Demetrius

By Alfonso Moret

Demetrius narrates the occurrences of a noble French covert soldier who has an altercation with a vampire and becomes one. The story reveals the actual emotions and desires of the undead. This story tells the livelihood of this vampires love affair and the dedication of a French police commissioner to destroy the vampire monster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503568211

Alfonso Moret

Alfonso was born and raised in East Los Angeles. He was a recipient of the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for wounds and service in Vietnam. He earned a counseling degree at Pacific Oaks College and was a director of a drug-treatment program in El Sereno, California. He is currently semiretired with grandfather and great-grandfather obligations and continues to write.

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Copyright © 2015 by Alfonso Moret.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/05/2015

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 1

I t was during the Napoleonic War periods of 1813–1815 that this unnatural story unfolds. Europe was in disarray, and the French armies had been at war with its foes, the Russians, the Prussians, the Austrians, and the Portuguese. As we go forward with this tale, this is when Demetrius’s novel, somber, and diverse new existence began and his old standard veiled life ended. During these struggling years, France and its forces had endured the reigning and the commandeering campaigns of the idealistic Napoleon Bonaparte. In January of 1814, France went into its clashes and disputes with Russia and their stubborn turbulent forces. On March 25, Napoleon’s French troops defeated the Russian army on the outskirts of the city of Saint-Dizier. Napoleon Bonaparte had continued to command his armies strategically enough through most of his campaigns, but then his losses began to accumulate and morale dissipated drastically. The continuing numerous crusades were the beginning demise for the Little Corporal and his reign over France.

Demetrius Gannet Brocolac was one of Napoleon’s clandestine agents whose talents consisted of being a skillful covert infiltrator and assassin. Physically, Demetrius Brocolac was a rather handsome, wholesome, and vigorous individual. He stood six feet four in height and weighed two hundred thirty pounds. This physique did not hinder him from being agile and swift as an antelope. His assignments and duties would mandate him to be secret and lethal and gave him the opportunities to assume fabricated characters, which allowed him to infiltrate enemy lines and, on occasion, into the camps of his foes. Demetrius would at times disguise himself in his adversary’s uniform and infiltrate their campsites and their conferences, and he would also permeate into officers’ consultations and strategic meetings. He would gather equitable and useful information for his emperor. At times, there were assignments with orders to eliminate a worthy, gifted, and valuable officer, who was experienced and knowledgeable of the current battlefield tactics. Napoleon wanted and needed as much advantage as possible to overturn battles in his direction.

During the Saint-Dizier City battle on March 24, Demetrius had been in concealment in the woodlands of this French city for the last three days. He had been waiting for General Langskoy to bring his troops through the dense countryside forest by the modest French city. It was now after midnight, and it was cool and quiet in the woods. The moist atmosphere had dampened the leaves and brush that had been concealing him and had now soaked through his clothing, but he managed to sustain his stillness through the still hours as he kept bundled up in the bush. The Russian troops had now made camp four hours ago, and only a few guards stood by the campfires cleaning their weapons or reading letters from home as they wearily performed their duty of standing guard. There were external listening sentry posts that had been dispatched by commanding officers and were hundreds of yards outside the camp in concealed listening and observation post positions. They were ready to alarm their commanders of any incoming enemy. Demetrius was familiar with the routines and was readily psyched up to complete his mission and execute his assassination of the Russian general.

