The Vampire War Read online

  The Vampire War

  Book Three of The Darkness War

  By

  Eric S. Brown

  PUBLISHED BY: Blood Moon Press

  Copyright © 2018 Eric S. Brown

  All Rights Reserved

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  Get the free short story “Shattered Crucible”

  and discover other Blood Moon Press titles at:

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  Original Art and Cover Design by Michael Reber

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  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and 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 recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  Author Introduction: The Darkness War Series

  As a writer, I’ve spent a good portion of my career writing about either zombies or the Sasquatch Apocalypse. When I started out, zombies weren’t the cool, mainstream sub-genre of horror they are today. I actually got a lot of rejections for my zombie stories back then just because they were zombie stories. When films like the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later, along with novels like Brian Keene’s The Rising, brought the hungry dead surging back again on a new wave of popularity, needless to say my own career benefited as well. According to some, I became sort of a “king” of the small press zombie genre. After eight years of doing that, though, and seeing zombies return in force, I wanted to do something different. That’s how Bigfoot War came to be. I wrote it more for myself than anything else.

  I was under contract for three zombie apocalypse books at the time and had turned in the first two of them. Simon and Schuster had just bought the reprint rights to War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts, and Zombies for enough money for me to live on for a while, so I knew I didn’t have to keep churning out zombie stories to pay the bills. Instead, I pitched the idea of an apocalypse novel that featured Bigfoot to the publisher I owed a third zombie book to. Thanks to the success they were having at the time with my books, they let me run with it, though they weren’t quite sure what to expect. I wrote Bigfoot War, turned it, and it was released. For nearly eight months, the book just seemed to kind of float there on the market, critics loving it, and not many people outside of them checking it out. Then one day, BOOM, it just took off. Bigfoot War became so popular, I ended up writing ten more books in the series, a fan started a zine about the Sasquatch Apocalypse, Hollywood hired me to write the novelization of the Boggy Creek: The Legend is True movie, and optioned Bigfoot War in the process.

  Bigfoot was paying the bills, and I didn’t really expect anything to ever happen with the movie option that had been picked up. One day out of the blue, though, I got a call from the director telling me the movie had been greenlighted. I was in shock. Even more so when they paid me for the movie rights to make the film. Thus Bigfoot fiction became the bulk of my work. Oh, I wrote other things, from Military SF to Kaiju Apocalypse books, but Bigfoot was the primary staple that kept the bills paid while my wife and I used the money from the movie to give her some time at home with our newborn daughter.

  Just like with zombies though, eventually I wanted to do something other than just another Bigfoot story. I wanted to do something I wanted to see as a fan of the SF and Horror genres. Being a huge fan of mech stuff, and a horror fan, I came up with the idea for Psi-Mechs, Inc. I pitched it around some to the normal crew of publishers I worked for, but none of them seemed really interested. They only wanted more Bigfoot, Cryptozoological horror, and Kaiju. Then, by the grace of God, I met Chris Kennedy at a con. He was super kind and hired me to write a story for an anthology set in his Four Horsemen universe. I took up that challenge instantly, wrote it, and turned in the story. Chris was happy with it and invited me to try my hand at a novel set in his best-selling world. I haggled that into two novellas collected into one book and dragged my long-time friend and fellow author Jason Brannon along with me.

  Like all of the Four Horsemen books, Casper Alamo did fairly well. In its wake, I worked up the nerve to toss my idea of Psi-Mechs, Inc. to Chris. He was actually open to it, and not only gave me a contract for the novel, but requested it be a three-book series instead of just one book. I’d waited so long to write a novel based on my idea, I hammered out the first book in under a month, the second in only a few days more than that, and just finished the third one.

  2018 was the year of Psi-Mechs, Inc. for me. Sure, I wrote other books, too, but those three novels were what I enjoyed the most. The concept which had simmered so long in the background finally came to life. I’m biased, so I won’t say that the series is the best line of books I’ve ever done, but I sure enjoyed the heck out of writing them. And I’d like to hope that thrill I had while writing them comes across to you guys reading the books, too. So kick back and start turning pages, because this book is the climax, folks, and if it doesn’t punch you in the guts, then I’ve failed in my intentions. I’m very glad to have gotten the opportunity to write this series, and many thanks to Mr. Kennedy for allowing me to be able to share it all with you.

