Description:
Eight-hundred year old vampire matriarch, Anna Breznik is in trouble. Worse, she’s dragged a normal human into trouble with her. Brian Stettler is her nephew’s assistant, an FBI agent, and he reminds her of her own children when they young so many centuries ago. Yet, some shadowy organization has kidnapped them both. Their goal: to understand what Anna is and control her. They will use any tool they have to accomplish this, including ending Brian’s life. Anna has worked for too long to keep her family safe to allow power hungry, short-sighted idiots destroy it all. She imagines she’ll have to murder her and Brian’s way to safety, until their first inquisitor enters the room.
Evander Gunn is no ordinary US Army Military Intelligence officer. He’s an expert interrogator and he’s come to a black ops site at the request of Homeland Security. The subject he’s ordered to question is a foreign diplomat, a small delicate woman, and she’s been shot. Even worse, he recognizes her.
He grew up listening to his grandfather’s WW2 stories about working with the French Resistance. His gramps had one hand-drawn picture of the woman who saved his life. Now she’s sitting on a gurney in front of Evan, covered in blood, looking for all the world like a lady at a tea party.
Evan knows he must get Anna, and the baby FBI agent caught with her, to safety. It isn’t long until he realizes that there is no safe place…
Exerpt from Chapter One:
The bitter acrid scent in the air was Anna Breznik’s first clue that all was not well. The mixture of bleach, alcohol, and blood—a lot of blood— scratching the inside of her nose and scraping her tongue.
The rest of the world was dark and silent, as if she were at the bottom of a deep cave, cold and alone.
That…wasn’t right. She’d been unable to shut out the world for so long its insistent presence often caused physical pain. Headaches and ringing in the ears were common. She’d tried resting in a sensory deprivation chamber, but the issue with that was, you had to trust other people with your safety. She could count the number of people she trusted that much on one hand.
This quiet, dark place would be a pleasant escape from the relentless white noise of the world if it weren’t for that horrible smell.
She took in another breath, sorting through the scent. There were two more notes to it. Sulfur with an edge of sweet plastic.
Gunpowder?
All those notes of the odor added up to one thing: Violence.
Her stomach clenched, twisted, and attempted to turn itself a black hole. Quiet and dark were two things she couldn’t indulge in while hostility hovered on the edge of her senses.
Anna pushed to hear or see something, anything, and discovered her eyes were closed. How had that happened?
She had no memory of closing them or entering a place where all those pieces of the scent might be found. Didn’t remember anything after…getting in a limo to return to her nephew Yvgeny’s hotel in New York City. Yvgeny, though he acted like a fresh-faced youth, was also fastidious. His hotel staff would heave dealt with such filth immediately.
She had been inside the long vehicle, FBI agent Brian Stettler seated next to her, stiff and silent, like a prey animal who knows a dangerous predator is too close. Across from her had been…a man who’d identified himself as a member of Homeland Security. His identification had been legitimate, but…
Anna paged through her memories, usually in perfect chronological order, and found holes where something should have been, but wasn’t.
That didn’t happen. Not to her. Not to someone who’d been changed by a virus hundreds of years ago into something more than human. Normal people would call her a vampire, but she hated that name. It implied she was created by magic.
An idiotic notion.
She was a survivor of a disease that had killed millions eight hundred years ago. Not many survived, and an even smaller number had been changed. Only a handful during the first sweep of the sickness. Over time, as the illness spread across the world, a few more joined the ranks.
The physical changes her immune system worked on her body as a response to the infection were irreversible, and not all of them were good.
Healing most wounds occurred at miraculous speeds. She was stronger than a normal human with heightened senses.
She didn’t get sick.
She didn’t age.
She couldn’t have children. None of them could.
She couldn’t eat food and had to obtain nutrition directly from other normal humans, by drinking their blood.
There was only one thing that could have caused her memory loss and unconsciousness. A catastrophic head injury. As close to death as she could get and still come back from it.
Any major head injury could result in some short-term recall problems, but in the last century or so getting shot was the most common reason. It had happened to her four times.
