The Vampire Kings: Summersgate Chronicles, #2

By Brian Triplett

Vampires are running amok among the Many Worlds. Jonathan "Jona" Volundson, the only known 155-year-old half-elf/half Jewish Protestant wizard who knows kung fu, must lead a team of highly trained, heavily armed experts to battle the blood sucking hordes. With help from his wife and his closest friends Jona may stand a chance of ending their reign of terror. Jona and his team must make their stand in the quiet city of Spokane, Washington. Only it isn't the Spokane they know. In a world where humans lost a war with the vampires, they must help the survivors live long enough to build a new society out of the ruins of the old United States. Their mission takes them from a reality where history went horribly awry hundreds of years ago to worlds more like our own. Along the way, they learn that the vampires are trying to obtain the mysterious Sword of Freyr. If that weren't bad enough they also learn that the last person they would suspect is working to usurp Vlad the Impaler's throne and become the new king of the vampires. Will the infighting among the undead help Jona's team? Will the forces of good triumph over insurmountable odds? Only time will tell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Triplett
• Release date: Feb 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386358572

Book preview

This book is dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien and Roger Zelazny.

Chapter One

expedition day forty-six

southern Ireland, somewhere outside of Killarney

Terra Quindecim

––––––––

I walked as quietly as I could through the oak woodland.  The noise canceling runes drawn on the soles of my boots helped a bit, but it still took a fair amount of effort to avoid doing anything that might spook the red deer we had been following for the last ten minutes.  I was sweating under my camouflage rain poncho that kept changing to help me blend in with my surroundings.  My light crossbow felt like it weighed about five hundred pounds.  If we didn't kill that deer soon, I was going to have to admit my weakness and head back for the caravan.

I hated Erin a little as she leaped over a fallen tree and gently floated, steering herself in midair until she found a good place to land off to my right.  She carefully crept toward the deer until she was practically close enough to feel the breath coming out of the stag's ugly snout on her face.  Erin was at one with her surroundings.  She made no noise, she looked as serene as she ever got and she didn't even have the grace to look winded after all the running we had been doing.  Her hands and her face were the only parts of her body visible to the naked mortal eye as she slowly drew an arrow from the quiver at her right hip. She readied her longbow and all seemed well until she suddenly shifted and aimed at something off to my left.

My reverie was shattered by divers alarums and excursions from the northwest.  Two mostly naked men crashed through the trees.  The growling and hissing made it clear they weren't human any more.  I cursed myself for not using my extra senses to scan the area.  I should have spotted the newcomers from at least a mile away and acted accordingly.  Instead, I was caught off guard by two underfed creatures I might as well call vampires. 

They were emaciated like concentration camp inmates so they hadn't drank any blood in a long time.  The taller one had pointy ears and blood red eyes.  His buddy's face was distorted to the point of not looking human any more and he had fangs that were about two and a half inches long jutting out of his snout-like jaw.  Red Eyes had wicked curved claws that reminded me of a grizzly bear.  He  maintained a weak cloaking spell that helped explain how he could sneak up on me when he made enough noise for people to hear him in the untamed wilds of Wales.  By unspoken agreement, the undead creatures split up.  The ugly one charged toward me.  Red Eyes went after the stag. 

Erin loosed her arrow and just barely missed Red Eyes.  Njord's balls! she exclaimed as she drew a rune in the air with cold fire. 

Her action triggered a spell she must have prepared ahead of time.  Usually, Erin used simple and brutal attacks such as setting people on fire or blasting them with compressed air. This time, her spell was more complicated.  In the space of about half a second, the vampire's flesh turned to stone.  The process released a burst of hard radiation that was neutralized by the second half of the spell.  As I tried to figure out how she did it, I dealt with the ugly one.

Crossbows aren't very effective against those of us who wield magic, so I fired my weapon assuming that the vampire would use wind or something to deflect the bolt.  I hoped to distract him while I prepared a spell that could get past his defenses.  I didn't expect my iron projectile to work so well.  The enchanted bolt flew about two hundred feet per second faster than it should have and struck him in the heart with enough force to fling him backwards.  A weak curse on the bolt, intended to give an animal a clean death, made certain the vampire stayed down.  I completed my working and made the dying vampire silently explode.

