Day of Execution
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Day of Execution
Paranormal Detectives Series Book Seven
Lily Luchesi
Vamptasy Publishing
Contents
Also by Lily Luchesi
Praise for Lily Luchesi
Foreword
Playlist
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
To be continued
About the Author
This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
©Text Copyright 2019 Lily Luchesi
Cover By Rue Volley
Edited By Elizabeth A. Lance
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.
Also by Lily Luchesi
The Paranormal Detectives Series:
Stake-Out
Miranda’s Rights
Life Sentence
Right To Silence
Last Rites
Never Again (standalone spin-off)
Skin Deep
Day of Execution
Paroled From Heaven (June 6th, 2019)
The Coven Series:
The Coven Princess
The Coven Heir
The Coven Rescue
The Coven History (August 2019)
The Coven Queen (November 2019)
The Coven Monster (TBA, 2020)
The Devil’s Kin Trilogy:
Coming 2020
Standalones:
A Bloody Legacy (18+)
The Hunger Within (18+)
Soul Syndicate (written with Faith Marlow)
Bad Reputation
Bloodspell (18+)
Anthologies:
Damsels Of Distress
Mavens of Magic (July 19th, 2019)
Naughty Bedtime Stories: In Three Words (18+)
Naughty Bedtime Stories: Four You (18+)
Death Love Lust (18+)
Lurking In The Shadows
Beautiful Nightmares
Another Beautiful Nightmare
Lurking In The Mind
Weirdbook Magazine #35
Black Magic
Demons, Devils, Denizens of Hell
Praise for Lily Luchesi
Lily Luchesi’s Paranormal Detectives Series has it all; action, mystery, mayhem, heart and a compelling cast. Each book is entertaining and emotional, filled with a delicious blend of darkness, sass and salvation. - The Adventures of SacaKat
Pure sexy action adventure. If you like your heroine's sassy, sexy, and tough and your stories packed with hard hitting, badass action, then The Paranormal Detective series is just what you’re looking for. An exciting ride that gets better with each new book. - reader Danetta Sutton
Absolute HORROR. Heart wrenching ROMANCE. Gritty ACTION. The Paranormal Detectives series has it all. Fall into a world with deadly creatures, complex characters, and a kickass heroine who isn’t afraid to bare her fangs! You’ll flinch, you’ll cry, and your heart will swell with unimaginable emotion with every passing installment. Luchesi sure knows how to pack a punch and ignite an addiction for a tale that explores the thin line that exists between honoring one’s humanity and resisting the urge to give into a monstrous heritage. - Knightingale Reviews
The Paranormal Detectives Series is a gripping, real, and action-packed paranormal ride that will keep you coming back for more! - Charity Rowell at On My Kindle Book Reviews
Forget Underworld and Twilight, this is the modern day vampire series that you're craving!
Luchesi perfectly constructs a world where vampires and other beings exist among us, it's True Blood meets Supernatural and you won't be able to put this series down! - A. Giacomi, Authoress of The Zombie Girl Saga
The Paranormal Detective Series by Lily Luchesi blew me away. Every time I thought I had a scene figured out, she threw me a curve ball. Lily left no paranormal stone unturned. The amount of research and pure literary genius that went into these books is insane. I laughed, I held my breath and at times of frustration, I almost cried. But throughout the read, I found it hard to put the books down. I highly recommend this series to all lovers of paranormal literature. - TL Travis, author of The Sebastian Chronicles
Foreword
“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”— George Bernard Shaw
Playlist
As always, music helped my journey to getting this book to completion. Angelica and Danny’s story is dark and tumultuous, and I think that the songs I listened to almost on repeat, over and over, capture the vibe of the book perfectly.
“Hell” by Disturbed
“Going Under” by Evanescence
“Perfect” by Ed Sheeran
“Awake and Alive” by Skillet
“Demon Speeding” by Rob Zombie
“Just Like You” by Three Days Grace
“I’m So Sick” by Flyleaf
“Redeemer” by Jonathan Davis
“All Nightmare Long” by Metallica
“The Vengeful One” by Disturbed
“Collide” by Skillet
“Diamond Eyes” by Shinedown
“Leave Out All The Rest” by Linkin Park
“Desert Song” by My Chemical Romance
Prologue
Chicago, Illinois
January, 2111
University of Chicago
Thirty-year-old Daniel Castorini sat in the bedroom of his off-campus apartment, a worn, blood-stained composition notebook in front of him with a pen. Since Christmas, he had been delving deeper and deeper into automatic writing, using his psychic abilities to strengthen the conversations’ length and clarity. He’d been conversing with a spirit who claimed to be called “the Lieutenant”, and the spirit had been saying some vaguely troubling and confusing things.
