The world that Alexis Black lives in has a rich backstory. A land where Vampires came out of the darkness and tried to co-exist with the humans. But can monsters ever co-exist?
Some vampires didn’t agree with sharing the
world with beings they thought of as lesser. They attacked, killing human after
human, showing who was the most powerful. Hoping to take over the world, turn
the humans into slaves.
But they humans didn’t go down cowering. No.
They gathered their forces, created a bond, and fought off the monsters.
They created the VAU (Vampire Apprehension
Unit) to hunt down and assassinate anything of the supernatural persuasion.
This is a story of how they took care of those who found themselves unlucky
enough to end up in a VAU cell. This is the also the story of Delano, a man you
will learn a lot about in Evil’s Unlikely Assassin.
Small Sacrifice – An Alexis Black short story
Armed guards
pulled me from my cell, and dragged me over the blood splattered Astro-turf.
They shackled me to the goal post at the end of a football field
turned-execution-chamber, stripped me of my last remaining article of clothing
and left me to die.
Ten guards stood in a circle around me, machine
guns pointed at my head. They thought
they were safe. Five television crews
hurried around the arena preparing for tonight’s broadcast. They thought they were safe. A priest knelt in front of a vat of water,
blessing it. He thought he was safe.
I’m a vampire. No one was safe.
The announcer grabbed my chin with his pudgy,
gloved hand. His mouth spread into an
ugly smile before he turned and blocked the crowds view. He cleared his throat and spit. The warm glob
landed on my cheek and slid down before dropping to the ground. He would be the first to die.
For five days my human captors tortured me,
punished me, abused me. I allowed it. Their
acts bought me time to plan my escape. The bitter blood of a family of rats who
shared my cell kept me alive, their donation helped remove the last trace of
poison that coursed through my veins.
Humans.
They thought they got lucky catching one of the Seven Sovereign leaders
of the vampire race. It hadn’t been
luck. I’d been set up. By the six
vampires I trusted the most. Betrayed, martyred, and left for dead at the
entrance of a Vampire Apprehension Station.
Silver injected in my blood to keep me compliant, close to death, to ensure
I didn’t slaughter the humans.
Sacrificed because I didn’t agree with their vision of the future and
refused to cower to a lesser race.
Betrayal was an ugly thing.
But so was revenge.
The stadium lights flickered on and flooded the
field in a cold white light. I lowered my
head and let my greasy hair shield my eyes from the glare. Soft footfalls approached, bringing the
all-too-familiar smell of body odor and peppermint with them. For five nights the same pungent odor visited
me to pray for my undead soul.
My gaze followed the priest’s movements. He
dipped a chalice into a vat of water, and raised the cup in the air, drops of
water sloshed over the sides and fell to the ground. He walked over to me, the beads of his
crucifix clicking against the gold cross.
“Delano Melazi, I’ll ask you again. Shall I
pray for your undead soul?”
I ignored him tonight as I’ve done the last
five times he asked me this question. It
wasn’t my soul he needed to pray for,
and it wasn’t my body they would be
burying this evening.
A moment of silence stretched between us. He
huffed and gestured for the guards. Two
hurried over. “Hold his head.” Warm
fingers dug into my scalp and forced me to meet the priest’s eyes. The twinkle in his baby blues was more devil
than saint.
“By the authority of the church, I mark you as
one of the damned.” He dipped his index
finger into the chalice. The water rippled. He pulled his finger out and
pressed it to the center of my forehead.
It sizzled against my skin and burned along the two lines the priest traced
with his finger. My fangs sank into my
tongue, holding back my agonized scream.
I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of enjoying my pain.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost,” he finished. The guards dropped
their hold on my head and it fell back to my chest.
The holy water cross was meant to weaken me, to
stop me from fighting when the executioner came out and the real damage was
inflicted. On a less powerful vampire, a
younger one, it was effective, but I was almost seven hundred years old. I possessed more power than anyone knew, even
the vampires who sent me here.
The Sovereign leaders called my capture a small
sacrifice, a peace offering to the human race.
I called it a punishment, a crime, an injustice.
Static from the Jumbo-Tron played over the
speakers. The announcer’s voice boomed through the stadium. The crowd cheered, excited to witness my
demise. And they called the vampires
monsters.
“This week, two brave VAU agents captured one
of the Vampires’ leaders. Delano Melazi.” The crowd booed and hissed their hatred. “He alone is responsible for the Nightclub
Massacre.”
I had nothing to do with it, but let them
believe what they wanted. I had no quarrel
with them, just like a wolf has no quarrel with a sheep.
Once the crowd quieted down the announcer
continued. “A tragedy no human will ever
forget. You’ve seen the pictures. Over one hundred and thirty humans captured,
tortured, torn to pieces.” He paused and
stepped closer. I felt the warmth of his
flesh and heard the beating of his heart.
“This monster locked those doors. This monster slaughtered your friends and
family in cold blood. This monster
deserves to pay.”
His words worked the already agitated crowd
into frenzy. They raised their fists
high in the air and yelled for my death.
Just a few moments more, that’s all I
needed. Seconds until my power was
restored.
The announcer’s fat fingers grabbed my hair,
pulled my head back and forced me to look into the camera. “Tonight he will pay. He will suffer. He will die.”
His words echoed around the stadium.
No one heard the handcuffs fall to the ground or
saw me twist his head or heard his last breath.
