Archive for March, 2011

Relations in Blood

Posted in Fiction, Vampirony, writing with tags , on March 28, 2011 by vampirony

Years in the Secret Service, hopping around the world to places like Spain, Turkey, and Pakistan to name a few, had taught Morena one valuable lesson: sleep when you can. Which isn’t to say that she didn’t require a little help now and then. But after a string of sleepless nights and equally stressful days, the clock was ticking down on her full system crash. T-Minus…right now.

She’d managed to keep it together a lot longer than what would make sense given her emotional state. But it had been those very emotions that created the need for perpetual awareness. At first, concern for Jesper had fueled the hours. Then jealousy over this crackpot wannabe shrink she’d made the mistake of contacting had become the source. Fear had then begun to creep in after the shop attack and what came after, married up with the sense of betrayal and utter vulnerability. And now, now she was just numb. Spent.

She needed her perspective back. She needed something to get her back to that office tonight for round two. She couldn’t let the errand boy fend for himself. She’d seen the way he fought…nope, couldn’t let him go it alone.

She popped a few melatonin pills, said a mental “F* you!” to the nightmares to come since the herbs gave her nasty-mares, and slipped under the covers. She was snoring within a half hour, never mind the sun streaming in from a gorgeous, not-so-sleepless-in-Seattle summer day.

As day turned to night, the sun slipping beneath the Puget Sound amidst the ferries and cargo ships, the Space Needle pointing up at a moon in first quarter on the rise, Morena’s awareness began to fuse back together, first a sense of the weight of her covers, then the briny smell from the nearby locks, and the far away buzz of traffic as the Ballard crowd began to fester out onto the streets.

So deep had her slumber been, she barely remembered any dreams at all and she stretched her limbs, her hand reaching under her pillow for the comfort of her Glock. Instead, something smooth, cold, and hard nicked her palm and she sat up with a start.

Even in the low light of her apartment, she could see the blood oozing from the gash across her hand. Flipping the pillow up, she found herself staring at a familiar looking slightly bent blade. The kukri. But how…

“Sorry about that.”

Morena started again as Lucy shrugged out of the shadows. She pressed a bandage into Morena’s palm and began wrapping a dressing around it. In an instant, Morena clearly understood Nick’s earlier anger at having his parents’ business and home invaded by her noisiness. It had been with the best of intentions. But what possible intentions could this vampire have with her?

Lucy finished the dressing and met Morena’s gaze with dark eyes that seemed bigger than her face should allow. She’d chopped her hair into a flapper girl bob, looking very much like Clara Bow. The thought almost made Morena smirk. Her ears seemed healed.

“May I sit?” Lucy asked, still holding Morena’s hand.

When Morena said nothing, Lucy took her silence as consent and sat on the edge of the bed. After a moment, Morena took back her hand, brought it to her chest, and covered it with her other hand, not wanting a repeat of the previous interaction with Lucy’s brother.

The room fell into an uneasy silence and Morena surmised that Lucy was expecting questions. When Morena couldn’t form any, or at least decide on the first one to flow from her still sleep addled mind, Lucy spoke up.

“I’m sorry about the cut but it’s the safest, best way to form a bonding.”

Morena blinked, “Bonding? What sort of bonding?”

“Between you and the kukri.”

“And why the Hell do I need to bond with a knife?” There. That was better. She was feeling more herself already.

Lucy relaxed back an inch, the corners of her mouth deepening into her cheeks. “It’s not a knife. And it’s not just any bladed weapon.”

Morena made to stand to which Lucy quickly put a hand out.

“I wouldn’t do that just yet.”

Lucy was right. The moment Morena reached full height, the sensation of a disconnection between her body and her mind hit her and she collapsed back onto the bed. Morena managed to stare down at her bandaged hand. There was a warmth trembling through the meat of her hand, moving up her arm. “What…what’s wrong with me?”

“It’s just the blood bond with the kukri. It’ll pass in a moment.”

And so as suddenly as the feeling seemed to be building up to a crescendo that threatened to engulf her arm, it crested and dissipated. “Wha..?” She threw a questioning look to Lucy.

