Prologue
August 14th, 2003 12:08 AM
Before he heard a knock at the door, Christian Brookwater had been sitting in his hotel room absently gazing out the window at a patch of clouds swirling around a half moon. He was stretching out on a love seat, his feet resting on a small ottoman. Two inches away from his crossed feet lay his favorite Bowie knife.
“Room service,” a voice that was trying, and failing miserably, to disguise itself as a human’s, called from behind the door.
He snatched up the Bowie knife in his left hand and shook his head in dismay. It upset him that faking a room service delivery was the best trap his would-be captors could come up with.
“It’s an insult to my fuckin’ intelligence,” he muttered as he stood up, closed the curtains in front of him and headed for the door.
On a rooftop a quarter of a mile away, the individuals who were spying on Christian were profoundly disturbed.
“We should have set up the guns first,” someone barked into a walkie-talkie.
But they hadn’t. The time they would spend setting up tripods would be all Christian needed to launch his offense.
Christian didn’t know about the would-be snipers across the way, but he did know that there were at least two vampires behind his hotel room door. He whirled the door open fast enough to startle them, then buried his Bowie knife deep into the abdomen of the one on his right.
The second vampire opened his mouth, hissed and thus revealed his extended fangs. Undaunted, Christian stepped forward and headbutted the second attacker, but held on to the knife hilt that jutted out of the first.
Before either of the two vampires could recover, Christian pulled them both into the room and kicked the door closed. Then he flipped the second assailant over his shoulder and slammed him hard on the floor.
Turning on his first victim, Christian let his own fangs extend, turned his head sideways and leaned in. When Christian pulled his head back the first vampire’s larynx was torn away. Blood spurted everywhere and Christian found himself swallowing some, even as he spit out the removed chunk of bone and flesh.
“Uggh,” Christian cried, as he realized he had also managed to get spinal fluid in his mouth.
As the first vampire collapsed, Christian jumped at the second, who was trying to scramble to his feet.
“I didn’t call for room service,” Christian said as he kicked the unnamed vampire in the ribs, and then pinned him to the floor on his stomach by planting a knee in his back. As Christian spoke, his voice filled with unearthly resonance- a gift most vampires have.
“If you move or resist me in any way,