Vampire Apocalypse.

Apotheosis.

by Katriena Knights.

Prologue.

From Lucien's personal journals To Whom It May Concern: I leave this document behind in the hopes that no one but myself will ever read it. For if this is found and I am not here, then I am most likely dead, and all has been lost.

Enough with the melodramatics. On with the story. Let's start with me. I was born twelve thousand years ago, give or take a century, in a cave in the Carpathian Mountains, the offspring of a virgin girl and the demon to whom she was offered in an effort to placate the angry gods. I had three half-brothers, each born to different mothers. We are not vampires, but we birthed that entire race through exchange of blood. May I take this moment to apologize on behalf of the four of us? After all, the gods, unplacated by our births, continued to be angry, and the vampire race has not yet been much of a boon to the planet.

They might be, though, someday. That's where the rest of the story comes in.

Four and a half thousand years ago, I died. More or less. It was the Flood, the big Black Sea flood the Sumerians wrote about. The Hebrews did, too, if I remember right. There was torrential water and mud, and I didn't get out in time.

Neither did my half-brother, Aanu. We drowned and were lost in the mud for a century or two. And we dreamed.

Eventually, we clawed our way out. When we compared notes, we discovered we'd dreamed the same dreams. Or overlapping dreams, something of that nature. In any case, when we started writing them down, they fit together. So we compiled them and gave them a fancy name-The Book of Changing Blood.

We weren't sure what they all meant. Prophecies, maybe. But over four thousand years passed before they started coming true.

Okay, here's the part where you need to start paying attention.

Because if the unthinkable happens and we have lost and Ialdaboth has won, the only way to salvage anything might be to reconstruct the sequence of events. Otherwise there will be no shoveling us back out of the darkness.

It started with an old Indian shaman-some variety of Sioux, I think, but I'm not sure-and some herbs given to his tribe by an unnamed vampire back in the mists of time. His people safeguarded the herbs until, one day, the vampire Julian washed up on the banks of their favorite fishing river. With the aid of these herbs, Julian abstained from human blood for over two centuries.

Abstaining changed him. He became less sensitive to daylight and able to consume some forms of solid food. His transformation was kicked into high gear when he fed from two other vampires, then from the Senior of the New York City vampire enclave. Normally, this should have killed him-instead it killed them. I never knew the Senior's name.

It's not important. He was old. Very old. Old as dirt, even, but not quite as old as me.

The interaction of the different blood within Julian's body changed him yet again. But he needed one more catalyst, which he found in the blood of one Lorelei Fletcher, coincidentally or, actually, probably not- the woman he met and fell ass-over-fangs in love with.

When he took her blood, he became something else. Something no longer a vampire. He no longer fed on blood but on human energy.

I do that, as well, but when I take energy, it depletes the person from whom I feed. Julian's feeding amplifies the energy of the fed-upon. It's a strange and rather miraculous process, with implications which have yet to be fully explored.

There's a Dr. Greene here with us, in the enclave, who's experimenting with different blood combinations, isolating catalysts, things like that. He was able to use Julian's blood, combined with blood from another vampire named Nicholas, to cure cancer. That should give you some idea of where all this could be headed.

Much of this, I've discovered, is outlined in the Book of Changing Blood, or what remains of it. Because a good deal of it was destroyed by my two brothers, Ialdaboth and Ruha, and their followers, who believe vampires should not change, that we and our Blood-Born progeny are demons and will always be demons, and we should just deal with it. I don't believe that is true. I don't believe the vampire race was created to drag the world into hell. I believe we and our Children have the potential to save the world, or at least part of it.

So some of our work has involved reconstructing the Book. And the rest has been figuring out what the hell is going on as the shit hits the fan around us. For instance, Julian got Lorelei pregnant. We have no idea what that's going to mean. Vampires are sterile-but he's not so much a vampire anymore, is he? So we're waiting to see what happens, waiting to see what kind of progeny she produces. Then there are the Children-vampires who were Changed before they reached puberty. Julian has Dr. Greene working on a way to return their mortality.