Once during the first world war – shot by German soldiers.
Once during the second world war – also shot by German soldiers.
Once during the Korean War – blown up by North Korean soldiers.
Once during Bosnian War – shot by Serbian Pres. Slobodan Milošević’s forces.
And now shot by an American law enforcement officer. Either he’d been instructed by someone to kill her, or he knew killing her wouldn’t be an easy task. Either reason led to nothing good. If she was under attack, so was her family.
Family was everything.
Rage boiled outwards from the pit of her stomach, threatening to scorch everything she touched, be it objects, buildings, or people.
A noise, subtle and small, distracted her for a moment. It told her she wasn’t alone in wherever she was and it motivated her to regain control. Until she knew the scope of the attack, the reasons behind it, and who was responsible, killing every living thing between herself and freedom would not help her or her family.
So, she forced herself to maintain the illusion of unconsciousness.
She re-examined her memory of the Homeland Security agent, of his expressions and body language. He’d been stoic and unmoved by the events at the airport. He’d shown her some respect, bowing slightly when he introduced himself. Perhaps that should have told her something was wrong.
People didn’t do much of that today.
What had led the agent to shoot her? She focused on recalling the last few seconds before he must have done it. Had she threatened the shooter? Had someone ordered him to put a bullet in her brain? Was Brian Stettler complicit in the attack on her?
She hoped not. She liked him. He reminded her of Yvgeny and even of her son Bazyli. That, however, wouldn’t save him if she determined he had something to do with this attack.
Memories began to surface, fuzzy at first, then sharper until the details were etched into crystal.
The Homeland Security agent had been asking her about her business interests in New York.
She was in the middle of an answer when he brought his gun up and shot her. No hesitation, no change in body language, no hint of stress or fear.
There had been the beginning of a sound.
The memory slowly gained substance, color, and the sound became a shout. It hadn’t come from her or the shooter, it came from Brian. It wasn’t a word, just an unintelligible bellow at the same time as his hand connected with her shoulder.
He’d tried to push her out of the way of the bullet.
That didn’t necessarily make him an ally, but Yvgeny liked him, and he had the potential, however remote, to become a vampire. All of which put him in an odd protective category.
She resolved do her best to get him out of this uncomfortable situation.
Another noise, fabric sliding against fabric, and someone groaned.
She was in a small room, given the lack of background sounds and air movement, with at least one other person. That groan sounded like it had come out of the bottom of a deep well.
“I don’t understand.” a man said in a tight, guttural tone.
That was Brian Stettler’s voice, and it didn’t contain its usual lightness of surprise or bite of irony.
“Why would you shoot her?” he continued. “And why am I here?”
“We got a tip that this woman isn’t who she says she is,” someone else answered. The Homeland Security agent who shot her. His voice had an irritating whine buried in it. “She’s a threat. We didn’t realize how big of a threat until she didn’t die of a wound that should have killed her.”
“Maybe you’re aim is just that bad,” Brian muttered.
“She should be dead,” the Homeland Security agent suddenly shouted. “The wound on the back of her head is gone, like it was never there.” His voice bounced around the room. “She’s some kind of freak, and I’m going to find out what.”
“Well, I’m not a freak,” Brian said with more control but no less intensity than the Homeland Security agent. “I’m an FBI agent, and you fucking shot me.”
Ooh, he sounded angry.
“I didn’t kill you did I?” the Homeland Security agent said with no sympathy at all. “I just grazed you. I had to make sure you aren’t…whatever she is.”
“You sound completely crazy,” Brian said, turning the last word into an accusation.
“I needed to make sure you’re human, and that required an experiment,” the Homeland Security agent said, lowering his voice as if it was a difficult task. He was easily riled. “The first of many.”
Experiment? Like they were laboratory animals?
Had the worst happened then? Was the secret of vampires existing in the real world out?
“Shooting us was an experiment?” Brian asked, his tone incredulous. “That’s attempted murder times two.”
“She isn’t human, Agent Stettler,” the cool voice of the Homeland Security agent said, now devoid of emotion. “Not anymore.”
