Club Eternity: The Ninth Jonathan Shade Novel Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  One-Way Ticket to Midnight

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  About the Author

  CLUB ETERNITY

  The Ninth Jonathan Shade Novel

  by Gary Jonas

  Sorry for the interruption. The novel begins on the next page.

  To keep up with new releases, sign up for the Gary Jonas Preferred Readers List and get a FREE ebook copy of Gary’s first novel, One-Way Ticket to Midnight.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Looking back, everything started to go to hell when the vampire knocked on my door. Up until then, things were cruising along in fine form. I was hanging out with friends at a private condominium on the beach in Cozumel. Kelly and Esther were off in San Miguel shopping, while I spent some quality time with Brenda.

  We were kicking back on the veranda sipping margaritas and watching the waves roll in on the white sand. It was just getting dark, and I was thinking about taking Brenda's hand and leading her to the bedroom for a different kind of quality time, but the knock on the door put the kibosh on that plan.

  I opened the door and a man with long, brown hair and a tight shirt unbuttoned to reveal his powerful chest grinned at me. He looked like the kind of guy you'd see without a shirt on the cover of a romance novel. “Jonathan Shade, I presume?” he asked.

  “Sorry, pal, you've got the wrong address,” I said.

  He laughed. “Stacy assured me this was where I'd find you. Please step aside and allow me to enter.”

  “I don't know anyone named Stacy.”

  “You've met her. She's the vampire receptionist at the Manhattan branch of Dragon Gate Industries.”

  “I don't believe in vampires,” I said and started to close the door.

  He put his palm out to block it. “But we believe in you.”

  “Whatever, pal. Go bother someone else, you're not welcome here.”

  He pushed the door open, shoved me backward and stepped into the condo.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I thought vampires had to be invited inside.”

  “You've confused politeness with ability. My name is Victor Pavlenco, and we need to have a little chat.”

  “Is everything all right?” Brenda asked as she came into the condo. Her arms and hands were bare, though she had a pair of white gloves tucked into the waist band of her khaki shorts.

  “Ms. Slaughter, I'd offer to shake hands, but I don't fancy being transformed into a block of granite.”

  “You'd look better as a statue,” I said.

  “Clearly you were warned about me,” Brenda said. “Who are you?”

  I didn't give him a chance to respond. “Says his name is Victor and that he's a vampire, to which I call bullshit.”

  He opened his mouth and his incisors extended into fangs. He kept them out for a moment then retracted them.

  “Cool trick,” I said. “I'll bet you're a hit at parties.”

  “Stacy gave me the address here,” he said.

  “Stacy Fitzpatrick?” Brenda asked.

  He nodded.

  “That makes more sense then,” she said.

  “To you, maybe,” I said.

  “You met Stacy,” Brenda said. “Cute redhead receptionist.”

  “Oh, the one who didn't cast a reflection in the…” I realized how stupid I'd been before, “mirror.” I shook my head. “Shit. Vampires are real. Who knew?”

  “We don't advertise,” Victor said. He looked around at the leather sofa and chairs arranged to provide an amazing view of the Caribbean through the sliding glass doors.

  I nodded toward the ocean, which appeared darker as night settled in. “It's even nicer in the daytime. Beautiful blue water you have to see to believe.”

  He glared at me.

  I grinned. “Yeah, I guess that's not on your agenda anytime soon.”

  “Are you quite finished?” he asked.

  “You're intruding on my private time. You want to talk to me, set an appointment.”

  “Stacy wasn't able to get a phone number for you.”

  “I use burners these days,” I said.

  “Of course you do. She found out about the lovely Ms. Slaughter joining you here, so I knew I needed to pay you a visit.”

  “Fine. You've visited, now get the hell out. I have things to do. Well, someone to do.”

  He gave me a tense smile, and his neck muscles bunched. To his credit, he maintained his composure. “You, sir, are an imbecile, and we're going to have that little chat right now because you've managed to upset a lot of powerful people.”

  “And why should I care?”

  “Because the Event you were involved in a few months ago cost us some good people, and if you get too much attention, you're going to get us all killed. As you might imagine, that does not sit well with us.”

  “The Event?” I asked, though I knew what he meant.

  “Normal people would never know about the changes in history because their lives are short so they were wiped out and none the wiser. Those of us who've been around for centuries have the rather unpleasant sensation of having the world change around us, and we know it changed. You, Mr. Shade, were at the center of the last major shift.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” I lied.

  “There were witnesses. You disappeared from time back in 1929 and reappeared in 2015.”

  “That would be quite a trick,” I said.

  “We don't care how you did it, Mr. Shade, but we do care that you keep doing monumentally reckless things to get on the radar of the Men of Anubis.”

  “The Men of a what?”

  “Don't play stupid with me.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. I know who they are.”

