WHISPERS AND GIGGLES

It is I, Zebulon. For the last few planetary rotaions I have been in Egypt, commenting on the unfolding events for readers of other dispatches. But for now, I am back. Let's see. Where are we? There can be no disagreement. Papa is now the center of things. And he's different. In his last local manifestaion, when he was still incarcerated, he came to us as The Shaky Hand Man. Then he sought to undermine society as a whole. He softly crooned into the ears of impressionable people, tempting them to change their ways and follow him into the shadows. Some did. And it was pleasureable for him. He did have Annie. She was already his. Yet he was still buried down far beyond the deepest foundations of Rome and that was torture. But now he is free, in the flesh as well as in the spirit. And he cares nothing for the morals of those around him, human or immortal. He craves killing and the many other beguiling sensations his human parts can feel. Look, now he is with that new, little vampirina (vahm-pah-ree-na). He loves her. At first I doubted it. But he loves her. They have a place, a nest, down in the cellars of The University Museum near the thirty fourth street from the river. Not a rough space. It is actually quite well finished. An office, I think it was and without windows....even better. If I am not mistaken, some of our local vampires slept there once before. Maybe that is how he sensed it. All he had to do was walk through the echoing halls near closing time. It's winter, so that would already be after dark. A dapper, handsome executive, with trimly styled, steel gray hair and the requisite well dressed, little girl. What guard could resist? Strike up a conversation. Sublimate through the man's mind a bit. Find a weakness and you're in. This one had an illness. I don't know. Some sort of human metabolic condition. It was serious. He was worried. That was it. Papa, ever attentive, danced him over into a corner, whispered in his ear and offered him a deal. The man would have health in return for his assistance. Simple and direct You may not know it, but even the breath of an immortal is intoxicating to humans.  That's how easy it is. They had a new familiar, a snug berth and some other ancillary stuff all in return for a few drops of blood. The man must have been a fan of gothic fiction, for he knew just how to draw it in. Annie smiled, as she reached up to his lips and wiped away an errant, glistening drop. Then she slurped it up like a hungry puppy. The three of them looked at each other and giggled. Soon they added another guard or two. Ah, security. A home at last. Each night, after slaughtering the necessary number of people, they'd return to the museum and explore. Annie liked the dim, still Egyptian halls the best. Papa taught her how to sublimate through the glass into the display chambers, where all the quality mummies were kept. They'd lean over the edge of some ancient sarcophagus, discussing the specimen within. Papa was somewhat surprised to discover that he actually recognised one of them, a finne, old gentleman from the time of the Ptolemeys. The mummy was only about twenty three centuries old. Not much by ancient Egyptian standards. Annie asked if they could use their blood to resurrect him. But Papa said that would not work, since they lacked the canopic jars containing his organs. And besides, the man's brains had been thoroughly liquified and discarded at the time of his mummification. Yet he did show her one thing. Papa bit into his lip, allowing a small tricle of blood to drip down onto the dead man's waxy, shrivled, dusty hand. Not much happened at first. But after a few heartbeats things began to change and a few thumb prints of flesh returned to a more or less living state. Annie was intrigued. Her eyes opened wide She sucked in some air and stared silently. Papa smiled down at her. Then she looked up into his eyes and giggled.........

JUNGLE TIME

Jonathon was all alone. The Pineys and Red Paints disappeared into the Jersey woods. wilkravitz went with them. But the honorable Andalusian could sense him and knew he wanted to come back to the city. He wanted to help. So did Edith. Yet this wan't the time. Papa was a new type of vampire, at least for Philadelphia. For the last three hundred years, local vampires had been moral, ' guardian angel ' type creatures. You remember - Cull the wicked. Help those meant to live.....The little blood gifts to sick people in hospitals and all that? Well, now it was different. Papa was a hedonist and a bitter, angry hedonist. Death (other people's) was a special treat to him. It tasted good. It made him powerful. It healed all wounds, especially the one cut into him by his thousand year imprisonment. Oh, do not think that secret forces sent out by that supposedly 'Vatican' faction weren't trying to recapture him. They were. But his current location was still a mystery to them, And so they busied themselves sneaking up on deluded, powerless Wiccans in such places as Brussels and Edinburgh. Maybe they would one day uncover his trail. And then again maybe not. The refuge in the park was soon abandoned. Papa lacked the cadre of loyal 'familiars' needed to keep it going. So he and little Annie were vagabonds of the night, just like everyone else. Oh, Baylah still had her snug berth with the human honey bunch. But she knew the score. She was smart. So she and that stock exchange fellow quickly shuffled off to cheerier climes at his beachfront house on the South Jersey shore. And the toffee beauty soon became quite the fixture at Texas Hold'em tables throughout Atlantic City. None guessed her secret, for she was discreet.......All had to live by their wits. Jonathon reconnected with the mole people. He liked their tunnels deep under the subways. He enjoyed playing little games with the wide-eyed mole children. And when he was depressed and unable to hunt, they always surprised  with a plump, juicy, human n'er-do-well or two..... One night, when he could not sense the presence of Papa in the vicinity, he snuck back to the redout in the park and sublimated in through a wall. But the interior was completely empty. Each and every immortal 'carving' had been carefully chipped from every surface. And the place had fallen back to its old use as a municipal, park service storage facility. Where had he taken Sarah? Where had he taken Jonathon's beloved? Where were the enchanted 'elves and cherubs'? He'd find out...some night, but not that night. And so he wandered through the city, a dark haired, Spanish princeling. His cunning, leather bootkins tapping out a rhythm and occasionally tossing sparks along the way.