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  Contents

  Author Introduction: The Darkness War Series

  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 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Author Bio

  Excerpt from Book One of the Turning Point:

  Excerpt from Book One of the Revelations Cycle:

  Excerpt from Book One of In Revolution Born:

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  Chapter 1

  Scott waited. The shadows of the alleyway cloaked his Mark XI Psi-mech, aided by the suit’s new light-bending cloaking system. There were three other mechs surrounding the warehouse, all of them cloaked, too. Scott didn’t care much for the new approach they’d been forced into taking in order to deal with the vampires. In the old days, they’d have just stormed the warehouse, engaged the vampires inside, and been done with it. Those days felt like forever ago now. Two years had passed since Geoff Ringer had joined the company and its original base was destroyed. So much had changed since then. Katherine Grimm had been taken by the vampires, leaving Ringer in command. Gone were the armies of mechs and soldiers at the company’s disposal. At best, two squads of mechs could be fielded for an operatio
n, and any support for them came from the company’s Psi-division, not additional squads of hired mercs. Their current headquarters wasn’t that much different from the rundown warehouse Scott was waiting outside of. Oh, sure, it was a touch larger, and on the inside it was loaded with high-tech comms, gadgets, mech housing units, etc., but it was still a freaking warehouse on the edge of Negan City.

  Tonight was the night as far as all of Psi-Mechs, Inc. was concerned. Donald, Tonya, and the company’s newest recruit, Selah, all agreed that this warehouse was where the vamps were holding Katherine Grimm, and it was long past time to take her back. Ringer had given Scott and his team the green light to go in and get her. Scott’s squad of Psi-mechs were backed up by Ringer himself, who was aboard the new Cerebus assault ship Hank had built. Richard was already inside the warehouse, and Eddie was on standby in case emergency support or extraction was needed. Of the company’s most experienced and powerful personnel, only Donald had remained behind at base. Scott imagined it was killing the young precog not to be here, but in all of Donald’s visions of tonight’s unfolding events, his presence had cost them the life of his mother. The young precog refused to elaborate on exactly why his presence tonight was so dangerous to the mission, but Ringer had taken him at his word, and that was enough for Scott. He and Ringer had their share of differences since the telekinetic had taken over the company, but Scott still trusted Ringer on the things that mattered.

  Scott shifted inside his Psi-mech. Sometimes it was easy to forget he didn’t have legs anymore—at least not real ones. He had lost his legs in battle, and Hank, the company’s tele-mechanic, had built new ones for him. In many ways, they were superior to the flesh and blood legs he’d lost, especially inside a Psi-mech. His new legs hooked directly into his mech’s systems, boosting Scott’s overall neural connection to the mech. Scott felt more whole inside his mech than he did at any other time.

  “Metal Alpha, this is Psi-1. We’ve got movement coming your way,” Tonya’s voice echoed inside Scott’s mind. Tonya Bellmore was one heck of a telepath. Her powers had continued to grow with each passing year, exceeding even her own expectations. No doubt her interactions with Jimi were the cause of it. You didn’t touch a mind like that thing’s as many times as she had without it doing something to you.

  “Roger that.” Scott frowned. There weren’t supposed to be any patrols. The vampires were often an overconfident lot and seldom took such measures. All he could do was continue to hide where he was and hope whoever it was passed him by without noticing his presence. The cloaks Hank had designed for the mechs were good enough to avoid even vampiric senses—most of the time.

  The side door leading into the warehouse swung open. A young man with glowing red eyes stuck his head outside, took a look around, then went back inside. It wasn’t until the vamp had closed the door that Scott allowed himself to start breathing again. The last thing they needed was to be discovered before Donald’s plan was set in motion. He and his fellow mech pilots weren’t the heavy muscle for this op. They were meant to be the surprise element, in position to strike once the battle was already underway.

  “Psi-2 has left the Cerebus and is en route,” Hank’s voice called out over the team’s shared comlink. “ETA one minute.”

  “All Psi-Mechs, be ready to move in on my mark,” Scott ordered over the comm.

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  Chapter 2

  The center of the warehouse was open floor space, and in its center was a cage. Its metal bars were enchanted by a magic from before the existence of the human race. They were close to unbreakable and created to hold even a master vampire or alpha werewolf within them with no chance of escape. Katherine Grimm sat on the floor of the cage, her legs crossed, hands clutching her kneecaps, as she watched her captors moving about outside it. Mavet’s minions had kept her locked away in this building for over six months now. The god vampire hadn’t paid her a visit since she’d been transferred here from his lair. It was as if she no longer mattered and had been forgotten about.

