The Modern Day Vampire — Christine King

Something ancient woke beneath the waves-and it wasn't meant to rise.In the aftermath of decades of environmental destruction, a new species walks the earth: hybrids, neither human nor beast, birthed from tampered genes and chemical decay. But in the shadows of a fractured Los Angeles, another kind of predator has awakened-one who remembers the world before it bled.Gilbert Murphy was turned in 1996-made vampire on the same night he dumped illegal toxins into the sea. The job was simple. The aftermath, anything but. He was never supposed to survive. But blood rewrote him. And for nearly thirty years, he remained frozen, sealed by forces no human understood.Now, in 2025, he wakes.Thawed and starving above the undergrid, Gilbert remembers only fragments: ocean-black water, a flash of fangs, a whisper too ancient for human ears. He doesn't remember the exact moment he crossed over. All he knows is the hunger. He hunts, yes-but not like the others. He spares the girl he drinks from, a college student named Tessa, whose blood sings to him like the piano music he plays; something unfinished.As he searches for answers, the one who made him finds him. Watching. Waiting.And somewhere, beneath the waves, something older still is calling to him.Gilbert is forced to uncover the truth: about what he is, what they are, and who has been watching him from the depths.