Archive for April, 2011

The Secret Ingredient

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

“There has to be parsley in there.”

The last thing Morena expected to be doing during a second course of Vampire 101 was challenging Jesper to name the ingredients in Nick’s gyoza recipe. But here they were, leaning over plates overloaded with the remnants of Nick’s sleepless night, testing Jesper’s super-sensory sniffer.

“You sure about that, pal?” Nick smiled, chopsticks halfway to his mouth. He proceeded to shovel noodles damp with broth so efficiently and effortlessly into his mouth that Morena didn’t wonder why entire nations found no use for spoons.

Jesper’s face screwed up in concentration. His face was right next to hers alleging that he could smell best as she released the flavors with her chewing. After getting over Nick’s gagging look and her own discomfort having a creature whose face had been even closer to other more private parts of her body, Morena had to admit this had become fun.

She sat on a floor cushion in front of the settee where Nick reclined. They had pulled over a coffee table to bear the weight of Nick’s culinary insomnia. Jesper sat in a straight back chair, wearing a tight navy short-sleeved T-shirt, dark relaxed jeans, his once-auburn now nearer to bronze shoulder length hair flared out around him in waves. The most noticeable difference? His eyes. They’d seemed grey before and now they were alive with all colors, but mostly hazel.

“Take another bite,” Jesper told her.

“Why don’t you just eat it?” she complained. She was stuffed. If she ate another gyoza, she was certain she’d pop the top button off her designer jeans.

Jesper jerked his head back, aghast at the suggestion. “Me? Oh no, I follow a strict non-vegan liquid diet.”

Nick laughed as Jesper played it totally over the top. Morena rolled her eyes and sighed, picking up one more. When she went to dip it into the soy sauce, Jesper halted her.

“Without the sauce this time, the sodium is throwing off the scent.”

As she tore the gyoza into two between her teeth, Jesper leaned in close, breathing deep. The playful look in his eyes earlier banished as he became all focus, closing his eyes.

“Now exhale at me,” he instructed, hands on his thighs.

She tossed Nick a look.

“That has to be cheating,” Nick commented.

She breathed openmouthed into Jesper’s face and he inhaled, straightening up and back away from her, eyes closed tightly.

“And that there is so gross.”

Morena almost choked on a laugh. “You stop it! You’d think you tried to rig this.”

Nick shrugged, “Yeah like I was totally thinking of putting crazy ingredients in there this morning as I was trying not to think of mind wrecking.” He sobered for a moment, burying his face into his bowl to try and cover it.

Morena couldn’t help the smile sliding from her face. The fear of this morning seemed so far away and yet, her hand was still covered by a bandage and she was packing Nepalese heat in her bag. The cut from the kukri had mostly healed; the bandage was more a reminder to be alert and wary. She hadn’t thought that would be to be on top of her tasting ability. It wasn’t a talent she pretended to have.

She looked over to Jesper to see if the mood shift had impacted him too to find him watching Nick very closely. Nick seemed to still be investigating the bottom of his bowl.

“Ask me, Nick.”

Nick shrugged, “I dunno. I just was wondering if you’d ever wrecked a human before.” Before Jesper had a chance to answer, Nick continued. “It’s just, it sounds so horrible. I mean, I don’t think too much of my brain. I’m not Einstein or Hermione but, it’s the only thing that’s really mine, you know. My thoughts.”

Jesper considered Nick for a moment, waited for Nick, who was lounging on the settee to meet his gaze. Then Jesper looked to Morena. She couldn’t help it. She wanted to know too. It was all fun and games, she knew, until she found out how badly her ex-whatever-he-had-been had behaved in his vampire life.

“It is horrible. Our minds, our memories in particular, are what shape us into what we are. But being what we are doesn’t come with instructions. Without proper guidance, our abilities can do a lot of damage, especially when we are first vampire born.”

“Is that supposed to be a yes or no?” Morena asked directly.

Jesper met her eyes. He lowered his eyes slowly, regret covering his face. “I’d like to be able to say no. But much of my early years I have no memory of. It happens sometimes, when there’s enough stress. I have to hope not. But I have never knowingly bound a human to me.”

“Why not? Isn’t it safer to have a companion?” Morena asked, suddenly concerned. She didn’t know his age but to think of him alone for all those years, with that horrible secret, it seemed unbearable. She had held his secret for only a few months and she found it so isolating, even with Camille sharing it.

Jesper raised his eyes to hers. “Safer for whom?”

She couldn’t fault that logic. It didn’t take the hurt away from him not sharing more about what he was truly capable of with her, but it gave her a hint of why he had kept it from her. It also let her know, all in a rush, that he never meant anything long term with her. She dropped her eyes realizing that.

