Sekhmet's Curse (Pearl Vampire Chronicles)
Sekhmet’s Curse ©Dara Nelson
Sekhmet’s Curse
Pearl Vampire Chronicles, #6
By Dara Nelson
Sekhmet’s Curse
Pearl Vampire Chronicles, #6
By Dara Nelson
Acknowledgements
For my readers – I do this for you
And for my wonderful family & friends– thank you for all of your support, encouragement and love.
Also by the author:
The Link – Pearl Vampire Chronicles #1
The Recruiters – Pearl Vampire Chronicles #2
Malina’s Revenge – Pearl Vampire Chronicles #3
The Return of Jonas – Pearl Vampire Chronicles #4
Love’s Challenge – Pearl Vampire Chronicles # 5
www.daranelson.com
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Caution – Contains some adult subject matter. May not be suitable for younger readers. Parental discretion is advised.
Sekhmet’s Curse © Copyright 2012 Dara J. Nelson. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61061-344-6
Sekhmet’s Curse ©Dara Nelson
Prologue
I looked at all the worried faces and tried to smile. I walked over to each one, beginning with Bahiti, a beautiful Egyptian vampire and close friend, one of a few vampires who had help Matt and me on our quest a few years back to learn how to turn me into a vampire (something that had been kept secret for centuries by an evil group of vampires who controlled all others at the time, called The Elders). I hugged her, “Please be safe,” she whispered into my ear. “Watch over him Bahiti. Don’t let him give up. Please,” I whispered as I glanced at Matt. She nodded as I moved next to Aquila, a rare human/vampire/bird hybrid creature called a Seraphim and one of only two left in existence, “Thank you for rescuing me, female,” he said then he smiled sadly. I took his hand in mine and stood on my tiptoes. He bent down so I could kiss his cheek, “I will keep him safe. I promise,” I whispered. A small tear escaped his eye as he nodded at me, “I know you will, Sarah.”
I smiled at the first time that he had actually called me by my name. Our introduction to, or re-introduction as it were, was not a pleasant experience. These creatures were first created thousands of years ago by the first vampire, Sekhmet, an Egyptian queen turned vampire by ingesting the blood of hundreds of thousands of humans She became jealous of a beautiful winged Egyptian Goddess named Ma’at. Sekhmet seduced one of Ma’at’s lovers, biting him during their lovemaking and unbeknownst to him, having him ingest some of her blood. The vampire virus penetrated his seed and when he went home and made love to Ma’at, she became pregnant. Sixty days later, she gave birth to the first Seraphim. He grew quickly into a very attractive man who could easily seduce a woman. Within a year, the population of Seraphim’s had grown so rapidly that they became a danger to humans and vampire alike, so they were hunted down and killed, made extinct, or so we thought. A year ago, an insane priest who was intent on ruling the world, managed to find DNA from these creatures and re-create them in his lab. There were complications, though, and Aquila was the only one who managed to survive. He kidnapped me, impregnated me when I was unconscious and held me captive until I gave birth to his son, our son, sixty days later, at which time we all began to heal from the ordeal – with me explaining to Carlos and Matthew how I was able to come to love the child as it grew inside of me.
I moved next to Stacy, my friend and one of many who had been turned to help us defeat The Elders in an epic battle, bringing freedom from oppression to vampires worldwide. I hugged her tight, “Thank you so much for everything, Sarah.” I put my hands on her cheeks, “Show him how to be happy again, Stacy,” I said as I glanced at Carlos, who turned away and leaned his forehead against the back wall, “He’s going to do everything he can to die, but don’t let him succeed. Heal him, for me. He can survive this and live, help him to know that.” She nodded and cried out as she pulled me tight into her arms again. Suddenly Carlos cried out, making us all jump, “No! No, goddamn it. You are not saying goodbye to us. You aren’t going in there. We can stop her. We can fight her,” he said as he started to move toward the door, but Aquila stepped in front of it and blocked his way. “Get out of my way, you son of a bitch, or I’ll kick your ass,” Carlos said, weakly, his voice cracking with the strain of his emotions. Aquila raised his eyebrow at him and gave him a ’you really think you can kick my ass?’ look – since, being over seven feet tall with the chiseled, muscled body of a greek statue, there was no way that Carlos could possibly win in hand-to-hand combat with Aquila and everyone knew that. I smiled at Aquila and placed my hand on Carlos’ shoulder, “Carlos, my love,” I whispered. He hung his head and I saw the sobs begin in his chest. He spun around and wrapped me tight in his arms, burying his face in my neck. He began frantically kissing my neck, my ear, my cheek then his hands cradled my face as his lips crushed down on mine. Time stood still as the love poured out of him into me. He finally pulled away and whispered, “Don’t say goodbye to me, Sarah. I get it. I know what this is, but just, please, don’t say it.”
