The Book of Sarah

Let me tell you a bit about The Enemy. At least I can tell you the things that I know. They have been in existence since the beginning, whenever that was. They have taken many names, always aping some spiritual or religious establishment. But I do not think they have very much to do with the divine. I think they serve another lord. At times they labored for the 'dignitas' of the Roman State.  Some worked for the various medieval Inquisitions, or the Pact of Omar in unitarian Muslim lands. Indeed, just twenty two centuries or so ago, some beings who claimed to be high born Judeans , threw their weight behind certain segments of the Sadduces. Always claiming to work for the good, but many die in their wake. Countless lives are ruined and the evolution of human spirituality ultimately suffers. Now they, or some of their number are in Philadelphia. I know they've already taken a few victims. There was that 'foreign' vampire and I think  they're responsible for a mass shooting in the offices of an up and coming congresional candidate. I hear the dogs howling every night. The Old Woman who keeps house for me claims she hears footsteps scampering across the roof. and Bob (poor guilless Bob) thought he was being tailed by a turncoat vampire the other night. Turncoats, of all varieties, often help them. But then he claims to have heard the turncoat let loose a barrage of loud, oily farts and everyone knows a true vampire would never (could never) do that. It must have been an Enemy of the merely human variety. Needless to say, Bob has become especially vigilant, always on the lookout for a particular individual who appears to suffer from irritable bowel syndrome.Baylah has this thing she does with a whoopee cushion, but I do not think that it is very funny. She is more of a fatalist. What can I tell you. Me? I think we are in real danger. A few nights back,as I made my midnight rounds in an unnamed hospital, dispensing drops of my blood to deserving souls as they dozed, I heard a voice, a whisper actually, from somewhere in the shadowy hallway. It said 'Jonathon' my true name. I froze. The nurses at their station heard nothing. But I did. For an instant I almost lost my power to sublimate. One of the LPN's almost saw me. I could tell. I could see it in her eyes. I could see her mouth a prayer. I could see her cross herself. Look, if anyone reading this knows something, if anyone is willing to help, please get in touch with me via my 'wilkravitz' email site. Go to wilkravitz@gmail.com.. Upon my honor, I promise to respond to every one of you. When it comes to confronting evil, we are all in this together. May He who made the universe surround us with his Holy Presence. Stay safe. Be vigilant.

The Book of Sarah

I have many haunts throughout the city, but I do have a home. It is a small, brick townhouse on a tiny forgotten street. Most of the other shelters along this byway were turned into commercial establishments long ago. But they open onto the next street which is wider. All I can see are bricked up entrances, or the occasional metal door leading to some storage chamber. I like it like that. It is quieter. No one really knows that I am here. Usually I have to change houses every fifteen years or so to prevent the neighbors from noticing that I do not age. But I have been here for just over seventyfive years. I like it. It suits me. One of my familiars serves as housekeeper. She appears to be a weathered seventy year old woman. True, she is still technically mortal, but tiny infusions of my miraculous blood have enabled her to achieve onehundred and forty human years. She says that she wants to die soon. And I promised her I'd stop the infusions as soon as I got someone else. But you know how hard it is to find good help these days. For I do so like a clean house. I draw comfort from the gleaming hardwood floors and freshly vacuumed fine orientals. Everything is kept just so and it is not like she has much to do in the kitchen. True, she does buy food for herself and she does have to clean the bathroom  that she uses. Aside from my numerour hot baths, my washroom stays mostly spotless. It's not like I use the toilet or anything. And she watches the place during the day, while I 'sleep' in the cool, moist pit in the windowless cellar. There's a thick bed of dried rose petals (other flowers too) at the bottom. It is actually quite pleasant  when I jockey the heavy, stone slab over the opening. The perfect nest for the not so perfect vampire. I often dream about my mortal family while curled in that nest. I never saw them again after my transformation. The Trinitarians were beginning to threaten our region of Al Andaluz and I learned that my people had emigrated to the East. Some said Syria, others claimed they'd joined a remnant of Khazar fellow believers somewhere on the plains of Kievan-Rus (you know it as Ukraine). I spent time in many places. Sometimes I tried to find my family. From time to time I'd run into a descendant in some European marketplace. I would know them. I would just know who they were. But I kept my distance, not wanting to upset them or put them in danger. After all people were burned for consorting with creatures like me. Oh, look! They have the soft, black, leather boots that I like in that shop. Please excuse me while I release the mind of my wilkravitz familiar (who types this out for me) and go in to make my purchase. Who knows? Perhaps later I will stroll over to a few of my favorite galleries and look at the pictures. I enjoy this urbane environment. My sensabilities are quite cinematic. I view my life as one grand art film. I even imagine a love theme. It is the Seal song that goes...'Look at me... I'm one of your secrets... You belong to me... And I belong to you.' I am sorry. I cannot sing very well. Some individuals think that I can, but I do not agree with them. Adios.