“Uh, you guys want a moment?”

Morena slapped Nick’s leg and a smile crossed her face. Boy, he made her laugh. For now, that was worth a whole lot. His face was a strange mix of discomfort and naivety. He hadn’t really known what she was thinking, but somehow, he could tell she went into that darker part of her thinking, the place she normally dwelled with regards to her relationships.

He gave her a tentative smile. She’d swung by to pick him up, partly to keep an eye on him, partly to help him haul the night’s dinner. He’d managed to get a good amount of sleep, like she had, and they’d had a pleasant chat on the ride over. That was when she wasn’t hounding him about how they were possibly going to eat that much food.

“Basil!”

“Are you shitting me? How the hell do you DO that?”

Jesper grinned ear to ear while Nick filled up his bowl for the fifth straight time. One thing was for sure: that boy could eat a mean streak. “Now, for our daily double,” he added, stuffing his mouth again with rice,”how much are you willing to bet in potent potables?”

“Hmm,” Jesper thought about it, index finger to his temple, fingers curled under his chin. “A new leather jacket?”

Nick’s eyes got wide, “Well ok then.”

He was obviously pleased with himself. This one was bound to be harder than Morena believed Jesper would expect. Jesper had already returned Nick’s leather jacket that he’d borrowed last night, just like she’d said he would. He’d even apologized for racing out. There had definitely been more unease there than she was used to seeing from him but she realized this Jesper was entirely new to her. It was like meeting him for the first time, the veil finally falling away. She had to admit, with an admiring look at him, it was rather bittersweet. All thanks to Sophie.

“Where do you think Sophie is?” she asked to no one.

Jesper stiffened, noticeably.

Nick shrugged. He knew but wasn’t saying. Quite the dutiful employee indeed.

“Would either of you tell me if you thought she were in danger?” Jesper asked bluntly.

“Um, what part of her job isn’t dangerous?” Nick retorted.

Jesper fell silent.

After a few moments silence, Morena targeted her harsh tone to Nick, ”She’s with that Castellan, isn’t she?”

“That’s not what it’s called,” Nick pouted.

Morena saw the tension all over Nick’s face and leveled a seething eye at him.

“I don’t actually know where she is. She didn’t tell me, alright?”

“She said she’d be here,” Jesper said stiffly.

Morena turned back to him. “You talked to her?”

“Not exactly.”

Morena looked between the two of them and realized that no one had, in fact, made sure Sophie wasn’t doing something stupid. Just as she was going to get up in a huff, Nick fished out his phone, tapping a few buttons.

A tremulous silence fell for a moment but Morena noticed that Jesper hadn’t moved an inch.

“Who’s the Carpathian? The woman from last night?” he lightly touched his chest.

Nick tightened his lips. He wasn’t about to say a word. He was trying to be the dutiful assistant.

Morena had no such compunction. “No, there’s another one. She told me she’d never successfully treated one; that she’d been killed by the last one she treated. Are they that powerful?”

Morena saw his eyes narrow in a way that made her realize that yes, there was something dangerous lurking there. She wished she understood more. The not knowing was the worst.

“She was right. There is a lot you two must be told. Like how to avoid us.”

Before Jesper could continue, Nick’s phone chirped back. Nick hastily grabbed up the phone.

“She’s on her way back to the office. Should be here shortly,” he announced, relieved. He looked up, smile on his face. Then, casting a glance at Morena, he asked, “You going to finish that?”

She shook her head and watched him finish off the last of the gyoza with a flourish, as if moments before they weren’t all thinking Sophie was in danger. It made her smile, how easily he let go of it. She tossed a look to Jesper, expecting him to be relieved as well.

But Jesper was lost in thought, hand moving over his chest idly.

She drew her brows together and then remembered the anecdote about Vampire healing. She didn’t really want to ask but found she couldn’t help it. “So, um, did you, uh, go out last night?”

When he turned a blank expression on her, she almost lost her nerve. The memories she had of sharing blood with him involved very little clothing and very pleasant sensations. She swallowed. The last time had been about a month ago, something she had tried not to think too much about as it had rattled her in lots of ways. Enough that she had broken her confidence, taken a business card, and made a call to a stranger.

“To heal, you know,” she continued. It had been different when she’d been helping him pick willing donors. She needed to get over it, needed to hear him say that he was with someone else. It would make it easier. It really would.

He blinked, his hand stopped moving. “No.”

“No? Are you healed?”

He nodded.

“Then how?”

The smile slowly spread over his face. “I followed doctor’s orders.”

She smiled back, shaking her head.

“Yeah, two blonde co-eds and a redhead chaser.”

