For your reading pleasure I have decided to post another excerpt tonight from the first book in the ETERNAL VIGILANCE series, FROM DEEP WITHIN THE EARTH…


Khanna said nothing. Her hands had begun to shake so badly that she could not hold the canteen any longer. She placed it on the pallet next to my waist. She snatched her hands away and stood up in one startled motion. “Please, we do not have time… Please drink.” She could not form complete thoughts as her mind and heart raced out of sync with one another. “I must go.” She gasped and raced from the tent.


With the powerful scent of her removed from the room, another pungent perfume snaked to my senses from the open mouth of the canteen. Blood. The strange sweetness that had lingered in the air while Khanna mixed the concoction was gone, leaving only the rich metallic scent of cooling life force. I grimaced, grinding my teeth together as every cell within my body struggled to break free of my humanity, to break free of my reasoning that the toxins she had added to the stagnant blood would do more harm than good. There was no warmth in the scent, no living pulse, but the hollow shell of an essence that dissipated with every passing moment. I wanted it, nonetheless.


Like a dry dead branch, something snapped inside of me. A throbbing shook my temples with a rhythm as old as the sun, blurring my vision with each pulse. Outside, the wind was picking up, rippling against the side of the tent with urgent curious fingers as it uttered a low sweet moan. Deep within me, the Hunger rolled its own sinister sound, bubbling up to slither between my clenched teeth. In the distance, the voices of men and women betrayed the chaotic state of distress that saturated the regal pride of the tribe, while the guards outside my tent exchanged hushed strings of gossip.


Nori chi ach Vampyre…


Fire burned beneath my skin as my breath broke in sharp short gasps. Gripped in a pulsing iron fist, my innards wrenched with the pain of starvation. My body would take it what needed to heal, with or without my consent. I pulled the canteen closer, a great, dark carrion bird circling someone else’s kill, starved and depraved. I watched as my fingers coiled about the canteen, stumbling over the delicate engravings. The ice of metal on my lips brought a precious corruption I could not resist. I closed my eyes and surrendered. Cool thick liquid trickled over my tongue tasting of the residual aura of the dead, tainted with the bittersweet pungency of sacred herbs. Somewhere beneath the frenzied chittering of the Thirst, my mind wondered if the herbs Khanna had added would me. My body might reject them, leaving me weaker than before, but the idea was quickly washed away in the torrent of blood that flowed faster and faster from the canteen.


The blood passed directly into my parched tormented tissue. One million. Two million. Three million. Like tiny spiders hatching and scrambling through my veins, puncturing the tenuous tissue binding me to my skeleton, the tainted alien blood wrestled with my own. In echoing slow motion, the empty canteen slipped from my hands, tumbling off the pallet onto the ground. A scalding, acidic burn ripped through my brain as my body waged war on the toxins I had ingested, until it slowly surrendered to their strange power. My body twitched and jerked, broken bones melting into one another, tissue knitting and stretching where it had been rendered useless by the massive puncture wound. They fastened onto one another with a blinding speed, reconstructing lost marrow and hardening protein into an indestructible internal armor.


The small fragments of wood that still remained embedded deep within my spinal cord and delicate internal organs were quickly consumed like gunpowder beneath a flame as the alien blood digested and discarded the last remaining obstacles to my healing. The twitching in my limbs stopped and gradually the churning in my innards subsided, replaced by a calm, cool tingling just below the surface as if every nerve were awake and vibrating with the post-orgasmic thrill of being alive. I drew a deep breath as my frantic heartbeat began to slow, falling into a new rhythm, unfamiliar to me. My body no longer felt my own.


I stared up into the velvety shadows of the tent’s high roof. The darkness, which had misted my vision since my injury, vanished. Angles of midnight and pitch black darted chaotically in a dance to escape the undulating firelight. I could feel traces of the blood I had taken from Phelan, which had not been consumed by the earth and wind as the others had carried me from the manor that night, but they seemed weaker now. It was as if the new blood I had consumed had scoured me from the inside out, stronger than even Phelan’s ancient essence. I knew without a doubt that the new blood had not been animal or mortal. No human blood could heal a vampire with such lightning speed. It would have taken the blood of several victims and still several nights to reach my optimum health. Yet, no Immortal I knew had blood that could do this either. Such power came only with age and was legendary within our dwindling legions.


The wind was growing increasingly restless outside. A curious gust scampered beneath the bottom of the tent, testing my newly honed senses with serpentine tongues. I shivered, feeling each and every cold molesting finger upon me, chilling to ice the fine dew-like moisture that blanketed my body. I wiped my hand across my forehead. My fingertips glistened with droplets of rose-tinted blood sweat. I smiled as I stared at my fingers, knowing that my healing was nearly complete.


Slowly, I stood. My muscles felt full of taut strength eager to break free and exhaust itself. They trembled with restraint. I removed my shredded shirt. The fabric was heavily saturated. I tossed it absently aside, keeping my eyes fixed on the entrance where the guards outside had grown suspiciously quiet. I reached down and grabbed a blanket from the pallet next to me. Quickly, I wiped myself down to remove what moisture I could. I attempted to wring the sweat from my hair, but it had already begun to dry, matting the strands together in dark red clumps. Surges of mottled electricity fizzed and snapped behind my eyes. With my body nearly completely restored. There was nothing that could hinder me in my flight and yet, I lingered.


For some inexorable reason, I suddenly felt a bond with the Phuree that I could not explain, a silent river of kinship that ran deeper than my own subconscious could define. I stopped pacing, confusion curdling my racing rationale, muddling fact and fiction. Whoever’s blood it had been in the canteen, they had most definitely been Phuree for I could feel their history burning through my veins. I stared at the dying fire in the center of the room. The low wavering flames burned steadily over embers of glowing amber and ash.


I related to the Phuree’s struggles for independence and freedom. I suddenly understood their pain and their isolation, the looming fear of extinction that mired their every small attempt at joy and peace and kept them running forever without end. I did not want to abandon them. However, the moment I stepped past the two guards, I would once again be the property of Phelan Daray and his Great War. I still wanted desperately to flee, but I knew that he would eventually find me, and a lengthy social exile would not be punishment enough the next time around. I sighed and sank back down upon the pallet, my newfound strength crushed beneath the weight of my dismal future. Hunted or enslaved, those were my choices.


Death was no longer an option for me…


If you like what you just read please consider picking up a copy. A list of places from which to purchase the first book is available on the Store page of this website. Or, CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON. Bites & Kisses!

Tags: Eternal Vigilance, Gabrielle Faust, Horror, novel, Science Fiction, vampires, writing

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 7:50 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.