It takes only a brief mischance and a few drops of blood to awaken an unspeakable evil and unleash it upon an unsuspecting world.
The vampire Simon has always prided himself on his detachment from humankind, but curiosity draws him to them nonetheless. A chance encounter with mortal Anita Rothard entices them both too much to ignore, but as the two grow closer and Simon finds his secret harder to keep, they are caught in the middle of a centuries-old blood feud between Shafax, the power-mad King of Vampires, and Simon’s estranged mentor, the enigmatic vampire Salem.
When enemies stir and rivalries reawaken, old scores will be settled and blood will flow.
It takes only a brief mischance and a few drops of blood to awaken an unspeakable evil and unleash it upon an unsuspecting world.
The vampire Simon has always prided himself on his detachment from humankind, but curiosity draws him to them nonetheless. A chance encounter with mortal Anita Rothard entices them both too much to ignore, but as the two grow closer and Simon finds his secret harder to keep, they are caught in the middle of a centuries-old blood feud between Shafax, the power-mad King of Vampires, and Simon’s estranged mentor, the enigmatic vampire Salem.
When enemies stir and rivalries reawaken, old scores will be settled and blood will flow.
Chicago, Illinois, USA
COLD, FAT raindrops splattered off the pavement and everyone caught outside. The damp smell of worms hung in the air. Potholes filled and overflowed onto the old streets as a bolt of lightning tore through the sky, illuminating the gray afternoon. The few cars hurrying through the neighborhood kicked up streams of water in their wake. Groups of two and three clustered together in doorways with hoods pulled over their heads or faces hidden behind their arms, their ragged sweatshirts and holey jeans whipping in the gale. A man waited under a bent street sign with his head down until someone walked past. The walking man slipped a sandwich baggie into the first’s hand, then pocketed a twenty in return.
The few windows not covered by boards or bars were stained with grease almost to opacity or cracked open by errant baseballs hit from the park across the street. Here and there the holes were smaller, more focused.
Every third streetlight functioned on the best roads, and passersby sometimes wondered whether the thick construction rent-a-fences strategically placed around the edges of the neighborhood—for planned efforts that never seemed to get to the construction stage—were to keep the denizens of the projects in, or simply to make them less visible to the rest of the city.
A sharp step disturbed a puddle, splashing water and mud aside. The few droplets that plopped back onto the boot slithered off like rats deserting a sinking ship. A few heads rose, eyes focusing through the hazy rain on the figure, blurred by the downpour but still recognizable. Bodies pressed closer together, heads lowered again, muttered conversations silenced, and all eyes turned away.
All but two.
A man in a faded Bears sweatshirt started forward, an unsprung switchblade materializing in one hand and a small, confident smirk growing on his lips. He made it two steps before a hand seized his sweatshirt, dragging him back. The smirk curled into a sneer as he regarded the friend who had grabbed him.
The other man’s eyes were wide beneath the brim of a baseball cap so soiled the team was unrecognizable. He shook his head.
“Man, he’s right there,” the first one complained, tapping the knife just below the spring button with his thumb.
“Naw, man, don’t do it,” the second said. When the first looked back to his would-be target, the restraining hand tightened. “Man, don’t.”
“One scrawny guy?”
“Bro, you remember Lenny Nelson last year?”
The thumb tapping the knife froze. “Yeah . . .”
“You remember what happened to him?”
“What about it?” The voice was a whisper this time, barely audible over the rain.
The second man just tilted his head toward the subject of their argument. The first pair of eyes went as wide as the second, and the switchblade was gone as quickly as it had appeared. The two friends stepped back onto the sidewalk as one, arms crossed and eyes down, reluctant to even have the hazy figure in their peripheral vision.
The figure, a young man, was dressed all in black. His pants were pressed and his dress shirt buttoned all the way to its banded collar. His sleek leather duster hung to his calves and tight-fitting black gloves sheathed his hands; a bitter gust billowed the coat back and molded his clothes to his tall, slender frame. Chicago had not seen the sun in weeks, but its light might never have touched the deathly pale face; his dark eyebrows glistened in the rain. His long, black hair was tied into a neat ponytail, though the wind whipped it about his shoulders, and the contrast against his pallor framed the slight points of his ears. He kept his face forward and his steel gray eyes focused, meeting no gaze. The rain smacked off his face with no more effect than the cold—no turned head, no shielded eyes, no wiped brow. He stalked more than strode across the street.