My hand rested on his bruised cheek as I stared into his eyes. Finally I nodded, “I love you so much,” I whispered.
“I love you too, Sarah, forever,” he said then he quickly turned away and punched the back wall before he sank to the floor next to it. I wanted to go to him. I wanted to reach for him. I wanted to comfort him. He was my husband, for gosh sakes. Well, one of my two husbands – no not a husband and an ex-husband. I’m married to two men because, as my sister so eloquently pointed out a few months back ‘you’re a vampire, Sarah. There aren’t any rules for you, make your own rules.’ And she was right. I was in love with two men and somehow we managed to make it work. But there wasn’t time to comfort him now. I turned to Matt, my other husband, and my heart nearly broke. He was smiling at me. He was beaming. Just like he did the first time he smiled at me when I saw him watching me from that pier near my home at the time on the shores of Puget Sound in Washington. I pulled him into my arms and held him tight. “I love you more than ever, Matt. Thank you for saving me,” I whispered. He cradled my face in his hands, “I love you too, Sarah. But I didn’t save you. You saved me. You saved all of us. And this isn’t goodbye. We will see each other again. I promise.” Then his lips came down as he gave me one of those kisses. A kiss that made me weak in the knees and unable to speak for a while afterwards because of how much love and passion he packed into it. When he finally pulled away, I felt stronger than I ever had.
“Carlos?” I whispered then I waited for him to finally look up. Carlos stood up and I wrapped my arms around both of them. “I am so lucky to have both of you. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid. Because if, no, when, I make it out of this, if you both aren’t here waiting for me then I’m going to be really, really pissed. And you really don’t want to have to face that. So, promise me, okay?”
Matt smiled and nodded at me, “Of course I promise, my love.” I turned and looked at Carlos, who hesitated. I glared at him, “Okay, okay, I promise. How could I not? Besides, how could I do anything stupid when I’m just going to be waiting right here for you? I’m not going anywhere until I see you again, Sarah. So don’t take too long, cause you wouldn’t like me when I’m starving.”
“We,” Matt said and we both looked at him. “We are going to be waiting right here for you, Sarah. For as long as it takes. Until we are all together aga
in. Forever,” he said. I didn’t have time to argue with them now. I kissed them both one more time, drawing strength from their love. Then I quickly turned around. I couldn’t look at them anymore. I took Aquila’s son Jason’s worried hand in mine and smiled at him, “You ready?” I said.
He took a deep breath and nodded, “Yes. I am ready, Sar, mmmm, Mother.”
Aquila stepped to the side and pulled the door open. We both stepped inside and bowed our heads. I resisted the strong urge to turn around or cry out as I heard the door close shut behind us. I fought my panic as I heard the sound of it sealing shut, the door was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place. We were locked in, we were her prisoners. I felt little flickers of Matt and Carlos trying to link minds with me – an ability that all vampires possessed on some level, but something about this room made that impossible, and that made me feel utterly alone. Jason and I waited. We waited for Sekhmet – the ancient Egyptian Queen and the original vampire - to invite us in and tell us why she had summoned us and what our challenge was.