Lucy crossed her legs casually. “Well, you don’t expect to do anything with that silly gun, do you? Just relax for a few moments.” Then she reached around behind her, producing the kukri to show Morena.

“And how is that thing going to help me with vampires?”

Lucy rolled her eyes just as Morena noticed that she was wearing gloves. When she was sure Morena noticed, she nodded. “Now are you getting it?”

“You can’t touch it? What happens if you do?”

“Hard to say, really. I’m allergic to silver, which is folded into the blade. But its effect on other vampires will be more pronounced and will vary. Legend says the kukri, once bonded by blood, protects the bearer by finding its enemy’s weakness and revealing it.”

Morena blinked at her. It was hard to tell what was harder to swallow; that Lucy was giving her a weapon to kill vampires or that this mumbo jumbo was real. But considering Jesper could emit sun beams from his eyes and Lucy here could disappear into a cloud of birds, why shouldn’t the blade work like some magic talking sword?

Lucy held it out to Morena and she took it gingerly. It was heavier than she expected as she held it in right hand, her cut hand. Funny, it didn’t hurt to grip it tight. She hefted it, feeling the weight. While a strange shape, somehow, she knew exactly how it would feel to throw it.

“Good, you’re getting the hang of it. But you’ll probably still need some training, “ Lucy stood.

Morena sneered, looking up at her, “What, from you?”

Lucy threw her a sharp look. When Morena looked back down, Snuffy, her favorite stuffed animal, a pink Easter Bunny, was in her hand. The kukri was on her desk alongside her Glock. With the clip removed. And the bullets moving around the desktop. The thought was utterly sobering. Might as well have been her head.

“Don’t mistake bravada for stupidity. You still haven’t fully seen what your boyfriend’s capable of.”

Morena took in a deep breath. “It’s not like that. Not anymore.”

Lucy relaxed, letting out a breath. “Good. Vampires make terrible boyfriends.”

Morena couldn’t find it in herself to laugh but when she looked at Lucy, she sensed the punch line hadn’t hit yet. “Oh, and why is that?”

“Because they’ll bleed you dry, given half the chance.” Lucy’s lopsided smirk belied a deeper message.

Morena didn’t want to think about that part of her acquaintanceship with Jesper. That had been quite enjoyable, on reflection. And that she did NOT want to reflect on.

“You’ll get over it. I promise you that.”

Morena stood, “Already am.” She shuffled over to her desk, lightly touching the Kukri. She noticed a box sitting on the desk chair seat. “What’s this?”

“Oh, that’s a box of the modulators. Figured you might want to carry them, just in case. Damn nuisance that I can’t figure out why Sophie’s voice doesn’t come through.”

Morena opened the box, adding idly, “Maybe because she thinks too much like a vampire.”

Lucy shrugged and headed for the door. “Maybe so. In a few days, we should start training with the kukri. With all the activity around, you should be prepared.”

“Is Sophie going to like you training me to hurt vampires?”

Lucy opened the door, tossing a casual look back. “Don’t mistake me, Miss Fourtenay. I’m not going to train you to protect yourself against vampires. I’m going to train you to kill them. Goodnight.” And as if to accentuate her point, she exploded into a murder of crows and flew out the door, the sheer gust of flight sucking the door closed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

But she didn’t go far, up the staircase, through an open window on the landing, out into the sticky night air, to alight on the rooftop. She craned her neck to look down, standing just above Morena’s apartment window. It was risky using her powers so openly but Morena needed to know what she was up against. Her very soul depending on it.

Lucy turned and walked towards the roof’s charming garden, a few rows of raised cedar boxes, with every kind of herb growing. The summer had been hot and sunny in the last few weeks and the plants were taking full advantage. There was a quaint rusty patio set with a rocking chair and a trellis. It would suffice for her first night’s vigil.

As she approached the patio, she noticed a shadow from the trellis lengthened over the gravel rooftop. She started as a figure materialized out of the shadow and grabbed her arm.

“Maurice!”

Her brother’s face bristled with intensity, as if devouring every detail. It had been hours since sundown and she had not checked in with him. She couldn’t be sure if it was concern or anger etched into his countenance.

As he was about to speak, his eyes took in her shorn hair. “What happened to your hair?” his voice trembled in barely controlled emotion.

