One Night Burns (The Vampires of Livix, #1)

by J Gordon Smith

  ONE NIGHT BURNS

  The Vampires of Livix Novel – Volume 1

  Paranormal Romantic Suspense

  By

  J GORDON SMITH

  ** Novel Quality Guild Member **

  #1 Best Selling Author

  Ayton & Greene Publishing Company

  Detroit, Michigan

  Copyright © 2012 by J Gordon Smith

  Editorial Summary

  The front door exploded free of its hinges. Glass and wood shrapnel shattered across the room bouncing from furniture and walls. Garin tucked me protectively behind his body as across the broken threshold strode three snarling vampires. We recognized their master –

  Once Patent Attorney Anna Arkena meets the handsome and intriguing vampire Garin Ramsburgh, a bold Investment Analyst at Draydon Financial, she quickly learns how her life in the small mid-western town of Livix will change.

  The Vampires of Livix cringe as these two become close – mixing with vampires always ends badly. But the problems escalate in fifty ways as outside interests pressure Garin’s wealthy family to sell their successful military parts business amid faked financial losses while international terrorist and militia groups push their own agendas with deadly effectiveness.

  Who is behind it all? What do they want? Is this a spark of a greater fire to come? Can Anna and Garin achieve happiness before the fall of twilight? Will Anna survive the vampires and find her shades of True Love?

  Find out in One Night Burns, Volume 1 of the Vampires Of Livix trilogy.

  The Vampires Of Livix Novels

  1 -:- One Night Burns

  2 -:- The Night Discovered

  3 -:- Behold This Night

  Official Author Web blog: J Gordon Smith

  -:- Zero -:-

  Maybe it’s Destiny, I don’t know, I’m not sure I believe in that.

  I do, however, believe everyone has One True Love.

  Mine was inescapable.

  A Vampire.

  And this is how my story began.

  – Anna Arkena

  -:- One -:-

  THE EXPLOSION RIPPLED through the manufacturing plant tool room killing three workers instantly as the fire belched ferocious tendrils into the larger metal stamping bay. Boiling and hissing hydraulic fluid ignited and traveled across spraying hoses. Wire coverings melted in hot dripping flames onto the stamping presses that swirled and jerked where electric motors sputtered when wires welded themselves together in abrupt showers of sparks. Little devil flames skipped and twirled skimming through oily parts bins and dancing feverishly on breaker boxes. Spinning assembly equipment unleashed fire and threw shrapnel along the final build line caressing the tips of neatly arranged detonators.

  Workers tossed their tools and sprinted for the exits amid the explosions and shrill alarms. Elegant little exit route diagrams stapled to the wall proclaiming in case of fire ignored. Any handy door or window to the outside taken indiscriminately like a carpet of plague rats fleeing a sinking ship. Seconds counted.

  “Hey dude, hear that? RUN!” yelled the final line worker as he burst passed the dock laborer. He scrambled over the ledge of the shipping dock truck well and ripped through half of his busted jeans on the ragged metal truck ramp bumper. He didn’t even stop to see if his skin tore with the cotton.

  Three maintenance workers scampered through the dock audit area and stumbled down the stairs to the open truck gate, “The presses are on fire! You better run!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” The dock laborer said, waving his hand dismissing them and dropped his jacket over the box at his feet. He casually lit a forbidden cigarette as another group of workers escaped by jumping into the empty truck well, one stood and limped after the others. The dock laborer leaned down to retrieve the jacket and the box and strolled away from the shipping dock. New explosions growled out of the depths of the plant, blast air ruffled the hairs along the sides of his trimmed head as it rushed out of the facility.

  He tumbled the coat with the concealed box through the open window of his thirty year old Malibu. Harsh years of neglect allowed the bottom third of the doors and fenders to rust through in corroded brown wounds. Orange oxide rivulets oozed over patches of still sound original brown factory paint. Perfectly authentic for his needs. He kicked his cigarette to the asphalt without taking a drag nor scuffing it out with his boot. He let it bounce and roll across the lot pushed by the dry summer breeze. The same breeze that will make stopping the factory fire difficult.

  His key slid smoothly into the new ignition. With a quick twist, the modern six cylinder engine sprang alive and he shifted the transmission into gear. The heavily scuffed but otherwise new tires rolled him across the dry gravel parking lot. He had aged and roughened the tires by beating on them with an old log chain and an angle grinder and ran the car through a muddy field every day this past week. The original rear springs sagged the car with an uneven charm completing his handsome disguise.

  He drove among other cars fleeing the complex and possible worker questioning. Perhaps distressed about immigration discussions. But not his worry. He popped the trunk lid with his recently added remote switch, “The car is empty except for my coat tossed on the back seat.”

  “Yeah, all right. Go on through – and keep clear,” the guard ordered. Other issues needed attention. They waved his nondescript vehicle through the security check-point like launching a jet off an aircraft carrier. Fire department vehicles growled passed the booth in the opposite direction with sirens loud enough for the dead amid their spinning red carnival lights. Press vehicles ducked below the confusion for closer shots of the building.

