Vampire Empress Read online

  VAMPIRE EMPRESS

  Vampire for Hire #21

  by

  J.R. RAIN

  MATTHEW S. COX

  Other Books by J.R. Rain

  The World of Samantha Moon

  VAMPIRE FOR HIRE

  Moon Dance

  Vampire Moon

  American Vampire

  Moon Child

  Christmas Moon (novella)

  Vampire Dawn

  Vampire Games

  Moon Island

  Moon River

  Vampire Sun

  Moon Dragon

  Moon Shadow

  Vampire Fire

  Midnight Moon

  Moon Angel

  Vampire Sire

  Moon Master

  Dead Moon

  Lost Moon

  Vampire Destiny

  Infinite Moon

  Vampire Empress

  Vampire Train (coming soon)

  Moon Warrior (coming soon)

  SAMANTHA MOON CASE FILES

  Moon Bayou (with Rod Kierkegaard)

  Blood Moon (with Matthew S. Cox)

  Parallel Moon (with Kris Carey)

  Vampire Reign (with Chanel Smith, coming soon)

  SAMANTHA MOON ORIGINS

  with Matthew S. Cox

  New Moon Rising

  Moon Mourning

  Haunted Moon

  SAMANTHA MOON ADVENTURES

  with Matthew S. Cox

  Banshee Moon

  Moon Monster

  Moon Ripper

  Witch Moon

  Moon Goddess

  Moon Blaze

  Golem Moon

  Moon Maidens

  VAMPIRE FOR HIRE COLLECTIONS

  Vampire for Hire Boxed Set: Books 1 and 2

  Samantha Moon: Books 1-4

  Samantha Moon Rising: Books 5-7

  Samantha Moon Forever: Books 8-10

  Samantha Moon Fatalis: Books 11-14

  Samantha Moon Hellfire: Books 15-17

  Samantha Moon Reborn: Books 18-21 (coming soon)

  Samantha Moon: Books 1-8

  Samantha Moon Phantasm: Books 9-16

  Vampire for Hire: First Four Stories

  Moon Tales: Eight Short Stories

  Moon Shots: Eight Short Stories

  Moon Quakes: Eight Short Stories (coming soon)

  VAMPIRE FOR HIRE EXTRAS

  Vampire Alley (poem)

  Moon Extras (Bonus Scenes)

  Moon Dance (Deluxe Edition)

  Other Books and Series

  STANDALONE NOVELS

  A Small Sea Rises (coming soon)

  The Pale Cold Light

  All the Way Back Home

  Winter Wind

  Silent Echo

  The Body Departed

  The Grail Quest

  Elvis Has Not Left the Building

  The Lost Ark

  The Journey (with Piers Anthony)

  The Worm Returns (with Piers Anthony)

  Lavabull (with Piers Anthony)

  Jack and the Giants (with Piers Anthony)

  Dolfin Tayle (with Piers Anthony)

  Dragon Assassin (with Piers Anthony)

  Lost Eden (with Elizabeth Basque)

  Judas Silver (with Elizabeth Basque)

  The Vampire Club (with Scott Nicholson)

  Cursed (with Scott Nicholson)

  Ghost College (with Scott Nicholson)

  The Black Fang Betrayal (with multiple authors)

  JIM KNIGHTHORSE SERIES

  Dark Horse

  The Mummy Case

  Hail Mary

  Clean Slate

  Night Run (coming soon)

  THE WITCHES SERIES

  The Witch and the Gentleman

  The Witch and the Englishman

  The Witch and the Huntsman (with Rod Kierkegaard)

  The Witch and the Wolfman (with Rod Kierkegaard)

  The Witch and the Hangman (with Matthew S. Cox, coming soon)

  NICK CAINE SERIES

  with Aiden James

  Temple of the Jaguar

  Treasure of the Deep

  Pyramid of the Gods

  Legend of the Thunderbird (coming soon)

  THE WATSON FILES

  with Chanel Smith

  Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Shakespeare

  Sherlock Holmes and the Lost Da Vinci

  Sherlock Holmes and the Werewolf of West End

  Sherlock Holmes and the Kiss of the Vampire (coming soon)

  WINTER SOLTSICE SERIES

  with Matthew S. Cox

  Convergence

  Containment

  Catalyst

  Catacombs

  Centurion (coming soon)

  ALEXIS SILVER SERIES

  with Matthew S. Cox

  Silver Light

  Deep Silver

  Silver Quarrel

  Silver Cauldron

  Silver Fox (coming soon)

  MADDY WIMSEY SERIES

  with Matthew S. Cox

  The Devil’s Eye

  The Drifting Gloom

  Dark Mercy

  The Queen’s Gambit (coming soon)

  DEAD DETECTIVE SERIES

  with Rod Kierkegaard

  The Dead Detective

  Deadbeat Dad

  Deadwood (coming soon)

  MAJOR QUATERMAIN

  The Spear (with Randy Keys)

  The Cross (with Randy Keys, coming soon)

  ICE WOLF

  Ice Wolf (with H.P. Mallory)

  She Wolf (with Crystal-Rain Love, coming soon)

