I look at those two children. They are rescued. They will be secure. They will live long lives. That, I can guarantee. The boy likes vegetable beef barley soup. The little girl loves Macaroni and cheese. It's winter. The dark comes early. I can 'have dinner' with them. Sarah can too. Annie doesn't. She's up and out with the first star. Conrad passes through from time to time. He says - Hi, how you doing?... The boy says - OK... The girl only looks. She says - Is he your cousin? ... I say - No, just a friend..... Edith, our mortal witchy-woman housekeeper brings the main course, steaming platters of braised brisket in gravy. The boy looks on impatiently as I cut it. The girl makes a bit of a face. Meat is a new addition to her diet, which up to now has been mostly toast, butter, cheese, chicken nuggets, a bit of fish, apple sauce, eggs and maybe peas and carrots. Oh, I forgot ice cream. Mortals love ice cream. If only cows realized what their babies' milk can be... but I suppose the cold temperature would frighten them.
The boy wants to know if we have any kids' books in the 'little' library. I say - Some, but old fashioned ones. Not too many pictures. A few in an old volume of A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES by Stevenson.... The boy says - Who's Stevenson?... I say - He's the 'guy' who wrote the poems. Verses means poems... He says - You got any Berenstein Bears or Captain Underpants or Paw Patrol?... Before I can answer, Sarah, my consort, says - I'll bring some back. I'll get some tonight... The little boy nods... The little girl watches Conrad walk toward the entry hall, take his coat from the closet, put it on, along with his hat (one of those tweed, narrow brimmed types dull men wear) scarf and gloves... She says - Where's he going?.... I say - He's a dentist. He's open at night because people have to go to work during the day.... She goes - Uh huh.... They each have a slice of banana bread (no nuts because Sarah says with kids you never know) for dessert. Then we go into the den, or family room, or whatever mortals call it now and settle in for about an hour of animation. Netflix has plenty of children's shows. I'm starting to know them all. Paw Patrol is big right now .
Just a short message to let DDos criminals in Singapore know we’ve engaged a noted web lawyer and are investigating your extremely malicious crimes. We know about your footprint in certain other places too
There was a man living in the town. He was a stranger, far more strange to the Mediterranean world than any vampire. And please know that as a Spanish Jew (at least in my mortal form) this world was fundamental to my very being. I met him at an evening symposium, a dinner and intellectual get together for gentlemen. Please know I used my Spanish name, Tomas de Macabea, to avoid the Inquisition. Agents of that fearsome organization were quite adept at vampire catching. Those of you familiar with the elferina, Marianne's sojourn in the Fortress of Lead, recounted in Vampire Wonderland - Marianne In Britches know this. The rest of you can Google Vampire Wonderland by Billy Kravitz Marianne In Britches for countless points of access. I use the name of my twenty first century 'familiar' for convenience. Six of us attended that symposium
In the fifteenth Resonance of the ninth Emanation a Son of Humanity, Darius the Great, conquered Old Babylonia and vanquished the king, He Who Reveres Nabu, folding Babylon's treasures into his own and greatly free enriching the Empire of the Medes and Persians. The King of Kings, never one to rest on his laurels, turned his eyes toward the East and the West, focusing in turn on the neglected Hebrew polity by the shores of The Sea Between the Lands and the glittering jewel of the Punjab. Thus did the prophets, saints and holy men of the Jews meet the prophets, saints and holy men of the Hindus in retreats and ashrams scattered throughout his empire, supreme on all the Earth.
