Chapter 1 - Surprise! You're a Vampire...

Staying well out of the beam of light piercing her parents’ living-room, Shannon Meeks looked out at the sun, bouncing off of the lush Alaskan leaves even at ten-thirty at night, and fought down an instinctive wave of fear. She hated summer in Alaska. It was so confining, so depressing, so dismal.

Often, as a child, she had spent her time huddled in a dark corner, imagining what it would be like to throw open the door and run out into those glorious rays as one last hurrah, forcing herself to endure. After all, it had to be all in her head. No one could be hurt by sunlight, right?

But it did hurt. It was so indescribably painful that it gave Shannon goosebumps, just thinking about it. The few times she had been foolhardy enough to go outside, she had been near-comatose by the time someone had found her, curled in on herself, having long since screamed her voice away.

And yet, even years later, even bearing the mental scars of those brief encounters with the sun, it was still alluring. Still beautiful…

Shannon sighed, biting her lip as she looked down at the beam of sunlight at her feet. As she stared at it, fighting the longing to step out into that light, she suddenly could have sworn she felt a hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

Reluctantly, Shannon went to the window and drew the curtains shut. Too many times, faced with that glorious array of color just beyond her reach, she’d set her jaw and given in to the temptation, had decided she would not endure the seclusion any longer. And while it never physically burned her, that kind of exposure always left her sobbing for hours—if she managed to crawl back inside the house of her own volition afterwards. If she didn’t, like those awful times that no one had found her for an hour or two, Shannon had devolved into mindless, babbling agony, completely incapable of speech or movement for days afterwards. Symptoms, she knew, of a phobia, not a physical condition.

A fact that had not been lost upon her shrinks. So many times, Shannon had been forced to explain to her school counselors that the pain was real, not in her head. She had gone through hypnotherapy, visualization techniques, meditation, self-help books…

Yet explaining it, recognizing it, accepting it didn’t change how horrible the sun felt against her skin. Even exposure to the secondary light bouncing off of the rich walnut floor was enough to make her body start to ache in warning. Too much, and she would be sick for hours, curled up and retching. It didn’t physically burn her, no. There was something else about the energy shed from Earth’s brilliant orange star that simply made her want to die. Like feeling one’s essence being soaked in sewage, covered in slick and rotting excrement as it was ripped asunder from the inside. And, while reflections were bad, direct sunlight was enough to leave her shuddering, unable to move, able only to scream.

School, obviously, had been a tricky affair for Shannon. Her parents had insisted that she get the ‘experience’ of going to public school, and had expressed to the counselors and teachers beforehand that she had a ‘severe case of Xeroderma pigmentosum’ and she was unable to go out on recess, sit next to a window, or experience field days. She had been driven both ways in a specially-made limo with tinted black windows, had walked the final feet to the schoolhouse door shrouded in opaque robes and carrying a parasol and sporting sunglasses. Schoolmates had laughingly given her the nickname ‘Vampire Meeks.’

The stupid, cruel, and heartless bastards.

Still, Shannon continued to stare at that blazingly-bright crack between the curtains, wishing to Odin there were a cure. Her parents, diehard pagans that they were, had always told her, “When in doubt, ask Odin or the jötnar for help.” Seemed like a silly thing at the time, since this was America, and Shannon had never heard of anyone seriously asking Odin or a bunch of giants for anything in this day and age, but a lot of their brainwashing had sunk in. She just didn’t have the exposure to learn anything else. She’d never even seen the inside of a church, for Chrissakes.

A ring at the doorbell made Shannon flinch out of her reverie. Frowning, she glanced at the clock—eleven-thirty-eight—then at the front door. Her parents did not allow visitors.

“All-Hours Courier Service!” a man called from the front door.

Still frowning, Shannon went to the door—which was heavily-shaded with an enormous porch roof—and glanced through the mottled glass of the front window. A man in some sort of uniform was standing on the front step, with a white delivery van parked in the long gravel drive out front.

Before her parents had called her to house-sit, they had told her they would be on vacation for three weeks, and that they needed her to be home all three weeks, just in case a special package arrived for them in the interim. Right. As if her parents’ ‘packages’ couldn’t wait a day or two. If they were anything like the last packages that Shannon had seen, they’d probably paid the bills for some kinky sex-bondage company for the next thirty years.

Knowing her parents weren’t going to be back for another day or two, however, and finding herself unable to be rude, Shannon reluctantly opened the door for the man.

