Shane KP O’Neill
Genre: Gothic Horror
ISBN: 978-0-9556701-0-7
Word Count: 261,281
Cover Artist: David Evans – GraphicStudio4
Book Description:
The Dracula Chronicles is the brilliant and terrifying new concept of Dracula. It is an epic journey through the ages where the forces of Light and Darkness struggle for supremacy until the Second Great War, as foretold in the Book of Revelations. This bitter feud began after the creation of mankind. Lucifer’s jealousy leads to the First Great War of the angels. Hundreds of thousands of years on the feud simmers beneath the surface. It plots the course of history as we know it today. Both sides manipulate the major players through the centuries to seek an advantage over the other.
On a cold night in December 1431 in Sighisoara an old gypsy woman delivers a prophecy to the great Vlad Dracul. She tells him he is about to sire two sons, one an angel and the other a devil. He returns to his fortress just as his wife bears him a son, whom he names Vlad. In the very same moment across the country on the border between Transylvania and Hungary a gypsy girl gives birth to another son, Andrei. The die is cast. The twin souls are born. The young Vlad Dracula becomes the instrument of the forces of Darkness. To balance this, the baby Andrei is blessed by the angels and bestowed with awesome powers. These chronicles are their story.
Book Trailer:
CHAPTER 1
Wallachia.
The chapel at Snagov.
December 1476.
Dracula pulled open the door of the chapel. Relishing his newfound strength he ripped it
clean off its hinges. He strode out into
the night. All eyes fell on him and he
glared back at his people with real menace.
They were on their knees in the cold and the rain praying for the repose
of his soul.
He laughed at the irony of it. The heady aroma of blood filled his
nostrils. The blood of his people. It almost overwhelmed him. He felt the vibration of it in the ground
beneath his feet as it pumped through their veins. With the taste of blood still in his mouth he
would have to have more.
The smell of the blood of the dead reached him
too. It was a repugnant scent. He realised then that only the blood of the
living could satisfy his thirst. That
was the price of immortal life. Lucifer
warned him if he did not drink he would die.
In taking Gabrul he realised that to drink he would have to kill. But the kill was good too. Looking at the crowd before him he did not
care how many would need to die to satisfy his needs.
His people gazed at him in awe. Some noticed he had recovered fully from his
injuries. They were no longer visible on
his body. Others observed his naked
state and skin that looked deathly pale.
The green pupils of his eyes almost glowed in the dark. Two grotesque fangs hung down over his lower
lip. They were long and sharp and a
touch yellowed. His penis stood erect
and long too. It twitched, filled with
the blood of his recent kill.
“Thank God,” one of the few women gasped. “He is alive.”
He shot her a stern glance. If she did not look so frail he would have
taken her there and then. His eyes
scanned the crowd for a better target.
Cheers rang out from the rear. Vlad Dracula, the scourge of the Infidel, was
alive and well. It elated them to see
him. Those at the front did not make a
sound.
The Maglak warriors knew the scene did not
ring true. This man looked like their
voivode, but they knew he was not. They
placed their hands on the hilts of their swords, ready to fight the demon that
stood in his place.
He could read the thoughts of everyone in
the crowd. At first it was a jumble of
sounds. A thousand noises in his
head. He put his hands to his ears to
try and drown them out. The cacophony
almost overwhelmed him, as much as the initial scent of blood. He had to fight the urge to run away, but he
could not leave. The aroma of the blood
around him was far too strong to ignore.
When he looked into the eyes of any one person
their thoughts became images in his mind.
He heard the individual voices behind them. Perhaps it was something he could control
after all. He stepped forward
towards the crowd. But then an acute
scent wafted on the breeze to his nose.
Fresh blood. He turned his head
in its direction. His sharp eyes focused
on a wounded soldier lying further back.
He walked slowly through the crowd. The marble floor inside the chapel had
scorched his feet. Now he found relief
from the cold ground. How had Lucifer
walked in there if I could not? Perhaps
it was not for him to know. He looked
beyond the people to the frozen lake. A
walk on the ice appealed to him.
He stopped in front of the abbot. It amused him to scan the mind of the holy
man and hear his silent words. The abbot
looked up at him, knowing he was a demon.
He grinned evilly at the little man, sensing his fear, and drawing
pleasure from it. He thought of killing
him there and then. But the blood of the
soldier was too strong for him to resist.
The scent grew stronger on the wind.
He had to have it.
The people around him gasped. He vanished into thin air before their very
eyes. In one bound he had leapt almost a
hundred feet to the spot where the wounded soldier lay. He moved with speed that the naked eye could
not match.
