Immortal III: Stealer of Souls

By Valjeanne Jeffers

Including the stunning review, "Immortal III," by Charles R. Saunders!

“The old woman laughed out loud, unbuttoned her calico shift and let it fall to her ankles. Annabelle kicked free of it, and pulled the pins from her hair. Naked in the moonlight, she whispered his name... “

They thought it was over. The lycans, Joan, Consuela, José and Mark, fought to save Tundra. Now they sit on Topaz’s High Council where they’re feeding the hungry, tackling race riots, rebuilding their world. But a daemon walks the streets by night. He knows about the young woman with the chilling secret. He knows all about her mirror... and of the ancient evil that’s opened her eyes. A new war has just begun...

“Portrait of Annabelle” Cover art and design by Quinton Veal

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valjeanne Jeffers
• Release date: Sep 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301563500

Valjeanne Jeffers

Valjeanne Jeffers is a Spelman College graduate, a member of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective and the Horror Writers Association, and the author of nine books, including her Immortal and Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective series. She was been published in numerous anthologies including: Steamfunk!;The Ringing Ear; Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology; Liberated Muse I: How I Freed My Soul; Say it Loud; Drumvoices Revue; Possibilities and, most recently, Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler (winner of the Locus Award and nominated for Hugo Award); Fitting In; Sycorax’s Daughters (nominated for the Bram Stoker Award) and Black Magic Women. Visit her at: www.vjeffersandqveal.com

Book preview

IMMORTAL III: Stealer of Souls

by

Valjeanne Jeffers

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010, 2013 Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson all rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the permission of the author.

Contact Valjeanne Jeffers at: www.vjeffersandqveal.com

"Portrait of Annabelle" Cover art and design by Quinton Veal 2010 all rights reserved.

Excerpts from Immortal III: Stealer of Souls have been published in Pembroke Magazine Volume 39, 2008 and Genesis: An Anthology of Black Science Fiction 2010.

Other titles by Valjeanne Jeffers

Immortal

Immortal II: The Time of Legend

Immortal III: Stealer of Souls

The Switch II: Clockwork (includes The Switch I and II)

Immortal IV: Collision of Worlds

Colony: Ascension An Erotic Space Opera

Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective

(Short Fiction)

Grandmere’s Secret

The Visitor

The Outcasts

The Visitor

***

For my children Toussaint, Gabrielle, Mikail, Little Valjeanne, my grand-baby Logan

and my Man of Rivers, Quinton.

***

Immortal III

Charles R. Saunders

With Immortal III: Stealer of Souls, Author Valjeanne Jeffers picks up where she left off with the previous novels in her landmark series about a world that is like—and unlike— our own. The first volume, Immortal, introduced Topaz, a city on a utopian parallel Earth called Tundra, in which social and economic problems which plague our planet have been solved, but danger still looms. Immortal II: The Time of Legend goes back in time to the chaotic period that preceded the benign new age. Events in Immortal III shift among those two temporal periods, along with one that is earlier than both. Dire forebodings threaten the time lines.

Even though the color codes for the races in Tundra differ from those on Earth (i.e. Indigo equals Black, Fuchsia equals White, Amber equals Asian) racism is still a reality, especially during Tundra’s earlier times. Characters of different colors come into conflict—but they also cooperate, and fall in and out of love.

And these are truly fascinating characters. Partaking in equal measure from the tropes of science fiction, fantasy and horror, the major players of the Immortal series are for the most part young men and women who discover that they possess meta-human capabilities that include shape-changing as well as enhanced speed, strength, and durability.

The diverse heroes and heroines need these attributes, for their adversaries are immensely powerful, extra-dimensional entities that are part-deity, part-demon—and determined to alter the history of Tundra. These evil beings are opposed by counterparts that are somewhat angelic, minus the halos and wings. These good guys and women thwarted the design for destruction in Immortal and Immortal II. But when you’re immortal, you’re always up for a rematch.

In Immortal III, the demons are again attempting to disrupt the transition between The Time of Legend, and subsequent era of harmony—not to mention upsetting some apple-carts in utopia as well. Also, a new elements appears in the equation: Annabelle, an immortal whose origin predated The Time of Legend.

Annabelle is anomalous and enigmatic. She has many attributes of the vampire. . .Yet she may or may not be a traditional blood-drinker. Here is an example of her prowess:

Even before Eric’s eyes glazed over, she whirled to face the Indigo man, her tunic whipping about. Annabelle grabbed his throat, lifted him and threw him across the street, while his cronies looked on in amazement.

As he slammed into the lamp post there she leaped—airborne—and touched down to meet him swinging her foot in a roundhouse arc against his temple. His head whipped to the right and she heard a satisfying snap as his neck broke.

