Reborn to Bite (Vampire Shadows Book 1)

  Reborn to Bite

  MARK GRONWALD

  Vampire Shadows, Book 1

  Reborn to Bite

  Copyright © 2014 Mark Gronwald

  Cover Art Copyright © 2014 Mark Gronwald

  All rights reserved.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or undead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and is registered at the copyright office. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or the artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express consent of the copyright holder.

  Kindle Edition

  www.markgronwald.com

  DEDICATION

  To my loving and patient wife, who is also my muse. She may not be a vampire, but she’s still awesome.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank everyone who made this book possible and the authors who inspired me to write about vampires in the first place. This book wouldn’t be finished if it weren’t for the help I received from my wife Susan, and her diligent reading the half-dozen times she went through it with a red pen. Also, she gave me the time and space to complete the multiple rewrites, and never stopped believing in me. I’d like to thank my writers’ group, especially Alan Zimmerman, Natalie Rock, Marcia Smart, Suzan Headley, Danielle Ste. Just, Ken Davis, Anne Stirling Hastings, Kasey Corbit, and Marcia Friedman. I’d like to thank my friend Kia Kluck, who modeled for Book Two’s cover and found me the photographer, Erica Goddard, and makeup artist Nikki Schmidt, and of course our cover model for book one, Tylor Armstrong. I’d like to thank my mom, who reviewed this book and loves everything I write and create. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from USC in language so I think that's high praise, but she’s biased. Also, I’d like to thank my brother Roger for the loan of the sword for the cover.

  Lastly, I’d like to thank all my other friends who said:

  “You wrote a book? When will it be out?”

  Here you go.

  CHAPTER 1

  Sabine gritted her teeth as the ceremonial blade bit into her palm, the silver making her skin smolder. Her friend Regina wielded the knife, occasionally wiping her eyes so she could focus on carving the small details of a magic symbol. Michaela sat on the other side of the makeshift altar, applying powdered soul stone to the matching symbol Regina had finished carving in Sabine's other hand.

  "That's it," a deep voice taunted from a few yards away. "If you want to make your innocent friend human again, you'll put everything you have into this spell."

  Sabine narrowed her eyes in mute defiance at the smirk on her tormenter's face as he watched his experiment unfold. She wanted to feel hatred, the burning rage that she knew she should have for all that had happened so far, but her emotions had died with her heart. Neville-the-bastard-tormenter's thoughts came into her mind through their telepathic link, and she knew that when this evening was over, she would die.

  The cutting stopped at the sound of Neville's voice, and Sabine looked to Regina's tear-streaked face and the tightness in her friend's jaw.

  Regina pointed her knife at Neville. "Go to hell, Neville."

  Neville's laugh answered her. "Come now. We haven't got all night."

  A sudden gust of wind whipped up from the ocean a few hundred feet below them, making the leather coats of Neville's dozen vampire minions flap around them. They stood spaced evenly along the battlements of the abandoned fort overlooking the inlet to San Francisco Bay like sentries of old. The smell of pine and saltwater mixed with the scent of Sabine's smoldering flesh. In the distance, traffic rumbled across the Golden Gate Bridge.

  "If you wait until tomorrow, the spell won't work," Neville said. He brushed a hand through his wind-loosened blond hair to tuck it behind his ear, exposing his chiseled jaw and eyes like blue fire. Pausing to stare at his fingernails, his calm exterior showed nothing of the turmoil and anticipation Sabine had sensed through their day-old telepathic link that came with being her sire. This spell could be his key to taking over the vampire world. Yesterday Sabine had proven the ideal test subject – a mundane bystander that a pair of witches cared enough to “save”. He smiled, and Sabine sensed his pride at his own cunning.

  Regina turned back to Sabine and their eyes met. "I'm sorry."

  Sabine let her head fall back against the concrete of the makeshift altar. "Whatever. Let's just get it over with."