“Nick,” she exclaimed, slapping his leg.

“What?”

“I think I’m ready for that potent potables now,” Jesper added.

“I don’t think you are but you can try.”

“Ah, I’ll take that challenge.”

“Yes, one Italian leather jacket.”

“Oh, it’s Italian now?” Morena accused.

She watched Nick and Jesper spar verbally, enjoyed seeing this side of Jesper, even though she realized she was so not over him. But yes, she could see it. There was a bond there. She’d seen it the first night after he and Sophie had talked. And she remembered the shock of seeing Jesper curled up in Sophie’s lap last night. It was something strong and she needed to get over it. Soon.

Just as she was about to re-engage the conversation, the office door creaked open and Sophie shuffled in. They all turned to look and one look was all they needed to know where she’d been and who with. And with his usual knack for the obvious, Nick addressed it.

“Damn, boss, you look like Death warmed over!”

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The Truth Will Out

Posted in Fiction, Vampirony, writing with tags , , on April 18, 2011 by vampirony

What should have been a beautiful warm Seattle night to enjoy a breathtaking view of the Sound from the park across from Pike Place Market wound up being more an education in how public places could hide anyone. Vagrant, socialite, drunkard, hipster, tourist, mystic, killer…the naïve masses crushing themselves through the night, walking the harbor steps for a view of the pier, lights from ships bouncing across the water.

When I found the totem pole that Skovajsa had arranged as our meeting place, I found myself facing a fifty foot log of cedar rising up into the dark sky. At eye level, some sort of bird, talons up and raised, staring at me. It made me think of Lucy and her flock ability, power of transfiguration that I had never seen. Of course, in the here and now, with the memories of Valerian coming back to me, I realized that I was not fully back into myself yet. The nightmares that haunted me were images from my past that I fought to keep hidden.

I seldom thought back on how I’d become aware in this lifetime. It was still too painful to remember all of it beyond what Skovajsa’s attack had forced me to relive. But my crisis in this life had connected me back with lives that had come before. But still, mostly snippets and fragments had emerged over the last two years. Even now I had to admit how little I knew of the Memento itself, how it had come into my possession, how its magic had been forged.

Had I invented a reality to cover over those gaps, much like Skovajsa had? Were our struggles so very different, trying to understand what we were and how to become that next thing, the next step in our evolution? Looking up at the pole, towering over me in the dark, I realized that the dance was over. I needed to push Skovajsa, challenge him to know what he was really about, whether I could really help him.

I turned away from the totem pole and felt Skovajsa near. He kept his distance, observing me from across the street. He still wore his dark long jacket and once he could tell I’d seen him, he strode over. Interesting. He seemed intent on not frightening me.

I met him halfway, where we’d be full under street lights.

“Thank you for meeting me here,” he said, voice even and calm.

I simply nodded.

He reached out a hand to touch my cheek and I stepped away. Flashbacks of that hand wrapped around my throat were all too recent. He dropped it, immediately stuffing both of his hands in his pockets.

“Shall we walk?” he offered.

“Ok,” I said. As long as it’s within full view of everyone else in the whole of Seattle. And maybe even a few spy satellites. I wasn’t going to take the lead on this. He’d called this meeting. He needed to explain what he wanted.

It took him awhile to get going. In fact, we’d reached to the end of this stretch of safe walkway before I halted us. “Look, Skovajsa, you called this meeting.”

“Yes, I thought we might talk.”

Um, right. It was talking to a brick wall, all six plus feet of it. The tension was getting to me, especially since I was getting his back currently as he looked around. But I needed to give this one more chance. I needed to be sure. It was for a life’s work undone.

“I’m listening,” I said, my tone blank.

He turned toward me, a look of compassion and regret on his face. “I have committed an offense. I have not treated you with due respect and I apologize for my short sightedness. You are a woman of great worth and understanding. I see that now.”

O-K. If the hairs on my arms would just sit down, maybe this wasn’t going to be too bad.

“You see, I do not trust easily. My life has been full of strife and death. I have been hunted, even by own kind. And humans,” he paused, looking away, suddenly pensive. “Well, they seem to stick around for more than they are wanted, for their own ends. It is why I have had so few servants.” He looked down at me again. “Finding a companion, it is difficult for one such as me.”

Lost, misunderstood, confused?

“Someone of talent, knowledge, and strength of character and purpose to match my own power and resources is…rare indeed.”

Oh, sorry, egotistical, maniacal, sociopathic.

He reached a hand into his coat and thirteen lifetimes stood up in me, ready to scream in one voice for help. But instead, he retrieved a velvet rectangular box, holding it out to me. “Please. A token of my apology.”

