The Vampire President and the Headmistress

By Arwen Jayne

Can the new vampire president of the remote and secretive Republic of Translavia be trusted? That is the question Adelaide must answer. The enemy is watching. Already messing with the new regime they will do anything to bring it down including killing anyone who stands in their way.

Long ago a highly intelligent, science and music loving race of sentient beings was forced to flee their galaxy. The enemy found their refuge and destroyed it, forcing the survivors underground where they evolved into something else, a creature of legend. A few rebels went further. They came to Earth. Now Adelaide must meet them and decide whether to they should be invited to join the sentient beings who are allied against their old foe.

Adelaide must use all the skills her new immortality has gifted her to tread a delicate diplomatic path. Diplomacy is the least of the challenges she faces. An ancient manuscript, assassination attempts and two males vying for her attention are just the start. Zak is an immortal vampire and Colonial Andrei Lupei his friend, feeder and bodyguard. But even Andrei is more than he seems. Together they must save Translavia from the enemy while solving an ancient mystery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arwen Jayne
• Release date: Oct 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310142987

Arwen Jayne

My passion is writing paranormal fantasy romance with a metaphysical twist. When I'm not writing I'm either reading other people's romance and erotica novels, gardening or learning about the myriad of things that interest me: meditation, brain change, metaphysics, linguistics, genetics, myths, magic and the odd bit of science and engineering.

Book preview

Left Hand Adventures Book 6

Arwen Jayne

Copyright © 2015 Arwen Jayne

Smashwords edition

All rights reserved

While reference has been made to some actual historical events or persons and some real locations all other names, characters and places are fictional; the product of the author's over imaginative mind. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses or places is purely coincidental.

Disclaimer

This book contains sexually explicit scenes and language that may offend. The author is not responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of information contained in this title.

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of my friends, my partner and my family. Thanks go to my wonderful editor Jen for her volunteering her precious time, for all the guidance and suggestions and for spurring me on to build my style. To my partner for his never ending patience, encouragement and advice on everything from book covers. A special thanks to all who have read my other books and have encouraged me to continue the series. That you have read and enjoyed the books means more than I can say.

Authors note

This was only ever meant to be a short story, a bit of a light hearted venture into the vampire genre while I got ready to write Phoenix and Trian’s book. As they say, best laid plans… this story grew into a key piece of the series. Phoenix and Trian’s tale will still be up next, as planned, but in the meantime I’m sneaking this one in as book as number 6. I look forward to your feedback and trust you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Table of contents

The Vampire President and the Headmistress

Left Hand Adventures Book 6

Disclaimer

Acknowledgements

Authors note

Table of contents

Chapter 1: The envoy

Chapter 2: Welcome to Zarpattia

Chapter 3: Mr President

Chapter 4: The prophecy

Chapter 5: Hidden dangers

Chapter 6: Consequences

Chapter 7: Security?

Chapter 8: The midday nap

Chapter 9: We’re ok

Chapter 10: The ring

Chapter 11: Refuge in Boswell

Chapter 12: Allies

Chapter 13: R ‘n’ R

Chapter 14: Returning to Carpathia

Chapter 15: The odyssey

Chapter 16: Back in Zarpattia

Chapter 17: On a clifftop ridge in the Bucegi mountains...

Chapter 18: At the entrance to Zalmoxis’s cave...

Chapter 19: Snow in Boswell

Chapter 20: Friends and plans

Chapter 21: Dream walking

Chapter 22: In the conference room of Sauros Enterprises

Chapter 23: The wedding

Chapter 24: Reception

References

Encyclopedia of Malakim, Human and other sentient interaction

Who’s who

The sentient species on the planet:

The spiritual paths of the Malakim:

The technology:

For more about the author and her books visit:

Books by the author:

Chapter 1: The envoy

Adelaide Maddison snuggled back into her first class, plush leather upholstered aircraft seat and gave a happy sigh as she picked up her Lonely Earth Travel Guide to Translavia and returned to reading.

Etiquette

It is rude to call one of the Translavian elite a vampire to their face. They prefer the term digestively challenged or DC.

Yeah, right! Get real! Talk about political correctness gone mad. But Adelaide guessed that if she was going to represent both Boswell and the growing alliance of sentient species on the planet she might need to be mindful of the local elite’s sensitivities. She was starting to have a sneaking feeling, almost a foreboding, that the inhabitants of the remote and secluded Republic of Translavia were going to be somewhat different to the myths that surrounded them. She’d long fantasized about the mythical version but would the reality measure up or would she be disappointed?

