Chapter 1 from my debut novel, Markus.

Chapter 1

Phillip drove down the long lane to the Taylor County Nursing Home. As he parked and shut off his car, he gazed at a structure towering like a medieval castle above the trees. The building leaned toward him as if warning him to stay away.

Markus Blue was inside. The man he was here to meet.

His palms sweat as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. I’ve got nothing to be afraid of. Damn right, he didn’t. It was his job to be here. He muttered to himself, “Yep, let’s do this,” then stepped out and sauntered across the driveway. Gravel crunched under his shoes like brittle bones, and he wondered, not for the first time, what Markus Blue actually looked like. Old, he knew that. Going off the stories he’d heard, the man would be ten- foot-tall, and maybe wearing a cape with a big “S” on it.

He reached the sidewalk and continued his stride. His steps clicked on weathered concrete, and an earthy smell festered the air, like what freshly churned dirt might smell like. As he neared, he noticed a group of children seated on a massive porch that jutted from the side of the building. The youngsters focused on an elderly man with Sesame Street puppets perched on his hands, imitating Burt and Ernie. Behind them, a young woman sat in a chair, her eyes darting from child to child, watching them closely.

“Do you know what to do if a stranger comes up to you Burt?” The old man gestured with the Ernie puppet, forcing his voice a little higher, but unable to remove the scratchiness of aged vocal chords.

The old man glanced up at him, his gaze cold and piercing, with crystalline blue eyes that bestowed something dark, something powerful.

Markus.

Phillip’s pace slowed, and he kept his expression stoic. He swallowed dryly. This was supposed to be one of the most feared men in the world. A Sesame Street puppet show blew that image like finding Conan the Barbarian baking a fruit cake.

“Yes, Ernie... I know.” The old man shifted his gaze back to the children and raised the Burt puppet on the other hand. The children smiled. A little boy temporarily looked away and picked his nose. The young woman seated behind him reached down and tapped the boy’s hand in a quit-that gesture.

Phillip climbed the steps to the porch, making no effort to quiet his shoes clonking on the hollow wood. At the top, he stopped, then moved to a wooden rocking chair and plopped down, resting his hands on the chair arms. The sun cast its radiance beneath the cover of the enormous overhang and Phillip noticed a bright, orange patch of light on his feet. In a few more hours, long after he was finished talking with Markus and back on the road to Indianapolis to catch his plane home to Houston, the sun would be low enough to shine in his face while sitting in this chair.

He tapped his thumb lightly as he waited. He didn’t want to be here, and he thought to himself as he sat I’ve got better things to do. But the truth was, he didn’t. This was all he had to do. This was his job. Perhaps it was admitting he was afraid that he hated.

Within a few minutes, the puppet show ended, and the kiddos milled about; the young woman fought gallantly to organize the impatient bunch into something resembling a line.

“Quit pushing!” One boy whined.

A little girl wandered off toward a flower pot full of tulips, her eyes blazing with wonder. The young woman, slender with dark hair pulled back from her pretty face in a loose ponytail, somehow got all of them in a single file and marched them down the steps. She led the kids around the corner of the building and out of sight. Phillip hoped for one more glimpse of her.

“From the first-grade class at the elementary school, out by Grant.” The old man’s voice drifted from behind him.

Phillip swallowed hard, his pulse quickening, but kept his gaze in the direction that the children had gone, hearing their voices fade as they got farther away. He didn’t want Markus to know he was afraid, though he wasn’t so sure he was pulling it off.

“Christopher didn’t mention that you gave puppet shows,” he said and could sense Markus’s mouth curl into a smile. He shifted his gaze to the old man and confirmed that he was right.

“Yes... I’m giving puppet shows. They asked me to come down to the school, but I don’t like leaving the home here,” Markus remained seated in the porch-swing.

“Why?” Phillip stood, stretched, and walked to the edge of the patio.