Two more vampires crashed through the trees into the clearing.  One of them was a woman in a tattered dress.  She was probably attractive when she drank blood regularly.  In her weakened state, she was a wizened crone who looked like she should have a gingerbread house.  The male by her side ran on all fours in a form about halfway between a humanoid and an Irish wolfhound.  I almost peed a little when I realized he was charging toward me at about seventy miles per hour.

The deer was no dummy.  While we were busy, he ran away toward deeper forest.  Erin let another arrow fly from her longbow.  She wounded the stag, but he kept running.  Erin ignored the newcomers and followed her quarry.

Stay here and kill the suckers, Erin yelled as she ran after the deer.

Seriously? I suppressed a groan.  After I dealt with the highwaymen by that abandoned house?

You need the practice, she said as she gathered the wind and flew away from me.

The crone held up one hand and formed a blue fireball.  She lobbed it at me with a sidearm motion.  I used telekinesis to redirect the glob of superheated plasma toward Dog Boy.  It struck him in the stomach and he let out a sickening wail.  The mystic flames consumed his desiccated flesh like kindling.  I held up my right hand and projected a pulse of raw chaos energy that ended his suffering.  The shot to his chest destroyed several of his vital organs.

Killing vampires isn’t as hard as popular fiction makes it sound.  A wooden stake adds a certain flair, but it is by no means necessary to use holy water or any other special gear.  If you inflict sufficient trauma to the heart or the head—preferably both—a sucker will die just like anyone else. I have killed vampires with everything from a nine-millimeter pistol to a weed whacker.  It’s all a matter of timing, really.  They’re fast, but if you keep calm and react quickly enough the forces of good will prevail.

Of course, it always helps to use magic to cheat.  I can move as quickly as a vampire for brief periods.  That saved my life as the female tried to tear my throat out with her claws.  I bent backward and watched as her hand swiped through the air where my neck had been a fraction of a second earlier.  I lashed out with my left foot and tried to dislocate her knee.  She leaped straight up and I missed.  I transitioned into a roundhouse kick that at least made contact.  My foot struck her in the hip.  Vampires have a high degree of pain resistance, so she didn't even hiss at me.  She started making another fireball.  I used telekinesis to throw her backward into a tree while I sabotaged her spell.  Her construct blew up early, setting her hand on fire.  As the flames spread up her sleeve, she was too busy using magic to extinguish them to adequately protect herself from me.  I used telekinesis to grab her head  and twist until her neck snapped.  Then I used a spell to finish putting out the fire because I didn't want the forest to burn down around me.

I thought all was well until a fifth vampire came crashing out of the trees.  He was shorter than the other males and looked like he weighed about ninety pounds.  What was left of his hair was wispy and gray.  Based on the half-healed injuries on his chest and throat, his comrades had been feeding on him.  I drew my sword and dirk.  Wispy just kept running toward me with no regard for his own life.  If he were smart, he would have used his special vampire powers to confound my senses or something.  Maybe he was too weak in his current state to try using magic?

I triggered a spell on my boots that ensured I would have proper footing and another spell on my cambric shirt that generated a protective field.  I took calming breaths as I waited with my blades at the ready.  In a move borrowed from one of my favorite teachers, I held the hilt of my sword up by my eyes and kept the point of my blade aimed where I wanted to stab Wispy.  I lifted up my right leg like I was going to do a version of Mister Miyagi's crane kick and waited for the right moment.  Wispy ran toward me like a Cobra Kai student who wanted to sweep my leg.  I put my right foot down and lunged sort of like a European fencer.  The point of my blade went between Wispy's ribs and straight into his heart.  Carefully, I yanked my sword free and circled around to Wispy's right.  I jammed my dirk into Wispy's back as he fell  and pierced his heart again to make certain I killed him.  He didn't explode like vampires do sometimes in the movies.  He just died with a pained expression that almost made me regret stabbing him.  I recovered my dagger and cleaned it off with a wasteful display of sorcery.

I used the same trick to clean my sword before I put it back in its sheath.  Sorry, buddy.  I couldn't have you running around terrorizing the countryside.

Cut its head off and be done with it, Erin said through gritted teeth.