Immediately, he smiled at her and held out a clipboard. “Courier delivery, Ma’am. For a miss Shannon Meeks.” He had a package tucked under his arm, approximately the size of one of those huge family Bibles.

“That’s me,” Shannon replied, frowning.

“Sign on the line, if you will.”

Shannon glanced at the sheet, then at the package. “I didn’t order a package. I don’t even live here anymore. Who sent it?” As far as she knew, her friends didn’t even know where she was. After all, her parents had made it incredibly clear that Shannon was not allowed to bring her friends—any friends—over to their home, or even suggest where they lived. To do so would be, quite simply, to be written out of the will.

Her parents, twisted freaks that they were, liked their privacy.

The man glanced at the top of his clipboard and tapped a callused finger to the words at the top. “Looks like a Frank and Valesa Meeks,” he said.

Shannon froze. Her parents had sent it? She peered at the sheet again, then at the paper-wrapped package under the man’s arm. “Oh. Okay. Uh.” She signed on the dotted line, then handed him back his clipboard.

The man, in turn, handed her the package. Immediately, Shannon grunted with its weight. It was heavy. Like it was a heirloom Bible or something.

“Thanks, Ma’am!” the man said, tipping his cap and turning to go.

Shannon frowned down at the package in her hands, for some reason feeling a weird tingle of dread. If her parents had wanted her to have something, why wouldn’t they have simply given it to her when they got back?

“Wait!” she called, as the delivery man was crossing the front porch. “Uh, the people who sent this, Frank and Valesa… Did they have to drop by your Anchorage office or something?”

The man glanced at his clipboard, then shook his head. “No, says here it’s been on hold back at the office since early June.”

“Since early June?” Shannon demanded. “It’s July first.” Early June would have been…three weeks ago.

He gave her an apologetic grin. “Sorry, Ma’am. Those were the instructions that were left with us.” Then, the delivery-guy obviously not wanting to get involved in a conversation he had no control over, he ducked his head and hurried back to his van. She heard the engine start and he drove quickly away.

More than a little unnerved, Shannon shut the door and threw the deadbolt back into place. Then she carried the package to the living-room and set it on her parents’ antique coffee-table. It had been tied together with raw hemp twine wrapped around plain brown paper, but there was something about its simplicity that was causing nagging unease in Shannon’s gut. Her parents, with their strange wealth that they never liked to talk about, their creepy habits and nightly disappearances, her mother’s rages and her father’s brooding silences, were not simple people. That they had taken so little care in wrapping their package meant not that its contents were unimportant, but rather, that they were attempting to hide the importance of its contents from the eyes of the world. Like so many things with her parents, even the smallest gestures of everyday life were often wrapped in subterfuge.

Part of the reason why Shannon had moved out when she was sixteen, despite their protestations. She had decided she was not going to deal with that bullshit any longer and had politely explained to them that, unless they wanted the cops to bring her home, time and again, solidly putting their lonely mansion in the mountains on the map, they would let her go lead a real life. And they’d reluctantly let her go. That had been three years ago, and Shannon had never looked back.

…until early June, when her mother had called her up saying that they needed an emergency house-sitter, and that they would be willing to pay her eight grand.

Shannon had only reluctantly agreed, and only because she needed the money. She’d been laid off from her last night-job as a Certified Nurse’s Assistant at the local old-folks’ home, and was still awaiting word from several hospitals in Anchorage. She didn’t have high hopes. Human Resources didn’t want to be told that she couldn’t meet during the day if the office was facing the south side of the building, or that she would go into severe psychological shock if even a stray beam of sunlight bounced off of a car doing a U-turn in the parking-lot and caught her in the face, mid-interview. The retirement home had actually been the first to hire her in a long chain of rejections, and Shannon had clung to the job like a lifeline until the establishment found itself overstaffed and tried to move her to day shift, and claimed that her ‘sunglasses and excessive clothing disturbed the residents.’

Whatever freak recessive genetic that her parents’ combined DNA had switched on in Shannon’s psychology, she wished, not for the first time, that it had also been linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and that she had never been given the opportunity to stand just out of reach of a sunbeam and peek outside, to revel in the beauty that was just beyond her grasp. It was just cruel.

Unhappily, Shannon cut the hemp string with a pair of scissors and peeled the brown paper wrapping from the outside of the package. Inside was a thick, heavy leather-bound book and a cotton-fiber letter with a fancy red wax seal.

