Dark Heretic (E. St. John)

Prologue

Winter, 1945.
Queens, New York.
Trigger Warning: This part contains homophobia and police violence and a hate crime. There will be fear of being gay along this book...

Nickolas James smiles at Kathy, his best friend here in Queens. Kathy moved here two years ago and she instantly befriended Nickolas. He is a closeted gay man because what other choice does he have? Here lately, the police have been beating gay men, mostly to death, but one or two have survived. He's been secretly seeing a boy named Lee.

"What are you smiling at?" Kathy asks, her brown eyes narrowing.

"Because you care."

"Of course I care," Kathy replies. "I don't trust the police. I want you to be careful. I don't care about Lee, but I do care about you."

"And I love you for that," Nickolas says. "Really, I do. We won't get caught because we're really careful."

"Extremely," Lee says from his spot by the door. He's been waiting for Nickolas but Kathy's being worried.

"Okay," Kathy says. "If you say so."

"I do." Nickolas pecks her cheek.

Nickolas and Lee leave the apartment that Kathy is currently residing in and they walk through town without touching. They talk about their night and now life has been since they met Kathy and each other. Lee grabs Nickolas by his arm and hauls him into an alleyway and he kisses him, unable to resist, but they hear it. And they know they're screwed.

"Hey!"

The couple quickly pull apart and they see four policeman coming their way from the other end of the alley. It's as if they were searching every alley in the borough of New York City known as Queens searching for gay men. Gay men are usually extremely careful because every single officer in this place is homophobic and so are the people who aren't gay.

"Don't think we didn't see you," another cop says.

Two cops grab Nickolas as the other two slam Lee into the brick wall of a barber and they start beating him with their batons. Nickolas cries for them to stop, begs, pleads. But his words don't work. The police let Lee fall once they're done and they turn to him.

"It's your turn."

Nickolas grunts as he's shoved to the blacktop and the cops holding him start kicking him while the others strike him several times with their batons. He was already scared of public affections with Lee (or any other boyfriends) because his father beat him for being gay, too.

Nickolas gets a baton to his throat when the cops are suddenly attacked. Nickolas sees Kathy sinking her fangs into them, ripping out their throats, through blurred vision.

"Nickolas!" Kathy rushes over to his side. He has her blood in his system, so she's not worried about that. "I told you to be careful! These police are worse than your father."

Kathy picks him up and rushes back to her apartment. She lays Nickolas in her bed and she goes to get a human to feed him.
+++++

Nickolas wakes in a completely different place.

"This isn't Queens."

"No," a woman says and he whisks around. "This is Mystic Falls on the Other Side."

"The Other Side?" Nickolas asks. "What does that mean? Who are you? What happened to those cops that beat me?"

"My name is Ayana," the woman replies. "And your friend who killed those policemen is a vampire. I'm a witch, and you, dear Nickolas James, are a Dark Witch, about to be the Dark Heretic."

"Witch!?"

Ayana smiles and she looks at the crowd of witches surround them. "We're all witches," she says and turns back to him. "You're in a yard in Mystic Falls, Virginia."

"Virginia?" Nickolas frowns. "Please explain, Ma'am."

"Please, do come in and we'll chat until you awake."
+++++

Nickolas wakes up about three hours later and he sees Kathy standing there, looking worried. Kathy relaxes when she sees him and she rushes out and back. She uses the knife she got from the kitchen and she cuts the woman's wrist.

"Drink," Kathy insists. "Please, Nick."

Nickolas remembers what Ayana and the others told him. He nods and he takes some of the blood on his finger, a 945-year-old witch named Genera told him to try the blood first. He looks at it before sucking it off his finger. Kathy watches as the veins form around Nickolas's eyes and he sinks his fangs into the human's wrist. He flashes up and bites her neck and he grips her tightly and the woman gasps as she gets every last drop of her blood removed from her body. Kathy watches as the wrinkles form as Nickolas literally drains her.

Nickolas drops her and he looks at Kathy. "Katherine," he says.

"You found out what you are, and whilst doing that, you found out who I am," Katherine says.

"I was in this place called the Other Side, in a town called Mystic Falls, in the state of Virginia," Nickolas says. "The witches called me a dark witch, but I'm a Dark Heretic now."

"They're right," Katherine replies. "I was told about you. That is why I came to Queens. I wanted to use you, make you my personal witch, but you had no idea what you were, you were just a gay boy who was in the closet because of an abusive father and homophobic policemen. I grew to adore you as soon as I introduced myself as Kathy."

"What can you tell me about being a vampire?"

"First, we need to get you a daylight ring," Katherine replies. "Then you have to learn about vampires and magic."

Katherine and Nickolas spend the next couple of decades together. Nickolas has learned about vampirism and magic. In 1975, he met a witch named Sheila Bennett in Whitmore, Virginia and she knew who he was instantly. She offered to teach him magic and Nickolas was quick to oblige. He helped her raise her daughter, Abby, and he left Whitmore when Abby had a baby.

Nickolas moved back to Virginia in 2005 and he went to Mystic Falls. He compelled himself an apartment and he got a girlfriend because he's too scared to date a boy again. Caroline Forbes is the girlfriend. Through Caroline, Nickolas met Bonnie Bennett and Elena Gilbert and his other friends.

Life is good, but then two brothers come around and life becomes complicated.