The Cain Letters
An excerpt from the upcoming novel by Pierre Roustan



Decades ago, the vampire nation of the Soviet Union thought to conduct an experiment with their own existence. Vampires make one of their own by feeding a victim of their own blood, but what the Soviet vampires tried... was to feed a victim the blood of a slaughtered vampire. The result: a hideous abomination called a threll.

Now thrells, vampires, and humans all hunt for one book. One book that could save, or destroy, all three races...


    Strang’s door bursted open, splinters of wood and dust dancing around his entryway. A figure wearing a black trench coat casually walked in, looking left, then right. A gunshot rang across the room and blasted a part of the wall next to the figure, catching the figure’s attention immediately.

    The figure growled. It sped across with an unnatural speed and snatched Theodore Strang by the neck, forcing him to drop his shotgun. The figure moved in closer, the fire in the hearth revealing the most sickening face, long stringy black hair and demonic features. Its fingers seemed to stretch around Strang’s neck. Strang fought for a breath, grabbing the monstrous man by the arm to hold himself up, giving himself a little bit of air. Strang growled, surprisingly.

    “Old man...” said the figure. “Where is the book?”

    Strang looked it dead in the eye. “Just kill me and get it over with... because I do not know what you are talking about.”

    The demonic man bared his fangs, a panther growl escaping his jaws. “I can smell him! Here! And I know you gave the book to him!”

    Strang laughed under his struggling breath. “You thrells... have the brains... of compost heaps and dunghills.”

    The figure smiled madly. “Your sick, little comments don’t faze me. Make no mistake, you will die, and I will find that boy either way.”

    Strang spat. “So then kill me and get it over with and start searching, because I will not say a word!”

    The figure lowered him and cracked his neck with its one massive, clawed hand, effectively ending his life in a mere second. The figure then dove into his neck with an open mouth and crushed his flesh, drinking his blood—
Marcus watched.

    Behind the closet door just around the corner, panting feverishly, frightened beyond anything possible in the real world, Marcus watched Theodore Strang’s dried-up carcass drop to the floor.



    Marcus held his breath, staring at the massive book in his hands.

    He kept looking through the cracks of the closet door. The figure off in the room growled, looking around...  
    Sniffing.
    It smelled him. He couldn’t believe what he thought at that moment--just by its appearance, it had to be a vampire. He never saw one before. He didn’t have much time at all. He had to find the right time to make a run for it.

    He stuffed the book in his backpack and then watched the vampire circle slowly as a vulture would, trying to pick up his scent even stronger. Marcus had to wait. He waited in a cold sweat, heart racing, brain burning with thoughts. Wait for the right time--  
    He slung the backpack on him and braced the closet door.

    The vampire would make its roundabout toward the closet, but at the moment, it started to circle toward the curtained windows at the far end. Farthest away from the closet. The perfect time to run.

    He couldn’t breathe. His chest started to hurt. He wanted to cry from the fear. The second its clawed hands wrapped around his neck much like they did around Theodore Strang’s, he knew he’d face death in the worst way. He kept thinking about what he got himself into. The book. What happened? Hell rose from the depths and became his world. He could do nothing but try and run from it as much as possible. His life mattered the most in this moment.

    Marcus gritted his teeth and pushed open the closet door, heading for the blasted doorway--
    He heard the vampire’s spitting roar in the room. His heart pumped harder.

    His breath almost felt like an acid in his lungs as he practically slid down the stairs, heaving madly--
Remembering what Strang said--
Don’t look back

    So much fear. He ached to check up there and see if the vampire gave chase. But he didn’t check--
Until from above he heard that same alien roar, that feral hiss, the hiss of hunger and fury.

    He looked up, slowing down, and the vampire had bolted out of the blasted door and looked down, baring its fangs. For a second, Marcus saw its eyes, red as blood.

“Give me the book!” it growled.

    Marcus took that as his cue to keep running--only faster.

