Forbidden License to Bite

By Frank Arcilesi

A novella (14 chapters).
An unusual vampire paranormal romance with twists and turns.

He can remember it all now. She was beautiful. I guess that can fool us sometimes. We all have secrets. Some are innocent but some will change those around us if they are known. Emotions about love and hate sometimes must be set aside so that we must do what must be done. The soul of humanity rests in the balance.

And so, a man struggles with what must be done after he discovers the secret of his lover’s existence.

Excerpt:

Sometimes I am asked by individuals if the following account is true. My only response is a forced faint smile. After all, it is they who will register it into their consciousness, and in the end, they will believe what they wish to believe. It is that special mysterious human process we all possess. I cannot make that personal decision for them. Their decision becomes their truth to them--and mine is mine......

She walked around to my side of the desk and put her right hand over my clasped hands. “Have you not one ounce of pity for me?”

I looked down at her hand gently resting on my hands—so slender and graceful—and felt her soft skin on mine, then looked up at her as I abruptly pulled my hands away from her. “I pity those who so unwillingly gave the blood that runs through your veins. I pity those poor souls. You’re a being that lives in a strange macabre world, not one filled with sunshine, but one filled with storm clouds with blood raining down. Yes, I pity those poor souls whose only mistake was that they ran into you.”

I rose slowly and put my hands on her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes as I never had before. “I regret all the bad things that happen in this world. I regret everything that has happened to you but as the prayer says, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Her eyes locked on mine as she softly spoke in return, barely audible. “But that’s not the complete original version of that prayer John. The complete original version also said, Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the pathway to peace and taking as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.” She paused for a moment with an almost yearning look before she continued. “Yes, I live in that world, but it was raining blood before I ever stepped into it.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frank Arcilesi
• Release date: Jun 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215205532

Frank Arcilesi

Frank Arcilesi has a degree in Mass Communications; and Mathematics from Towson State University in Maryland. He has written numerous stories, and articles on collecting, travel and other topics, and has financial and business experience.By Toni Hull of Epic Book Promotions:Frank Arcilesi has recently authored Everyday a Bird Learns How to Fly.Montgomery Village, Maryland is an area of rolling green hills, beautiful parks and cherry blossoms. Dubbed ‘The Best Hometown in Maryland’, Montgomery Village is a short train ride from Washington DC, and less than an hour’s drive from Baltimore. Along with 40,000 other people, Frank Arcilesi calls Montgomery Village his home.The air was crisp and the sky was bright the October morning that I asked Mr. Arcilesi to fill me in on his novel Every Day a Bird Learns How to Fly, and his life in general.“I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland with my mom, dad and older brother. The city had a special charm with its small ethnic neighborhoods and friendly people. Of course there were the Orioles and Baltimore Colts, until they (Colts) were unceremoniously hijacked at midnight by the Mayflower vans. Johnny Unitas and Brooks and Frank Robinson were my heroes.When I was a kid my mom worked as a buttonhole maker in a custom suit factory and my dad pressed garments. These were tedious un-fun jobs but they kept food on the table for my brother and me. School was a little out of the ordinary. My high school was all male and we had to rent female cheerleaders from other schools for our football games. We never knew if they were really cheering for our team or the opposition.” Today the cheerleaders are more honest in their enthusiasm since the school is now coed. Later I attended college just eight miles north of Baltimore at Towson State University. That is where I studied mass communications and mathematics. I’ll let you decide which one I found boring.”“How about favorite places?”“Antiques shops are fascinating and I will stop at any new one I discover. I also love to drive through the countryside of Pennsylvania during the fall. In the summer though, my favorite spot is the resort town of Ocean City, Maryland, with its sandy beach and long, long boardwalk stretching past the many souvenir shops and food stands. I also like to search the small resort town for new restaurants specializing in fine seafood. There are some excellent ones which I discovered recently nestled along some of the marinas and bay inlet areas. Enjoying fine seafood with a view of boats and water in front of you, can’t be beat. I also enjoy eating pizza, chicken, New England clam chowder, crabs, peanut butter ice cream, and gummy bears.”“Every Day a Bird Learns How to Fly is the name of your book. What is it about ?”“Every Day a Bird Learns How to Fly is set in a small town during the late ‘50s. A boy by the name of Jimmy is finishing up his senior year in high school and is feeling his way along a well traveled route of learning to become a man. A young, married woman enters his life one day and everything that once seemed simple is suddenly complicated by friends, family and life’s simple rules in general.--------------------------------------------------Book Review:By Midwest Book Review:'The stepmother of one's best friend in high school - there doesn't seem too much potential for romance. "Every Day a Bird Learns How to Fly" is a classic love story about Jimmy and Carol, only Jimmy is fresh out of high school and Carol is older and the mother of his friend. For 1958 in a small community in the state of Maryland, it's not the most kosher thing socially. Jimmy and Carol are stuck in a conflict of love and respect, and have no idea which will win out. "Every Day a Bird Learns How to Fly" is a fine addition to any romance shelf and for anyone who wants a controversial love story.'

