DEATH IN THE BLOOD
BY
TONY-PAUL deVISSAGE
BLURB:
Who’s
killing the vampires of Albidon-7?
In 2392,
the Vampire Census and Treatment Bill
not only acknowledges that vampires exist but enables anyone under “hemoglobin
addiction” to be registered and supplied with the substance of his addiction
without reprimand or retribution. Then
the Bethel Bloodbath occurs in 2495, and vampires are considered too dangerous
to roam free. They’re contained in concentration camps on various worlds. When several inmates are destroyed by someone
injecting silver nitrate into their blood transfusions, Lieutenant Katherine
Dalia enlists vampire leader Christopher Landless to help her investigate.
Kit
wants nothing to do with a Breather but Katherine persists and soon they’re not
only involved in the crime but with each other.
Risking the loss of his vampire lover as well as the scorn of fellow
Undead as he embarks on a love affair with a mortal, Kit may discover who wants
imprisoned vampires dead but he’s also going to learn a shocking truth…old crimes never go unpunished.
What happens when a Highwayman
chooses the wrong person to rob?
EXCERPT:
Someone was moaning, a low hurt-animal whimpering. It was
several seconds before Kit realized the sound was coming from his own mouth. He opened his eyes, seeing...nothing...
Solid, blank, blackness.
Merciful God, I'm blind! He
needed to rub his eyes. His right hand… Something hampered the movement. What the Hell? He flexed his fingers,
thrust them out. They curled around a thick cylindrical shape. A bed post. His right wrist, as well as his left, was tied to a bed post. He tried to move his legs. They, too, had been bound.
By now, his eyes were becoming
accustomed to the dark. He could make
out a door. There was also the faint
frame of a window with moonlight filtering through an opening in heavy
curtains, large dark blocks that were furniture, the bed’s shadow-draped
canopy…and himself.
Naked.
What the devil’s going on? Naked and tied spread-eagle to a bed. In the dark. This has to be a dream, a nightmare. Aye, that’s it! And in a
little while, he’d awaken and find himself face down on one of the Coachman’s splinter-rough tables, having
once more swilled himself brainless on that bad ale the barkeep sold. With Nolly Jack and Ned and all the
others laughing at him.
He relaxed, waiting for the
dream to fade. Waiting to awaken.
It didn’t happen.
I’m awake. This is real. While
he was unconscious, someone had brought him to this place, stripped him, and
trussed him to the bed posts. Who did it?
Why?
In anger Kit jerked his right
hand, trying to wrench it free of the ropes, his struggles becoming more
furious as his bonds refused to yield. It
was only as he felt skin tear and sticky wetness trickle down one wrist that he
lay still again. He had to get free
but ripping his flesh apart wasn’t the way to do it.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” He
raised his head. When there was no
sound other than the dying echo of his own voice, he broke into movement again.
“Damn it, answer me!”
In fury, he broke into a flurry
of movement. That only served to rock the bed and abrade his wrists even more.
And then…
…the door opened. She came in. His intended victim.
The glow from the candle she
carried spread warmth upon her pale skin, shadowing her face with planes and
hollows. It highlighted the crimson night rail into a liquid softness, a dark
red river clinging to her breasts and flowing over hips and thighs. She glided rather than walked to the
bed, stopping to look down at Kit.
“So…my young thief, you’re
awake. How do you feel?” Her voice was low and beautiful now
that it wasn’t strident with fury.
“What kind of question is that?”
He didn’t try to hide his anger. “How do I feel? I feel like Hell!”
“I doubt that.” Her lips
quivered as if suppressing a smile. “Though you very well may before this night
is over.”
Death in the Blood will be available from Class
Act Books in August, 2013.
GUEST POST
Bring back the Old Time vamps!
No
sparkles…no sensitivity…no moaning and groaning (except in ecstacy) about his
immortality…
Vampires
should march proudly down the corridors of Time, loving every century of it.
If there
are rules, they should be the ones set down long ago by Bram Stoker:
avoid
sunlight,
no
garlic allowed,
easy on
the crosses and holy water,
keep
plenty of native soil around,
bring on
the virgins!
Christopher
Landless is my latest Undead creation and he follows the lead set by Damien
laCroix, Vlad Chemare, the Andriescus, and Karel Novotny. Oh, Kit has a bit
more conscience than his nosferatu
brethren. He still remembers what it was to be human, but when it gets right
down to the nitty and the gritty, he fights to save those like himself and not
humans. In spite of that, I believe I’ve managed to make him a “hero” readers
will like.
When I
wrote, Death in the Blood, I wanted to make it different. As I later
did with The Night Man Cometh, I started the story in the past and took
it into the future. Most vampire tales
stop when they get to the present even if the vampires continue to exist. Why?
If someone’s living forever, then prove it by looking ahead.
Kit’s
story stretches from 1794 to the year 2580. For a while, Man and Vampire
managed to live side-by-side peacefully, then a terrible event occurs making
humans decide vampires are too dangerous to be allowed to go free. They’re
imprisoned in concentration camps, on islands surrounded by moats of blessed
water.
It was a
challenge to fall back on the expected way of containing and fighting vampires
while transforming them into futuristic forms. Staying true to the original
genre while updating it to near-science fiction f was a definite test of
originality and writing skills. I hope,
I believe, I managed it adequately.
Tony-Paul
can be found at:
MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/505918625
Amazon
Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007BDHDZY
Twitter
@tpvissage
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