If it works for them, could it work for other vampires?

The biggest obstacle right now, though, is Ialdaboth. He's determined to stop us, and if you find this place in ruins, with my bones decorating the office and slaughtered vampires strewn about in the halls, he's done just that. He tried to finish off Julian, kidnapping Lorelei as bait, but his former minion Lilith got in his way and stopped it. She was dead for about five minutes until Julian got to her. Ialdaboth blasted the living hell out of her, and Julian brought her back to life. Brought her back to life. I can't stress that enough. We're not sure where her loyalties lie, but we are sure that Ialdaboth will try again. And if he does, we have to stop him.

Have to. Because if we don't, everything we've found is lost, I am dead, and you are reading this.

Let's just hope to God no one ever reads this.

Julian's Journal We strive for a world in which there are choices. The choice to be vampire or mortal. The choice to be a child-to live the life that was taken.

Does immortality become a gift I can bestow, without the curse of vampirism? Can I also give mortality to those who desire it?

What is my vision for the community of vampires? Not only those whose enclave I now guide, but all of them, everywhere, throughout the world.

Do we become a force for good, or do we become a catalyst for evil?

My touch, my blood, can perform miracles, can give life where there was none, can restore mortality where there was only the curse of undeath.

What have I become? What has Lorelei become? And what of the child she carries? Children-twins. Will they be human or vampire?

Or something else altogether?

Then there is the matter of Ialdaboth. We defeated him once, Lucien and I, but only temporarily. I have doubts about whether we can do it again. We need more. More power, more knowledge.

I should know more than I do. The Senior knew things I do not, but I can't access all his memories. I should be able to, but there are barriers. Perhaps I have to go through all of the Senior's life, his time, his powers, and his loves, to find what I need.

I don't look forward to the process. There are places in there I really don't want to go. So I fill my time with other concerns, gathering what information I can.

Lilith must know something. She was with Ialdaboth's enclave for a long time. Could she be the key? I wonder whenever I visit her, watching her as she lies in her hospital bed, a pale, beautiful thing. She looks as if she is made of white wax, or marble. What knowledge lies behind those quiescent eyes?

Lilith . . . likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

Luke 15:7 It is impossible for those who were once enlightened . . . if they shall fall away, to renew them again into repentance.

Hebrews 6:4-6 If they want to come, let them come. I'm not turning anyone away.

Email-Julian to Lucien Blessed be the Children of the Dark, for they may return to the Light, and thus be saved.

The Book of Changing Blood

One.

Lilith hurt everywhere, deep, pervasive pain that filled every inch of her. She could barely move without it shifting, growing and receding and always moving, as if some bizarre form of life had taken root just beneath her skin.

She supposed she shouldn't complain, though. Not that long ago, she'd been dead.

It was hard to judge the passage of time, but she thought it had been about three days since Julian, Lucien, and Lorelei had brought her here. Her sworn enemies, up until that time. Until Julian had brought her back to life.

Here, in this part of the vampire Underground, there was no real day or night, but the pull of the daytime Sleep still claimed her at appropriate intervals. Here they fed her on harvested blood and kept her carefully alive in spite of the role she'd recently played in Lorelei's kidnapping.

If she'd returned to her own people, she would be dead by now.

Instead she'd passed into the realm of the enemy and remained alive.

She blinked at the pale green ceiling of what she supposed could most accurately be called a hospital room. It still amazed her that they were leaving her alone. She could have yanked out her IV and slipped away, feeling her way-somehow-out of the convoluted turnings of the corridors and tunnels of the Underground. But she had no desire to go anywhere. Once or twice Julian had come in and said hello to her, held up his end of a short, inane conversation while his dark eyes had studied her with discomfiting intensity. Lucien had done the same, though he hadn't bothered to talk. He'd just looked at her. She had no doubt that they both could read every thought that meandered through her head. So they knew where she stood. They knew she was, at least for the moment, conflicted enough to be considered safe.

