by Sean Kerr
Feburary 23, 2018
Publisher: Extasy Books
Cover Artist: Angela Waters
Genre/s: Paranormal Romance
Length: 87364 words/266 pages
This is the last book in the Dead Camp series, five books in total
All stories have a beginning and a middle, but it is how those stories end that we remember them.
Everything must come to an end, and as Eli contemplates the loss of Malachi in a London ripped apart by war, he knows that the final battle looms ever closer. Where is Ethan? Eli can feel him, their love for each other calling through time, but History conspires to keep them apart as Morbius uses him for the final game.
Desperate to find a way to end the war, Eli once again delves into the distant past in search of answers, but as Jack the Ripper taunts him from the pages of his dead lover’s diary, Eli is left despondent.
So many lies, so many terrible secrets bleeding across his memories, and all of it to keep him safe from the fingers of those who would destroy him. Love. All of it for love. So much lost, and all of it because of love.
As Eli says goodbye to London for the last time, he can only hope that love will be enough to end the madness. He has a plan to rescue Ethan. An audacious plan and it will take all of History by his side to see it through to the bitter end. It is time to break Ethan free from the bonds that enslave him, and as they hurtle towards Berlin, the final sacrifice begins.
As related by Eli
1945
All is lost to me. I feel my heart disintegrate as surely as my tears dried upon the dome of St Paul’s. My sorrow falls before me as assuredly as the rain falls from the clouds, and I am drenched in my own grief. I could not say goodbye to him. I could not stand there and watch my best friend fade away from me forever.
How dark is the sky above, roiling clouds that emulate my own drowning despair? Am I to do this alone? Am I to face my past without those who loved me? The end is coming. I feel it pulling my soul into the pits of dissolution. The end, screaming at me through my fingers, but no matter how I may cover my eyes, it calls out my name. I hear it whispered on the wind—the name of which I remain so ashamed.
Judas.
My tears drip through my fingers and splash onto the dome of St Paul’s. Would you have taken that road to Damascus if you had known what awaited you, Paul? You died for your beliefs. Your head was taken by those who would crush your faith, your life stolen by the same ignorant fools who took my love away from me. Did you believe, Paul? Did you truly believe?
Do I believe?
Ethan. My beloved.
Malachi. My friend.
Isaiah. My saviour.
Gideon. My maker.
Their names slip through my fingers to melt at my feet, and I feel lost in the hopelessness of a fight that I cannot possibly win. How can I win, when I no longer believe that I deserve it?
London. You lay there before me, stretched out over land and time, my blood and my grief staining the bricks from which you are made. How much more must you take away from me? Even now, as all that has transpired fills the empty void of my once missing memory, I cannot see past this next moment, past this blistering pain that devours my perfect body.
Let me feel him again? Let me feel the warmth of his hand on my skin one last time? The taste of his lips against me before the night falls everlasting?
Above me, the cloud split. A ray of light hit the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral that created a creeping glimpse of His great magnificence. Yet, as it reached my cowered form, it stopped, ashamed to touch that which is so tarnished.
“Ask him to forgive you, Eli. A father’s love is stronger than the brief heat of anger when words and deeds are intemperate.”
I felt Daniyyel rest his hands on my shoulder, and his voice made me weep.
“You ask me to beg his forgiveness when it is I who cannot forgive him! Look at what he has done to me!”
“No, Eli. I did this to you. I gave you the chance to live your existence in the arms of someone who loved you. Was that so wrong?”
Through the haze of my tears, I saw him, standing against a broken sky, the perfect man with his perfect intentions.
“Gideon is dead! Malachi is dead! For all I know, Ethan is dead! Why Daniyyel? Why did you not just leave me there to rot? It is no more than I deserve, after what I did.”
“So, you remember then?”
Cold fingers of memory wrapped their icy fingers around my dead heart. I found that I wanted them to squeeze harder, to destroy my heart within my chest, to crush my body into dust. Anything to release my tormented soul from such agony.
“Yes. I remember. Answer me this, Daniyyel. Whose side are you on?”
“Side? I am on everyone’s side, Eli.”
Fury ripped through my muscles as I leapt to my feet. I felt my Vampire rip through my lips, my blood flooding my mouth as I spat my anger into his face.
“Fuck, Daniyyel, you are so full of enigmatic bullshit you make me sick! You have been playing us all along, haven’t you? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
As I spat my angry words at him, my blood splattered across the Angel’s face, and yet he did not flinch. The flecks of gold that danced within his beautiful eyes blazed momentarily with fury, but the anger that enraged his ancient soul quickly died as his tears doused their flames. The right hand of God broke down before me.
Daniyyel collapsed to his knees, his hands spread across the lead-encased dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. As his tears poured down upon the weathered lead, so did the Heavens spill their own tears as the Angels wept for their stricken Brother.
“Eli, I don’t know what to do. I have tried. Heaven only knows that I have tried. But Father will not listen. He has turned his back on all that he created, even us, his most beloved.”