Markus placed his puppets of Burt and Ernie into a small, leather bag. “As I’m sure you know, I was born here in Taylor County.” Phillip didn’t know but kept silent. “Daisy Howard, the caretaker here, asked if I’d like to do a little puppet show. I told her sure, as long as they come here. And so they did.”

Phillip shrugged, not sure if Markus answered his question, then turned to gaze across the open pastures that led to the horizon. No way would he stay in this creepy old place in the middle of nowhere. The chipped paint, topped with a roof that needed new shingles, only added to the feeling of isolation. He never understood why anyone would want to live in a place like this, not when you had the city where everything was close and convenient. But there were plenty of things to worry about; plenty of bad things in the world and neither the middle of nowhere nor the city was safe from them, which was why he was sent here to talk to Markus.

“So why are you here?” Markus asked.

“You don’t know?” Phillip didn’t face the old man. He didn’t want to face him, not yet.

“I’m not a psychic,” Markus said, standing up, Phillip guessed, by the sound of a quick strain in the old man’s voice. “I have my weaknesses.”

Phillip thought about that, then said, “Don’t we all.”

“You didn’t want to come here, did you?” Markus asked. “This must mean something is amiss and you need my help to resolve it. Thus Christopher sent you.”

“Thought you said you sucked at psychic stuff.”

“Yes, but I’m brilliant at common sense.”

Phillip faced the old man, determined and ready, deciding that he need not be intimidated. But those eyes gleamed, like a painting that stared at you from all angles. Phillip glanced away. “You’re right; I didn’t want to come out here. I heard how you handled the Vatican case with the wolves four-years ago. I thought it was... excessive.”

Markus, who had been leaning on a cane that resembled a rotting piece of driftwood, eased himself back into the porch swing, apparently deciding this subject would take a few moments to discuss and he wanted to be comfortable doing it. “Perhaps it was,” he said, “and it will undoubtedly do me no good to try and convince you otherwise, but I can assure you... you having not been there... it was much more complex than blind rage and destruction.”

Asshole... so what if I wasn’t there? He’d still heard what happened. He heard about it from Alexis Jade who was there. “Alexis said you didn’t need to kill as many people as you did. She said you acted prematurely.”

“Alexis is very good... and very young. I’ve heard from Christopher what she’s said about me. I saved her life, you know. If she’d contacted me earlier, perhaps much of the bloodshed could have been avoided, but her pride resulted in her procrastination. I can assure you, young man, she would’ve been killed.”

Phillip winced because though he’d never admit it here, Alexis’s pride cast shadows on many things. He’d been in love with her since the moment he’d met her. He’d heard the story of Markus’s methods from her. She’d failed to mention anything about Markus saving her life. Those were the kinds of details she always left out.

“Didn’t know that did you?” Markus stretched a humorless smile across his wrinkled face.

“She didn’t mention it.” And he wished he didn’t love her so much, because why love someone who wasn’t completely honest? Goddamn it.

“She wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that’s her prerogative. Anyway, this isn’t about Alexis.” Phillip fought a brief urge to have Markus explain further. He wanted to know more about this, but it would have to wait.

“Very well.” Markus clasped his weathered hands together and studied them as if he wondered where they’d come from.

Phillip stepped closer. “Have you heard of Nathaniel Smith?”

Markus’s eyebrows shot up. “I met him years ago,” he said. Phillip thought he detected fear in Markus’s eyes, just a brief flash. Gone like a flicker of light that might never have been there to start with.

“Well, he’s here now, in the United States, and the Society needs you to capture him.”

Markus stared straight ahead, past Phillip and into the distant corn fields. “You need me to capture him? Why not Alexis or Jobe? They are very competent.”

“I was told to get you.”

“I’m an old man. I told Christopher to leave me be. I want to live out my final days here in Taylor County. Now you’re asking me to go after yet another one of your bad guys. Then you chastise my ways? Not off to a good start there, pup.”

“I said I was told to get you. I probably would’ve asked Alexis if it was up to me.”