Her ears had healed sufficiently to all appearances but under the surface, the bruising of rapidly regenerated flesh still lingered and would for some time. With his deep breathing, controlling his anger, anger that had started to turn dark of late, she knew he could smell the blood pooling in her tissues. There was no use in lying to him. He was still her beloved brother, no matter what he was struggling to become.

“I burned my ears. Scorched them doing recon.”

He released her arm, his face falling. It took the breath from her, this sudden shift. The grouchiness she was getting used to, even the anger when it flared. But this, this was something new.

“How have I failed you so completely, dearest sister?”

She shook her head, “I don’t understand what you mean.”

When she thought he might speak, he swallowed his thoughts away. When she reached a hand to him, he turned his shoulder away, staring up at the moon. For many moments, they fell into silence and Lucy tried to reach out her mind to him, to find a shred of the bond they had shared for so long that would unlock the puzzle her brother had become. But all she felt was his deathly silence.

“Did you give her the Kukri?” he asked softly.

“Yes. And I was going to watch over her tonight. Just in case.”

He nodded. “Would that things were different and we had met her under other circumstances.”

“Life proceeds as it does, brother.”

He turned to her, his eyes gone dark. “But we should be its master.”

The shadows around the rooftop began to swirl around Maurice, as he took a single deliberate step towards her. “Come, we have work to do.”

Lucy steeled herself. “Someone should stay behind to protect her.”

“She is a Fourtenay. She can take care of herself. At least, at the moment.” Maurice put his hands gently over Lucy’s shoulders but the effect upset her more than relieved her of worry.

“But Maurice, the Kukri is new to her. What if the wound still bleeds? What if others find her? We must protect her.”

“We must protect our own. And for that, there is work elsewhere needed.” He rubbed her ear, saw her grimace. “I know what you have been stalking. You must come with me now.” The shadows began to inch up their legs as they stood there, uniting them in darkness.

Lucy tried to twist from his grip, resisting. “But Maurice, she—.”

“You WILL obey me!” Vox Compulsum shattered ceramic pots all along the rooftop. And then, the shadows made in his image roared up, consuming them entirely before dispersing into the night, leaving only an echo of Lucy’s scream.

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Something about frying pans

Posted in Fiction, Vampirony with tags , , on March 21, 2011 by vampirony

Nick arrived home to his parents’ place above their restaurant GoButa in the International District several hours after midnight and sat in bed, reading from the back section of the Memento, what Sophie called the “Vampire Factbook.” The large vellum pages held a small tight script that gave up secrets about familiars, ground tombs that gave birth to newly made vampires, and, most frightening, unbound vampires. Unbound vampires were ones made by mistake and the vampire maker, for whatever reason, was not there to help mentor the newborn into the Vampire world. According to the book, unbound vampires almost always went rabid and wound up causing terror.

Nick shuddered and typed a few more notes into his laptop. The image of the blonde vixen vampire from the bar came into his mind and would not go away. Inspired by that fear, Nick flipped through the pages, looking for hints, tips, tricks, anything on how to actually kill a vampire. Just as he was beginning to get frustrated, he stumbled upon what appeared to be an obituary page. It listed vampires (presumably) and the manner in which they had died.

Beheading, infernos, sunshine, massive blood loss. So the movies are true?

The movies never mentioned vampires with laser beam eyes. Strangely, for as much as gentleman vampire Jesper seemed powerful, he seemed ok. The petite girl Lucy, she was a conundrum. She seemed to not really be one of them. At the same time, the thought of her sucking that blood down creeped him out. He’d never hear that sucking sound and the crinkling of the foil package again without cringing. He wondered where it came from. The blood inside.

Again, the blonde appeared in his mind and he remembered her businessman companion. Nick read the section of Vampire Influence. Twice. Memorized it and then typed it into his laptop. The idea of a vampire “wrecking” his mind, well, he never would have believed it until he’d made eye contact with the blonde vampiress. It was the merest feeling of his body disconnecting from his will and it was scarier than shit. He didn’t want to be a vampire. He was too much the foodie.

Her eyes. Pools of obsidian. And did she make that businessman her food, her slave, one of the unbound? Did she wreck his mind?

