by DB Nielsen
The Red Circle
Bad Moon Rising Book 2
DB Nielsen
Laurie Starkey
Michael Anderle
BrixBaxter Publishing
Contents
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Continue the Saga
Author Note
About Seven Sons
About The Author
Copyright
Description
Dark magic. Blood. Alchemy.
Aislinn was reborn a vampire to bring her human sister’s murderers to justice, but it’s proving harder than she thought.
One of the Druids is dead, but there are still two to go. Yet now, Aislinn finds herself at the center of dark magic and intrigue.
Ancient blood has been stolen. Dark mages are in league with a purebred demon. Corruption is rife within the London coven. And barely hidden revolt is in the air.
Can Aislinn avoid the snares of the immortal world and get her full measure of revenge?
Or will she need to wait another millennium to fulfill her promise?
Chapter 1
Aislinn was in a blood rage. It came upon her more frequently now, as did the nightmares. The murder of her sister. Primae Noctis. So many deaths, both human and immortal.
One Druid down. But two more were still out there.
It was driving her on tonight. She felt reckless and daring.
The Norton Commando ate up the darkness, hugging the ice-slicked streets with ease. As it breasted the rolling parkland of One Tree Hill, Aislinn saw the city of London below shrouded in white, as if under a funeral cloth of new-fallen snow. From her vantage point on the motorbike, the road bent steeply downward into the dark.
Despite the limited vision from beneath her visor, she saw the slippery black ice on the road surface, mentally taking note to avoid it. But she refused to drop the motorbike to a lower gear. She sought the thrill of speed.
As she crested the hill, it momentarily seemed as if she was flying into London, falling from the heavens on a big, black beast as her tires left the ground and she soared nearly forty feet in the air before landing with exhilarating precision to take the next hair-raising, icy bend in the road. Even professional, daredevil stuntmen would have avoided such madness under these deadly conditions. But tonight, she was pushing the limits, exorcising her blood rage, craving a challenge.
One down. Two to go.
Ten minutes later as she entered the city’s narrow streets, she propelled the bike around a sharp corner and dropped down to street speed to avoid the police patrols on duty. The last thing she needed was something as mundane as a heavy fine for speeding or reckless riding, since it would place her on their grid. Given her surging blood rage tonight, she didn’t need any trouble with the humans, nor with the leader of her coven.
The steering instantly felt heavier with the drop of speed, but it wasn’t necessary for her to concentrate much to ride smoothly through the maze of tightly packed lanes and narrower side streets. This was a familiar route, and Aislinn and her bike were like one entity.
She loved her Norton Commando like it was her very own baby. It was breathtakingly fast and sleek, often demanding and difficult, but a seriously badass bike. She loved the wildness and freedom it gave her, but she could only open the throttle away from the city streets, allowing it to roam like a predatory, nocturnal animal engaging in a hunt. Like tonight.
But even though she’d fed well tonight already, she was left feeling unsatiated. The blood rage continued to simmer away.
One down. Two to go.
Soon, she silently promised her sister as she entered the secured parking lot. Soon, there will be justice.
The engine’s deep rumble broke the tomblike silence of the almost-empty underground facility as she sidled up beside the large bollards in the “motorcycles only” bay. She hooked out the kickstand as the engine’s rumble subsided to a low, angry growl, then to a harmless, kittenish purr, then perfect silence and stillness.
Removing her helmet, her platinum-blonde hair spilled down her back, and she shook it loose and dismounted, swinging her leg off the bike in one fluid, easy motion. Her long, black leather jacket fanned out behind her as she took two purposeful strides forward before glancing back at the bike. Her baby. It looked like a petulant supermodel, glowering at her under the flickering lights. An angry panther being forced back into a cage at the zoo.
She smiled, and it illuminated her preternaturally stunning face.
“Don’t be like that, beautiful,” she said, crooning words of endearment and praise. “I’ll be back for you soon.”
A discordant, raucous laughter filled the hollow underground chamber, reverberating from the concrete and metal, like the crazy jangling of keys.
“Baaaddddaaasss,” the voice drawled, setting off another round of jarring laughter. “B-b-badass. Badass.”
She’d sensed him as she’d ridden into the parking lot but had hoped to avoid any trouble. There was a strange murk—a distinct smell of something putrid and foul about the figure lurking in the shadows, suggesting he was seriously ill. She fought honed instincts urging her to immediately strike an aggressive pose in self-defense and forced herself to turn around slowly. Very slowly. She didn’t want to spook him. After all, he could just be a harmless loony desperate for something to eat and not full-blown crazy.
The figure detached itself from the shadows, and Aislinn realized her mistake.
Nope, full-blown, batshit crazy. Great. Just great. My lucky night.