  “What matters is that they know who you are, and they're willing to go as far back as they need to in order to erase you. So stop drawing attention.”

  “I haven't done anything,” I said, thinking he'd tell me I shouldn't have worked on a movie even as a stuntman.

  “You appeared using the same Jonathan Easton name you used in the 1920s and started spending money that came from investments that did not exist previously--massive amounts of money. As long as that money wasn't touched, it could be ignored. But do you really think you can spend millions of dollars and not draw attention?”

  “I--”

  “Do you really think you can talk to your sister and not draw their attention? You're supposed to be dead. We don't know or care how you managed to exist outside of time, but now that you've burst back into the world, you've put the Vampire Council into a bad place.”

  “How's that?”

  “The Men of Anubis are going to go back and erase everything unless we kill you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Brenda stepped between me and Victor. She held up her
hands. “You try anything, you'll spend eternity as a stone statue in somebody's backyard.”

  I grinned. It was nice to have friends.

  “She means it,” I said.

  “I'm sure she does,” he said. “But that won't be necessary as I was not among those agreeing to kill you.”

  “So you're here to do what exactly?”

  “To offer you a better option, one that will benefit all of us.” He rubbed his hands together and smiled like a convict granted his first conjugal visit in twenty years. “I want to go after those sodding meddlers.”

  “Bonus points for using sodding in a sentence,” I said, “but I don't fancy dealing with the Men of Anubis again. Beating them once was nice, but I got lucky. Going back for another round would be suicide. I think I'll just tone down the spending and keep a lower profile. Thanks for the heads up and have a wonderful trip back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”

  I tried to usher him toward the door.

  He didn't budge.

  “That's not good enough. They want you dead.”

  “I don't care,” I said. “Fortunately for me, and for you and your Vampire Council, if they want me dead, they can't just go back and change time because that won't work on me. They have to find and face me directly so they shouldn't have tipped their hand by sending you to handle me.”

  He looked confused, but he wasn't ready to give up yet. “Hiding isn't a solution.”

  “Maybe not, but it gives me a chance to survive. And the sooner you're gone, the sooner I can arrange to disappear.”

  “I had a wife,” Victor said.

  “How nice for you,” I said. “Time to go now.”

  “They erased her,” he said. “Twice.”

  “And you're still here.”

  “They would have to undo too much to go back and get me.”

  “No, dude,” I said. “You're still here as in right here in front of me talking and not leaving. Walk your bloodsucking ass right on out that door and go bother someone else.”

  “I don't care what you say. They can wipe you out too, Mr. Shade.”

  I pointed to the door. “Go.”

  He folded his arms and stared at me. “They don't scare you, do they?”

  “They scare the hell out of me, so I'm going to stay out of their business.”

  He didn't budge.

  “Do I need to physically throw you out?” I asked.

  “I'm thinking.”

  “You're cock-blocking.”

  He glanced at Brenda then focused on me. “You'll need her help to go after them.”

  “I'm not going after them. Get the fuck out of my place.”

  He held my gaze. “I command you to help me.”

  I laughed. “I'll help you all right.” I grabbed him, and turned him toward the door. I started to walk him over, but he dug in his heels. He was really strong and when he planted himself, I couldn't move him. He turned, ready to engage physically, but I saw it coming and slapped his hand away while stepping to a better position for defense. If he wanted to fight, I'd need to play it safe. I wasn't sure how strong vampires were, and if they had superhuman strength I didn't want to learn that the hard way.

  “You should be doing my bidding now.”

  “We're not at an auction, and I no longer have an eBay account.” I kept my hands up, ready to react to whatever he tried.

  He didn't seem concerned about my fighting stance. He looked up and tapped his forefinger on his lips. “I'm missing something here.”

  “That you're a rude prick who won't leave?”

  “Jonathan,” Brenda said. “Maybe we should hear him out. He could overpower you physically if he wanted to. He's a vampire.”

  “So that puts him around the strength level of Spider-Man or the Incredible Hulk?”

  “I've seen the movies,” Brenda said, “but I've never read the comic books. I was more of an X-Men fan because of Storm.”

  “What am I missing?” Victor asked.

  “That Brenda and I prefer Marvel to DC?”

  He frowned. “Not the funny book nonsense. The fact that you're here even though you died, and how you were in the twenties when you were born in the seventies. You were sent back in time. How did that happen?”

  “Are we going to fight?”

  “I'm not going to fight you, Mr. Shade. We're on the same side.”

  “You drink blood and kill people.”

  “You spill blood and kill people. So what?”

  “I only kill people who deserve it, and only if there's no other way.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I drink blood, but I rarely kill anyone, and when I do kill, like you, I have justifications for it. In my case, I don't need to kill anyone to survive so unless some vampire hunter happens to come at me, which is thankfully not a common occurrence, I lead a mostly peaceful existence.”