I was about to halt him with my hand but one of those voices, a young bride from Darjeeling, bade me give in for a moment, to not tempt the beast when it was most contrite. I took the box and opened it. Even under the dim glow of street lamps, the diamond necklace glittered shamefully. Oh, shit.

“Skovajsa–.”

“Please, you must hear me. I feel if you give me the chance, you may come to see that our lives might be bond together in perfect circumstance. If I might just be allowed to give you the stars, you might yet bring me the sun.”

My eyes darted up. The sun. My blood ran cold. What possible reason could a vampire like him want with the sun? He had learned to speak in metaphor. My talent and knowledge, his search for a companion. This was something I never expected. Skovajsa didn’t want to kill me. Far from it. He wanted to bind me to him, to use my knowledge for his own purposes. Perhaps to hunt down other vampires.

The Sun. Jesper. Somehow, my instincts told me, he knew about Jesper. I didn’t know how or for how long. Had he read my thoughts? Was that yet another talent vampires of which I had been unaware?

He put his hands over mine to close the box, pushing it gently to me. I blinked very slowly up at him. My mind ground to a complete halt and the very worst that could possibly be had come to fruition.

“Skovajsa, you are not the vampire you say you are. I do not know how you were truly made but your life story seems a contrivance to make up for being abandoned by your maker.”

This made a dent in his temperate manner. His eyebrow twitched but he slowly smiled to cover it.

“I can try to help you, help you try to recover your story, your memory…as your psychologist.” Then, I pushed the box back into his chest. He let me draw one hand back, but he gripped my left before I could get it back safely. He stared down at the box.

“What do you mean, you think my story is a lie? That my struggle…that it has been a lie?”

He let go of my hand as if I’d hit him. His words should have been filled with hurt, anger even. But they fell flat and devoid of anything resembling humanity and all the gracelessness of pure, raw emotion. It was as if someone was typing in the words and Skovajsa the mannequin spoke. He was either buried so deep underneath the lies he’d told himself or the man he’d once been no longer existed at all.

“I have no doubt you have struggled. But I can only help you if you want to know the truth. If you really want to know yourself.”

He held out the box again, as if diamonds really were a girl’s BFF. I stepped away.

It was heartbreaking, in a way. He wasn’t Valerian. He wasn’t fighting to maintain himself while I tilted the world on him. I could see he just didn’t understand this rejection. It didn’t fit. But nothing showed in his face. But the gears must have been turning.

“You will…try to help me.”

“As your psychologist.”

He gazed into my face again, his impassive. “You’ll help me…uncover my story.”

Something felt off, like he was backing me into some corner that I couldn’t see. “You wanted to know yourself.”

He looked down, dropping his arms to his sides. “Yes. I said that.” He straightened up to full height. “I have many holdings, pretty houses, stores, nice things. Cars, furs, jewels. You would not be wanting for anything. Perhaps in time, when you know me better, you will change your mind.”

Damn, if he wasn’t persistent.

“No. I won’t. I want to help you. But not like that.”

His body relaxed all of a sudden, as if I’d given him exactly what he wanted. “Well, I will just have to find some other way to convince you. While we continue our treatments, of course.”

Not only was he not listening, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He’d made up his mind. I hesitated. It might make more sense to stall him into thinking we were good until I could figure out what to do next. But he was Vampire; he had it in his head that I would make a great addition to his many holdings. Being used for my knowledge was something that Valerian had once warned me about.

If you are not protected, you will become a pawn.

I nodded. “Right. I’ll contact you for your next appointment time. In a few days. Good night.” I began to walk away.

“Sophie.”

It was the first time I remember him using my name. It chilled me. I wanted to scour my ears. Was there just a little Vox in there?

“You turn down the finest jewels. What gift would be more appropriate for my…psychologist friend?”

I’d turned down the nearest thing a vampire gave to a marriage proposal and realized that this was by far one of the most dangerous and unhinged vampires I’d ever met. There was no doubt now. Skovajsa was the Vampire Cannibal I feared. I was stalling for a plan, for something brilliant to come to mind.

“Don’t suppose you have any fine wine?” I quipped.

“Certainly.” He smiled. “Something just perfect for the occasion. A very rare old vintage Sherry. I just recently got it for a steal from a collector in Seville.”

Remember what I said about fearing a smiling vampire?

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DJB: Memoirs, Volume 3: The Look of Things

Posted in Fiction, Vampirony, writing with tags , , , on April 17, 2011 by vampirony

“Sure,” was the length and breadth of her response to my text.

It didn’t leave me much to go on, which troubled me some. I scratched at my chest, my scars prickling under my shirt. It took me a while to notice that Conclave had gone suddenly quiet, as if the conference call had been dropped.

