New Blood: Rise and Fall of Queens of Blood

By J.L. Myers

A bargain with a Vampire Queen can be deadly, complicated and not turn out the way you want. Plans within plans plots and lust for power of the Blood Throne. when you are left with two alternatives, run and hide or fight. then anything is possible in this Invisible Empire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475904642

J.L. Myers

Jessica L Myers vivid imagination and quiet demeanor as a child led her to the imaginary worlds of books. Even at a young age, her love for the supernatural was prevalent, with her first loved books being R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. Following that she took an interest in other non-fantasy fiction, including Virginia C. Andrews series Flowers in the Attic. In her teen years, Jessica spent many school hours writing poetry and dark short stories and took up sketching some of the terrifying things that came from the graphic night terrors she’d grown up with. As an adult and after meeting the love of her life, Jessica got married and started a small construction business with her husband. With the birth of her son, Jessica suffered PPD and found escape in her books and their fantasy landscapes. It was at this time that her need to write flourished. In 2009 the decision was made and the first words to her New Adult Paranormal Romance novel What Lies Inside were written. When Jessica isn’t immersed in writing about extraordinary characters with dangerous abilities and deadly obstacles to overcome, she likes to spend time with her two kids and husband, curl up with a good book, or watch anything and everything supernatural.

Book preview

New

Blood

Rise and Fall of

Queens of Blood

J L Myers

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

New Blood

Rise and Fall of Queens of Blood

Copyright © 2010, 2012 by J L Myers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-0463-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-0464-2 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 03/21/2012

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Part two

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Introduction

Creation a pet with many tales

Creation has innumerable facets, often as not we merely consider a few of them from an ever-narrowing point of view. Hardly ever, considering the complexity of the less understood that lay between, the ancient wisdom.

Creation is not the finite phenomenon we assume it to be. Creation, ongoing, ever changing; Creation was here long before us; and will continue, long after humankind has stopped asking why.

In the void of our understanding, She came into being, She who is largely forgotten in time but still among us to this day, She that would not bend to man’s will. Condemned to an eternity of wondering, living offs the blood of the innocent; the one the aged ones feared and called Lilith.

Lilith, Mother of a Vampire race. They, who walk in darkness, shun the light of day. They who are but human in form only. They become what they need to be, wolf, bat, monster, phantom, and mist in the night.

Today Vampires do not hide in caves or old castles waiting for the unsuspecting traveler, or wonder the woods and villages for their victims. They have lived for untold years. The one that have survived the ages, have amassed wealth and live well. So where could an esoteric rich Vampire live without drawing attention, Hollywood, where else.

Chapter One

A threat awakens

Kate and her friend Wanda walked along Sunset Boulevard playing the Walk of Fame Star Game. Kate had her doe-like light brown eyes closed; Wanda led her by the hand and stopped Kate on one of the stars embedded in the sidewalk. At that point, Wanda would ask Kate whom she was standing on. They had done it enough over the last few months that it was starting to get boring, so this time around they were skipping around doing every fifth or eighth one. Like most of the street kids, Kate and Wanda were fifteen or sixteen years old run-a-ways. They kept one eye out for the Cops and the other for an easy mark, for a meal or a hand out of some kind.

Wanda had been on the street for almost a year and was what the Vice Squad referred to as a free agent. She did Men’s parties, BJs in the back seat of cars or at the home of some old fellow whose wife was out of town or something. She had come to Tinsel Town to be in movies and she had done one; the ones that men buy from adult bookstores from under the counter.

Kate had arrived in town for the same reasons as Wanda, her name emblazoned in bright lights, discovery by the moviemakers. She had not even left the bus station and someone pinched her bag. Wanda worked a corner two blocks down from the bus station, Kate happened on to her there, two kindred souls with the same dreams. They just hit it off right away. Soon Kate was into the street life with Wanda as her tutor. Neither one of them ever asked the other where they were from or who they really were.

A long black Limo pulled up to them as they played their game and stopped. The front passenger window glided down.

Ladies, do you want to go to a party? The Driver asked them.

They could see he was dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform. Wanda went over to the limo and leaned on the door with her head in the open window. Her face reflex back at her in the dark lenses of his sunglasses, his cap covered his dark hair that stuck out from under it. Wanda decided he was up front with his offer.

What did you have in mind? Wanda asked.

