by J. R. Ward
On the night of the slaughter, no one was prepared for the attack. Vampires had coexisted with humans with few problems up until the late Middle Ages in Europe. With human society fragmented and warring, and communication being limited by geography and language barriers, vampires were able to successfully evade notice. This peaceful era changed with the religious and intellectual developments of the 17th century in human culture. At that time, a secret society was established to hunt vampires down.
Wrath’s parents were tortured and killed in front of him. He survived only because his father forced him into a crawl space and locked him inside just before the attackers came in. Wrath watched the slaughter with horror, and when he was released by the servants the next day, he buried his parents according to custom and vowed revenge. It was a pathetic covenant. With his under-developed body he knew he was no warrior. During the mourning period, as his people came by to pay homage to him as the last surviving member of a pure bloodline and the new chief of their race, he despised himself and his weakness even more.
Wrath set off alone and traveled Europe for three years, trying to find out more about the men who killed his family. He had no money, having left all his worldly goods behind, and with his pitiful body, he had no way to earn from his labor. He was attacked and beaten, mugged, threatened, and left for dead by humans a number of times. Somehow he managed to scrounge by, eating scraps and fetid animal carcasses until he finally found work as a servant.
When his transition hit, it caught him unaware because his parents had sheltered him and not told him what to expect. After drinking from a female vampire who materializes before him, he grows six inches, his muscles develop into rugged flesh, and he finally has the physical force necessary to exercise his vengeance.
Wrath spends the next four hundred years hunting members of the society and being hunted by them. He despises humans both for their cruelty to him before his change and for the fact that their race has spawned the society of vampire hunters. He lives a warrior’s life with few possessions other than his weapons and no ties except to his band of brothers.
Marissa, the female vampire who came to him on the night of his change, was chosen by his parents to be his mate but he has no love in him to give her. He never sees her unless one of them must feed and he knows their relationship is slowly killing her. He’s asked her to find someone else but she’s refused and her loyalty makes him uncomfortable because he knows he hasn’t earned it.
His band of brothers are six other vampires he’s met through the centuries. They fight mostly alone but they share information and coordinate strategy when they need to. He’s aware that the others look to him as their leader because of his bloodline and his strength as a fighter but it’s a position and an adoration he doesn’t want. He prefers the sting of hatred to any warmth and he sees himself not as a hero for defending his race but as someone who’s just marking time until death puts him out of his misery.
Marissa
Marissa is Wrath’s shellan, or wife, but her gentle nature makes her wholly unsuited for him. As Wrath and her do not share the kind of relationship that most vampires have with their mates, she lives with her brother. She is utterly devoted to Wrath and hopes that someday he will stop fighting and find that he loves her. She’s a virgin, has never even been kissed, and she’s socially isolated. Other males will not approach her out of deference to Wrath and the females pity her. She feels as though she exists in the shadows, watching other people’s lives unfold while her days and nights are stagnated by her paralyzing hope.
Brian “Butch” O’Neal
Butch is a homicide detective who’s strong sense of justice and passion for victim’s rights can at times take his temper over the edge. He’s tough on perps, protective of the innocent, and no one’s fool. He’s a good man but he’s living a hard existence and he’s lost his faith in humanity. His life revolves around his work, he’s never been married, nor has he ever had a meaningful relationship with a woman. He’s very lonely and sometimes he thinks that if he gets killed in the line of duty that’s alright.
Havers
Marissa’s brother, Havers, is a vampire physician, a dedicated healer. As Havers and Marissa’s siblings have died of a disease specific to vampires years ago, and their parents are likewise dead, Havers has always looked after her. A year ago, he lost his shellan when she died trying to give birth to their stillborn son. Now, he feels as if his sister is all he has left. He’s compassionate by nature and the pain that Marissa suffers in her relationship with Wrath really upsets him. He wishes that she could find a mate who truly cared for her.
The Band of Brothers
Darius, Tohrment, Rhage, Vishous, Zsadist and Phury are a band of warriors who revere Wrath. They are a deadly group who have sworn their lives to protect their race and they are revered and somewhat feared by other vampires. Darius had an affair with a human woman twenty-five years ago and the woman died in childbirth. He’s lost two sons to his enemies and he’s worried that his half-human daughter, Beth, won’t survive her transition. Tohrment is the only one with a living uta-shellan, or first and only wife, and he worries about the safety of his family. Zsadist has a scar running down his face from having been tortured after his own brother betrayed him. Rhage is fiery in his personality, capable of flying off the handle at any moment, and he loves women. Vishous is the strategist of the group, possessing a frighteningly powerful mind but being haunted by dark visions which often come true. Phury had his children and uta-shellan killed by his enemies fifty years ago and has an artificial leg as a result of a battle injury.
