THE FUROR HUMANICUS PREPARES TO POSSESS ANOTHER WORLD..... 4/19/13

Conrad tapped away at his p.c.. Actually, he could have blogged for them, but the thought never crossed his mind. wilkravitz did that. It was already a done deal. Why rock the boat? Vampires are like that. Oh, they can adapt. They just don't like too. You see this when you've known them a while..... a really long while. The same individual may move around every ten to twenty years. People begin to notice the youthfulness, after all. But somethings never change... a penchant for Handel..... antique tall clocks... a certain Spanish sound upon the tongue.... references to the court of Timbuctu. We are all creatures of habit and some 'creatures' even more so.

But he saw something on line, a reference to a certain program, an organization promising to establish a human beach-head on Mars by 2013. @MarsOneProject they call it. And he wondered how soon it would be til night-folk made the trip. In all probability, not until the population reached a certain point. Life-eaters gotta eat too, you know. Yet the thought of such a thing intrigued him. So he pulled on his jacket and went outside. 

His block, a very tiny space, was quiet. But it was always quiet. The small, curbside trees were in bud. And even in the darkness, he could see them 'neath the streetlights. Two sleek cats prowled the shadows, sniffing out disoriented pigeons.... Last night they had rodent. Most other windows were dark. An old lady near the corner was still up. She liked the old black and white movies on that cable movie station. But so did Conrad. 

He thought about Jonathon, as he turned the corner onto Chestnut Street. Twenty somethings left the clubs. Old City closes up at 2am.  Last drinks morph into coffee and sticky buns at all night diners for those not hobbled by jobs. And he nodded to a few tipsy baby-ladies heading toward a cab. They self consciously tittered back. 

Edith said they'd find him. She had a feeling... a hoo-doo (frisson of magic). Tomas, known as Jonathon wasn't lost, but merely detained. Baylah said so too, though she and her friends still looked, searching the night with blood-fed dogs.

While not far away, the 'young' vampirino dozed, lost in ancient dreams. Tobias, his nonagenarian captor, waited. No lengthy needles pierced preternatural flesh tonight. It just didn't 'feel' right. The old man was funny that way, superstitious in a subtle, sober Quaker way. Though in all truthfulness the family hadn't followed the creed for years. So he sat in the keeping room, a small cozy space off the kitchen, staring at the tiny flame in the small brick, corner hearth. Soon they'd take him upstairs and arrange him in his bed. But he still felt out of sorts. 

Let it be known that Doctor Franklin caused that slight malaise via precise refinements on his Grand Armonica. His large, vaguely 'steam punk' harmonic apparatus could do many things. Vibrations are power. And the old reprobate had plenty of that. So Jonathon remained unmolested. His blood was his own for a few hours more.

Yet the movement continued. People remembered his sermons from that place under the bank building. After all, it's only been a couple nights. Food banks were fill. Out of town vampires here for the spirituality of it all gave out money. All night-folk have cash. And cleaned up, formerly homeless souls slept soundly, between crisp sheets in fine hotels. Even the sequestered hoodlums stuffed into the dungeons of old Eastern State Penitentiary had pizza... pepperoni... donated by a consortium of well known chains. So the resident ghosts shrieked for naught. Good, hot, runny, tomato pies take precedent, don't you know. The guards got their share too.

Conrad met a man sitting on a bench, deep in the shadows, near the perimeter of Washington Square. The man looked at him and said - You're a vampire fella, aren't you?..... Conrad said - Yep... The man said - You ain't gonna eat me? You ain't gonna make me go 'guhk,' are you?..... Conrad said - Nope.. The man said - I like the way things are now. Vampires... Magic. Met a witchy-woman just before. Got rid a my headache. She was real good. Sang real nice too. Think her name's Minerva. You know her?..... Conrad shook his head 'no.' ...... Man said - Sorry. Didn't mean no offense. Don't mean that all you hokus-pokus folk know each other. Sorry..... Conrad gestured as if to say 'Don't worry 'bout it.'.... Then the man said - Wanna go for coffee? Coffee shop at the Omni's still open. My treat. Come on. Tell me some a your vampire stories..... So they got up and went. But Conrad told him he hadn't been a vampire very long and didn't have all that much to tell. The man said that was OK. He'd tell all about the army.

But that stuff we told you 'bout @MarsOneProject a while back is true. They gettin' ready to go. Human beans all set to plant theyselves in another garden.

Let's hope they tend it real nice this time...
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THE MAN IN THE LEADEN BOX....... 4/18/13

The old man studied his hands. And they looked more like a grotesque panel in a gothic, graphic novel. So he called for a stethescope and they gave him one. Then he scootered over to the chill, metal wall and listened. But all that came back was white noise. Vampires can be quite still, like waxen figures in strange museums. It's instinctive. No practice necessary. Their joints don't lock... muscles don't cramp. Nothing happens. They just sit there, or stand there and that's the way it is. 

Jonathon wandered the markets of  Old Cordoba... the Street of Rubies.... Book Sellers' Lane... Apothecary Square. He loved that place. Spices from Serendip. Gossamer fabrics from far Cathay. Silver menorah from the Caucasus. And Johannan was with him. Mortality was his. Those words may sound incongruent to souls faced with such a prospect. But vampirinos feel different. He purchased a parrot. He liked parrots. Some rabbis, especially they who believed in 'the arc of a death,' as well as 'the arc of a life,' thought they might be spirits mistakenly (if such mistakes are possible) incarnated in avian form. And our eighteen year old aristocrat was eager to find out. So his servant (Johannan) bore the bright eyed, irridescent beastie on his forearm and they proceeded on their way.

Now the leaden box had certain features unknown to the prisoner within. Apparently, Tobais Maxwell's billions could work subtle magic even a vampire couldn't 'see.' There were sharp, tiny tubes protruding from the exterior of the trap. And the Maxwell patriarch had to be careful when he approached its surface lest one didn't pierce him. Via a system of intricatly installed magnetics (plus a cunning, little remote control device) he could 'push' these needle sharp hypodermics far into the black interior.... like a magician's box bristling with many swords.  And in this way impale the vampire on multiple axises. Then other needles, coming in from other angles (but not going all the way through) could syphon out the blood.  What he had was basically a 'milking' machine made for reluctant donors. And Jonathon was certainly one of those. 

But blood, taken in this way, might restore health and vigor, though it could not grant immortality, for there is no give and take. A certain closeness... A certain agreement is necessary for that.

Jonathon approached the stream... dropped his clothes and walked in, savoring the cool, fast moving current. And then he began to swim.

Blessed be the power of dreams...
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