Read SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy for Free Online

David on a recent visit. David had scoffed at first, thinking probably that his partner had finally lost his mind to the disease. When he'd seen Charles was serious, he rearranged his face and said quietly, "Is this what you believe?"
    "I don't know what I believe," Charles had responded, tossing aside the book from which he'd quoted. Then he calmed himself and stared at David. "But what if it's true?"
    David had hunched his shoulders as if to say, Well, what if it is?
    Charles knew he'd get nowhere with David. David was a brilliant businessman, shrewd and quite competent, a diplomat with the foreign offices, a super salesman of their oil tankers, but he was no scientist. He lacked imagination. He wasn't open to anything he could not put his hands on and know was real. He hadn't an idea about cell regeneration or the damning effects the porphyria was having on Charles' body. He couldn't imagine how desperate a man could become when the world shunned him and he was shut off from view, hiding behind closed doors and drawn drapes. He didn't know that a man needed . . . hope. However small and illogical it might seem to others, Charles was grasping for the hope he might survive his debilitating and fatal disease. Some way. Any way. Even if it meant turning to old myths and beginning to believe they might hold the secret of life for him.
    Because Charles could not personally get out and investigate this idea, he would need someone healthy, trained in the sciences, and motivated to search and seek out the truth in Charles' stead. He needed a man dedicated to the hunt. But where could he be found and how could he be motivated? Money would accomplish both tasks. Money had always been the best weapon of all. There was not a man on the planet he could not manipulate through money. He fervently believed that.
    Charles let the book rest on his lap. He closed his eyes, and in his mind he played his favorite imaginary scene. He was taken and made into a vampire. He thought it might be painful, but he was prepared for that after years of living with pain. After his change, he lived forever, ruling over his growing global empire with all the ruthlessness that had brought him his great fortune. He had the strength for lovers again and left them strewn in his wake, begging for him. He took over corporations, crushing his competitors, running them into the ground. He was impervious to disease and to the grave. He became a god, worshiped and feared by millions. In the end of this fantasy, in a future where technology had changed the face of everyday life and countries were brought under his thumb, he ruled the world.
    When he opened his eyes, he tried to temper his fantastic visions by hitting himself over the head with reality.
    He was sick and dying. He was old. He couldn't even run his own business anymore.
    And he would not live forever. In fact, his doctors did not give him long. A year or two, if that.
    George, his butler, knocked softly on the bedroom door before entering with the serving tray. Charles looked at him, a man in his prime living out his life as a servant, and he hated him. He couldn't stomach peasants. The subservient made him want to retch. The world was full of them! And it was men like him who gave them all jobs and a means to survive. Without the money from billionaires like him supporting the structure of world economies, all the servants and peasants would die away.
    He snatched the tray from George's hands and jerked his head toward the door to dismiss him. He would not say thank you. He would not admit that he was dependent on the other man's generosity.
    He ought to fire the man and find someone older and slower and with less reason to smirk behind his back. Not that he ever caught George smirking, but if he ever did …
    Raising the silver coffee server to pour a cup of coffee, Charles caught a brief, distorted reflection of his own face. He set down the server quickly and glanced away from it. The rounded surface