  -:- Two -:-

  The wind ripped torrents of rain from the sky and smashed them against the coffee shop wire-glass windows. The panes stood strong opposing the dark rain with their thick welded steel frames. The solid construction of the historic brick and steel building gave comfort. A hint of hazelnut and Sumatra dark roast filled the air in familiar waves with each order from the bar. The foaming hiss of a pretentious cappuccino-half-latte-twist-with-an-extra-shot cut through the otherwise somber tranquility.

  I pushed stray hair strands behind my ear and went back to work. I sat to the left of the door at a smallish table away from the main isle. Here I could plug my computer into one of the three outlets scattered around the shop housed in a building built before such fancy inventions as electric power became a necessity. I tethered myself with the power cord whenever expecting more than an hour of work – and the heavy rain grunted through the glass You’ll stay put. I took a sip of my second mug of coffee. Here is as good as any shelter since I only have a small empty apartment to retreat to anyway. And at least I’m billing these hours.

  An electric flash and a thunderous crack broke over the building, no comforting distance between the sight and sound. Immediate. Close. My eyes readjusted but I still could not see the variety store on the opposite corner through the thickening rain. On sunny evenings a musician plays over there and the coffee shop props open a door. But not today. Everyone huddles behind brick and steel and glass fortresses protected from the storm.

  “You want a warm-up, Anna?”

  I lifted my eyes and brushed back a longer side bang and the ribbons hanging from my hair buns. I like the cute little Anime knobby buns with the ribbons and feather extensions hanging down. It took a while to get them right this morning. “Ah, yeah. Looks like I might be here a while longer.”

  Brett poured a steaming drizzle of coffee into my mug, “Can you believe the rain? Weeks of nothing but drying lawns and now this. I’m pulling a double shift so maybe I don’t get wet on my way home.”

  “I’m doing t
hat too,” I said, holding my mug up in a salute, “thanks.”

  “No problem.” Brett completed his circuit along a few more tables and returned to the sales counter. A good guy with a habit for wearing a cyan or violet plaid lumber-jack shirt garishly mismatching the careful saturated orange-brick interior decor of The Livix Cafe. The coffee shop is a local place all our own which helped the town get a movie production to film a scene for a horror movie two years ago. The store kept an artistic little plaque on the wall signed by the movie cast – several famous and even a few infamous – and I would know which if I happened to read the tabloids more often.

  The coffee is good for my task. Marilyn asked me to vet this patent on a motor mount for an electric car company. As if a bracket patent should be a strategic weapon in a trendy new industry. With the advent of the Internet I have to check the United States Patent and Trademark Office databases as well as the global patent filings and various publications. ‘Electric Motor Mount’ is so generic that pages and pages of potential patents must be rummaged through like a pile of eighty percent off scarves at an art fair bazaar. My task is to use the data to either invalidate a client’s claim or get a creative idea for a new supportive claim to widen their protection. Of course, wading through these documents can be misery except for the billing hours and the client’s money won or lost in a future lawsuit. Less elegant than mercenary bandits in my latest Anime comic book but without the satisfaction of slicing the enemy with a Katana sword.

  I need a break. I flipped open the billing icon and clicked off. Wondering what my sister might be up to I opened Faceplate. She’s almost twice my age and married with four young kids. She is constantly on Faceplate. I’d say she should get a job but here I am peeking in on her. I don’t need to call her to find out what is new. This is kind of efficient, for me anyway. A dozen posts appeared. A high school friend of mine worked in New York running his own web design company and described how he stitched together code from contractors he hired into his client’s web sites. Another couple of friends played gangsters in a farming game or farming in a gangster game, hard to tell. Too many posts and comments about trading weapons and pitchforks. My sister posted pages of pictures from their recent trip to ‘Up North Michigan’. Kids at the playground, kids in the water, kids picking up rocks, kids throwing rocks. I’m not ready yet for that kind of thing for myself. But maybe it’s not for me at all? Maybe someday I’ll decide. I’d have to find the right guy anyway.

  I opened my RSS reader. I follow some Anime graphic novels and the author’s blogs. But no new updates there. Not a lot on Reddit either that seemed overly interesting. A lot more AMAs today though – a few even revealed titles with NSFW – racy. But still nothing that grabbed my attention.

  So I flipped open the billing program, sighed, and pressed the ‘on’ button. Searching for brackets. Garden center brackets. Lawnmower engine fuel line brackets – open that in a new browser tab. What’s next? An oil pipeline bracket. And so my exciting lawyerly life goes.

  The storm picked up again. The big glass windows shuddered. Will they really hold? I think I see the glass bowing but that’s ridiculous. Maybe too much caffeine? I’ll have to slow down.

  The coffee shop door banged open and a figure stepped in draining rainwater onto the rubber mat covering the black and white checkerboard tile. He pushed the door solidly closed against the wind and stamped his feet to shake more weather from himself. Flipping back the hood on his charcoal jacket his dark hair was not roiled up but neat and trimmed. Although roiled up hair could be nice too. His beautiful angular face surveyed the room obviously ticking off empty and full seats for a potential work site. He shrugged off his dripping coat as he made his way toward the counter. Classic jeans hugged his thighs while sturdy work boots tied tight with clean laces carried him forward. He moved himself with the lean hidden strength and agility of an athlete and exuded a keen level of intelligence across the coffee shop. I remembered to click off the billing icon and fumbled getting a news website open to see what went on in the business world in the last ten seconds.