He had the bulky frame of a bodybuilder jacked up on steroids, with dense muscularity in his chest and limbs, but that wasn’t what caused the prickling sensation on the nape of her neck.
It was the slack expression on his face and the way his facial features had an almost reptilian appearance with the slivered, long ivory incisors. He wore dirty jeans, a faded T-shirt, and a Russian military-styled trench coat, which might have explained his shaven, heavily tattooed head. He was also barefoot, since the digits of both his hands and feet were tapered to razor-sharp claws. She’d never seen anything like it in all her immortal life.
He was a vampire like her. But unlike her, he wasn’t sane, and his humanity had disappeared long ago to become something much more monstrous.
Aislinn looked at the ruined form before her. No longer human, not a normal vampire, but undeniably a monster. He had a feral look about him. It was there in the dark spheres of his eyes and the way his snakelike tongue darted out as if to smell the air.
Careful, Aislinn. Stay sharp.
She remained frozen, trying not to startle him into doing anything rash. Her hands rested loosely by her sides, and she could feel the familiar weig
ht of her skean, sheathed on her hip. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to use it tonight, though there was something to be said about mercy killings for such a creature. Not only did it put them out of their misery, but it also spared the hapless humans who became fodder in their primal urge to survive.
He took a step forward, and the white Mark of Cain on his forehead flared briefly in recognition of another vampire. He could see she was a Malum, stronger than him and not to be messed with in her answering obsidian Mark blazing beneath pale skin, but he was too far gone to heed the warning.
“I like your license plate, girlie,” he taunted, referring to the in-joke shared between her close circle of friends.
Her motorbike sported the license plate “Badass”, a joke the mad Nubes wouldn’t understand since he didn’t know who she was and what she was capable of.
He stared with lust, taking in the angelic, pixie-faced girl. But it was the bike he was after, not her. “I like your ride.”
His jaws opened as he drooled, showing his fanged teeth. Again, his long, blackened tongue flickered out between wet lips as he gave a low hiss.
“Thanks,” Aislinn said politely with a nod in his direction. She was still hoping to leave the parking lot without trouble, hoping that appearances were, in this case, deceptive. She couldn’t help comparing the monstrosity standing a few paces behind the row of parked cars with Psychic Seth.
The other feral Nubes was as mad as a hatter, but he wasn’t violent and had somehow managed to survive on the blood of animals and the waste material from hospitals rather than attacking humans. She was starting to think of Seth as—well, she wasn’t quite sure what to call him. He wasn’t exactly a friend, but he was more to her than just an acquaintance. Truth was, she felt sorry for him, and for some inexplicable reason, she felt responsible for his wellbeing.
Caleb would have said it was simply her habit of adopting strays. Maybe. But the jacked-up, crazy vampire who was now eyeing her motorbike in a possessive manner would never be one of them.
He took a twitchy step forward. His limbs were jerky as if he couldn’t quite control them, and his hands clenched and unclenched spasmodically, though he seemed unaware of it. His right shoulder gave a nervous jerk every now and again that seemed to rattle down the length of his body, ending with his legs jiggling madly, causing his claws to tap noisily on the concrete floor of the parking garage.
Aislinn braced herself, ruthlessly suppressing the blood rage. It would have been all too easy to lose control. But she didn’t like killing her own kind, any more than killing humans. Particularly Nubes.
It was a sad fact that not all human candidates survived the turning process to become what they hoped. Many couldn’t endure the punishing, painful three days it took for them to turn. The vampire blood they’d ingested was like a poison in their system, which ended up killing them instead of transforming them.
Aislinn suspected it was due to the potency of the sire’s black blood and the intrinsic goodness of the human, but there was no real evidence of this. Still, it was as good a guess as any.
But some of these newly turned vampires didn’t die. Nor did they truly live to be reborn as full-fledged vampires. Some Nubes survived the transition only to be driven insane in their first, usually unsupervised feeding frenzy. These unfortunate victims of a botched turning were heavily infected with madness. And sadly, most of them were abandoned by their sires and left homeless, roaming aimlessly, biting humans in a feverish blood rage or, instead, starving on the streets. And some became dangers to themselves and to the coven since their lust for blood was uncontrollable and insatiable. Like the corrupted vampire in front of her who reeked of the unwholesome stench of death and decay.
“Beautiful b-b-bike. Bee-eau-ti-ful. Beaueewooo–ti–ful.” The sing-song voice ended in a low growl that bubbled from the back of his throat.
Holy shit balls! This motherfucker’s a real pack of mixed nuts, Aislinn thought, staring at him in distaste. Seriously. I don’t have time for this shit.
“I said I like your bike,” he repeated on a sour note as if she had ignored him. His nostrils flared angrily.