He looked up into my face, and the sorrow that seeped from his eyes mingled with my blood to streak his cheeks with blossoms of red. So much pain in his eyes, pain that caused my own anger to bleed away at the sight of his pitiful grief. When his mouth moved, his words seeped through his luscious lips, and they contained all the agonies of the Universe within them.
“See how our love for him bleeds from my eyes? We feel it, all of us, his love fading from our hearts. Everything that I have done has failed. He does not see me. He does not listen. I have tried to make Father notice…to make Him see. Yet He will not come down to face it.”
“You broke the Covenant…back in the Camp when you ripped the Demon from Malachi. I thought you were doing it for me. I thought you cared about me…but it was all a lie, wasn’t it? Just another pathetic attempt to shake your God from his tree?”
Daniyyel wiped the blood and tears away from his eyes and sat hunched with his knees tucked up to his perfect chest. I so wanted to be angry with him, to vent my full rage upon his chiseled form. Yet, he looked so sad crouched within his own arms. He was just a child, a child who missed his Father. The right hand of God lay broken at my feet.
I hunkered down beside him, our shoulders pressed against each other as we sat there looking out over a shattered London.
“It wasn’t a lie, Eli. Believe of me what you will, but some of it was for you, and for Malachi, too. But there is more than one soul here that I hope to reconcile with Father.”
His words took me by surprise.
“Melek? You can’t be bloody serious?”
“You know, he didn’t do anything wrong, not really. He helped those who needed it, those who no-one else would help. Is that really so wrong? Is that not the meaning of love, of compassion? Is that not why Father created us? Father was never the same after he cast Melek out, he misses him. Every day has grown a little darker without him. You were the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“He broke our backs first. You know, I haven’t had the dream since we came back here. Funny, isn’t it? Now that I can remember what happened, how he evicted me, the dream has gone.”
“Talk to me, Eli. Tell me about it.”
1945
All is lost to me. I feel my heart disintegrate as surely as my tears dried upon the dome of St Paul’s. My sorrow falls before me as assuredly as the rain falls from the clouds, and I am drenched in my own grief. I could not say goodbye to him. I could not stand there and watch my best friend fade away from me forever.
How dark is the sky above, roiling clouds that emulate my own drowning despair? Am I to do this alone? Am I to face my past without those who loved me? The end is coming. I feel it pulling my soul into the pits of dissolution. The end, screaming at me through my fingers, but no matter how I may cover my eyes, it calls out my name. I hear it whispered on the wind—the name of which I remain so ashamed.
Judas.
My tears drip through my fingers and splash onto the dome of St Paul’s. Would you have taken that road to Damascus if you had known what awaited you, Paul? You died for your beliefs. Your head was taken by those who would crush your faith, your life stolen by the same ignorant fools who took my love away from me. Did you believe, Paul? Did you truly believe?
Do I believe?
Ethan. My beloved.
Malachi. My friend.
Isaiah. My saviour.
Gideon. My maker.
Their names slip through my fingers to melt at my feet, and I feel lost in the hopelessness of a fight that I cannot possibly win. How can I win, when I no longer believe that I deserve it?
London. You lay there before me, stretched out over land and time, my blood and my grief staining the bricks from which you are made. How much more must you take away from me? Even now, as all that has transpired fills the empty void of my once missing memory, I cannot see past this next moment, past this blistering pain that devours my perfect body.
Let me feel him again? Let me feel the warmth of his hand on my skin one last time? The taste of his lips against me before the night falls everlasting?
Above me, the cloud split. A ray of light hit the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral that created a creeping glimpse of His great magnificence. Yet, as it reached my cowered form, it stopped, ashamed to touch that which is so tarnished.
“Ask him to forgive you, Eli. A father’s love is stronger than the brief heat of anger when words and deeds are intemperate.”
I felt Daniyyel rest his hands on my shoulder, and his voice made me weep.
“You ask me to beg his forgiveness when it is I who cannot forgive him! Look at what he has done to me!”
“No, Eli. I did this to you. I gave you the chance to live your existence in the arms of someone who loved you. Was that so wrong?”
Through the haze of my tears, I saw him, standing against a broken sky, the perfect man with his perfect intentions.
“Gideon is dead! Malachi is dead! For all I know, Ethan is dead! Why Daniyyel? Why did you not just leave me there to rot? It is no more than I deserve, after what I did.”
“So, you remember then?”
Cold fingers of memory wrapped their icy fingers around my dead heart. I found that I wanted them to squeeze harder, to destroy my heart within my chest, to crush my body into dust. Anything to release my tormented soul from such agony.
“Yes. I remember. Answer me this, Daniyyel. Whose side are you on?”
“Side? I am on everyone’s side, Eli.”
Fury ripped through my muscles as I leapt to my feet. I felt my Vampire rip through my lips, my blood flooding my mouth as I spat my anger into his face.
“Fuck, Daniyyel, you are so full of enigmatic bullshit you make me sick! You have been playing us all along, haven’t you? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
As I spat my angry words at him, my blood splattered across the Angel’s face, and yet he did not flinch. The flecks of gold that danced within his beautiful eyes blazed momentarily with fury, but the anger that enraged his ancient soul quickly died as his tears doused their flames. The right hand of God broke down before me.