I pitched forward at my desk, realizing that I was no longer actively projecting into the room where the others had gathered. Someone had called this emergency session to talk about some slight somewhere or something. I had to admit a failing on my part as Conclave scribe that I hadn’t been paying much attention.

As I peered into the room, trying to re-establish what was happening, I saw a form move in front of the camera. A laptop was usually setup on the far side of the room where I could see everyone assembled and easily project myself without getting in anyone’s way. It tended to unnerve some of the others when my projected self interfered in their space.

The form was Valerian, clearly seated in his chair on the dais. He raised an eyebrow at me and blocked the entire room from my view as I heard the heated conversation continue in the background. But before I could grasp the thread, Valerian spoke, his voice low, just for me.

“You look a little different today, my absent-minded friend.”

“Huh?” I was scratching at my chest again. I made myself stop.

He didn’t say more, just slowly sat back out of view.

“That is an insolent allegation–.”

I pushed my awareness back into the room just as Valerian, just behind my left elbow, spoke up.

“Considering that the focus of the allegation has not appeared to this conclave, perhaps it would be better to reserve these proceedings for a better time.”

Across the room from me was a very young looking Latino, wearing chinos and a white sports polo shirt with short cropped sun-streaked brown hair, more modern day soccer player than vampire. But his jaw was set with selfless resolution. And he stood alongside a very old friend to the Conclave, Imperius from the Jaguar clan. Imperius was no vampire, but had been a vampire servant from his Roman days, then traveled as a monk throughout Europe. He’d been a servant for so long and his bonded vampire had been so ancient that when his master had to be killed due to insanity, Imperius had survived on. It was a bit of a miracle that no one could still explain.

Xi, current member of Valerian’s staff although originally from Teng-Wen’s Jiang-shi horror, had stepped down from the dais, as if advancing on the Latino. His long dusty black locks were bristling, the tattoos over his naked torso rippled with magical intensity. It had been his voice that Valerian had forestalled. With his clenched fists and forward posture, he was a hair’s breadth from disobedience.

Imperius set his shrewd eyes to studying Valerian. He’d been old before Valerian had been human born. There wasn’t much that passed his notice or reasoning among vampire affairs and he had very deftly helped the South American contingent carve out equal rights among the vampire Conclave, including this particular privilege of direct access. No other horror would allow anyone but the leader to directly address Conclave. But the South Americans were different in many ways and we’d all chosen to respect that in their one small request for fear of the bloodbath that might follow denial.

“And when might young Bianchi, who’s already traveled quite far in service to the Conclave, get his satisfaction?” Imperius asked, suspicious.

Valerian stood, a signal this Conclave was at an end. “When the vampire in question can be found.”

The Latino Bianchi stepped forward, “I only wish to be heard, Lord Valerian. We in the southern provinces believe in your wisdom handling threats to all vampire society, regardless of their source.”

Xi made the slightest inhalation in temper but before breath escaped his lungs, his lips and jaw clenched shut tight and he began stepping back heavily, up the steps of the dais, behind Valerian. His eyes darted to his master but no other part of his body moved. He became a glorious statue of a warrior, frozen on the precipice of attacking. It was the first time in a long time I’d seen Valerian have to reign in one of his own at Conclave. His kindred were among the most obedient, mainly because they had been hunted the most throughout the ages and relied so heavily on him for their continued existence.

His full expression was hard for me to see from my vantage but his sharp face was dented in a pained smile.

“But of course. We shall adjourn from this larger group to talk it over.”

Valerian stepped down the dais towards the Latino vampire, his robe falling thick and dark around him. When he reached Bianchi, he put an arm around the boy, leading him away, with Imperius hesitating behind. For all his power and darkness, there was something so fatherly about that arm that it beckoned me forward.

“So, scribe, how will you record this session? I fear there was more unsaid than you could hope to surmise.”

I hadn’t realized I had pushed further into the room, some fifty feet from the laptop. Imperius looked at my projected self as if my presence were commonplace. Absent-minded indeed. Valerian was right; I wasn’t quite in control of body or spirit at the moment, both wanting to be elsewhere. But there were too many questions in the here and now that were hinted at, most of them from our appointed leader himself.

“What did the boy mean ‘regardless of the source’?” I asked, still looking after Valerian.

“Hmm, he refers to the Taint.”

I turned my head toward him. I was familiar with the blood cleansing programs. Valerian had just returned from one not long ago and had still deigned to meet with me about Sophie. I now knew he had been drinking pine needle tea as a restorative. I kept away from the cleansings as I had never had the thirst for gorging as some had, even though I understood the necessity of the process. But some programs devised more recently hadn’t always used such a direct approach.

