WITCHES ARE A KIND OF CHIMERA 12/19/17 Exotic & Mysterious Spanish Guitar Music: CHIMERA - Al Marconi

 

Many of our posts speak of vampires. We mention other forms of biologic rarities in passing. Tonight we highlight witches... born witches. These are not successful students of the arcane. Their efforts have no real part in it. Such human confections are simply born that way. In most instances, the trait comes down from one parent. Statistically it can devolve from both, but, existing cases are very, very few in number. Please understand that there was no way to positively identify a 'born witch,' at least there was no scientifically recognized method. With the advent of genetic testing, the same mail-away, cheek swab, or spit-in-a-vial investigative procedure can reveal 'magic blood.'

Everything we are starts with our genes. Think of them as hard wired 'spells.' Genes control our physical form, our abilities, or lack of abilities in all spheres of life. Most humans possess the usual combination... an equal distribution of tiny chemical cocktails from each parent. But sometimes an interloper comes into the mix. Such complications happen very early in a pregnancy when two zygotes (potential fetuses) develop. Normally, they'd continue to grow as twins, either identical or fraternal. Under certain conditions the twins unite, continuing development, but as one organism, resulting in one person with more than the normal allotment of genes. Few such people are handicapped by this outcome. Most live average lives. But some are not average. We don't yet understand how extra genetic stores actually 'change' an organism, yet clearly various things can result.

Some tests indicate that various 'talents' we call 'magic' are just enhanced electrical  emanations . The magic happens when we're sensitive to those forces, or able to control them.
Controlled forces can manifest as the ability to move or alter matter. Heightened sensitivity can enable the bearer to 'read' minds. Certain very powerful adepts can control their own atoms to such a thorough degree they can change shape, or transport themselves from one physical location to another . Some are so attuned to the emanations of  others they can discern thoughts regardless of distance... and they can send thoughts too. A very few are able to control atoms with such precision they can conjure objects out of the ether.

One such unusual example was Abner of  Crete, an eighth century physician and alchemist who according to many unrelated accounts had the ability draw the blood out of a living body through the pores and capillaries. Victims were covered by countless tiny, thin arcs of red liquid bursting forth from every part of their bodies, even the corneas of their eyes. It's said that same Abner was able to transport the heads and necks of unfortunate subjects up from their shoulders and to his presence with a clean cut precision not seen till the advent of the guillotine one thousand years later.

A daring woman, the Dowager WarWife of  Loch Negan used to denude a whole great hall of drunken guests with an arthritic clap of her old, liver spotted hands. Needless to say, she caused many clan wars and illegitimate births among the chieftans and land lords of the Highlands. After a while, her visitors had to know what they were getting into. Maybe that was the attraction? Bards of the day sang songs for years.

The practitioner known as Ubis of Ebis (gender unknown) tuned into the Papal Confessional in Rome via remote viewing, thus privy to every foible of every pope during the reigns of all the Frankish Pippins, till eventually being caught and forced to take a molten lead bath in a large vat of what was essentially a nine hundred degree cauldron of viscous heavy mud. Attendants forced the unhappy bather down into the hellish porridge with long, sharp poles most often used to impale the juvenile dependents of heretics and other non conformist types.

Some born witches use magic for good. Some do not.
 Oh, one more thing... What does 'chimera' mean?... It means two differing animals in one body. For instance griffins are chimeras, as are merfolk and squid-puppies.

Utilization of 'the craft' can be a very nasty business...

But look, don't let that stop you. Take one of those tests. Find out. You might be one of the good ones...

<till next time>

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Our Vampire Jonathon loves this song-LeAnn Rimes - Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) - Billy Joel cover

 

The nearly immortal being known as 'Jonathon speaks -

I've done this every year at this time for centuries. I hope you are a regular visitor. Then you'll know. The house is locked up. Sarah is in her cubicle. Annie sleeps. Conrad, Edith, all of them are snug in their places. I sit in the 'little' library. The draperies are drawn. By the low warm light of a small, Chinese, porcelain lamp I count out coins, large, heavy, yellow, golden coins, Venetian ducats.... a 'vampire' tradition. I measure them out upon a lap desk... five to a sack...(sighs)... A 'familiar' (mortal helper) makes them up for me... small, dark blue velvet, drawstring sacks trimmed with thin golden rope around the top. In other lands, at other times, others made them, but the form has not changed in more than three hundred and fifty years... I'm told, in this time and in this city a gold, Venetian ducat brings more than two thousand American dollars. What's that come to, twelve thousand for each sack...

When ten are filled, I shall go out on the streets and in the wee hours before the light, I shall distribute them where they will accomplish good things...  Our little boy ghost watches me. He came with the house. We've only been here for a few years. Oh, there were other townhouses and a manor up in Chestnut Hill once or twice, but the poor, tiny, polio victim has been here since the nineteen thirties. He likes the 'little' library too. Plays with a set of old, painted, pot metal soldiers on the rug, a hand drawn deck of Hungarian cards and an etched brass top . Sometimes he manipulates them quite well. Death cured his polio, thank God. Other nights he just looks at them. Abilities are not always constant in the supernatural world, especially during the first few decades. Powers lapse, tea cups break. Parakeets talk Romanian. Old Ladies whistle the Barcarole. You know how it is.

Now I am off... a thousand year old soul (well, a thousand years old on Earth) with a young man's body. Most take me for anywhere from eighteen to twenty eight, depending on how they view things. There's a two nights' old icy glaze on the streets. I dress warm and go out, the gold coins, in their velvet sacks, snug in the deep, zippered pockets of my black puffy coat... A vampire with a black, zip-up, puffy coat. They'd drum me out of the union..... Ah, the songs I hear in my head... The Tales Of Hoffman... Rhymes of a Quayside Bawd. Bet you don't know that one... from Paris in the 14 30's.

(he leaves, locks the door behind him and silently hops down the steps... a gray, tiger stripped tabby falls in behind. they turn the corned and are off)

Mortals fear these long nights. It's instinctive and stamped upon the breed. Imagine how dark it was before all the tick-tock niceties we have now. Utter blackness. Maybe moonlit nights were a bit different, but then you'd see the shadows. Then you'd know what was out there... not exactly what it is, but you'd know it was coming.... That's why we have festivals now, parties to lure back the sun and then celebrate when it returns. No more slow, creeping death, but new birth and ever increasing life.

Soon I will slip 'life' into the pockets of desperate people. There's a handwritten note tucked into each drawstring sack --- Please contact Leverett & Reed for instructions and advice in the redemption of these coins..... I've dealt with them since seventeen fifty one, a most reputable counting house. Now they call themselves 'investment counselors.' There's an old gentleman who handles antiques. In the New World, Philadelphia is the mother lode. I'm sure they'll do well. That twelve thousand dollars per sack mentioned earlier was just gold value. Genuine Venetian ducats are highly collectible. Ask the Buccaneers of Hispanola ...