  "We'll have you back to your old life in no time," Michaela said as she finished powdering Sabine's hand.

  Sabine snorted. "I only made two friends since moving to San Francisco. What were the odds they'd be witches?"

  "About three in a million," Michaela said. "But you liked the same coffee shop we did. You were nice, and we always felt better when we chatted. And we loved your sketches."

  Sabine shook her head. "You can't blame the coffee shop for this."

  Michaela threw a scathing look in Neville's direction. "Nope."

  "Those cloaks make you look ridiculous, by the way," Sabine said, focused on the clash of the off-white garb with the women's dark chocolate-brown hair that matched her own. The distraction wasn't enough to drown the pain of Regina's latest cut.

  Regina twisted the knife and muttered "Blame the jerk who turned you. The Babylonian spell book he dug up specified the wardrobe."

  "I think maybe going out dancing on the night before Halloween was a bad choice," Sabine said, cringing as Regina made another slice. "Remind me never to dance with anyone dressed like a vampire again."

  Regina stopped cutting and nodded to Michaela. They switched places, and Michaela put the powder on the wound. The witches started chanting.

  Sabine thought about how little life meant to her, even before she had become a creature of the night. With her parents dead, her friends scattered doing their own things, and after finding her boyfriend in bed with another woman a week back, she didn't see a future for herself anyway.

  Maybe Neville was doing her a favor.

  His grin widened.

  Guess you heard that thought?

  His grin turned into a snarl as his mind shut her out. Not before she felt how much he disliked the intimacy of the telepathic link that came with a blood bond. She knew that none of the dozen other vampires surrounding them shared that bond with him. Neville's vampires followed him because a thousand years of undead life had given him the ability to force his will upon them. He would have had one of his lackeys sire her, but didn't trust any of them to have a minion of their own. That might give them ideas about rising up against him.

  Sabine looked down at the circled pentagram with tiny lettering in her palm. Based on the pain still coming from her feet, she figured that she had matching symbols there. In the midst of that thought, everything changed.

  The air shifted as thunder rolled across the sky. Sabine couldn't hold back her scream as every cell in her body exploded, her body engulfed in a tornado of magic. She arched her back and tried to pull against the shackles holding her–anything to escape the pain.

  The tornado pulsed and rocked the fortress before vanishing in a sudden rush, filling the night with silence. Sabine fell back on the concrete, her heart racing. A torrent of emotion flooded her mind: hate for Neville, regret for nearly draining a morgue attendant dry earlier in the night, fear for what would happen to Regina and Michaela. The witches fell on her, crying. She wanted to hug them back, but the restraints still held her, and her arms felt like she'd just spent the day climbing the side of a cliff.

  "Excellent." Neville's voice broke through the tearful reunion. He stepped forward and lifted Sabine's hand to check her
pulse. "She's human again. It appears that the tome's spell works as advertised."

  Regina turned to him and wiped the tears from her face before speaking. "We brought her back, now free her."

  "I'm afraid I can't do that. She knows too much about our world. She has to die."

  "No." Regina stood and faced Neville, their bodies nearly touching. He stood nearly a foot taller, causing her to have to lift her chin. "You promised."

  "I only said that I had a way you could make her human again. I didn't say I'd let her live."

  Michaela stood from where she'd been holding Sabine, her fists clenched. "We won't let you take her."

  "And how will you stop me, witch?"

  Sabine felt the air tingle and saw the witches' hair raise slightly as the space around them seemed to electrify. The vampires drew guns, and aimed them at the witches.

  "I'll give you a choice," Neville said, his voice a soothing calm as he backed away. "Either you put a stake in her heart, or I have my people kill you all. Either way, she dies. You have ten seconds to decide."

  A million thoughts cascaded through Sabine's mind, and she knew then what people talked about when they said their lives passed before their eyes. She saw a lonely childhood, absentee parents, a friend named Doug who deserted her on her sixteenth birthday when she tried to kiss him, her search for Doug that led her to San Francisco, the job she took at a local ad agency, where she met Chad the pretty-boy-bagel-delivery-two-timing-prick. It all seemed pointless now. She heard her own voice, like she had become a stranger to herself.