Daniyyel collapsed to his knees, his hands spread across the lead-encased dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. As his tears poured down upon the weathered lead, so did the Heavens spill their own tears as the Angels wept for their stricken Brother.
“Eli, I don’t know what to do. I have tried. Heaven only knows that I have tried. But Father will not listen. He has turned his back on all that he created, even us, his most beloved.”
He looked up into my face, and the sorrow that seeped from his eyes mingled with my blood to streak his cheeks with blossoms of red. So much pain in his eyes, pain that caused my own anger to bleed away at the sight of his pitiful grief. When his mouth moved, his words seeped through his luscious lips, and they contained all the agonies of the Universe within them.
“See how our love for him bleeds from my eyes? We feel it, all of us, his love fading from our hearts. Everything that I have done has failed. He does not see me. He does not listen. I have tried to make Father notice…to make Him see. Yet He will not come down to face it.”
“You broke the Covenant…back in the Camp when you ripped the Demon from Malachi. I thought you were doing it for me. I thought you cared about me…but it was all a lie, wasn’t it? Just another pathetic attempt to shake your God from his tree?”
Daniyyel wiped the blood and tears away from his eyes and sat hunched with his knees tucked up to his perfect chest. I so wanted to be angry with him, to vent my full rage upon his chiseled form. Yet, he looked so sad crouched within his own arms. He was just a child, a child who missed his Father. The right hand of God lay broken at my feet.
I hunkered down beside him, our shoulders pressed against each other as we sat there looking out over a shattered London.
“It wasn’t a lie, Eli. Believe of me what you will, but some of it was for you, and for Malachi, too. But there is more than one soul here that I hope to reconcile with Father.”
His words took me by surprise.
“Melek? You can’t be bloody serious?”
“You know, he didn’t do anything wrong, not really. He helped those who needed it, those who no-one else would help. Is that really so wrong? Is that not the meaning of love, of compassion? Is that not why Father created us? Father was never the same after he cast Melek out, he misses him. Every day has grown a little darker without him. You were the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“He broke our backs first. You know, I haven’t had the dream since we came back here. Funny, isn’t it? Now that I can remember what happened, how he evicted me, the dream has gone.”
“Talk to me, Eli. Tell me about it.”
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Hi everyone, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Sean Kerr, and I am a 47-year-old gay man living in Cardiff, Wales with my husband of 28 years, Derek. We have two cats, Rita and Harry, and a host of tropical fish.
By day, I am an Interior designer, and I have had a shop, Home Zone, in Cardiff with my amazing business partner, Jayne for eleven and a half years. It has and continues to be a struggle. The recession hit a few years after we opened, and it has been challenging, to say the least. I consider myself to be lucky though because the shop pays me a wage, and I have been lucky enough to furnish my house with lovely things because of it, and I really do have some spectacular curtains lol.
I worked on building sites for years, and I used the money earned from that to put myself through college, specialist paint techniques etc. I trained in fine art, and then I went out and painted murals on client’s walls, and created Roman Bathrooms and fantasy hand painted bedrooms, all the rage back in the late eighties and nineties. I then became an Interior Designer for a large DIY chain, and that is where I met Jayne, my business partner, and the rest is history.
By night I am an Author, and I am very proud to be an author for Extasy Books. It took me some years to get to this point. I spent a very long time trying to get an agent because I thought it was the right thing to do, and after a heck of a lot of refusals, I nearly gave up. I came so close to hitting the delete button on Dead Camp 1 because I thought I did not stand a chance. At the very last moment, I decided to have a go at approaching a few publishers directly, and I sent the manuscript to six. Within two weeks, I had offers of publication from three! Let’s just say that there may have been tears lol. It was my chance, at last, to become a part of a world that I have always loved and admired from a distance, and it is one of the very best things that has ever happened to me.
I currently have four books under my belt in my Dead Camp series, as well as a short novella called Hush Little Baby. Dead Camp is my take on the Vampire genre, a Paranormal Romance series that is set against a backdrop of World War 2. However, the series uses key moments from History to tell one enormous saga, and I have loved every single moment of writing it. There will be five books in the Dead Camp series.
Hush is a pure horror story with more than a nod towards such classic programmes as The Twilight Zone and Tales of The Unexpected. The project happened just after I completed Dead Camp 3 and it is a story that I had to get out of my system. It’s definitely a different beast to my Vampire saga, and I hope it will make you go to bed with the lights on lol!
Dead Camp 5 is the last book in the series. I will feel very sad to leave it behind. Yet, at the same time, I am so proud of this saga which has been such an important part of my life for the last couple of years. I love writing, so very much. It has always been my dream, and the wonderful Extasy Books has made my dream come true, and it is a world that I am totally in love with. It is a world I hope to be a part of for a very long time to come.
Giveaway
Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway to win one of Sean’s Dead Camp books. The winner may choose and Sean will gift the book from the publisher’s website.
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