“Yes, what of it?”

All manner of vampire concoctions had once been tried to affect a larger group of people without exposing vampires to direct blood consumption. All attempts had significant side effects moving Valerian to discontinue them and every unintentional spawn had been liberated. He’d had to argue very vigorously with Shadria and Galscythe, ministers of the programs, to revert to vampire individuals doing the direct cleansing, volunteering himself to start. They had not seen a few errant orphans as being statistically significant even after one had murdered a school bus full of children in Argentina.

Horrific as it had been, they had still thought to refine, not end the practice. Valerian wanted it eradicated immediately and every potion, powder, or bottle collected and destroyed. Their disagreement had come to combat in the Conclave chamber, Shadria calling Valerian soft in his concern for the humans and weak for his fear over a few fevered and wild offshoots. Before that day, the list of punishable offenses in vampire society included only two: Endangerment of vampire society and interference in another vampire’s horror or territory.

That day, Valerian in his swift and utter defeat of Shadria, a vampire two hundred years his senior, had added another. Children of any kind were untouchable. Of course, he explained that infanticide was a great threat to our treaties and our secrecy and therefore violated the primary law. But the ferocity with which he had physically mutilated Shadria and mentally wrecked her in unknowable ways gave rise to suspicions of his exact motives.

Imperius chewed the side of his beard, looking much the portly monk, still in his old traveling robes. “Valerian promised Jaguar clan that he would destroy every remnant of Taint from the Earth. It’s rumored a few still elude him, that his agents work even now to recover them. But Jaguar clan remembers how he fought with honor to protect all vampires from ultimate ruin and avenged the defiled children of the Argentines.”

“Yes, he’s become quite the family man.”

“Hmm, “ Imperius scoffed, slapping air where my chest would be. “You might ask Xi how he feels about his adopted father right about now.” He took his leave.

He was right of course but this interaction had revealed something a lot closer at hand. As I looked down at my chest, the V neck shirt hinted at something strange beneath, something Valerian had tried to hint at earlier. I pulled down the fabric at the neck and noticed that my projected self had an unblemished chest, even as I felt my real chest still itching. Somehow, my projected self was the old one, not the one with a few new scars that Valerian had woken from reverie in the laptop conference call.

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NEW MESSAGE: Is this your guy?

Posted in Fiction, Vampirony, writing with tags , , on April 4, 2011 by vampirony

From: bruno bonne(brunbon@unilu.ch)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009
To: vampironyis@live.com
Attachment: BeItalian.jpg

Tried to IM you but you’ve been offline all day. So I put one more try out there in the great wide web to see if I could catch anything on this Skovajsa and came up with this strange thing: a male actor/model in 1930’s Italy named Vasa Skoda. He was of Yugoslavian descent, apparently migrated to Italy to do advertisements for the growing interest in travel to the Mediterranean. Apparently, tans were all the fashion.

Someone at Jagiellonian University is trying to do a new history of the House of Vasa, a Swedish/Polish royal house and, well, she found his info and posted it up, trying to find any descendants.

Trippy note here: apparently, one of his few acting roles was an extra in which famous 1931 film? You guessed it, the classic Bram Stoker’s Dracula with Bela Lugosi.

I’ve attached the ad picture. Is this him? Get back to me ASAP!

-bb

Bruno Bonne Kasernenplatz 6 Postfach 74553 6999 Luzern 9 Universitat Luzern

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I must not fear

Posted in Fiction, Vampirony, writing with tags , , , on April 3, 2011 by vampirony

I woke early evening after being hunted and tormented in nightmares brought on by too little sleep and too much melatonin. How quickly I had moved from the troubles of the dreaming, sun-endowed vampire Jesper to the more sinister evils of the Carpathian cannibal Skovajsa. Something about it all just seemed so off.

How much of it could be explained by his not having known his maker, not having a mentor to work him through the process, I wasn’t sure. The very survival of a newborn usually demanded a maker, a parent to provide for and protect, especially in the cities. The era of bloodbaths and the countless missing peasants whom no one noticed was over. Even if a newly made hunted the homeless, someone would take note.

And then there was Skovajsa’s textbook story that seemed all too…textbook. But he seemed so proud of it, so caught up in it. Never mind his aggression; he’d already shown him himself perfectly capable of violence with little regard to the fact that it was uncivilized.

No maker, a back story that reeked of a Bela Lugosi film, the emotional depth of a teaspoon, and the vanity of male model…it went without saying. I was afraid to see him. Afraid for my life. I was ashamed of it. I’d lived lifetime after lifetime, becoming acquainted the my many selves, knowing that because I fell so far from perfection, so far from being able to give up that which might free me from mortal concerns that I was doomed to be reincarnated again.