By the time the fish monger arrived at the back door of the restaurant, Nick had the kitchen in a frenzy of activity. He stopped kneading yet another batch of soba noodles to sign for the shipment and went back to work, ignoring his elderly parents entering the kitchen and staring at him. His forearms were sore from rolling the dough out over and over but his mind was finally clear.

Cooking calmed him. It was the only thing in this world that he was a natural at, from his earliest years. He first cooked up omurice, an omelette with fried rice, since he’d skipped dinner. Turned out, he wasn’t very hungry. He rolled up his sleeves and got the mill out. He needed to work on something involved, something that wouldn’t go to waste and that would benefit the restaurant.

He started making soba for the next day’s service. After an hour, he felt his worries slip away, if not entirely, at least to the back of his mind. The action of rolling the dough out, folding, and rolling again had a calming repetition that he lost himself in.

Right before the fish monger had shown up, he started working on some sata andagi, Okinawa donuts. The smell of the fryer made him think of all the mornings he’d woken up to that smell, bounding down the stairs to his mother at the stovetop. She would slap his fat fist away from the stove as he tried to sample freshly drained treats.

By the time he’d moved on to pork-filled gyoza, his mother was there, standing just inside the kitchen door, watching. She’d seen him do this before, with a new disappointment, stress, or strife. In the past, a strict word about waste or the mess would be enough to chastise Nick, set him back to rights having exorcised his demons. Her eyes took in the sheer volume of his labor and assessed that no words she knew would quell this, his latest worry. It must be great indeed.

Now she walked over to him as his father started the chores of the morning. She put a hand on his shoulder and handed him an envelope. He wiped his hands on a kitchen towel before taking it. He opened it and removed a check from inside. It was made out to him for more money than he’d ever made in such a short stint, barring, of course, that one summer in Alaska. His mother asked him a simple question.

“For school?”

“Yes, Mom.” He stuffed it into his back pocket and rolled out a few more rounds for filling. But the thought was there, niggling at him. If I live that long.

His mom said nothing, just put on her apron beside him and started to package up his excess of energy. When she opened the back door to start with the deliveries, she started to discover a tall, dark haired woman standing there.

“AY!”

Morena grimaced, putting her hands up. “Sorry.”

The sound drew Nick’s attention and he threw a look over his shoulder, rolling pin still working. When he saw Morena, he whirled, angry. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

His mother began to chatter at him in Japanese and he responded back, equally upset. He stormed over, arguing with his mother whose eyes kept darting from Morena to her son. She finally wandered away in a huff, still mumbling, and then sent a final volley back at him as she went through the kitchen door.

Nick threw his head back Morena’s way. The calm he had labored for hours to achieve shattered.

“Didn’t mean to frighten her,” Morena said.

“What is the matter with you people? Don’t you know it’s rude to just show up at someone’s house?”

Morena looked, for a moment, like she was about to get her own dander up but she swallowed it. “I’m sorry. I thought we might talk.” Then, her eyes went past him, assessing the state of the kitchen, before returning to his upset face. “I couldn’t sleep either.”

All anger fled out of him. She was some Amazonian warrior goddess in black heels, battle hardened and able to dispatch a room full of thugs with her pinkie toe and a beer stein. If she, of all people, couldn’t sleep after that night, what nightmare was he really living in?

“Come on in,” he spoke as he turned and went back to the table where gyoza waited to be filled.

Morena stepped gingerly into the room, her heels making no sound on the concrete floor. Her eyes roved what he had done and she watched after he began spooning a ground meat mixture onto round dough, one by one, following up by folding the dough over and sealing them up.

“How did you find me?” Nick asked while he continued his work, as if it were an afterthought.

“Oh, I have some friends still in the force.” She stared at the table, her face impassive but her eyes watching.

“So let me guess, you searched out the Fujiyami’s that own restaurants in International District?”

She looked up at him. “No, I had them run your plate.” She seemed aloof and nonchalant.