Chapter One
Three months earlier
I shut off the headlights and brought the car to a stop on the edge of the road. I had been driving for over three hours and I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to feed. The guys had tried for me. They had tried really hard to find someone nearby who had blood – most of us were supplied with blood donated by prisoners, or what we called ‘evil blood’ and we drank it from blood bags. It was the preferred method for us since the only way to release a vampire’s fangs (the exception to this being me) was the scent of evil. An innocent, or good, human could be standing right next to us and a vampire would be unable to bite. But an evil, or bad, person – that’s a whole other story. But even then, we prefer blood in bags because once a vampire bites, a human is drained of all blood in a matter of seconds, so fast that we are unable to bite without killing that human. And, contrary to movies and stories, vampires do not want to be killers. But that supply of blood from prisoners was limited – sometimes we were forced to hunt – And right now there was no one that we could find who had any spare blood for us, no one for hundreds of miles. Our numbers had dwindled recently - from the kidnappings by the priest who kidnapped female vampires to use them as incubators to try to create more Seraphims (he was unsuccessful and we were able to stop him and rescue most of the captive females – but not without some casualties and consequences. We had lost a few female vampires, including my close friend and assistant Missy, the priest had been killed and I had been kidnapped, and impregnated, by Aquila, who returned me only after I had given birth to our son, Jason. Other vampires were gone from fear. Many had moved overseas where they felt it was safer right now. So Matt and Carols had tried to find a supply of evil blood for me, but there was no one. And even though I was different and could drop my fangs and feed off of any kind of blood – that wasn’t an option. Good blood to a vampire, for those who can manage it – is highly addicting, something that I had first-hand experience with, having gone through the brutal withdrawals from it, twice. That was a pain that I never wanted to go through again, ever. I shut off the car and took a deep breath. We had crossed the border into Mexico and were in an area known for its kidnappings and brutal killings. The evil scent hit me like a slap in the face. I had been driving with the windows open and had first smelled it about half an hour ago. And it had been growing stronger ever since. There were bad people nearby. A lot of them, and I was starving, famished. I needed to feed and this place had evil people. And frightened good people. “Kidnappers,” Carlos said. I nodded and said, “Yes. They’re holding people in a house just on the other side of this hill.” My eyes locked with Carlos in the rearview mirror. I was confused by his reaction right now. His heart was racing, as would be expected, but there was something else. I linked with him, ‘What the hell is with you? Are you, are you turned on right now?’
‘No, more like I’m excited, pumped.. I can’t help it. The idea of watching you hunt is really doing a number on me.’
I tried not to be repulsed. Carlos and Matt were both older than me, much older. I had been a vampire for less than a decade, while they had been around for hundreds of years. Of course they would have been forced to hunt at some point in their lives, and even though it was humans that they hunted, it was still their animalistic vampire side that took over when they did. There was a certain adrenaline rush involved, I know, I had felt it the one time that I had been forced to hunt to help Matt survive. I had the feeling that the more times you were forced to do this, the longer that rush lasted each time. I smiled at him.
“Close your eyes, Sarah,” Carlos said, “Concentrate. How many kidnappers are there? Each one has a slightly different scent. Concentrate. Can you smell how many?”
I sniffed again and felt my fangs drop. He was right. There were several slightly different scents here, “Five, no, six,” I said.
“Correct. Now let’s move closer to the house to see if you can tell where they are,” he said. We all climbed out of the car. “I’m sure they have motion sensors, so let’s fly and hover above the house,” Matt said. Vampires could fly for short distances. Seraphim’s had wings and could fly longer.
I grabbed both their hands and we rose up above the trees. Within a few seconds we were hovering above the house. They both popped into my head. ‘Okay, Sarah. We all see the two guards with guns in the yard. But where are the ones in the house?’ Carlos thought.
I sniffed again and concentrated. I could see their scents in my head, like blips on a radar screen. ‘One in that back room. One in the left end. And two in the middle,’ I thought.