A note on the names. The English words such as rage, fury, vicious, sadist, torment and wrath are derived from the traditional vampire warrior names which came first.
The Lessening Society
The Lessening Society is a totally self-contained, self-supported group of vampire hunters that operates outside of the law. Members of the society, called lessers, are humans who have traded their souls in return for a hundred years of sanctioned killing. They are vicious sociopaths, soulless killers with violent backgrounds or psychiatric pathologies who hunt for pleasure and like to torture. They have a high death rate so there is a constant demand for new society members. These recruits are drawn from a number of arenas, typically self-defense- or sports-related because the society favors the physically strong. In this book, a martial arts academy provides a fertile training and proving ground for new recruits.
Lessers can move around freely during the day. On occasion, they fight with each other over territory. They are physically stronger after their indoctrination and live to be a hundred while showing no signs of aging. They are also impotent and smell a little like baby powder.
Joe Xavier, a.k.a. Mr. X
Mr. X is an up and coming leader in the Lessening Society. He started training in the martial arts when he was in his teens, and when he was indoctrinated as a lesser, he went through a spec ops military program and then returned to the Society. He’s brought a new level of technology and violence to the society’s endeavors.
RULES OF THE WORLD
-Vampires are a completely different species from humans
-They live much longer lives than humans but are not immortal
-At around age 25, they ‘turn’, meaning they must feed from a vampire of the opposite sex to survive
-They will feed from humans but the strength they take from a man or woman doesn’t last long
-After their transition, they are sensitive to light and blinded and burned by the sun
-Vampires can dematerialize at will but only if they are at the height of their strength
-When they dematerialize, they may not take others with them
-Vampires can read emotions in others
-Vampires are able to sense the geographic location of their mate
-Vampires heal quickly but maybe killed by a catastrophic injury
-They reproduce very infrequently and sometimes with humans
/> -Half-breeds, if they survive the transition, are subject to all of the above
STORYLINE
Darius, one of the band of brothers, asks Wrath to meet him out at a Goth bar in downtown called Screamer’s. He knows that Wrath’s unlikely to help his half-human daughter through her transition to a vampire. But Darius is desperate. He loves his daughter and she has a better chance of surviving the transition if she can be with Wrath because his blood is pure. Darius waits for Wrath to arrive, thinking of how much he hopes she’s spared agony of the change and the life of a vampire.
At the same moment, his daughter, Beth Randall, walks home from her job at the local paper down Trade Street. She walks by the bar her father is in. While she’s thinking about the lonely evening ahead, she’s followed by two college boys. At first, she’s not afraid when they approach and start to harass her. But then one of them grabs her and drags her into an alley. She fights but ultimately they pin her against a building behind a dumpster. While one holds her arms, the other rips her shirt off and starts to fondle her. Even though she’s terrified, she forces herself to pretend that she’s willing to have sex with the primary attacker. When he lets his guard down, she strikes him where it hurts most and then knees him in the nose as he doubles over. His friend is so surprised that he doesn’t stop her escape. She runs home.
Back at Screamer’s, Wrath finally appears. As he makes his way to Darius, humans trip over themselves to get out of his way. He takes a seat with Darius and waits for the other vampire to speak. When he hears what Darius wants, he flat out says no. He hates himself for turning his warrior brother down, but he wants no part in the transition of a half breed. That would require a compassion that he just doesn’t have.
Wrath leaves the bar because he has to meet Marissa, his shellan, or female mate. Unlike most vampires, he does not have a sexual relationship with her, they merely feed off each other as they need to. Because he’s consumed with hunting his enemies, there’s no room in his life for. Her brother, Havers, with whom she lives, disapproves of the relationship which was established by Wrath’s parents four centuries ago. So Marissa won’t have to deal with her brother, Wrath frequently meets her in a room in Darius’s mansion.
Wrath is headed for a dark alley to dematerialize to Darius’s when he senses he’s been tracked. It’s a member of the Lessening Society, a group of humans who have sold their souls to become vampire killers. He draws the lesser into the shadows, slits its throat with a martial arts throwing star, and takes its wallet and cell phone. Wrath stabs the lesser through the heart, causing it to disintegrate. Wrath then dematerializes to Darius’s guest chamber. Marissa comes to him and feeds. In their scene, the dynamics of their relationship are very clear. Marissa is very attached to him, hoping that someday he will turn to her and realize that her love is what is missing from his cold, warrior existence. He’s strained by her devotion and loyalty and loathes himself for all he cannot give her. Before he can take her back to her brother’s house, there’s a knock on the chamber door. It’s Darius’s butler. Darius has been killed by a car bomb outside of Screamer’s. Wrath tames his rage so that he can get details and asks Fritz to call the band of brothers together. Before the butler leaves, he gives Wrath an envelope from Darius. When Wrath is alone, he lets out his vengeance, causing a black whirlwind of anger to swirl around him.