You and your friend there, do you want to come to a party; my employer is having, at the estate in the hills. . . . One Grand a piece and you get to keep the dresses too . . . The Driver told her.

Kate was right on Wanda’s shoulder as the Driver spoke. They looked at each other and smiled. Will anyone famous be there? Kate asked.

Always is, someone off the A List will show up, and some moviemakers too, for sure. The Driver told them.

The two girls jumped into the back of the Limo without any further conversation. The Driver told them that there were drinks and finger food back there for them just before he rolled the partition up that separated them. The girls ate and drank as they rode along, planning what they would do with their thousand dollars a peace they would get, and the dresses hoping they would be designer labels like the ones they saw in the window along Rodeo Drive. Soon Kate and Wanda were sound asleep as the limo disappeared into the Hollywood hills.

Kate woke up and found herself in a small room with no furniture. When she got up off the bear stone floor, she realized she was completely nude. She went to the only door and started to bang on it, yelling at the top of her voice to let her out.

The door suddenly opened, and two women dressed in hooded robes grabbed her by her arms, they were unbelievably strong as they drug her into the room on the other side of the door. The light was dim but the sight that met her eyes horrified her.

Wanda and six other girls were hanging by their ankles; legs spread wide, naked, and cut open from their crotch to their necks. Their torsos cleaned out like dressed deer. Their internal organs piled into a large caldron sitting on the floor to one side of the room. Buckets filled with blood caught the final dripping coming from their necks. Their nearly severed heads hung by ligaments and tendons that held the bones of the spine together.

Kate screamed and screamed as they hung her up after dropping Wanda’s butchered body like a rag doll onto the stone floor. She heard one of the women tell the other that it was a shame that their blood was tainted and no good for food, but would do for the Mistresses’ bath. Just before, they cut her throat and ripped her open. The last thing that Kate would see in this world was her entrails hanging in front of her eyes as they hit the stone floor.

Lillian Hammerstein; known around the town as a very rich recluse, only seen at the very best of parties, never for long, and never during the daytime. The Hammerstein fortune was legendary she had estates in several countries and a fleet of private jets.

The Hollywood buzz around town was that she chased after the night. If anyone had any dealing with her, they dealt with Igor Skillman well known for his long white hair and black eyes. That he always protected with custom-made sunglasses, day and night. It was an unpleasant fact that if you talked to Skillman you were in fact speaking to Lillian Hammerstein.

The Hammerstein estate tucked into the hills just outside the city limits. The main gate was unobtrusive appearing to be a back gate to some unnamed ranch. Known as The Citadel sequestered, hidden behind a thick grove of trees that surrounded the estate grounds. By day, Guards with Dobermans patrolled the grounds, at night the dogs ran free. Five to eight miles separated the Citadel from the nearest house. The only landscaping was a one hundred yard area that surrounded the Citadel. The rest of the estate left to nature.

Deep under the Citadel a complex of dungeons, constructed long before modern building codes, and ordnances, permits, and blueprints required filing. In the deepest part of the dungeon, was a pit sealed by an airtight hatch. All the victims found their final rest piled at the bottom, consumed by a colony of rats that lived off the almost daily offerings down the two hundred foot shaft into the cavern. The body parts of Kate, Wanda, and six other young girls, tossed down the chute like so much garbage.

Her Maid Servants dutifully carried buckets of blood up to Lillian’s private bath; these young women were bound to Lillian by a blood oath, Neophyte Servitude, bore the mark of it on their left wrists. They lived or died at her will, their minds, and body hers and hers alone; they who seek the life of a Vampire.

They poured four large buckets into the glass-lined tub, and then turn the heater on, setting it at ninety-eight point six degrees. They stripped their monkish robes off and kneeled, naked side-by-side awaiting their Mistress Lillian Hammerstein to appear.

Sometime later Lillian made her entrance opening the door to the bath with dramatic elegance. She chose to wear her red robe with black trim. It complemented her red hair that flowed to the back of her knees. She appeared to be in her early thirties, her face that of a classic beauty her body the envy of any young woman. Lillian disrobed revealing her voluptuous figure the contours of her form accented by the abundant candle light.

None of her Maid Servants said a word as she tested the blood-filled bath with the tip of her finger.

This will do. Lillian told them. Come, attend to me.

Each of the naked girls grabbed a sponge and surrounded the tub, soaking up the blood; they bathed Lillian with them as she sat in the tub as they had done each full moon for decades. It was done in about an hour. When Lillian got out the blood that clung to her disappeared into her skin and hair as if it had never touched her. She appeared noticeable younger by almost five to ten years.