Now please forgive me. I have lives to change and people to see. Well, most of them will be sleeping. That makes it more special. I know some of you heard about the night that started all this... I trot it out every year 'round this time.

Google  --- Indulge me a bit... Vampire Wonderland... it'll be there...

To think if I went up in flames right now, my tale... all, well, by now close to one million words of it would go on for centuries, suspended in this ether they call 'the cloud.'...

That, my friends, is immortality too...

<hasta la proxima>

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Vampires LOVE it When there's a Blizzard in Philadelphia (4k) 12/10/17

 

Vampires love the winter. They love the dark and the cold. Sarah, Jonathon's understanding consort, walks the streets for hours all bundled up in her black puffy coat and thick (also black) wool hat. She stops and gives homeless people gift cards to fast food places. Sure the food's not the healthiest, but other places chase them. In a fast food joint they can, at least, duck into the toilet for a fast fix up and eat their meal in peace. There's always a corner somewhere... maybe a discarded newspaper or magazine. The heat feels good. They can decompress a little. And you know she loads the cards up to about two hundred and fifty dollars. Figures that'll last them between ten days and two weeks. Sometimes she gives out six packs of tightie-whities and t-shirts too... sometimes six packs of white gym socks. It makes a difference. She used to give out jeans and sweat shirts too and enough money so they could slip into a Laundromat and wash their stuff every once in a while. But few had the will power for that. They'd buy alcohol.

Carries a big plastic shopping bag from Target. She doesn't do this every night, but often enough. Look, she knows a few of them sell the gift cards for maybe a few bucks (how much can another homeless guy have?). But at least second guy keeps it and WANTS the food.

One guy, Jim had cancer. Lost a whole lot of weight. Looked like that deep gravelly voiced singer who sings about life on the street. Told her his name was 'Bob.' Sarah got friendly with Bob. Gave him money. Gave him a lot of stuff. Arranged for a room in a clean but plain hotel twice a week, so he could get cleaned up and sleep and all. She would have arranged for the place full time. Bob didn't want that..... Tom Waite! That's the name. The singer is Tom Waite. They'd talk over coffee or tea. Sit there for hours. The waitresses never said anything. Who else was gonna come in that late... even in the city.

Sarah never said she was a vampire, but he knew. He never said anything, never had to. Neither did she. One night she passed him a vial of her blood. She said - Here, drink this... What's it gonna do? - he asked... Sarah said - Just drink it. You want to be well, don't you?... Bob just looked at her. She nodded... He took it. He drank it.... A few nights later he was all better. Then he disappeared. Not right in front of her or anything. It wasn't like that. He just stopped showing up at that hotel. No one saw him on the street. He just left. She kept thinking about him though. If she was a vampire before Jonathon, if he didn't bring her over, she might have started something with Bob... Maybe he could have been her consort? Sarah never found out why he was on the streets... His crowd (homeless types often have a small group, maybe three or four) never knew. That's how it was.

Winter nights were like that. People talked more. Maybe the dark made them seek each other out?

So she wandered the streets and did her thing.... 'culled' the wicked... saved the worthy. Never made a big thing out of it. Most never knew she was there. Just sublimated into some high rise bedroom and did it. Jonathon liked his little confrontations. He liked his passion plays. Not Sarah. She liked the cold. She liked the snow. She liked the dark. Look, they all like winter... the vampires, I mean. But she had a deep appreciation for it... a reverence. Odd, considering Jonathon was the spiritual one. Even for a vampire he was spiritual. No two were alike.... 'alone in the dark' they called it.

Before she went back to the townhouse, Sarah went into a CVS store and bought a couple magazines... all kinds... Jonathon liked magazines... He bought them too. But most nights he stayed out till the last minute and had to rush back before the dawn, so he never had time.... Sarah was responsible. She had time.

I guess she's the Wendy to his Peter Pan.

Look, no one ever bothers vampires when they roam the city late at night. It's like a 'thing' they have, an aura.

But if you have a couple friends, go out some time, in the wee hours before dawn. Be quiet. Be discreet. Look around...

It's a whole other world and most people never even realize it's there.

<more next time>

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Jonathon's Vampire Holiday --- The Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rock & Roll Ci...

 

I need no one. 'Papa' tells me that. He says it all the time. I can sublimate. I can transcend time. I am a nearly immortal being, should I chose to go that way. So far, I've made that choice every night.... So far.... I leave the townhouse and walk. Maybe it's because I was not much older than the elferinos when I came over, but I understand them. I can live like them, camping out in unused tombs, catacombs and mausoleums.. Though their lairs are not bare, but rather thick with the toys and gadgets of every generation. Marianne (the elferina) and Roland, her male counterpart, even share a blog. 'Night Tales' they call it. It's posted in an old Walloon dialect, but similar enough to French. People translate it. Are there mistakes? Of course. Who cares? It's all in the sound. It's all in the rhythm.

I have come to hate people... which does not mean I don't also love them. I see their potential. They just fall so short. I patrol the city. Vampires, at least the decent ones, are night watchmen. We 'clean up' and leave the place secure. People purposely stuff the toilets in fast food joints. I stop in for hot tea. I know. I see. They laugh. They cackle. They think it's funny. Some commit acts of petty vandalism all over town. Well, I commit acts of petty vandalism on them. Do I kill them? No, not the vandals. They are too petty for that. But a 'fuck' finger bent backwards and broken over the back of a hand provides a certain lesson. Sometimes I do both 'fuck' fingers. They shriek and scream like children. I go - OK, ok, here is five thousand dollars. Go have it fixed. But I make sure to smile, show the sharp, little cunning fangs and take a tiny drink. That scares them even more. Their friends tear down the street, knees and elbows flying, as soon as I show up. All for one and one for all doesn't hold up much in the real world...

Ah, the streets are rich with prey. The holidays brings them out. I wonder if some of them are even aware the whole thing has a spiritual component.  Actually, I do not wonder. I know.

I stroll down to South Street, block after block of restaurants, trendy bars, boutiques, dance clubs and (how you say it?) ha - ha places... clubs where they make funny. All with 'bee lights'... tiny 'bee lights'.... a symbol of the holiday season in this era. I wait on a little bench hidden in the shadows of a tiny, park-like space. Twenty and thirty-somethings race by, laughing with their friends. All a bit tipsy. Three 'toughs' loiter in the recessed doorway of a house ware shop across the street, watching with hungry, envious eyes. Like wolves they are, searching for one a bit less 'masculine,' or how they perceive that quality. A singular victim is best, especially when there are three of them. I quickly pass through their minds. Such basic, violent things. One sucks a beer... Ah, but they are friends of The Lord. Their religious jewelry attests to that. They blinded a young man in one eye and he still has trouble speaking due to a cerebral injury. I find the memory of it within the skull of the wiry one to the right. They play. They simply play too much. That is all it is.... So say their friends and cousins.... But, you see, they also play too much....An addiction to 'play' is endemic in certain districts. A few are serving time for it.

