The Torch... THE VAMPIRE REVELS 2/09/13

Of course you know how it all played out. Richard got his way. The wealth of another flowed through his veins  as a 'thank you' for certain services. He fingered the witch. They took her away so they might burn her. Tomas could not effect a rescue. These people believed in magic. They knew spirits and talking spiders and parasitic twins that laughed and spat bile. The conveyancing of prisoners happened by sunlight, to lessen the chance of evil intervention. Daytime and devils don't mix... or so they thought.

So the girl was gone. And he was alone, a cold, white spirit of the night. Silvia.... her name recalled the silvery shimmer of moonbeams. Tomas tried to bribe people. Corrupt judges and churchmen were not hard to find. Yet none would take his money, for Sylvia called his name and they knew. Records were kept. People whispered. Beadles told stories and wise woman sang songs. Tomas, known as Jonathon..... they knew him. His story was in books. I believe there was an accurate woodcut too. And as much as they wanted his gold, none would touch it. The fire burned both ways. And many a witch finder bounced to the other side. A conflagration is hard to control. 

After a time, they took her to the place of final visions. Few words were spoken. She was numb, drugged by a somewhat moral jailer. No visitors. No letters. Her grieving family, forcibly indentured to the rice fields of Carolina.

Tomas tried to find her. He'd get in. He'd transform her. He'd save her, after a fashion. But if you've been with us a while, and if you've read MARIANNE IN BRITCHES, you understand vampiric limitations. Nothing goes through lead. Sublimation is impossible and thoughts fall down and die. Every monarch had one... a 'dark house,' I mean.... a fortress, or castle with a lead-lined inner court, paved and paneled in thick, black, cold, heavy  sheets. 

Let me ask you something. Do you know how long it takes a living soul to burn? Minutes? No. Even if the flame-keeper stacks fresh, green wood. True, it produces noxious fumes and hastens the passage, but even then the calves are roasted black. Some shriek and convulse so violently they die. Necks snaps, skulls shatter... especially in England, where the stake is made from iron. Oh, and just so you know, that conducts heat very well too. A few flame-keepers are maestros, adept at maintaining a long, slow, even burn. First the feet. Then the legs. Third comes the sex. Three things are necessary for life.... a heart.... the lungs, a brain. And they can function in a shriveled, eyeless body. Witnesses say Saint Joan endured for an hour. Some people hold on for two. Believe me...it is a contest no one wants to win...

And Sylvia faced it alone. No strangling before hand. No bags of gun powder tied about the neck. No wholesome things like that..... nothing.....

That's why Tomas was so adamant. 

There'll be a good show tonight. Perhaps you imagine something like the free form bouts slackers dote on? Well, it's not like that at all. And those stories you've heard about apes destroying humans don't come close to this.

Ripped by talons. Chewed by harpies. Torn by demon hands. 

Some of the mortals in attendance will faint. A few might even die. Once, the Dowager Duchess of one vast holding or another threw herself from the battlements to escape the hellish scene. The 'Revels' have been with use for ages. 

Sir Richard communes with his spirits....

While Tomas says prayers to his God.....

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Herein Lies The Reason...THE VAMPIRE REVELS 2/8/13

Sarah just sat there. She did not want this thing to happen. But he wouldn't look at her. She didn't know. Sarah did not understand. If not for Sir Richard, he'd be with Sylvia and she'd still be a struggling book shop operator in Queen's Village.... mortal and 'pure' (in a night-folk manner of speaking) and free. I think she still missed that little place...cozy and cluttered and warm. The tick-tock of the clock collection serving as a heartbeat. He met her there. He wandered in one chilly autumn night. And so she became his new Sylvia.

But this night he'd fight for the first one. She lived in a time of change. The late sixteen hundreds saw many new things. Female actresses first appeared, giving the theater a new depth and outlook. London broke through it's ancient confines, conquering new lands across the Thames and out beyond the Aldwyck. Immigrants poured in from across the Channel and for the first time in four hundred years, those professing a rather more 'unitarian' creed, those known as 'Jews,' were 'officially' permitted entrance to the See of Saint George.

And new things came from across the sea. Furs from Muscovy.... Moorish boys from Senegal and spells from old Byzantium. Sylvia's people were merchants, tied to the great trading houses in Amsterdam, supplying coffee and tobacco to curious affluent Londoners eager to taste new things. 

She studied with a tutor, Sylvia did. Learned French, intricate needlework and calligraphy. Some said she had the best hand in the West End.  Made scented 'petal' bags for ladies' hope chests. Gave food to the poor.

In all probability she'd have married the first son of an equally affluent merchant... perhaps one of the new breed known as merchant bankers. A fine town house.... a small, but tasteful country manor.... Kept her own carriage..... Subscribed to all the proper assemblies, with gowns smuggled in from France.