A few people had clustered on the porch of one building, taking cover under what remained of the roof. Their shoes scraped on the concrete as they scrambled out of the young man’s way. He might have walked right through them had they held their ground, but instead he passed by without a glance and batted the cracked front door open with his fingertips.
The carpet of the front hall was stained a dull brown; even the original architect could not have found traces of the original royal blue. The young man strode up the sagging stairs, the echoes of his bootsteps muted in the vacant halls even when he stepped on bare wood; only the water dripping from his clothes marked his presence.
A small child cringed on the landing between the third and fourth floors. The young man reached the landing and paused, the only movement the flexing of his gloved fingertips. After a moment, he took a silent step and knelt beside the cowering boy, grasped the child’s hand in his iron grip, and pulled it away from the boy’s face. Black and purple bruises covered the child’s jawline and upper chest, visible under the collar of his T-shirt. The dark-garbed man stood without a word, his cold expression unchanged. He was halfway up to the fourth floor when a woman appeared at the top of the stairs. “Tom, where did you—”
She saw Simon and cut off abruptly. She had a distinct shadow on her cheek and a swollen lower lip, and her left arm was held up in a makeshift sling. The pale man’s face might have been etched in stone as he motioned the woman aside with a flicking gesture, as if shooing away a bothersome insect. She shuffled back, lowering her head, and the young man moved past her.
She spotted her son on the landing below; he had turned his shadowed face up at the sound of her voice. The woman’s expression crumpled as she gazed at her son, and her face turned to the young man again as he laid his hand on the next railing. Her eyes widened, but she looked at her boy again, then blurted out, “Simon!”
Simon—the only name the young man had ever supplied to the residents and squatters—paused, one foot on the stair. Water continued to drip from his coat onto the floor. He turned his head enough to look at the woman sideways, and when he spoke she shivered. “What do you want?”
Her words fell out of her mouth uncontrolled. “My husband, he . . . when he’s been drinkin’ he . . . well, look at my boy!” She gestured with her good arm at the lower landing; Simon did not look. “If it were just me, I’d . . . I wouldn’t ask . . . I’d never want . . . but my little guy . . . he ain’t never done nothin’ wrong. I just wanna help him . . .”
She lost her composure then, falling to her knees and starting to cry. Her good hand pawed at Simon’s coat as a cold November wind whistled down the hallway through a broken window on the landing. “Can you . . . is there anything . . . ?”
Words failed her. Simon’s expression flickered—a wince of the muscles in his eyelids. He looked down at the boy, then back at her. The silence dragged on as he stared. He finally reached down with one gloved hand and took the woman’s uninjured arm in a vicelike grip, pulling her to her feet. He gestured with his free hand down the hall of doors. “Which one?”
Trembling, the woman pointed to a door that stood ajar. Simon’s empty voice again cut the silence. “May I enter?”
She whispered, “Go in,” and Simon tapped open the door with the toe of his boot and stepped over the threshold. The apartment held almost no furniture, save for an old TV and a small refrigerator. A feculent smell coming from a half-closed door identified the bathroom. A few pieces of cardboard sheathed with newspaper and scraps of cloth were stretched out on the floor to serve as beds. A mattress with several holes in it was situated across the room, surrounded by pulled-out stuffing and broken beer bottles. The rank smells of stale alcohol, urine, semen, and blood wafted throughout the room. Dark stains covered the rotting floor, and the wallpaper on the one finished wall had peeled to shreds; the others were pockmarked drywall. A slightly dented wooden baseball bat leaned against the wall next to a pile of unfolded clothes. Simon watched a pair of cockroaches scuttle across the floor, then retreated seconds after he had entered, nose wrinkling. He resumed his journey toward his room, pausing only once to look the mother in the eyes; she opened her mouth as if to speak, but quailed under his piercing gaze.
Simon finished the trek to his room on the fifth floor and drew a key from his coat pocket to unlock the door. He entered his room, closing the door behind him, and the clicks of many locks sealed him away.
RED, GREEN, blue, and yellow streams of light cut through the endless sea of black, always moving. Faces were illuminated for a second, and beads of sweat on intertwined bodies glowed with residual light for a second more. Lips pressed together and bodies locked in sensuous embraces, all before the hungry eyes of a hunter.