Behind her the gang members had regained their senses. Exchanging stunned glances, they pulled their tasers and pointed them at her back. Topaz could be a strange place, especially at night. This was the Time of Legend. Best not to dwell on it.

She jumped into the air—taser fire shattered the windows behind the lamp post where she’d stood only a moment ago—and landed in front of them. Laughing, she snatched the weapons from their hands and dropped them on the concrete.

Is Annabelle intrinsically selfish and diabolical—or not? Does she intend harm to her Time of Legends’ descendant/counterpart? Or is she exactly what the imperiled and confused young woman needs?

Most significantly, is Annabelle the wild card that will tip the balance one way or another in the struggle to determine the future of Tundra?

Immortal III does not provide all the answers to those questions. Another Immortal volume is coming. But the questions are in themselves compelling enough to keep the reader on edge. The transitions from one time period to another; from one dimension to another; from one mind to another, occur at a pace that is breakneck, but not disorienting. And for all the prevalence of the paranormal and the supernatural, the meta-human characters retain their basic humanity.

And therein, perhaps, lies the eventual salvation of Tundra’s utopia.

Immortal III maintains and enhances the high standards set in the preceding volumes of the series. I’m more than ready for the next one.

—Charles Saunders, 2011

***

On a ship of dreams glide past the moon at midnight,

to when time is meaningless and the walls of reality grow

and vanish in turn

Return to forever…

From: The Book of Legend

1/Laid Bare

Topaz 2175

Annabelle sat on her porch, watching them as they shuffled past: the weeping willows and bluish brown waters were a soothing backdrop to their passage. Shacks lined the main road, clusters of the little wooden houses were scattered behind it. To the left, sprawled Master’s hundred acres of farmland. To the right, for a half mile his serfdom continued.

Sharecroppers, ages twelve to fifty, trundled along the dusty road. Jet black, ginger, caramel brown, tofu and butter colored. The men wore patched shirts, and threadbare trousers. The women, calico dresses, their hair tied back with colorful scarves or threaded with string. Fifty years ago, their mamas and daddies had belonged to old Master, now long since in his grave.

Today, the law said they belonged to themselves. But young Master Tom, with his frigid blue eyes and corn silk hair, owned them—like his father before him. Just not in name.

Year after year they planted cane and cotton. They paid Tom rent to live in his shacks. They brought supplies in his grocery. Shoes. Bolts of cloth. Tools. So by the end of the year, they owed their wages to him and had to spend the next paying it off.

They belonged to Master still. Even if that proclamation did free the slaves.

The sharecroppers greeted her as they passed. Evening, Miss Annabelle, Lizzy, an ebony skinned girl of twelve, sang as she walked alongside her tired mother.

Evening, Lizzy… Mabel.

Evening, Miss Annabelle.

The old woman took a wooden pipe from the tin plate beside her and filled it with tobacco. She puffed serenely, watching their exodus as the setting illuminae painted the horizon violet and gold.

Annabelle was dark brown and thin to the point of emaciation, with a wide nose and thick lips. Her bony skull peeked through sparse gray hair, pinned into a bun at the nape of her neck. Her brown eyes were rheumy, her face heavily lined. She looked to be a hundred.

In truth, she was much older.

She’d earned her cabin, free monthly rations and tobacco, as a young woman working in the fields for old Master Henry. That was before she caught his eye, before he brought her into the big house as mammy to his son. Later, she became his lover.

Mistress Sarah always knew Henry had a taste for slave women. After a while, it seemed all he had a taste for was Annabelle.

The slave community had whispered about this. Sarah could be a real hell raiser when she took a mind to it. She’d been known to throw tantrums – that included throwing dishes at Henry—and often had his lovers whipped and sold in his absence.

Now her husband’s favorite concubine was mammy to her son? The quarter held its breath and waited for the fireworks.

But Sarah never raised a hand to Annabelle. And she kept her mouth shut.

So night after night, Henry visited Annabelle’s little shack often not emerging until the next morning. It seemed he couldn’t get enough of her black flesh. Until he was too old to do anything more than dream about it.

She smiled to herself. He never knew he was shortnin’ his own days. The old woman rose gingerly to her feet and hobbled inside to check on dinner.

Pushed against the right wall, was a featherbed. At the end of the bed was a mirror, as tall as she, with a carved, wooden frame: both gifts from Henry.

To the left, iron pots and pans hung from the wall. Underneath, a bucket was filled with dishes and beside it, one for drawing water. Across from the bed was a fireplace; a pot filled with mustard greens and salt pork hung over the glowing coals. Hoecake bread lay amongst the ashes.