  IMMORTAL OPERATIVE

  (with Matthew S. Cox)

  Broken Ice

  Broken Wing (coming soon)

  THE GABRIEL FILES

  with Aiden James

  The Soul Taker

  The Ghost Maker (coming soon)

  THE PSI QUARTET

  with A.K. Alexander

  Hear No Evil

  See No Evil

  Speak No Evil

  Touch No Evil

  THE SPINOZA TRILOGY

  The Vampire With the Dragon Tattoo

  The Vampire Who Played Dead

  The Vampire in the Iron Mask

  FOUR ELEMENTS TRILOGY

  with Matthew S. Cox

  The Elementalist

  The Black Rose

  The Wakefield Curse

  THE ALADDIN TRILOGY

  with Piers Anthony

  Aladdin Relighted

  Aladdin Sins Bad

  Aladdin and the Flying Dutchman

  THE WALKING PLAGUE TRILOGY

  with Elizabeth Basque

  Zombie Patrol

  Zombie Rage

  Zombie Mountain

  THE SPIDER TRILOGY

  Bad Blood (with Scott Nicholson, H.T. Night)

  Spider Web (with Scott Nicholson)

  Spider Bite (with Scott Nicholson)

  TEAM QUANTUM TRILOGY

  The Accidental Superheroine (with Kris Carey)

  My Big Fat Accidental Superheroine Wedding (with Kris Carey)

  Accidental No More (with Matthew S. Cox)

  SHORT STORIES

  The Bleeder: A Short Story

  The Santa Call and Other Stories

  Vampire Rain and Other Stories

  Teeth and Other Stories

  Vampire Nights and Other Stories

  Vampire Blues and Other Stories

  Vampire Dreams and Other Stories

  Halloween Moon and Other Stories

  Vampire Gold and Other Stories

  Blue Moon and Other Stories

  Dark Side of the Moon: A Samantha Moon Story

  Vampire Requiem: A Samantha Moon Story

  Moon Love: A Samantha Moon Story

  The Vampire on the Train: A Spinoza Story
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  Easy Rider: A Jim Knighthorse Story

  Skeleton Jim: A Short Story

  Vampire Road and Other Stories

  Moon Musings and Other Stories

  Moon Beast: A Samantha Moon Story

  Vampire Widow and Other Stories

  Moon Maze: A Samantha Moon Story (coming soon)

  Silver Hammer: A Samantha Moon Story (coming soon)

  SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  Silver Rain: Stories (coming soon)

  Dark Rain: Stories

  Blood Rain: Stories

  Black Rain: Stories

  Red Rain: Forty-One Stories

  Moonlight & Monsters: Ten Vampires Tales

  For Young Readers

  STANDALONE NOVELS

  The Emerald River

  Forever Silent

  The Angel and the Gift

  Spirit Mountain (with Alexandra Swan)

  YOUR CHOICE BOOKS

  Deep Sea Danger

  The Legend of Eagle Eye Mountain

  Playoff Pressure

  THE ROBOT TWINS

  The Mystery of the Walking Statue

  The Secret of Stonehead Island (with Randy Keys)

  The Mystery of the Lightning Cave (with Randy Keys, coming soon)

  KIDQUEST ADVENTURES

  The Secret of the Sphinx

  Treasure of Oak Island (with Randy Keys, coming soon)

  THE DISTANT WORLD TRILOGY

  Dare to Enter a Distant World

  Dare to Rule a Distant World (with Alexandra Swan, coming soon)

  Dare to Escape a Distant World (with Alexandra Swan, coming soon)

  TEAM LEGEND

  The Enchantress (with Randy Keys)

  The Giants (with Randy Keys, coming soon)

  Vampire Empress

  Published by Rain Press

  Copyright © 2020 by J.R. Rain

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes:

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Reading Sample: Cursed

  Reading Sample: Judas Silver

  About J.R. Rain

  About Matthew S. Cox

  Vampire Empress

  Chapter One

  Unfair

  Resigned to the whim of fate, I walk to the edge of the charred patch of ground and stare out at the jungle.

  I’m almost upset at the animals out there for being unaware of what happened here. Perhaps a little jealousy on my part. They say ignorance is bliss, but animals are happy right up until something kills them. I wonder if pigs love the farmer the way dogs feel about their owners. Do they understand they’re going to be betrayed at some point? What’s the last thing to go through a pig’s mind before it’s slaughtered, other than a bullet?

  Why am I even thinking this, being jealous of jungle birds and monkeys? It’s not their fault I’m about to do something reckless and dangerous. There’s too much on my mind for me to trust myself making any big decisions. Too much emotion and adrenaline—or whatever passes for adrenaline in my body now. Guess since I’m technically alive again and my body does seem to need actual food, maybe adrenaline is more than a metaphor.

  So, yeah. Venezuela.

  Freakin’ Elizabeth.

  She’s seriously pissed me off in two big ways. Well, three, but her plan to take over an entire alternate world isn’t as in my face as what she did to my kids. She threw us all—me, the kids, Allison, Kingsley, the creators she kidnapped, and some light warriors—into what people have been calling an ‘eternity prison,’ essentially a fake dimension floating out in the empty space between permanent dimensions.