Simon sat in the shadows, the mad scene of controlled chaos below lost on him. The smells of sweat and alcohol mingled in his nose, the intoxicating fragrance of life. He closed his eyes, and still he could almost taste the pulsating energies of the people around him. He felt their excitement, their eagerness, their passion and desire.
And he heard their heartbeats.
They pulsated in his ears like a living percussion ensemble, the quick and high-tempo beats of the dancers intermingling with the slow, relaxed beats of those resting on the sidelines. Had they been real drums, the discord would have been impossible to follow, but he could pick each heartbeat out individually if he concentrated hard enough. Every rhythmic pulse put pressure on his eardrums, and his fingertips tingled as if he could touch their quivering veins as blood rippled through them.
Simon sat alone in the Blood, Sweat, and Tears club, far from those he watched. Painfully, patiently, he forced himself to wait, spinning a dry shot glass on his table and surveying his surroundings. It was good to practice self-control, and it made the reward all the sweeter when it came.
The battle between the air conditioning and the sweating bodies raged on, neither side ever to be victorious. Hundreds of bodies crowded a dance floor meant for half their number fifty feet below the swirling lights. The DJ’s stand towered over the floor, accessible only by a ladder. A terrible fire hazard, to be sure, but Simon imagined it gave the DJ a sense of power and control as he looked down at the masses dancing to his tune.
From his own vantage point, Simon shook his head. Pathetic.
The bouncers at the door, he granted, were an upside to the club. He had seen all that Chicago had to offer, and it got better than this, but the bouncers kept the riffraff out, and that kept the attendance to those who had a way with people.
Simon had his own way with people. His eyes flicked toward the door; the bouncer had been adamant that Simon could not enter . . . and then Simon had met his eyes. He smiled briefly at the memory, lips curling back. His teeth glimmered in the passing light.
The lights dimmed to a haze, then died. The speakers fell mute. Simon felt a ripple of eagerness wash over the assembled masses, and he watched their movements. He could almost see better without the light, the flashing beams no longer hindering his eyes, which pierced the darkness and the mist that had begun to seep from the cheap fog machines below the DJ’s stand. The smoke that belched forth had the distinct odor of burned wet leaves, but the partiers still shivered as the cold mist coursed over their bodies, a ghostly caress in the dark.
Simon snorted and spun his glass again.
Whirling, deep purple lights blazed back to life, projected not only from the overhead lights but from small, wall-mounted systems as well. With a hiss of hydraulics, the ceiling lights descended, spinning in slow, deliberate circles and arcs. The bass line of a haunting heavy metal beat pounded from the speakers and rattled the glass tabletop under Simon’s hands. Fingers laced through the hair at the backs of skulls, nails clawed at exposed flesh, arms tightened around bodies, and they were back to it.
Simon rolled his eyes—and then stopped mid-roll, his entire body freezing so totally that he seemed a lifeless corpse propped up in the chair. The glass slipped from his fingers and cracked against the tabletop. He leaned forward, and all others in the room faded from his sight as he stared at her.
Tight leather pants clung to her form, tied together by two dozen knots up each side. Her halter top cut off above her midriff, and a ring pierced the skin of her belly button. Shining black leather boots matched the unusual sheen in her long ebony hair, tied into dozens of small braids with a single thicker strand in the middle. She swayed with the music, beckoning men to her and pushing them away again after a moment of contact, a second’s euphoria before the return to the real world. Her tongue traced her painted lips, leaving a hint of glittering blue on the tip.
Simon’s breathing became shallow and rapid. His steel eyes tightened hungrily, and his lips parted, molding themselves to a phantom vein in the air. Her heartbeat rang clearly in his head above all the others, a snare drum amidst basses, and he drew a deep breath through his nose. Her scent seasoned the mist and the air-conditioned breeze. Staring hard and deafening his senses to the rest of the world, he saw and felt her pulse, measured and lusty.
Simon rose from his chair and took to the stairs, ignoring the people who lurched out of his way or squawked in protest as he brushed them aside. The club had overdone the fog, as it often did, and it obscured and distorted even those figures closest, but Simon’s other senses had not misplaced his target, and he entered the crowd. Bodies slammed against his, long fingernails traced the smooth leather of his coat, and soft skin caressed his strong cheekbones, only to be withdrawn again, startled by the unnatural cold of his flesh. He never shoved but never broke pace, letting people slide off his shoulders like waves against a rock, slipping through sheets of neon mist until the last tendrils coiled away and he found her.
