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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