Markus chuckled. “Lucky for her, it isn’t up to you.”

“Look, I’m flying back to Houston tonight. I need to tell Christopher that you’ll be there in the next few days. Or I can tell him that you said no and that you chose to stay here and do puppet shows for the local brats. Doesn’t really matter to me.”

Markus said, almost in a whisper, “I see.”

“Well, what—” Phillip’s words stopped dead in the air.

An unseen force slammed him back against the dry wood of a door frame, his chest burned from the crushing weight of an invisible hand. He struggled to breathe, to scream, but the pressure only increased. His hands began to shake, and his knees knocked. The loafer on his right foot fell off onto the wood floor with a hollow thump. Jesus Christ, his feet were off the ground!

“I think,” Markus lifted himself with a grimace from the porch-swing, “that what we need to establish here are a few ground rules. You will not insult me in my house, Phillip.” He leaned on his cane and hobbled closer. Phillip watched him, his vision beginning to blur.

The old man stopped in front of him and cast his cold gaze. Phillip trembled as the icy stare sank deep into his bones. His feelings of contempt melted to horror as he stared into the vacant eyes of Markus Blue.

.....

For Markus, it was always the same with these young little shits. They thought they knew everything and that the world revolved around them. Hell, maybe it did, and he was just too old to see it. Only an old bastard would think something like that.

The young man’s mouth hung open, giving the impression that he’d just started to yell Oh shit and got stuck. Phillip’s hair was combed neatly back and blessed with a youthful thickness that prevented the sight of scalp through the grooves made by the comb. Was my hair ever that thick?

He turned away. The sound of the man crashing to the porch floor sparked silent amusement. You’re a schmuck Markus Blue, he thought as Phillip gasped desperately for air. Poignantly, lessons must sometimes be taught for progress to be made.

“Now... shall we start again?” Markus faced Phillip who was just starting to pull his feet hesitantly beneath him.

Phillip got himself into a crouch and stopped there, maybe for fear of toppling over if he stood up too fast. Markus didn’t think he’d actually hurt the young pup, not too bad anyway. But he was getting old; maybe he was losing his touch at gauging restraint.

Still gasping, but more under control, Phillip stood up. His lower lip trembled, and his skin paled. Markus understood the hesitancy and repeated, “Shall we start again?”

Phillip nodded and rubbed his chest.

Markus said, “You mentioned you needed my help to capture Nathaniel Smith, that he was here in the United States. I think I may have gotten us side-tracked.” Markus leaned back against a large, white pillar. “Please continue.”

Phillip touched a shaking hand to his forehead where beads of sweat gleamed like teardrops. His breathing hitched and he kept his gaze down at the porch floor. Finally, he cleared his throat and spoke; his voice scratchy like someone who’d just woken up. “We think Nathaniel has created a vampire Legion. No one knows how large or how powerful.” He coughed. “Christopher sent someone to New York to investigate a lair that was thought to be in Manhattan. No one in The Society has heard from him in two weeks.”

“Why is Christopher convinced that this is Nathaniel?” It was good hearing Christopher’s name again, good knowing that his old compatriot - and leader of The Society - was still alive and kicking.

“He didn’t say.”

“Hmmm.” Markus glanced down at Phillip’s feet - noticed the right foot was without a shoe - and then back up to his face. “Surely Nathaniel would know that if he created a Legion, the Society would come after him.”

“Christopher thought that too. The Vatican investigated Nathaniel’s community just south of Hamburg and confirmed that he’d left there several months ago. A report from London suggested evidence of a Legion, somewhere in the southern part of that city. But there was nothing there except for a dozen or so corpses left in an apartment.”

“Were the bodies decapitated?” Markus rubbed his chin. He was an old player in an even older game; most things didn’t amount to shit. But experience taught that the little things made the difference between a false alarm and a dance with the Devil. Markus knew the little things.

“Yes.”

“All of them? Please be sure.”

“Yes, all of them.”