Let me see how playful they can be.... I stand up, leave the shadows, cross over and make eye contact with the leader, always with the leader. Then I feign interest in his form... a glance here... a glance there. He remains motionless, but does not look away. I answer with a barely perceptible nod, sniff and make my way down a narrow, little side street. The old parts of Philadelphia have no shortage of such thoroughfares. The 'Sharks' rise up and follow. I hear the beer bottle smash upon the pavement... I turn. There's not much light here, but more than enough for me. They stand there. I hear mumbled insults. It's like a script... Well, I know my part... How easy it is to fake fear... The leader hauls back and lands one right on the jaw... A lesser 'mark' would have crumpled right then and there, but I don't move. It takes a lot to best a vampire.... I smile. They see the fangs. I don't know if there was enough light for that, or if I radiate it. Some things are still a mystery, but flashing the fangs... ooh, it's so much fun! Do I do it too much?

He flinched. Before he could turn and run, I was off and in less than a heartbeat had 'sublimated' right through his body. When I pass through solid walls... bricks or stone... it doesn't matter, I come out the other side, yet the wall remains. Living flesh, including the skeleton, is something else. The energized atoms and molecules of my body shred the living tissue like a knife. But you know that. It's a 'thing' with us.. A moment later the erstwhile 'Riff' rained down on the asphalt like warm, fatty soup... even the bones and eyeballs. Before the other two could disappear back to their grandmoms' basements (they all live in their grandmoms' basements) one lost two thirds of a leg  and the other an arm and a little bit of a shoulder... All clothing made from natural materials shreds to fibers and blows away. Synthetic fabrics remain whole and intact, though completely gummed up with the resulting viscous residue. Blends are just a holy mess. Imagine explaining that scene to the cops. Metal survives, but melts...Ooh, rats swarmed out to finish the other two. Oozing human fluids are quite the rodent attractant. Mixed with the right poisons it will (someday) make somebody rich.... that is if they arrange for a good supply of human body fluids. Planning is everything.

Ah, The Holidays.... Fun and games for all... Santa may or may not know if you've been good or bad... but I do...

Now let me get my tea....

(With that our trim, dapper vampirino walks off. After a few steps we see a pulse move through his body vaporizing any bits of filth. His wavy black hair is clean and glossy. His black jeans and black fitted leather jacket are too. And the trim black leather bootkins?... Really, do you have to ask?)

<hasta la proxima, as our scion of Old Al Andalus would say>

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THE VAMPIRE JONATHON SPEAKS ON SOCIETY -The Trial / Le procès: Franz Kafka (Orson Welles / 1962) HD

 

Jonathon speaks ~

Vampires remember so much. I saw barges filled with screaming and praying French Protestants towed out to the center of the Seine and purposely sunk. Few knew how to swim in those days. Boys might splash around near the river banks, but they sometimes drowned too. Families cried, but that was it. Eight children per hovel was the norm. They'd soon be replaced. What you call cruel, history calls normal. Such was life five hundred years ago. The Reformation changed nothing.

And you are still like that today. Everyone cries - FREEDOM! JUSTICE! EQUALITY!... but ask for some and see what you get. I watch the scandals on TV. This one abused that one. So and so attacks children. That one is a boor. It's all of a piece. Society does not care. And 'society' is you.

We endure something similar here at the townhouse. Billy worries about this blog. He used to post almost every day and a few weeks ago expected to go back to that pattern. But the rules of the game are hard and unjust. Not that we don't have many views. We do. Yet without some small favors from exalted individuals the real door remains closed.

Quiet, polite souls wait for chances and chances never come.  In many instances they are not earned. They are dispensed. Every industry is guilty. Favors are saved for 'important people,' or the off spring of important people... or their human sex toys. I see it on the television. Hopeful young talents meekly tap on the door, begging to be seen... And they are told - We will toss a few coins your way... in return for some diversion. You know, tits for tat... Some give in and sneak inside. Others play along and are ruined. A few run and are ignored.

Billy asks for microscopic little nods from names you all see on line. Maybe just a retweet, or a mention, but they never come... even from they who beg such as him for retweets and mentions for their projects. No, wait. They do not beg. They announce. Their name is enough. The support is automatic. I feel bad for him. Billy, I mean.  He thinks we night-folk hunger for fame, but he does. I could walk into ANY media outlet and they'd put me on the air right away. Perhaps they'd shoot some video first, but I'd be seen. Remember the success Marianne, our own special elferina had with her subscription series? My God, every Society Hill dowager with her flat, Ana Wintour hair cut, coughed up ten thousand dollars so that they and their liver spotted husbands might plant themselves on early twentieth century Queen Anne reproductions in Mrs. Gottrocks salon and hear her tale.... Google Marianne In Britches by Billy Kravitz (we let him take credit for everything, another Shakespeare, so to speak) if you're unfamiliar with that. You'll find a way in..... Everybody wats to find a way in. Such is life... or such it will be, until you all change it.

Kafka got it right.... The universe does not care. God might, but everything else doesn't.

Now permit me to take my leave. The dawn comes up and I must retire. Billy will stop typing and fall asleep. He knows not it is I who manipulate his hands.... The epistle will go forth... I hope you read it and maybe pass it on.

signed ~

Tomas de Macabea, or Jonathon ben Macabi.....

What do I care?

<endure your day... more to come>

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This is where the Elferinos often shelter 11/8/17 - -Old Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia- Haunted ????!!!

 

The vampirino known as Jonathon speaks ~

Many think ghosts frequent graveyards. Well, they don't. Oh, a few come by every now and then to inhale the perfume of their spiritual remains. But the flesh goes quick and the bones not long after. It's true. I've watched from the midnight shadows as bodies were exhumed. Families move graves for various reasons. Maybe they want all the aunts and uncles to be together. There are many circumstances. Sometimes strangers dig up old forgotten resting places to make way for buildings. But when they get down to the proper depth there's often nothing there. If they sift through the soil there might  be a small, shard of bone, or perhaps a tooth, but maybe not. After forty years little is left. Wooden caskets go fast. Even metal ones rust and crumble. It's not that the bodies and their shelters are destroyed. They are just taken back and repurposed.