You have not seen me here in months and I have been an infrequent visitor for at least two or three years before that. But I miss you and I need to come back. I am trying to share a piece of music that has, in a sense, become the vampires' creed. I hope it appears. There are those who do all they can to thwart my message. They hate truth and so they hate me. I am Jonathon ben Macabi, and I have been 'night folk' since my nineteenth year, more than one thousand years ago. This path winds back to the beginning. No one knows its source. Please know I speak of mortals. We know. Night-folk understand. Each of us was born mortal, but at some time, at some fortuitous point in the matrix we call Creation, we were no longer mortal, each changed into something miraculous and strange. Many heard a voice, a calm low, soft clear voice. Was it an angel? I suppose. We all think that. It's a question of faith. The angel said - Fear not. Thou hast not been forsaken, but chosen to fight in Michael's Army. The Arch Angel calls you to go out into the world. Thou shalt cull the wicked. Thou shalt extinguish blighted souls. ... And the world has no shortage of them.
We make three visits to the bedside of such offenders. Ebenezer Scrooge was not unique. We relate their sins and ask for repentance. If they sincerely do we leave. Each gets three chances, one month apart. The third is the last. Should they still relish their wickedness they are extinguished. It's not the blood that sustains us, but the mission. We are not The Shepherd, just the sheepdog.
Mortals revered us. Some called us Saints, local saints to be sure, but saints just the same. All was well till inquisitional times. Then it all changed. The world entered an age of distortion. Evil and excess were everywhere. To be sure there were inklings as early as four centuries before that time. The wars for Jerusalem and all. Those in authority termed us demons. Many perished. Some just gave up, sublimating high into the starlit sky till their essence was spread so thin it could never coalesce. Are their atoms still out there? I suppose, but atoms are but particles, mere desiccated crumbs of what once was.
I and those like me are among the steadfast. We remember 'the call.' Some of what you've read here over the years has been embellished. I don't know why. Night-folk just do that from time to time. We crave union with the world. Sainthood can grow tiresome. Still, I continue to do my job.... till that blessed dawn, the morning of True Light, when The Messiah finally appears.
Now permit me to go out into the city. I have to make my rounds... two first visits... one third...
You may have seen me, a comly trim 'eighteen year old with long dark wavy hair... black bootkins... black jeans... white shirt... fine tailored black leather coat. I could easily be one of those singers up above it that video. Sometimes my boots throw sparks.
Just before dawn I return to the townhouse. The things I've shared about that place and all who live in it are true, including our two mortal foundlings.
I love that piece... Nessun Dorma... 'no one sleeps.'... at least not among the night-folk....
THIS will take you to the whole tale if you click on it... THAT will take you to Billy's site on Twitter. He's the mortal who coordinates this for us.
Adios....Why 'adios?'... I am a loyal son of old Al Andalus... and Classical Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic and Old Castilian come natural to me... as well as the ancient nigh-folk dialects too.
And so what do I do with them, my two innocent human charges... my children? I watch them every night when I awake. We put them to bed at eight thirty, an hour late by mortal standards. They wake up at seven thirty or perhaps an hour more. So they see me for perhaps three and a half hours now, in the winter time. In the summer, when dawn comes so early and dusk so late they might not see me at all. The boy, the five year old, doesn't say much and his three year old sister looks to him for guidance. So far they ask few questions. Why should they. Edith, our mortal housekeeper sees to their meals. A familiar, a man who oversees our financial affairs, arranged for clothes from the best children's shops, toys from the most inviting toy shops. We subscribe to all the popular children's television networks. Edith or Billy, the mortal who curates this blog for us, takes them out on walks all the time. They get treats and story books, but only if the shop has a special window installed in their front door for safe ease of purchase during this time of pestilence. They have an small ten gallon tropical fish aquarium all done up like a cozy undersea fish village. Conrad, another night-folk who lives here, had tropical fish before his transformation and knows all about them, so he takes care of the tank. It's set up in a room downstairs made to look like a pre-school or kindergarten classroom... all the colorful wall charts, a chalk board, bright tables and chairs, digital tablets... everything. A teacher came two and a half hours every morning. Then lunch. In the afternoons Billy took over. Afternoons were easy... a story... a nap... arts and crafts... Zoom time with a few other home schooled children... a kiddie TV movie before dinner. This time of year Sarah (my consort) and I get to join them. Conrad looks in from time to time. Annie the by now maybe ten year old child vampire in a body not much older than the five year old boy's when it happened. I did not do it. None of us did. None of us would. 'Papa' did that. You'll see him. He's around. I don't know where, but he's around. Annie visits with the children... never alone... always supervised. Sometimes she's a mean little kid, besides being a vampire.. The mortal children call her 'that mean girl.' She's skinny. Her hair just hangs there. Likes magazines and coloring books from the CVS. Sneaks out by herself at night. She's a vampire. What's going to happen to her. Sometimes she sneaks into the vast Penn Museum on 34th Street to commune with the spirits of the mummies. That place is mummy central. She steals things for some homeless guys she's friends with... cigarettes... plastic containers of these big wet napkins like baby wipes, but these are made for old people with like arthritis and all. Homeless people love them. Annie has money to pay for these things, but she likes stealing. The mortal children sense she's 'something' they just don't know what.