The Book of Sarah

I make myself known to her now. She does not fully understand just what I am. But she is open to new things. I suppose that comes from being the child of teachers. One of my helpers (I have them too, just like Santa) showed her how to put all of her new assets into a business account. So what with all the rolls of bills and assorted precious stones, she should be all right for the foreseeable future. I sit with her in the bookshop. We discuss the classics. The Age of Innocence is a particular favorite of ours. Sometimes I even help her straighten up the shelves. She takes her 'lunch' break at one or two o'clock in the morning. Such is the schedule in an 'all night' bookshop. I bring her takeout from a little twentyfour hour coffee shop. She likes a grilled chicken breast sandwich with lettuce and tomato, a small order of fried sweet potato crisps and a diet iced tea. I of course am never hungry. But it is good for people around the neighborhood to see me buying food. It makes me seem more normal. She asks me how I came to be and how I got here. I tell  her that I came on the wind. She says - Oh, like Mary Poppins? But that is really the truth, for it was the good ship Welcome, a seventeenth century sailing craft that brought me here. And so we sit, a vampire named Tomas and his many, many, many times (mortal) great granddaughter named Sarah. I gave her a tiny vial of my blood. I did not tell her it was blood and it does not taste like blood, at least not like mortal blood. She did not want to drink it at first . I told her it was a type of absinth. We had been discussing the works of Proust so she was open to such things. It will preserve her well-being. It is better than the strongest flu shot. It is better than the most over priced vitamin capsules. She mixed it into her coffee and drank. Instantly the cancer which I knew to be inside her disappeared. You cannot know how much that meant to me. I pressed a few more vials into her hand. She asked me if I would not like some of the 'absinth' for myself. I think she was feeling a bit unnerved and wanted to see me ingest something. I took one of the vials, opened it and shot it back neat. It was my own blood, so I could do that. It satisfied her and she relaxed. But she feels a bit telepathic to me. I am sure she knows more than she lets on. I do not know if it is my imagination or not, but she seems to favor my mother. There is something about the cast of her features. Yet how could that be? There are so many generations between us. Geneticly we are not much more than total strangers. But a creature such as I knows there's more to life than genetics. Where am I now? I am standing over the body of my monthly victim, watching  as it ignites into a cold, blue flame. This one was a bad one, a very bad one. And the dancing, windblown ashes cannot disappear fast enough. When it is over, I step out from behind the bushes of a favorite vest pocket park, examining my new, gold Rolex and whistling The Teddy Bears' Picnic. When you go out on the streets tonight you're in for a big surprize. But the Enemy has not left us. He is till here. I can feel him.

A PEEK INTO THE FIRST NIGHTS OF OUR TALE..as it was on September 28th, 2010

Revisit the nights when Sarah was still mortal and her strange, little, hidden bookshop, known as PHILADELPHIA AFTER DARK, catered to 'the night shift'.... The Enemy took a victim last night. I know it. I felt it. He was not of this city and must have been passing through. Maybe he had business with other life-eaters. That is what I suspect. My local brethren seem to agree. We meet in a certain place to discuss the passing scene. For the past forty years, that place has been The Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities, a nineteenth century edifice with squeaking old, wood floors, low, antiquated lighting and heavy, dark paneling. They have row after row of aged, glass display cases featuring such treasures as a life-cast of Chang and Eng, the first scientifically studied conjoined twins, along with countless huge jars filled with embalming fluid and tragically deformed babies. When it comes to the adult specimens, they save only the heads. Bob gets us in. He has a job there. He is the night watchman. It's ironic, a vampire with a pension plan and health benefits. We don't know what he would do should they ask for a urine specimen. I presume he would borrow some, just like a drug addict. We sit on a few eighty year old, decrepit folding chairs, back near the two-headed babies. I don't know why. I guess because it's just so cozy there. Baylah, our Beyonce look-alike, says this place is the perfect spot for us, because it is a refuge for dead freaks. She thinks that's funny. Bob and I do not. Getting back to the recent victim. We think he was a male, a young male who appeared to have about twentyfive human years. We get visions and that's how he looks. The Enemy and his dogs (he befriends the most vile, junkyard strays) cornered their sad, lonely prey in a dark, forgotten wharehouse. He was torn apart (I mean it. quite literally torn apart.) by the vicious beasts. When he was reduced to dripping scraps of oozing meat adhering to broken bits of bone, they devoured him. The dogs had to eat fast, for a 'dead' vampire always ignites into a cold, blue flame and disappears, just as his human victims do. But the flesh was already inside them and the blue, radiance shooting through their canine bodies provided knowledge. It is said that The Enemy occasionally slaughters one of his hounds and dines on the  pale, oily meat. In this way he too gains a certain measure of power. He learns things about us, things that we do not want others to know. That's why we're careful, never absentmindedly wandering into isolated places, as those of our kind often do. But old Philadelphia is filled with such out-of-the-way gems and I miss them. Maybe The Enemy will go 'way? He's done that in the past. Perhaps he'll kill a few 'tainted' mortals and disappear? It's just that the ones he finds lacking often turn out to be the very best. He's not like us. We only kill bastards. But that one is  demonic. We are something else. Now, forgive me, but I must go to Sarah. She needs money. She needs help to keep the little bookshop snug and dry. Soon I will resume the role of 'angel' and another stack of bills or maybe some sparkling little bijou will find its way into her pocket. After all, ask and you shall receive..... Just be sure you ask for something 'nice.'