“She’s as human and you and I,” Brian replied, his voice hoarse and breathing erratic. “She has some kind of disease, that’s all. Maybe it slows down her metabolism or something.”
Interesting that he’d come up with that on his own. Or maybe he hadn’t. He had been stashed away in Yvgeny’s safe room with Nika, Baz’s girlfriend, and Samantha, Yvgeny’s paramedic. Nika had likely explained a few things.
“However she got to be the way she is, she’s different and my source says she’s not alone,” the voice said with a hard, implacable edge. “They heal fast and they’re stronger than normal humans. We need to understand the extent of the differences between us and them. We need to know the limitations of their healing and fighting abilities.”
There was a long pause before Brian spoke again.
“You may want to reconsider that,” he said, his voice blurred with exhaustion. “She’s a member of the Slovenian government and the head of a large financial institution. She’ll be missed. There could be…repercussions.”
The other man chuckled. “As far as the rest of the world knows, you and this creature died in a car accident. The vehicle caught on fire. I’m afraid there isn’t much left of you for your family to bury.”
In other words, we can kill you whenever we want.
“Me?” Brian asked. “Why would you…” His voice trailed off. “Why?”
“She requested you as her FBI contact, and her behavior toward you is…possessive.”
“I work for her nephew and he knows I’m an FBI agent, so I think she found me odd, and wanted to keep an eye on me.”
“Possibly,” the other man said in a flat tone that communicated quite clearly he didn’t believe it. “I’m sure we will have answers to all our questions eventually.”
There was a rustle of fabric. “It’s in your best interest to cooperate, Mr. Stettler.” Soft footfalls. “When she wakes, convince her to do the same.” The Homeland Security agent’s voice came from a different spot in the room. “Your life depends on it.”
Something metallic rattled, then a rush of fresh air swept into the room, carrying with it more of the bitter smell, along with the sound of several voices and heavy footsteps. Then it all disappeared with the audible snick of a door closing. A thunk followed. Probably a lock being engaged.
“Fuck,” Brian said.
Indeed.
Eight-hundred year old vampire matriarch, Anna Breznik is in trouble. Worse, she’s dragged a normal human into trouble with her. Brian Stettler is her nephew’s assistant, an FBI agent, and he reminds her of her own children when they young so many centuries ago. Yet, some shadowy organization has kidnapped them both. Their goal: to understand what Anna is and control her. They will use any tool they have to accomplish this, including ending Brian’s life. Anna has worked for too long to keep her family safe to allow power hungry, short-sighted idiots destroy it all. She imagines she’ll have to murder her and Brian’s way to safety, until their first inquisitor enters the room.
Evander Gunn is no ordinary US Army Military Intelligence officer. He’s an expert interrogator and he’s come to a black ops site at the request of Homeland Security. The subject he’s ordered to question is a foreign diplomat, a small delicate woman, and she’s been shot. Even worse, he recognizes her.
He grew up listening to his grandfather’s WW2 stories about working with the French Resistance. His gramps had one hand-drawn picture of the woman who saved his life. Now she’s sitting on a gurney in front of Evan, covered in blood, looking for all the world like a lady at a tea party.
Evan knows he must get Anna, and the baby FBI agent caught with her, to safety. It isn’t long until he realizes that there is no safe place…
Exerpt from Chapter One:
The bitter acrid scent in the air was Anna Breznik’s first clue that all was not well. The mixture of bleach, alcohol, and blood—a lot of blood— scratching the inside of her nose and scraping her tongue.
The rest of the world was dark and silent, as if she were at the bottom of a deep cave, cold and alone.
That…wasn’t right. She’d been unable to shut out the world for so long its insistent presence often caused physical pain. Headaches and ringing in the ears were common. She’d tried resting in a sensory deprivation chamber, but the issue with that was, you had to trust other people with your safety. She could count the number of people she trusted that much on one hand.
This quiet, dark place would be a pleasant escape from the relentless white noise of the world if it weren’t for that horrible smell.
She took in another breath, sorting through the scent. There were two more notes to it. Sulfur with an edge of sweet plastic.