  He bought a large regular coffee leaving it black and sat down a little to the other side of the room. Not sure if that’s helpful for me or not. Distracting. He pulled out a paper notebook from his shoulder bag, one of those with the leather covers and stretchy bookmark bands. Then he opened a computer similar to mine. But none of that generic computer operating system chime that pings across every university and corporation when it is ready. Different music with some nice-sounding soft drums. He jammed his pen behind his ear and started typing into his computer.

  I went back to my news. Something happening in Asia. The markets are moving down too rapidly. It’s late morning in China and their markets broiled, ignited by heavy wheat and corn futures turning over. Russian wet spring rains and an exceptionally dry summer cut expected yields. I glanced across the top of my computer screen. He’s still intently typing.

  I clicked my billing icon and returned to the Patent Office system. More brackets. Here’s an automotive starter motor showing a special cast aluminum bracket by a Michigan company. I click open their website. They have a web blog showing their new starter artwork. Not versed with how a starter functions, other than having one break on an old car of mine back in high school and stranding me at the wrestling match, I go to my search engine and look for images of a starter. I find an interesting one with extensive descriptions and a full engine cutaway so I click on it. I look over the top of my computer screen and see Mr. Mysterious continuing to work away but now writing notes in his notebook referencing something on his computer.

  My computer demanded my attention with a flashing icon and an attentive beep. I glanced down. Something was wrong! Pop-ups appeared on my computer screen like a horrific DNA cross between popcorn and fireworks. One telling me helpfully ‘searching for viruses’ on my hard drive. Another screamed malware choked the machine’s performance, asking me if a list of accounts included my credit card and bank savings (thankfully not but it still looked official!). One screen wanted me to send them fifty bucks for their particular brand of computer security.

  “Gah!!” I exclaimed, pushing the thing away from me. I shoved my chair back from the table too. As if I could get infected with the virus running rampant on my computer. I reached forward and yanked out my USB flash drive before it could be compromised, hopefully it is fine since my work notes and billing hours are on it.

  Mr. Mysterious looked up as I slammed the lid and yanked out the power cord, and as if possessed, the computer hard drive light remained urgently flashing and chewing at my data. He stared at me from across the room and offered, “Take the battery out too.” His glance piercing me for a moment then he went back to his notes.

  I clawed at the buttons to release the battery and the hot little strip popped into my hand. Embarrassing, I should have thought of the battery. The lights on the computer faded like the vanquished eyes of a dying dragon. I sat with parts from my work and computer sprawled across the small table. The unhooked end of the power cord slide over the table edge like a fleeing snake. I stared at my stuff not sure what action will solve my problem.

  “Ever use Linux?” he said at last. His eyes are hard and blue yet his face is helpful.

  I ask, “What’s that? An anti-virus program?” A few other patrons looked up from their books and papers and electronic-readers. Virus is a powerful word among strangers. A few seemed to reach for little pocket containers of hand sanitizer while others glanced around their computer screens wary of anything unexpected.

  Collecting his things and dropping them into the pockets of his pack he moved to the open table next to me, “No, but I suppose you could call it that.”

  “I clicked on a random website and it started going through my hard drive and locking me out of shutting it down.” I laughed at it, nervously extending, “It’s probably sent my credit card and social security number to Nairobi where some prince is paying that lawyer to claim his fortun
e.”

  “That’s good!” he smiled. “Typical virus activity. I got tired of the viruses and the worry and the lost data. I’d had it and looked for an alternative and found Ubuntu Linux.”

  “You lost me there.”

  “Here, try this for a week.” he gave me a small flash drive, “You can get it back to me next week and tell me if you like it or not. I’m here nearly every Tuesday, working.”

  “How do I use it?”

  “Put your computer back together and before turning it on, insert the flash drive. You can boot it instead of your hard drive. It will be a free and a virus free experience.”

  “Really? How can it be free?” I asked dubiously, my eyes narrowing, “… is it pirated?”

  He laughed, I liked the sound of his laugh, “That media industry really has you twisted around. This contains open source, free, and freedom software, like Firefox.”

  “Ok. Cool,” I’m familiar with the Firefox Web Browser.

  He held out his hand to introduce himself. His long fingers had clean carefully attended nails, “I’m Garin by the way. Garin Ramsburgh.”

  “I’m Anna Arkena,” I said, shaking hands. His hand a chill lower than being warm, noticeable but not unpleasantly cool. Expected with the rain. A reserved strength in his firm grasp.

  “I should get back to my work. I’m fortunate for this excuse to introduce myself. Pleasant to meet you.” He picked up his stuff to go back to the other side of the coffee shop.

  “You don’t need to go back over there.” I said. And then thinking quickly trying not to sound odd or desperate or crazy. While I didn’t notice his cologne about him, after touching his hand, I could smell traces of his scent hanging on my finger tips. And it was wonderful. Probably some aftershave or something, “… I might need some help with this flash drive.”