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

without being stared at. Just entering the elevator and running into one of his Upton employees on the descent to the Tower lobby could mean confronting the truth: he was a monster.
    His butler and cook, his doctors, and his partner, David, were used to his appearance. Everyone else in the world would be horrified, and it would show instantly on their faces. That was the reason two years ago he'd given over the public running of his oil and shipping empire to David. How long would it have taken his competitors to find ways to sabotage his business interests if the world ever found out he was so ill and so . . . deformed? Two weeks, max.
    The doctors had even begun referring to him, in private (or what they thought was private, because Charles had once inadvertently overheard them), as The Old Vampire.
    Vampire! How dare they. He'd fired them immediately, threatening to have their practices sued for millions. He then carried through with a suit for defamation. Not that he'd win, but it gave him satisfaction to haul his doctors into courtrooms. He had had to find other doctors as replacements, of course, who behind closed doors probably joked about him in the same way. Doctors couldn't help him any longer anyway, if ever they could. He kept finding sores on his body that would not heal despite having been prescribed every known antibiotic on and off the market. His flesh was riddled with oozing, red, open wounds. He had bandages on both arms where the sores were the worst, and there was a patch across the back of his neck that, without covering, would stain his pillows.
    He went closer to the mirror and stared deeply into his own eyes. His gaze was strong and determined, but the shell that housed the eyes was deteriorating rapidly. He began to glare at his own teeth, his stiff lips that were pulled back from the gums, and he snarled like an animal, cursing mentally the thing he had become.
    His eyes and his skin had become ultrasensitive to sunlight, so he stayed indoors and hid behind drawn drapes. They told him his body would be harmed if he were out in the sun for any length of time. As if it weren't already! The bottom half of his face had slowly grown rigid and his lips had pulled back into a rictus that made him look like a decayed mummy. His thin hair fell out in tufts, and scalded-looking spots covered the pink skin on his skull.
    Charles snarled once more before returning to the bed and plopping down on the side of the mattress. He clenched one fist. Raised it above the covers and let it fall. Raised it again, higher, and hit the bed with a solid thump. He would like to pound something more than the mattress. If he could get his hands around the throat of God, he'd strangle him and bring him to his knees. He'd pound him into oblivion for this curse placed upon him.
    Porphyria they called it. "The Old Vampire," they called him, because he was pale and his teeth showed like glistening wet fangs. And as he aged and retreated from the world, his thirst for revenge grew like a strange, alien wildflower in a fertilized pasture.
    Charles reached to the opened book lying on the covers. He lifted the leather volume carefully, smoothing the cream-colored pages. He squinted his eyes and began to read about the legend of the vampire. At first, his reading in this area had just been something to do, a diversion to keep his mind off his infirmities. He had researched the vampire myth to keep his mind busy. Since even his doctors referred to him as one of those creatures, perhaps he could find something within the literature to use to frighten them with. It was one more instance of an old, sick man reaching for a straw, he knew that, but he thought it would be grand to know enough about the myth to play into it when around the specialists who handled his case.
    You want a vampire, he thought. I will give you a vampire.
    After a few months of reading, however, his reason for reading about vampires began to change. Revenge against the