When Beth gets home, she takes a forty-five minute shower and finds that though her nerves are shot, her body is recovering. She’s starving. After she eats, she’s sitting with her cat, thinking that she should file a report with the cops, when the phone rings. It’s Jose De La Cruz, one of the policemen who’s taken her under his wing. He tells her about a car bomb that’s just exploded outside a bar downtown. He urges her to be careful when she shows up on the scene because Hard Ass, a.k.a., Homicide Detective Butch O’Neal, is on the case. Though she tries, Beth finds herself unable to talk about what happened for fear of breaking down. She tells Jose she can’t go to the crime scene tonight and has to reassure him that she’s fine when he gets worried about her. After she hangs up, she decides she must make a report after all and heads out, taking pepper spray with her.
The band of brothers show up at Darius’s. Wrath must give the wallet and the cell phone to someone else because he can’t see well enough to go through them. The wallet yields a driver’s license and the cell phone has a call log that one of the brothers says he’ll investigate. The brothers are looking to Wrath for leadership and for once this doesn’t annoy him. He tells them that they are going to go raiding in retaliation. Typically, large scale battles with lessers are to be avoided because the carnage attracts the notice of human police. But Darius’s death can not go un-avenged. The immediate quest for the brothers therefore is to find the nearest Lessening Society training and recruiting facility and take it out. These facilities move often and typically take the form of some kind of legitimate business in the human world as a shield.
When the brothers leave, Wrath takes out Darius’s envelope and opens it. Inside is a sheet of paper and a picture of what appears to be a dark-haired female. Wrath calls Fritz in to read the note to him. Darius has left his mansion, Fritz and his half-breed daughter in Wrath’s care. Wrath curses.
Downtown, Beth arrives at the bomb scene, looking for Jose. She’s not there as a reporter, she’s come to file a report on her attacker so that he can’t hurt some other woman. Jose’s not around but Butch O’Neal comes over, annoyed that she’s arrived on the scene. When he sees her split lip, he pulls her into a quiet corner and demands to know what the hell happened to her face. She prevaricates and asks to talk with Jose. She doesn’t want to relive the trauma of the attack with someone like Hard Ass O’Neal. Butch pressures her and doesn’t back off until she threatens to do an expose on his heavy handed interrogation techniques. He leaves her and she goes back to her apartment in a cab.
An hour or so later, Beth is getting ready for bed when her cat starts acting oddly. He’s pacing in front of the sliding glass door which opens out to the cruddy little courtyard behind her place. A knock on her front door gets her attention. She looks through the peephole and groans. It’s Butch O’Neal. She opens the door and he barges in, looking around and taking a seat. Earlier in the night, Butch responded to a report of a guy down and bleeding in an alley off Trade Street. Putting it all together, he’s deduced that Beth was attacked on her way home and he’s come to try and help.
Outside, in the courtyard, Wrath is in the shadows watching. When Beth opens the sliding door to let some air in, he catches her scent and is enthralled. He also recognizes that the change, her transition, is coming on fast. He overhears her and the cop talking.
When Beth finishes recounting her attack, Butch leaves her place and goes to the local emergency department. He finds her assailant, who’s dressed exactly as she described, and does a hard number on young Billy Riddle. At the end of the meeting, Butch has Billy pinned on the floor of the hospital room and is rubbing the kid’s nose into the linoleum. He arrests Billy.
After the cop leaves Beth’s apartment, Wrath comes into her home. He terrifies her so badly, he’s forced to erase the memory of him from her mind so he can try again. Early in the morning, she wakes up from what she assumes is an awful nightmare, grateful that the horrible night is finally over.
Wrath goes back to Darius’s house and down into the guest chamber. He showers and shaves and then takes out a black marble slab. After pouring pebble-sized, rough cut diamonds onto the platform, he knees on the rocks naked, prepared to observe the death ritual in honor of Darius. He will sit in the position unmoving for the whole day and reflect on the proud warrior who’s now gone. Before Wrath goes into his trance, he thinks of Beth and vows that not only will he protect her, he will help her through her transition.
After Butch books Billy Riddle into holding, he leaves his office, headed for his squalid apartment. On the way out, he meets up with a prostitute named Cherry Pie who’s a regular overnight guest in
the women’s holding cell. They talk and go their separate ways. On impulse, Butch heads back to the Screamer’s neighborhood and pulls up in front of another bar. A woman comes out and they drive over to the river, parking underneath the bridge over the Hudson River. While the woman is having sex with him, Butch looks out at the river, thinking how beautiful the sunlight on the water is. When she asks him if he loves her, he says, yeah, sure. He knows she doesn’t care that he’s lying and he feels the desperation of his life intensely.
