Racing the Dawn

By Sandra Barret

Jade Murphy is bored. A century and a half of hopping from night job to night job will do that to a vampire. After narrowly escaping a house fire, she’s unexpectedly intrigued by gorgeous firefighter Beth Jenssen, and her undead existence might just be perking up a bit.

When her neighbor’s illegal side business triggers Jade’s serious anger management issues, things start to get complicated. Running around the streets of Boston trying to extricate herself from the mess she’s made, while keeping Beth’s attention on anything other than her vampire foibles, isn’t exactly a recipe for romance.

Undead existence still too boring, Jade?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
• Release date: Jun 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781636792712

Sandra Barret

Sandra Barret is a native New Englander who wanted to be an archaeologist. So of course she ended up a writer for a software company. She focuses her fiction writing on urban fantasy and science fiction stories where strong women save the day. When not writing, she’s reading, gardening, and occasionally digging holes way too deep in the back of her historic home in the hopes of finding something more archaeologically significant than the ever-present coal slag. Dreams never die, they just adapt to life circumstances!

Book preview

Chapter One

Some people hate warehouse work. Me? I love it. I get to wear earbuds, play music on my phone, and ignore my coworkers for nine hours straight. Best job I’ve had in the past century. It’s not easy getting and holding a job as a century-and-a-half-year-old vampire. I mean the world is more accepting than it was when I was turned, but blood-sucking immortals just haven’t managed their own diversity and inclusion efforts yet. Add to that, anxiety issues and multiple failed efforts at anger management, and I’m just happy to have a steady paycheck to keep a roof over my head and blood bags from the black market in my fridge. The earbuds mean nobody is butting into my personal business. I can stay in my little bloodsucker closet and pass for human. Mostly.

This warehouse is fully automated, with trackers on everything we do. Fine by me, so long as I remember to keep my pace down to human-slow. I had a bit of explaining to do the first week, when I doubled the output of the prior top performer. (Hey, Silas, you’re still here and still a jackass.) So now I make sure I stay behind Silas and Maria, the other overachiever, just for good measure.

I got the shift-end buzz on my phone (yep, they even have an app for that), cleaned up my area, and headed for the door. Didi, my manager, waved me over on my way out. She loves me, and what’s not to love? I get my job done, and I don’t cause problems. I’ll take any shift, any day or night.

Yes, days, too. Vampires don’t burn up in the sun. We do get serious sun sickness, though, and prefer staying indoors in the daytime, with artificial lighting whenever possible.

Didi was a short, round Latina with way too much energy for a human. She pulled down the regulation mask they still made us all wear since the pandemic. Funny how the corporation fought against stocking enough masks and disposable gloves when the humans really needed them, but stocked up like the world was going to end as soon as they managed to buy a supplier and turn it into a company product they could sell. Even that wasn’t enough to get our own supplies until their automated human-resources software realized there were a lot less callouts for sick staff while we were all gloved and masked up. No to masks to keep the humans alive, but yes to masks that keep them on the warehouse floors longer.

Jade, Didi said. Can you take tomorrow’s evening shift? I know you were scheduled for a day off, but…

Yep, I said to save her from extra explanations and extra conversations I didn’t want to have. Extra money helped, always helped.

Thanks. You’re a doll. I hope it doesn’t ruin your weekend plans?

Yeah, that subject bordered on the uncomfortable, so I mumbled a good-bye, stuffed my earbuds back in, and headed out the door a bit too fast for human-normal. If I didn’t leave, Didi would extend the conversation, and I’m not the conversational type. Some people are the run-away-before-it-gets-awkward type, but I’m the run-away-and-make-it-awkward type.

I tossed my disposable gloves on the way out, then pulled off my cloth mask and stuffed it into my pocket. The night air hit me with the damp memory of a recent rainfall, just enough to emphasize the general stench of old oil and diesel that lingered from all the delivery trucks in this warehouse and the surrounding buildings, including the post-office sorting hub that shared the lot with us.

A handful of other shift members left the same time as I did, but those earbuds were my lifesaver, and I didn’t even have to pretend to have a conversation. As you might have guessed, I avoid talking to people, most all people. It’s just easier that way.

I walked down the dark streets of Chelsea, shedding that lingering awkward feeling by the time I crossed the bridge into East Boston, the neighborhood where I currently lived. It was six o’clock in the morning, and the birds were already heralding the coming dawn. I could walk the whole way home and feel the start of sun sickness, or I could race the dawn. With a look around to be sure nobody could see me, I jumped onto the nearest fire escape, scrambled to the roof, and ran at vampire speed across the rooftops of the triple-deckers that were the lifeblood of the city of Boston. The damp air hit me as I raced, and I couldn’t help but grin as the well-lit streets sped by below me. It was my favorite pastime, at least until the rich-people, ten-story-condo craze took over everything in sight and priced me and every other working stiff out of the city. I hooked up with the rail trail ten minutes later and dropped back down to street level. At this hour, I’d have it to myself.

* * *

I slowed down around Shays Beach, not because I was tired or anyone was in the vicinity, but because I smelled smoke and could hear the rumbling of fire engines in the distance.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. In my one-and-a-half centuries, I’d witnessed plenty of fires, and two mobs had burned me out of my home. The first burning came after I was turned and had been too sloppy in covering my tracks. Back in 1872, vampires weren’t heroes or villains in books and movies. People knew we were real. It wasn’t until after World War II that superstitions faded into the background as everyone embraced the modern world. Silly humans.

In 1919 during the Chicago race riots, a few hundred other Blacks and I were burnt out of our homes. Jackass humans.

I stopped in the middle of the sandy beach, with the gibbous moon riding low across Logan Airport to my right. The chance that someone found out I was a vampire and attempted to torch me out was minimal. Similarly unlikely, someone took offense to my skin color and cherry-bombed my apartment, but the thought didn’t slow my racing pulse, sweaty palms, and the dreaded sense of impending doom. I squatted down in the damp sand and clutched the Connemara-marble stone I kept in my pocket for good luck. It and my hazel eyes were the two things I’d gotten from my Irish immigrant mother.

I’m safe. I’m not in danger. My therapist, Simone, taught me the litany to help calm the anxiety. Yes, vampires see therapists, but not doctors. That leads to tests and questions and people having to die because they know too much.

I whispered the litany for a few heartbeats, but when I heard the screaming siren of another fire truck, I had to find out. I looked at the weather app on my phone. Fifteen minutes until dawn. Ten deep breaths (another therapy trick), and I raced to the end of the beach and up to the top of the nearest set of triple-deckers. Run, run, leap across the street, run run, leap. As I neared the scene, I could tell it wasn’t the triple-decker I lived in. It was two blocks away.

Calmness of mind doesn’t equate instantly to calmness of body, but I was okay enough to slow down and stay out of sight on the rooftop on the corner and out of the fire-truck lights to see what the fuss was all about. Two trucks took up the entire

Reviews for Racing the Dawn

[Angela · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The personality of the main character was very original. It was fun to read.