This night, the full moon was a perky yellow with its usual smudge spots staring down at the earth and the night, and the scattered gray clouds drifted through the dark starry skies. The stars blinked at the world as they accompanied the lunar glow display in a silent concerto. Demetrius felt an intrusion to his nerve senses as the bone-chilling night air made him shiver as the aromatic, pungent mist of the nocturnal forest enveloped around him. Demetrius slowly rolled his body over and penetrated through the shrubs and leaves that had been camouflaging his presence. The moisture in the air was a good sign for him: it kept the leaves from making rustling and crunching noises as he crept through the turf and soil, and it also helped sustain the discreetness he needed. Silence and surprise were the main key factors for this proficient executioner’s profession. Demetrius rose to his knees and pushed the debris from his body. His dark clothing and camouflaged face allowed him to maneuver through the darkness and shadows undiscovered. He, in some way, sensed that something was unusual about the night air, and the stillness tonight was uncanny. Demetrius studied his surroundings. The fog seemed to be heavier tonight, and it appeared to move as if it were alive. He leaned back and braced his back to a tree trunk to make further surveillance. He was thirty meters from the enemy campsite now, and through the tree shafts and foliage, he could see large bonfire sites illuminating various areas of the bivouac vicinity. Having penetrated the lines and stood in their camps some nights before, he knew where the general’s tent was and when the man would retire. He visualized the location of where this tent will be, and he felt that getting there would be no problem. Like many times before, Demetrius took in a deep breath and fixed himself psychologically, and in his mind’s eye, he mentally visualized his assassination: After taking out any nearby sentries, he would station himself at the rear of the general’s tent. His trusty stiletto was so honed and sharp that Demetrius could shave with it, and often, he did. He visualized cutting and making an opening in the heavy canvas tent material—it would almost be like a hot knife through butter. He would step through the opening and then push the mosquito netting aside, and then with all his weight, he’d place one hand on the general’s mouth while he slit the soldier’s throat in one quick slash. The witted and honorable general would be dead in three minutes.

His imaginary vision was broken when he heard the soft snap of a twig nearby. Demetrius turned his head quickly to his left, scanning the darkness. The night air was gloomy with the thick unbroken French fog drifting all around, and this made it difficult to see any movement. So now he needed to depend on his auditory and mental senses for direction of any movement or intruder. As he slowly breathed in, the dark air seemed to become cold again, and Demetrius shivered quickly. He leaned back and braced himself against the tree again and then got down on one knee and listened and waited. He slid the stiletto out from its holster and gripped it so the blade pointed up. What was it that he heard? Or what was it that he felt/sensed? The air around him seemed to sway about him. He squinted, trying to scan his surroundings, and he now held his breath.

And then from out of the fog, a swift, strong, and firm hand grabbed his chin and twisted his head to the side and flushed it against the tree trunk while another powerful arm reached around his body and pinned his body to the tree. This brute was extremely powerful and ruthless. Demetrius’s mind tried to register how to escape. He was thus pinned to the trunk, and his squirming and wiggling was to no avail. So now Demetrius, who had trained well and mastered self-defense arts, needed to use his teachings to defend his being, but he found that he was almost helpless. Now a man’s face appeared quickly in front of his face. It seemed to be almost grinning as two eerie black eyes stared into Demetrius’s eyes for a moment, and then this man beast’s mouth opened wide, exhibiting ferocious teeth with two long sharply pointed eyeteeth, all conversing on Demetrius’s neck.

Demetrius’s mind raced quickly, What is this? Those tales cannot be true. What’s this? A vampire attacking me? It cannot be! Oh my god!

All of Demetrius’s survival skills went into automatic play as he struggled against his foe’s embrace. He didn’t drop the blade he had been holding as the fangs pierced his gullible neck and punctured into his artery. Demetrius felt the vampire suck in his blood. He twisted his wrist and jerked his hand with the stiletto up and down violently. As Demetrius’s warm blood was depleted from his body and a chill flushed throughout his body, he continued jabbing the blade; he knew that the blade had cut into substance, as he felt cold fluid running down his hand. It must be the fiend’s blood, he thought.

The vampire stopped sucking for a brief moment and looked down at what his prey had done to him. The hand holding Demetrius’s head to the tree relinquished and went for Demetrius’s hand holding the stiletto. In that brief moment, Demetrius swayed back his head and rammed his forehead into the monster’s face. Demetrius heard and felt cracking cartilage. This action stunned the fiend, and the fiend brought its hands to its face. This stay-of-execution moment was long enough for Demetrius to slash into the chest of the beast in a frenzy of stabs and slashes, causing vicious and tattered openings in the torso of this fiend. Blood poured out in small streams, and flesh hung loosely from this creature. In his terror thinking, Demetrius thought that the only way to kill a ghoul is to take out the heart. The monster had reared back in surprise and anguish, not understanding that he was now the victim. This frozen moment gave Demetrius the time to push in his hand through a large gash and grab the beating black heart of the beast, and then Demetrius yanked it out. The vampire tried to yell, but Demetrius was now in his full capacities as he covered the monster’s blood-dripping mouth with his free hand to prevent it from making any sound. The thing fell back and, with its now-tormented eyes, looked up at the sky as the stringy gray clouds continued to crawl across the full moon and now covered the moon completely, causing a fading in the night. Now a grin seems to appear on this thing’s wicked face, its eyes locked on to Demetrius’s eyes, and what seemed like a smile, it expressed a thank-you nod as it lowered its head for a final time.

