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  The Dawning

  All rights reserved. Copyright © February 2008 Melodee Aaron

  Cover Art Copyright © January 2008 Missy Lyons

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  ISBN: 978-1-934475-49-2

  Publisher:

  Amira Press, LLC

  Baltimore, MD

  www.amirapress.com

  Foreword

  This story is a continuation of the saga of Valerie, Roland, and Elektra as originally appearing in Casting Call for Love and expanded in Ruins of a Past Day, Bloodlust 1.

  The Bloodlust series focuses on the interactions and twists between Roland, Valerie, Elektra, and the vampire Markinson. While all interrelated, each story stands on its own and does not rely on reading the other stories. Frankly, the reader will learn a lot more about these characters and their lives by reading all of the stories. For me, that makes the entire experience much more enjoyable.

  This is not a historical novel in the sense that all the facts are accurate. I've sacrificed historical facts primarily for the sake of the story, but also when it suits my fancy. It's my world and welcome to it!

  As with many of my stories, I break a lot of rules in this one. Ruins of a Past Day, Bloodlust 1, combined horror and romance. You'll have to read on to see what happens here.

  Keep Loving!

  Melodee Aaron

  February 2008

  Guatay, California

  Pearl Harbor, Present Day

  Valerie leaned on the railing, looking out over the calm waters of the harbor. Like most actual working harbors she'd seen, this one was far from the pristine blue of the tourist traps. The big ships kept the sand and mud from the bottom churning, and no matter how hard the crews tried, small amounts of oil and fuel always leaked into the water. The result was a brownish froth that looked a lot like the small lakes and ponds from her childhood back in Kansas. But the water here, near her white perch atop the massive ship below, held more oil. It glittered in the sunlight, casting rainbows from the surface of the gentle waves.

  She sighed. The scene would have been beautiful if not for the very reason for the memorial's existence. Even the polluting oil still seeping from the wreck of the battleship USS Arizona lying as a silent tomb below her feet painted a pretty picture as it rippled and rolled on the water. The memorial itself, when she ignored the meaning, was a beautiful addition to the seascape.

  Her gaze moved from the water near her feet and came to rest on the top of some part of the superstructure of the once mighty ship rusting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. She didn't know anything about ships, especially warships, but it looked like maybe a gun turret. In her mind's eye, she could see the sailors, in a panic and with little command, fighting to save their ship from the attacking Japanese aircraft.

  In her mind, the Arizona lived again, as it had more than seventy-five years ago. Bristling with guns, big guns, and other weapons she didn't recognize, it shown a dull gray in the morning sunlight. But something was terribly wrong with the picture. Aircraft looking like tiny flies compared to the enormous ship swarmed in the skies overhead. The whistling of bombs, like those she'd heard in old war movies, filled her ears, and torpedoes left bubbling white wakes in the water of the harbor as they moved with blinding speed towards their targets. Explosions rocked the air and many ships around Arizona belched huge clouds of black smoke, and her mind could see flames pouring from many.

  The sailors fought valiantly, manning the antiaircraft guns and other weapons on the deck. She saw some men with rifles, down on one knee, firing at the aircraft as they came in fast and low to deliver their deadly payloads. But the men fought in vain. From her perspective of future time, she knew the outcome, if not the details, of the battle that raged in her mind.

  "This tends to put the entire war in perspective, does it not?"

  Valerie jumped when the man spoke. She turned to face Stanley Markinson where he leaned casually on the rail beside her. She hadn't even seen him walk up next to her. He did that a lot, moving like a phantasm through the night, silent and unnoticed.

  "Yes, it sure does.” She hesitated. She really didn't like Markinson that much, which always struck her as strange. He was always nice and polite and, in some ways, reminded her of her grandfather. Roland always said that Markinson was like the old-world aristocracy—cultured, refined, and unfailingly polite, but always just a little uppity, with an attitude that he always spoke to someone he saw as inferior.

  "I did not mean to startle you.” He nodded toward a bubble of oil that surfaced from the rotting hulk below. “Amazing that there is any oil left to leak out, is it not?"

  Maybe his avoidance of using contractions bothered her. She really didn't understand why she never warmed to the man—she only knew that he made her a little nervous. “It is that. I wonder why no one has ever tried to clean it up."

  He laughed softly. “There have been many such plans, but all involved disturbing the tomb below us. Perhaps, today, it could be done.” Markinson waved his hand around at the memorial. “Too many people have forgotten what this place means. We have lost the perspective of an open window on the past."

  Roland walked toward them with a small entourage around him. He shook his head at Jack Ortega, one of the two screenplay writers for the Bloodlust series.

  "No, no. We can't do that, Jack."

  Ralph Kramer, the other writer, stepped up alongside Roland. “We're going to need special effects, and good ones, for this film, Roland."

  Roland rolled his eyes. “I agree, but what you're talking about is two hundred million dollars’ worth of ILM work. We simply can't afford that kind of outlay just to get a fifteen minute scene.” He looked around for his director. “Jim, come over here."