They looked about in an attempt to locate
him. No one could see him at the base of
the slope behind them. It was on the
boundary where the island met the lake.
Then one of the women screamed.
The others followed the line of her arm as she pointed to the night sky.
The crowd looked up as one in horror. They saw Dracula hovering some twelve feet in
the air above them. He had sunk his
teeth deep into the soldier’s thigh near to his wound. The soldier dangled upside down in his
arms. He screamed for his comrades to
save him.
Many of the men drew their swords. The bolder ones jumped up and swung
them. When they did they found him just
out of their reach. An archer removed an
arrow from his quiver. He took careful
aim and fired.
Without as much as a glance to the side,
Dracula caught the arrow in his left hand.
He held it there while he drank the soldier dry. The bloodless corpse dropped to the ground with
a thud near a group of the women. They
screamed as one at the face of the dead man.
He looked up at them with eyes that could no longer see.
Dracula then turned to glare at the
archer. The man felt a lump build in his
throat. His limbs froze at the sight of
those penetrating green eyes. He did not
react when the arrow came back at him.
It moved with real venom through the air. The vampire’s throw drove it through his eye
and out the back of his skull.
A chorus of screams rang out. Dracula hung in the air above the corpse and
laughed. His people scrambled to get
away from him. The urge to get off the
small island overrode any other thought in their minds. They fell over each other in a blind panic,
as the mass exodus moved to the frozen lake.
Men and women alike slipped and lost their footing on the ice. The surface was slushy from the heavy
rain. With the sudden weight on it
cracks began to appear almost at once.
“Hurry!” someone screamed, as they looked
down. “The ice is going to break!”
“Get off the ice!” another of the men
urged.
With the need to escape the island so
strong, few of the people heeded the warning.
More and more bodies stepped onto the ice. Only when they all began to slip and slide on
the surface did they realise the danger.
Many tried in vain to go back.
For them it was too late. The ice
began to splinter and crack. Each new
fissure filled the hearts of those on it with terror. Geysers of freezing water shot up into the
air. In each spot the ice depressed and
collapsed.
A thousand screams filled the air. In their dozens the people fell down into
it. Their cries did not last. Each one of them went into shock the moment
they took the plunge. Dracula watched as
they disappeared from view. The freezing
water snuffed out one heartbeat after another.
He felt them succumb to their icy grave.
The chorus of sounds in his ears faded
fast. The loud voices he could hear
became whispers. Then, one by one, the
icy water silenced them.
Only his loyal Maglak warriors and the
monks remained on the island. They
stayed, intent to fight this beast that possessed their master.
Dracula circled them from the air. He bellowed at them so loud it hurt their
ears. “Run my friends! Run while you still can! It is him that I want!”
They turned to see the lone figure of the
abbot. The little man shrunk further
when he heard Dracula speak. All alone
on his knees, he muttered a prayer to God to give him the strength he needed to
make a stand. His courage soon returned,
for when the vampire gazed down at him he held up a crucifix to try and ward
him off.
“Get thee hence, foul demon!” he
commanded. His voice showed conviction
he did not know he had. He rose to his
feet and held the crucifix up higher.
The Maglaks looked at each other. They waited for one of them to make a
decision. In the end they sheathed their
swords and ran into the chapel.
Dracula returned to the ground to face his
new enemy. The abbot stood firm, the
crucifix shaking in his hands. It seemed
he might drop it at any time. As the
clouds moved in the skies above them the light of the moon shone against the
cold metal. The glare stung Dracula in
both eyes. He hissed at the abbot in
anger, a long stream of obscenities flowing from his mouth. He needed to break the resolve of the little
man and get the icon from his hand. It
proved to be an object of real power when the one holding it believed in it.
He stepped back a few paces from the
abbot. His eyes remained trained on him,
as those of a hawk waiting to swoop on its prey. It encouraged the holy man to come forward. His fear clouded his logic and he pressed
on. He felt sure he had his enemy on the
retreat. When a large gap opened between
them he broke into a run.
Dracula stooped down and picked up a large
rock. He grinned and then hurled it at
the oncoming man. It struck his right
foot with real force and crushed every tiny bone below the ankle. The abbot cried out in agony and fell
down. The metal cross dropped from his
grasp.
In the blink of an eye his enemy was upon
him. He grabbed the abbot and dragged
him away from it. The holy icon remained
there on the ground, no longer of any use to its owner and no longer posing a
threat to him.
“Do you still feel as brave, holy man?” he
taunted him. “Is your sweet Jesus going
to save you from me?”
“Get away, you foul beast,” the abbot half
shouted and half pled.
“I think not,” Dracula grinned. “Not before you lie dead on the ground.”