Perfect though his vision was, she was even more desirable point-blank. He could count the individual beads of sweat on her bare back, her top tied only by a string at her neck and another midway down her spine. Her eyes, an inviting shade of sparkling green, were vivid and alive. Simon stepped into her gaze, and she was transfixed. The dancers around her, expecting her to move sinuously on, came to an awkward halt as she froze in their midst, but Simon couldn’t spare them the attention to care.
They stared for a moment, her charms fighting against his preternatural attraction. Then he held out a hand covered in a form-fitting leather glove. She took it and stepped into his embrace.
Her body pressed against his, her warm skin separated from his only by her thin covering, and the equally thin layer of black he wore. His eyes half-closed as he drew a ragged breath, momentarily overcome by the sheer vitality he inhaled, before he fixed her with his gaze again. He traced his gloved hands up her back, his senses so attuned that he felt every muscle in her body even through the tight leather. She ran her hands up his chest and behind his neck, locking one behind his skull as the other slid down his thigh.
The inescapable hunger seized him; he tried to suppress it, as before, but as she could not escape him, nor could he escape himself. His desire grew as she pressed her body to his, and the vessels in his hands, neck, and face contracted. He closed his eyes, struggling against the unstoppable urge, and his hands clung to her form, holding her so close that his cold body grew tepid, nearly warm. But then he felt the familiar pokes of two tiny pinpricks on the inside of his lower lip.
Simon spun her then, moving in a slow but deliberate circle. He touched his lips to her neck and she quivered. It was all too easy to direct her across the floor, ignoring the envious looks from those they passed, and vanish into the fog-shrouded semidarkness under the staircase that Simon had descended only a moment before, where shadows reached out to enfold them.
The woman’s nails slid down Simon’s chest as she kissed his neck. Her other hand took his wrist and slid his hand along her side, brushing easily under the flimsy fabric of her shirt. One leg slid up against Simon’s thigh. The pounding metal beat faded to a whisper in the young man’s ears with his head so close to hers. He squeezed his eyes shut, breathing hard, but he was so attuned to her now that her pulse tickled his lips as each heartbeat disturbed the air between them.
Opening his mouth to breathe hot air against her skin and clasping the back of her neck with his free hand as she shuddered against him, he sucked air in past teeth far too long to be a man’s. The taste of her scent stung the back of his throat and the shreds of his restraint burned to cinders.
Her body lurched as his sharp teeth sank into her neck, her fingers digging into his skin as she managed a choked gasp. Simon withdrew his teeth quickly, then lowered his lips to her bleeding throat and took in the warm fluid. It coursed down his dry throat, bringing rejuvenation to the dried-out husk his body had become. A second after the initial shock, his victim’s spasming muscles relaxed, the overwhelming magic of his killer’s kiss consuming her.
He would need to stop soon, keep her only wounded. They were a chance spotlight away from being illuminated for all to see and surrounded by people who would not remain oblivious forever. Simon knew all this, but the rush of hot blood lured him on. He drank more, then more, draining her life force to feed the ceaseless fire of his thirst. What difference would it make, one swallow more or less? His face warmed, and his body tingled with power . . .
Simon felt a small nudge on his lip. He opened his eyes and withdrew from the woman in shock. The veins all over her body stood out, and her stunning features were masked beneath the powerless horror that had become her expression. Her skin had paled from rich mocha to waxy beige, and the color had faded from her eyes. His empty form had changed places with hers, his body now rich and strong while hers was almost drained, withered, and dried out. He let her slide out of his arms, and her chilled body sunk to the warm floor.
Simon’s mouth hung open a shade, unconscious of the dribble of red sliding from the corner of his lip toward his chin. She was not dead, but the weak strain of her pulse assured him the moment was not far off. How many heartbeats did she have left? Half a hundred? Fewer? Her gasps for breath were so weak even Simon strained to hear them. For a moment, he wondered if she had come alone . . . why she had chosen this club, this night . . . what her name was . . .
Seconds passed, and Simon knew he could spare no more time. He looked over those too close for fog to obscure, but the darkness masked murderer and murdered alike; even those who had envied Simon his conquest had let him pass out of their minds. No one was coming; no one had seen.
A single careful flick of one finger split the skin between the two puncture marks, though precious little blood remained to seep from the broadened wound. A knife strike, certainly; all but the most careful examiners would think so. Simon hesitated, then brushed the lids down over the girl’s pale, emptily searching eyes. A moment premature, but inescapable nonetheless.
