A vampire with a sickening fetish.
A gypsy she loves the kill.
A CEO probably insane wants revenge.
A sexually bent woman, Kim Bennett.
…and they want her dead!
First to Die by Norm Applegate
This book is not for vegetarians
A grave has been robbed. A document has been stolen. Vampires are turning on each other. The Black Testament, discloses the truth behind vampires. How to live with them, how to kill them.
A vampire has taken the document to the vaults beneath Notre Dame. Kim Bennett goes after it. It’s a trap. The CEO of the organization wants to see Kim bleed. Former dominatrix, part vampire, Kim Bennett turns it up a notch. Carve in, carve out, blood leaks…
Kim battles twisted characters, a killer with a sickening fetish and a society fueled by blood lust. This novel is as much a thriller as it is blunt force trauma. Laced with sexual frenzy layered on graphic violence, this book is not for vegetarians.
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First To Die
Chapter 1
A dark SUV slipped through the fog and came to a stop. It was quiet. Almost silent.
Three men and a woman dressed in black gothic garb, with wrinkled denim coveralls slung over their shoulders, slid out of their car carrying grey fiberglass shovels. Hunched over and silent, they made their way fifty feet along the west wall toward an overgrowth of tall shrubs heavy in fog.
In front, Jean St-Pierre raised a hand to his eyes, shielding them from the streetlights, and scanned the cemetery in the direction of a marble mausoleum. Ahead, rows of chiseled headstones stood erect like an army of dead soldiers at attention. His stomach was full but he was fighting a hunger. He was used to eating the dead while robbing graves, not stealing their secrets.
The wall was five feet tall and built with round, smooth stones. Streetlights along the cemetery's road illuminated the white and grey marble grave markers.
He thought about grave robbing. Then he heard the dogs. At first, he thought they were chained up. He heard them moving walking around. Then he realized they would have to be dealt with.
The surrounding buildings were lit. St-Pierre looked for movement but very little funeral work took place this early in the morning. The main part of the cemetery, its crematorium, landscaping, garage, and a well-lit two-story house were to the east, close to the road and hopefully empty.
The rest of the property, across the driveway on the other side of the house, was lined with aisles of dead people, each with its neatly manicured lawn and sweet, fragrant flowers. There were four sections dividing the cemetery and in one of these was the assignment.
St-Pierre glanced at his team, lowered his hands and looked at the grey mist covering the moon. It was three thirteen. He sniffed the air with two quick motions and turned his head, listened for a sound, human or not, that might indicate trouble. San Francisco PD and hired security guards kept watch on the cemetery preventing anyone from stealing from the dead, but tonight it was quiet.
In seventeen minutes, a disturbance would take place on the east side of the cemetery, but they had to cross the main driveway before it happened. That would allow them time to reach section four, but they would have to get by two vicious Rottweilers, standing guard and trained to attack.
Reaching under his vest to a gun holster he pulled out a Glock 21 .45 ACP caliber pistol. It felt comfortable in his hand. One of the most important factors for him. Plus, he liked to put the bullet where it needed to be. With the Glock, he could do that. It was simple to operate and he liked that. He headed toward the driveway, keeping the main house in sight, his team following behind in silence.
After crossing the road, he signaled to his men to get down. They crawled like a cunning pack of wolves hunting prey. If anyone was watching, they would have been startled to see four people moving like animals, on all fours, fangs displayed, and eyes red, until they were in the cemetery and out of the light. They were here to steal from the dead, not join them.
Two minutes later, they huddled against the fence surrounding section four of the cemetery that contained the Black Testament. They were on a flat grass lawn that gave way to a slight hill to their right that protected their cover with a cluster of trees.
It was three twenty-nine. In three minutes, the dogs would be distracted.
Jean St-Pierre took the shovel and coveralls off his back, slipped them over his clothes and without speaking, his team did the same. He adjusted his eyes to the dark until he saw the sharp etched lettering on a headstone thirty feet away. His mouth watered as he realized the future that lay ahead for him. The plan was perfect, no noise, police or security; it was well thought out. The briefing and maps they had reviewed had paid off and got them to the site undetected.
Now the final stages of the mission depended on how well trained his team was.
On the other side of the driveway, beyond the main house, the dogs came alive. A raw slab of meat was lobbed into the air and slapped hard on the ground sending a fragrance of bitter copper to the canine’s eager nostrils.
The dog’s teeth ripping into the meat was heard by each member of the team.
St-Pierre looked over and signaled to his men. He raised his hand in the air and made a circular motion to move quickly. Then slipped the Glock back in its holster. The final phase of the plan meant teamwork, communication and speed if they were going to pull it off. The lure of meat diverted the dog’s attention away from the graves.
It was working, St-Pierre crawled toward a headstone with his men following and with precision timing, they began digging.
In less than three minutes, they had the top soil gone and were lifting the casket out of the ground. It was cold, damp. They could smell the earth.
St-Pierre fell to his knees, and with the fiberglass shovel in his hand, adjusted his sight. He brushed dirt away from the casket. Felt the edge with his fingertips. Finding a small opening, he rammed the shovel tip against the edge. It bounced back. He lined the tip up to the seam. He hit it again. Then forced the shovel in and pried the lid off. He looked left then right. Nobody. Darkness. Silent.
He crawled alongside the dead body of Thomas Nicholls, the great-grandson of Mary Ann Nicholls, the first victim of Jack the Ripper. The body was thin, old, hard.