Book preview

Forbidden License to Bite

Frank V. Arcilesi

Copyright

Published by Frank Arcilesi at Smashwords. I Frank Arcilesi am the original and only author of this novel. I retain all copyright ownership rights and I have the exclusive rights to publish it.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The following novel is the Smashwords published edition

Chapter One

Sometimes I am asked by individuals if the following account is true. My only response is a forced faint smile. After all, it is they who will register it into their consciousness, and in the end, they will believe what they wish to believe. It is that special mysterious human process we all possess. I cannot make that personal decision for them. Their decision becomes their truth to them--and mine is mine…...

Winter is not my season and killing is not my thing but I realize that each exists and each will have its time in this world. In certain times and certain places, certain inexplicable events can transpire—events that are counter to our beliefs and defy what we believe is logical. Through no choice of our own we are sometimes drawn to negative worldly forces that we have no desire to align our souls with—and then we are forced to participate in events counter to the fiber that creates our being. Then we must deal with them with whatever means are necessary.

And so it was with me. This is my story, John McFarland, an ordinary man—until I met her. It’s about me—and her.

I could get under the covers with her and taste her, smell her, feel her, and experience her full womanhood. She was sweet, she was soft, she was loving—but some might say she was evil……

~~~~

I remember that day. It wasn’t long ago. I shivered ever so slightly even in the light of the late afternoon sun as I reached the old rusty broken red side door. Icicles that were hanging down over the old metal warehouse door cracked loudly and fell at my feet when I yanked on the handle and pulled it open. Inside the old empty warehouse, the rays of the setting sun, fighting to make their way through haze covered long rectangular windows near the roof, revealed a huge empty structure, awaiting either destruction or reincarnation into another life.

A large empty structure devoid of the people and activity that once made it useful can generate an uncanny presence. Scaffolding erected for day workers to make roof repairs was the only sign of recent activity. Scattered dimly lit incandescent bulbs along the walls provided an eerie light, casting ominous long shadows from the columns and beams that formed the skeleton of the structure. Once a busy sturdy structure, its only immediate function now was as a final meeting place for one hunter and one hunted. I wondered which one I would be. A rusty steel mezzanine on one side of the building was lined with small offices. All were dark save for one at the end, which had a pale yellow light shining through its window. It was my reluctant destination.

This decrepit structure seemed like a highly inappropriate place in which a thing of beauty would have to die, but she had chosen the place, not I, and I would do what I had to do to finally bring it to an end. Beauty is not a substitute for humanity and no being can truly live and love without its humanity. My soul would somehow summon up the courage to put out the life force of a beautiful creature that had no apparent soul. I would live with the deed forever but I could rest with it, having no regrets, knowing that no other human would die because of her. My priest had seemed right when he said—she was evil, albeit beautiful.

I would find her up there in the mezzanine, alone and waiting for me: beautiful, seductive, smart, and the embodiment of death all rolled into one. Man’s insistence on using logic to solve problems must sometimes give way to the need for the use of other brutal means—for evil circumstance respects no logic and must be dealt with accordingly.

It had been a long search. I had not expected it to end though with Claudia calling me and telling me where to find her. It seemed too easy but I would take what I was given. I didn’t know why she had called me out of the blue, but whatever she had planned for me, I was determined that she would not get her way, that hopefully I would survive and would finish what I had set out to do months earlier. That line between love and hate presented itself to me as I moved forward, daring me to cross either way, but I chose to straddle it—mission replacing emotion.

I walked slowly and cautiously toward the long metal stairs that led to the mezzanine, my footsteps echoing throughout the eerie empty structure as if emphasizing my determination to find what I was looking for. As I approached the base of the stairs my shoes sloshed through several puddles of water created by rain that had leaked through the deteriorating roof, slightly slowing my approach to the inevitable.

As I reached the first tread, I stopped and moved my right hand down to my side, feeling through my trench coat for the dragon handle of the dagger that I had carefully attached to my belt. It was still securely in place. With my hand still in place over the handle of the weapon, my mind flashed back with thoughts of her and what had happened to bring me to this dark and cold place for an equally dark and cold task. I went back in time, frozen, while I replayed the scenes in my mind.

