The vampires show they are capable of compassion. An excerpt from CADEN IS COMING: A SOUTHERN VAMPIRE EPIC.

My horror novel, CADEN IS COMING: A SOUTHERN VAMPIRE EPIC, concerns a vengeful clan of the Undead who descent on a gentleman's club in the rural south in search of a history of the vampire clans in America that was stolen from their Maker. Knowing that the book they seek is on the inside, they lay siege to the club, giving the mortals holed up in there until before sunrise to return the valuable archive. But in the process, the vampires take some casualties, including Crockett, the beloved of Lianna, a favorite of the maker of the clan, Lafayette Caden, who is 147 years old. In the excerpt below, Caden tells the others how Lianna and Crockett came to join him among the ranks of the Undead.


An excerpt from CADEN IS COMING: A SOUTHERN VAMPIRE EPIC:


“Caden, I know she was special to you, but if she don’t want to go on, there’s nothing you can do to make her get up.” Mackie had joined them along with other members of the clan, some of whom crawled in the Chevy’s bed in order to get a better look.

“Special? You have no idea. You cannot imagine her beauty, her innocence when I first laid sight on her walking in the moonlight on a Florida beach. It was like passing a store window and catching sight of a perfect China figurine inside. Something so flawless in its beauty you must have it. Lianna was a bride on her honeymoon. She and the fool she married had their first fight, and the bastard struck her with the back of his hand and got drunk in their hotel room, so she sneaked out while he slept. I could feel her sadness as she strolled along the water’s edge, it drew me to her and before the moon went down that night, I took her away from the world of ungrateful husbands forever.”

“Sometimes figurines get broken,” said Agnes, Huey noticed she was not getting too close in case she said anything to draw Caden’s ire a second time. “No matter how delicate we treat them.”

Caden seemed to be in a mood to reminisce. “I denied her nothing, which was how Crockett became part of us some years later. He was a college student in a bar; a place in Atlanta where she went to pick up a quick feed. She had to have him the same way I had to have her. Afterward she came back to the farm and begged for permission to let her turn him, but I refused. I was jealous and afraid he would be loyal only to her if she were the one to bring him to the Dark Road.”

“Can’t have divided loyalties in a clan, it just don’t work,” Mackie observed.

“But Lianna wouldn’t give up,” Caden continued. “Like a persistent child, she begged and pleaded. So finally, I struck a bargain with her. If she could go back to the big city of Atlanta the next night and find this instant love of hers and get him to accompany her back out to my humble country home, then I would turn him for her. Lianna happily agreed, but I never expected her to pull it off, to go into the big city filled with millions of foul mortals and find this young man, much less get him to come back with her. She proved me the fool, she and her new love were at the door before midnight. With my bluff called, I had to be as good as my word. And so, he joined our clan before the sun came up. Crockett later told me he was as taken with her as she was with him on their first meeting in the bar, the only reason he was in that establishment was because of some car trouble and needed the service of a phone. He only came back on the second night in hopes of meeting her again.”

“Crockett was special too.” Agnes said, obviously trying to make sure she was back in Caden’s good graces.

“I had planned to stake Crockett out in the sun as soon as she tired of him, but he quickly proved himself to be loyal and ever grateful to his Maker. Unlike me, he was far from growing weary of the world of mere mortals. And Lianna never tired of him. She—”

“Caden! Caden!” Dan was racing across the parking lot; his job had been to stay at the front door and listen to what transpired inside among those whom the Clan would soon feed upon. “You’ve got to come. It sounds like a war’s broken out in there.”

Read CADEN IS COMING: A SOUTHERN VAMPIRE EPIC: https://w.tt/3ESmQXK