The payment for their service was a bite on their wrist. Each in turn willfully extended their hands. The bite of their Mistress reinforced their oath and extended their already unnaturally long lives, but fell short of making them Vampire. That was a secret and sacred ritual known only to a Maker. Lillian departed the same way she had come in, leaving the girls to clean up the bath.

Lilitu the daughter of Lilith took the name Katherine Hammerstein when her mother moved to California in the late 1800s. She preferred Kate, she had seen to the transfer of the gold and jewels that they had acquired over the millenniums. Over the next century, they had converted twenty-five large crates of it to cash and bounds, now worth many times more than when they first acquired them.

Kate loved to hunt, her favorite quarry, a good-looking young man with a fast car and loads of money. The hunt was a multi-stage process. The first step, seduction, then psychological and emotional enslavement, the subsequent illness presented symptoms like AIDS, however did not respond to any treatments for AIDS. Kate had total control as long as she infected her victim every full moon he would subsist.

When she had all she wanted from him, she just left him. The poor fellow would wither away and die. Kate would know when this happened due to a mental bond; first, she would make sure he had willed everything to her, second that she would be the only living person named in such a will, having feed on anyone else unfortunately named.

Her nightly hunts for subsistence were among the homeless. She was careful to rip open their throats devouring the chunk of skin that bore the telltale fang marks. Only caught once, a police car happened on to her as she finished off a Bag Lady in an alley. She just stared at the Cop as she vanished into a heavy mist and flew away. The Cop in question, forced to relinquish his badge due to the ridicule of his fellow Officers.

Bestowed to every Vampire, are Black Gifts when they are Made, some get a few some only one or two, where the Black Gifts comes from, or what they will be is a mystery, even to the Maker, it is different for each one of them. Some can read minds, others walk through walls, and so on, Lillian or Lilith who she truly was, alone, had all of the Black Gifts, and was considered all-powerful among her race.

Lilitu the daughter of Lilith possessed five Black Gifts. She could walk through wall, on walls and across ceilings, read minds, become invisible, and her favorite fire rings. Although not a black gift, but Vampire ability, she could change into any animal that she fed on. The latter she shared with her Mother who always denied being the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Lilitu born decades after the fall from grace never knew if her Mother had been mendacious about the incident or not. Her mind was the one mind she could not read.

Lilitu made one great mistake in her long life, or at least one that she regretted the most. Koelar; it was around 4500BC by the Gregorian calendar, Koelar the tribal chief of the Bear Clan in the mountains now known as the Alps. She for all intents, considered a minor Goddess by Koelar’s tribe. She demanded tribute in blood. The blood was that of the children of the tribe or ones that Koelar captured in village raids of other tribes.

Koelar wanted something for himself in return for his tribe’s tribute from their Goddess. Lilitu did the one thing forbidden to do, she Made Koelar without Lilith’s consent or knowledge. Her mother Lilith was incensed and enraged when she found out.

It took three centuries but Lilith prevailed, imprisoning Koelar within a solid rock and covered it with the mountains for all time. However, she did not consider humanity and progress of time.

The construction of the Italian Switzerland tunnel in the late Twentieth Century came within twenty-six feet of Koelar’s prison of solid stone and fractured the rock that encased him. Koelar’s Vampire ability of turning into mist served him well. Thus, he emerged gaunt, having the appearance of a walking corps into the twenty-first century.

Over the next ten years reports of mysterious deaths filtered out of the Alps. The attack centered on the tunnel and the surrounding towns and villages. At first, the attacks mainly attributed to animals, possibly packs of wolves. People went missing and if they found bodies, they found them ripped apart and scattered as if wolves had fed on them.

Professional hunters hired to put an end to the attacks found nothing. A well-respected hunter of world renown told a European magazine that he and his team could not find any tracks or spore, fur, or any sign that any animal let alone wolves had attacked and eaten any of the known victims. It was the report of the absence of blood at any of the attack sights that drew Lillian’s attention. She summoned Igor Skillman.

Have you read this? Lillian asked Igor, tossing the French tabloid on her desk in front of him.

Skillman picked up the colorful magazine and read the article’s lead lines that Lillian had it folded open too. Interesting . . . was his only comment as he read the rest of the article in French.