  "It's okay, Regina."

  Michaela kept guard as Regina turned and dropped to her knees.

  "You can't mean that Sabine. We'll get you out of this."

  "No, you won't. He'll kill you both if you don't do as he says. I don't mind–"

  Regina grabbed Sabine and held her face in her hands. "No! We didn't go through all this to watch you die."

  "Five seconds."

  Sabine gritted her teeth. "He'll kill you. I saw it in his mind when I was one of them. Just do it, Regina. I don't have anything to live for anyway. You do."

  "Three –"

  "Alright!" Regina turned and stood.

  Neville pulled a shaft of wood from the inner coat pocket of his designer suit. Must have been custom-made to accommodate the foot-long stake, Sabine thought, as the vampire tossed the instrument of her imminent death to Regina.

  Regina turned and shared a look with Michaela. Sabine had the fleeting thought that they might use the stake to attack Neville, when she saw a red dot of light appear on Regina's chest.

  "Regina," Michaela said, pointing at the dot. "They have a sniper."

  Regina looked down at Sabine, her expression a combination of anger and remorse.

  "It's okay, Regina," Sabine said. "Just make it quick."

  Several guns clicked, emphasizing the urgency of their situation.

  Neville's voice was almost a soothing croon. "Regina, my men are eager to taste your blood. I wouldn't tempt them longer."

  Regina stared into Sabine's eyes, and Sabine knew it was an unspoken question. Could she forgive Regina and Michaela for doing this? Of course. Sabine knew the only way to make sure they lived was to say goodbye to the shallow, meaningless existence she'd lived. She nodded to Regina.

  It didn't feel as bad as she thought it would. Regina's aim had been good. Sabine looked down at the wooden stake in her chest, and watched as blood welled up thanks to the fissures in the sides of the weapon. She felt sleepy. Regina and Michaela each cried and held her, and they felt warm. She'd found two people in the world that loved her – enough to die for her.

  Darkness came like a welcome blanket, taking her away from the anguish.

  ***

  Dirt filled Sabine's mouth. The weight of the cold earth surrounding her clamped her body like a vice. Sharp pain came from her chest. A gnawing ache clawed in her stomach.

  She thrashed against her panic before realizing that she didn't need air yet. She pushed the dirt out of her mouth with her tongue. Her heart thumped once in her chest, and stilled. Using her tongue to feel around her mouth, she found fangs where her blunt canine teeth should be.

  Rise. Feed. The thirst swept over her, driving her.

  Sabine shoved, frantic to be free of her dirt prison. Her chest hurt more with every movement, so she slowed. With care, she pushed her arms up through the soil. One foot of dirt. Two feet of dirt. Her hands reached the surface before her arms fully extended. She paused in relief for the small blessing that the grave was shallow.

  She flung armfuls of dirt aside, then dragged herself up through the hole she'd made to the surface. A shiver ran through her as she stared at her erstwhile resting place, pitting a steep hillside enshrouded by tall pine trees. The stake hung from the bloody wound in her chest, her body having apparently pushed it halfway out. She carefully pulled it the rest of the way out and stared at it in shock. How could I survive this?

  Sabine looked back down at the wound, watching as it closed. Blood stained her favorite blue silk blouse, the one that brought out the color of her eyes.

  A single thump-thump reverberated in her chest. Her gaze returned to the stake, and she dropped it from her shaking hand.

  Sabine coughed and cleared her throat, taking in a deep breath that replaced the musty smell of dirt with the smell of pine and ocean. She stared at her surroundings, trying to get a bearing. Crickets sang a loud chorus through the evening fog, which barely held a tint of light from the setting sun. She could hear the rumble of traffic in the distance.