  Jim Alba was the senior director since Roland stepped down from directing nearly every film Midnight Interludes Studios produced. Valerie suppressed a smile at Jim's pained expression. He hated dealing with the writers and preferred to have one of his nasty cigars in his mouth when forced to. “Yeah?"

  "These two are making me crazy with the FX stuff. Here's the deal.” Roland took a deep breath. “If you, as director, say there's no way to make this movie without spending all this money on the special effects, then we'll spend the money, even if I have to sell pencils on Hollywood Boulevard."

  Jim shrugged, and Valerie saw him pat his jacket pocket, as if checking to make sure he had a cigar in there. “Right now, my feeling is that all the FX would take us in a direction we don't want to go."

  "How's that?” Jack stood very close to Ralph, as if circling the wagons for the coming attack.

  "Well, this is a romance, not an action film. I think a huge battle scene is going to swamp the romance.” Jim looked at Markinson. “What does the author of the novel have to say?"

  Markinson smiled. “The attack on Pearl Harbor is central to the story, and several chapters are devoted to it in the book. But for a film, I am not sure we need to play it up into a major scene."

  Roland glanced at her and winked before he turned to
Jack and Ralph. “That's my feeling exactly. Stanley is just better at putting it into words than me."

  Jim made sucking motions with his lips as if he had one of the cigars that smelled like a cat box overdue for changing shoved in his mouth. “I think we can do it just as well with newsreel and other historical footage. We could even get permission to colorize the stuff if we need that for continuity."

  Roland turned to her. “What do you think, baby?"

  Valerie blinked a few times. “Who, me? I'm just the casting director and acting coach."

  "Exactly. Will the performers have an easier time getting into character one way or the other?"

  "I doubt it makes any difference. Old footage or new FX, it's not live action they can interact with.” She thought for a moment about the images still echoing in her mind of the battle for Arizona. “Actually, it does make a difference. The special effects are fake, someone's idea of what happened. The footage Jim is talking about is real, what did happen. I'd vote for the historical footage."

  Roland laughed as he slipped his arm around her waist. “After being married to me for more than two years, I'd think you would know this isn't a democracy.” He kissed her cheek softly, and pleasant tremors rolled through her body, along with a wave of warmth. “OK, people, let's talk some more."

  Roland and the entourage walked off to look at some other aspect of Battleship Row, leaving her alone with Markinson again.

  "That is very wise, Valerie. The real events of the past always have a larger impact than simple stories."

  "I think that's right.” She chuckled. “But what do I know about history?"

  Markinson looked around at the tourists who wandered around the memorial and at the small group of cast, crew, and executives from Midnight Interludes clustered at the far end of the platform. A smile, one Valerie thought looked a bit wistful, slowly spread over Stanley's face.

  "You might be very surprised."

  * * * *

  Honolulu, December 5, 1941

  "So what do you have planned for the weekend, Elisa?"

  Elisa wondered about Betty. Here the woman was in the middle of the office with her foot up on the corner of the desk as she straightened her hose. Exposing her leg from foot to thigh, the position always gathered the attention of everyone in the office.

  "I'm not sure yet. I think I'll go to the beach tomorrow, though.” She knew better than to question Betty's antics. Everyone in the office knew that she and Mr. Rigby had a thing going on.

  "Going with someone?” Betty lowered her leg and her skirt. “Maybe you've got some guy on the side I don't know about?"

  Elisa smiled. Betty could have no idea how poorly that would work out. “No, not me. I'll just go down to get some sun and do a little reading."

  "We have got to get you a man! You're going to die an old maid!” Betty walked off toward Rigby's office, her hips swaying from side to side.

  Elisa wasn't a prude, and never had been. At least she hadn't been one at any point in the last four thousand years. She'd lost count of the number of men, both mortal and of her kind, who she had shared her bed or even just a hurried grope with over the centuries.

  In some ways, being what most mortals thought of as a vampire was a part of that. Her passions often triggered the change, and animal lust would overtake her. The reaction often meant death for a mortal man in her arms. Over the many years, there were exceptions, though. Sometimes, a mortal male touched something in her, some leftover bit of her own humanity, and he lived through the experience of loving her.

  She'd been in this role as Elisa O'Connell for several years now and had no desire to change any time soon, unless forced to. She had a job here in the sugar plantation office. She had a few people she could almost call friends, and none of them knew her secret. In Hawaii, no one cared too much about her past, and the hustle and bustle of the mainland was far away. She could live as the mortals lived; only coming out to feed.

  The whistle blew meaning it was time to go home. As she walked along the street in the falling twilight, she watched people going about their shopping for Christmas in just a few weeks. She gave up being interested in the life and death of a man from two thousand years ago. Elisa remembered seeing this Jesus once while she was still in what was now called Egypt. There had been nothing special about him or his wife and son. At least not then.