Here’s where they tell me I’m really a vampire, Shannon thought, disgusted by her parents’ constant drama. Even in their letters, they had to keep the drama-quotient alive. Without bothering to go find a knife to delicately cut open the seal, Shannon broke it with her thumb, ripping the paper—parchment?—slightly, then folded it over so she could see inside.

Shannon-Rose, there is something important you must know, something we figured you’d discover the moment you had sex with your first unsuspecting boy, but since you have surprisingly remained a virgin these last three years despite your stubbornly short-sighted rebelliousness in all other areas of life, it is time you know—you are a vampire.

Shannon had to read that first line like eight times before she actually realized that she was really seeing it, and that it wasn’t her imagination.

Laughing, she tossed the letter aside without reading the rest and glanced at the book. She should have known they were going to try something like this. They’d been devastated when she left. Her father had literally gotten on his knees and begged her to stay. Her mother had thrown china at her and told her to get out. Shannon ran her fingers down the thick leather cover, then, because it had no words on the cover, flipped it open.

On the Use of Blood, the title read, in painstakingly hand-penned calligraphy.

“Oh, Odin’s balls,” Shannon muttered, slapping the cover shut. She turned and went looking for her coat and keys. Her parents could watch their own damn house.

Then she realized it was still just sunny enough to burn—that this close to the summer solstice, it would still be painfully light outside for another half hour. Shannon hesitated, coat in her hands, half-unhooked from the rack, and turned to look at where the letter had fallen on the beautiful walnut floor.

Vampires don’t like sunlight, she thought, swallowing hard. Then, immediately, she brushed that idea from her mind. No, her parents were just trying to guilt her into coming home. They weren’t serious.

Still, Shannon felt herself hanging up her coat and crossing the living-room, then squatting to retrieve the letter.

If you are reading this, her mother’s beautiful Copperplate calligraphy went on, your father and I did not survive our fight with the vampire lord. We already made arrangements and emptied out our stable, so you need not be afraid of any rotting corpses in the basement, but we did save one for you, just in case. If he is given daily doses of sunshine, he does not need to be fed, so we left him in the upstairs dormer for you. On his person, you will find further instructions on how to feed, should you choose that route.

On how to feed?! Shannon almost threw the letter across the room, her heart was pounding so violently. She just knew—knew—that there was a fake corpse hanging from one of the rafters in the dormer, all decayed and gross. Her parents, she had found, and a really…twisted…sense of humor sometimes.

Yet there was a tone of finality to the letter that she had never experienced from her parents before, and aside from the first line, it almost felt sad.

The choice, of course, is yours. The creature is what is called a yatagarasu in Japan or a sanzuwu in China. In English, it is called a Three-Legged Crow, a sun-crow, or a golden crow. If given leave to transform, he takes the shape of a bird the size of a raven and has the ability to make any object—or his own body—shed light like the sun, an act you obviously must avoid.

However, if you taste his blood, as we’ve outlined for you in the instructions we’ve included with him, you will be able to step into the daylight unharmed. You will be able to enjoy life as a normal human, absolutely immune to sunlight of any form.

If you do taste his blood, however, there will be no going back. You will become inhumanly strong, but your metabolism will also change. You will need regular infusions several times a week, for the rest of your life. Further, to remain impervious to the sunlight, you must continue to feed from the golden crow. He carries in his veins the power to control the sun in this lush and bountiful Realm, and we’re sure we have no need to describe to you the wonders such freedom brings with it. Both your father and I enjoyed it, and now, we are giving that opportunity to you.

Shannon felt herself hyperventilating. A joke she thought. This has to be a joke.

But some horrible, gut-wrenching part of her was telling her that this was far from a joke. Wake up, Dorothy. We’re not in Kansas, anymore.

Biting her lip, she continued to read.

The book is self-explanatory. We would have desired a few good decades to teach you the things contained herein, but circumstances being what they were, we were simply not given the time to educate you properly. The rest, if you are to survive, you must do on your own. If you do decide to drink of the creature’s blood, hide your scars afterwards. There are those who hunt us, most of whom belong to the Catholic Church, though the golden crows are known for making a sport out of killing our kind. A rite of passage, for many. Whatever you do, do not free him. He will kill you instantly. Destroy him, at the very least, by closing the shutter and leaving him to die in darkness. It will take about ten or eleven days for him to succumb.