No one knew anything was wrong until his head slipped from my fingers
and his body slid to the ground.
The crowd screamed.
The guards aimed their guns at my heart, pulled
the triggers and let the bullets fly in a flurry of silver and speed, but I was
swifter, stronger, superior.
Before the first bullet hit the metal pole that
had bound me, I was in front of the final guard in line. Ten beating hearts at my feet. Ten gaping holes in their chest. Ten dead bodies on the earth.
I turned to the closest camera, the red lights
still blinking, but unmanned. “I am Delano Melazi.” I raised my voice over the commotion. “And I will seek revenge against those who
wronged me.”
The first blast of holy water hit me in the
shoulder. It knocked me off balance. The
second hit me in the face. The cross the
priest had drawn on my head merely irritated me, but the onslaught of blessed
liquid burned, weakened and crippled me.
It ran down my arm, melted the flesh off the bone.
I had one chance to get out alive. With the last remaining bit of strength still
hidden deep in my reserves, I vanished. Teleported, a handy trick only I knew I
possessed, away from the stadium and the humans, but not the pain.
Evil's Unlikely Assassin
An Alexis Black Novel
Book One
Jenn Windrow
Release: June 6, 2017
Genre : Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Muse It Up Publishing
ISBN: 1771279222
ASIN: B06XH9ZFD4
Number of pages: 290
Word Count: 80K
Cover Artist: Erica Petlit Designs
Tagline: Sometimes it takes evil to kill evil
Description:
Vampire Alexis Black is on a mission - to rejoin the human race.
Coerced into signing an ironclad contract by an Angel-with-attitude, Alexis must hunt down and assassinate at least one vampire, werewolf, or creepy crawly every night for fifty years to become human again. Too bad the contract didn’t mention the badass vampire who now rides shotgun in her brain, insatiable bloodlust, or her new I-hate-everything-with-fangs sidekick. If she can fulfill her end of the bargain, her humanity is restored, if not she will be destroyed.
But when a revenge-seeking bloodsucker threatens her city, Alexis must risk everything to ensure there’s a humanity to return to. Since her vampire nature is her greatest weapon to defeat the monsters that threaten her friends and future, Alexis must choose to accept her inner beast or watch those she loves die.
Excerpt:
Tonight’s job
had me sitting in a shadowy corner of a dead-end dive watching the unfortunate,
the hopeless, and the degenerate. Had I known this is how I’d be spending my
one hundred and seventy-third birthday, I would have called in sick.
An aging
cocktail waitress hustled to over-serve society’s misfits. An ex-con, a dealer,
and an addict pissed their lives away at the far end of the bar. A trio of
prostitutes circled the room, their knock-off stiletto’s clicking on the wooden
floor. And a single cockroach scurried for cover before being squashed.
How would the
humans feel about me, the vampire, hiding in their shadows?
One of the
battered bar stools toppled, throwing its occupant to the filthy concrete. The
man, in a faded red and black flannel shirt, picked himself up off the floor.
Dingy jeans slid down his hips, revealing a pair of boxers far past the
expiration date for a wash. He bumped and weaved his way through the crowd,
ignoring the spilled drinks and curses he left in his wake, and cut a crooked
but determined path right to my table.
He collapsed
into the booth next to me, blocking my only chance at escape. “How’s ’bout a
drink?”
I wrinkled my
nose at what had to be three days’ worth of sweat and grime, raised my bottle
and sloshed the liquid from side to side. “Still nursing this one.” I focused
on a faded picture of the Blues Brothers nailed to the wall and hoped he’d take
the hint. A sharp tap on my shoulder told me this guy was either clueless or
didn’t give a shit. My money was on clueless.
“What’s your
name, sexy?”
Oh how I wanted
to ignore his question, but the last thing I needed was Mr. Drunk and Stupid to
cause a scene and blow my cover. “Alexis.”
His
grease-coated fingers played “Get the Buggy” up my arm. I slapped them away
before they got past my elbow. “How’s ’bout we get to know each other better?”
He gave me a lopsided wink and ogled my breasts.
When he looked
at me, he saw what every other human did, a twenty-three year old, petite
brunette with large, light blue eyes. But if he leaned in close, he would see
what lurked below the exterior, something sinister and scary, with sharp fangs
and a deadly personality.
About the Author:
Jenn Windrow loves characters that have a pinch of spunk, a dash of attitude, and a large dollop of sex appeal. Top it all off with a huge heaping helping of snark, and you've got the ingredients for the kind of fast paced stories she loves to read and write. Home is a suburb of it's-so-hot-my-shoes-have-melted-to-the-pavement Phoenix. Where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and a slew of animals that seem to keep following her home, at least that's what she claims.
Jenn's Urban Fantasy, EVIL’S UNLIKELY ASSASSIN won the RWA Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal (FFandP), “On The Far Side” writing contest in July 2014, top 5 in the RWA Desert Rose, “Realizing the Dream” writing contest, and finaled in the Houston Writers Guild annual writing contest in April 2014. It was also selected as first runner up in Writers Type’s First Chapter Contest in April 2013.
Her Paranormal Romance, STRUCK BY EROS placed first in the RWA’s Golden Pen Contest, third in the Ruby Slippered Sisterhoods Make it Golden contest, and fourth in the West Coast Romance Writers Beacon contest.
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