The door to her room squeaked, and she looked up to see Dr.

Greene enter. He came every day at about this time to check on her.

He smiled. "Good evening. How are you doing?"

He took her chart from the table by the door and looked at it. She wondered why. He couldn't have that many patients, not here. Surely he could remember what her problems were.

"Like shit," she answered.

He nodded soberly. "I've been running some cultures in the lab.

My prediction is that the pain will start to decrease in about twelve hours." "That's a relief."

He checked her IV drip, where rich, garnet blood had begun to enter her system minutes after she'd returned from the Sleep. "Are you hungry at all?"

"No. Not really."

"It's not quite the same, is it?"

"No. Not quite."

Her system's dissatisfaction with the stale blood was secondary, though, to the consuming pain. Still, the doctor's understanding surprised her. He was a mortal, after all, full of live, pulsing blood. He would have made a damned fine breakfast.

Seemingly unconcerned by his status as possible food item, the doctor checked her IV again, adjusted the timer, looked at the machine that blinked with her vital signs. "You'll be all right."

"Yeah." She doubted that. She'd made some very dangerous enemies by protecting Lorelei and her unborn child. Ialdaboth wanted her dead. Sooner or later, she knew he would get what he wanted.

Dr. Jarod Greene closed the door behind him and leaned on it, gathering his thoughts. Lilith was improving rapidly. No surprise there.

Vampires healed with predictable rapidity when given half a chance.

That Lilith had been technically dead for a time didn't seem to have affected her recovery rate.

Yes, physically, she was recovering nicely. But he was still concerned about her mental and emotional states. Especially since he knew Julian and Lucien would be all over her with questions as soon as he declared her healthy.

And so went his dilemma as a doctor. The information Julian wanted from Lilith was important, but Jarod didn't want to risk her health. Nor did he want to endanger Julian's plans to move against Ialdaboth's forces. He had to make the right call, and he wasn't sure yet what that was.

In any case, Julian was expecting him-again-right now. These daily meetings were starting to get tedious.

As usual, Julian and Lucien were waiting for him in his office.

Jarod had asked them repeatedly not to touch anything in there-he had a number of projects and experiments underway. Still, as he entered, Lucien snatched his hands away from a shelf and hid them behind his back. Julian gave Lucien a wry look.

"You can talk to her tomorrow," said Jarod. He hoped giving them an answer up front might gain him some privacy.

No such luck.

Julian settled onto the edge of the desk. "What's your opinion of her?"

"My opinion?" Jarod shrugged. "I think she'll be well enough for you to talk to her in twelve hours."

"I mean as a person."

He rarely got any but medical questions from his patients. He liked it that way. It made everything less personal and helped him forget he was the go-to medical guy for a colony of vampires.

"She's not a person," he said, not really thinking. "She's a vampire."

His lack of tact registered when Julian narrowed his eyes, his mouth compressing.

"All right then," Julian said, his tone clipped. "What do you think of her as a vampire?"

"I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"He wants to know if you think she can be trusted," Lucien put in.

"Look, guys. I'm a doctor. I'm not a psychiatrist or a counselor or even a very good judge of character. I look at blood cells all day."

"You've spent more time with her than any of the rest of us," Julian countered.

Jarod lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "She's . . .

confused. I think she's afraid you might kill her."

"Do you think she would go back to Ialdaboth?"

"I don't know. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would forgive and forget, based on what you've told me."

"But she hasn't said anything to you about him?"

"We don't really chat."

Silence fell. Julian and Lucien regarded each other, seeming to pass messages through their eyes.

"I think we can trust her," Lucien finally said.

Julian didn't look happy, but he nodded. "We may have to." He slid off the desk and headed for the door.