Eternal Bondage

by Vita Anne Hoffman

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  New Concepts Publishing

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  Copyright ©2008 by Vitta Anne Hoffman

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  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

  * * * *

  Eternal Bondage

  By

  Vita Anne Hoffman

  © copyright by Vita Hoffman, April 2008

  Cover Art by Alex DeShanks, April 2008

  ISBN 978-1-60394-164-8

  New Concepts Publishing

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www. newconceptspublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Chapter One

  Never Scoff At The Supernatural

  "Do you, Avna Marie Soulsmith, take this vampire as your lawfully wedded husband?” Judge Oscar Hyacinth, a tiny, bespectacled man, balding and kindly, was officiating at a very unlawful wedding, doing so under the powerful mind control of the groom. From over top of his old fashioned spectacles, Judge Hyacinth grinned at me expectantly, wearing a loopy, drugged up expression, rather than the horrified one of a mortal ringed by a pack of the undead.

  There were seven of them. Three males, if you were charitable and counted Snitch in that category—he and I had some bad history, so I can't exactly be impartial about the one-eyed pipsqueak. The other four were female. The worst of the lot being Donata, the ultimate vampire bitch, her voluptuous form encased in a skintight black unitard, while her long matte black hair hung shroud-like about her face and body. She's the one who had slashed open my back, from shoulder to hip, trying her best to rip me into shreds, by way of welcoming me into the clan, no doubt. But these unpalatable seven were just the minions.

  Rasputin was the Master. The boss. The groom.

  He was a brutish seven feet tall. Huge. Blubbery. Strong. A leprous, scabrous, diseased thing. And he had my arm gripped in his rusty-colored talon-tipped hand like a vise, because his most unwilling bride, moi, couldn't be allowed to escape, now could I? This was the ultimate marriage of convenience.

  Since the early 1990's, when a bushel full of federal statutes had created the Federal Bureau of Interspecies Coexistence, the FBIC, a bureaucracy to protect and further the rights of vampires while also ascertaining and maintaining the growth of their population, marriage was the fastest ‘legal’ way to bring a human into a vampire family. The other less used means was to petition the courts for a change of status, from living to undead. Each-to-his-own, I guess. But there were supposed to be safeguards—like six human witnesses and the accompanying sworn affidavits filed with the FBIC to insure all parties were willing and under no hypnotic compulsions—to prevent an unwanted union. And this one was definitely unwanted.

  Vampires were not my favorite species.

  Judge Hyacinth tugged at his collar then cleared his throat of non-existent phlegm, prompting me for an answer. These nervous gestures indicated for the first time that he had any awareness about the unusual ceremony, being held in an unusual location, an eerily lit hangar-sized abandoned furniture warehouse. Most brides, I'd bet, did not need to be asked twice.

  "Miss Soulsmith?” The poor little man's cherubic grin faltered. He blinked, anxiously shifted his eyes behind those bottle-thick lenses from me but-not-quite-to the hideous groom, then back again. Judge Hyacinth, clutching hard at both his bible and a semblance of reality, waited for the bride to speak.

  Not that it really mattered what I answered. The Judge would ‘hear’ whatever Rasputin ‘told’ his mind. And, as for any objections from me, once the ceremony ended with ‘you may now kiss the bride’ that was all she wrote. Rasputin, a powerful centuries old progenitor, would suck me dry, of both blood and free will, and possibly accomplish my transformation into a vampire, right then and there. The commonly held belief was that it takes three successive bites from a vampire to do this. However, with a progenitor involved, some sources (whose reliability was questionable) maintained that one all-consuming bite was sufficient. I tended to believe in the progenitor-one-bite-theory. Lucky me.

  As for coerced marriages, there had only been one federal case where a newly made vampire sued a sire for unlawful conversion, and it, needless to say, remained in a limbo of appeals. Most vampires, depending on the strength and spirit of their original human personality, were for all intents and purposes subjugated to the will of their master.