Carlos nodded, ‘Right. Now I’ve done this more than you two. Matt, why don’t you take the two in the yard. Sarah, you go for the two in the middle room. I’ll get the other two. Okay?’ We all nodded and flew directly over the two in the yard. Matt kissed the back of my hand then descended directly in between them. “Que?” One managed to say before Matt sunk his fangs into him and drained him. He reached out with his other hand and grabbed the other by the throat, silencing his scream before it could escape. As I watched – the first time that I had watched either of them hunt – I was shocked and a little appalled at the reaction that came over me. My heart raced, every nerve in my body came alive, and I felt like I was getting turned on. This definitely didn’t happen the last time that I had to hunt. This was more than an adrenaline rush. This was something different. I clamped my hand over my mouth to suppress a groan that suddenly wanted to make an appearance then smacked Carlos on the arm when he chuckled. ‘I told you it was a rush seeing it,’ he thought. As Matt was finishing the last one, Carlos and I dropped to the ground and went inside. The two in the middle of the house were in the kitchen. One was sitting at the table, the other was searching in the fridge for something. I smiled at Carlos as he stopped and leaned against the doorframe and motioned me forward with his chin, ‘Go. There’s time for the others. I want to watch,’ he thought. I moved quickly and silently into the kitchen, surprising the one at the table. Before he could utter a sound, I sank my teeth into his throat, draining him in seconds. A shiver launched itself through my body as I quietly laid his head on the table and moved behind the open fridge door. The one with his head in the fridge asked a question, and, when he didn’t get a response, he looked at the table. I watched the confused expression on his face turn even more perplexed when I took a step and he saw my face. I reached my arm out, grabbed the back of his neck and sank my teeth into him. Another titillating shiver rocketed through my body as I gently lay him on the floor. I was confused, trying to figure out what these strange reactions in me were but then I got distracted when I heard Carlos quietly growl. ‘Come. Watch me,’ he thought.
I shivered and nodded my head. As I followed him back into the hall by the front door, we were joined by Matt, whose hand I quickly grabbed and squeezed. He smiled at me and I saw the adrenaline rush burning in his eyes too. We stopped in the doorway to the living room,
where the next one was, and Matt pulled me in front of him. He pressed himself into my backside and hugged me tightly. I shivered again as Carlos leaned over the couch and buried his fangs into the unsuspecting kidnapper. “Sarah? Are you cold?” Matt whispered. I couldn’t say yes, because vampires don’t get cold, so I just shook my head and hoped that he would let it go. I was hoping to figure out what was going on without involving either of them.
Matt and I kept our arms locked around each other - mine behind his back, his around my stomach - as we followed Carlos to the back room, where the last kidnapper was. My entire body was on fire and I was so confused. Why was my body reacting this way? How was everything throbbing when nothing had been touched? Why was this happening now when it didn’t happen the last (and only) time that I had hunted? What was different? What had changed? I tried to work through these things as we reached the end of the hall. I sensed the overwhelming evil emanating from this one and I instinctively hissed. This kidnapper was torturing one of the prisoners right now - and this was definitely not his first time doing this to somebody. Dear God, I thought as his memories seeped into my head, this one had even mutilated and killed children in his quest for money. He was the lowest of the low. He was the leader of this gang. And he had to be stopped. I tensed as I heard him walking towards the door. Carlos ducked off to the side as Matt and I stayed right where we were. The kidnapper opened the door and took one step into the hall. Surprise, then anger, filled his eyes when he saw us. He reached for his gun at the same moment that Carlos stepped behind him. Carlos locked his eyes with mine then sunk in his teeth, staring at me the entire time. – His brows furrowed as he watched me visibly shiver and drop to the floor. Carlos dropped his prey to the floor, walked over and knelt in front of me. “Sarah? Are, are you okay, honey?” Matt whispered. I nodded my head, “Yes, I’m fine,” I cried, shivering again and hoping against hope that they would just let this go. Carlos tilted his head to the side as he stared at me. His fingers reached out and brushed my cheek. “Hun, what’s going on? Your heart is pounding and your body is giving off a scent like you’re a cat in heat. I’ve never seen anything like this.”