Annabelle fished a plate out of the bucket, and walked over to the fireplace to fix a plate. Do it after dinner. After they eat.

***

Darkness had fallen and everyone was asleep except the bullfrogs and crickets. It was a weeknight, and any man, woman or child who had a mind to work tomorrow was in bed.

Except at Elmo’s juke joint, where the night crowd still lounged about—drinking and dancing to the low down Blues—folks brave enough or stupid enough to think that they could guzzle hooch for half the night, and work the next day.

The juke was the only thing in the vicinity that Master Tom didn’t own. It belonged to Elmo, a strapping quadroon. But he paid Master to let him stay in business and Tom, in turn, kept him supplied with corn liquor and beer.

Annabelle stepped out into the warm night air. Above her, clouds billowed past two swollen, orange globes.

Elmo’s joint was two miles down the road, and behind a thicket of trees next to the river. In the distance, beyond the churning waters she could see the lights of the juke. She could see inside too.

Johnny was six feet, two inches of lithe muscles: his skin the color of brown sugar, his hair black and curly; his teeth like rice. He’d been a ladies man before he married and nobody in the quarter could quite believe it when, out of the gaggle of women that surrounded him, he’d chosen Sadie, a timid, little thing with about as much sex appeal as one of the bullfrogs now serenading the lake.

Six months later, everybody knew why. Sadie was so happy to have him she let him do whatever he wanted. Johnny’s affairs with other women were so frequent, they’d become legendary and made his wife the object of pity.

Still Johnny always managed to put in a full day’s work, no matter what he did the night before. The quarter gossiped about this too. His drinking was sure to catch up to him one day—that or the women. It was sure to kill him.

Annabelle shuffled over to the tin and picked up her pipe. She sucked upon it and blew, all the while murmuring softly.

Smoke rose into the air, thickening into a fog. It spread quickly through the quarter and over the river’s churning waters.

To Elmo’s juke joint.

She chuckled. Now they’ll sleep. I ain’t got to worry ‘bout some nosy rascal stickin’ his nose in my business.

The old woman laughed out loud, unbuttoned her calico shift and let it fall to her ankles. Annabelle kicked free of it, and pulled the pins from her hair.

Naked in the moonlight, she whispered his name: Johnny…

Now, beyond the forest the faint sound of drums began, invisible hands beating upon skin. Their rhythms swirled around the trees, moving over the river...

In the juke, women and men drowsed with their heads resting upon tables or lying on the floor. Elmo had fallen asleep leaning against a wall. Resting at his feet was a young man with light skin and black hair curled against his scalp.

Suddenly, Johnny lifted his head. Without so much as a glance at his sleeping fellows, the youth got to his feet and stepped out into the fog. He followed the dirt path, his feet floating just above the earth, carried onward by the mist suffusing the night air.

Johnny walked in the midst of a dream.

He climbed the porch steps to meet her—a dark woman with a thick mass of unruly hair, taunt skin, full breasts and buttocks—and fell on his knees before her.

The drums grew louder.

Clasping her thighs, he rubbed his lips against them. Annabelle filled her hand with his curls and pulled Johnny up to face her. He did not resist. Still holding his head, she pressed her lips to his then wound her arms about his neck. Her lover cupped her buttocks and lifted her from the floor. She threw her head back, moaning low in her throat like a cat. Her teeth lengthened—grew pointed and she sank them into his neck. Johnny groaned with pleasure.

Annabelle lifted her mouth, and licked the bloody punctures with her tongue. As they vanished life filled her body: Minutes. Hours. Days. Teasing and satisfying. A cry, shocking in its intensity, forced its way past her lips—the pleasure so exquisite she was tempted to take more.

No… remember last time.

He carried her across the threshold to the soft featherbed.

Johnny was her favorite: a consummate lover who knew just how to please a woman, just where to touch her, just how to grind his narrow hips.

And he was a womanizer, a much right man, as the Indigo quarter described him—much right for one woman, as he was for the next and a hard drinker to boot. No one would be suspicious if he dropped dead at fifty, instead of seventy-five.

When she’d had her fill of him, Johnny stretched out on her mattress, his eyes half lidded, his face vacuous. Tomorrow, he’d relieve their night together as nothing more than a reverie.

But he can’t sleep here. Go home, she whispered.

Without a word her lover dressed and staggered home to his wife. He didn’t look back.

Annabelle sauntered out the back door to the water pump—naked as she was—to wash his seed from her body. She jerked the handle hard to get a clean flow, splashing water between her thighs.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him watching her.

2/Death

It was a boy child, who’d stepped outside to urinate. He paused in his task, staring at the naked woman with huge, unblinking eyes.

Come here, she commanded