Then, in her father’s handwriting,

Good luck, Shannon-Rose. We know there are many questions left unanswered, but you are an intelligent girl, and you’ve already made it clear to us that you wanted to follow your own path. Thus, while we could have cut ties with you long ago, we feel it is our duty to give you a choice, and to warn you so that you do not end up in a bloody bed with a corpse, as your mother did, when she first awakened.

Oh, and my little Rose, keep in mind that if you are reading this, there is a nest of vampires in Kenai and Soldotna that you should avoid at all costs. We went to war and we lost. Sadly, what this means for you is that if they take your mother’s fangs—which they will—they will see they are ringed by the magic of a child. This is a very rare event for a vampire, because the magic of the Third Lands is so weak in this place. Perhaps one vampire-queen is born in a thousand years, if then. And it is always a queen. The magic of the thralls and soldiers is simply too weak to carry a child to term in this light-soaked land.

Sweet Rose, they will likely start looking for you soon after you receive this message. If they do, there are silver bullets in the gun cabinets in my bedroom. Further, the entry to the dungeon is via the third book on the second shelf of the second bookcase in the study, clockwise from the door. Fill it at your leisure.

Shannon’s eyes kept flicking past the end of that final sentence, looking for more. When she found nothing but blank page, she swallowed and slowly lowered the letter to the surface of the book.

A joke, she thought, eyes fixed to the book’s luxurious leather cover. This has to be a sick joke. A really, really, really sick joke. They’re getting back at me for leaving.

After several minutes of staring at the book, Shannon glanced outside, judged that there was probably few enough rays that she could bundle herself up and drive off, and considered leaving the whole mess behind her. Her parents had always loved to play mind-games. She was sure this was no exception—them cruelly playing off of Shannon’s biggest, most obvious flaw. Hell, there probably was a note upstairs, and it probably said something to the tune of, Not only are you gullible, but you possess one of the softest, least-agile minds we’ve ever seen. You probably actually thought that vampires exist…

Shaking her head, she went back, retrieved her coat and sunglasses, and pulled them on. She was reaching for the front door when she once again heard that weird thumping sound coming from upstairs. She had thought it was just the house shifting, or maybe a magpie landing on the roof.

No way, Shannon thought, twisting to look at the ceiling. No way, no way.

The sound came again, a barely-audible thudding sound, and slowly, her hand fell away from the door. Swallowing hard, eyes still fixed to the ceiling, Shannon walked to the stairs, climbed onto the second floor, took the hall down to the less-used stairs to the guest bedrooms of the third floor, then down the end of that hall to the pull-down attic stairs that were currently collapsed and put away.

Squeak, squeak-thud-thud. The sound was unmistakable, here. Something was alive up there, and it was moving. Heart in her throat, Shannon stood there for several minutes, listening. Then, slowly, she reached up to the little string that hung down for the attic stairs, grabbed it, and pulled down.

As soon as she did, the thumping, squeaking-sound went silent.

Please don’t be someone they kidnapped, Shannon thought, biting her lip. Her parents had always been…weird. It was well within the realm of possibilities, in her mind, that they had hired someone to steal some poor homeless guy off the streets so they could play their game with her. Shannon had already, as a child, made the mistake of opening one of their refrigerator-sized mail-order packages, from an outfit called ‘Mimi’s Dungeon’ which, Shannon had discovered after a little research, catered to the ‘serious BDSM enthusiast.’ Inside, she had found an eye-searing array of handcuffs, collars, padlocks, spreader-bars, ball-gags, heavy-duty arm and leg shackles, whips, rope, and enough sexual toys to make a whore blush. Through some morbid act of curiosity, Shannon had dug through the contents of the box to seek out the bottom half, thinking she would find more proof of her parents’ twisted minds.

In the bottom of the package had been six heavy steel cages, all awaiting assembly.

Her parents didn’t have visitors.

Please don’t be a person, she thought, slowly tugging the stairs into place. Please be a monkey or a dying dog. Please not a person.

Absolute silence answered her. Very reluctantly, Shannon put her foot onto the bottom rung and started climbing into the loft.

Her eyes immediately adjusted to the half-light coming through the two open dormers, facing the now-retreated sun. Aside from that, the room was empty.

…except for a man, dangling by his wrists from a heavy beam running the length of the house, naked, his spread feet attached to a bar, toes suspended six inches above the floor, his muscular, tawny body swinging gently from some prior struggles. He had a small fanny-pack strapped to his narrow waist, barely obscuring his genitals. His near-black eyes had found her before she found him, and the hatred in his stare left no question as to the nature of his participation.

“Oh fuck,” Shannon whispered.