THE LION

Jonathon awakened to find everyone gone. He raced into all the tiny, one time, storage rooms. They were all empty. He bounds up the stairs to the main room. All is quiet and bathed in moonlight falling in from the high, small windows. Even the Amish 'fireplace' is cold. Then his eyes are drawn to something new. He looks up to see the bleached, gray, contorted bodies of the elves and cherubs, crowded into the corners like so many ornate, plaster putti in an old Venitian palace. Sarah is there too and in the same condition. She occupies a spot above the sofa, like a goddess caught in flight, arrayed in a classic gown. He stands there transfixed. Then he hears a voice. It is Papa's voice. The newcomer steps into the moonlight and speaks - The others ran. The humans, I mean. Oh, their out there somewhere. Who cares? More for me to hunt.......... He gestures toward the gray, bleached, frozen figures on the wall......And them? I don't know how it happened. I don't. It appears I am not even aware of my own abilities.......... He grins and turns toward the cold, electronic hearth. Then he blows or exhales a bit of air toward it, causing it to instantly spark and 'crackle' to life............Papa looks up, studying the trapped and frozen immortals - I don't even know if they are truly gone, or if  they could be brought back, or what. I don't know. I just don't know. They made me angry......Annie drifts out of the shadows, dragging the corpse of a dead human. She goes to Papa and stands by his side. He softly carresses her face. She smiles........ Papa says - Like a lion on the grasslands of Africa, I have destroyed your offspring, true,you did not actually create all of them, but they were yours, inorder to make space for my own.........He  runs his fingers through Annie's hair.......Look at her. Look how eager she is. Killed it before she could take the blood. Now it's no good. It's ruined. It won't combust and disappear. But she'll learn. She'll learn.........Jonathon recognised the corpse as one of the park workers, a valued 'familiar'. The eyes were gouged out from the skull. The head grotesquely twisted on a savagely broken neck. Annie let go of the lower jaw (her handle) and allowed the body to smack down onto the floor. Then she just stood there and belched. Papa chuckled. He coldly stared at Jonathon and said - Put some clothes on and go bury him.......So Jonathon did, in a peaceful spot, kissed by moonlight, deep within the naked, winter trees. Annd he stood there thinking (and possibly praying) as the grave slowly vanished under a new, fresh, blanket of snow...............But Edith was wary. The Piney Woman was smart. Before she ran, she took the books. She has the journal and 'La Ciencia Vampirismo' too. But what would one as old as Papa need with information like that?.........