Tomas understood this. He didn't press, content to dance in the shadows. At first she thought him a dream... a ghost, a being from some strange plain. But when plague came to the city, she knew he was something else, for none in her household died... even among the servants. 

Did they fall ill? Of course... the sores and the swellings and the sputum and the cough. But they never died. He pulled them through, each and every one, with tiny vials of his powerful blood. Did they know? Not really. But who wouldn't take such magic to escape the moldy grave? Maybe they didn't want to know...

Yet enemies did know. They saw and understood. Richard, not yet a baronet, but oh, so very ambitious, explored such things. He frequented obscure narrow lanes in 'The City,' and witnessed strange rites and obscene sacrifices, orchestrated by a man known as Stephan Panitzkyi. They met in old twisted rooms, high up under the rafters of creaking houses dating back to Wittington's time.

A blind girl sang songs to the tune of a medieval dulcimer, as the acolytes powdered their faces in chalk and antimony. Lips were daubed with coal tar. Eyes smudged with ocher. Black robes hid street clothes, as they swayed to the haunting melodies of witch-songs in the flickering, candlelit gloom.

Was the magic real? Who knows? Yet the desire truly was. This one wanted gold. That one craved honor. Some came for sex,  others just for fun. Panitzkyi might have been a charlatan. No one knows. History never said. Yet he put on quite a show. Some members of the Muscovite Company, an assemblage of moneyed gentleman, brought him back from the shores of Lake Lagoda. Who knew if he was even really Russian? Who could tell? The realm of the Great Brown Bear was foreign as the moon and just as elusive. Though his machinations filled Richard with ideas. And the ideas became suspicions. Why had death forsaken a certain house? Why did they all live? What power killed the plague? 

He respectfully petitioned Panitzkyi for answers and the mysterious person supplied them. Witchcraft... that's all it could be. Look for a nubile maiden and there you'll find your witch.

So Sylvia was doomed. Perhaps if she'd been more amenable to his advances the conclusion would have been different.... Yet that was not the case....

And so the witch must burn.....

Do you know what happens to living flesh upon the stake? 

Tomas does. Jonathon ben Macabi survived the flames, and the pain remained intact...

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THE LIGHT BEFORE THE DARK ... THE VAMPIRE REVELS 2/7/13

There was a certain frisson in the air. Not that things were ever calm or ordinary in the castle, but this was worse than usual. Night birds fell from the sky and rats chased their tails, like dogs. Certain not-quite-catatonic functionaries chuckled to each other and pulled pranks. They lured a pathetic, trembling, fat man from amongst the hopeless ranks in the cattle-people dungeon up to the kitchens, where they stuffed him with Kraft Macaroni & Cheese plus about three cans of Chicken of the Sea, solid white albacore.  So what if it was all mixed together in a huge, stainless steel bowl. Do you think he cared?

Then, when he was about to burst, they offered him more. But in a quiet voice, whether natural, or because he was fighting back a fart, he said no. Although he did take two little cans of V-8 vegetable juice.

Functionaries and cattle-people seem to get along so well. Both are kept in their natural state, abate the functionaries are mostly local, while the cattle-people stem from many places. Eastern Europe is just their point of embarkation. 

But the au natural servants had a cruel streak. And they giggled through thin, blue lips with glee, as they tickled the bloated gentleman up off his buttocks and deftly lowered him (feet first) into a recently un-crated ACME wood chipping machine. King 'Rafe,' ever the indulgent master, spoils them so. Some of them have Barbie collections, little, suburban, North American, stringy-haired, white girls would die for... and I believe a few did.

Yes there was some splatter. And true, there was some blood. Did he shriek and scream? What do you think? But that wood-chipper worked fast and soon, even the echos were gone. Though a huge mound of bone meal enriched, freshly, ground 'pork' was a big hit when served to the mortals that night.

And the pixilated insanity was everywhere. For a thin, little vampirina, squeezed out from her cosseted sleep chamber and crawled down an almost endless antique, Aubuson runner. But spear-like shafts of sunlight sneaking in through nooks and crannies, found her and soon she began to burn, a writhing, trembling, greasy lump, lost in the immensity of the long dim, quiet passage. 

When it was over, functionaries appeared to clean up the mess. And the mortals playing bingo in the armory never heard. 'King' Rafe always has great prizes. You know how crazy humans can get for a free Rolex, or a pair of ear studs.

But itchy tendrils of madness crept everywhere. Tomas convulsed as he slept. Sarah tried to comfort him, whispering re-assurance and pressing her body hard against his, under cold, wet, clammy sheets.

Later, in the dark-time, he'd fight.....