Jonathon worries about the mortal boy and girl. Only been a few nights, but he thinks about things. They're going to want a normal family. Right now he figures one of his 'familiars' a lawyer with a huge condo and a house down the shore, actually not too far from where Baylah's mortal boyfriend lives. You'll meet her.
Bet you never thought vampires had problems like this, but think about it. Why wouldn't they. People say they're 'not human.' But they are. What they're not is mortal. He doesn't want to see these children grow old. There was a woman, a vampire woman in town years ago who took in two mortal children too. She had money. All vampires have money. I'll explain how later, but it's very obvious. You'll get it right away. You'll figure it out. A flamboyant Auntie Mame character. The children never left her. She lived in The Drake, a legendary Center City pre war apartment building... thirty two stories tall... terra cotta Spanish type towers on top. She lived up there... private elevator. You know how often other people in the building saw her? Hardly ever. Mr. Dawson delivered groceries for 'the children' and Denise, her 'French girl' kept house. Mrs. Hopps came before breakfast and left just before dinner to cook all the meals plus a few snack items. Things were fine, until the 'children' got old. Then she brought in nurses. They never needed doctors. The tiniest drops of her night-folk blood banished every ailment. But as with all humans the clockwork mechanism reaches its end and the tiny drops of vampire blood are useless. They were too old to transform. Aged vampires don't do well. They live like ghouls. The vampire woman stayed with them to the end. We don't know where she went.
Jonathon didn't want that to happen. Neither did Sarah. When it was time the children would go to that 'familiar.'
The night he decided, he sat in the middle of Washington Square park. No one noticed him. It was dark. The place was a military grave yard during the War for Independence. They claimed the bodies were moved when the area took on a residential tone, first with town houses, later with the high rise condominiums we see today. The truth is they never moved most of the bodies... a few dozen. They made a token attempt, but two thousand still remain, packed in tight as slats in a hardwood floor. Jonathon liked the ghosts. He'd talk with them. Did they all remain there? No. Most went on to The World To Come, but a few, perhaps a dozen, never left. They'd rise up from their rest and make their way to the bench. Jonathon had his favorite bench. That's where they'd sit. Oh, the ghosts weren't tied to the site. They'd wander through the district... watching people... passing through dark and gloomy department stores shuttered for the night. Once in a while they'd come across a newly 'freed' spirit pacing about in the dark, still warm empty body laying abandoned in some nearby bedroom. They'd whisper some words of encouragement and go on their way. Not like they were family...
Jonathon liked their matter of fact manner. Most, by today's standards were still kids, boys in their late teens... maybe as old as Twenty one or twenty two. But, then again, Jonathon was only eighteen when he transformed... Not 'dead,' just not mortal.
Look, who knows when the children might leave? Might be a fortnight. Might be a year. Might be ten years... The 'Black Parade' goes on and on and he's been marching for more than a thousand years.