  "You will answer in the affirmative.” Rasputin's voice was a guttural croak. His breath-like exhalation washed over me like a truckload of rancid garbage.

  "Like hell I will.” How's that for independence? If I couldn't escape, I at least aimed to thwart his complete control of me in my next incarnation. If I maintained enough identity, I would be my own mistress. At least theoretically!

  So, hell, no, I wouldn't say yes to my own demise, to meekly accept eternal bondage to a horrific demon, to accept domination from a master vampire like Rasputin. I wouldn't, couldn't, accept such a fate with any vampire. Save, perhaps, one. And he was dead. I mean really DEAD. By fire, no less, when he, ancient progenitor Constantine, The Great, an all around arrogant SOB and recent pain-in-my posterior, had once CLAIMED TO BE INVULNERABLE to it. Instead, not more than twenty minutes ago, Constantine had been fried by Snitch's gasoline fueled Molotov cocktail. So much for his self-proclaimed invulnerability to fire. Although, now that I thought about it, he had, contrary to all anecdotal vampire mythology, remained relatively intact!

  Constantine had flared torch-like for one incendiary instant, engulfed in a flash of heat that had instantaneously plumed up his body then just as quickly snuffed out with such force that he had fallen flat to the ground. Oddly, his clothes had seemed to disappear rather than disintegrate. Stranger still, while the unmistakable acrid pungency of singed hair had fouled the air, Constantine's longish coal-black waves hadn't actually burned away! Nor, as he had lain there a smoking, peeling ruin, had his hypnotic ice-blue eyes been damaged. Unblinking, sightlessly trained upon the starry sky, they had glittered like bits of bright blue glass from out of his blistered and sooty mask-like face. The final indignity had been Snitch, after a cowardly fearful hesitation, grabbing, no ripping, the heavy, golden signet ring from off of Constantine's smoldering hand.

  If I didn't hate vampires so much, I just might have admitted to a tear, or two, as I had knelt on the pavement to view the remains, seeing how patches of Constantine's skin nearly sloughed off like a snake shedding, revealing deceptively healthy, vibrant pink flesh underneath. The sight had given me the forlorn hope that Constantine, The Great, might, indeed, arise phoenix-like from his own ashes as he had once boasted to me. But ... he hadn't done so. Thus, here I
stood at the proverbial altar with vile bloodthirsty Rasputin for a groom.

  Even now, many city blocks away, in the middle of my ‘marriage’ vows, I couldn't shake those vivid images of Constantine's demise, nor that sickening, gut-wrenching smell of burnt flesh mingled with singed hair. All this sensory recall, distressing and raw, overwhelmed me. Nauseated, emotionally and physically overloaded, I swayed. Rasputin shook me like a rag doll, snarling, baring his immense, lethal canines. A sudden crazed gleam filled his rheumy black eyes. He shook me harder and harder, nearly tearing my arm from its socket.

  "Pronounce us united! Pronounce us united!” He shrieked at the Judge, who seemed abruptly released from his hypnotic state. Judge Hyacinth trembled, visibly, dropping the holy bible to the ground. His eyes, magnified by his glasses, went ridiculously wide as saucers and his mouth dangled open with fear. He backed away several steps to escape the monster before him.

  "You shall be mine. Mine.” Rasputin's clawed fingernails, nearly as sharp and long as daggers, punctured through my right arm. I tried to concentrate on the sound of bone crunching, rather than the unendurable pain. Maybe my strategy worked. I began to black out, carrying with me the grotesque sound of my cracking forearm, the awful smell of burned flesh, and the instantaneous remembrance of the events leading me to this awful point in my life ... even as I was most assuredly about to die.

  * * * *

  "De Facto Self Defense, this is Avna Soulsmith speaking. How may I help you?” I answered the phone in a breathless rush, having heard its insistent ringing from the sidewalk outside my building. I had crammed the key into the weathered brass lock, set the old fashioned bell-pull cord to swinging with my whirlwind entrance, then dove for the receiver of my old style rotary. What can I say, business times are hard. And I like antiques.

