Tears of the Ancients, Part Ii: Into the Vampires Lair

By C R Crick

In just over two thousand years, Loot has transformed from an orphan Viking to the most powerful caster and greatest superhero on Earth. One day after a ship lands on Loot and Safrins beloved island, they destroy their home and head to the safety of a cave deep within the Smoking Mountains. But unfortunately within his chaotic world, safety is always short-lived.

When Loot learns a fleet of ships is approaching and that the king of the Vikings in Norrland wants to find new lands for his sons to rule, he realizes war appears imminent and decides to help the Giants of the north. Two hundred years after he demonstrates his abilities and trains others like Dento in his quest to assist the Vikings in their win, Loot is sent on a dangerous journey to hunt for the vampire lair where he meets Merlin the great, Jack the Ripper, and Dracula with all of his children. But can he save the king of his new friends, before it is too late?

In this continuing fantasy tale, a superhero must rely on help from a band of magical characters as he embarks on a new quest to help the Vikings and battle vampires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532021886

C R Crick

C R Crick loves dragons, wizards, giants, and Vikings. He and his wife, CarrieAnn, have two children and too many cats to name. Calvin currently resides in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada, where he is working on the third book in his Tears of the Ancients series.

Book preview

TEARS OF THE ANCIENTS,

PART II

Into the Vampires Lair

CALVIN CRICK

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TEARS OF THE ANCIENTS, PART II

INTO THE VAMPIRES LAIR

Copyright © 2017 C R Crick.

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 author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-2190-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2189-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2188-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017905878

iUniverse rev. date: 06/24/2017

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 Our Home Destroyed … What Now?

Chapter 2 Loot Shows Dento The Magic

Chapter 3 Thaldon Calls On Loot

Chapter 4 Loot And The Armada

Chapter 5 The Giants’ Missing King

Chapter 6 United States Of America

Chapter 7 The Gunfight

Chapter 8 Dead Man’s Canyon

Chapter 9 The Mountain Trails

Chapter 10 Wolves In Town

Chapter 11 Strange Friends

Chapter 12 The Plan

Chapter 13 The Lair

Chapter 14 The Roundup

Chapter 15 Time To Head Home

Chapter 16 A Holiday In London

Chapter 17 Loot And Safrin Go To America

PROLOGUE

K ing Vidar and Queen Safrin had left Ireland eighteen hundred years ago in one of the king’s ships heading west with only their parents and a new family of dragons, secure in knowing they were alive and well. Safrin’s parents were the new king and queen of Trans Lease, their palace and town of South Bend now destroyed. Vidar’s adopted father continued to serve as the king’s hand and stood at the new king’s side.

Loot trained constantly to become the strongest spell caster ever known to the magical world of dragons. With all his involvement with the wars of the land, he had become known as the greatest superhero ever. Vidar could not keep the name Vidar; some said the name was that of a king, and others said it was the name of a god. Some stories had the name Vidar as the Hero King Who Became a God. His old name, Loot, was just a name with no ties, and he had used it for many years when he was young, so he decided to use it again; he was once again Loot.

In the first years after they left Ireland, Loot and Safrin flew back to Trans Lease to visit their parents. They knew they couldn’t watch their parents age and die; it would be much too painful once they lost them. First, they lost Loot’s adopted father, and then Safrin lost her mom and dad two days apart. It was devastating for her not to be there when they passed. With no family left, they had no reason to go back there. Smoking Mountains was the only place they visited that felt like the home of the only family they had left.

Shortly after Trea passed away, war came to Ireland. The Viking blood was erased from Ireland, and any trace that would prove they were ever there was destroyed.

A new town was built. They called it Duiblinn. It was not much of a town for the first few hundred years; it had nothing to do with Vikings, and the only people alive at that time were the ancestors of the people who had been taken hostage and raised with no Viking influence.

Loot was not around to help. Even if he could have, he was out with Thaldon and Mithrex ridding the land of the remaining rogue dragons. For the past hundred years or so, the dragons had taken eggs from other dragons that were out hunting. Only a female could hatch the eggs, as they had a chemical in their bodies that let them heat their tails to a thousand degrees.

Mithrex and Thaldon didn’t know there was a female in the group of rogues, but the female dragons that had laid the eggs knew they had been hatched when their young tried to communicate with them. They made a plan to wound one of the younger dragons so that out of fear of death, he would return to the cave they had been living in and lead them to the stolen eggs.

Loot almost died during one of the battles when a rogue dragon tried to pull him into a pack that would have ripped him apart. Thaldon saved him just in time for Loot to see a young rogue swing down along the mountains on a small island just off the coast of Ireland. They found the cave in which the female hatching the eggs. She was the true leader of the rogues and a jealous older sister to Mermax. They now understood why Logan would kill his own brother, Teaona’s dad; he was not in charge. It had been Mantra all along. She was thought to have died many years in the past when she fell in a volcano on the mainland during a fight with Mermax.

Mithrex wanted to end Mantra’s reign of destruction. Loot returned the young dragons to their families shortly after they were rescued. Once they had defeated the rogues, Mithrex sent him back to Iceland to recover. Nothing was ever said about Loot’s close call as he had saved Thaldon and Mithrex that day, and it wasn’t the kind of thing you discussed at a family gathering.

Loot spent the next few hundred years saving women and children from the fallout of war. He did not take Safrin with him when he was at war as she didn’t need to see that kind of destruction and brutality. Loot would drop Safrin off at the Smoking Mountains, or Teaona would go to Iceland and stay with her.

