Clan Novel Gangrel: Book 3 of The Clan Novel Saga by Gherbod Fleming

Author:Gherbod Fleming [Fleming, Gherbod]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: vampire the masquerade, horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2019-03-04T07:00:00+00:00

part three:

ash

Friday, 23 July 1999, 9:09 PM

Upstate New York

As the tide of consciousness began to tug gently but unmistakably at Ramona, she found herself sorely tempted to ignore it, to burrow more deeply into the subterranean calm she had discovered. No single reason for her reticence asserted itself; the feeling was broad and many-layered like a patchwork quilt. She saw herself nestled among the sheets and blankets on her bed, not wanting to crawl out and pack herself off to school, where nearly anything could happen. That hesitation, however, was rooted not in contentment with the present so much as dread of the future.

Slowly she grew more aware of her surroundings. She was not the young girl she had been. School was not the problem. There were no sheets, no blankets. The peace that enveloped her was that of the earth itself—soil, stone, roots, crawly creatures. She was with them; she was of them.

Is this what it’s like at the very end? Ramona wondered. Could death—real death—be more peaceful?

She stretched out her awakening consciousness to that which surrounded her. She entwined herself among the massive sprawl of roots that anchored and nourished a great oak. She traced the roundabout twists of a groundhog’s tunnels.

Maybe I’ll just stay.

It would be so easy, an end to the pain.

But even as the contentment took hold, something else stirred within her—hunger. It had a firm grip on her heart, a stranglehold on her soul. For it was not her body that hungered, but the ravenous Beast within her that howled for release. Thoughts of rest, of peace, served only to heighten the fury of its ravings.

You gave in to the Beast.

Already, it had driven her for two years, just as it drove her from rest now. She had felt the hunger, many times, but she had never realized the force behind it. She had never before known how close to the surface the Beast lay.

Ramona, as well, rose closer to the surface—the surface of the life-sustaining earth. Darkness and contentment receded into distant memory. The sensation of air upon her face entered her consciousness only slowly. She stretched her fingers, her toes, forcing motion into muscle and sinew that should long ago have rotted to dust.

Ashes to ashes.

Night sounds filtered through her waning lethargy. Crickets and tree frogs reminded her that she was far from the familiar asphalt jungle in which the mortals encased themselves. The sounds reminded her, warned her.

“If you’re good and ready…?”

The voice, so near, shocked Ramona fully to her senses. In less than a second, she was on her feet, crouched, ready to receive attack.

Not thirty feet away squatted Tanner, arms folded, a scowl visible on that of his face not hidden by his hair or sunglasses.

His presence brought back the most recent memories to Ramona. They swept over her like a wall of flame driven by a cruel wind. Jen was gone. The same might be true of Darnell. And Zhavon…

Zhavon!

Her name was a desperate wail. It bore witness to the Beast within Ramona.

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