Jean St-Pierre, felt beneath the shriveled carcass and his eyes, penetrating the dark, caught sight of it. His fingers brushed against the smooth surface. He glanced back to his team; they were smiling. He tightened his grip on a soft leather tube, and he whispered to himself. "Got it."
The Black Testament was a four by five foot long document, cut into three pieces and rolled into a single tube.
*
Out of the dark, a tall, muscularly fit, handsome man slid onto his balcony near the San Francisco cemetery and leaned against the hand railing. The morning breeze tingled his face. Squinting, he locked his sight on the grave of Thomas Nicholls in the far distance, and tightening his jaw, he knew what had happened. He heard them. Heard the noise they were making. Heard the shovel hit the casket.
He was dressed in a tailored black suit and crisp white shirt. His skin appeared pale as he stood against the night sky, and although he expected this day would come, he hoped never to face it.
He had moved from Manhattan to the bay to be close to the cemetery, and this was the first time someone had made a move on it.
He held his breath when he saw Jean St-Pierre step from the grave somewhere in the cemetery across the street, and he got the feeling they knew he was watching.
Nicolai Avelli turned his head and listened. "It has started just like Kim said it would." He was built with broad shoulders and firm arms, but his face was a delicate shade of white with a straight nose and soft skin, and yet he commanded a strong aura mixed with the mischievous warm eyes of a young boy. He was a cultured eighty-two-year-old Italian-born man who looked not a day over forty, and was attractive to most women.
He was born into the vampire world, and like his father before him, had risen rapidly through the ranks of The Society. But then the Black Testament surfaced, and he fell in love with an intriguing woman, Kim Bennett, who helped him hide the document under the dead body of Thomas Nicholls.
Nicolai, once a high-ranking elder in The Society and working out of House Hawkins, a vampire haven in New York City, reported to the director of the Sanguinary, Victor Moulin. For the most part Nicolai was well liked, respected and was watching his star rise when he was catapulted into the center of a vampire uprising. Falling in love, he was determined to prevent The Society from killing Kim Bennett and keep the Black Testament out of their hands.
*
Jean St-Pierre lifted the tube containing the document out of the casket. He studied it for a moment, lifted it to his face, inhaled the leather, then stepped out onto the grass.
While his team began taking off their coveralls, St-Pierre knelt down and unraveled the scroll to see if it was genuine. His attention drawn immediately to the old English text provided the proof. Their assignment had been achieved. There were two things he had to do. One of them he just finished. The other was about to happen.
Jean St-Pierre glanced back at the two men and lone woman behind him. He was instructed, once he held the Testament in his hands, to eliminate all witnesses. Leave no one alive.
The two guard dogs stood on top of the road winding down to the cemetery. Looking toward the grave, their eyes focused on the blurry figures in the distance examining the Black Testament.
Move, St-Pierre thought to himself, considering his next steps. Quickly.
He’d known Anna Haeussler for over ten years and from the first day, she accepted the privileged assignment of going to America to find the Black Testament; she knew either of them could be killed. It was a risk she was willing to take because she loved him, and St-Pierre promised nothing harmful would happen to her.
"What are you doing?" Anna cried; she would be the first to die. St-Pierre didn't want to hear her pleading for her life as she watched the others die. He brought his sword out from behind his back. Having never been used, the blade had a mirror sheen. He held it high and lined it up on her neck. Then slicing once, hit the woman in the side of the throat like he was swinging a bat. It cut clean, skin, muscle, veins. He felt it hit bone. A gush of air escaped. Blood flowed, welling up. Her lifeless body fell to the ground. Her head rolled on the grass, spraying blood across the gravestones and onto his shoes. The men were stunned, their faces frozen. They were focused on the sword.
St-Pierre spun around and jabbed the blade into the face of one of the vampires. It smashed his teeth, sliced the gums and slid through the roof of his mouth. Blood filled his throat. Three inches of blade popped out the back of his neck. He pulled the sword out. It slid easily. It was wet. The second slice whistled through the air hitting the man below the chin. His head fell backward into the hole. His body collapsed on the dirt.
Keeping his eye on the final vampire, St-Pierre raised his sword. The blade was red. The lone man groped at him. St-Pierre sliced once more, opening a thin line across his chest. Then again across his forehead. And again. He was still alive. Blood flowed down his face, into his eyes, into his mouth. Raising his hands to protect himself, Jean St-Pierre cut them away. They hit the ground. Fingers moving, spider-like. He held the sword with both hands, drew the blade back slowly, and held his breath uncoiling a vicious swing. The third strike separated the head from the vampire's neck killing him instantly.
Jean St-Pierre walked away from the carnage but he wasn't finished. The dogs had started after him. He scanned his eyes across the field and saw a blur moving toward him like a rocket.
He pulled the gun from its holster under his arm and crouching in a shooters stance, brought the Glock up to shoulder height. He had one up the snout giving him fourteen rounds of influence. He extended his arm. Held his breath. Slowly let it out, then squeezed the trigger and began firing until his weapon went dry.
One of the dogs cried out. Eerie sound. It dropped to the driveway at the edge of the grass twenty feet from St-Pierre. A red dot in its chest. Two slugs penetrated the skull of the second dog at point blank range, flipping it backward through the air, it's legs twitching. A bubble of red exploded. St-Pierre saw the back of its head, gone.
Everything went quiet.
Nicolai watched from the balcony as a black SUV drove off, turned south at the corner, and was gone in seconds. Letting himself back into his living room, he walked directly to the phone and called the only person
who knew what to do.
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