Daniel wasn’t just a psychic, he was also the only living descendant of the vampire Emperor, Danny Mancini — his great-grandfather. Daniel was, for all intents and purposes, human, with just a drop of vampire blood in his veins.
The psychic abilities he had also inherited from Danny, when Danny had been human. He wasn’t as talented as Danny had been, but he was getting there. The conversations with the Lieutenant had allowed him to realize that he had a lot more potential than Danny had told him.
“We cannot speak like this much longer,” the pen wrote in an old-fashioned, calligraphy script. “It drains me from where I am.”
“And where, exactly, are you?” Daniel wrote.
“That is nothing with which you need to concern yourself,” the pen wrote. “But I am trapped on another plane, and my energy flags. We must speak another way.”
He always spoke in that manner; Daniel had to wonder how old he was. It was as if he was from another time period, one that the history books told of.
“How?” Daniel asked. “Can’t you tell me?”
“I can show you. There’s a book in your great-grandfather’s apartment. It’s his wife’s. The Equinox, by Aleister Crowley. Hidden inside are spe
lls to make contact clearer. Obtain it and then we can discuss my little problem further … and fulfill the prophecy.”
The new Lieutenant of Hell sat back in his chair, eyes closed for a moment to center himself. Controlling that pen from Hell took far too much out of his spirit, and he hoped that the silly boy had heeded his advice and would go get that book.
He glanced over at the human body he’d had a demon bring him, whose blood he had used to write his notes to Daniel. Her head lolled back, eyes rolled up so he could see the whites, but she hadn’t lost much blood. The Lieutenant had connected an IV to her vein, so that only the amount of blood needed would be used to write in the attached pen, so that her blood wouldn’t be wasted. She had fainted out of fear.
Despite the blood sacrifice, reaching the Earthly plane through a medium like paper was tiresome, and he feared he’d need too much time to recuperate if they continued speaking in such a manner for much longer.
He’d kept an eye on the young human since he had been a child, once his great-grandfather had turned into a vampire and thus became the Emperor. It had taken a while to get in contact with the boy, but when he’d seen that the roommate was going to try automatic writing, he knew he had found his in, and just in time, too.
He knew Angelica Cross had the original Equinox. Not the one you could buy on the Internet for thirty dollars, but the one that had his secret spells before they had been redacted from the original manuscript. The spells that Crowley had used to open up the portals to Hell and weaken the wards that kept them shut. Like the one beneath the PID building.
He opened his eyes again and moved the paper he was using to write on aside, revealing the scrap of skin parchment onto which Profeta Firenze had prophesied the coming of the new Vampiric Empire. Of Angelica’s reawakening of the ancient rulers.
But here was the thing about prophecies that few people knew: rarely were they onetime deals. Often there were loopholes, and this one had a rather large one. One large enough so that he could get his revenge on the ones who sent him to Hell in the first place.
All he needed was Daniel Castorini’s compliance and trust.
1
Danny was walking through the PID offices, but it wasn’t the PID he knew. Not anymore. Corpses were strewn across the floor, all people he recognized, most of them humans. He went to touch one, an older man with white hair, to see if by chance he was still alive, but he couldn’t. It was then he knew what was happening: he was having a vision.
But how? When he turned into a vampire, he had knowingly given up his psychic powers and hadn’t had a vision for over twenty years now. Despite his uneasiness, it was like riding a bike as the vision unfolded. He simply followed it to see it to fruition, knowing that he had no control over it now.
It was vivid, much more vivid than his visions used to be, which was saying something. The smell of blood was everywhere, but there was something wrong with it. It was sour, and made him cover his nose and mouth with his jacket so he wouldn’t gag. He’d never smelled it before, but when he saw the needles on a table filled with red liquid so dark it looked black, he knew: it was dead man’s blood.
Deadlier than garlic and more lethal than holy water to a vampire, dead man’s blood could kill a vamp nearly instantly. It had to be from a corpse that was dead for at least twenty-four hours, and the older the blood, the quicker the death of the vampire. Angelica had been testing out a new weapon which fired arrows filled with dead man’s blood and holy water, to better fight against any other possible Undead defectors.
He gave the table with the needles a wide berth, walking further down the hall to the training room. He wanted to stop, to turn and run, at least to wake up. But like any good nightmare, vision of the future or not, he could only keep walking at a steady but slow pace.
He could hear screaming and crying from the other side of the training room door, and his stomach rolled when he realized it was Angelica he heard crying. It didn't sound like she was in pain, exactly. She sounded angry and desperate and … sad?
