The Not-So Dead by Isaiyan Morrison - Book Tour

Title: The Not-So Dead

Author: Isaiyan Morrison

Series: The Dead Trilogy (Book 1)

Genre: Adult/Paranormal/Urban Fantasy/Dark Fiction

Publisher: Self Published

Release Date: Formats Available In: eBook & Print

Blurb/Synopsis:

All Faye wants is another chance at being normal: hanging out with friends, playing video games, reading the latest Manga... As a wraith, her craving for a normal existence seems forever out of reach. When she makes the move to the small town of Hueman, Texas with her not-so dead nomadic family, she prays this fresh start will be the one that sticks.

Until... one of her kind is murdered by a mysterious man in a black mask.

With only Carter, an unlucky human witness, by her side, Faye must find a way to prevent the body count from rising and protect her family’s secret identity. As the man in the black mask lurks in the shadows waiting to strike again, her choice becomes a matter of life and death.

In the face of true evil, being normal is overrated.

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This is an excerpt that has not been shared anywhere on the internet.

Carter kept his eye on his cell phone most of the night.

Hours passed before he crawled off his bed to stretch his legs. Faye had to call soon. He was sure of it. He saw it in her eyes before she’d left the coffee place earlier that day. She’d wanted to tell him something, but she couldn’t. Not at that moment, with Tristan and Essie around.

He wondered if he was correct about her. If so, he had to rethink what being a vampire really was. Perhaps she was a different type of vampire, one who walked in the sun. Maybe she had other differences that no vampire researcher knew about.

When she didn’t call, he returned to his bed with Pookie. She circled a few times before nestling into his side and falling asleep.

He petted her. “She’s going to call, Pookie. There’s no way she wouldn’t.”

Pookie pretended not to hear him and continued sleeping.

After another hour, he grabbed his laptop and began to research, coming across one of the many supernatural documentaries available online.

“So how could it have been a vampire if they were walking about in broad daylight for everyone to see? Wouldn’t they have burned up?” One of the investigators, a chubby man with a receding hairline, spoke to his audience. “I’ll tell you why. Because, folks, these creatures out here aren’t any normal creatures. They all come from the same source, and you know what that source is? Dark magic.”

The audience clapped, and the man clapped with them.

“You see, this is what I found out after decades of reading and researching. These creatures have been around for a very, very, long time. You got what we call rugurus, who are nothing more than educated werewolves who don’t need a full moon to change into beasts. And then there’s these creatures, Impas, who feed off our flesh. But I tell you what’s worse. Deamhan. Now, they’re immortal, bloodthirsty, and they’ll kill ya in a second without thinking about it. Sure, there are vampires out there, but they’re nothing compared to these creatures.”

Carter clicked on the thumbnail to another related video.

“These people can manipulate this energy. Don’t ask me how, but I’ve seen it.” A male who looked no older than Carter spoke into the camera. “They were fighting each other in the street, in front of everyone. This one man had fire coming out of his hands. And I saw all these animals coming in, like they were being called in some psychic way or something. I don’t know, man. Something’s going on out there, and our government knows. They know, and they’re doing nothing to stop it.”

The last video he clicked on was that of a man in silhouette being interviewed by a woman. “They call themselves ‘The Brotherhood.’ They know all about what’s going on out there.”

“The Brotherhood?” she questioned.

“It sounds crazy. I know. But I used to work for them. My parents did, and so did their parents.”

“And what changed?”

“They believed the public needed to know the dangers out there. They had to be informed. These Deamhan are dangerous, and when it all comes out, it’ll make the aliens at Area 51 look like pandas.”

Carter’s phone buzzed with a message from Wallace, asking to go out to the club again, but he ignored it. He couldn’t be there if Faye called.

He turned his attention back to the video.

“There was an alleged vampire attack in Monschau, along the German-Belgian border,” the woman said.

“I bet if you look closer, they weren’t vampires.”

“What do you think they were?”

“Deamhan.”

“So you’re saying vampires don’t exist?”

“Oh, they exist,” the man replied. “But they’re nothing like Deamhan. Deamhan are much, much worse. All of them are because the dark magic that created them is pure evil, manifested. It’s old, ancient, and it was released out into this world thousands of years ago.”

“Thousands?”

The man nodded. “I’m talking B.C., way before the Egyptians, the Romans… When that stuff was released, man had just invented writing.”

The woman chuckled. “I’m sorry. This is a little hard for me to believe.”

“You believe in vampires but not Deamhan?” he questioned.

“I know the mythology behind vampires.”

“Then you know Deamhan. They’re basically carbon copies of vampires.”

“What I do know is that the original folklore surrounding them have absolutely nothing about sunlight. In some countries, the lore mentions vampires hunting during the day. This mythos surrounding incineration by sunlight is a common misconception, which was originated by the film Nosferatu in 1922. Even the most famous vampire in history, Dracula, was known to have been seen in direct sunlight.”

“That’s what we humans have told ourselves to feel better about knowing that we’re not in the top spot of the food chain, honey.”

Carter gasped. This was it! He’d been thinking about this the wrong way. Now it was clear why Faye and Tristan hadn’t spontaneously burned in sunlight. They weren’t the vampires from books he’d read and movies he’d watched.

“How could I’ve have been so stupid?” He slapped himself on the forehead. He connected mythical vampires to his parents’ death, and therefore, he believed in their existence. But what if he had been wrong from the beginning? What if that type of vampires didn’t exist, and the ones who did walked in the sun without being scorched alive? What if the murderer was not a vampire but something else? Maybe one of the other creatures mentioned in the videos?