He stopped working and looked up at her, his lips pursed against another harsh comment. He struggled with it for a moment and then, thinking of the terrors he’d already witnessed, the danger he’d likely already subjected his family too, he let loose. “This is my home. More importantly, it’s my parents’ home. And their business. Their livelihood. You shouldn’t have invaded their privacy, and mine. It’s…” he struggled for the word. He remembered what the vampire had said about tricking a vampire. “Rude.”

He met her eyes and found a flaw in the impenetrable nature of her gaze.

“I was worried about you.”

Nick, caught off guard, took up a towel and began to wipe his hands. He let his mind think all sorts of things about trickery, deceit, wrecking. But he couldn’t hear it in her tone. He looked up at her again as she sighed, her gaze falling to the floor.

“I’m worried about both of us,” she said. “I haven’t slept well in days.”

“Well, he’s your boyfriend; surely you knew all of that stuff already.”

Her face went all quiet. “No.”

Nick considered her for a moment and then took up a pan of the gyoza. He walked over to the large refrigerator, opened it up, and slid the gyoza pan on one of the open racks.

“And he’s not my boyfriend. That’s…over.”

He turned back to her, closing the fridge. Did she look forlorn? Afraid? Regretful? Fooled?

“Well, in that case, I recommend we both have plenty of questions to ask him tonight when we go back. After, of course, we both get some rest.”

She lifted her gaze to him. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking except to guess that neither one of them could step out of this now if they tried. He might be a coward and inept at fighting and, well, just an overall nice guy in a wicked world, but if he needed to interview a vampire in order to learn how to protect himself, then that what was what he’d do.

She nodded, with a half smile on her lips after a moment and began walking to the back door.

“I do have a question for you.”

Morena stopped her exit, turned back to him. He looked sheepishly around the kitchen, the piles of gyoza, the oodles of noodles, and a huge pot of soup stewing.

“Do you suppose Vampires eat real food? I expect we’ll have extras for tonight.”

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The Fetching of Far Flung Familiars

Posted in Fiction, Vampirony with tags , , , , on March 7, 2011 by vampirony

I’d been scribbling down notes for what seemed like hours last night, in between drafting text messages to Jesper to check in on him after he went radio silent. I should have been focusing on eye beams that torch vampires. Or vampires that curl up in your lap like kittens. Ok, scratch that, I won’t think about that. But every time I tried to focus on what happened, I had one thought:

He took the lemons.

And I’d wind up smiling like a moron.

Great, what was this helping!

I wrote down phonetically what he had said before going all Cyclops on Lucy. Maybe my downstairs neighbors could translate for me. I didn’t trust my Russian. It was too rusty. So rusty, I couldn’t quite remember how I’d learned it.

And then there was the vamp in a lap. I’d been killed twice giving that reflex test and to have that reaction…with Jesper…well, just having Jesper in my lap. My cheeks started to flush. Embarrassment or something else. Um, yeah, something else.

Snap! Broke my pencil lead. That’s when I noticed I’d been clutching the pages of the Memento so tight, my knuckles had gone white while I was scribing. The page I’d been writing on all these random thoughts turned stormy. That is to say all the graphite from the words I’d written had gather on the page like storm clouds.

I straightened and relinquished my grip on the book and pages flew until it stopped with a loud SLAP! It was that page again. His page. Even the book was aware I was writing about him, thinking about him. I pushed the book aside and grabbed a notepad from my desk, drawing Nick’s attention.

He was milling around, cleaning up the bookshelf. I’d asked him twice to go home. He refused, said he was too unsettled to drive. Which was a truth wrapped in a lie. Morena had had no problem waving a hand in sayonara saying she needed to get some sleep. I’d let Lucy leave, taking the Kukri with her, even though she had seemed hesitant.

But Nick was worried about me. And as the minutes ticked by and I scribbled notes in ink on a legal pad and heard only silence from my cell phone, the earlier elation devolved into worry and then into fear tinged with resentment.

He’s a big vampire; he can take care of himself.

He had curled up in my lap, utterly defenseless.

Whatever this is, I’m sure he’s seen it before and knows how to deal.

He admitted he didn’t know what was happening to him.

Ancient, powerful, seductive vampires like him, their motives are their own, any gentleness or openness is not usually without some aim. Even the slightest gesture, like holding one’s hand, could be for another purpose.