Igor Skillman’s Black Gifts were useful to Lillian. He read minds and could control them too. Skillman, Made in 67AD had been the advisor and war counselor to Transylvanian Royalty. He counseled Prince Vlad Tepes III of the Holy Order of the Dragon, or Dracula in the common Transylvanian tongue.

Vlad’s Father was of the Order named Dracul, when Vlad III ascended to the Throne he added a to denote that he was the son of Dracul, ending up with Dracula. In 1431 Skillman known then as Count Wampyr of the Transylvanian Royal Court, suggested to a young Prince Vlad that the way to win a war was to be more barbaric then your enemy. In the battles that followed, not only did Vlad repel his Muslim Turk enemy but scared the hell out of them by impaling the wounded and captured Turks on poles surrounding his stronghold. The Turks gave Vlad a name, Vlad the Impaler; Count Wampyr became a favored member of Vlad’s Court.

In a later battle, Count Wampyr allowed himself to fall in battle. That night a strange glow came from within the pile of bodies that the Turks had made, and the Vampire that was Wampyr emerged out of the bloody pile as young as the day he was made and wondered off to a new life as he had done ever since 67ad, when he was known as Laminas a Roman Centurion. Vampires do age; they age ever so slowly as long as they do not take the Blood Bath. Nightly feeding slows the ageing to a snails crawl.

He lived in London during the late 1800s and hunted out of the Pubs of the White Castle district. He called himself Count Vladimir III of the Royal Court of Transylvania. His corps like appearance, long white hair, and black eyes made him well known in the area. He would sit until just before dawn telling stories about Vlad the Impaler bane of the Turks. One night a writer came to sit among the crowd to listen to the bloody tails the year was 1895 and his name was Bram Stoker.

It was not until 1906 when he showed up in Southern California and found Lilith who was now calling herself Lillian Hammerstein. He took the name Skillman at that time, and bonded himself to Lillian, (Lilith). He put the French tabloid down and looked at Lillian.

I assume; we need to find and destroy him my Queen. Skillman said resuming an attentive stance.

This is the Old One, Koelar Chief of the Bear Clan. The one my dear daughter Made behind my back. Lillian said with some distain. I need the Seer and The Tracker here at the Citadel at once.

Yes, at your command my Queen . . . Skillman departed to do his Queen’s biding.

Skillman climbed to the high tower room where they kept the Night-swifts. A Night-swift is a bird like creature that can span a continent in one night’s flight. Never seen in daylight, hiding in caves or deep dark places, only Vampires know of them.

Skillman takes a parchment from the desk of the tower room and writes QL on it, once on the top, then again on the bottom and cuts it in two with a quick flick of his fingernail on the pinky. He then rolls the two halves tightly up and seals them with wax. He opens one of the many cells that holds one of the Night-swifts and pulls the creature out by its talon feet. He slides the message into a tube secured to its harness and takes the Night-swift to the open window.

To The Seer, Lady Jane Mc Donald . . . He orders as he lets the thing fly. He repeats the same thing with another creature. To the Tracker, Tom Leeds . . .

The Great American Northwest, home of the legend of Big-Foot, and the last stand of the wild; this is the home to Tom Leeds. Tom Made in 1764, known as The Tracker for his Black Gifts of keen sight and smell, able to track anyone or anything over land, sea, and air.

He made his home in an old abandoned cavern, but even from the depth of the cave that kept the noon sun from him, he could detect the odor of the Night-swift as it approached. The timing of the creature was faultless the moon was high and the morning hours away. Tom Misted, and ascended to the surface appearing as a thick mist about a pile of mossy rocks and boulders that hid the entrance to his cavern.

The Night-swift came to him as he lifted his rematerializing arm and landed on his wrist. Tom opened the tube that held the note he broke the seal and read it. Holding the swift on one arm, he held the note out on the flat outstretched palm of his other hand. The note burst into flame and flashed into nothing in a moment.

Tom stood for a moment after the swift took off; then he took off into the woods at top speed. He had to go to the house of his Girlfriend Linda Waller a local Forest Ranger. He saw Linda while hunting, she had not seen him, but he saw her. It had been a long time since he had seen a face like hers; it was the face of his long lost love. A Ghostly face from his former life a life that had started in the year of 1739.