He rose in a whirl of black leather and slid through the narrowest spaces between dancers, turning his face from every light that flashed his way as he brushed the blood from his chin with the back of one hand. He was through the side exit door before anyone’s eyes could fix on him.
The alleyway leading from the nightclub to the street was dark. Mist rose from sewer covers, and the afternoon’s freezing rain had become quiet snow. Amidst the silent, countless crystals of falling white, Simon strode away from the club, hands in his pockets. His steps were a bit rushed, quickened by the knowledge that eventually some other couple would stagger into the darkness beneath the stairs, intoxicated with each other; it would take only seconds for horror to overtake lust. As his tongue traced the inside of his teeth, Simon’s fangs slid back up into his head. A newspaper wafted by on the wind, and Simon snatched it from the air with delicate grace, wiped the bloodstains from his mouth, then crumpled the paper and tossed it aside. He breathed in, then exhaled, a small fog passing his lips as his still-hot breath met the air and the last evidence of his handiwork was borne away on the chill breeze.
Alert for the sound of sirens, Simon emerged onto the sidewalk and nearly collided with a tall man who was laughing as he scooped a toddler up from where the boy had been kicking up tufts of snow while giggling.
“I’m sorry,” the man said to Simon with a sheepish grin. The vampire took a single step back as the man’s wife came up on the other side and took the boy. Their son had apparently concealed a chunk of snow in one of his blue mittens, because he clapped it immediately on her head and squealed as the woman shook the snow from her hair and feigned a glower at the boy that gave way to a smirk.
Still chuckling, the father gave Simon a chin nod and a smile before he and his family moved on. Stepping onto the sidewalk, Simon watched the man put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. The little boy looked over his mother’s shoulder, locking eyes with Simon for a second. As snow collected in his long hair and he heard at last the first, faint screams from the club, Simon watched the family go until they rounded the corner.
HOURS LATER, Tricia Corley sat in a corner of her apartment, her son Tom in her lap. They could hear the heavy, staggering footsteps on the stairs, and the boy started to squirm. Tricia kissed his forehead and brushed his hair with her uninjured arm while whispering empty words of comfort.
The door wobbled twice, the handle jiggering, then burst open. Tom Corley Senior stumbled through, a beer bottle in his right hand, the dregs swilling around the bottom. His tank top undershirt, stretched thin over his gut, was stained with sweat that Tricia smelled across the room. His work shirt hung over one shoulder.
“Bitch of a shift,” he started, but then peered around, his expression turning contemptuous. He spat on the floor. “Dammit, didn’t I tell you t’ clean this place? How many times, huh? How many fuckin’ times I gotta tell you?”
Tricia clambered to her feet, reaching out to him, but he shoved her down to the floor. As he did, his shirt slid down his greasy arm and into a damp patch of mold on the floor. “Jesus, now look at this!” he snapped. “What am I suppose t’ do, wear that shit to work tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry,” Tricia whispered, reaching to pick the shirt out of the mess, but her husband drove her back with a kick that missed by several inches. He rolled his eyes, picked up the shirt in a ball, and threw it at her.
“Sorry my ass, just fix it!”
She raised her arms instinctively to catch the shirt, then cried out when she moved the broken one. She bit her lip, but the boy saw the pain on her face and began to cry.
Tom sneered. “What’s his problem? Didn’t you get him food today?”
“Couldn’ afford it,” Tricia mumbled, adjusting her sling to keep herself from flinching again.
“What? Bitch, what do I work for? What do I give you money for?”
The response came to her lips before she could control it. “You don’t; you spend it all at the bar.”
Her eyes widened and her good hand flew to her mouth, but the words were out and the damage done. Tom’s angry expression froze over, and with a shake of his head he reached for the baseball bat. The bottle he had carried in his hand dropped to the floor and shattered on an already dark spot. Tricia scooted over to her son and shielded him with her body.
As Tom laid the bat over his shoulder and advanced, a black-gloved hand seized the business end from behind and levered it down. Taken by surprise at the force and abruptness of the attack, pain lancing through his shoulder, Tom roared and dropped to his knees. He turned awkwardly to swing the bat around, and the same gloved hand caught it.
