believe it could happen again. She was vulnerable, and so thin that he felt even a hug could sna
p her in two. Now he had no choice; if he was right, then only Lane could help her.
He closed his eyes to the memories that came unbidden, not daring to give them access, but the familiar story echoed around his brain, refusing to be hushed. History was inexorably repeating itself with the anaemia, the wasting away, and the blood dreams; Grace had gone through it all before the end.
He turned as he sensed her behind him.
She stood limply in the open doorway clutching a newspaper. “Have you seen this? “
“What is it?” he asked quietly.
Her tears overflowed onto her chin and dripped onto a darkening patch on her T-shirt as she dropped the newspaper and returned to the sofa in silence.
He grabbed at the fallen newspaper. What the hell . . .?
His answer grinned from the middle of the page. Dr Greg ‘I love me’ Randall, the egotistical son-of-a-bitch behind the guilt that haunted her and the father of the child she given up for adoption a lifetime ago. He ground his teeth wanting to pull the face out of the newsprint and smash his fist into it.
“You have to let go of the past, Kat,” he said, “Let yourself live now and start to think of the future.” It was inadequate and he knew it.
She didn’t answer him, remaining motionless and staring straight ahead. Eventually she said, “I’m finished, Beckett. I can’t pretend any more. My practice has dwindled down to next to nothing, and the ones that do still come look at me with a mixture of pity and curiosity. I mean who wants to consult a herbalist that’s messed up in her own head? Look at me! I’m a goddamn skeleton. How can I help anyone else when I can’t help myself?”
“The way you always do. By caring.”
“Maybe that’s it; maybe I don’t care anymore.”
He smiled at her, “I don’t believe that and neither do you. Any way, your messed up head is my territory, so hands off. Stick to your herbs and magic potions.”
He watched as a hint of a smile flickered weakly around her mouth but didn’t quite make it to her eyes.
“Kat, I want you to listen to me. I want you to see a friend of mine. Her name is Dr Lane Dearing and, right now, she can help you better than I can.”
Despair etched her thin features. “You too, Beckett? I guess I should have known that even you’d give up on me in the end. I must be a real drag.”