Tom was human born in South Carolina on a plantation north of the Stono River. That was the year of the Slave Rebellion, Cato’s Rebellion. His father Leonard learned the finer points of man tracking during this time and passed them on to his son Tom. At the age of sixteen he and his father made their living tracking down escaped slaves. In 1758, Tom met Jessica Williams and fell in love. They courted and planned to wed, but in 1760, swamp fever took Jessica and she died. In 1764, he met Linda Hammerstein, an incarnation of Lilith at the time.

Tom took not but a quarter hour to cover the ten miles of mountains between his cave and Linda Waller. He found her sitting on her front porch waiting for him as always. She smiled as he walked out of the woods towards her, her face a mirror image of his long lost Jessica.

She found him hansom, tall and well built. She liked him; he was a man of few words but his knowledge of the woods and the wildlife like no one she had known, even her teachers and older Rangers. He made her laugh and kept her entertained without making a fool of out himself.

He told her stories about the history of the region as if he had been there; little did she realize that he actually had been. The nightly visits became, welcomed and anticipated. Tom never imposed on her for dinner or drink. He never asked for more than a handshake but she kissed him once. Linda was in love with her Mountain Man, but wondered, Who he really was, and what was he doing out here in the woods.

Tom walked up to her with a bouquet of wild flowers and bowed as he stopped just a step or two in front of her.

How does this fine eve find you my Lady? He asked as he rose.

Linda took the flowers from his hand with a smile and a slightly embarrassed look about her.

I should scold you for picking flowers in a National Forest, but they are so beautiful. She said, as she smelled them. . . . Oh . . . here I am still in uniform . . .

. . . Uniform . . . none has been as lovely as you to grace it so. Tom took her hand and walked her back to her chair.

Linda reached back and pulled the bobby pins out of her bun, her hair fell down flowing past her waist. She shook her head and ran her fingers through her golden tresses, finally straighten up and pulling her locks clear of her face. She found Tom gazing at her as if he had never seen her before. It was as if he were admiring classic art; studying every brushstroke and line, composition, colors and the shades that invoke the emotions from deep in a soul. She was a bit uncomfortable, self-conscious, nevertheless, flattered at the same time.

She looked into his eyes as he looked at her. They were pail wheat yellow like the eyes of a wolf. It gave her a momentary fright. Then they seem to change to a light brown. Linda was not sure of what she had just witnessed and wrote it off to a long day.

I am sorry Tom, but I am so tired tonight. I had to chase down some hunters that were on Park land today. She laid her head back onto a small pillow tied to the head of her chair. . . . and they were off road way up near the falls. I guess they just can’t read the signs when they drive onto the Park.

It is just as well that I do not keep you from your rest then . . . just came by to let you know that I will be going to LA to meet with some Clients. They want a hunt, right now I do not know where, but they have asked for me to come. He told her as he stepped off the porch.

. . . for how long . . . I mean how long will you be gone for Tom? Linda sat up.

For as long as it takes is my fear . . . my love. He started to step away then turned. I will exchange letters with you . . . you know I do not have a phone . . . never have I trusted them.

I will miss you. She told him sadly.

. . . And I you my Love . . . He said stepping back onto the porch and kiss her lips barely touching for fear the chill of them would scare her. Then walk slowly into the woods.

Once out of sight Tom slipped through the air at a high rate of speed without making a sound or ruffling the lose groundcover under his feet. He ascended the rock face of the two hundred foot cliff that shaded Linda’s cabin in the afternoon with ease within moments of reaching its base. Once at the summit he transformed into a large owl-like bird and took flight.

Linda saw the owl as it passed in front of the full moon. It caught her attention due to its size. She had never seen an owl with such a wingspan as that one. She would have to share this with Tom when he returned she mused to herself.

The Night-swift sent to Lady Jane McDonald arrived just before the sun. It creped under the eve of the roof and made its way into the attic of her castle-like manor. The swift flew and hopped around until it found its way down into the main house. The house kept dark and the windows, of which there were few, were small, shuttered, and barred with ornate rot-iron. Thick stone bulwark, grown over with moss and ivy having stood for centuries.

The swift made its way to the deepest chamber of the old castle-like manor and tapped on the top of a marble sarcophagus with its beak. The inscription on the top Lady Jane McDonald 1083AD 1108AD, a Mist formed from under the lid and from the heart of it Lady Jane formed standing next to her sarcophagus with an irritated look on her face.