  She wiped the blood off her chest and straightened her blouse. The smell imbedded in the material made her fangs ache all the more, meaning they wanted to sink into some nice juicy flesh over someone's pulse point. Like a teething baby, Sabine knew the only relief would come from feeding on someone. She pressed her tongue against her gum line, trying to numb the pain. Then her stomach growled.

  She glanced down at her ruined knee-length skirt and bare feet. Her Louis Vuitton ostrich leather boots, missing! Whoever buried her must have taken them. Four thousand dollar boots. I loved those boots.

  Like a sentient force inside her, the thirst pushed her to start moving. It called to her.

  Feed!

  "I got it already! I'm a vampire," she growled. "Again."

  Her heart thumped in her chest, as if to punctuate how different she felt from the last time. She hadn't had a heartbeat before. That was new. Last time she had a numb deadness where her emotions had been. Now she seethed with rage, and ached with worry. She wanted to scream. Wanted to lash out.

  Why didn't I die?

  She climbed up the steep hillside, fighting the pull as her subliminal instinct drove her forward. The pull got stronger, and she scrambled up the steep slope on all fours, barely in control of the feeling that guided her. Like a commuter driving home, she moved on autopilot.

  Her mind raced to make sense of what was happening as her feet moved on their own. The slope led to a flattened dirt road cut into the hillside overlooking the entrance to San Francisco Bay. Sabine recognized the area: she stood on the access road to Kirby Cove, north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The abandoned fort where the ceremony had taken place was only a few hundred yards away.

  Ignoring the jab of rocks under her feet, she recounted events on her fingers as small tremors ran through her hands. If Chad hadn't been in her bed with his "we're just friends" bimbo when Sabine got home from work – and why didn't he have a job, anyway? – then Sabine wouldn't have gone out to that party with Regina and Michaela.

  Oh, God. I hope they're all right.

  She gritted her teeth and kicked a rock. Her toe stung for a second, but the pain didn't even compare to the churning in her gut. Even having a black belt in Tae Kwon Do hadn't helped when the vampire and his gang ambushed her outside her apartment. She'd been helpless to do anything but obey when he told her to follow and get on that altar for their sick little experiment.

  S
abine looked at the symbols the vampires had forced Regina and Michaela carve into her hands to get her soul back. She thought about the pain of the ceremony and the shock of learning that her friends were real witches.

  They weren't to blame though. He was. The smooth-talking, blood-sucking monster. She could still remember that evil grin on Neville's face.

  She looked up to see she had arrived at Conzelman Road. The sound of footfalls and tinny techno music echoed in her ears. Anticipation made her quiver as a blonde woman approached in the twilight, jogging through the fog and humming to the music in her headphones. Sabine looked to either side. A small group of tourists stood at the outlook point further down the hill. No cars were coming. In the twilight, she could see them all as though the sun still lit the scene. Would they see? She'd have to risk it.

  Heat waves flowed off the approaching blonde like an aura; and she glowed with the warmth of the blood flowing in her veins. Sabine whimpered as she felt the song of the blonde woman's pulse pounding in the air to the beat of the music. Fangs aching, Sabine stumbled forward. She fought the pull, knowing what the instinct would draw her to.

  The blonde slowed as she came closer, regarding Sabine in the darkness. She pulled off her headphones, a genuine look of concern on her angelic face. "Are you okay?"

  Sabine couldn't fight the pull toward the thrumming pulse on the blonde's neck; the siren call of the damned. She reached forward, grasping for the blonde. "I'm sorry!"

  "For what?" the blonde answered, reaching out to help Sabine.

  Sabine grasped the woman and spun her around, turning the woman's head sideways. Sabine's hand muffled the woman's scream as her fangs sank into the soft tissue over the blonde's pulse point.

  Bliss.

  Sabine moaned as she pulled the woman behind the guardrail at the side of the road. The hot blood streaming from the wound seemed to make everything right in the world. Like magic, Sabine's aches started to wash away.