Death Ever Nigh: Katie McGuire, Vampire, #2

By Jared Wynn

Katie McGuire's first death wasn't as bad as she thought it would be; getting up the next day was way more painful than the actual dying part. But it would really suck if she were to die a second time, because there would be no getting up from that one.  

So it would be great if everybody could just stop trying to kill her and let her get on with the rest of her afterlife already. Instead, a preacher's widow is lobbying to have her rights cancelled, a gang of moralizing zealots is stalking her, and Trenton's clan has brought in a legendary Vampire hunter from the Dark Ages to silence her forever. Oh, and Benny is dying, and keeping him alive may be the key to curing her own condition - if she can stick around long enough.

But unfortunately for Katie, Death is Ever Nigh.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Easy Wynn Publishing
• Release date: Mar 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201929480

Jared Wynn

Jared Wynn spent his formative years in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East as an expat and diplomatic dependent. After what felt like several lifetimes overseas, he returned to America to pursue a higher education while bouncing around between odd jobs. To date, he's been a cook, a bouncer, a geophysical technician, a hypnotherapist, a Jujitsu instructor, and a standup comic, all of which he thinks makes him a better writer but which probably just makes him eccentric. He currently resides in Southern California with his wife and three stepkids.

Book preview

Prologue:

Saying that the dead have a right to walk among us is like saying that homeless people have a right to camp out in your living room. We say that’s preposterous, not because we lack compassion, but because we know in our heart of hearts that grace cometh of the Lord and not the will of man.

If you have a problem with that, take it up with God.

Toil and Trouble

The limo idled at the gate outside the lair, the driver muttering something to himself about how coming Undone could be so unbecoming. He had a new passenger in the back, and unlike Brian, this one wasn’t very conversational.

The gate finally opened. Why it took so long he didn’t know, he just knew better than to ask. Same thing with the divider; it was after dark, so there was no need for it even be up in the first place. But that’s what the passenger wanted.

He keyed the interphone mic. We’re pulling in now, he announced as he steered the limo through the gate and into the garage. He pulled up in front of the steel door, the last barrier to the lair. Sit tight, I’ma come around and open the door for you. He opened the driver’s side door and hopped out just as the passenger opened the rear door and did the same. Or you can just open it yourself, the driver shrugged.

The passenger looked like the bastard child of a Viking and a whiskey barrel; he had long, reddish-brown hair, a beard to match it, and wore a knee-length black trench coat over black pants and boots. He carried a long broadsword by its plain, black scabbard as his only piece of luggage. After a glance around, he turned to the driver with a word of advice: Once a man comes Undone, he cannot unbecome by his own virtue.

The driver was too polite to ask for a translation. Or maybe he was just too fascinated with the sword; he couldn’t take his eyes off the ancient weapon. I guess it’s sharper than lead, huh?

’Tis not the blade that matters, but what moves it. With a flick of the wrist, the old Vampire swept the still-sheathed sword across the driver’s unbuttoned jacket; not close enough to touch the body, just close enough to move the fabric and reveal the butt of a concealed pistol.

The driver buttoned his jacket while taking a step back. They said your name’s Aldon, right? I’m Deimos. That’s gonna be my Vampire name, he added.

I know without asking that you’ve never met your predecessor. And it hasn’t occurred to you to wonder why, Aldon remarked. He shouldered his massive sword and walked through the door to the inner lair.

Once he thought the old Vampire was out of earshot, Deimos unbuttoned his jacket again. Yeah, well, mine has longer range, he muttered to himself.

KATIE TOSSED ANOTHER book onto the discard pile. She’d been picking up every book she could find on mythology and bringing them to the hospital to study with Benny, and while she was mostly doing it to keep him company, she’d still hoped to find some obscure piece of Vampire lore that would help undo her condition. But that hope was fading. Shouldn’t we be reading medical books or something? She sighed.

Well, the hospital WiFi’s too slow, Benny replied while using a sticky note to bookmark something. And they don’t have a lot of medical textbooks in public libraries. Here’s one, have you ever heard of Shalim?

Sounds like a Moroccan pop star.

No, Shalim was the Mesopotamian god of dusk. Benny showed her a picture of a bronze figure in an encyclopedia. He was rumored to have been over a thousand years old...

Benny, the freaking Bible talks about people who were over a thousand years old. People sucked at counting back then.

Or maybe they sucked at describing things that everybody knew about and accepted as being perfectly normal.

You’re saying there were Vampires everywhere and people worshiped them. Katie rolled her eyes. Are you worried they’re gonna start worshiping me?

People worship whatever they think has the power to save them. Benny started counting on his fingers. One, you have inhuman strength. Two, you’re basically immortal, with some caveats.

Three, Katie continued for him, the sunlight you depend on for vitamin D is lethal to me.

I was going to say, ‘three, you saved my life,’ Benny shrugged.

Doctors saved your life, Benny. My overreaction might Undo you.

Benny put his hand on hers. There’s a lot we don’t know yet, Benny nodded at the bottle of pills on the table next to his hospital bed. But if I can be cured, maybe we’ll find something in all this, he waved at the stacks of books, some needle in this haystack that’ll work for you. Katie?

She’d been staring off into space. Sorry, she shook her head. I was just thinking about how what cures you kills me.

Yeah, I guess it’d help to know what kills you too, so we can avoid it, Benny conceded.

Or so we can weaponize it. Katie’s eyes narrowed and the tips of