This 'raising of the dead' happens at night, lest some quiet, somber visitor might see it. So what they do when there's nothing left is careful lift out a measure of soil equal to the dimensions of a coffin, from the place where that coffin would have been. Then they pack in into a box and take it to the new 'eternal' resting spot for reburial. They fill in the dirt and great grand  uncle moves in among the rest of the family, at least in a more or less physical form. Spirits never come back to see that. You see, our spiritual essence, our soul, does not see itself as a nebulous, bodiless thing. They have a new body. They have a spirit body and they're already united with more people than you can imagine.

But I came to the old lanes of Laurel Hill that night to be with the elferinos and elferinas, the young pubescent humans brought over into our world when they were just a few years younger than I was when it happened to me. In case you don't know, or have forgotten, I was eighteen. These enchanted beings were maybe twelve, or thirteen, or fourteen... a few might have been fourteen, or fifteen, or sixteen, but not this group.

I need their company from time to time. They have so much energy and so much enthusiasm. Such wide eyed gamin creatures they are..... Marianne, Roland, Albion and Celeste.... They rest in many places, but a certain neo-classical private mausoleum on a narrow winding footpath, deep within the trees is their favorite place. The heavy, old, verdigris door never opens. They just sublimate through the concrete, faux stone walls.... And everything runs on batteries... the small, hand held video games, their old cell phones (there's a pile of them), plus an assortment of other gadgets too. When night-folk sublimate we can take inanimate and animate (like mortals) things through with us, if our auras are strong enough and if we hold them tight against our bodies. I think their auras enable the digital devices to pick up signals through the thick walls. God knows if Laurel Hill has WiFi. Perhaps visitors stay on their devices when communing with Great Grandmother Helene, or Uncle Gus? Maybe they all expect calls?

I sit there, leaning against the wall. Blankets and quilts are all about... weak gray-white light from camp lanterns made to look like small lamps banish a bit of darkness. They communicate telepathically. The small space fairly hums. They lie on the quilts, knees bent, legs crossed in the air, rapidly talking to digital friends who are completely oblivious to their true natures... Look, do you know who you talk to, especially during the wee hours?... Even I once spent night after night debating philosophy with a gentleman who turned out to be a successful hit man.. How'd I find out?... I had a 'vision' (you know that's how my type of vampire identify our victims) and when I got there, the voice and the speech rhythms gave him away. I never spoke. He never knew. His thirty four thousand dollar watch and equally price man's diamond ring went right into our coffers. Oh, there was four thousand dollars in his wallet. We got that two. Needless to say, responsible, long established vampires rarely fall short of funds. But my 'familiars' in finance take care of that. And long time friends know how often we recycle. Many a struggling soul desperate for help gets it from us.

Before dawn I'll zip across the rooftops with my eternally juvenile friends... And when I'm with them, I feel that way too. I need that. It's time for a new adventure and they energize me....

Jonathon ben Macabi a.k.a. Tomas de Macabea , or visa versa, is back..... And I am not old... Eighteen years forever... Who wouldn't want that?

<more next time and hopefully back to our very frequent postings>

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A Vampire's Life is just like Talking Heads - "Once In A Lifetime" 10/25/17

 

Last time we spoke I was all into those underwater, marine vampires and all. You know how I get.... So many stories to tell. So many lifetimes. What I see every day, when I focus on  mortals, is like a 33 and a third RPM (if you know that technology) played at 78 RPM... all sped up... and I sit and I watch... Most times I'm used to it, but my reality differs from yours. My dreams are so vivid. I wonder if they are, in fact, dreams. I am in Ottoman Byzantium. I am in my beloved, Old Al Andalus. I speak the Latin-Gothic-Arabic-Hebrew patois that became Spanish. My coach proceeds through Restoration London. I am almost martyred in medieval Provencal. I run through the night with Leni-Lenapi shamans, howling like wolves at the rising of the moon ... I study scripture in a tenth century Cordoban academy..... I am Tomas de Macabea. I am Jonathon ben Macabi, falling through time as a stone falls through water.

They say the linear progression of time is just an illusion. Everything is everywhere and every time is now. The totality of all creation is an intricate, multi-faceted chord. I can say these things and I can imagine them after a fashion, but even a miraculous being has limitations. So I insert myself into your mortal template and live according to your rules. It makes life so much less complicated.

I know of Sarah's meeting with that human male. Let her have her dalliance. I have them too. It means more to her than it does to me. She's only been night-folk for maybe five or six years. She still wears the watch and earrings she bought as a mortal. I ask her why? Now she has much better things. Though deep down inside, I understand. We are sentimental souls after all. You hear how I recall days and nights gone by. You know.

I watch the news. I follow the media. I know all about Harvey Weinstein. He is not unique. Men have abused women since the beginning. Look to the chimpanzee and you'll know the truth. My own surviving mortal line began with such an act. Are vampires different?.... I don't know.... Ask my mole-folk odalisques. Ask Aura and Sylvia.... I think if you search Vampire Wonderland by Billy Kravitz Aura and Sylvia something will turn up. If you search Vampire Wonderland by Billy Kravitz and add almost ANY word something turns up. I suppose people will be finding bits and pieces of our tale in the digital world for years and years and years, if not centuries. That, in itself, is a type of immortality. Billy's name is attached to the story, but regulars know the truth...

Now I go to attend our elferino and elferina friends, the pubescent vampires, who due to their natural hormonal strength at the time of transformation exhibit some strange, elfin traits... slightly pointed ears... large luminous eyes.. finely drawn jaws and chins... and the ability to truly fly, not the sublimation that looks like flight the rest of us do, but something else, truly wondrous and magical.... So I'm off to dance with Marianne and Roland and Albion and Celeste, amongst the mossy, monuments and tombs of Laurel Hill Cemetery.... a very real, old necropolis, thick with trees and bushes. Samhain (Sal-Wen) the Celtic New Year approaches and that foursome, originally from Brittany and other places on the southern shore of the English Channel are devotees of the Druids, at least partially, mingled with the teachings of the church.... Such exotic beings, even in our world.... A lot of you know that, but some don't.....

Come back tomorrow night, to dance beneath the stars, in shadows chill and deep... Hear secrets that you'll keep. And maybe feel the bite-like kiss, if you're amongst those drawn to this.