    Crashing out the front door of the building, he tripped and slid across the ground. His breath labored so much that everything around his face turned to smoke because of the cold, breathing in and out. His face burned a little from the trip. His ankle felt swollen. He winced in pain.

    He pushed himself hard to get back up quick. He had to keep running. He had to get to his car. He hobbled as fast as possible, seeing his car down the road. He screamed in pain as he made it to the door of his car.

    From the building, he heard a crash of glass. Turning around, he watched the vampire sail out of a window, shards of glass falling with the vampire. It landed calmly, along with the debris. And it stood there in the middle of the street, the streetlights illuminating half its frame. It stood there as if it knew Marcus wouldn’t escape.

    His eyes went wider than before, fumbling for the keys in his jacket.

    The vampire started a steadfast stride down the street. No rush. Every step made his heart pump harder. He threw himself in the car, glancing back down the street every second--
The cloaked vampire came closer.

    He breathed so fast that he couldn’t control his hands. He fumbled for his keys. He felt the vampire closing in. His nose started to run. His vision started to blur. He needed to start his car and get moving, get moving before the vampire made it to him--
He cussed a half dozen times, trying to find the right key.

    From behind, the vampire hissed. About ten feet away, it came. Marcus had no time.

    He got the key. He looked back. The vampire practically reached for the car’s trunk.

    He jammed his key in and twisted; the car revved as he slammed on the gas. He pulled it to drive and the car drifted hard, screeching, skidding--
It launched off, leaving the vampire behind.

    Luckily, the late night revealed the dead in the streets, no cars, no pedestrians, not even one cop. The only thankful thing for being in a slum part of town. Marcus still heaved, but he tried hard to calm down. His hands shook madly with unbridled fear as he tried to keep his control of the car--

    Nails punctured his roof just inches away from his ear. Marcus screamed.

    The vampire tore off the roof of his car, and Marcus couldn’t help but look up--
From the coat’s collar, wings had sprouted out, about the size of his frame. The vampire’s eyes burned with a hatred that could send the world into a holocaust. Its fangs dripped with saliva.

    Marcus swung the wheel hard--the car drifted right, almost smashing into a lamppost. The vampire almost lost its grip. It held on, only a few feet away from snatching Marcus’s head and twisting it off. He had no idea what to do. The vampire had him.

    He looked up, and it smiled horrendously down at him. It hissed madly, opening its mouth wide. The set of fangs seemed to scream with hunger. It started to reach for him--

    In that second, another figure dashed across from above and slammed into the vampire, blasting it onto the street--



    Shocked, Marcus spun out of control. He blinked, heaving uncontrollably, sniffling back the wetness in his nose. His concept of the world skewed at the sight of it--
Another vampire. Only it seemed this vampire focused more on the one chasing Marcus. Wearing a black leather jacket, the new vampire tore away at the other, madly, hissing ferociously.

    In seconds, the other growled and turned the vampire with the jacket onto its back and also started tearing away with its fierce hands.

    Marcus’s senses suddenly spiked--

    On his passenger side, a jeep sped toward him, crashing into the car. The impact jarred his head, the world spun in a million different directions--he started seeing double.

    The crash sent both vehicles into a warehouse just off the corner—stone, brick, plaster, dust crumbling around. The two vehicles hit a stonewall, and that ended it. Marcus reeled, feeling his forehead and the blood oozing out.

    He heard a slammed door and a few footsteps. And a nasty growl as something ripped out his driver’s side door—

It had him. Or they had him. He didn’t know how many. He focused his blurry eyes and saw the hideous vampire, its tussled hair and rotted flesh and fierce eyes displayed as a reminder of his coming death.

    Mercilessly, a blade from behind swung at the vampire’s neck, beheading it clean and quick. Blackened blood splattered. It dropped dead in seconds to reveal a woman’s hand—
Marcus focused through the pain in his head, looking through the door—

    She sheathed her blade and looked at him with determination and resolve.

    “Give me your hand!” she said.