Her long time friend Simon had described the ruling family as being not as bad as the worst of the legends but certainly not as lily white as the latest romance novels would paint them either. What did that mean? She would have liked a mindshare insight from Simon’s brain but he rarely shared his mind directly with others for fear of overwhelming them. He was over 100,000 years old and it was a bit tricky to restrict a memory download to just one tiny snapshot of time. Adelaide wasn’t entirely convinced of that excuse and he knew it. I want you to make up your own mind about them, he’d finally told her. So that was the end of the matter but it hadn’t stopped her asking the Translavian embassy to send her a copy of their travel guide when they sent her a rarely granted visa.

Since no foreign airlines were allowed to enter their closely guarded airspace they had sent the President’s own jet to transport her. And wasn’t it something? She’d just returned from the not so modest bathroom. Pure gold towel rails, a toilet seat of the finest polished mahogany and toilet paper of unimaginable softness. From the moment you entered the bathroom soft lilting instrumental music played and a television screen cleverly mounted to the back of the door gave you a bird’s eye view of whatever country you were currently flying over. A hi-res camera under the fuselage or a satellite feed she wondered?

First class, where her personally assigned stewards had invited her to sit, was in another league all its own. The pile on the carpet alone was ankle deep. Upon boarding she had been asked to remove her shoes and then been treated to having her feet washed and massaged by one of the stewards. An embarrassingly enjoyable experience. It had taken all her nerves of steel not to reveal quite how much pleasure it gave her. It hadn’t helped that the steward administering the massage had been damned handsome. They all were. They must have had to pass some kind of gorgeous hunk rating to get a job on the plane. And this from a country that worried about the political correctness of how they referred to their elite?

So much to wonder at. Travelling to Translavia was almost like travelling to another planet. And yet they subscribed to a number of international treaties and seemed happy to be good global citizens as long as the rest of the planet left them well and truly alone. An insular society, neither migrants nor black ops infiltrators were welcome. Only a small number of carefully background checked tourists were allowed to backpack into the territory in any one year. The Translavians did seem to know of Simon though, who was respected by them and honored for being the son of the Earth Goddess Ma. Many Translavians adhered to Rodnovery, the native faith. Like most pagans they adored the earth, holding the life of the planet to be sacred. It was a fact that would stand her in good stead when she put her proposal to them.

Yet with all that, there had been recent atrocities. Boswell’s own lawyer worked in the international law courts and had, not long ago, prosecuted a case that had led to the last president of Translavia being convicted of ethnic cleansing. She’d quizzed Lewis about it and had been both surprised and horrified that it had been all about who ate garlic and who didn’t.

The last president had ‘accidentally’ fed on a garlic eater and ended up with the most frightful allergic reaction. After spending several days with diarrhea, vomiting and a severe case of hives he’d gone on a rampage, trying to purge his population of all garlic eaters. An international peacekeeping force had finally forced their way into the country and arrested him. After a lengthy hearing he’d been convicted. Given a choice of executions he’d chosen the honourable way out, by his country’s standards. He’d been shackled and laid out over an upward pointing stake, positioned beneath his heart. It was intended as a slow and agonizing death as gravity fought against the prisoner’s ability to prop himself up. Adelaide shivered. It was a cruel and unusual punishment. How was that honourable? Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you viewed the matter, the guards overseeing the execution had grown bored and used their combined weight on top of the prisoner to give gravity an assist. Then they’d vacuumed up the resulting pile of grey dust. It was placed in an ornate urn of pure gold that was duly presented back to the Translavian government.

The new president was by all accounts an improvement on his predecessor but he was still a vampire. Only members of the vampire elite could be elected to the high office of the country. There was about as much choice in that as picking between oligarch billionaires, as happened in some other ‘democracies’ she knew of. She’d make up her own mind about him when she met him. Zakar son of Bog. Adelaide grinned at the surname. Who’d want a swamp as a surname? But her guidebook explained that Bog was Carpathian for God. Not half on yourselves are you? So they viewed themselves as divine did they? She wondered if there was something in their history that would explain that. She flipped through the pages of the guide book until she found a section on the history of the ‘digestively challenged’ inhabitants.

