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.
Book Links
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
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.
Author Links
Other Works by Isaiyan Morrison
Links Below Go To Amazon
These books are the main books in the Deamhan Universe.
Deamhan (#1)
Dark Curse (#2)
Deception (#3)
Divination (#4)
Links Below Go To Amazon
These novellas are side stories involving different characters in the main Deamhan Universe.
Kei. Family Matters ~ Deamhan Tales (#1)/ Deamhan Chronicles (#1.5)
Ayden. Deamhan Minion ~ Deamhan Tales (#2)/ Deamhan Chronicles (#2.5)
Ayden. Deamhan Minion ~ Deamhan Tales (#2)/ Deamhan Chronicles (#2.5)
Hallie. A Tit for A Tat ~ Deamhan Tales (#3)/ Deamhan Chronicles (#3.5)
(Newsletter Subscription ONLY Title)
Veronica ~Deamhan Tales (#4)/ Deamhan Chronicles (#4.5)
Links Below Go To Amazon
These books explore the histories of certain characters in the Deamhan Universe.
(Can Be Ready At Any Point in the Series)
Maris (#1)
Remy (#2)
The Dead Trilogy
The Not-So Dead (#1)
Standalone Titles
Links Below Go To Amazon
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