He had begged me to stop, as if he had no control over himself anymore.

Ummm, I got nothing.

Why or how a vampire would respond that way was beyond me. But I needed to track it down. Long, long fangs, longest on record, impervious to silver, super speed, knows Russian. Maybe a Russian strain? Then, there was the searing ray that had coming from his eyes, burning Lucy to a crisp. Coupled with dreams of the Sun…it was hard to know where to start.

I threw a furtive glance at the Memento. It was again keeping its secrets from me. But maybe it had secrets that only its Guardian could tell? I jumped online and found Bruno offline. I typed him a quick note, in the utmost urgency, and then proceeded to start trying to cross reference symptoms on that largest of Vampire encyclopedias: the World Wide Web.

“You know, Fetch is a much better way of doing multi-word searches on a topic.”

I jumped. Nick was looking over my shoulder. “Sorry, “ he apologized and moved away.

I watched as he headed back towards the door. He pulled back the curtain and peered outside. Tonight, he’d been under a cascade of books, stunned by vampire fight club, and witnessed his new employer in a compromising way with an undead client. And had what I was suspecting was a favorite rite of male youth passage stolen by said undead.

And then there was that tousled hair bit, that unguarded moment between Morena, a woman of little affection and much angst, and him. As well as what could only be deemed a stream of playful banter. Hmm.

“You and Morena seem to be getting rather chummy. Want to talk about it?”

He didn’t miss a beat, nor turn from the window as he retorted. “You had J. Crew Vampire in your lap. Wanna talk about that?”

“I suck at this, don’t I?”

He gave a laugh and looked back at me. “Suck? Really?”

I was about to launch into some sort of apology and decided it was too late in the evening to approach anything remotely appropriate. Instead, I said, “Why don’t you go home, Nick? I’m sure you can see to the rest of this in the morning. That is, if you decide to come back.”

He grabbed his bag and just as he was about to pass my desk, he stopped and picked up the Memento. When I said nothing, he slipped it into his backpack and headed for the door. He opened it, threw furtive glances around outside before turning back towards me.

“Are you kidding? After what I know now, I’m thinking this might be the safest place in Seattle. But next time, maybe we can start class with the Cliff Notes version?”

I smiled. “Good night.” And then he left.

The chirp from my laptop woke me several hours later. I started as a single sunbeam fell on me from the curtain Nick had left aside last night. There were no vampires in danger here now. But after a night delving into Russian folklore and Djinni, my dreams had landed on a strange meld of Rasputin and Raskolnikov. And a singing rat.

The chirp was insistent. For the barest of instances, I thought, well, hoped it might be Jesper but then I realized my stupidity. It was full sun up; he would be deep in rigor dormitus (had to keep myself wondering what form he took when in that state.) We also had yet to exchange online personas and I vacillated between thinking having each other’s cell numbers was more or less intimate.

It was Bruno.

U there?
Am now. Questions about the Book.
Got some other news too.
You first.
Ok. Been scouring chat rooms for any word of your Skovajsa.

I shivered at the thought that the Carpathian was mine in any way. At this rate, I probably wouldn’t be hearing from him anytime soon.

Nothing yet although a lot of talk recently about Vampire Cannibals. Some of the more plebian societies are warning members about accepting new members, especially since an incident in Seville.

Along with any subculture of substance came the pretenders. With such myths of immortality and power ascribed to vampires, there have long been societies of humans that would try to claim that birthright, oftentimes in complete ignorance that the creatures actually exist. So they have their dark parties, pass around fake fangs, wear yards of black velvet and, on occasion, drink blood from some utterly benign source. Most Vampires avoided the vampire subculture like the plague; too many fickle fanatics with dreams of power and hunger and glory. They usually turned out to be easily offended or grossed out. I knew of one case where a real Vampire was rejected from entering a vampire club because he wasn’t goth enough.

What happened in Seville?
There were a series of attacks on members of various so-called vampire covens. Many of the groups started to advise members to keep from congregating.

