In a world crawling with vampires, Romania is the safest place left on earth. Thanks to the Little Council, there hasn’t been a vampire on Romanian ground in over five centuries, until one day when Liana Cantacuzino is ordered to bring one in, covertly.
Enter Maximilien Hess, a thousand-year-old vampire determined to ruin the existing order of things. When all is revealed, Hess’s secret changes everything, and a reluctant alliance is formed because the alternative is much worse.
The Impaler Legacy Omnibus, a vampire saga like no other, includes:
The Impaler’s Revenge (novella)
Sweet Surrender (short story)
A Victory that Counts (novella)
Casualties of War (short story)
Order Restored (novella)
The Third Wheel (short story)
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Excerpt
Jesse pulled the car to a halt, and we jumped out and headed between the trees. There was no clear path we could follow so we had to trust Spânu that the track was somewhere ahead of us. Wandering lost in a wet and muddy forest was not fun at all.
We would have missed it if I hadn’t stumbled into a rock, which turned out to be a piece of wood, when I fell with both hands on the ground. Not just one but several neatly aligned pieces marked the path underneath the mud that covered them. We had made it to Rakiura Track.
“Right, always to the right,” I mumbled to myself, repeating Spânu’s words, and I hopped on the track.
Jesse followed, staggering a few steps behind me. I should have worried about him and how he would fare the walk, but I was busy trying to remember how long this track actually was. Considering the direction we were going, Herman’s lab had to be somewhere in between the town and the farthest end of the track. But this didn’t tell me where exactly on the track we were, and the damned thing crossed the entire northern part of the island, from North Arm to Port William. Best case scenario, we were somewhere closer to the bay, so maybe a few kilometer walk. Worst case, North Arm was behind those trees behind us in which case I doubted we would make it even without an army of hybrid vampires chasing after us.
A heavy hand rested on my shoulder, drawing my attention to the silhouette emerging from the shadows. I ran my sleeve over my forehead to wipe the water from my eyes. The rain had gradually turned into a soft drizzle, and it promised to stop soon. I saw the creature too well as he walked towards us—one of the sentinels Spânu had warned me about. His entire face was pulled to the left, deforming his features. He wore camouflage gear, and a small crossbow hung low in his hand. I recognized those short arrows with bulky heads—explosive arrows, designed to be deadly for both humans and vampires.
I instinctively raised a hand to my chest, remembering how painful they were, and I stepped in front of Jesse. I hadn’t had any vampire blood since surviving the arrow shot, and that had been several days ago, so I was safe, from exploding at least, but Jesse had recently received a dose of Max’s blood and, however small, I couldn’t take that risk.
“What are you doing?” Jesse whispered, alarmed.
“Wait…”
Award-winning writer Ioana Visan has always dreamed about reaching the stars, but since she can’t, she writes about it.
After fighting the apocalypse aftermath in “Human Instincts”, she played with shapeshifters in “Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”, and then she dealt with vampires in “The Impaler Legacy” series, before tackling longer works like a fantasy trilogy and a science fiction series.
Aside from publishing short stories in various Romanian magazines and anthologies, she published a short story collection “Efectul de nautil” and the Romanian edition of “Human Instincts”.
She was awarded the Encouragement Award by The European Science Fiction Society at Eurocon 2013.
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