  “Victor,” Brenda said, “would you like to sit down?” She gestured toward the sofa. “We can talk about this and see what's going on.”

  “I don't want to,” I said.

  She gave me a sweeping gesture from her breasts to her thighs. “If you want any of this action, you're going to hear him out. He came a long way to see you, and more important in my view is that he was able to find you. If he can do that, so can the Men of Anubis.”

  “Fortunately, they're too lazy to do their own dirty work.”

  Brenda sat down in one of the chairs catty corner from the sofa. “All the more reason to hear him out. If they threatened the Vampire Council, it means they don't want to change things right now.”

  “So?”

  “So it costs nothing to listen, but it could cost us our lives not to.”

  I sighed. Looked like I wasn't going to get any tonight. “Make it fast, fang-face.”

  “I apologize,” Victor said. “A few things you said don't match up with what I was told. Confession time. I'm no longer a member of the Vampire Council. I lost my position due to a challenge a few months ago. They offered to return my seat should I find and kill you. I thought that meant the Men of Anubis just wanted us to handle it for them, but your initial response was to hide. How would that help you? They can go back and erase you from time.”

  “No they can't,” I said.

  “So you've actually faced the Men of Anubis in person before?”

  “And lived to tell the tale.”

  “They must have thought you were dead,” Victor said. “But surely they still can go back and erase you easily enough. But then why go to the Council? Brenda could be right about them not wanting to change things, but if push comes to shove, that's all they really have to do.”

  “Actually, they can't,” I said. “If they want me, they have to come for me directly.”

  “Why is that?” he asked, taking the chair opposite Brenda.

  I sat on the sofa where I could reach out and touch Brenda, and stared over at Victor, who draped one leg over the other and placed his hands on his knee like a prim and proper relaxed gentleman. I crossed my legs in the American style so my ankle rested above my knee. An uncle of mine claimed that it was the way a man should cross a leg and that to cross legs like a woman was too effeminate. I didn't think that, but when I was a teenager, I completely bought into it. Now I'm just used to sitting with my legs making a four.

  “You're not answering my question,” Victor said.

  “You noticed that, did you? Maybe you're smarter than you look. Brenda wants me to listen to you. My answer is still going to be no. But go ahead and talk. You won't change my mind. Just know that from one guy to another, every second of my time you waste is another second I don't get to see her naked.”

  “You're devoid of all manners, Mr. Shade.”

  “Blow me.”

  “Boys,” Brenda said. “Let's play nice here.” She nodded to Victor. “Tell him what you came here to say.” She slapped my thigh. “And you listen to him.”

  If Victor noticed her touch my skin, he didn’t show it. He went into a long-ass
story about his history and how he'd been a vampire for centuries before he met a woman named Marina who changed his life. Unlife. Whatever. They were married, he vamped her, they did lots of stuff, and then one day while he was holding her, she disappeared. As in one moment she was there, and the next she no longer existed.

  “You could have led with that,” I said when he finally got there.

  “But how would that make any sense? You need to know my history to appreciate the emotional punch of her being erased from time.”

  “Dude, you have no sense of audience. I'm half asleep now because it took you an hour to get there. I'm only listening to you because Brenda won't sleep with me tonight unless I do. And you're not respecting my time. Sorry, you lost your wife, but it's not my problem.”

  “Oh, but it's your fault she's gone.”

  “You said she disappeared in 1690.”

  “That time. The second time was in 1927. That is what we've taken to calling The Event. I'd experienced changes before, but for many of my kind, it was their first.”

  “Things have changed so many times that--”

  “They were localized. Your Event cost many thousands of lives and those lives had ramifications throughout the twentieth century. Significant writers disappeared. People who would have been celebrities, gone. One would have been an influential senator. It wouldn't surprise me if your actions led to the rise of Donald Trump running for president.”

  “Hey, don't pin that on me.”

  “In any case, we were in 1690, and...”

  I rolled my eyes. “Really?”

  “You need to understand the ramifications.”

  “Wake me up when you're done,” I said, and stretched out on the sofa.

  He talked and talked and talked. Brenda kept pushing me to keep me awake. The gist of it was that Marina popped back into existence in 1776 as though she'd never been gone. Victor's theory, which was probably correct, was that the Men of Anubis had been messing around in time and something they erased in one moment was brought back by another change. As Victor was essentially immortal, he knew things had changed.

  “Back in the twenties, Marina read The Great Gatsby and wanted to relocate to Long Island. It would be romantic, she said. She saw me as an undead Jay Gatsby with her as an undead Daisy Buchanan, only we didn’t have a Tom Buchanan to overcome nor did we have a Nick Carraway, but we certainly had the lavish parties. Oh, Marina loved the parties. She positively beamed when the guests arrived.”