“In the name of Jesus Christ! Get thee from here!”
The words seemed to stun the vampire. He released his grip on the abbot and took a
few steps back. A brief lull followed,
though the abbot groaned at the pain in his foot. Dracula ignored him for a moment and looked
about the area. It occurred to him that
He might appear and save the little man.
When He did not, he grabbed hold of the abbot once more.
“I would say He is not coming to your
rescue, holy man. Perhaps He does not
even exist. But I do, abbot. I exist.
And I am the truth!”
He placed his palms against the abbot’s
temples. The little man screamed at the
slightest exertion of pressure. He felt
Dracula’s cold breath against his neck.
Fear gripped him inside. Was
this to be the end?
“Worry not, holy man. I do not want your blood. It is your life that I want. Your precious Jesus can have your soul.”
Dracula increased the pressure. He heard the crunch of bone as he crushed the
abbot’s skull like an egg. Brain tissue
spilled as a mashed pulp all over his hands.
It tempted him to eat, but he knew that he could not.
Through his conversion he knew certain
things. The same way a newborn baby uses
its instinct to find the nipple his instincts told him of his limitations.
He could not feed from the dead, unless it
was his kill. Once the soul had left the
body the flesh soured and the blood turned to poison. The Pope had blessed the abbot upon giving
him his Holy Orders. Alive or dead,
Dracula could not touch him. He could
touch no man or woman blessed by the Pope’s hand. If he had drunk from the abbot he would have
endured a slow and agonising death.
Consecrated blood would be acid in his veins. It would rot him from the inside out.
He heard the cries of thousands in the
distance. It urged him to leave the
island. He glided over the surface of
the lake. The bodies of his people
remained there, trapped beneath the new thin blanket of ice that had
formed.
The sounds drew him back to the
battlefield. He stopped in the spot
where the Turks had ambushed and wounded him.
The bodies of the dead lay strewn about where they had fallen. He trod through them, careful not to touch
them with his feet.
All around the souls of the dead rose from
their broken corpses. Dracula gasped at
the sheer spectacle of it. He watched
them rise up in the order they had perished.
The souls hung in the air above each corpse. There they waited. Soon others would come and claim them.
Then they came. The White Ones and the Black Ones. They were the messengers and soul collectors
from Heaven and Hell. A few of the Black
Ones came close, but did not look at him.
He held no interest for them.
He stayed for a time to watch. Those claimed by the Guardians of Hell
screamed in desperation. They were aware
now of the nightmare that awaited them.
When he came early, Lucifer spared Dracula
this torment. He would not feel the
agony of the Black Ones ripping at his flesh with their claws. Nor would he gaze into the fiery Abyss before
they dragged him down. It sent a shiver
through him.
One of the Guardians of Heaven drew
close. Dracula stepped aside to avoid
it. It was here to claim the soul of
Ivan Olescu. He observed the absolute
joy on the face of his old friend. The
stresses of life and the pain of death had all left him now. It was a feeling Dracula knew he would never
experience. The White One took Olescu by
the hand and rose up towards the heavens.
The vampire watched the ascent for a time.
Dracula did not find it a pleasant
scene. He turned and disappeared into
the night. When he had gone, Christ
descended to the island and claimed the abbot.
About the Author:
The author developed a fascination with Dracula from an early age. Like many others he was enthralled by Christopher Lee’s portrayal of him on the big screen. It was in his late teens that he discovered Dracula the man and the love affair began from there. An avid historian, he studied the period in which the real historical Vlad Dracula lived, 15th Century Balkan, for many years. It followed from there then that with his love of writing he would always choose Dracula as his subject.
Away from writing, the author has a wide range of interests. He has lived and travelled all over the world. He has a love for all things historical, with a particular fascination for medieval Europe. Anywhere he travels he likes to search out locations with an historical interest. He is well read and in recent times has a preference for the work of James Patterson, Carlos Luis Zafon, John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer and Stephen King. He also keeps his library well stocked with historical texts.
For a time he played scrabble on the international stage and represented Wales at the 2007 World Championship in Mumbai, India. He has a real love of sport, most notably football, rugby union, cricket and boxing. His great loves in the football world are Manchester United, Glasgow Celtic, Internazionale and lowly Luton Town. His sporting heroes include George Best, David Beckham, Roy Keane, Ian Botham and Muhammad Ali. His only other activities away from these are long country walks and time spent with friends and family.
www.draculachronicles.co.uk website
@ShaneKPONeill Twitter
http://www.facebook.com/ ShaneONeillsDraculaChronicles FB author page
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Thanks for leaving a comment! :) I love reading each one.