Apparently, using telekinesis to haul the dead stag through the trees was harder than it looked.  Erin finally broke a sweat and proved she had some limitations like ordinary elves. She threw back her hood revealing round ears and black hair pulled back tightly in a bun.  She had the high cheekbones and narrow jaw tapering down to a pointy chin that a Tolkien fan would expect, but something about her mouth and the shape of her nose reminded me of Kate Beckinsale.  The only hint that she was a highly trained spy/saboteur came from her intense black eyes.  The hardness there made it more obvious that she had spent the last century going on missions for queen and country.

We had been partners since the 1950s, so I was pretty adept at reading the nuances of her general grumpiness.  At least it wasn't directed at me this time.  She visibly relaxed as I helped her levitate the giant animal carcass and move it to a good place to set it down.  She unstrung her bow and drew a skinning knife that was too high quality to be locally made.  Her wicked smile made me beam at her in return.  It was nice to see her happy about something for a change.

This ugly critter is going to taste fantastic after I finish seasoning the meat, she said in the Common Speech.

I drew my Greenleaf hunting knife from its sheath by the small of my back and responded in the same language.  I will help you clean this beast if you promise to go easy on the garlic.

You are a savage with the palate of an ogre.

I grinned at her.  It has worked for me so far.

Erin held up her knife and smirked.  I call dibs on removing the penis.

Hopefully you mean the stag's, I said.

Tread carefully, or I might take yours before the beast's.

Of course, my lady.

After that, we were too busy draining blood and doing things that make me seriously consider becoming a vegetarian to work on our comedy act.  I don't enjoy skinning animals or yanking out entrails.  Don't get me started on properly dealing with a deer anus.  I used telekinesis as much as I could to avoid getting my hands dirty.  Erin kept giving me significant looks as she worked on her end of the smelly dead animal.  I clearly failed a test by being too fussy.

For Skadi's sake, Erin muttered.  You're going to taint the meat.  Move back at least two meters and let a real hunter take over.

I did that.  I'll, uh, keep a lookout for more vampires or something.

It's a pity you didn't bring along that copy of Merafinil I gave you.  You could brush up on your tactics while I fix this mess you made.

Now you're saying I can't fight?

You're sloppy and you rely too much on magic.

Says the gal who glides around and cheats with enchanted arrows.

Archery is one of our traditional skills.  Much like hunting.  It wouldn't hurt to act like an elf occasionally.

I'm a dirty half-breed, remember?

Erin looked at me like she wanted to break my arm to teach me a lesson.  I only look down on you when you say stupid things like that.  Idiot.

So, um...  Do you think the Mariners will have a good season?

Erin pointed with her bloody knife.  Keep watch over there and don't say anything for at least fifteen minutes.

Eventually, we got the stag onto a tarp Erin brought in case we made a kill.  We used special zip ties to help tie it up like a giant hobo's bindle around a suitable length of wood I found.  We gathered up all our gear and cleaned our knives.  Then we got the deer's weight resting on our shoulders and started walking.  It was going to be a hard, yet satisfying hike back to our caravan.

Our team didn't wait for us, so it took longer than I expected to track them down.  We covered at least five miles before I spotted anyone we knew.  By the time I saw our gaudy red and gold wagon, I was about ready to fall over and die.  All the spell casting followed by so much honest work took more out of me than I realized.  After two of our comrades relieved me and helped Erin with the stag, I downed a vial of a stimulant potion that worked better than Red Bull and went looking for a change of clothing.

By the time I got into my usual itinerant minstrel gear and grabbed my O-style mandolin, the other elves on my team were quietly abuzz with excitement over eating fresh meat for a change.  Somebody broke out the good booze.  Somebody else started a merry tune from the Homelands  that spread around the camp.  It was one of those songs where the seemingly nonsense lyrics were actually code for sexual acts.  Normally, I discourage such behavior.  Right then, I couldn't bring myself to ruin the mood.  It did make it harder to get both of my D strings in tune, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for all the love coming toward me and Erin.

Mandolin is not my preferred axe, but there wasn’t much I could do about it in a world where guitars followed a different path of evolution.  Other members of my troupe had no trouble finding their ways around the funny looking instruments they bought in Germany, but the various models on display just made me miss my Lowden and the rich sounding new Breedlove twelve-string my wife gave me for my birthday.  So, there I was with an assortment of flutes and penny whistles that wouldn’t seem too odd to the locals and a couple of mandolins trying to keep up with classically trained musicians. Every once in a while, I could get away with playing pop songs by the Hooters or R.E.M. (with some changes to the lyrics because terms such as losing my religion might get us run out of town and they hadn’t heard of union halls).  Generally speaking, though, I found myself struggling with classical pieces and Celtic folk tunes.  I gave up in disgust on the waltz I was trying to learn and started playing a Led Zeppelin song just to prove I wasn’t completely useless.

