Novella: Blood of the Damned - Shadows Over Riga: The Nosferatu Experiment by Andre Michael Pietroschek - HTML preview

Chapter 12: The Choice of a Lifetime M

The archive room fell silent. Outside, the late afternoon light was descending toward dusk. Elina stood among the documents and photographs and genealogical charts, surrounded by the evidence of her own impossible inheritance, aware of the nine survivors standing in various states of acceptance and resistance around her.

Daina was wrapped in a dark cloud the moment the last rays of the sun

were diffused by clouds. The sunlight was not yet fully absent, yet a new and dark presence swiftly moved into the room. Before the survivors could react, literally before even the fastest among them could make a decision or step forward, Daina's body was raised into the air, sucked

nearly devoid of blood, and then gently laid to the ground, as if in a th primitive funeral rite.

The survivors felt their blood surge, even stronger than their shared wi ce dreams ever did. Someone stronger in the bloodline had arrived!

"I apologize for my late arrival to each of you, if you consider it proper. d ffi Yet, let us not ignore Daina's final departure, for those among you who found it within their hearts to forgive her improvised and callous way to te inform you about shared familial idiosyncrasies."

The stranger, while visibly working to be as cultivated and ea iO non-threatening as he could, made each of the survivors also shiver in fear. This was a real nocturnal predator, a killer of dozens of people,

not merely a messenger or pizza delivery driver. ob Cr

"My name is Andrei Suduva, and the flapping one you may eavesdrop

commanding sentinels outside is my older brother, Yuri Suduva. Both of M us are younger brothers of Leonid Suduva, who cannot afford to come out of hiding, despite the good news of at least nine of you having survived to make the most crucial choice of your lifetimes." Andrei continued: "For those of you who wish nothing more than a chance to return to your human life, leave this behind, and live with the normalcy and sunlight of mankind, I will offer a remedy and vaccine in one.

Each of you is free to choose that without repercussions or treachery

from our bloodline. For those who are willing to not live like humans, the other choice is one that only our reckless experiments uncovered. We can make you fully blooded Nosferatu this very night, but that power comes at the price vampire myth often mentioned."

Looks were exchanged among the survivors, and for Thomas, Ieva, and th

Darius, only the first option made sense. Family ties, career ambitions, wi perhaps fear or disgust. Andrei handed each of them a vial filled with a fluid.

"Drink that, and you will never have to worry about your blood surging ce d

again, or any other folks detecting you as blooded. Needless to say, you ffi te will lose the benefits and also age like regular humans, once you swallow the vaccination. It is the best we could develop, as those experiments have gone quite far, and some among us call it borderline

monstrous, as what the Nazi attempted during the Great Patriotic War." iO ea

Thomas, Ieva, and Darius each drank without hesitation. Soon

thereafter, a driver appeared and told them that they would gladly be Cr ob dropped off at a Riga hotel, and with enough money to comfortably return to their homes after some deserved rest.

For Elina, Lukas, Dārta, Magdalena, Alexei, Ilze, though, the night would M become the second transformation, as Andrei and Yuri cautiously guided them through the vampiric part of the Nosferatu experiment. At midnight, the six of them were thirsty the way only Nosferatu can be, and went outside to hunt before returning to Suduva Manor. Their new home, and the cellars and dungeon below it, would protect them from the now murderous rays of the sun.

Epilogue:

The political debate between the bats, the rats, and the sewer gators was impulsive, feral, and forthright, as only animals tend to be. The

winds howling outside were barely heard, even with the sharpened th senses of predators.

Family affairs, for the nights heralded a new challenge, one for which wi ce fresh bloods like Elina, Lukas, Dārta, Magdalena, Alexei, and Ilze were not yet experienced enough.

Deeper down below, a bald man literally burst out of a sarcophagus, d ffi despite having nothing of a brute about him. The bald, pale man even te regretted the shattered property as a loss.

Still, the night wasn't about manners. This specific night was about the ea iO Dynasty finally formed, triumph after decades of setbacks and betrayals, and the new threat that now could undo it all, as from the

hidden depths of Russia a presence made itself known: Drakulov! Cr ob The bald, pale man standing in the moonlight by now knew his fiercest

adversary did not joke, but contrary to a highborn, who had failed M before, the Nosferatu also knew the value of true loyalty and real family ties in contrast to brainwashed or intimidated lackeys only. He was not afraid, ready to kill or die, or both. He had done so before, yet God and Death judged it only a temporal slumber nonetheless.

THE END

Poverty sux, and I am too old to go unpaid happily!

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Even with AI support and proofreading , such a story takes more than 6 wi ce hours of unpaid work, and that is the writing & editing only: The audio

(AI voice) adaptation takes 4 more hours, and narrators also prefer d ffi

getting paid, instead of reading or hearing how preferred to AI voices

they supposedly are, yet not earning a fucking cent!

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