  The only answer was heavy breathing.

  "Detective Traeger?” I asked, strenuously pretending that I hadn't received a sixth-sense-like flush of recognition before I had picked up the line. I secretly, affectionately, dubbed the father of four Pater Traeger because he had filled that role for me over the past ten years, being as strict and stern and sympathetic to me as I imagined him with his own kids. Over that period, there had been many overtures and invitations from the Traegers, always trying adopt me. But my history, my personality, my pain, kept me away from healthy normal relationships. Instead, I subsisted with them as my vicarious family.

  "That's right, Soulsmith.” Suspicion, as to how I knew it was him, since caller ID was another technological advance I couldn't afford, colored his husky voice. As usual, he scoffed at the idea of precognition while simultaneously suspicious that I might have it! Which, of course, I absolutely, categorically DO NOT.

  Detective Ian Traeger, a fantastic twenty-five year veteran with the Charleston Police Department, but without the generally requisite extra twenty pounds around the middle, was burly, muscular, possessed of the hearty stature and disciplined posture of a drill sergeant. He kept his silvered-red hair in a military flat top. No one could deny how extremely effective Pater Traeger was on his capital city beat, which now-a-days included a lot of activity with the Federal Bureau of Interspecies Coexistence. After all, he constantly reminded me, vampires and other incarnates have constitutional rights to be protected, too. Even in the Mountain State of West Virginia. I just didn't appreciate the fact that Traeger and the Bureau had tangled me up in this battle. A vampire lover, I ain't.

  I had, for all intents and purposes, been gently blackmailed with veiled references to possible City B&O infractions into the voluntary position of community liaison for vampire-human rights, an offshoot of the community crime watch program, because I had a growing reputation as a reliable consultant for most things paranormal. Unfortunately, notoriety was good for business but bad for my health. Unnatural things tended to be attracted bug-like to the bright light of publicity, such as my involvement as a prosecution witness in the recent Lantaglia voodoo murder case when I had actually, formally been certified as a U.S. Court designated ‘spiritualist’ in order to legally channel a ghost—that of Salvator Lantaglia, murder victim—to testify in the judge's chambers. If it had been anything less than a capital crime I would have refused such an accreditation. No way did I want to be any kind of paranormal authority. I just wanted to be normal!

  "How did you know it was me?” Traeger prompted for an answer. Being inquisitive was his nature, especially if it touched upon me or the paranormal. He trusted that I could take care of myself, yet he still worried about the supernatural aspects of my business. Vampires, on the one hand, presumably because they, to Pater Traeger's way of thinking, ‘retained’ their humanity, didn't bother him, but ghosts and ghouls and things that bumped in the night were a whole different story. Most people, including Ian Traeger, acknowledged—but ignored—the otherworldly within the worldly realm. Out of sight is, after all, out of mind. Safer. Saner. Sorry to say, I knew better, so I couldn't pretend that unnatural things didn't lurk in the dark. And, sometimes, in the light.

  When I answered him, I tried to sound casual. “Just a lucky guess.” And that's all, I convinced myself, that it was, a guess. I knew a few real psychics, the kind with detailed, all-knowing all-seeing premonitions, and I flatly rejected that label. I just sometimes guessed really, really well.

  With a sigh, I plunked myself down into the rolling office chair and propped my legs up onto the scratched-up, second-hand desk. Before me, through a huge plate glass window, stretched an unobstructed view of the quiet downtown street. I liked to see trouble coming, that's part of the De Facto Self Defense Credo. Behind me were floor-to-ceiling glass-fronted cases full of my stock-in-trade, vials of holy water, amulets with semiprecious stones, dream catchers, any number of silver tipped or plated items—from the traditional bullets to the less so collection of pagan or Christian crosses, stilettos, scissors, or most anything with a sharp point—and a variety of crystals, herbs, and folk remedies, an ever growing catalogue of paraphernalia, that, depending on any given circumstance, might have the property to protect or heal. That seemed to be my instinctual power, to glean the best defense to a supernatural force. I scorned the title of expert, however, because, in-point-of-fact, I was not an expert in any field. I simply ran an Army-Navy Surplus Shop for the paranormal.