My team and I had been busking our way across a really depressing version of Europe for about a month and a half.  In that particular timeline, vampires had conquered enough of the known world to throw a plethora of monkey wrenches into the development of Western society.  The humans they allowed to live had never heard of women's suffrage, religious freedom, the automobile, or North America.  They were basically stuck in the 1600s because troublemakers such as Johannes Gutenberg or Wenzel Faber didn't always get opportunities to share their ideas with the world.  The vampires and the Roman Catholic Church saw to that.  The educated locals were pretty good at things such as Romance languages or explaining Greek philosophy.  They weren't so good at engineering, medicine, or lots of other things folks in the two worlds I call home take for granted. 

That meant a child growing up on the filthy streets of London could die from influenza if a vampire or some human predator with a blunderbuss didn't get her first.  People in cities were considered old if they made it past forty.  Living out in the country was slightly better if you didn't mind slaving away on someone else's farm or trying to fend off wolves with spears and flintlocks.  During the first two weeks of our expedition, it seemed like ninety percent of the human race was reduced to living like untouchables in India.  We found some people who at least bathed occasionally and had access to some creature comforts but more often than not they worked for the vampires.  The message was clear.  People could collaborate or they could mark time in horrible conditions until a vampire got thirsty.

Our cover story let us observe more of Earth Fifteen than anyone ever should.  Performing as we traveled taught us more than I wanted to learn.  Each country presented its own unique challenges.  In France, the local Jesuits didn’t like the fact that my best violinist was a woman, or that we had a couple of other gals who juggled while we played.  The Irish, while generally lovely people, got uptight if we played instruments while we sang.  That forced us to come up with new set lists and a capella versions of tunes they might like.  On the one hand, that took some pressure off me because I didn’t have to sing as much.  On the other hand, it got a little boring playing all those similar sounding reels.

I could sit by the fire messing around because other people did my chores for me and we were relatively safe at the moment. It was a surprisingly pleasant evening under the stars.  Our wards were solid.  Nobody was complaining about anything for a change.  We had Hostess Zingers for dessert and we had some wonderful spiced cider jazzed up with a few extra ingredients to help take the edge off the cold.  The only thing that would have made the night better would have been to have my wife Miriam there.  Using my special cell phone that could communicate between worlds to call her once or twice a day was getting old.

There was movement on the edge of our protective circle.  Four people went for their crossbows.  Erin had her longbow ready in less time than it takes to talk about it.  I gave a signal to wait as I put my mandolin down.  The hungry looking vagabonds trying to work up the courage to approach us didn’t seem like threats to me.  There were maybe half a dozen of them.  They were all short, underweight, and showing signs of malnutrition.  On a bad day, I could beat the crap out of them by myself.  There were fourteen people in our party.  If anyone tried to rob us or something, it would end badly for these folks.  We could afford to be generous until they gave us a reason to be more hostile.

I smiled and waved.  Greetings, weary travelers.  My name is Jonathan.  Come have a bit of supper.

They eyed each other warily as I lowered some of the defenses they couldn’t see so they could join us by the fire.  Jonathan? the fellow who was apparently their leader asked.  Aye, that’s a right proper Christian name you have there young sir.  I took yas for some sort of gypsy on account of those fancy glad rags you’re sportin’.

I looked down at my red silk shirt, my multi-colored scarf and other odds and ends that made me look like a foppish pirate as if I hadn’t seen my quarterfold boots or the rest of my crazy get-up before.  I’m a minstrel.  People expect certain things, you know.  Especially the English.

He answered that with a common saying about the English people a gentleman should not repeat.  You seem decent enough, lad.  How about some o’ that deer you poached?

Our undead betters won’t miss it, I said.  The venison should be ready soon.  Have some of our bread and whiskey and rest a while.