Demetrius now tried to stand up. He was unsteady and weak from the loss of blood. He leaned against the tree. He clamped his hand on his neck wounds and felt torn holes in his neck, and some blood seeped through his fingers. He reached in his back pocket and took out a bandana and tied it around his neck, and he tried to be quiet as he covered the vampire with leaves and branches, and then he stumbled down to the creek two hundred yards away. He would be no good tonight to accomplish his mission, and he needed rest and nutrition to gain strength. He crept into the slow wading stream and braced himself against the bank and then strolled with the current, seeking a refuge cavity on the bank. A cave or grotto to creep into and rest until the troops had broken camp and moved on.

At last, he found a small cavern covered by weeds and grass blade. He parted the foliage and slid into the opening on the river bank and let the overhang of a willow tree cover his refuge. He was too weak to do anything more than to lay back and sleep. His mind wandered. A vampire was sucking my blood. What is going to happen to me? Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine, this thought drifted through his mind as he fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 2

T he early morning sun had dried up the moisture in the grassland, and a warm soft breeze fluttered through the hanging willow vines, making them flutter in unison as the thudding sounds of reveille drums penetrated through the woods and the campsite. The movement and rackets of awakening soldiers with their grunts and groans plagued the regular sunrise clamor of the forest scenario. Rabbits scudded about while birds chirped and jumped from branch to branch as the wildlife eyes observed and watched the calamity from their shrubbery surroundings of the encampment.

The flowing stream had subsided some of the noise, and the sounds of the forest seemed to echo in Demetrius’s confined haven. The muddled sounds stirred him, and then he abruptly awoke, puzzled by his cramped enclosure. He sensed an indifference about himself, and there was a new novel of emotions within him. As his eyes snapped opened, he began to recall his prior night’s episode. His hand went to his neck to find a smooth untarnished nape. He now thought, No wound? How is that? What happened? I’m not dreaming. He then thought, Why do I feel so unusual, so different? Demetrius’s contemplations startled him. He felt no pain, no aches, and no stiffness. He caressed his throat and realized, I am alert and hungry. He shook his head no and thought, It’s not hunger. It’s a thirst that I have. And—oh my god—and this thirst is for blood. My god, what has happened to me? Am I? No, it cannot be so. God, have you forsaken me?

Demetrius scooted himself to the opening of the embankment cavity; the vines covered the passageway. Tiny streams of air flushed on Demetrius’s face as his eyes slightly watered when the stringy beams of sunlight hit his face.

Ouch. He leaned back, and a serious quizzical expression covered his face. He put out his hand to the vines and drew the vines back some, squinting as his fingers seamed to sting in the sunlight. He fell back as the morning sun slapped him in the face. The heat and energy of the sun’s rays were amazingly lethal on his skin. He now sat there and knew what had happened to him last night and what he may have become. His teeth gritted, and his brow furrowed as he pounded the ground and silently cursed the plague that was now bestowed upon him. The memory of that thing smiling at him as it died flashed across his mind.

As the sounds of the soldiers breaking camp continued, there were shouts of men’s orders traveling through the woodland. There was pounding, yelling, and horses neighing and trotting along with wagons moving throughout the midmorning.

Rolling over on his stomach with his hands on his face, Demetrius went into a morning prayer, O Lord, the penance you have administered upon me is too grand for any man, let alone a follower of your word. I was a seeker of peace. I was a confessor of sins. I killed in your name. Now I will have to kill so that I can continue to exist. You have made me into a fiend. I am now your reliability.

Demetrius sat on his haunches, his arms around his knees, and he thought and contemplated and tried to come to some understanding of what he was and what he would do to survive. Was there a way to reverse his curse? He will strive and search to find an answer—yes, that will be his goal for now. He grimaced, and then he rolled over and closed his eyes and slept and waited for the sun to go down.

Chapter 3

I n the days that followed Demetrius’s transformation, the Russian troops had been turned back, but they continued to skirmish just outside of the city of Saint-Dizier but to no avail, and now Napoleon Bonaparte notched himself another win. On his first day as a creature of the night in the shade of trees