  Katherine doubted the god vampire had truly forgotten her, though. More than likely, it just seemed that way, because time itself was an entirely different experience to a creature such as Mavet. For whatever reason, though, she was about to be transferred to a new location. Whether she was being returned to Mavet’s side or simply being taken to another prison cell, Katherine didn’t know. She wasn’t privy to Mavet’s plans, nor did she often even understand the god vampire’s motives, despite the months she had spent with him picking at her brain, scouring it for every scrap of info he could glean about the rest of her company and how it operated. In those early days of her captivity, Katherine had drawn hope from Mavet’s interest in her people. She figured it meant that at least some of them were still out there giving him hell. The lesser vampires in Mavet’s service liked to taunt her that her people had all been massacred during the attack on Psi-Mechs, Inc.’s Alaskan base. Mavet himself, though, neither confirmed nor denied the continued existence of any remnants of her company. It had been a long time since she’d seen the level of activity now taking place around her, though. Something appeared to have her captors spooked.

  Yama, the elder vampire in charge of the others, was barking orders at her guards. “Prepare the transport. We must be away from this place as soon as we can!”

  The door to the warehouse’s rear office opened. A man dressed in flowing black robes emerged from the office. The temperature of the warehouse’s open center room seemed to drop several degrees as he entered it. Katherine had seen the man before—from a distance—during her months of captivity, and every time she felt sick to her stomach at his presence. His skin was pale like that of the vampires, but the man was very much alive. Her own half-vampire senses allowed her to hear the beat of his heart if she concentrated on it. The smell of his blood, though, was…tainted. As weak and hungry as she was, Katherine would never be desperate enough to feed upon him. She wasn’t a killer anyway. Not like that. But it was more than her morals that kept her from hungering for the man. The scent of his blood reeked of something both more and less than human. She got to her feet as the man in black approached her cage, readying herself to face him.

  “Good evening, Ms. Grimm,” the man purred. “I trust you are faring well.”

  Katherine was transfixed by the man’s eyes. They were like swirling pools of darkness. She heard his words perfectly but couldn’t bring herself to reply to them.

  Upon seeing that she had nothing to say, the man shrugged and gave a long sigh. “I had hoped that we might chat a bit before your departure from this place. My name is Winston Archibald. I serve our great lord and master, Mavet.”

  “He’s not my master,” Katherine growled, glaring at Archibald.

  Archibald giggled like a dead school girl. It was as terrible a sound as she’d ever heard.

  “I find it precious you still pretend lord Mavet isn’t a god returned to our world,” Archibald told her. “He is this world’s master, though he has yet to reveal his return to the great majority. Their lack of knowledge does not exclude them from belonging to him, however. You, though, have seen him in the flesh, felt his power as few others have, and yet somehow you cling to the foolish notion that he is not our god.”

  “I will never bow to him.” Katherine bared her fangs as Archibald laughed at her again.

  “Oh, but you already have, Ms. Grimm.” Archibald’s lips spread in a wide grin.

  Archibald’s words were like a gut punch. There was so much she didn’t, couldn’t, remember about her time at Mavet’s side. He’d screwed around with her mind on telepathic levels that even her best psychics would have found impossible to resist. Only God knew the truth of what she had and hadn’t done during those times. Katherine shuddered at the shadows of the memories just out of reach of her conscious mind as they flitted through her brain.

  Smirking at her discomfort, Archibald moved even closer to her cage. “There’s no use resisting the truth of things, Katherin
e. It will only make things harder for you in the long run.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Katherine challenged him, her lips twisting into a sneer of anger and resentment.

  Archibald’s body jerked as if someone had shot him. His head whipped about in surprise as if he were looking for something.

  “Yama!” Archibald snapped. “We’ve got company coming!”

  “Wha…that’s impossible!” the elder vampire stammered. “There’s no way they could be here already!”

  At that moment, a humanoid shape wrapped in a glowing field of psychic energy came bursting downward through the warehouse’s roof. The man came through the ceiling like a bullet, sending debris flying as he landed perfectly on the floor. Several vampires sprang at him. The man swiped his hands outward in opposite directions as waves of telekinetic force brushed the charging vampires aside, knocking them from their feet.

  “Ringer!” Katherine shouted inside her cage, almost in disbelief.

  “Good to see you too!” Ringer grinned as he picked up shards of the debris from the shattered ceiling and sent them flying into the hearts of the two vampires who were quickest to recover. Both vampires erupted into blazing, supernatural flames that consumed them nearly instantly, leaving behind nothing but ash.

  “You!” Archibald shrieked.

  “Do I know you?” Ringer asked, blowing apart the skull of a vampire who’d thrown itself at him, hissing with its fangs bared. He’d created an orb of telekinetic energy inside the vamp’s skull and expanded it so fast, it was the equivalent of a grenade detonating in the vampire’s head. Brain matter and gore splashed through the air.