Ah, son.  You’re a saint.  Keep sayin’ the right things and I’ll offer my daughter’s hand in marriage.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of disgust on a young woman’s face.  I didn’t know if she objected to my fashion sense or if there were better reasons for her to instinctively dislike a strange man.  I could have tried reading her mind, but that seemed rude and unnecessary.  The old codger’s daughter was like the young lady in the Steve Earle song Galway Girl.  Her black hair and blue eyes would make her a target for every outlaw of both the dead and living varieties.  I didn’t want her to think I (or any of my companions, for that matter) would try to trade sex for hospitality.  She had a knife at the ready.  I nodded in approval as I tried to coax her closer to our fire.

I have one wife already and I’m not English, sir.  I expect nothing in return except for conversation.

Will, Yarrow and the others reluctantly backed my play.  A couple of regular army guys we brought along for extra muscle served the newcomers while their Leftenant Amergin kept his hands on two of his flintlock pistols and gave everybody the hairy eyeball.  Erin surreptitiously checked them for magic items and used telepathy to let me know they weren’t packing anything that would cause us concern.  Yarrow tuned her fiddle and started playing a song they probably knew.  That seemed to set our new friends at ease.  Others joined in on lute and guitar.  Before we knew it, we were having fun in spite of ourselves.

I joined in with my mandolin, but after the third time I played the wrong chord I gave up and got another bottle of whiskey out of our wagon.  I also got some water because they needed that more.  I placed a glamour on the water skin to make it more appealing.  The stuff we used to purify the local water added a nice hint of lemon in addition to some vitamin C.  I had no idea when these people last saw fresh fruit or even a potato.  Treating their scurvy would make me feel better about plying them for information.

A cheer went up as I handed the whiskey to one of the younger fellows in the group.  I tried giving the old man’s daughter the water, but she was suspicious.  I took a drink first.  It’s just water, lass.  Don’t worry.

She cautiously gave it a try.  That’s grand.

Have more.

The old man gave me a gap-toothed smile.  I’m Patrick, after the saint and all that rubbish about the snakes.  The fine colleen there is my Rosie.  The others are Sean, Owen, Liam and Brendan.  Each man nodded in turn.

Liam, is it? I asked.

The young man looked very nervous.  Aye, sir.

You can have more meat if you want it.  You don’t need to try to steal from us.

Well...  Ye can’t really fault me for tryin’ to keep me skills sharp.

That got a smile out of me.  I like you, lad.  Pace yourself and drink some water.  Maybe dance with young Rose if she likes the tunes.

Between you and me, she’d cut my bollocks off with her dirk.

I like that in a woman.

Liam raised his cup to me.  You’re all right, Johnny.

If you don’t mind me asking, what brings you to this beautiful countryside when our betters are on the prowl?

Patrick fielded that question.  Vampires got up to a bit o’ sport in the last village where we found work.  We gathered what we could and hit the old traveler roads before they could have us for supper. A pained expression danced across his face.  We lost Brendan’s sister.

A quick glance at Brendan’s microexpressions confirmed Patrick’s story. I handed him the whiskey bottle. I am sorry for your loss.

It’s not like they say it was back in the days of Saint Vlad, Patrick said.  There was a time when the vampires only went after Turks and the occasional protestant.  They were champions of the common folk and the one true church.  What happened in the last five hundred years? Did some idjit from Dublin town go around killing some o’ them?  Why do they hate us so?

Old prejudices die hard, I said. I’ve been attacked by the undead simply because I’m a Jew.

Is that why your hair’s so curly? Rose asked.

I wanted to give her an answer, but the others bombarded me with questions ranging from wanting to know if I was interested in converting to Catholicism to wanting to learn how to kill vampires.  Easy now, everyone.  Fighting the undead is not so hard when you have pistols and crossbows.  You just have to be smart about it.  As for my hair, I got that from my mother.

Suddenly, half a dozen vampires collided with our wards and interrupted our nice chat.  They must have been type two vampires—mindless killers sometimes referred to as ghouls even though that isn’t strictly accurate.  The smarter type one variety wouldn’t have kept trying to move forward after bouncing off our shields.  Our horses and our new friends made enough noise while they panicked to hide the bug zapper-type noises generated every time the bloodsuckers got hit with static electricity.  It would be easy to deal with the interlopers if we didn’t have witnesses.  As it was, we were going to have to do it the hard way.

I used a hand signal and our