Gunpowder?
All those notes of the odor added up to one thing: Violence.
Her stomach clenched, twisted, and attempted to turn itself a black hole. Quiet and dark were two things she couldn’t indulge in while hostility hovered on the edge of her senses.
Anna pushed to hear or see something, anything, and discovered her eyes were closed. How had that happened?
She had no memory of closing them or entering a place where all those pieces of the scent might be found. Didn’t remember anything after…getting in a limo to return to her nephew Yvgeny’s hotel in New York City. Yvgeny, though he acted like a fresh-faced youth, was also fastidious. His hotel staff would heave dealt with such filth immediately.
She had been inside the long vehicle, FBI agent Brian Stettler seated next to her, stiff and silent, like a prey animal who knows a dangerous predator is too close. Across from her had been…a man who’d identified himself as a member of Homeland Security. His identification had been legitimate, but…
Anna paged through her memories, usually in perfect chronological order, and found holes where something should have been, but wasn’t.
That didn’t happen. Not to her. Not to someone who’d been changed by a virus hundreds of years ago into something more than human. Normal people would call her a vampire, but she hated that name. It implied she was created by magic.
An idiotic notion.
She was a survivor of a disease that had killed millions eight hundred years ago. Not many survived, and an even smaller number had been changed. Only a handful during the first sweep of the sickness. Over time, as the illness spread across the world, a few more joined the ranks.
The physical changes her immune system worked on her body as a response to the infection were irreversible, and not all of them were good.
Healing most wounds occurred at miraculous speeds. She was stronger than a normal human with heightened senses.
She didn’t get sick.
She didn’t age.
She couldn’t have children. None of them could.
She couldn’t eat food and had to obtain nutrition directly from other normal humans, by drinking their blood.
There was only one thing that could have caused her memory loss and unconsciousness. A catastrophic head injury. As close to death as she could get and still come back from it.
Any major head injury could result in some short-term recall problems, but in the last century or so getting shot was the most common reason. It had happened to her four times.
Once during the first world war – shot by German soldiers.
Once during the second world war – also shot by German soldiers.
Once during the Korean War – blown up by North Korean soldiers.
Once during Bosnian War – shot by Serbian Pres. Slobodan Milošević’s forces.
And now shot by an American law enforcement officer. Either he’d been instructed by someone to kill her, or he knew killing her wouldn’t be an easy task. Either reason led to nothing good. If she was under attack, so was her family.
Family was everything.
Rage boiled outwards from the pit of her stomach, threatening to scorch everything she touched, be it objects, buildings, or people.
A noise, subtle and small, distracted her for a moment. It told her she wasn’t alone in wherever she was and it motivated her to regain control. Until she knew the scope of the attack, the reasons behind it, and who was responsible, killing every living thing between herself and freedom would not help her or her family.
So, she forced herself to maintain the illusion of unconsciousness.
She re-examined her memory of the Homeland Security agent, of his expressions and body language. He’d been stoic and unmoved by the events at the airport. He’d shown her some respect, bowing slightly when he introduced himself. Perhaps that should have told her something was wrong.
People didn’t do much of that today.
What had led the agent to shoot her? She focused on recalling the last few seconds before he must have done it. Had she threatened the shooter? Had someone ordered him to put a bullet in her brain? Was Brian Stettler complicit in the attack on her?
She hoped not. She liked him. He reminded her of Yvgeny and even of her son Bazyli. That, however, wouldn’t save him if she determined he had something to do with this attack.
Memories began to surface, fuzzy at first, then sharper until the details were etched into crystal.
The Homeland Security agent had been asking her about her business interests in New York.
She was in the middle of an answer when he brought his gun up and shot her. No hesitation, no change in body language, no hint of stress or fear.
There had been the beginning of a sound.
The memory slowly gained substance, color, and the sound became a shout. It hadn’t come from her or the shooter, it came from Brian. It wasn’t a word, just an unintelligible bellow at the same time as his hand connected with her shoulder.
He’d tried to push her out of the way of the bullet.