On his way back to the town house he picked up a bottle of Sarah's favorite scent... just a casual thing from the CVS... even got a Barbie coloring book for Annie.
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The first days were hard. We kept them in the same bedroom. There's two single beds in there, but they only used the one near the bookcase. Mostly they just wept. Edith brought them bowls of warm maple syrup-brown sugar oatmeal, but they wouldn't eat. Sometimes they just lay there, the five year old with his arm around his little sister. Edith stayed in there with them. Jonathon and Sarah didn't go out that night. When Edith went to bed, they took over. The kids took a bit of cold water, but that was it. Once, in a quiet voice, the little boy said - We want the light... Sarah switched on a small 'carousel' lamp on the night table between the beds, then two more hours of silence until they started to fuss. Sarah asked - Do you have to go to the bathroom?... They said - Uh huh... Jonathon got up, but Sarah said - No, I'll take them. The boy said - Take her first. I can hold it. So Sarah carried the three year old into the the attached bathroom. Vampires didn't use the toilets much, unless they like killed a fly, or a spider and had to flush it, but they do like standing under a hot shower on chill winter nights. There minutes later when they came back, the boy said - Now me. She went to pick him up but he said - That's OK. I go myself... So she sat there on the upholstered bench in the reading nook with Jonathon, trying not to stare at the little girl who stared at the both of them. The five year old big brother went pee-pee, flushed and washed his hands. He could reach the vanity by himself. Then he came back, got under the covers and stared at them too. Jonathon said - You want me to put on a movie? I can find one of the Toy Stories, or Dumbo?... Sarah gave him a look. A lot of those kiddie movies have a really sad edge. The boy said - No, that's alright... His sister whispered something. Then the boy said - Can you get the show where Ryan shows us all the new toys? Jonathon said - How do I find it? The boy just shrugged. Sarah said Search Ryan shows new toys... He did... In two hundred and forth heartbeats he had it... Then silence as the two children locked onto the bright, cheerful glossy toy balm.
After the segment on the big, plastic (but blue smoked glass looking) hundred and fifty dollar horse statue from Frozen, the boy looked at Jonathon and said - I want to ask you something... Jonathon nodded... The little guy said - Who are you? How do you fly?... Jonathon said - You were awake? I thought you were sleeping?... No, went the boy, we just kept our eyes closed, because it was scary at first, but it felt like you had us real tight, so we weren't too scared. We just kept our eyes closed... How come? - asked the vampire... The boy just shrugged. Then he went - So, how come you can fly?... I just can - said Jonathon... Can your wife fly? - asked the boy... How do you know she's my wife? - said Jonathon... 'Cause you have those husband and wife rings on. I seen them sell 'em on Good Deals on The View once and you look like you like her. Sometimes they don't like each other, but you look like you do - he explained ... Then a silent lull till the boy said - So, can she fly?.. Not so much - said Sarah, I'm still learning... I just wanna know. Are you super heroes, or aliens? Sometimes when you talk your teeth look funny. That's why I think aliens. But we watch old Thunder Cats cartoons sometimes and they have teeth like that. That's why I can't tell.... We're just people, a little like superheroes, with the flying and all. We just have bad teeth - said Jonathon.... The boy nodded and went - Uh huh... Then more quiet till his sister whispered something... The boy said - She wants to know if you got any Toaster Strudel or anything... Sarah said - I think something like that. Let me run down to the kitchen. I'll bring up a tray. (Edith and Billy, who curates this blog for them eat mortal food)...
The little boy watched her go, then said - Are you Puerto Rican? Sometimes you sound a little Puerto Rican... No, Jonathon said, not Puerto Rican, just Spanish.... They talk Puerto Rican there too? - asked the five year old... A little - said Jonathon... Then the child quietly asked - Are we gonna stay here?... Yep - said the vampire... The boy just nodded.... Sarah came up with the tray.... The brother and sister ate a bit, then slept... But Jonathon and his wife sat there till dawn...
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