  She saw him a few years later in some far away armpit of a village the Roman's controlled. Rome had sent some third-rate bureaucrat to run the area, and the man took the job seriously. This man from Galilee, called Christ by the crowd, was in the way of the Roman governor's plans for social climbing. So the wandering preacher from the tribes of Israel ended up nailed to a tree.

  As this Christ hung on the cross, she remembered looking up at him. His pain painted a horrid grimace on his face, not unlike that of her victims in the last moments of life, but this man didn't beg his captors for either mercy or death. He just died.

  A man dressed as Santa Claus rang a bell on the street corner, and Elisa dropped a few coins in the black kettle in front of him. He smiled at her. “Thank you, miss. Merry Christmas, and God bless you."

  She returned his smile and muttered something she didn't even think about. The gods had certainly not blessed her, not by any stretch of the imagination. While to her kind, the cause of her state was known to be an illness, it seemed the gods, or God, damned her to an eternity of killing and hiding.

  Over the years, she had come to think in rather clinical terms about her affliction. She knew the one who had infected her. In fact, she knew him very well. When she closed her eyes, she saw the steel gray of his eyes burning in the darkness of the gardens at the Temple of Ma'at. Memories of his hands moving over her body, pressing her through the fine linen of her robes and massaging her breasts as her nipples hardened, made her pant even now.

  His words floated back to her across the millennia. “Aset Ma'at Amen, give yourself to me, for all time.” She shivered as she moved down the sidewalk, the remembered passion escalating in her mind and body.

  She had leaned her head back, like her neck had broken, exposing her throat to him knowing full well what it meant. Her pussy moistened at the recollection of his mouth moving over her body, of his lips kissing softly at her skin. When the thought of how his sharp fangs pressed against her throat and the sensation of prickling pain that accompanied the teeth dipping into her flesh, she stopped and grabbed a palm tree to support herself.

  A military police officer at the corner noticed, and walked up to her. “Miss, are you all right?"

  The young man was attractive, maybe twenty years old, and proud of his navy uniform. Casually, she wondered how many in his family had been sailors. “Yes, I'm fine, thank you.” She managed a small smile. “Just a little overwhelmed."

  He smiled back, the look of concern fading. “Last-minute Christmas shopping can do that to you."

  "It certainly can. Thank you.” She moved off down the street again, and the thoughts of four millennia past again assailed her.

  The fangs had bitten deep into her flesh, and the pain was an exquisite delight. He had lapped at her skin frantically with his tongue, gathering the bright arterial blood that leaked around the pointed teeth. She recalled moaning and pulling his head tighter against her neck, wanting him to take her and drain her.

  Then the change of the infection had hit her. Her own teeth had moved and writhed in her mouth like living things, growing and sharpening to fangs to match his. Her vision had altered in acuteness and in coloring. Objects glowed in an eerie green light while living things and warm creatures glowed with red and had white outlines in her new vision that sensed heat. Had she been able to see them, she believed her ears had become pointed, like those of the jackal, because she could hear even the breathing of the mice in the temple granary a dozen rods away.

  Her skin took on a leathery appearance and feel, like the armor worn by Pharaoh's guards, and had a mottled color like that of a crocodile's s
kin. Her hands twisted into claws tipped not with nails but with talons better suited to some huge bird of prey. When she spoke, her voice came as a low rumble, like the growl of a lion or tiger.

  As Elisa reached the steps of her apartment, she shook herself out of the memories of the past. She pulled her key from the small purse she carried and started up the stairs.

  "May god, some god, damn you Set Ankh Halus."

  * * * *

  Honolulu, December 6, 1941

  Darrel couldn't believe his luck. He had finagled thirty-six hours of leave, and he didn't even have to take it on the ship. He never followed the news that much, but he knew things in Europe weren't going well. France had fallen, and England wasn't far behind. Hitler and Mussolini were sweeping through Europe like Sherman through Georgia.

  Here in the Pacific, things didn't look much better. Japan might as well have taken China since resistance had effectively ended. The Japs and Nazis managed to catch Stalin and his Russian buddies in the middle. Hitler pushed from the west, and the Japs pushed from the east.

  And Darrel gathered enough from letters from back home that things stateside were getting goofy, too. A good number of very loud folks didn't want the United States in the war, but Europe, China, Russia, and most of Africa was begging for help. He wondered how long Roosevelt could, or would, stay out of the fray. As third-generation navy and a petty officer first with eight years of sailing in his sea bag, he didn't really have an opinion on the war. He just followed orders and did his best.

  But he was a radioman and saw a lot of the communications that the skipper saw. Much of it was stuff that no one other than the skipper and him ever saw. And some of it was scary.

  There were lots of reports of Jap mini-subs showing up all over the place. He knew many of the reports were wrong, civilians seeing things they didn't understand and such, but if only a handful were true, it meant the Japs were cruising into San Francisco and Seattle. The Nazis were doing the same on the eastern seaboard, too.