<more next time>


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Vampirina Sarah Has a Secret Life 10/18/17 ..Panic! At The Disco: The Ballad Of Mona Lisa [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

 

Did you think I'd stay in the shadows forever? Did you think I was just the quiet one, content to save the mortals with tiny drams of my blood. How of-a-type you are. Oh, I keep silent, but I see things. You boring smelly things with your sebum stuffed pores are so alike, hypnotized by 'dominant' posers. Come on. What do you think I did in that book shop before all this? ... CLOSE YOUR MOUTHS! I read books. I sold them and I read them. .. The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew... A Tree Grows In Brooklyn... Everybody Who Hates Me Should Die... Little Women... Kings Row... Never Tickle A Stranger On The Bus... non-fiction too... Rabbits Are Lemurs With No Brains... Two Weeks In The Death Of A Corpse... How To Retrieve D.N.A. From Used Tampons And Adult Diapers... The How And Why Book Of Pimples Boils And Carbuncles For Children... and Everything Happens For A Reason So Embrace Your Outer Ugly..... God, this 'vampire memory.' I recall everything.



And now I'm 'cheating' on Jonathon with my mortal lover, Howard..... Baylah set it up.  She said - By the time we get bored they're either finished or dead..... (stares up into space) But I enjoy Howard. Baylah's mortal boyfriend knows him from the seashore. I think they both sued the same floor refinisher.... What's it been... five years... six years and I already think like a vampire...(thinks for a moment) Maybe that's a good thing.... Won't have to buy anti-wrinkle cream, or get big chunky dinner rings to camouflage my arthritic knuckles....



We know all your tricks... how you 'deal' with aging, I mean. The skin balms that don't work... but you all pretend they do.... The gym memberships... the cartoony lacquered fingernails... the temporarily paralyzed and puffed up faces... Few look younger. They look played around with... and not always for the better... Men do the same things... Less paint... More posturing... fake tans... more lies..... When I was still mortal, I didn't see things as clearly as I do now. That might have been a good thing.



Jonathon knows about Howard. He doesn't say anything about it. I certainly don't. It's like mortals don't count. Oh, Baylah has something very real with hers. And he idolizes her. I think gambling has a lot to do with it. They play black jack, usually at The Borgata, or Caesar's every night. She loves the beachfront house a few miles downbeach too. Even went so far as to hire a girl who looks like her so the neighbors can see her out and about in daylight.... having omelets for breakfast... buying flowers... giving little finger waves to people as she power walks along the beach or the impossibly well manicured streets. I think Baylah's mortal has sex with her too. At night she sits in a shuttered den watching HGTV.... I'm learning that other night-folk have mortal, daytime doubles too.... Some doubles wear special sunglasses with tiny cameras in them, so the actual vampire, deep in their darkened chamber, can 'live' the experience via their laptops. Digital sunlight has no effect. Avatars, like from that blue cat people movie.



And now I wait in a little coffee shop a couple blocks down from our townhouse. Howard drives a black Lincoln SUV. He's very conventional and reliable. We go to movies and stylish vodka bars across the river in the Jersey suburbs. Nobody knows us there. It's safer than Center City... There's a place, a house, but I can't tell you about that.



I hate how the media paints us. Don't you ever get tired of that?



Now let me finish my tea. We can tolerate broth-like, 'clear' liquids and this blend is rather enjoyable.....



With that the vampirina, Sarah, looks away, as we retreat from the coffee shop and move down the street...



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Jonathon Shares as yet Unknown Vampire History. Our thanks to You Tube 10/10/17

j 

What more can I tell you of violence? How many ways are there to destroy mortal or life-eater flesh? We have described all manner of death. People seem to like that. Most of what appears here is and always has been true. But occasionally and only occasionally I tell you lies, not because I want to. Because you want me to.

This time I speak with veracity. This time, he who you know as Jonathon ben Macabi, or Tomas de Macabea details actual realities and events. You've heard how vampires walk through the deep, dark, oceanic abyss. We  cross the cold and silent seafloor and climb mountains never privy to the sun. Some stay down there for years and years and years and years, drawing periodic blood gifts from the great and lesser whales. Thus we passed between continents in ages passed, before men first built ships. Some still travel that way. Others have reached their destination and stay there, down beneath the sea. They speak to the whales and understand the minds of forever hidden strains of wise, all knowing octopi and other cephalopods.

Vampires need not breathe. You know that. He who makes the universe (the job is never done) quickens us according to His will. Confuse them not with Merfolk. Our kind have no cetacean flanks or tails. But some of our kind have filled this subterranean niche for eons. We climbed up onto the beaches of Atlantis and in Lantima, the language of that realm, whispered secrets to the priests and priestesses in the Temple of El. We've seen the doomed from the Titanic rain down.

So I must ask ---- Do you really think that creatures such as we are only lurid horror villains? Look, as I've said (and we're both aware) there's a whole industry based on that. Believe their lies, if you like. We don't control you mortals. We just guide you.

Now I go out to enjoy the last hours of a cool, autumn evening. Damp, too, just the way I like it. If you know me, nod. I'll nod back. Look for the tall, trim vampirino with the vaguely Spanish features. Some know me by my long, lose, glossy black hair. Some by my well made, black bootkins, close tailored jeans, white shirt and rather form fitting leather jacket. Save the shirt, all dark as midnight. Others know my kiss, or my bite. I don't kill everyone.

I wander museums, haunting the dim, shadowy galleries. You see, I remember when Giotto painted that and knew the nobleman who wore that armor. I met enamoradas under cloisters much like those.... I remember and it comforts me.....

Then just before the dawn, I walk back to the townhouse and hide. Do I sleep?... On and off.... There are those who know how to contact me on line. Some leave comments here. A few know my secret place.

Hasta la proxima, mis amigos... Hasta la proxima...

(with that, he exits, as the great clock, atop Philadelphia's City Hall Tower...  much higher and wider than Big Ben.... chimes six).

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EL RANCHO TEXACO the early days 10/2/17.. Austin City Limits 2107: Allman Brothers Band - "Midnight Rider"

EL RANCHO TEXACO - How the worlds were won -Garry Owen from 'They Died With Their Boots On' 9/24/17

A Letter from Lorenzo & Kadeema 9/14/17 Primitive Kiss (really cool vampire song)

 

We've met these two. Jonathon and Sarah came across them during a vampire pilgrimage, deep within the Carpathian Mountains. The old continent of Europe has many nooks and crannies. Some hide forgotten clans of Neanderthals. You know them as trolls and ogres. Others shelter various witch hybrids and shadow people. Who knows what else.

I suppose since night-folk had to make a conscious decision to emigrate and come to the New World, we have less noxious, animalistic types here. Compulsive, visceral specimens tend to stay where they are, rarely moving on till chased by a shrieking, murderous peasantry.... Lorenzo and Kadeema are noxious vampires. A condition usually caused by a hard, vampiric 'birth.' Maybe they were buried too deep, or the soil was excessively heavy and clay-like. Escaping the grave is horrific... Being trapped, or almost trapped is maddening in a very real, dark and damaging way. Some never heal.... Some never escape. God knows how many conscious souls lie bound within the earth.