    Marcus’s senses sparked once more out of sheer fear and paranoia, shaking and pulling away fast. He struggled to get away, fumbled for the passenger side door.“Get away! What are you! You’re one of them!” he said.

    “No, don’t! They will kill you! I will not hurt you!” She reached out with her hand again. “Please, trust me. They are everywhere right now.” Marcus heard faint hissing and teeth gnashing. “They have come for you because you have something they want! Now, please, give me your hand!”

    Marcus snatched his backpack and then the strange woman in black pulled him out of the car unusually fast. He heard a massive thud--he looked at his car and understood the woman’s urgency.

    Four hideous vampires dove into the car as if to tear Marcus out of this world. They hissed in a raspy whisper. Instead of running, the woman pulled out two magnums and fired two shots on each, nailing each vampire—
The impact immediately set them on fire and burned them to a crisp.

    “Dear God, I did not expect the thrells to rally here. I had no idea.” she said, holstering her guns.

    Marcus tried to shake the pain and grogginess out of his head. “What’re you talking about?”

    She pressed something into her ear. “Kyan, Kyan! Copy!” She grabbed Marcus by the arm. “Thrells, repeat, thrells! Come around fast!”

    Marcus struggled. “I’m not going anywhere, let me go!”

    “Listen to me! Listen—”

    A shriek caught her attention. It caught Marcus’s as well. They looked just across the way and spotted around a dozen thrells rampaging through the dilapidated warehouse. With only some of the starlight and moonlight through the giant windows, they caught sporadic glimpses of the threll horde. Marcus couldn’t breathe at the sight of them. He wondered where they came from. And how.

    Somehow the woman didn’t shake. Her resolve never left her.

    “Stay back now!” she said.

    The thrells ran screaming for blood and almost came upon them until the woman pulled something out from inside her coat and tossed it to the ground, causing it to react somehow like a grenade of sorts—

Only this grenade didn’t explode. It illuminated.

    The blast expanded at a diameter of around thirty feet, and the brightness pierced Marcus so much that he had to turn away.

    But he heard the furious cries of agony on the other side of the blast. It hit him just then. Ultraviolet. Sunlight.



    She snatched Marcus by the arm again. “Come on!”

    They raced out of the busted warehouse and saw several thrells following. Marcus couldn’t stand the pain in his ankle. He wanted to stop; but her legs kept him moving. By then, being out in the streetlights, he noticed her much more. Her auburn hair waved, and she looked surprisingly delicate and attractive despite her fierce grip and obvious killing instinct. He almost didn’t want to know who she was.

    “Come on, Kyan, come on!” she said again, pressing her finger into her ear. “We’re on the corner of 120 and Faithside, hurry!” Marcus started feeling sick. His ankle pounded. His head hurt. He hated this. He hated that he somehow got lost in this. And it seemed he got tangled in this all because of the book. It had to be the book.

    If he hadn’t looked up Theodore Strang, wanting to talk to him about one of the most curious subjects in common mythology and religion...
Marcus dropped his backpack by accident.

    “Wait, wait,” he said, pulling back a little, trying to get her attention. “Wait!”
“What!” she said.
“My backpack! It has the book!”

    She stopped suddenly, turning swift, pulling out one of her magnums—  
That got her attention, although too late.

    Marcus recognized it as it reached for his backpack on the ground. The vampire in the black jacket. Strange, though, as he got a better look at the vampire... it didn’t look as bestial as the one that killed Strang. This one looked more... human.

    The vampire slowly picked up the backpack, smiling happily. If it wasn’t for the vampire’s casual demeanor, judging by the many slashes across the face and the torn-up parts of the jacket, Marcus would’ve thought the vampire suffered searing anguish.

    Behind the vampire, the other thrells started to approach. Marcus heard the woman curse under breath. The vampire looked deep into her with a fury that made Marcus want to hide in the shadows and wait for the sun to rise. Darkness never looked so frightening.

    “Mason...” she said. “Hand over the book now before the thrells tear you apart.”