In the beginning all was well on the world earthlings call Mars but we call Nova Lyra. The planet had a cool, temperate climate. The polar regions were vast with lakes, rivers and forests abounding around the habitable equator. Everything still froze at night but the local vegetation had an inbuilt antifreeze. Life was good for the refugees of Lyra who had settled there and on the neighbouring planetoid. The smaller planet some now often referred to as Maldek or Phaeton but the Lyreans called it Sanctuary. Driven out of their own galaxy by the demonic, greed driven Draconans the Lyreans had set out across the universe, seeking havens away from their arch enemy. They’d chosen the colder planets, fourth and fifth from the sun, as they had determined that the third planet was already inhabited by several groups of sentient beings.

Over time the cultures of Nova Lyra and Sanctuary diverged. Sanctuary was much like modern day Iceland with the Lyreans settled around thermal oases that were heated by the hot magma core of the planet. They built extensive greenhouses for growing their purple-black algal food which became their staple. Their diet probably contributed to them becoming psychic as it was rich in antioxidant chemicals which stimulated the pineal gland. They told tales of ethereal beings who tended their algae and who became their allies. They were gifted in the arts of working stone and metal. They were also quite musical and poetic, inclined to rhyming verse as easily as most people make conversation. The Sancturans came to be dominated by an independent-minded female warrior-like elite while Nova Lyra became mostly male dominated. It was not that the women on Nova Lyra were hard done by. The males loved and adored them but were highly protective of them.

The relationship between the two planets remained mostly cordial but at other times it was decidedly prickly. The governments of both planets suspected each other of stirring up unrest on each other’s planet. In truth it was Draconan infiltrators trying to divide and conquer this solar system. In the end the Draconans got sick and tired of not being able to trigger a war. Wanting the two Lyrean cultures out of the way so that they could proceed with a planned invasion of the less technologically advanced third planet, to plunder its plentiful mineral resources, they diverted a comet and sent it barrelling into this solar system.

Scientists warned the respective governments. We had a few years before the comet would reach us. The Sancturans chose to evacuate to the primitive but livable earth, settling into the Western reaches of the continent of Europa. The Nova Lyreans, knowing the comet’s trajectory would take it directly to Sanctuary and thinking themselves relatively safe, opted to evacuate underground. They already had vast, self sustaining underground cities where they sheltered each night and in the winter months. They thought they were well situated to wait out the impending cataclysm. What they had grossly underestimated was that the extent of the disaster that would befall them. The comet hit Sanctuary destroying it utterly, as had been expected. The current asteroid field is all that is left of it. A million pieces of Sanctuary rained down on both Earth and Nova Lyra. Satellites were destroyed as well as the wormhole bridge we used to travel in and out of the solar system. In our underground cities we were rocked. Cave-ins destroyed most of our cities, killing many. Much of Nova Lyra’s atmosphere was ripped away. Radiation from the nuclear fallout from the bomb that was embedded in the so called comet contaminated the surface. Widespread system failures slowly spelt the demise of many. Yet in a few cities we survived, for a while.

Over time the living conditions changed us. No longer able to visit the surface to see the sun our skin ceased producing protective pigments. We took supplements to provide the vitamins D and K we needed to keep our bone structure from disintegrating. What animals that had survived were precious to us. We fed them on the fungi which we managed to grow underground. With no other vegetation we were forced to also eat the fungi or eat the animals we were trying to save for a hoped for future restoration of the surface. The fungi wasn’t enough for our nutritional needs and we were starting to suffer from malnutrition. Being almost immortal and facing the reality of an inadequate food supply our population was on the verge of panic. It was then that one bright individual suggested we start to feed off the blood of the animals. We wouldn’t have to kill them to do that, just ‘milk’ them.

By then we had become aware of the damage to the surface. Below ground we were having to adjust to shrinking oxygen levels. Our geneticists determined we would do better if we had blood that used elements other than iron to more efficiently carry oxygen. They experimented, there being no shortage of desperate volunteers. Using retroviruses to insert new DNA they changed the blood chemistry of the volunteers. The oxygen carrying cells still carried iron but they could also carry other metals like copper, cobalt and vanadium. These were the very elements that were common in the fungi our animals ate. It was the perfect food chain.