He was beginning to annoy her, and she wondered whether she could just kill him now or whether she had to wait until the formalities were over and he made the first move.
“And I said thank you.” Aislinn’s voice was flat, emotionless. Her eyes held a warning though they remained a steady, bright blue.
He snarled, and spittle flew in all directions. “What are you, girlie? Stupid? I said I like your bike. I w-w-want it. G-g-give it to me.” His stutters were accompanied by the tapping of his feet on the concrete.
She laughed, and though it wasn’t a pleasant laugh, it tinkled like bells around the empty parking lot. “No. Sorry, not sorry. That ain’t gonna happen. Especially when you’ve asked so nicely too.” Her eyes flashed obsidian in a deadly cold rage. Razor-sharp incisors broke through her gums, snapping down into place in a matter of seconds.
The beefy vampire didn’t like her answer. A high-pitched shriek tore itself from his throat, and he launched himself at her, jumping over an entire row of parked cars, lunging forward with a savage animalism in his movement. He was so jacked up that it lent his madness enormous strength, and he bounded over the cars with little effort, landing on the balls of his feet as he reached for her with needle-like claws.
Aislinn easily avoided the grasp of his thick arms and hands, sidestepping and wheeling away as if in an intricate dance. Her actions enraged the Nubes further, and he snarled, lips drawn back to reveal the elongated fangs. He pulled back his twitching arm, intending to slam it forward into Aislinn’s face, but she danced around him again.
“No! No no no no no no no—” He gurgled unhappily, his tongue flicking in and out of his mouth agitatedly. “Stop it stop it stop stop stop—”
And then he seemed to change his mind about her and hurtled toward the Norton Commando instead. It was unclear what his intentions were, but Aislinn leaped in his path to stop him. He unexpectedly knocked her to the floor, her head and shoulders slamming hard against the concrete.
She was surprised by the power in him, though there was no explosion of pain. As she stared into his hugely dilated black eyes, she recognized he was possessed by an unnatural, drugged viciousness. This wasn’t just simply steroids. It was something more, but she didn’t have time to think about it now. His face was up against hers, and the foulness of his stinking hot breath made her want to gag.
She shoved hard against his chest, and he flew backward into the air, slamming into the level above and landing like a cat on all fours amidst raining pebbles of bloody concrete. He let out a demonic wail that was cut off on a chortle, but it was difficult to tell whether he was enraged or enjoying himself. His lips twitched as his jaws opened, more drool running down his chin like a slathering animal.
Then he rushed at her again, and this time, Aislinn grabbed him by his coat collar and slammed his body against the concrete wall. His face smashed hard enough to crack the cartilage of his nose, and blood gushed out, mixing with his saliva. She pulled him back a little way and pushed him forward again. And again. Slamming his face into the wall each time. She hoped to knock the incisors out of his stinking mouth.
“This just isn’t your night,” Aislinn said, now holding the skean in her hand.
Instead of responding, the vampire suddenly spun around and kicked his leg out with shocking speed and strength, sending her crashing into a concrete pillar. She saw and heard the skean clatter across the cement—at the same time as the Nubes.
He staggered after the knife, which had come to rest under the wheels of an SUV. But Aislinn immediately dived forward and tackled him to the ground, grabbing his arms and pinning them behind his back to immobilize him.
“I’m gonna kill you. K-k-kill you.” He wrenched himself away, back arching, thrashing like a fish on a hook. His pumped-up, jittery limbs were thumping and rattling, and it was impossible to tell whether he
was arching deliberately or reflexively, even as he began to buck wildly beneath her. “K-k-kill. You. Girlieeeeeeeeeeee.”
And Aislinn realized he meant it. He was going to kill her. He was so far gone, there was no hope for him. And there was no way this was going to end well.
She had no choice.
She let go as he reared upward, and in split-second timing, she dived across the floor to retrieve her skean. Her fingers made contact, gripping the bright hilt hard, and she flipped from her stomach where she lay flat on the hard floor to spin in the air, legs cartwheeling over his head to land lightly just behind the drugged-fueled Nubes. Impossibly, his shrieks grew in volume, and he turned on her to tear her to pieces, eyes lit with blood rage.
Holding the skean in the manner Caleb had taught her as the vampire flew at her, hissing and screeching, filling the empty parking lot with his rapacious cries, she swept out her arm in a powerful arc and felt the sharp blade slice through flesh and bone.
The burly vampire collapsed to the floor, body twitching, momentarily causing grisly splattering across the nearby cars, and then lay still. His head was still attached to his body, but only just. Black blood dripped onto the concrete like slick oil, already forming a small puddle.
“Oh man, this is bad,” Aislinn muttered under her breath. “Vlad’s hairy ass and tits!”