    She asked while still aiming her gun at him. It wasn’t a request. It was a threat.

    The vampire named Mason tilted his head, still searching the woman’s resolve. Marcus could tell the vampire heard the thrells approaching. Mason smiled.

    “Mason—”

    A voice caused the woman to swing in the opposite direction. Marcus’s heart jumped. Yet another man approached them from behind, a man dressed in a silver-laced dark robe. His ivory-colored hair glowed in the moonlight.

    The woman turned back to Mason but this time pulling out her other gun. She now had one gun aimed directly at Mason and the other aimed at the man in the robe. She found herself in a standoff.

    “Nikolas.” said Mason. “Look what I found.”

    Nikolas responded. “Are you referring to the backpack or Miss Glade here?”

    Mason shrugged. “Either one.”

    The woman known as ‘Miss Glade’ gritted her teeth. “This is not an ideal situation for both of you!”

    “And neither you, Miss Glade.” said Nikolas.

    Before Marcus thought it couldn’t get worse, the winged vampire landed with a horde of thrells approaching Mason. The winged vampire, too, had gashes and cuts similar to Mason’s.

    Mason then turned toward them with the fiercest growl, daring them to advance. The winged vampire hissed back, saliva dripping from its bottom lip.

    Miss Glade had enough. “You do not dare, Breed, or I will shoot you in the head!”

    “So you want more? Back off!” said Mason.

    “I will not be threatened! We’re not done, Mason!” said Breed.

    Marcus looked around--surrounded by several dozen thrells, two tall vampires and next to a black-cloaked woman with just her magnums to protect both sides of her. The standoff just got worse. Marcus feared hell. This situation, this moment—every breath he took feeling like his last--this resembled hell in all its fury and pain and suffering. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t stop holding his breath.

    Somehow, though--remarkably--Miss Glade never lost her resolve. She mumbled to herself as she kept watch on both sides of her--Nikolas, and Mason, along with Breed and the thrells waiting feverishly to pounce on Mason for what he held in his hand.

    Marcus tried to listen to her mumbling. She only had seconds to act.

    So engrossed in her and what she might’ve been planning to do, he thought he heard a strange thundering in the sky...
And Marcus caught one word quietly escaping her mouth...
Now.

    In one breath, Miss Glade holstered her guns and pulled out several of those grenades she had—
Nikolas saw. He raged like a storm, the apparent nature of peace in him vanquished as he drew a rapier from inside his robe and launched himself at Miss Glade.

    Marcus heard it again, that thundering. He looked up.

    A massive jet pulled in, vacuuming the air around, and a hatch opened up from the bottom, dropping a long ladder--

    Miss Glade spiked her grenades, and they blasted the white hot light just before she forced Marcus to grapple the ladder. Marcus shut his eyes tight, the adrenaline rushing through him like steel liquid--

    Nikolas came close. The light blinded. Marcus had to trust the ladder. And Miss Glade. He kept his eyes completely shut. She grabbed the ladder, pressing herself into Marcus, yelling, go, go, go! As hard and loud as she could--

    Marcus opened his eyes for a second. The jet pulled up fast, leaving a mushroom cloud of light trailing hard and long, keeping Nikolas away and backing Mason, Breed and the thrells off. Marcus heard the howls of fury from below. He held on as tight as possible. If Miss Glade hadn’t been there cradling him on the ladder, the sheer wind force would’ve sliced his grip.

    “All right, Kyan, pull us up!” she said.

    Marcus felt weary. He looked down again, that massive mushroom cloud dissipating. He almost felt no wind in the night sky anymore. He saw the horrible damage to the warehouse where he crashed. The world seemed to fall apart in seconds. His head still hurt. His eyes burned and throbbed a little from the ultraviolet blast. He shook violently at the fact that he lost his backpack down there.

    They had the book now. He didn’t know what that meant exactly, except he remembered the winged vampire Breed demanded it from Strang. It had to be important. He wondered just how important. He wondered if his mistake... meant Theodore Strang died in vain.

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