Katrdeshtr’s Redemption, the first in the series, The Night Cat, was a vampire tale I wrote over ten years ago in the traditional way: typewriter, manuscript, etc. which I inadvertently lost between intercontinental moves. Recently rediscovered, I converted it to the modern age and electronic file, and now it’s available on Smashwords. I didn’t feel like going through the rigamarole of submitting and waiting, so I thought I’d “do it myself”. We’ll see how that goes.
I bill it as: “The vampire tale before vampires were cool.”
Anyway here’s a sneak peek:
Description: “Ancient, brutal beauty, Katrdeshtr the Night Cat, Russian vampire and incorrigible mischief maker turns to old pleasures to relieve his eternal boredom, yet when his sometimes partner finds a new love, satisfaction takes on new meaning. This change of events can only end in someone’s eternal death and Kat doesn’t intend for it to be him!”
Short blurb: “Even an Immortal must sometimes face justice and Katrdeshtr the Night Cat, Russian vampire and incorrigible mischief maker, soon discovers why after his infamous temper lands him in trouble yet again.”
Excerpt:
Chapter 1
“The air of the late summer night was close and humid, warm as the breath of a living thing, alive with nocturnal denizens both creeping and flying. Stretched out on an ancient rock emanating a chill from deep within its heart, Katrdeshtr the Night Cat leisurely watched a young man swimming in a dark pool below.
Nadil Chernyshev thought himself alone. He believed himself safe. Having laid his old fashioned heavily wrought bike to the side, the youth had unself-consciously stripped then moved into the crescent-backed indigo waters with a voiceless sigh. From a perch on the overhanging outcrop Kat could smell the delicious richness of his blood.
For weeks Kat had followed the loner youth with the utmost of care. Across a thousand miles or herringed by a million humans he’d still know this scent. The power of the turbulent emotions always kept so carefully hidden was an exquisite enticement, a powerful lure unknowingly broadcast, sensed by predators such as himself. Having kept the others away, Kat now had every intention of fully satisfying himself with this pinnacle of culinary consummation.
Nearly shivering with suppressed desire, Kat’s teeth automatically began to lengthen. Ruthlessly crushing them back, he forced his craving into submission. This kill would be savoured, not rushed upon in the beastly frenzy which was his preferred style. The terror in his victims always heightened his enjoyment, but the use to which he intended to subject this most superb prey would transcend mere feeding.
Flexing his virtually indestructible body like the sleek inscrutable animal that was his namesake, Katrdeshtr found a more comfortable position on the stone. Comfortable being a relative term for with his power he could reshape the stone or, if so desired, shatter it by merely concentrating.
His body was immune to physical discomforts now save the hottest fire or, of course, the relentless doom of all vampires, the Sun, orb unseen by his fathomless eyes in over two thousand years. At that thought, for a fleeting second, his heart gave a flutter of loss. Surprised and pleased by this unexpected lingering symptom of his long forgotten humanity, Kat happily revelled in the self-indulgent emotion. Though sometimes he missed the wondrous experience of sunrise or pale blue afternoons, nights like these: full-mooned and thickly starred, intoxicated him far more than what he remembered of the sun’s rays.
Keeping always a thread of consciousness to his quarry, Katrdeshtr let himself feel the wave-like movement of the balmy midnight breezes over his skin. It seemed to stroke and tease his hair, pulling glasslike strands across his alabaster skin. Lost in the rhythm of the circling cloud of stars above, a night bird called mournfully in commiseration as with casual cruelty Katrdeshtr exhaled killing breath upon an insect that flew by too closely.
But with an abruptness that caused him to frown despite himself, Katrdeshtr felt a shift of mood in the man below him: from mindless empty pleasure to the customary near fatalism. It was the mood that had drawn him to Nadil in the first place. Finding out what caused the depressive disposition isolating the man from the rest of the world was beyond his depth. Actually Nadil’s personality and reason for living or dying was irrelevant to Katrdeshtr, yet exploiting those things for his own wicked delight was. Rolling back over with a smile, Katrdeshtr resumed watching.
With the rising wind, Nadil’s movements turned to uncertain jerkiness as moody grey clouds rimmed with a purplish glow crept into view sounding thunder in their bellies. The squall line soon engulfed the serene sphere of the moon, swallowing stars in its wake, darkening the landscape into surreal angles and sinister shadows. Nadil shivered in the water, wrapping sleek arms around himself yet refusing to come out, undecided and unwilling.
It was time, concluded Katrdeshtr. A feral grin spread across his inhumanly beautiful face: dark slashed eyebrows above long-lashed eyes whose strangely gold centres hinted at the manic fires within. The nose was a trifle too long, the mouth too wide. The exquisitely curved lips could have graced the artistic perfection of Franco Cervietti’s best work, yet no marble, except in nightmare, could part lips to reveal such deceptively delicate fangs as his, nor could one ever be base to such flowing cinnabar hair. Rising silently from the flat-topped outcropping, he slowly descended on his prey, dark lapelled shirt, trousers and boots drinking in what little light remained….”
Rated mature for sexual themes, descriptions and some violence. Approximately 9,700 words. Available at Smashwords.
Red Haircrow 
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