Re: Vamp

By Heather Mar-Gerrison

“Harry, HARRY!” George hammered on the front door. “Oh, God, please don’t let me be too late...”
George has a tough job. His girlfriend is half-vampire and his best friend is the new trainee Vampire Slayer...and they are trapped in the basement together - will he be able to save her life and save his friendship with Harry all at the same time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heather Mar-Gerrison
• Release date: Oct 16, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452354569

Heather Mar-Gerrison

I love to write M/M romance and as a sucker for a HEA, you're guaranteed one in my books. #happyheatherafters

Book preview

Prologue

25th October 1993

The young man turned up his collar against the biting wind; the first sign of the storm to come.

Feeling satisfied that Ruth would now be safe – after all there was nothing to link her to him now – he hunched his shoulders against the rain and wind that was threatening to penetrate straight through his thin jacket, put his head down and walked purposefully towards the main road that led down to the train station in the town centre. The young man’s name was Felipe Garcia.

Feeling certain that the Vampire Slayer could not punish Ruth for her relationship with him if he didn’t find them together; Felipe was concentrating hard, trying to make certain in his mind that he had erased all traces of his existence around Ruth, and therefore didn’t notice the young, blonde male, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen, walking in the opposite direction, followed closely by his young female companion.

Satisfied that he had indeed covered everything, Felipe tried to ignore the fact this his heart was breaking at leaving his one true love behind and set off to find the vampire Elders to ask for his mortality to be reinstated....

*

15 years later

Dear Vampire Slayer/Teacher,

A new Vampire Slayer has been born. His name will be given to you in due course. He has been despatched to Heron Cove. You will inform him of his duty in 2010. We will contact you further at that time. As soon as he is trained in combat, your duties will be relinquished and you may continue your life in peace.

Yours sincerely

Kevin Lake

Chief Slayer

Vaughan Gould screwed up the piece of paper and tossed it into the fire. Sat in his study, he watched it burn with mixed feelings – elation that he could finally see an end to the seemingly endless vampire slayings; sadness that some other poor sucker was to take up the slack. He couldn’t deny it, he had been excited at the prospect all those years ago, when, at seventeen, he had received his first letter from the Chief. But now, Vaughan was tired. Tired of living a lie and tired of being a Vampire Slayer. He just wanted to live his life like every other young man...

And at thirty-three, he was fast becoming the only bachelor left out of his ever-dwindling circle of friends. Of course, it wasn’t easy making friends as a Vampire Slayer – one had to be so secretive. He was sick of all the stupid excuses he had to make up when he received a new call from the Chief and had to leave on a moment’s notice. His last girlfriend had been a beautiful and intelligent woman – a real catch – but she, like all the rest, had gotten suspicious of his secretiveness and fed up of his excuses. Eventually assuming he had another woman (chance would be a fine thing) she had confronted him about his behaviour and in being unable to come up with a decent reason for being away for so long, she had dumped him.

He laughed bitterly as he thought; first, about her and then about what his friends all assumed he did for a living. A top business man? Ha! If only…

He looked around him at his modest lifestyle; he most certainly didn’t live like a king the way he thought he would when he had embarked on this whim – and what about the fame and the money he had expected? Well, not of it had ever materialised. All he knew was slaying vampires. He was more of a failure than he ever would have been, becoming a teacher…

Being a Vampire Slayer really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He had always had to have a second job and now he was being forced to move again, just when he had made his home comfortable, too. No one would miss him. He hadn’t been able to get close enough to any of his acquaintances for that. And he had to go back to Heron Cove, to train up some poor kid. He would be given the boy’s name in due course. Ironically, he was finally to become the teacher he never wanted to be...

