Tuesday Teaser: Blood on a Texas Moon
In continuation of reviving my blog, today I’m going to go with a Tuesday Teaser. This is from my novella Blood on a Texas Moon, a vampire story I wrote as part of an anthology. It was something fun and different . . .and it was written right before my life imploded and I went through a dark decade-long period of time where I could no longer write nor even read. I’m slowly getting back to reading and my writing now is coming along as I’m working out those flaccid writing muscles.
I absolutely loved writing a vampire story, so I decided to write a sequel to Blood on a Texas Moon and hope to release it next month. It is called Blood Under a Comanche Moon. It’s one of the four stories I’ve written that I mentioned in my last blog Monday Musings that needs some heavy editing. But it is coming along nicely!
For now, here is the opening to Blood on a Texas Moon, the premise of the anthology was to highlight Mrs. Dracula, who of course, lives forever, and so can experience multitude of life experiences. I chose to put her in Texas . . .cuz I’m Texan and early in Texas history, because I love the 1800s. (Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong time but writing historical fiction does satisfy my needs, probably better than actually living back then.)
This is from the first page, I thought it was a scene to showcase Lily’s wit, her comment on dinner and all. I hope you like it and you can check out Blood on a Texas Moon, which for now is available on Amazon but I do plan to take it wide soon, and it is only 99 cents!
Blood on a Texas Moon
Stephen Parker, our partner and friend, walking into the dimly lit front parlor carrying a nearly unconscious young woman in his arms was not something I expected to see. I paused from my cross stitch and said, “Bringing dinner home?”
My humor brought no smile.
Stephen’s haggard, pale face, although frozen perpetually in youth, revealed his anguish. “Lily, she was dying.”
I might have been pointing out the obvious, but I said it anyway, albeit as gently as I could since the thought obviously distressed him. “She looks dead already.”
“I turned her,” Stephen bluntly admitted. “I might have been too late.”
“You turned . . .” My eyebrows raised. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing although I noted a bit of blood on the corner of his mouth verifying his words. The levity left the room. We didn’t willy-nilly turn a person to a vampire. It was generally a decision requiring much forethought, not a spur-of-the-moment impulse.
Stephen defended his action with a stubborn thrust to his chin that made him look more like a little boy than the Comanche warrior he once had been. Of course, that had been decades ago, and Stephen, more like our son than a partner, had since then learned to live in polite society as well as my husband Andrei and I. We’d returned to New Orleans, as a matter of fact, to brush up on our genteel manners given we’d lived decades with the Comanche. When you lived forever, there was always ample opportunity to learn.
“She didn’t want to die,” Stephen said quietly. “I know what that’s like.”
I understood Stephen’s reasoning. Once I and my husband had to make the same decision with Stephen. Turn him. Or let him die.
Some might claim death was better, but in the end, there is the fear to grapple with. What is death like? What is on the other side? Is there even another side? Or when a human dies—was that absolutely the end?
True, life as a vampire was not the same as living as a human. Some even called us the undead. But to me, any life here was better than what might face us on the other side. The devil you know as the saying goes. So I honestly couldn’t blame Stephen. Especially if he loved the girl.
But his good heart might have brought trouble to our door.
As if my thoughts were prophetic, and truly, sometimes they were, just then someone banged on the front door.
“Where is my sister, you pale-faced freak?”
THANKS for reading, I hope you enjoyed and come back next week for a Wednesday Work In Progress excerpt!