SECRETS AND SHADOWS

How did Papa get so strong? Remember, he has endured since the time brfore words, or at least written words. His history is history. And when he was sealed away, little more than one thousand years ago, he was passing through a weak period. That's the way it is with the life-eaters. Things tend to change. Strength ebbs and flows like the tides. Why once there was a life-eater known throughout the world during the melting time (right after the last ice age). According to oral traditions, he was able to encase enemies in  thought bubbles and transport them to many different places. Some were abandoned on barren, rocky shores. Others found themselves floundering in the middle of what would one day be called the Pacific Ocean. It's rumored that a few victims suffered the most hellish fate of all. They were transported to the corona of the sun and hovered there surrounded in a slowly erroding remnant of earthly atmosphere and temperature. Imagine the searing sights they saw. The churning plasma of the surface. Massive explosions vaster that ten thousand worlds. And a  white hot (though tinged with yellow) light knifing through everything. But then, as they'd  finally approached the surface, heaving up and down with swells that could lick the moon, it would be over. The surrounding earthly blanket would be gone. The heat beyond heat would  embalm them. For a moment or two they would feel it. They would see it. I know not if that outcome is natural to the physical world, or if that ancient, powerful one willed it so. But that is how they were destroyed....... Now we must consider.....Is Papa that strong? I do not know. The truth may lie within the akoshic records, but I am afraid to search such places. And all the others like me feel the same....Thus speaks Zebulon..............Papa brought Annie back just before the dawn. Everyone else was already snug in their appointed places. No one made a sound. We heard them park the car. We heard them come in. They tarried for a bit in the main room. He sat by the ersazt fireplace. She snuggled on his lap. And they purred just as lions purr, bathed in the dim, flickering, orange glow. I held Sarah and she held me, both in the physical and spiritual sense. Then we heard them descend the stairs and head toward their spot. All was silent. But they stopped outside the door to our chamber. I could feel it. I could see it in my soul. I could see their evil grins. In that instant it was as if the universe refrained from evolving. But then it was over. They passed by, entering their own dark, still cocoon. I could feel Sarah's heartbeat and she could feel mine. I could sense the racing heartbeats of the others, both mortal and immortal. Indeed, Edith suffered a tiny heart attack. I must remember to give her a blood kiss, if I ever get the chance for that again......

BEFORE THE COMING OF THE MOON

Jonathon and Sarah had much to do. They already arranged for Baylah to stay with her companion. It is  odd to think that she used to style herself a transvestite. Her bone structure really does not lend itself to that. But her vampire magic was such that she was believed. And it was a good disguise. People did sense a strange incongruity about her. Why not pin it on that? Some at her cocktail lounge still believe it. Others don't even care. She's also guarding some irreplaceable objects. Jonathon's journal is with her. So is the venerable and mysterious tome known as La Ciencia Vampirismo. This all had to be accomplished in great haist during those 'first night'  hours when Papa and his little 'daughter' went romping through the lives of unwitting Philadelphians.. The Red Paint  people, the two or three that were left, evaporated away and found shelter with others of their kind. The goth kids were also warned away. Three mortals were left, the Old Woman, Edith and wilkravitz. Edith stayed out of a sense of duty. She'd been helping the vampires with her telepathic skills for a while now and felt obligated to continue during this stressfull time. The Old Woman wasn't  about to go anywhere. She  resented Sarah's presence ever since Jonathon brought her into this . If Sarah disapproved (or was at least concerned about Annie) then the Old Woman loved the girl. And now that she  had become the daughter of one so strong as Papa, the Old Woman  was in  like Flynn. I know a lot of you think the proper expression is 'in like Flint,' but that came about during a 1960's campy spy movie. The true expression dates to the 1930's and '40's. It references the romantic exploits of an actor named Erroll Flynn, a dashing, transplanted Australian reputed to be extremely successfull with the ladies and with some who were not so lady-like as well. In fact, from certain angles, Papa rather resembles him. The sleeping arrangements downstairs were shuffled about a bit. Most of the elves and cherubs crowded into  two small chambers toward the back. Papa made them nervous. He reminded some of their own transformations. He represented violation and treachery and death.  Sarah thought of sending them to live with the mole people in their chambers and tunnels under the subway system. But Edith had an inkling. She knew that was not right. So the enchanted 'young ones' stayed where they were. wilkravitz had been transcribing their story for so long, they never thought of sending him anywhere. By now, he was part of it. And he had a way of staying quiet and fading into the background that made him almost unvisible. Papa had bigger fish to fry. wilkravitz would probably be all right. I hope. What can I tell you? You want to know something about the one we have come to call Papa. Where would I start? How could I stop? He is among the eldest of his kind. And they form a chain going back to a time before the coming of the Moon........