Loot was often absent due to the number of wars in all parts of the world. To make up for his time spent away, they went on relaxing trips to beaches or jungles with loads of wildlife.

After the wars, Loot and Safrin went to the sites of many cities that had been destroyed. Safrin knew Loot was going only to make sure the children he had saved were all right.

Loot was bar none the strongest caster in the world of magic, and he had become the most powerful dragon ever with his green ball of destruction and ability to breathe fire. Loot and Safrin understood that with the kings of the new worlds searching for lands and riches that they would need to move again one day. Loot had kept his identity hidden; the only beings who knew all he had done for the magical world and humanity were the Smoking Mountain dragons. Loot planned to keep it that way till he needed help from others with powers much like his.

The past few hundred years had been good to Loot. He had grown, and he stood over fifty feet tall. His neck was strong and full of muscle and about fourteen feet across. He was still dwarfed by Mermax, and even Teaona was a good head taller than he was. That may not seem like much, but her head was close to twenty feet high. Loot had been in more fights than most dragons had, but he had fought most of them in human form. The fights were still a bit unfair as Loot was faster and stronger than anything his size; he really couldn’t be hurt much.

Loot had helped in many wars with the salvation of many women and children, but his hardest fights were yet to come.

CHAPTER 1

OUR HOME DESTROYED … WHAT NOW?

J ust minutes after sunset and just minutes before sunup, Loot and Safrin were in the land of the midnight sun, Iceland, their home for the last eighteen hundred years. They would travel to places where no one would know them and do their shopping as well as save humans.

Loot had stripped the cabin out of the ship they had crossed the ocean in. Loot had flown the rest of the ship to the top of a mountain in Iran so no one would find it. The cabin part was buried under a few feet of dirt and sod so it would not be noticed. The front door was a large boulder Loot would remove with a spell when they came and went. The back of the cabin had an escape hatch that could be opened only from inside.

They had set up a great life there. Loot had brought sheep from Norrland and Ireland over the years. Safrin planted a garden on the top of their house, and they had a great rock bluff they could fish from just minutes from their front door. The island was full of hot springs they could swim in, and Loot had dug a beautiful well for drinking water. They would go on a picnic every week and watch the wildlife play in the ocean—seals, sea lions, and whales were around most of the time.

One beautiful evening, they watched the northern lights as they sipped on wine they had gotten during their last trip to the mainland. Loot could see Safrin was suffering from cabin fever; she had been on the island for over four months. He asked her if she would like to go for a trip. Safrin said, I would love to go see Mermax, Teaona, and Dento. Can we do that after our picnic we planned for tomorrow? I have the food ready.

Loot smiled and said, Let’s do it.

Loot heard thunder. The picnic they had planned was sure to be ruined, but that meant they could go to the Smoking Mountains earlier. The wind grew stronger and seemed ready to blow them away. The hair on Loot’s back stood on end; he heard voices outside. He jumped out of bed and landed with a thud on the dirt floor.

Safrin, startled, screeched, What’s wrong? Is it Mermax, Teaona, or Dento?

No. But someone is coming, Loot said.

He cast a spell to shrink all their belongings and put them in a bag he had made to take things on his trips. He ushered Safrin to the escape hatch. They climbed out, but Loot didn’t close the hatch. Safrin looked at him with concern.

Loot said, We can’t come back. If they land here, they will find it.

Loot looked out over the sea. The ship was landing in the place they had originally landed. He smiled at Safrin, who had a tear in her eye as she watched the earth return to the same as it was before they had built their home. This was a sad day for the two of them, but they had already seen many others’ homes destroyed.

Loot changed into a dragon, and he asked Safrin to turn into a bird. With all the time they had had to try out their magical powers, Safrin had discovered that she was a shifter; she could become any living thing she wished and could cast spells as Loot and the rest of the dragons could.

Loot’s powers had grown so strong that when he focused, he didn’t have to say the words for his spells; he just had to think them and it would take place. No other dragon had magical powers that strong. The two had trained together so much that their magic was second nature. Loot and Safrin found that if he cast a spell on her, she would change into the last living thing she had been thinking about. Most of the time, she changed into a wyvern because she had Fin on her mind a lot. At other times, if they had just been on a trip around the island, she would turn into a bird. Once, she turned into pig after Loot had left a mess in the house.

Loot found he could cast an area effect around Safrin and it would not affect her, a great discovery. He was able to cast an effect around the rogue dragons when he helped Thaldon and Mithrex. Loot had to tell Mithrex and Thaldon that the effect would make anything in the area soft so they should be careful to avoid being grabbed. The rogue dragons dropped like flies onto an apple pie. Loot was happy it was over; he never liked killing anything for no reason. He could never say they had killed Mermax’s sister. He had killed so much evil in the last eighteen hundred years that it was as if he were an assassin, but he had had no other choice.

The dragons would let him know if he was needed someplace, and that is where he would go, often alone. But at present, they were off to the Smoking Mountains, the only safe place for them. Loot passed over the old home to see who had landed and saw that the ship had nothing but monks on it. They would not have started anything with Loot and Safrin, but Loot considered it best to stay hidden.

Loot, I told you we would try to stay out of your life, but why you are headed this way? Just for a visit? Mermax asked Loot.

"A ship landed on our island. We