The Book of Sarah

 This is coming to you through wilkravitz. Something happened. They firebombed the house. They burned it. They destroyed it. I was 'sleeping' in the pit. I was nestled in the bed of flowers. We were nestled. Sarah was in there with me. Everything was so good. Everything was working out. My sublimation skills were what they should be. Just a few hours earlier I took Sarah. I embraced her. We flew. We passed out of the house. And I took her. I took her to see my haunts. She saw all the places I told you about. It was wonderful. I felt completely tied to a mortal being (not counting my victims) for the first timme in twohundred years. We talked. Well, we whispered actually. We laughed, quietly  of course. She could not believe the matter of fact displays of misshappen humanity at the Mutter. And it was positively etherial gliding  through the marble halls of the huge Museum of Art (the Rocky Steps) on The Parkway. The illumination was very low. We could hear the air circulating through the massive structure, as we stood there looking up at a painting of a Trinitarian saint. Saint Anthony it might have been, or Saint Sebastian. His body was pierced by many arrows. Yet he was still conscious and seemed to be gazing from this world into the next. I kissed her. Was it a grandfather's kiss? I do not know. But I have pondered this before and we are seperated by so many mortal generations. The blood tie is very week. It has been almost one thousand years, after all. But the spiritual and emotional tie is very strong. The Old Woman was dusting my collection of ninth century Chinese porcelain when it happened. Two giant hounds came loping into our alley. She saw them through a crack in the heavy, velvet draperies. They broke into a run and made straight for the parlor window, vaulting up and smashing through the mullioned glass. It happened so fast. She thought she saw a bomb or some such device attached to their collars. There had to be a bomb? An instant later they exploded and vaporized into a universe of blazing lights. Fire was everywhere. The flames raced through our refuge. She grabbed my journal, plus my priceless, illuminated, hand copied volume of La Ciencia Vampirismo (always hidden in plain sight) and made it out through the back door. The spiritual and emotional tie we share is very strong as well. I can hear her thoughts. That is how I know these things. When I sleep, there is always a little part of me that spies upon the daylight world through her eyes. Instantly I was awake. I grabbed Sarah and threw aside the heavy stone slab. We crawled through a small, secret door (just as the flames danced down into our chamber) and scratched our way along a tight, earthen passage. You know that I do not actually require oxygen, but it was stiffling. It was suffocating. I can just imagine how it was for her. After a time, we forced our way out, dislodging some old subway tiles on the other side. We tore down a little used, subterranean concorse (Philadelphia has many), making for a certain encampment of delerious, drug-addled homeless folk who welcomed us gladly in return for tiny droplets of blood, which they greedily licked from my cut, scraped fingers. When they finished (I know not to rush them) they presented me with a terrified, babbling prisoner kept for just such an emercency. I took this much needed source of energy (a particularly dishonorable sort) and devoured him. The homeless folk cheered and clapped. Some of their women capered about. They attempted to roast a bag of stale marshmallows in the blue flame that consumed him. But such flames are fleeting and they were sorely dissappointed. Sarah just stood there watching it all in the flickering orange glow of a can of sterno. A few of their offspring tried to roast the marshmallows in that. But it was all very real to her now. We are fugitives. And we are on the run.