BAD COMPANY

They pulled into a multi-level  garage and jumped out. Papa was already adept at the valet parking thing. Soon they were down on the street and marching along. Annie liked the attention. She felt at home. He was The Shaky Hand Man made manifest, only he wasn't shaky and she liked his looks. How many six year olds get to go slaughtering with their daddy? Oh, look at the beautiful hotel! Let's go in, Papa. I bet there're loads of sweaty bitches and bastards that we could eat in there. So they did. He bought her a  stuffed animal in the gift shop, a cute, cuddly, fat, little bear. She named him Buddy. And thirty minutes later, they way-laid the seventyeight year old granny woman who sold it to them as she was leaving the premises. They shared her for dinner. Old people's blood (the life actually) is all right, but she craved something jazzier. He took her into a shuttered department store. It wsasn't necessary to sublimate. He had this thing with doors and locks. They just seemed to cooperate with him.  And after about three quarters of an hour she had a shopping bag filled with the latest in obnoxious kids' wear. The guard agreed that all the choices were first rate. But then again, what else could he say, being the reluctant guide to these demons and all? She did the rest by herself. She jumped up to 'kiss' him just before exiting, but ripped out his throat instead. His blood was a little better, somewhat thick with salami and cheap cold cuts, but satisfying just the same. Papa didn't want any. She offered, but he politely demured.  Sure, she felt a bit bad about the greasy mess on the floor and all. But Papa said that's what the cleaning staff is for. So they laughed and ran out onto the street. They spent the rest of the night frightening whores on Arch Street. Maybe they drained a little off one or two. I can't remember. A little later they threw blood balloons at taxi cabs parked along The Avenue of the Arts. They must have drained one or two. Yeah, the blood must have come from the whores. I hope it was clean. One cabbie jumped out to confront them. He started waving his finger and yelling in Urdu or Punjabi or something like that. Papa just went into his act. He stared deep into the cabbie's eyes and levitated eight inches up off the ground.  The man shit himself right then and there. He threw up a little bit too. This made Papa sad, for he recalled fine times spent with a certain nobleman at his palace on the Gangeatic Plain approximately two or three thousand years ago, so he gave the man eight or nine Benjamin Franklin portraits and flew away. Annie clapped her hands and skipped off to join him.  I don't know what the grandchild of the seventeight year old woman thought when their grandmother failed to meet them at the car for her ride home. I don't know what the poor, little wife of the guard thought. But these two were a new breed of vampire, at least for Philadelphia. And to my mind, things were bound to change....

THE BIRTH OF BRITE EYES

I do not enjoy relating these things to you, but I am a narrator and it is my duty to do so. This is not a choice Zebulon would make, but I must do it.....The Red Paint young man went down toward his doom. They did not hear much noise up above. It was all largely silent and clinical. Papa sat the youth down on a chair next to the bed. Annie wasn't sleeping. She was waiting, like a baby eaglet, ready to tear the vole apart. Papa kneeled down on the floor and whispered something into the young man's ear. I know what it was, yet such things are private. Perhaps if you encounter him in the world to come he will tell you? The human quietly nodded his head and waited. He cried a bit, maybe a tear or two. But not much. By this time Annie was quite aggitated. She clenched and unclenched her fists. She was trembling. Papa stroked the young man's cheek. Then he turned to his new born deathling and gestured for her to begin. She  shifted over a bit and put her skinny arms around his neck. He shuddered. She kissed him. But soon it was not a kiss. She had broken the skin, instinctively finding the right vessel. And then she began to feed. Cotton candy, chicken nuggets, Reeses Pieces? No, this was better. This was richer and deeper in an unescapable fundamental way. They were united. And they stayed that way till every drop of his blood and every bit of his life was drawn into her. She let him fall to the floor and sighed. Papa kicked away the quilts and blankets. They watched, as the empty human husk ignited into the eternal cold, blue flame and disappeared.  When it was over, she looked her 'father' in the eyes and giggled. Then she traced her finger through the remnant of grease on the floor, brought it to her nose and said yuck. Papa playfully mussed her hair. She impatiently sucked her teeth and smoothed it back. He helped her clean up in the little bathroom. She changed into a child's outfit made up of this and that pilfered from the wardrobes of Marianne and Celeste, the two elfin girls. Then she took his hand. They climbed up to the main floor, walked brazenly passed the others and out into the unsuspecting night. Everyone heard the quiet, heavy purr of the engine as they drove away. The Old Woman possitively trilled with delight, as she gathered up her tools and went downstairs to wash the mortal's remnants away. Sarah broke down and cried. Jonathon went over to comfort her. The other Red Paint people, maybe two or three, joined hands in prayer. Edith just sat there looking down at the table. wilkravitz closed his eyes, pretending to sleep. They were in shock and no one knew what to do. But after a few heartbeats, Jonathon took out his cell phone. He called Baylah and told her to stay away. And the ersatz fire, in the well made Amish mantle shed its comforting orange glow upon it all.