That didn’t necessarily make him an ally, but Yvgeny liked him, and he had the potential, however remote, to become a vampire. All of which put him in an odd protective category.
She resolved do her best to get him out of this uncomfortable situation.
Another noise, fabric sliding against fabric, and someone groaned.
She was in a small room, given the lack of background sounds and air movement, with at least one other person. That groan sounded like it had come out of the bottom of a deep well.
“I don’t understand.” a man said in a tight, guttural tone.
That was Brian Stettler’s voice, and it didn’t contain its usual lightness of surprise or bite of irony.
“Why would you shoot her?” he continued. “And why am I here?”
“We got a tip that this woman isn’t who she says she is,” someone else answered. The Homeland Security agent who shot her. His voice had an irritating whine buried in it. “She’s a threat. We didn’t realize how big of a threat until she didn’t die of a wound that should have killed her.”
“Maybe you’re aim is just that bad,” Brian muttered.
“She should be dead,” the Homeland Security agent suddenly shouted. “The wound on the back of her head is gone, like it was never there.” His voice bounced around the room. “She’s some kind of freak, and I’m going to find out what.”
“Well, I’m not a freak,” Brian said with more control but no less intensity than the Homeland Security agent. “I’m an FBI agent, and you fucking shot me.”
Ooh, he sounded angry.
“I didn’t kill you did I?” the Homeland Security agent said with no sympathy at all. “I just grazed you. I had to make sure you aren’t…whatever she is.”
“You sound completely crazy,” Brian said, turning the last word into an accusation.
“I needed to make sure you’re human, and that required an experiment,” the Homeland Security agent said, lowering his voice as if it was a difficult task. He was easily riled. “The first of many.”
Experiment? Like they were laboratory animals?
Had the worst happened then? Was the secret of vampires existing in the real world out?
“Shooting us was an experiment?” Brian asked, his tone incredulous. “That’s attempted murder times two.”
“She isn’t human, Agent Stettler,” the cool voice of the Homeland Security agent said, now devoid of emotion. “Not anymore.”
“She’s as human and you and I,” Brian replied, his voice hoarse and breathing erratic. “She has some kind of disease, that’s all. Maybe it slows down her metabolism or something.”
Interesting that he’d come up with that on his own. Or maybe he hadn’t. He had been stashed away in Yvgeny’s safe room with Nika, Baz’s girlfriend, and Samantha, Yvgeny’s paramedic. Nika had likely explained a few things.
“However she got to be the way she is, she’s different and my source says she’s not alone,” the voice said with a hard, implacable edge. “They heal fast and they’re stronger than normal humans. We need to understand the extent of the differences between us and them. We need to know the limitations of their healing and fighting abilities.”
There was a long pause before Brian spoke again.
“You may want to reconsider that,” he said, his voice blurred with exhaustion. “She’s a member of the Slovenian government and the head of a large financial institution. She’ll be missed. There could be…repercussions.”
The other man chuckled. “As far as the rest of the world knows, you and this creature died in a car accident. The vehicle caught on fire. I’m afraid there isn’t much left of you for your family to bury.”
In other words, we can kill you whenever we want.
“Me?” Brian asked. “Why would you…” His voice trailed off. “Why?”
“She requested you as her FBI contact, and her behavior toward you is…possessive.”
“I work for her nephew and he knows I’m an FBI agent, so I think she found me odd, and wanted to keep an eye on me.”
“Possibly,” the other man said in a flat tone that communicated quite clearly he didn’t believe it. “I’m sure we will have answers to all our questions eventually.”
There was a rustle of fabric. “It’s in your best interest to cooperate, Mr. Stettler.” Soft footfalls. “When she wakes, convince her to do the same.” The Homeland Security agent’s voice came from a different spot in the room. “Your life depends on it.”
Something metallic rattled, then a rush of fresh air swept into the room, carrying with it more of the bitter smell, along with the sound of several voices and heavy footsteps. Then it all disappeared with the audible snick of a door closing. A thunk followed. Probably a lock being engaged.
“Fuck,” Brian said.
Indeed.