She put out her hand and the message flew from the tube. The seal broke and the message unrolled laying flat onto her hand, along with the Black Gift of a Seer she was Telekinetic. The note incinerated into thin air. She raised her finger, gesturing to the swift to stay put. She turned and caused a quill and the inkwell it was in to fly to the top of her sarcophagus, in turn a page of parchment followed in like manner. She wrote a short note. Send a Jet . . . Mc D. The page rolled up as if it had a will of its own and slipped into the tube.

Take that to the Queen . . . , She ordered with a wave of her hand.

Lady Jane returned as she had appeared, leaving the ink and quill setting on her lid. The swift made its way to the upper most room of the manor to await the night. At the last retreating rays of the sun, the swift took flight.

Lady Jane summoned her Neophytes, six young men to her mausoleum. They only appeared young the newest one of them had served for sixty years now. She ordered them to remove her coffin from the marble crypt and get it ready to travel.

The swifts returned to her Lillian was sure that Tom Leeds was well on his way, but was a bit miffed when Skillman brought her the note from Lady Jane.

She wants a Jet . . . vary well Igor, send her a Jet. Lillian wadded the note and tossed it. It exploded into flame as it crossed the room. She still thinks she is the Queen of the Scotts . . . She bellowed.

Chapter Two

The Meeting

It took three days for all of them to gather at the Citadel, but time was of little concern to any of them. Tom Leeds stopped in the Santa Cruz Mountains for the day in the protection of a bat-infested cave he had used many times before. Lady Jane told Lillian if she wanted her to come, Send a Jet, so Lillian did. Lady Jane, known for her bad temperament, but was quite the convivial and flattering person when she wanted something. Tom Leeds on the other hand was more direct in his approach to his needs.

The black Cadillac hearse went to the isolated airstrip on the outer end of the Hammerstein property to pick up Lady Jane McDonald with a Stretch-Limo for the pallbearers. To any on-looker, it would have looked like someone had died and was being brought home for burial as they carried Lady Jane’s Classic Six-sided Casket of white English Oak, from the north of Scotland, cut from McDonald land. Elegantly finished and furnished with six golden handles, three to a side. The McDonald Crest dressed the lid in gilled gold.

Tom on the other hand had flown in on his own arriving before the moon set. He and Lillian sat in the inter-parlor where protected from the direct sunlight they talked.

. . . did you say that you sent a Jet for Lady Jane McDonald? Lillian nodded with a grim look answering Tom’s query. . . . Guess she will want to make her grand entrance.

As always . . . However, I need her. I could find Koelar myself, my daughter . . . Lillian stopped short of criticizing her Daughter. You said that you had something you wanted to discuss . . . She changed the subject abruptly.

Tom turned slightly from the book self where he had been reading tiles of Lillian’s collection of first editions. You must have a millions of dollars worth of these books? Tom asked avoiding Lillian’s Mind probing not wanting to turn and face her.

Who is she, Tom . . . ? Who is Linda Waller . . . ? Jessica . . . oh Tom you will ever learn, will you? Lillian laughed out loud covering her wide smile. . . . Give it a few more centuries . . . maybe then . . . you have got to stop feeding on those . . . bears, deer, or was it squirrel . . . human blood that is your fare.

Will you let me speak for myself? Tom asked turning to Lillian, adding quickly. . . . please My Queen to which I owe all.

Very well have your say . . . go on . . . speak. Lillian crossed her hands in her lap and took a deep breath.

She gave Tom an ear but she was way ahead of him as she read his every thought. She could tell that Tom was not going to give in on this, wanting to have this human, Linda Waller Made so that she could be his Vampire wife.

Tom’s speech rambled on for a half an hour or more. The whole point was it was someone that he would never lose. Lillian’s concern was that after the Change some, most, do just that, change. They become a baser form of what they were as humans. Lost are all the finer points that make them polite, compassionate, and able to bond to others, even other of their new race. At was the reason for the Bonding, bonding her to Tom would make Tom her Master and that would insure harmony.

Lillian found no discord between what she heard of Tom’s thoughts and what he was saying. He was truly in love with this human Linda Waller.

. . . fine Tom I have heard quite enough. Lillian told him. Just this once and once only will I consider Making this human, Vampire without Servitude owed by a Neophyte, only this once . . .

Neophyte Servitude could last a century or more, Tom knew this, his had only lasted only months, but Lillian, known as Lilly Whitmore needed him at the time. Seventeen-sixty-four the year of witch hunts in the Carolinas where Lillian made her