He pushed open the door with a shaking hand and saw a bloody corpse pinned to a pile of workout mats, eyes wide in horror. He had no idea who the man was: he was in his sixties with greying hair and wide, hazel eyes. He’d been killed via vampire bite.
Danny turned the corner around the pile of workout mats the corpse lay on and saw another body, this one so far into decomposition that it was unrecognizable save for the fact that it wore male clothing. Angelica sat before it, blood leaking from her eyes, nose, and mouth as she sobbed.
Before his eyes he watched as his wife, the woman he loved, began to deteriorate and decay, turning into a skeletal corpse just like the one on the floor.
He tried to call out to her, to run to her, but he was still and silent.
From behind him, a voice slithered into his ear. He usually couldn’t hear voices clearly in his visions, they sounded like they were underwater. However, this one was as clear as a bell, and damn familiar, though he couldn’t place it.
“The time for revenge is upon us, Detective. Are you ready to see your world crumble before your eyes?”
Danny gasped as he tried to sit up, only to whack his head on the coffin lid. “Ow. Fuck!” He slammed the lid open, and was accosted by the weak lighting in the bedroom he shared with his wife.
Angelica yelped with surprise when the lid popped like it did. “You bastard, you startled me! What’s the matter with you? … Did you hit your head?”
Danny nodded, still uneasy from the dream or vision or whatever it was. “Yeah … it’s no big deal.” He needed to do research and see if he could figure out what had just happened to him before he bothered her with the gory details.
She bent over and kissed the wound that was already healing on his forehead and said, “Your phone’s buzzing. I’m going to grab a shower. Sean and I want to give another test run for the compound bows. They keep not releasing the liquid properly and we’re stumped.”
Danny nodded absently as he climbed out of the coffin and stretched. Usually he slept like, well, like the dead and felt perfectly fine when he awoke. Tonight was a different story as every muscle ached from stress. He definitely did not miss getting visions regularly. He had forgotten how much havoc they wreaked on his body.
That voice … he knew that voice. Who had spoken to him?
Tapping his phone’s screen, he saw a text from Daniel.
“Hey, Pops, up for company? I needed to ask Angelica something.” He ended it with a winky emoji.
“Angie, Daniel wants to stop in,” he called into the bathroom.
“He has to make it quick,” she called back, putting on an old CD as she finished getting ready, her sweet, melodic voice overpowering the singer on the record. He hadn’t heard her sing since their first mission together, when she’d used her singing skills to glamour a club in search for her father, Vincent. Her voice was lovely.
Danny texted him back, smiling softly despite his discomfort. This felt so right. So domestic. He and his wife hosting relatives for a visit, in the city where he was born and where his wife had lived for centuries. It was all he ever wished for when he was a young man … if you ignored the fact that he and his wife were the vampire Emperor and Empress.
“I still don’t like the way you look,” Angelica commented as Danny was getting dressed. “You look like you could use some of this.” She waved her concealer at him. Not that she needed it. “You’d tell me if you were unwell, right? You wouldn’t let me sit here and worry unnecessarily?”
“I’m not sick, no,” Danny said. “Look … there’s something, but it might be nothing. I have some reading to do. Trust me, baby, I’d never keep a secret that could possibly hurt us in any way. Promise.”
She just gave him a look and said, “If you’re lying, it’s on your head.”
“Don’t trust me?”
“I trust you, but you’re also a stubborn bastard when you want to be.”
The doorbell rang, getting Danny o
ut of that conversation and he went to answer it. It was still weird seeing Daniel, the little boy he’d left at eight, now a grown man and looking so eerily like him when he was thirty.
He did like having the last remnant of his blood family with him, however. The Mancini family was always small, having moved around Italy and then to America to avoid their vampiric lineage. His mother’s side, who had come from Spain, was numerous, but even they had died out as Danny had lived longer and longer. Daniel was all he had that was blood.
“Hey, kid,” Danny said, giving him a hug. It was something he was adamant about, when the first descendant who was male was born to his family. He didn’t want the boy to be afraid to show emotion, to hug, and be a generally kind person. It was nice to see those lessons in empathy had lasted.
“What’s up, Pops?” Daniel greeted, shucking his snow-covered boots at the door. “You look like shit.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Great, now there’s two of you talking about how bad I look.”
Angelica was in the living room, looking at the blueprints for the compound bow that she’d brought home from work the previous day.
“Hey, Daniel,” she said without looking up. “How’s your new semester?” Daniel was in postgraduate school, studying to become a psychologist.