~~~~

These are the events that led me to that cold shadowy structure.

That car she drove should have given me a clue. She had a black 1965 Ford Galaxie 427 convertible with black top and interior. It definitely complemented her look. It fitted her well—a classy looking piece with distinct lines. As for her, she was in her mid thirties, had black hair and nearly always wore black outfits on a trim figure that exuded a soft classy seductive look. I had been with her for about five months before she had taken off. It had been an abrupt departure brought on by the brutal and icy revelation of what she really was. They say that the truth can set you free, and I suppose there is merit to that, but not without a severe blow to whatever semblance of peace and harmony that resides within us.

Love lasts only to a point, the point where it can no longer be considered an asset to be cherished. That point is reached when to engage in it further would only result in the loss of one’s soul and integrity and one’s slow destruction. I admit that I had loved her once but that time seemed so long ago now, a time lost in a mist that the wind had pushed away farther and farther away from me until it had dissipated into the infinity of nothingness. Too many people’s lives had ended at her hands. She was a creature of darkness that had somehow invaded the world of light, an unnatural penetration into a world where she did not belong and must be expelled.

So now we arrive at the inevitable—the revelation—the attachment of a description to her being, her existence. It is difficult to convey to others, but in one sense it is easy, for there is only one name for Claudia’s kind—you know them of course from the legends about creatures that walk the night. If you laugh still believing that these creatures exist only in folklore and Hollywood productions as I also once so naively did, beware, for you are ignorant of the danger that surrounds us all. They walk and live among us, their identities hidden unless through sheer chance or willful decision, they reveal their true dark selves. They are of course, vampires.

And if you still find humor in this, then you are me—but in a prior time, before I became aware of the other reality. Lest you also still believe that these beings are all creatures and prisoners of the night, let me dispel that theory. Although most still are nocturnal beings, do not for one minute believe that they all are. Through evolution, elixirs and sheer willpower, some, a special breed, have transcended past their nocturnal bondage and enjoy the same passions and desires, day or night that we do. These are the most dangerous of the species for they blend in seamlessly into our lives—hidden dangers to our human existence.

A special breed, they do not shun from sunlight, they do not shun away from garlic and other means long thought to weaken them, and when they stand in front of mirrors you will clearly see their reflections as you see your very own. They are almost human—almost. They are known as the Elita Vampir but you won’t find their existence documented in your local reference manual. Their existence is only documented by word of mouth from individuals who have become aware of them through unfortunate circumstance.

Should you make love to a female you would not be able to distinguish her from a human. Believe it—I know. The desire and passion would be the same. They approach the state of the human condition save for one major element—a condition they cannot escape—the periodic need for human blood in order to continue their existence. I had been fooled for a long time by Claudia, but it was that basic need that finally exposed her and enlightened me to the existence of these beings. I now believe that these creatures exist.

The sudden exposure had caused her to flee from my life knowing that I could not accept what she was. However, I knew that I would have to find her, track her down wherever she had fled, and stop her. My guilt at having loved such a being, a creature of death who had taken human lives, could only be assuaged by committing the deed that had to be done to