“Oh fuck!” Tom said, eyes widening as he took in the ferocious expression on Simon’s face. All the blood drained from his own face as he half-screamed, “Motherfucker, it’s him! Trish, it’s him!”
Simon jerked the bat out of Tom’s grip and slammed the blunt end into his gut. As the man coughed and choked, Simon whirled in a blur of his dark coat and smashed the handle of the bat across Tom’s chin. Tom dropped, screaming and holding his mouth, which was leaking blood. Three teeth lay on the floor, and his jaw bloated where it had broken in several places.
Simon stared at the bat for a moment as Tom scrambled back, spitting blood and clawing his way toward his wife and son. Then, as if he had awoken from a daze, Simon took the bat in both hands and snapped it in two. Tom looked back at the sound, terror flashing over his face before he lurched into the corner, pushing Tricia and little Tom in front of him.
“Ta’ ’em!” he slurred as much as his swollen mouth allowed. “Ta’ ’em! Lemme ’lone!”
Simon started forward, and little Tom screamed and hid his face in his mother’s chest. But Simon just reached over them both and grabbed Tom Senior by the wrists he’d held up to cover his head. Lifting the man bodily into the air, Simon slammed him back down on the other side of his family, then kicked him hard enough to send him skidding across the floor and into the doorframe. He spared Tricia and her son one emotionless glance, then stepped into the hallway, dragged Tom Corley out, and closed the door behind him.
For an instant there was quiet, punctuated only by whimpers and hard breathing. Then the horrible screams started, a twisted soprano melody with the flat slaps of hard strikes meeting flesh as the bass counter. Tricia held her child’s head against her breast with one hand covering his other ear, quivering at the force she had called into work. She had been terrified and despairing when she spoke to Simon, but now . . . but if it saved her son . . .
The thunks continued, even as the screams died into whimpers. A few times, a heavy thud rattled the door on its frame; the final time, the jamb pulled away from the splintering wood. Wet cracks issued from the hall twice, each followed by a piercing shriek of agony that rattled Tricia’s teeth. Then the door fell open and husband and wife locked eyes as he toppled through. Tears streamed from Tom Corley’s eyes, swollen almost shut already. His arms were mangled in strange directions and discolored with bruises around the elbows; one wrist pointed back toward his face. He managed a whimper, blubbering through lips no longer fully attached, and tried to drag himself back in with his elbows.
A gloved hand grabbed him by the hair and dragged him, moaning, back into the hall.
It was several long minutes before Tricia could force herself to set her son on the mattress and crawl to the door to close it. She listened at the crack, knowing everyone else on the floor was doing the same thing, but there was nothing to hear now. She couldn’t muster the nerve to stick her head outside the door, and she knew that even if she found the courage, no one else would.
Listening intently, she jumped as the fifth floor door above her closed with a soft creak.
There are only so many tropes that a vampire story can contain, and this one has them all. There's a burgeoning love affair, ancient rivalries, mentor/student conflict, and a secret government organization of vampire hunters. Additionally, in the proper form of all the great horror masters, there is a cyclic ending.
The author opted to go with the traditional vampire legends, including hairy palms, aversion to garlic and crosses, and the required invitation to enter a home, leaving behind the sparkly, new-age vampire characteristics in newer vampire tales. Picture characters in Old Scores more akin to Dracula-types rather than the vampires portrayed in Twilight.
You won't be able just to skim this book for a little light reading, though. The details are dense, and the descriptions are minute. The reader gets a three-dimensional view of the action, the surroundings, and, in some cases, the participants' emotions.
I can't give a perfect review because a few factors prevented me from fully satisfying my appetite for horror genre reading. In addition to the attention required due to the intricate descriptions, some backstory gaps puzzled me. The vampires had a history that the reader only got a sliver of information about. I am positive that the author has a detailed outline of these backstories, and the 'here-we-go-again' ending leaves the door open for a sequel or two exploring those, although Old Scores is perfect as a stand-alone.
The jumps between vampire perspectives also confused some of the storylines for me. Halfway through the book, I realized there were three, not two, vampires. See what I mean about requiring close reading!
Some scenes are graphic, so sensitive readers might not enjoy the blood bath vampire battles (which even feature a brief zombie appearance). The romance is underplayed and undeveloped, so readers expecting a paranormal romance might also find the book not to their liking.
Overall, I envision this book becoming a classic vampire horror novel and, potentially, even being adapted into a movie as it captures the attention of more readers.