MARIANNE IN THE CHAMBER OF DEATH

The housekeeper is all right. We laid her out on the little sofa in the morning room  and ladled some Jack Daniels (spiked with a few drops of Roland's blood) down her throat. That did the trick...healed her up real quick. You regulars know that. You know what Life-Eater blood can do. So did the Nazis. That's how Hitler survived the Stauffenburg Affair. But that is another story. Five minutes later I was back in the salon. A few people had stepped out for cigarettes, so we thought it was only right to wait for their return. We sang show tunes til they came back. Everybody knows a little 'GYPSY.'  'Once I was a schlepper. Now, I'm Miss Mazepper'..... old, rich , humans love that stuff..... Oh! That gives me an idea. you know who I look like?.....Eponine, or whatever her name was. You know. The poetic looking one from 'Les Miserables?'  I have hair like that too. And being Walloon, which is a witches nipple away from being French, possess a certain way with hats. The pointed ears contribute a gamin quality as well, don't you know. 


Now, back to my 'transformation.'


The power of suggestion works on vampires too. My brood...my protectors feared Jews' Blood, especially shed from saintly rabbis. They believed it came down in an unbroken line from Biblical times and so was closest to what might rest in The Holy Grail. When sprinkled with the easy-to-come-by commodity (the crime of Jew-Killing being a gray area at best), said vampires collapsed onto the ground and proceeded to thrash around, clawing at their cheeks and shrieking fitting verses from Dante........ That (the blood, I mean) coupled with a few slashes from the 'murdered bride' swords, rendered them helpless as little girls. Vicious men-at-arms walked among them, pinching vampirina tender spots and kicking the vampirinos most cruely.


I raced from victim to victim, trying to revive them...trying to make them feel their own strength, but it was no use. They cried and convulsed and pushed me away. As dawn was approaching, they also feared the sun. Perhaps you cannot imagine what that's like...solar immolation, I mean. Or maybe you can. Ever see the shadows left behind in Hiroshima?.....Four thousand degrees Fahrenheit... twice as hot as lava. Each molecule of matter torn away from all the rest. Is it instantaneous?...... No, it is not..... Every neuron that can possibly feel pain, feels pain and to a degree unmatched in all creation. So you can well understand how easy it was to herd them into the leaden carriages. What did they do with them after that? They tortured them. What did you expect? This is The Inquisition we're talking about. My God..... True, certain comely specimens were sold to nearby princelings, where they were used for life-extending cocktails.... curiosities held in menageries, the same as talking parrots, or  nimble little pygmies. And in return for a 'life' of pleasure, some were quite content. Vampires have a 'physical' side too. It's not just about the blood.


I, on the other hand. was fated to be killed..... a mortal child.....a baptized mortal child, sullied by my companions and so destined for the flames. They locked me in a cold, stone room and left me there for days.........Just darkness..... Just silence..... Just sorrow......Small bundles of fetid life scurried 'round in the blackness, but I was blind to them, though I sometimes felt their touch...


My only chance was the 'dominee'..... for that one still roamed free...


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