Now our two were buried the same night, in a remote wooded, damp corner of Wallachia. Each had an opened Bible placed over their face. Each lay upon a hard, jagged bed of faith symbols.  That's what they did to suspected night-folk in those parts... Oh, some had their bottom jaw hacked out. The town butcher did it, thus mercifully killing the innocent and assuring them a place in the world to come.

Before we go on, allow me to clarify something. There is little room for movement in the grave. Think of the casket as an individual cigar case. The human remains are prepared and positioned. Survivors take a look... and then the heavy lid comes down, leaving perhaps two fingers worth of space between the nose and the interior surface. Should the occupant wake up, repositioning, or movement of any kind is futile. Stories of blood stains and frantic scratches on the inside of the lid are fiction. No one turns over. In the case of Lorenzo and Kadeema, they also had those thick Bibles resting on their faces, not to mention the sharp, pointy bed of religious charms under them.... And something else... the dirt packed down upon a coffin weighs more than one thousand pounds. The lids usually crack and cave in. Even the metal lids buckle. Exhumed bodies, for any reason, often have shattered faces. Corpses don't care. The soul's long gone. Newly made vampires, with all the left over fears of mortality are another story, for they're conscious through it all. They scream and shriek and rail like babbling fools in hell... Kadeema did.... She was a tavern girl, you know... and one night in a blizzard she slipped and cracked her head upon the icy cobbles of the town....and she lay there in the storm, half way between this world and the next. The rats never came to taste the feast. That's how cold a Wallachian winter can be.... But in the doorway to a small, shabby handful of flats crouched a 'noxious' vampire silently washing the blood from his face with handfuls of sleet and snow. He inhaled the rich, dense scent of the almost dead 'she meat' laying before him... thought for a moment then crept over. Noxious types are often gluttons, so he tore off her scarf and ripped into her throat. She barely moaned.... He pulled back from the font and thought for a moment, as the blood dripped down from his chin onto her smooth. white skin. Then he quietly chucked a bit before soundlessly dragging her into an alley...

True death never claimed her, but the dark burden did. Kadeema was a vampire now...

We'll witness her ordeal... Lorenzo's too, next time....

Ah, how the nights grow long. Autumnal Equinox is almost upon us. Night folk revere that event.   September twenty first is special to them, for after that date, the night overtakes the day and the pain of spring and summer temporarily ends.

A rich culture they have. The night-folk, I mean...

A whole other world...

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

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Jonathon Remembers Emotional 100,000 Attend Selichot at the Western Wall

 

Jonathon speaks -

In fiction we read about vampires who shun their mortal faith, replacing it with bleak distortions. In real life few actually do that. Most cling to their creed and desperately try to make sense of it all. We pray for divine understanding. We pray for acceptance and forgiveness, just like mortals do... And we search for 'reasons.' Why do we kill? Who do we kill? What purpose does it serve?

You know me. You know what I believe and what other life-eaters with other faith histories believe too. We 'cull' the wicked and help the worthy live... Not the Shepherd, but the sheepdog... That's what we say. I hope it's real. I think it is. I believe it is. What else can I do? And this time of year, with the advent of  Rosh Hashana (literally head or start of the year) I, along with many mortals, attend midnight penance services for forty days, culminating in the great spiritual rebirth on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). The penance services always start at midnight, or perhaps a few hours later... for it's always darkest before the dawn. A perfect liturgy for vampires. I take advantage of it as often as I can. Some see me, sitting in the back, at an old Sephardic (Rite of Spain) synagogue in Society Hill, the ancient, red brick, Center City district in Philadelphia. There are little brass, rectangular frames, each holds the name of a family, mounted on the back of every pew. Mine says 'de Macabea.' That's my Spanish name. I represent a long line. From time to time I hear of a mortal kinsman. That makes me feel good. Life goes on in all its forms.

As the forty days go on, things begin to change in the sanctuary. The rabbi, cantor and choir wear white robes. The sacred Biblical scrolls in the Ark are dressed in new, white sleeves. Some congregants now dress in the symbolically new and pure color too. For it is not just the 'next' year that is coming, but a 'new' year that is coming. In Ezekiel 36:26 it says - I will create in you a new heart and a new spirit. Many feel that in a most personal and visceral way, especially those who know they receive those things via grace and not, strictly speaking, in return for their own thoughts or actions.

Why does this promise happen yearly? Why is it an annual renewal? Because God never forgets. A promise is a promise. A covenant is a covenant. And that's what I, Tomas de Macabea, or Jonathon ben Macabi, take your pick, experience at this time of year.... I'm sure other life-eaters with other faith histories experience similar things according to their own spiritual calendar.

I know sometimes we fudge a little and post blood drenched tales of death and horror, because according to the numbers that's what readers like. But this isn't fiction and sometimes (most times) the truth comes through.

Vampires are not all monsters. We're just people with a very particular collection of issues.

I hope you understand that.

__________________________

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Vampire Jonathon Shares Parts of His Life -Steely Dan - Dirty Work 8/21/17

 

The life-eater known as Jonathon ben Macabi and also known as Tomas de Macabea speaks ---

The nights grow longer... not by much, but a bit. Darkness comes at eight thirty... I mean the still, cool blackness. It used to be like that. Artificial light was rare. What did they have?... Candles?... Torches?.... Perhaps a nighttime auto de fe?... People stayed locked inside at night. Guests sheltered till dawn. All exterior noises were suspect. A lose shutter tapping in the breeze could be a thief, or something worse. Il Castillo de Moresci was once attacked by demons. I knew they were leprous bandits, though some were so frightful the mortals sheltering within saw demons and so the legend grew. Could I have killed them? I suppose it would have been possible for me to sublimate through the moldering, fetid bastards, though I did not want to 'blow my cover' as they say. Naples was special back then. So they carried off a duke's virginal daughter and a cask of jewels. I can only imagine the horrors she endured.  Four of de Moresci's men at arms fought valiantly. Six ran away and hid. The de Moresci nobleman ( I forgot his rank) had them welded into iron maidens, stored in the crypt and left to die naturally. The four stalwart warriors showed signs of the loathsome disease within months and were rightfully banished. An old nurse, charged with the care of the duke's daughter, also fell ill. They told her she was going to a nice, little cottage, on a picturesque off shore island, owned by the duke where she might live in seclusion with an afflicted nun. They told her she had to be transported in a small, bronze verdigris cage (carried on two, long poles) to prevent others from suffering. The cube afforded little room. The loyal old woman couldn't even stand up or straighten her legs. And they left her on said island (still locked within her prison) where the 'unclean' nun might find her. It seems the unclean nun had a key and was told she'd receive a companion as soon as one became available. She'd searched the beach every day for four years, till dying from a bee sting. No one came to free the old nurse, so she waited seven days in the middle of a tiny meadow right by the beach, then she died. The chickens went wild. The rabbits did too. Nuts went ungathered. The orchards were alone.

