Vampires Don't Sparkle: Deathless Book 3

BOOK: Vampires Don't Sparkle: Deathless Book 3
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Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The Old Gods

Previously On Deathless

Prologue- Osiris Locked Out

Chapter 1- Angel Island

Chapter 2- Light Pulses

Chapter 3- Hesitation

Chapter 4- Escape

Chapter 5- Imprisoned

Chapter 6- Oh Shit

Chapter 7- Pursuit

Chapter 8- The Nexus

Chapter 9- Osiris

Chapter 10- Ark of the Cradle

Chapter 11- Stabilizing the Nexus

Chapter 12- Set

Chapter 13- Intruder

Chapter 14- Sucker

Chapter 15-Audience

Chapter 16- The Gift

Chapter 17- Anput

Chapter 18- Conduit

Chapter 19- I know Kung Fu

Chapter 20- Vampire

Chapter 21- Collared

Chapter 22- Spy

Chapter 23- Banquet

Chapter 24- Sun Study

Chapter 25- Horus

Chapter 26- Secret Meeting

Chapter 27- Parlay

Chapter 28- Get in the First Shot

Chapter 29- Saved

Chapter 30- Light Walk

Chapter 31- First Born

Chapter 32- To War

Chapter 33- Hades

Chapter 34- Training

Chatper 35- Olympus

Chapter 36- Into the Storm

Chapter 37- Master

Chapter 38- Big Ass Worm

Chapter 39- Dog Fight

Chapter 40- Boarded

Chapter 41- Demons

Chapter 42- Reunited

Chapter 43- To the Rescue

Chapter 44- Power Armor

Chapter 45- Baiting the Trap

Chapter 46- Run

Chapter 47- Breathing Room

Chapter 48- Now What?

Chapter 49- France

Chapter 50- Heavy Price

Chapter 51- Dragons

Chapter 52- Standoff

Chapter 53- Gone Native

Chapter 54- Near Sisters

Chapter 55- Dramatic Entrane

Chapter 56- Demands

Chapter 57- The Cave of Painted Dreams

Chapter 58- Surprise

Chapter 59- Flight

Chapter 60- Last Stand

Chapter 61- A Fitting Fate for Baldy

Chapter 62- Our Best Plan Sucks

Chapter 63- Well and Truly Fucked

Chapter 64- The Builders

Chapter 65- Holding Action

Chapter 66- Distraction

Chapter 67- Sacrifice

Chapter 68- Cutting it Close

Chapter 69- Boom

Chapter 70- Prep

Chapter 71- Bait

Chapter 72- On Four Legs

Chapter 73- Set Arrives

Chapter 74- Intercepted

Chapter 75-The Repository

Chapter 76- Free

Chapter 77- Turning the Tide

Chapter 78- Desperate Gamble

Chapter 79- Final Deception

Chapter 80- The Fate of Captain Douchey

Chapter 81- Broken

Chapter 82- Detonation

Chapter 83- Gloating

Chapter 84- TSDS

Epilogue

Vampires Don’t

Sparkle

Deathless Book 3

Chris Fox

This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren’t.
 

Copyright © 2015 by Chris Fox

 
All rights reserved.
 

Chrisfoxwrites.com

ISBN-10:
1517796571
 

ISBN-13:
978-1517796570

For Trevor. You are and always will be my friend.
 

None of this would have been possible without you.

The Old Gods

There are quite a few gods mentioned in this book, more so than either of the previous two. I’ve created a lexicon to explain who each one is, and how they relate to each other. Hopefully this will make it a little less confusing. Those readers familiar with Egyptian lore should see a lot of familiar names.

Anubis-
Also known as the Jackal. Husband of Anput, servant of Ra.

Anput-
Husband of Anubis, daughter of Osiris.

Hades-
Greek god of the underworld, companion to Vulcan.

Horus-
Eldest son of Isis and Osiris.

Irakesh-
Youngest son of Ra, and all around pain in the ass.

Isis-
Also known as the Mother. Wife of Osiris, mother to Horus.

Nephthys-
Wife of Set.

Osiris
- Husband of Isis. Father of Anput.

Ra / Sekhmet-
Mother of Irakesh, once a near-sister to Isis.

Set-
Brother of Osiris. Father of Wepwawet.

Vulcan-
Roman god of the forge, companion to Hades.

Wepwawet-
Son of Set, servant of Ra.

Previously On Deathless

Whenever I pick up the 2
nd
or 3
rd
book in a series I’m always torn. Should I re-read the first books, or just dive right in to the latest? I usually want to do the latter, but I can’t always remember what happened in the previous books. This page is for all those people like me who can’t quite remember everything that went down in
No Such Thing As Werewolves
or
No Mere Zombie
. I’ve decided to recap it just like a TV show. For those who just finished
No Mere Zombie
feel free to skip to the prologue.

In an announcer voice ‘Last time, on deathless…”

A giant black pyramid bores from the earth in Peru, and a team of soldiers have been dispatched to investigate. They encounter a werewolf dressed in Egyptian style clothing, which tears through their ranks before escaping. They bring in a team of scientists to help them investigate the pyramid, and quickly find the central chamber is full of very lethal radiation. They desperately seek a way into the pyramid’s control room, while the escaped werewolf with the bad fashion sense (Ahiga) begins slaughtering innocents. Some of those innocents rise as werewolves, and a plague begins spreading across South America.

The desperate team of scientists recruits Blair Smith, a brilliant anthropologist working at a local junior college as a teacher. Blair finds a way into the inner chamber, where the team discovers a woman sleeping inside of a high tech sarcophagus the ancients called a rejuvenator. Unfortunately, the act of opening the door to the inner chamber injects Blair with an unknown virus and Blair dies (it’s all very sad, really). Within hours he rises again as a werewolf and begins slaughtering his former companions.