Pookie suddenly jumped to her feet, and with her head perked, she looked at the front door of his apartment.

“What is it?” He petted her before she barked. “Pookie! Shhh!”

She leapt off the bed and rushed to the door, barking incessantly. Carter paused the video and slid off his bed.

“Pookie! Stop it, now!” He went to grab her when his next door neighbor banged on the wall.

“Shut that dog up! It’s midnight!”

“Go back to sleep, moron!” Carter picked her up carried her to the bathroom before tossing her in. She immediately tried to dash back out before he shut the door. It didn’t stop her barking. It only increased, and the neighbor continued to bang on the wall.

“I heard you!” Carter yelled back at him before a single knock on his front door gave him a moment to pause.

He rolled his eyes and approached the door. Looking through the peephole, he didn’t see anyone there. He opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Only one, flickering light dangled overhead, casting long shadows along the walls. The banging from his neighbor stopped.

Confused, he backed into his apartment, shut the door, and locked it as fast as he could. The videos of supernatural creatures, vampires, and dark magic replayed over in his mind, along with the internal bestiary he knew from his own personal research.

With only the dim white and yellow lights from the city just outside his apartment brightening the interior, he saw a darkened area, a shadow, and he spun around. Directly behind him, towering and imposing, he saw a man a few inches taller than him wearing a black mask with slits for eyes and a long slit for a mouth. Crudely scratched on the mask’s forehead was the Roman numeral three.

It was the same man he’d seen chase Faye.

Without warning, the man launched at him. He grabbed Carter by the neck and pinned him to the ground. Pookie’s barking picked up, and as Carter struggled, the man placed his other hand over Carter’s mouth.

His vise tightened and Carter gasped. His vision flickered before he finally blacked out.

A hard slap across his right cheek forced Carter to open his eyes.

His vision blurred, then came together slowly and he saw the man from before standing directly across the room. Carter went to touch his cheek, but a thick rope bound both his arms around his back. He attempted to speak until he felt the duct tape pull at his lips.

He struggled to sit up from the floor, keeping an eye on the man who didn’t say a word. He saw the Roman numeral three clearly and realized there was another straight mark on the mask’s right cheek. It could’ve been just a random scratch, but the marking looked too decisive and deliberate to be anything but intentional. A small red shard dangled from around his neck.

The man sat on Carter’s bed, and he pulled out a small pad and a pencil and began to write. Carter tried to scream through the tape and stopped when the man gave him a hardline stare and showed him the notepad.

Won’t hurt you if you give me what I want.

Confused, Carter titled his head to the side.

The man jabbed his finger at the paper.

Carter shrugged.

The man lifted his index finger to his mouth and signaled Carter into silence. He then stood and reached over to rip the duct tape from Carter’s mouth.

It stung, and Carter stretched his mouth before speaking. “What do you want? How did you get in here?”

The man placed his finger over his mouth again, and Carter halted with his questions.

He jabbed his finger at the paper again.

“I don’t know what you mean. What exactly do you want?

The girl.

“What girl?”

He swallowed hard. “Why were you chasing Faye the other night?”

He wrote some more. Where is she?

“Faye?”

He nodded slightly.

“I don’t know. What do you want with her?”

The man lifted the metal necklace with the shard from around his neck, and he placed it against the side of Carter’s cheek.

It felt cold, and Carter tried to lean away from it. “What are you doing?”

The man pulled back and wrote again. You aren’t one of them.

“One of what? Is she…” His eyes lit up. “A vampire?”

The man shook his head.

“Deamhan? Werewolf?” He thought back to the videos he watched only moments ago.

The man shook his head, almost as if disappointed. He wrote slowly before showing it to Carter again. Revenge.

“Revenge for what?”

Tell me.

“I said I don’t know.”

Stay away from her. Don’t make me have to kill you too.

“Why? What is she? Why won’t you tell me?”

Instead of writing, the man in the mask moved his finger up to press against the “III” between his eyes then pointed at the mark on his cheek.

“Four? Four what?” Carter asked hesitantly.

The man stood, and in a swift motion, he raised his hand as if about to strike. Carter flinched, but the man pulled back and made his way behind Carter.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Carter started to struggle against the rope as the man’s right arm pressed against his throat, and again, he drifted off to unconsciousness.

Carter opened his eyes to Pookie’s cold nose pressed against his cheek.

He sat up quickly in bed and noticed the man was no longer there.

He rubbed his sore wrists and exhaled. A dull pain reverberated in his neck, so he took his time to gather his bearings.

His laptop was where he’d left it, still paused on the video. Pookie licked his face, and he cradled her in his arms. “It’s okay.”

He should’ve been terrified. Instead, he grinned. “I was right.” He laughed. “I was right about everything. It’s real.”

But exactly what was real? If he believed the man, who he nicknamed “Four,” then Faye wasn’t a vampire or any of the other creatures mentioned in the videos he saw. She also wasn’t human, and perhaps Four wasn’t human as well.

When he reached for his phone to see if she’d called, he noticed a torn piece of paper tucked underneath it, with one word written in Four’s scribbled handwriting.

Wraith.

Author Information

A veteran of the Armed Forces, Isaiyan Morrison was born and raised in Minneapolis.

Her passions include writing, reading, and researching historical events. She also spends her time gardening, playing video games, and hanging out with her three cats and beloved Pitt bull.

She's the author of The Deamhan Chronicles, The Deamhan Tales, The Brotherhood Files and the novel, Old Farmer's Road.

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