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The Book of Sarah

A tramp along death's highway... that was me. I was a few hundred leagues from home and unsure about my current condition. I could not let myself be seen in the daylight, because the Crusaders were all about. True, they would not have spotted me as a Jew, for I was dressed like any other poor traveler. But what if they suspected? What if they asked me to parrot some Trinitarian prayer? I would not have known what to say and could have been killed as a heretic or a Jew. What did it matter? They were not concerned with details, after all who cared about such things when one was on the road to heaven? I slept in deep, dark caves and subterranean Roman ruins. I knew I had been transformed into something 'different', but I did not truly understand what that meant. One night, I tried to drink some cool water from a little stream, but it burned like poison. There was another morning when a tiny pin prick of sunlight found me in the crumbling cellar of an old Roman villa. I had the scar for days. But I am a fast learner. I think I am instinctive when it comes to these matters and I learned quickly. During the daylight, when I was 'sleeping' I would have visions. It seemed that I was seeing into The Realm of The Holy Presence. There was an angel there and he was instructing me. And I knew that I would never kill wantonly. I knew that I would only take the guilty. I now know that most genuine vampires conduct themselves in the same manner. But this age has its own Crusaders and they distort the truth and spread murderous lies . They cry for war and vengence, when they should be praying for something else.  I have borne my burden in many places. But now it is time to speak about the present. It is time to speak about events in Philadelphia. It is time to speak about the coming of our Enemy. Oh, before I 'sign off'' that wilkravitz fellow, my familiar, liked his new sneakers. And I liked my new pair as well. Shhh... I can hear the far off sound of a dog howling. Listen, there goes another one... Our Enemy often uses dogs. Their night song makes me nervous.   May Michael, the Arch-Angel, help us all.

The Book of Sarah

Sarah and I have much in common. We both lost our parents at a most vulnerable age. She, after they lost their money. Her father had a stroke. Her mother suffered a fatal heart attack caring for him. He died soon after. Sarah tried to do  her best, but without money the devoted souls in the medical establishment were blind to her needs. Now I didn't truly lose my parents. They lost me. The same Crusader horde responsible for the burning of the synagogue descended on Jews throughout the region. The unknown vampire who created me actually went to my father's camp to tell him I perished in the fire. My father and his entourage were hastily packing up when he got the message. They were fleeing to the coast, hopping to find a ship that would take them south to a Moorish port. A band of blood soaked Crusaders encountered my creator, as he returned to his rocky lair. They had a vampire traveling with them, a prisoner, a pathetic, little 'elf', or child vampire on the cusp of puberty. She feared for her very existence. It was her job to finger any 'unclean' souls found along the way. A group of these unwashed barbarians attempted to overpower my creator, but he fought them off, sublimating through a few and instantly shredding them to bits. But his strength soon waned. They pinned him to the ground and locked him in a heavy, 'iron maiden' minus the usual interior spikes. He screamed. He raged. But it was no use. The chains were too heavy and the locks too strong. Perhaps if he could feed?. My maker needed blood and was surrounded by souls deserving of death, but he could not take a drop.... So they carried him to Rome, where he was kept as a curiosity, deep within the hidden Vatican archives. I learned all this much later from the little 'elf' girl. She survived. For a while she had a successful career as a waif-like fashion model. But that is an entirely different tale and one that she should tell herself.

The Book of Sarah

There are others. We do not come from the same line, mortal or immortal, but we share the city and so make common cause. My oldest companion in this place is The Transvestite. She is not really a transvestite, but a tall, statuesque black woman who burlesques such an individual to fool the populace. It is all a question of misdirection, an old magicians'  trick. They see her surface incongruity and fail to recognize her  own true, special self.  She goes by the name of Bylah and if my recollections are correct, she has been 'working the night shift' as they say for about twohundred and fifty years. At first she used to haunt the inns and taverns. Now she picks up a meal or two in the clubs and bars. She was traveling with some French-West Indian voodoo woman, who turned out to be more than just a follower of the old gods. That's how she caught the midnight fever,but she's a good soul and like me, takes only those deserving of death .Then there is Bob. He appears to have about fortytwo mortal years and we can't remember when we first encountered him. I think he just combusted on the street one night, like that old time Philadelphia preacher, Father Divine. Even Bob can't remember his real name or how long he has been called to this mode of existance But he is a 'nice guy' and his name appears on various mailing lists for Atlantic City casinos (yes, we go down to the seashore from time to time), so we get tickets to all the shows. I liked Charo the best. I presume it was because of all the Spanish music. You can keep all the illusionists though. When one can work a bit of true magic, one loses patience for the ersatz sort. But there is something about the little mute one from Penn and Teller. His soul is deep. He knows things. I believe he would make a very good vampire. If he suddenly disappears from the act, or developes an aversion to daylight, don't say I did not warn you. For now, I have been working my 'wilkravitz' familiar person very hard. I feel guilty, so let me permit him to stop this typing. I think I will go to The Footlocker and purchase him a new pair of sneakers. Who knows, perhaps I will purchase a pair or two for myself as well?