  "I suppose this is an official call, Traeger?” I gently rocked back and forth on the chair's wheels, ignoring my copycatting reflection in the plate glass, a reverse image of a woman of medium build with a thick mop of dirty blonde, short, almost ill-cut hair, ordinary green eyes, but nice lips, hips and curves. I tried to waste little time in viewing life as a beauty contest. Still, if not a runner-up, I might have made the top twenty. Or not.

  "Yeah, kid, I'm afraid it is.” He exhaled a long breath. “This one's bad. A body, female, Caucasian, in her mid-to-late twenties, was reported floating in the Kanawha by a passing barge early this morning, right before daybreak. She was tangled near the bank about a hundred yards upriver of the South Side Bridge. So far, we haven't ID'd the body."

  "Do I get three guesses as to the cause of death?” Anger sifted into my poor attempt at humor.

  "Nobody hates this more than I do, Avna. It was a vampire kill, all right. With multiple bite wounds and no attempt to hide or disguise the fact. There's a rogue on the loose. But it is the first such murder in this city in over fifty years. ‘'

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard this story before. Killers come in all shapes, sizes, sexes, AND species. But you've never given me a good answer for all those unsolved missing person cases still on the books.” Whenever this argument came up and my prejudice started showing, I never reminded him just how close I had come to being a part of that invisible statistic while a sophomore at the State College of West Virginia, SCWV some ten years earlier. Surviving that attack had been the end of my collegiate career as an English major and begun my personal crusade with De Facto Self Defense. It had also brought Ian Traeger, the lead investigator of that unprecedented atta
ck, into my grim nineteen-year-old life where he had remained to one degree or another ever since.

  "Just because I've been pressured into being the ‘supernatural’ eyes and ears of the Charleston police force doesn't mean I necessarily have to like it, or them.” I practically spat out the word. “Remember, my interest is in saving MY kind. I can't seem to be as fair-minded as you. Nor do I necessarily want to try.” Statistics be damned! Vampires, as far as I was concerned, were nothing more than predators.

  "So, we have differing opinions on this subject. That's old news, Avna. We agree to respectfully disagree, regardless of the fact that when it comes to vampires you're paranoid and biased. Nevertheless, the Department has always considered you an indispensable and dependable resource."

  "Thanks for the flattery, I think.” I whuffled out a sarcastic chuckle, smiling against my will at how easily my mentor and moral compass had lectured to me yet again on this personal bias, this sore spot, of mine. Boy, could he zing ya! “You know you can count on me. I'll keep my ears open. If I hear of anything out of the ordinary, anything at all, you'll be the first to know."

  Traeger cleared his throat.

  "What is it, Traeger?"

  "The higher ups are looking for more depth than street chatter. This type of aberrant homicide could rattle the public, could incite vigilantes. They want specifics. So do I."

  "Such as...?” A chill ran up my scalp. My reflection in the storefront's window was definitely tense, suddenly sitting up ramrod straight. I nervously toyed with my favorite silver plated ink pen, which I, then, soothingly, familiarly tucked behind my ear.

  To distract myself, I took inventory of the neat desktop, smack-dab in the middle of which lay a pristine business card with intricate black-traced red lettering. Ginny Bahr, my business manager and best friend ever since I had rid her house (not once but twice) of a very recalcitrant and difficult-to-banish poltergeist, had left this very same card on my desk for the past two weeks, insisting that I follow up on a potential client. I did not want business that bad. And even now, listening to Traeger's husky voice, I picked up the delicate card with all the relish of touching, barehanded, a black widow spider.