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Ash and Bone Excerpt

New York, 1910

(Unedited excerpt from my second work in progress).

Sebastian Blackwell was only eighteen the day that he was turned. A painful experience that was, by all means, against the law and punishable by the Transcendent Council.

A cold chill ran up his spine from the East River and he shivered.

Motley’s Tavern, was Sebastian’s favorite place to go: To listen to music on the radio and dance along to the sounds of Scott Joplin playing piano while he sneaked shots of Liquor and danced the night away to his heart’s content. Just to stumble home and do it all again the next day.

The way home was never easy. Sebastian was a clumsy drunk, he stumbled a lot and fell over his own two feet. His stomach twisted and felt as if it were turning and twisting into knots. He stumbled onward, passing behind The Ritter Painless Dental Co.—the local dentist—into one of the back alleys, taking a short cut home.

His black hair was sweaty and disheveled from dancing and running his hand through it.

There were empty bottles of booze that littered the alley. Sebastian’s feet felt like weights to him, and they dragged as he walked, jostling bottles every time he made to move. They made a distinct clinking sound as they hit against another.

Sebastian stopped for a moment to take a break, a bout of nausea rising in the pit of his stomach. He closed his eyes and waited for the fit of nausea to dissipate.

A bottle rolling around and clinking against one of the brick building caught his attention, he moved his head to look up and see where it had come from, but the air was knocked out of him as he was pushed against the brick wall in a swift movement, and he felt an immense jolt of pain shoot up his back. He gasped for air and winced at the distant throbbing pain that took over his spine. His ocean blue eyes glazed over with tears and a crimson blush took over his face. It felt as if his back had shattered into tiny remnants of glass. The pain was searing and only added to the panic that he felt thanks to his not being able to breathe.

Sebastian was staring into the eyes of death. He felt a deep sense of unease looking into the eyes that stared back at him—the whites of the man’s eyes were a dark black color and his eyes were a deep red; like blood.

The man didn’t speak. Four sharp canines—double fangs—appeared from their sheaths inside of the man’s mouth and a sharp gasp escaped Sebastian. He felt a pinch in the side of his neck where the man had sunk his teeth into the skin of his neck and started drinking his blood, gulping it down with a  greedy passion. With each passing moment, he started feeling weaker and lightheaded, from the loss of blood; it was a feeling like no other. Then, his mind went blank and he closed his eyes; his body went lax and he could feel a poison running through his veins.

He welcomed death with an unusual certainty and then everything went black.

Blood is a commodity for vampires.

When Sebastian Blackwell woke, he was somewhere buried underground; he had no remembrance of where he was or what he was doing there, but he didn’t care. He was confused and his throat felt as if it were drier than the Atacama Desert.

After he had freed himself from the confines of his grave; he had a hunger like no other. He could hear the racing pulses of passerby as they rushed home because it was late and the leering red moon cast down a malicious red glow onto the world below. And the torches that provided a small semblance of light didn’t help much.

The sound of blood pulsing through beings grew louder in Sebastian’s ears and his double fanged canines throbbed in his mouth. His senses were dialed up to a hundred and he couldn’t take it. He acted quickly and without thought when someone passed by the cemetery that he was in and attacked; his teeth sank into unknown flesh. He swallowed the person’s blood in huge gulps, a wave of energy coursed through his body and blood rushed through his veins. The stranger’s body fell limp in Sebastian’s arms; he pulled back, snapping back to reality, his teeth descended back into their sheaths.

Sebastian licked his mouth clean of blood, grimacing at the taste now that he was back to reality, and looked down at the person in his arms—it was a man. A look of fear was plastered on the man’s face and Sebastian watched pitifully as the last semblances of life drained from the man’s green eyes, slowly and then all at once.

Sebastian fell to his knees with the unknown man in his arms, his black hair falling into his face partially covering his eyes. “What have I done?” he asked himself, a bloody tear running slowly down his face. “I’m sorry. I’m a monster.” Sebastian laid the man’s lifeless body on the ground and fled, no apparent location in mind. He just ran.

Sebastian couldn’t dream, but whenever he closed his eyes the memory of that day played through on his closed eyelids like a projector on a projection screen.

The fire that had coursed through his veins that day was damning and all-consuming. He grit his teeth, trying to stifle the pain that illuminated through his body, the memory that powerful, but couldn’t. He let out an almost deafening cry of pain and blinked his eyes a few times to coax the image away, but it proved futile. He clenched his eyes shut as tight as he could muster. His body was overcome by the thrum of displeasure and pain.

Sebastian remembered it like it was just yesterday but in reality, it had actually been one-hundred-nine years ago and he still hadn’t gotten over it.

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The Resurgent | Excerpt

PREFACE

Xavier’s breath mystified and puffed like smoke around him. It ghosted his skin with a gold chill and sent a shiver up his spine. He tried to hold in the shivers that threatened to rack his body, but they were stronger than his will to conceal them.

His mother and father turned to look at him and gave him a small smile. They knew that he was cold, but also knew that he’d do anything to be able to stay outside and see the stars. It was a tradition of theirs—stargazing. They did it often. It was their way of spending time together without having to say anything. Their enjoyment for the stars was enough and that was all they really needed.

They stared into the void of darkness, staring up at the bright twinkling stars. The cold nipped at their skin with its menacing bite, but it didn’t deter them. It never did. Their love for the stars was greater than their care for their own well-being.

Xavier stared longingly up at the sky. His eyes twinkled a mirroring image of the stars glowing gleam and he smiled up at them.

His nose was red from the bite of the cold, but he didn’t mind. For the stars and their beauty was much greater than his worries of the cold and the threat of getting sick.

“Look!” he exclaimed, pointing an eager finger to the sky at a constellation that he didn’t quite know the name of. But he knew its shape and he knew that it was a work of enduring beauty It was ethereality in its purest form.

That night when his mother and father lie him down for bed, he dreams of watching the stars, smiling up at them with the biggest grin on his face, and they smile back down at him too.

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