  Things are getting confusing here since everyone’s calling different things ‘dimensions.’ There are two meanings to the word. First, the vertical meaning. The entirety of all creation exists as a series of 100 dimensional planes. Being a mere human—or at least having the brainpower of one—it’s impossible for me to see their true arrangement, but suffice to say they’re kind of like a column standing on top of each other like a pile of boxes. Earth, our reality, is on the third dimension. With each dimension one goes ‘up,’ things get exponentially more powerful… and weirder. For example, creatures native to the ninth dimension can mentally alter the realities of dimensions below them. Super advanced crap. Anyway, the 100th dimension is where the Origin resides. As far as I know, the 100th dimension is the Origin.

  So, that’s the up and down concept.

  In addition to talking about one-to-one-hundred, the word ‘dimension’ is also used to describe going sideways within the same vertical level. Think of it like a tall filing cabinet with 100 drawers. Earth, our world, is in the third drawer up from the floor. Inside our drawer, there exists an infinite number of folders. Each of those folders represents an alternate reality containing the entire universe we can see. All solar systems, planets, galaxies, and so forth straight out to the theoretical leading edge of matter expanding from the Big Bang. All of it fits into our third-dimensional folder.

  Beings can survive on any dimension they are native to. For instance, a third dimensional being, like a human, can go sideways as far as they want as long as they stay inside the third drawer. Going up has bad effects, more severe the further from level three one goes. The worst effect is typically complete disintegration. It happens much faster the farther from home one goes vertically.

  Going down has other problems. One doesn’t risk disintegration, but de-volution. A higher dimensional being going down becomes weaker, starts to lose their powers, may lose intelligence, and could end up trapped with no way to go back where they belong.

  However, as long as we stay in our respective drawers, we can go, say, two lateral dimensions over or two million away from where we were born without suffering crazy side effects.

  So this eternity prison sat in the dead space between these ‘folders’ in the third drawer. By means of magic way beyond my understanding, while our physical bodies floated inside tiny prisons, our souls, spirits, ghosts, or consciousness—whatever you want to call it—were shot out across the third dimensional level into other alternate realities. Elizabeth found a way to throw us into worlds quite like ours, which happened to be aligned chronologically with painful or significant moments in the lives of our alternate selves. Time is a constant, but dimensions aren’t necessarily all on the same page.

  For example, in one dimension, it’s still 1983 when I was only nine. The Sam there is nine, too.

  See, with an infinite number of possible realities, it’s almost guaranteed that some worlds will exist where a highly similar set of circumstances produced a highly similar situation. For example, a woman named Samantha Radiance Sundance married a man named Danny Moon—and weird crappola happened to them—in at least 1,432 separate realities. Elizabeth forced our astral selves to visit these other worlds while our bodies remained locked inside crystal prisons. I’m still not completely sure what her goal was. No, I do know. It was meant to distract us... possibly forever.

  Prison indeed.

  And each reality I visited felt an awful lot like some kind of test or video game scenario which I escaped only after taking some
action that ‘solved’ the scenario. Once I got the answer correct, my astral self leapt to another world. Since it doesn’t make any sense for Elizabeth to ‘test’ us, my guess is she either wanted to mess with our heads or keep us overwhelmed with grief, fear, panic, or helplessness. Again, forever.

  Such a bitch.

  Something else I considered. Sitting in an interdimensional prison is undoubtedly a strong risk factor for developing insanity, so she likely had to keep our minds busy. I figure as soon as someone goes insane, they probably can’t be trapped in a dimensional prison... and somehow slip out.

  Regarding me. No, I didn’t break out because I went insane. I broke out to avoid going insane. And to stop Elizabeth. Her prison had been highly effective. Only myself, Anthony, and Max managed to escape on our own. Fortunately, we broke everyone else out on our way to the exit before the whole place collapsed.

  Back to why I’m pissed at her.

  The many, many reasons why I’m pissed at her.

  Tammy’s experience involved meeting a fourteen-year-old version of herself in a reality where both me as well as Anthony had died, and Danny turned into a sleazeball manager of an adult strip club who ran the women like prostitutes while claiming not to realize ‘such things went on there.’ The Tammy from said reality crashed hard, becoming a drug-using wild child totally out of control and… my Tammy happened to land there on the day the poor girl got herself killed during a high-speed police chase.

  If the creator, Quentin, is to be believed—and my fingers are crossed he is—he’s modified that reality so my death there had been faked by me, in an effort to conceal having become a vampire. With any luck, alternate Tammy won’t be dying in a gruesome traffic accident... and will meet me again soon. I sure hope ‘alternate me’ can talk her down.

  But I’m not pissed at Elizabeth for that, though. The events of an alternate reality would have played out the way they played out regardless. No, I’m pissed at her for making Tammy witness herself in such a state. She now believes the only reason she didn’t end up in the same situation is me. And… the scary part is, if I’d listened to Danny soon after becoming a vampire and actually left, pretending to die… it’s frighteningly likely the same thing would have happened here, too.