But I digress... You know that by now....

(this is far from complete but I am tired and wanted ppl to know I am trying... political situation has me in knots..more tomorrow... appreciate everyone)

Go see Arnold Schwarzenegger Twitter post.. Think about the last week.. check out the links.. Thank you 8/18/17

 

First link goes to Arnold Schwarzenegger's post.
You might have to scroll down a post  or two.
Twitter.com/Schwarzenegger

Second link goes to two paragraph's worth of
TwitLonger where I report actual experiences of
'free' German Christians who experienced life in
'The Reich' first hand  .. >> tl.gd/n_1sq4c2f

Not a regular episode tonight. Vampires weren't into it.
There are monsters...and then there are monsters.

Hate is not a toy.

Thank you ... Billy

Bob Seger - 'Hollywood Nights' Live in San Diego 1978.but RESTORATION VAMPIRE STYLE 8/11/17

I fancied myself a rake and played the part very well. My digs were a discretely sized, though still impressive homage to Hampton Court, somewhat removed from public view, down a winding alley flanked by large, dense oak trees. Chelsea was quite the place in those days, filled with, jewel box estates for the well born and what the French would call the haute bourgeois ... le tre haute bourgeois... A Hollywood on the Thames two hundred and fifty years before that California enclave was born. But more about local atmosphere later.

We tore down dark suburban roads on the fine Arabians 'borrowed' from the Asgood stables. I led the way with a torch snatched from the entrance to some public pleasure ground (usually a park with fountains, a concert stand and beer garden). My mates fell in single file (aristocrats do know to ride), as we snaked down the path toward my place...[if anyone sees this now, please know that I don't have time to post the whole thing at once and am putting it up when I can.... clicked the wrong button... it should have remained a draft... but I ain't so button smart.... Jonathon (whose story this is) paces back and forth, lecturing me --- Don't I know how to do it right after all this time?!.... I say - Don't make me nervous... He gives me a look, takes an iced vodka and stomps off to his 'dark room.'.... We're in the cellar below the basement. .. no natural light here.... finished off little rooms and cubicles... juvenile vampirina, Annie, comes down to play Vampire Barbies and video games.... Jonathon cruises Google and listens to music... What?... you think they sleep all day?... they don't.... Sarah watches HGTV.... Conrad (the vampire who like Dockers 'slacks') is hooked on Game Show Network...It's a mental hospital.... Edith, our Jersey Pine Barrens, witchy woman, housekeeper is mortal like me (Billy)... She sits upstairs in the kitchen at the granite breakfast bar doing seek and find puzzles and eating tuna fish... Conrad says -- Jeez, what's with you? You're the tuna fish queen.... She goes -- Yeah, it's my 'blood.' Leave me alone...... Now I have to take a break and do some chores and errands. More posting later and #ff stuff too.... Wow... How'd I find enough time to post all this red stuff?]...

As we approached the entrance, I vaulted from the horse, threw the reigns to Mudo, my telepathic groom of indiscriminate background. The Brigands did the same. Mudo whistled. Their mounts froze till other stable boys appeared to lead them away. The torch, lying on the ground, instantaneously vanished (I can do that sometimes). Molecular manipulation is not that hard. Of course that term did not exist back then, but we managed.

My staff prepared everything for wee hour returns. The lights are low... a few candles here and there... bottles of gin left to chill in ice-filled silver buckets, placed where I can find them... dried apple blossom petals sprinkled onto the grate in the 'little' salon to scent the room... The 'little' salon was our place, a dim, octagonal, library-like space. Book shelves lined the walls, save for the expanse above the hearth. A portrait of some Tudor gentleman hung there. I think I culled him once. I can't remember.

We collapsed into the chairs, large, upholstered 'Roman' thrones. If you've seen what President Lincoln occupies in his memorial you know what I mean. Each 'Brigand' had his favorite place... five seats casually arranged around a small table. I found the bucket, grabbed the icy bottle of gin, a new distilled spirit, originally intended as a balm for the poor, but eagerly guzzled by the rich as well and poured five libations into the heavy, pale green glasses.

Sir Jeffrey downed a mouthful and began to laugh. His father, a baron, had no secondary title to give him, but managed to buy the young blood a baronetcy, thus the 'sir.'

He said - The noise. The chanting. I can't shake it. That sound. Is that how they do it? Just the sound? Just the vibrations? I saw a castrato shatter a goblet last season in Venice. Is that what it is?

I just shrugged......

Tantric magic - sighed Master Jeremy. Did you see the body? No, of course you did.... Then he retched and vomited all over the inlaid stone floor.

Two housemaids instantly appeared to clean up the mess, as we sat there in silence.....

 

Wouldn't it be nice if benevolent vampires really could restore the sick & aged? Sweeney Todd - Not While I'm Around

 

The posts on this blog haven't been as frequent as before. Billy, the one who records the goings on around here, has been busy. His 93 year old uncle was sick. Then he was in hospital. For the last week he was in a hospice. Earlier tonight he passed.

He was the last of his generation on both sides of the family and now he has gone on.

I am one of the spirit narrators many of you know from this place, which one is not important. This is not about me. I just wanted you to know

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I Saw a Mortal Sublimate ..7/26/17 ..Tibetan Buddhist monks chanting in monastery in Nepal during a special puja

 

The life-eater Jonathon speaks ~

His name was Kahan, pronounced with a strong and somewhat lengthened second syllable. It means Lord Krishna, or Warrior's Son, or Beautiful. I never knew if he was born with the name. Perhaps it came when he disembarked at that seventeenth century London quayside? The City does that to people. Even then it was unique... theatres... coffee houses.... clubs... brotherhoods... cat houses and cathedrals. My God, it was wonderful. Urban manor houses in Chelsea were all the rage. Most were smaller representations of the palace of Saint James. Some not by much.

That's where I had my adventures with The Brigands, an informal group comprising curious risk takers with, at times, more gold than sense. Spoiled sons from the landed class were like that. We saw live pigs fed to alligators imported from Spanish Florida. We sampled magical mushrooms from God knows where. I liked the moonlit cat hunt. Where they got genuine Arabians, I don't know and I know genuine Arabians. Those horses were fast. We pounded 'cross the moors after a beautiful matched pair of black panthers brought over from what used to be The Inca Empire (rightly called Tee-wan-tan-su-yu). I'm sure they were jaguars. Certain specimens exhibit extreme pigmentation, thus the rich, glossy black coats. I led the charge, being vampire and all, I could see in the dark..... Did we get the panthers?.... No, I told you, I led the charge. Night-folk have a feel for nature. But we had a good gallop and I paid for ale and meat pies at the inn, so everyone was happy... Did they notice I abstained?... Well... 'vampire eyes' can cloud the keenest mind.