Markus nodded. This was a pretty big little thing. Certainly, an apartment full of headless bodies wasn’t something little, but when establishing the existence of a Legion, that was a red flag not to be ignored. Phillip continued. “The Vatican didn’t find anything. They kept watch in London for several weeks. Nothing happened for a while until a similar case popped up in New York. It was a lot smaller, only about four headless bodies. The Vatican called Christopher to investigate. He sent Jonathan, and he hasn’t heard from him since.”

“Nathaniel seemed very arrogant when I met him years ago. He certainly had no fear of me,” Markus added.

“Christopher is worried about Jonathan. Plus, if it’s Nathaniel...”

“Then you have a rogue vampire on your hands.” Markus shot Phillip an accusing stare.

Phillip nodded.

“And, you may have lost a Wizard.”

Phillip nodded again.

“And now you want me to hunt down Nathaniel and capture him?” Markus asked and chuckled. “God help us.” He laughed and instantly felt the all too familiar wheeze deep in chest, like blood puddled in the bottom of his lungs. He cut off the laugh to avoid a nasty coughing fit.

“Christopher said to get you.” Phillip cast his gaze down at his feet like a puppy after it just shit on the carpet.

“If I were to guess, Christopher is aware of much more than he has told you. In fact, I’d bet he wants me to kill Nathaniel and his Legion. That would be my guess.”

Phillip glanced up and said, “I don’t know.”

Markus thought about it. He wanted no part of this. He liked the quiet life he’d built here – Friday night card games, Law & Order in the commons, and breakfast cooked by the sweet Daisy Howard. He was just another old guy, and no one here knew his past, and there was peace in that. This is how he wanted the rest of his life to be, no matter how much, or how little of it was left. Last December he told Christopher he had to stop, that he was too old to continue and wanted to live out his final months quietly. Months? Christopher had asked. And when Markus didn’t elaborate, Christopher’s lips pressed to a thin line, and he’d simply said, go in peace, old friend.

Now Christopher was calling on him yet again, ostensibly because he had the most experience and was the most powerful. What a fix you’re in Christopher if a dying old man is the best you’ve got. Goddamn Christopher for doing this to him, for putting him in this spot. A vampire was no match for a competent Wizard, but a Legion of vampires could be a different story entirely. There was a good chance that none of the young tykes in the Society had ever dealt with one.

And this was Nathaniel Smith they were talking about; not just any vampire and God only knew what his real name was.

Markus closed his eyes and listened. The birds sang, the breeze softly lapped his gray hair. The faint aroma of sweet corn drifted on the air and Markus thought, only in Indiana does the air smell like that.

Damn it, Christopher.

Markus sighed and said, “You can tell Christopher that I’ll be at his ranch by week’s end.”

Phillip nodded.

“You have a good trip back, Phillip, and I do hope we get off to a better start next time.”

“Yeah.” Phillip picked up his loafer. He slipped it on and trudged down the steps. He looked so defeated that Markus almost felt bad for him.

At the bottom, Phillip stopped, then said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Markus said.

“How did you know my name?”

Markus hobbled back to the porch swing. A perceptive young pup, this one was. “Lucky guess I reckon. Like I said, I’m not good at psychic stuff.” Phillip stared at him, either satisfied with the answer or perhaps deciding it wasn’t worth the energy to pursue it (Markus guessed the latter) and ambled back to his car.

Well, this day turned to shit in a hurry. Better enjoy the solitude here before he left. He could not shake the despairing feeling, creeping up from the shadows of an abysmal pit in his aging mind, that this may be his last stay at the Taylor County Nursing Home.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. You can purchase your copy of Markus here: https://www.amazon.com/Markus-David-Odle/dp/1684333083

Please subscribe to my email list

Sign up with your name and email address to receive a free gift from me!

First Name



Last Name









Email Address








Subscribe here!

I will respect your privacy and will not share your information with anyone!

Thank you for much for subscribing! I promise not to inundate with you emails!