Yet another inaccuracy between the little ‘v’ and big ‘V.’ Vampires do not name their familial groups after witches. They use the term ‘horror’ in part to keep themselves as separated from that human fantasy culture as possible. This isn’t to say that Vampire devotees aren’t frequently found from that group. Like I’ve said before, familiars and companions are a tricky lot. Sometimes, it’s better to just start fresh, with someone who isn’t quite looking. But it doesn’t prevent Vampires from slumming.

Was a profile ever distributed?
Typical Carpathian. What’s interesting is that on a few monster chat rooms, I saw similar posts, seeming to corroborate. Members were disappearing. Then, there’s a series of reposts of the same story: a so-called familiar was going to meet his vampire lord and stumbled upon his lord fighting with another vampire. But by the account, it seems like this familiar’s lord was the real deal.
The Vampire lord was slumming?
Apparently, and fought with this other vampire of Carpathian description. Now here’s the interesting bit: the eyewitness says the Carpathian bested his lord and then ‘feasted’ on him.

I blanched.

You mean to say he really ATE him?
Unclear. But the post was repeated, reposted verbatim so many times in these message boards, blogs, and chatrooms, I’m having a devil of a time hunting down the originating post.
How on Earth did the familiar escape?
He seems to have been saved by a hunter. And now has turned unfriendly now that he’s seen the true nature of the beast.

I sighed. This was so not good news, it undid any success I might have felt from a lemon or two changing hands. Creature hunters, some ordained by various churches, were one of the reasons my job was made more difficult. Instead of trying to help creatures exist alongside humans in managed co-existence, hunters set out to exterminate.

In my experience, they didn’t care who or what got in their way and they had led to as much of the vampire expansion as any other cause. The only reason why Vampires had sought out to create hordes of their own to protect each other is that Hunters usually didn’t last long and where they might be resistant to a particular beast, another would typical come along and resolve them.

A couple of options occurred to me. If I could track down the hunter that had witnessed the fracas, I might be able to figure out whether this Vampire Cannibal was Skovajsa. Conversely, if Skovajsa deigned to meet me again, I might probe his recent history to see if there was any correlation. Neither scenario was particularly safe. I probably had more enemies in the Hunter ranks than in the Vampire ones. It was also possible to try and track down the familiar, perhaps if I could find out which Vampire had been consumed.

Most vampires stayed close to the ground that made them. The process of transformation was slightly different for each vampire but it almost always involved “going to ground,” burying themselves up while their cells converted or whatever other term you wanted to use. The earth became the chrysalis and whether just emotionally or in practicality, Vampires liked to stay close to where they were vampire born.

It had been too many years since my last map of worldwide vampire activity had been updated so it would take some time to try and track the Vampire of Seville.

Anything else there?
Yeah, do I need to cover up my tracks on this? Cannibal vampires creep me out.
No, just don’t do anymore looking. You’ve done enough. Now I have some Book questions for you.
I won’t have to crawl up into the belfry, do I?
Probably not. Ever known the Book to have a connection to anyone other than me?
What, you mean, like the maker or something?

It was something I had never considered. Someone had to have made the Book. Nick had claimed the book had flown across the room after Jesper had touched it. Maybe Jesper had a connection to the book’s maker. While that thought certainly might explain the Book’s strange behavior, I tried to wrap my mind around it’s significance. This bond I had with the Book, it was so intimately the home of my deepest thoughts, secrets, years of memories, the thought that someone else might connect with it…should be deeply unsettling. A hundred times more than someone reading your diary, without your knowledge. And yet…

Do you know who made the Book?
I’m sure I could find that out. Seems rather simple.
Ok, do. I suspect I may not be the only one with a connection to the Book. Maybe I’m not the original owner.

Bruno sent a quizzical smiley my way. Yeah, it seemed farfetched but at this point, after a night of sunbeam eyed vampires and flying books, I didn’t have a lot of disbelief left in me. Not where our Vampire Jesper was concerned.

I signed off with Bruno, who was up late himself and grabbed for my phone. There was a single text message and I sting of nervous excitement whizzed through me as I looked it up. But it wasn’t Jesper apologizing for missing my text and confirming that he was retiring in the comforts of his home. It had been sent in the earliest hours of the morning, before sun up.

Meet me this night. We should continue getting to know each other. -S

It was Skovajsa and like it or not, he was willing to meet me again. And it scared me to death.

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