But it wasn’t the life that I feared losing…it was what was left behind. The mystery of a dreaming vampire and his glowing eyes. Just the thought that my going out to meet Skovajsa tonight might mean that last night would be the last time I saw Jesper curdled the blood in my veins. I’d lived so many time that the loss of my own existence no longer phased me. But the loss of his, the sheer impossibility of ever connecting with him again the way he was right now, warm, funny, vulnerable, and so very very intriguing; it terrified me beyond all else. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the thought because my heart finally ached not to be parted from him, not just yet.

Maybe he felt the same, maybe he was just his positive vampire self, taking advantage of the situation to his own ends. I had never cared that my emotions be returned in kind. The fact that I had them for once…finally…after feeling so bereft of emotions for so very long. The emptiness, the void was suddenly bursting with this all-consuming fear and I was shaking in my damp sheets, clutching my arms around me.

He was everything that Skovajsa was not. I knew Skovajsa was bad news. So why would I even consider going to meet him?

There was a Carpathian long ago that I had tried to help. I had been fascinated by him, fallen in love with him, and watched him slip from my grasp as his imbalances had turned his interest in me to obsession, his love into fear, my refusal to be turned into hate, my attempts to minister to him twisted into ridicule of him, contemptible conceit. In the very end, his very love for me had been my undoing. I hadn’t seen how far he’d gone into this madness, hadn’t been aware or prepared.

My failure had cost me my life. It had been the last time I remember feeling anything more than fondness for someone, excepting, of course, my daughter.

One dark night in London in 1883, I met a vampire named Valerian, in the flat of a Mr. Roland Emmerick, during a meeting of the Ghost Club, an organization founded to investigate spiritualism and science in a quest for knowledge. While women were not allowed in the Ghost Club officially, having a strange aptitude for reading people’s past landed me an audience in the club as a medium.

Valerian, who must have been already over 400 years old by this time, was investigating this club for what threat it might have against him and his kind. I suspect he had already started a horror of his own and wanted to see about setting London up as his home. He cut quite an impressive visage; tall, dark, and handsome with angular cheeks and deep set blue eyes.

Whether he was actually attracted to me physically or rather some of my comments had piqued his interest initially, he knew well how to mete control of his abilities to charm and attract. It had caught me off-guard. What was worse was that as we began to talk, the wall between my professionalism and his, well, vampire nature, slipped seamlessly away. He led me to a quiet corner of the room to share a brandy with him. Since most of the assembled might disapprove of such a strong drink for such a gentle lady, I agreed, thinking, mostly, that it would settle my nerves.

It did. It emboldened me, matter-of-fact, into revealing what I suspected of him.

“A vampire? Surely you are letting these zealots of the supernatural influence you,” he joked, but a darkness crept over his face.

“Zealots they may be but the fact remains, you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, testing the shepherd’s flock for your own designs.” I took another sip. “It speaks of your refinement, maturity of one of your kind. The fact that you can meld so well in such animated company further demonstrates your power and capability.”

“If I were sufficiently capable, as you suggest, wouldn’t I be able to charm you into thinking me just a man having an entrancing conversation with a beautiful and yet enigmatic woman?”

“Lord Valerian, as you have already been made aware, I have supernatural tendencies of my own. Though, this brandy helps me to confess, I feel the power of your sway most strongly. I do hope you will not take advantage of a lady who only seeks to offer up her abilities for benefit of others.”

“You can rely upon me, sweet lady, to take the utmost care with your person. Although, I too must confess myself strangely held captive like no time in recent memory. If we were to pretend, for a moment, that I was this, uh, creature of which you speak, what special skills might you lay upon my person?”

Looking at him coyly, drunk off brandy, “I would help you find the balance which you seek.”

He guffawed heartily. But as I remained steadfast in my gaze, he face sobered into incredulity. “Let me make sure I understand you. You believe that I, a stranger that you have just met for all of an hour, am unbalanced?”

As I held his gaze with my own, I watched it sneak under his armor and behind those dark blue eyes, there was a tremor. First, it was a flash of anger and he seemed about to bolt. The room was heading with incense and some other odor. Pipe smoke filling the room and the brandy like liquid courage in my veins, I moved to ease his mind, putting my gloved hand out.

I misjudged my mark, my hand landing not on his arm as intended. Instead, it fell upon his upper thigh.

His eyes flashed and his mouth dropped open just enough that I clearly saw his fangs snap out. It would’ve been quite acceptable, maybe even expected of him, a gentleman, to recognize a lady out of her depth, too much in the drink, and in danger of, perhaps already sullying her reputation.