One night we went to a stylish salon at the petit palace of a newly minted baronet. They had a reputation for the finest meals and entertainments of the first rank.... so eager to make their mark. But who doesn't like good drink and a savory grill? So people went... and after meeting that Nepalese monk I mentioned earlier... they went again.

Tantric magic will do that to people...

It's an early form of enchantment that made its way into the world of dharma. Hindus and Buddhists know it... many avoid it due to its bad reputation... a slight tinge of black magic, though true adepts know better. You see, magic of the tantric variety accepts all facets of the human organism. It recognizes our hungers and addictions, but looks for benign ways to satisfy them. Will social distinction, public acclaim and casks filled with silver ducats keep you from becoming a cruel, perverse autocrat? Well, this form of wizardry plays to the 'need,' for a craving sated is a crime forestalled.

The monk in the manor house did this ...

Tantrics manipulate the universe with sound. They chant. They repeat mantras. They create vibrations and thus cajole the universe.... Look at the video up above. You'll see....

The baronet and his consort ,who hosted that salon, were known as Sir Henry and Lady Asgood. He wore curled shoulder wigs of the finest Persian lamb and the fabric for her gowns came from the looms of the fabled Silent Nuns of Wallonia.  Many tried to learn their secrets, but as they never spoke, all one could hope for was a very dirty look. The thing took place in Asgood House, a Palladian masterpiece at the end of a long, crushed gravel drive. They say it was bought on the backs of slaves. Asgood owned majority shares in three ships well know on the Cameroon - Jamaica run. Oh, it was all supposed to be hush-hush, but this was London... and people talk.

The night of the sublimation (passing through solid matter) the place was festooned with great names of the nobility and gentry.  As cognoscenti know, a fair share of gentry families actually out rank many peers.. They have more land... more money.... longer histories... comelier daughters and finer stables. Everyone makes way for a Redmond, or a Castile. Shakespeare, if he were more than one hundred and ten years in the flesh, would dedicate plays to them.

Ladies in sumptuous attire and gentlemen in rich brocades graciously acknowledged each other across the wide, candlelit, parquet expanse, as they fed tiny mouthfuls  of smoked eel to the pedigreed 'toy' spaniels on their laps. Some brought little monkeys. I told you about the monkeys. (Remember, this is vampirino Jonathon speaking) But simians are not as regular in their toilet habits as canines and most were left home where any shite balls they might fling at shrieking maids really didn't matter.

Social niceties went on for perhaps thirty minutes, then the monk appeared. They all went silent. A shaved head, coppery skin and a well formed body in a rough silk toga had that effect in these parts. Four disciples in lesser weaves took up compass points 'round their leader and began to chant in that low, rolling, vibrating fashion peculiar to their homeland. The 'ingles' (Jonathon often lapses into Spanish) were transfixed. Footman discreetly padded about the hall extinguishing three candles in five, lowering the illumination to an appropriate and mysterious level. Then the monk gracefully snatched a small songbird out of the ether and sent it flying up to the ornate, crown molding...In quick succession he conjured and released five more... People began to applaud.. The monk known as Kahan, who never opened his eyes, issued a low, guttural command and all went silent. A white lamb bleated as it tapped its way across the glossy, carefully fashioned wood floor. The monk scooped it up and hugged it to his chest. His disciples altered their resonating chant and it burst into flames.  The monk's arms, shoulders, neck and jawline disappeared behind the fire. This went on for at lease twenty heartbeats, till the chant changed just a bit and the flames vanished. Man and beast were whole, unblemished and unharmed. .. The monk bent down, released the little ewe and listened to it tap its way into the shadows.

Those in attendance refrained from any type of reaction...
The hall was silent, save for the pants of a few small dogs.
Footman bearing wooden parts to some type of apparatus, filed out and assembled what looked like a large, seven foot tall, polished wooden table right by the monk and his four disciples. The supports seemed spindly and unable to truly hold up the platform, but the monk emanated a deep, rolling mantra and all was secure.

A trim, compact young man appeared. Whether he walked out, or was brought forth by some other means was hard to tell... Tantric chanting can cloud the mind. He might have been from what was called Hindustan, or Burma, or The Great Horn of Africa. He wore a seventeenth century, British representation of a crisp, Egyptian, linen kilt with the pelt of a young leopard tied around his waist. A medium, rich brown he was. Long dark, curly, glossy tresses reached his shoulders. How perfect he looked in the low glowing light.

Kahan, the tantric master, his eyes still closed, gestured toward a spot on the floor under the wooden platform. The brown skinned young man lay down. For a while nothing happened. Here and there a few ladies began to titter.

The monk clapped his hands. His brethren did the same, till they produced a fast, intricate rhythm, coupled with an harmonic, almost electric (if seventeenth century people recognized it as such) hum. The large 'table' thing began to vibrate. Little dogs held fast on their mistresses' laps howled. Steam rose from the man in the Egyptian kilt, as he slowly left the floor and began to levitate. The aristocrats crowded 'round the hall saw him bounce against the bottom of the table and stop.

A hissing sound filled the space. The wife of a Scots laird fainted dead away when blood spurted out from a throbbing red vein in the white of her bulging left eye. Two peers spontaneously voided their bladders. Atonal chanting can do that to people.

Ten heartbeats later the form of the man in the Egyptian kilt began to pass through the platform. First the tip of his nose ... then his face... his chest... the shoulders... his toes... his groin. The skin pulled back on his face. He slowed. The walls began to shake. A huge crack ran across the high ceiling, down the richly paneled wall. Heavy slabs of plaster rained down on the crowd, as the remainder of the poor man's body, devoid of face, pectoral muscles, toes, groin, plus almost every bit of flesh on the ventral side of his being fell down onto the floor with a sickening, bloody thud.

People raced for the doors, trampling the weak and elderly. Rafters crashed down from above. Sixty one people died. One hundred and thirty five  of the survivors were questioned by Anglican authorities. Twelve were hung for witchcraft. Nineteen spent the rest of their days 'buried alive' in the foul dungeons beneath The Tower. Dead little King Charles Cavalier Spaniels were everywhere.

I gathered up my fellows, my 'Brigands,' stole four horses from the elite Asgood stables and spirited them away to my own manor near by.

When next the sun went down again I showed them what I was.

The vampire, Jonathon stops....

<more next time>

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