Blair wakes up in a small Peruvian village not far from the pyramid, where he meets Liz, a beautiful young redhead from the United States. The pair are pursued by Commander Jordan, the leader of the forces controlled by the mysterious (terribly mysterious) Mohn Corp. Liz is killed and brought back by Blair as a werewolf, and we learn that female werewolves are much larger, and much scarier than males. The pair flees north, deciding that if they can get to California Liz’s brother Trevor might be able to help them find some sort of cure.

Meanwhile Ahiga tries to catch up, because he realizes Blair has inadvertently stolen the key to the Ark (the pyramid). That key is required to wake the woman inside, who Ahiga refers to as the Mother. It turns out she’s the progenitor of the entire werewolf species, and when Ahiga finally catches up to Blair he tells him that without her the world is doomed. He explains that the world is about to enter a new age. The sun will go through a Coronal Mass Ejection, which will wipe out nearly all technology. This CME will also activate a virus that will turn all the people who currently have it into zombies (oh crap).

Blair decides to be a dumbass and tells Ahiga to go screw himself. He and Liz continue on to California where they meet up with Trevor and begin investigating the werewolf virus. It turns out Trevor is a helio-seismologist who just so happens to be investigating a giant sunspot (what a coincidence, right?). He confirms that a CME could royally screw the entire planet, and agrees to help Blair and Liz get back to Peru to wake the Mother.

Before they leave, Commander Jordan and his comic-relief sidekick Yuri show up with a bunch of soldiers in power armor. They blow up Trevor’s house and his ’67 Mustang, but fail to catch Blair. The werewolves escape back to Peru where they gather some furry allies and invade the Ark. They battle Mohn Corp’s ever growing army, and there are casualties on both sides. The werewolves win and wake the Mother, who slaughters poor Commander Jordan and every soldier under his command. It’s very sad, because by this point we feel bad for poor Jordan.

In the epilogue, the asshole author (that’s me) dropped a really, really messed up cliffhanger. One of the scientists had the virus that would cause her to turn into a zombie when the CME hits. Not only does she turn into a zombie, but Trevor gets bitten within the first 30 seconds of the zombie apocalypse. Poor readers were left wondering what would happen to Trevor.
 

No Mere Zombie

Did the asshole author answer the question right away? Nope, he made you wait until chapter 5 to find out what happened to Trevor.
 

The book opens in 11,000 BCE just before the Arks went into hibernation. Irakesh, the son of Ra (the Mother’s greatest enemy), concocts a plan to sneak into the Mother’s Ark. When it returned, he planned to steal the access key for the Ark of the Redwood, located near San Francisco.

Fast forward to the present. Jordan wakes up, his last memory the Mother ripping his arms off (ouch). He quickly realizes he’s a werewolf, and has no choice but to join Blair, Liz, Cyntia, and Bridget in their fight against the endless sea of zombies washing over the world.

Led by Isis (the Mother), they attempt to save as many people as possible, setting up a refuge at a church in Cajamarca. Unfortunately, that plan goes to hell when Irakesh steals the access key and runs for it. Liz and Blair pursue, but have no choice but to turn back to protect the Mother’s Ark when Irakesh sends an army of zombies to invade it.

We finally learn Trevor’s fate. He’s become a zombie, and can’t remember who he is. Fortunately, Trevor quickly discovers he can grow smarter by consuming, you guessed it, brains. He begins to recover his memory, and is one of the zombies Irakesh seizes control of.

Irakesh realizes Trevor is smarter than most zombies, and begins grooming him as an apprentice. They head north, aiming for a Mohn installation in Panama that Irakesh learned about by snacking on an officer’s brain. Cyntia, love sick for poor Trevor, leaves the others to go find him. She eventually catches up to Trevor and Irakesh, and is recruited by the deathless.

Cyntia begins feeding indiscriminately on zombies, people, and even other werewolves. Irakesh encourages this behavior, because he knows it will make her stronger. Of course it also makes her crazy, so maybe not the best long term plan.

Blair, Liz, Bridget, and Jordan pursue Irakesh knowing they must stop him and recover the access key before he can reach the Ark of the Redwood in San Francisco. Isis remains behind to repair the catastrophic damage done to her Ark during the final battle with Mohn in the previous book.

We get a new point of view character, Director Mark Phillips (that’s THE Director). He’s squirreled away at the Mohn research facility in Syracuse, New York, where Mohn Corp is experimenting on zombies and living in luxury. Unlike the rest of the world, all their technological toys survived the CME, including their nifty X-11 power armor.

It isn’t all rosy for Mark, though. He’s learned that the Old Man has some dark secrets. He’s not what he appears to be, so Mark begins investigating. He dispatches Yuri to Panama to recover the nuke they’d intended to detonate in Peru, and to learn what happened to Commander Jordan.

Meanwhile Blair, Liz, Bridget, and Jordan are hot on Irakesh’s trail. They arrive in the city of Medellin to find an encampment protected by werewolves. It turns out they know two of them, Doctor Roberts and Steve (aka Captain Douchey). They have a tense reunion, but it’s broken up by an army of zombies sent by Irakesh to ruin their day.
 

Trevor, Irakesh, and Cyntia make it to the airport where Mohn has their secret facility. They find the airplane carrying Mohn’s nuke, which Irakesh decides to steal. By now Trevor has developed the powers of a deathless, and has regained all his memories. Unfortunately, Irakesh is mentally dominating him. Worse, Cyntia is growing more powerful and more unstable by the day.

Blair and company finally catch Irakesh at the airport. There’s a big battle with lots of pew pew pew, rawr, etc. Blair’s side loses, Irakesh gets away, and Yuri arrives just in time to capture Jordan and Liz. They’re brought back to Mohn corp in Syracuse.

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