Title: Immortal Things
Author: Rick R. Reed
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 09/27/2021
Pairing: Male/Female, Male/Male, Female/Female
Length: 84700
Genre: Horror/Thriller, LGBTQIA+, vampires, artists, prostitution, dark, immortal, Chicago
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Description
By day, Elise draws and paints, spilling out the horrific visions of her tortured mind. By night, she walks the streets, selling her body to the highest bidder.
And then they come into her life: a trio of impossibly beautiful vampires: Terence, Maria, and Edward. When they encounter Elise, they set an explosive triangle in motion
Terence wants to drain her blood. Maria wants Elise . . . as lover and partner through eternity. And Edward, the most recently converted, wants to prevent her from making the same mistake he made as a young abstract expressionist artist in 1950s Greenwich Village: sacrificing his artistic vision for immortal life. He is the only one of them still human enough to realize what an unholy trade this is.
Immortal Things will grip you in a vise of suspense that won’t let go until the very last moment…when a shocking turn of events changes everything and demonstrates—truly—what love and sacrifice are all about.
Excerpt
Immortal Things
Rick R. Reed © 2021
All Rights Reserved
Elise paces Howard Street. Her face, lit by streetlights from the parking lot across the way, reveals apprehension and longing in yellow. She toys with an earring, examines the bottom of her shoe. Behind her a 7-11 and an adult bookstore compete for not-so-conspicuous consumption. The 7-11 offers Big Gulps. So does the adult bookstore, Elise thinks.
Her heart pounds faster. There is more sweat at her hairline, dribbling down her back like the crawly legs of insects, than even the humid night could provoke. Even though she has been doing this “work” for at least two years, she never gets over the fear. Never gets over the shame. Never gets past wondering if she will end up another crime statistic, another hard-to-identify young woman discovered in morning mist in an alley, or stuffed into a dumpster. She did a drawing once of a woman in spike heels, lying in an alley with a plastic bag over her head, its bottom knotted tightly around her throat. She called it “Pessimistic Self Portrait.” Thoughts like these cause her to shiver, in spite of the heat. Thoughts like these make her long for the solace of her tiny apartment, despite the mice whispering through the walls, and the cockroaches scattering when she turns on a light in the middle of the night.
Right now, it feels like one of those mice gnaws at the inside of her stomach. She breathes deeply, trying to focus her attention on the traffic cruising by. Which will slow to look? Which will cause her to move forward from her post in front of the store, a smile brave and totally false, plastered across her features? These initial movements―before any words are exchanged―are where the deal is truly struck. The eloquent meeting of the eyes between the wanted and the wanter is where decisions are made. Elise’s slow walk to the idling car, the negotiations: nothing more than busy work, after-the-fact necessities. In spite of her anxiety, the motions of this work have become stale and as routine as the filing and photocopying her more conventional sisters do downtown in some Loop office.
Elise smoothes her skirt, stiffening as a gang of Hispanic boys charge up the street. They call to each other in Spanish, tossing a basketball back and forth. There are at least eight of them, their youth raucous and threatening. They haven’t seen her yet, but soon will, and Elise knows what’s coming from past experience: the whistles and catcalls, the unintelligible sexual come-ons in Spanish they will all laugh at.
And she is a woman alone. No matter that she is plying a trade almost as old as mankind itself. Never mind that she is a criminal in this commerce.
These boys could take what she seeks to sell.
Take and destroy.
Elise prays they will surmise she has a pimp, leave her alone. Running in these heels is a fantasy, and a gangbang is not what she has in mind for tonight.
The boys press closer, and Elise strains to understand the quick, staccato rhythm of the Spanish. But only the most basic words filter to Elise, not enough to make sense. Their laughter is evil, predatory.
The boys surge close, their heat and aggression a warning scent.
Elise moves on.
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Real Men. True Love.
Rick R. Reed is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction. He is a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Entertainment Weekly has described his work as “heartrending and sensitive.” Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…” Find him at www.rickrreedreality.blogspot.com. Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA, with his husband, Bruce, and their fierce Chihuahua/Shiba Inu mix, Kodi.
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