He was old enough, mature enough, powerful enough that my small slip of propriety should have been nothing to him. Even as Vampire, such a touch, such a conversation, should have done little to move him from his plan. But I got to him that evening, just as he had got to me and we were staring at each other, as if suddenly both naked.

He wasn’t without any subtleties. He leaned forward, letting the fabric of his jacket drape over my arm so that no casual observer might notice where my hand lay. The room was stifling, my head began to swim, and I surmise now that it was in no small measure because he lost control of his abilities. I dropped my brandy glass and put my other hand to my head before fainting away.

The rest I know from Emmerick who told me later how Valerian gathered me up in his arms, declared that I had just had a powerful psychic fit in reading his future and that he would return me home posthaste in his carriage.

When I came to later, my head was resting against his shoulder in the carriage. But contrary to what could have been, he had taken no other liberties, both of his hands rested on his walking stick. As I stirred, opening my eyes, he spoke.

“I must apologize. There must be some truth in your words for only if I were not quite right would I take such a risk and spirit you away from that assembly.” He took a long, slow breath. “But I find I cannot be parted from you just yet.”

I lifted my head, felt his being all throughout me. I put a weak hand to my throat.

He noticed the movement. “No, I have not bitten you…yet.”

“You’ve done far worse.” I spoke softly. Without a bite, it could only mean that his sheer power alone had been brought to hear. He’d charmed me, nay, perhaps even worse than that, he’d entranced me. The pull felt so strong, I had to clench my hands to keep them from him.

He turned to look at me. Instead of a jaunty smile, there was regret and a sheepish look. His fangs peeked from under tightly drawn lips. “I did not intend it.”

I should’ve been fighting with all my remaining strength against him, to get out of his carriage, but I believed him. I read in his eyes the truth of the situation, that it was almost a reflex; he was Vampire and he must keep what was his. And somehow in that drawing room, I had intrigued him enough, shocked him enough, that it had forged some bond.

“Perhaps, my lord, if your mind was put at some ease, you might be able to relinquish your hold.” It was like gasping in air to make any sense, no matter how he was to be believed. I tried not to fight it, that could only led to wrecking of my mind especially if, he had no control over this binding that had happened.

He smiled without mirth, moving a hand to take my chin gently in his grasp. “And what possible ease could I find in your presence, when you look right through all four hundred thirty three of my years and make me feel like a schoolboy scraping my knees at the altar of a divine?”

I couldn’t think past the current moment. The only thoughts that seemed to make any sense were to give in enough that we both might have some ease. With shaky fingers, I undid the top buttons of my collar. His fangs grew involuntarily at revealing my neck to him. I blinked my eyes shut, wanting to dive headlong through this moment so I might find a way back out the other side.

He moved to wrap his arm around me, tilting my chin with his hand. Besides the bumpy nature of the carriage, once I was completely in his hold, I was no longer jostled, his strength so complete that I felt like I was floating.

His thumb moved over my cheek causing me to open my eyes to him again. There was a question in his gaze. “You think this will break my regard for you?”

“Yes,” I breathed. Arrgh, I just wanted him to hurry!

I could feel my veins throbbing in my whole body, heart thumping just for him. If this didn’t work, I’d be lost.

“My lady,” he whispered, eyes still searching mine. “What is your name?”

“Darcie Sherbourne,” I replied simply.

“Darcie Sherbourne,” he tried the name on his tongue, head leaning over me. Then Lord Valerian, loyal lieutenant to Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia, who fought to repel the Ottomans during the Battle of Vaslui in 1475, ancient vampire, gentleman and scholar, professed his own prescience.

“You will be the death of me.”

Then he bit me.

“““““““““““““““““

I was in no way ready to meet Skovajsa. I was too vulnerable. I realized I was still willing to give Skovajsa a chance because of my past with Valerian. But Valerian had killed me. Our bond had been broken in one way in that carriage and forged in another. And it been the undoing of us both.

The twins might be my biggest regret but Valerian had been my ultimate failure.

And here I was, afraid of losing this life more than any other I could recall, stepping into a cab at half past 10PM to meet the vampire fraud in the heart of downtown. As I settled into the seat, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

A text. From Jesper.

Got yur message. See u later?

Nothing in this life was ours to keep. Everything we acquired, every happiness we managed, only moments on loan to us. The trick was to accept those moments as gifts and linger over them only for a moment, not to clasp them tightly until they turned to dust.

Sure, I texted back. I leaned my head back in the cab, watching the water of another lake fill my view. This moment, right now, with my heart beating warmly in my chest with relief, this moment I would savor.

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