As we began to thrive a new problem arose. Our population increased. Our underground cities had never been designed for that much expansion and we lacked the resources to build the ones that had been destroyed. As the refugee society grew more and more overcrowded animals began to die from being fed on too much. Violence and crime increased. Radiation from the surface started leaking into our underground water systems. A few, disenchanted with the governing committee’s decision making and failure to regulate the population, decided to escape to Earth. We took the only space ship that had survived the cataclysm and flew it here. The problem was the ship had been damaged by micrometeorites. It crashed into the middle of the Black Sea on entry. We made it the Northwestern shore and headed into the mountains where we were helped by the local tribes. We quickly befriended them, sharing our knowledge and technology to make their lives better. They honored our wisdom and made us their leaders. We worked together to survive the ice age that held the Earth in its grip at that time, settling, like the Sancturans once had, around thermally active areas. Together we thrived. We have been in the land we now call Translavia ever since.

Well, Adelaide thought, that’s a pretty amazing story but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered like; what happened to the Sancturan refugees and the ethereal beings who had been their friends, what happened to those who stayed on Mars and how did the Nova Lyreans who fled survive adapting to life on Earth, given the higher gravity on Earth and the biological changes they had undergone since the cataclysm? The other big question circling in her mind was who the heck were the Draconans? They sounded an awful lot like the Din to her. In Boswell’s case they had sent an asteroid to destroy the town which had only been saved by shifting the town and the surrounding area into a parallel, higher dimension. Comet, asteroid. The modus operandi was similar even if the planet sized destruction of Sanctuary boggled the mind. She’d need to find out more when she reached Translavia and settled in her hotel in the capital Zarpattia. Maybe the city would have a museum or library that could help.

Several hours of watching the latest box office movies, enjoying the inflight gourmet vegetarian cuisine and sleeping a steward approached Adelaide with some paperwork.

Madam, if you’d like to fill in a short questionnaire and give us a fingerprint now to verify your identity we can expedite your arrival and transit through customs.

Adelaide inwardly winced at the term ‘Madam’ which made her sound like some brothel owner but knew the steward meant well so she smiled back. Thanks.

After providing the fingerprint she took the questionnaire. Two lines in and she was already arching an eyebrow.

What is your ancestry?

Do you eat garlic, onions or tulips?

What is your age, gender and marital status?

What is the natural color of your eyes, skin and hair?

What is your blood group?

Do you carry the gene for Hemochromatosis?

What the hell? Tulips? Really? And the rest...well! Bit of a cheek even asking some of these questions.

She was nearly going to answer the first question NOYB, none of your business, but she didn’t think that would help her get through customs. In the end she answered all honestly even though she doubted they would believe her age. There was no way her biological age of about twenty five matched her chronological age of sixty one. But then they knew she was coming from a special place, a place that had disappeared from the ordinary world. You only got to Boswell now if you were of the right evolutionary frequency to get through its front door, its portal which to ordinary eyes looked like a great gaping chasm where a well aimed asteroid had hit.

Stanislav watched from the control tower as the presidential jet taxied to the arrivals gate. His position as head controller gave him open knowledge of the movements of anyone in and out of the country. It was knowledge desired by those who had made his meteoric rise into the job possible. He wandered quietly, unobserved, into his private office and picked up the phone. She’s arrived. What do you want me to do about her?

Arrange to have her followed but keep it discreet. These people have a sixth sense. We’ll advise further steps shortly. By the way, how’s the insurgency going?

Dead in the water I’m afraid. The new president has been reviewing and repealing most of the laws his predecessor made. It’s once again legal to grow and consume garlic, onions or other alliums in your own home as long as you don’t grow more than six plants of the stuff. The law only stops you from promoting it to non-garlic eaters, selling it or supplying it to restaurants or other eateries.

Still, surely those who eat the stuff must feel that their rights have been restricted. All because their elite are allergic to the stuff.

It isn’t enough to get people angry. The population likes the new bloke.

Hmm. We may need to resort to other strategies. Keep us apprised.

Yes Sir.

Stanislav worried for his country, just what exactly were those other strategies? Would his beloved country be reduced by a contrived war to little more than ash and rubble? He should report his worries to the government but then he’d at best lose his job for the information he’d already given the enemy. More likely he’d lose his life in some very nasty way. Worst case scenario so would his family. Those he reported to had made it explicitly clear that any betrayal would be taken very very badly.

Chapter 2: Welcome to Zarpattia

The chauffeured limousine from the airport was supplied by the president