Vaughan was grateful for one thing. The new Vampire Slayer was at least a young man and not a girl. He didn’t think he could stand having to put up with some teenage girl having hysterics over killing innocent vampire boys. That was the trouble with these vampires. They were always too bloody good-looking, he thought with a scowl. They were designed to be, of course. How else were they supposed to suck in the poor humans? Lulling them into a false sense of security before they were either sucked dry – or worse – converted... Vaughan knew quite a lot about vampires. He knew that they didn’t always kill their human lovers. Ruth Johnson was proof of that – and he wasn’t completely heartless, but his hatred of vampires was deep-rooted. All because of Felipe Garcia…

All of Vaughan’s hatred stemmed back to his youth, when he was given his first target. It should have been easy. It wasn’t. He had failed but worse than that – he had fallen for the vampire’s ex-lover. Ruth Johnson. Thinking about her again reminded him of Felipe and his hands balled up into fists as they did every single time… How the hell had he escaped? He let out a frustrated sigh. Let’s face it, he thought, I could have been in the same room as Felipe when he was saying his goodbyes to Ruth and if a Protector had been there, I wouldn’t have known.... The One That Got Away. He grimaced.

Vaughan had been unprepared back then. He had never made the same mistake again though; he had since learned a lot about Protectors. He now knew for instance, that one must have been around that night. The question now of course was this – would there still be one hanging around Heron Cove?

He sighed. He didn’t know all of the answers, after all. He had stopped beating himself up about his first failure a long time ago, but hell, if Felipe Garcia ever turned up again... Well, he most certainly wouldn’t fail a second time.

He wondered fleetingly whatever had happened to Ruth. She was a beautiful young woman. He wouldn’t have minded asking her out himself – if she hadn’t been pregnant with a blood-sucker. He shuddered. Heron Cove... He wondered if she was still there. If she had ever given birth to the vampire’s child... If indeed she had survived at all...

He remembered the first time he had set eyes on her... back in the autumn of 1993.

*

Summer 1993

Vaughan Gould was a particularly good-looking young man, with sandy blonde hair and startling blue eyes. He was seventeen and was halfway through his A Levels at college, but recently he had become increasingly dissatisfied with his life and bored with the whole college scene. He felt certain there was more to life than this…

His chosen subjects no longer held any interest for him somehow; Sociology, English and P.E. He had taken them with the idea of becoming a primary school teacher – something that had seemed like a really good idea at the time, driven mainly by the sheer number of holidays that teacher’s seemed to get...

Vaughan wasn’t a particularly popular young man; he was naturally shy and only had a handful of friends. He had never really had a serious girlfriend and was generally quite awkward around people of his own age.

On this particular morning, Vaughan was on his way out of the house – late, as usual, when he received his very first instruction. Like every other new Vampire Slayer before him, Vaughan had assumed it was an elaborate joke being played on him by his friends. A couple of points, however, made him question his assumptions. For one, he had always thought deep down that he was just a little bit different – a bit special – and two, none of his friends had that much imagination… He read the letter and laughed.

Dear Trainee Vampire Slayer

Congratulations! You have been chosen to serve the greater community to rid the world of vile, stinking vampires.

Your Teacher will introduce himself to you in due course.

In the meantime, it may be a good idea to familiarise yourself with vampire activity.

Yours sincerely

Kevin Lake

Chief Slayer

Vaughan’s first instinct had been to throw the letter straight in the bin. A Vampire Slayer? Yeah, right! What on earth had vampire slaying got to do with him, for Pete’s sake? Against his better instincts though, the idea began to get to him. What if it was true? What if he really had been chosen? What if he ended up really famous for it? The power – the money…

Being essentially lazy, and with ideas far above his station, Vaughan had started to hope it was true. When the Teacher finally arrived to teach Vaughan the basics, he was positively ecstatic.

Vaughan went through weeks of intensive training in combat. Vampires, he quickly learned, were tricky customers. For a start they were incredibly powerful (even the small ones). Second, they were almost indestructible and lastly, they didn’t bleed. Their skin repelled most bullets and most types of knives. However, he was pleased to note that they could be killed with silver