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please nominate me for a SHORTY AWARD. tweet this ~~> I nominate @wilkravitz for a SHORTY AWARD as #BLOGGER based on his stories and narratives....... Thank you... I had to reassemble this from memory (it was originally longer and, uh, better..... yeah, it was better) because my pc went crazy, freezing up, refusing to move off the page, running thin, pink, 'error' warnings and laughing like a maniacal killer...... Once again, thank you for understanding..... Now please excuse me, as I chew on a chocolate graham cracker and attempt to down a glass of iced tea...  

Sir Richard's Faults THE VAMPIRE REVELS 2/6/13

Sir Richard is the only supernatural being in the club. I cannot divulge the name. It's the finest town club in The City (London). Either you know it, or you don't. And they all know his true nature. The staff knows too. Chilled gin in the day room. An assortment of champagnes for dinner. Once in a while he can tolerate a bit of meat, sizzling hot and plump with fluids. It's rumored they keep fresh human 'tissue' on hand at all times. You know the 'burden' settles differently on each of us. Some can fly. Some manipulate matter. And others like a nice piece of ass.

I, myself, am a dead vampire, killed in the Tunguska Event, while convening with a rare clan of surviving Neanderthals deep in the Siberian forests. You know, their shamans were often vampires. This clan had a special one, named Sid. I think it was 'Sid.'  But I'm not sure, for the sound of his response was lost in the roar of the white-hot, exploding comet. Did have a very strong handshake, though. That I remember.

So now I narrate these things. Sometimes I change a word here and there. Did want to write for the Moscow stage, you know. Chekov thought I had talent. Said I was possessed of a certain quietly informed ennui.  The character of Doctor Ostrov in Uncle Vanya  was patterned after me. And so was 'Moe' from The Three Stooges, via the musings of a certain Ukrainian emigre. Even though 'dead,' I get around. Let me tell you that.

He used to marry a different mortal woman every twenty years or so. Gave old ones handsome going away presents. Reluctant departees got banged in the head with a ballpeen hammer. Couldn't bring himself to take their blood... family. after all.

And Tomas de Macabea, or Jonathon ben Macabi, or whoever he is, hates him. He hates him for what he did to Sylvia and to her father. Three hundred and forty years is not so long a time to night-folk. I knew two in Minsk who still came to blows over purloined tokens (ancient chits, or tickets) to the ancient premiere of Medea. A vampire never forgets. We may accommodate. We may forgive, at least on the surface. But we never forget.

Sir Richard took his vodka in the library. Tomas watched from the adjacent map room. He tried to crush his skull. Tele-kenetic abilities come easily to him. But the offending villain has powers too.And he grinned and nodded as the intended force shattered the emerald green glass eye of a quite surprised mortal invitee from New York. An extortionist, plastic surgeon on hand did his best to restore the shredded eyelid and he only charged double for it, so there. The rich can afford to pay. And the poor can do without.

Sarah tried to prevent a showdown. They attended meetings and discussions. They watched feedings in the dungeons, using their mental abilities to bring quick, warm deaths to scared, weeping cattle-people. You know, after the first few nights, the sedative does wear off. But he was adamant. 

And 'King' Rafe knew. He tasted it. He wanted it. All the best Revels had them. Fang fights, I mean. Wild confrontations up on the vast, slate roof, under a bone chilling moon. No knives. No swords. No piano wire. You know, you can slice through a neck quite easily with that. 

Vampire duelists fight bare. Just hands. Just teeth. Just strength. Ever see a rib cage crushed like an egg shell? Ever see bile ooze up from a sundry assortment of cranial orifices? 

And the witnesses are quiet. No one cheers. No one talks. Oh, sure, telepathic communication is allowed. But that's all. Two other vampirinos already chomp at the bit. Yet I'm sure, should it come to it, the Tomas vs. Sir Richard bout will be last on the bill.

The mortals among them pretend to be nonplussed. They pretend it's all about the meetings and the discussions. They pretend we're all here to solve world problems, like hunger and intolerance and all that. But the night-folk pretend too... And wolves will be wolves.

Little Bastid Annie is quite excited by it all. To her it's just a case of my father can beat the crap outta your father....

Sir Richard looks weak...a dissolute baronet. But don't forget, he's very adept at 'sticky' magic, the dirty, loathsome sort used in graveyards and back allies.  And don't even ask me what spirits he knows.

Baylah wants to contact Sylvia. She wants to talk to the long dead paramour. But Sylvia cannot be found. Perhaps she wants it that way? Edith uses her tricks too, but so far...... What is it they say?... Bupkiss.

Tomas sits 'fore a mirror, concentrating his strength. He still attends the meetings. He still contributes. but everyone knows. Jazmin worries. Lisa worries. Her husband, Brad, thinks it all great sport. Vampirinos are like that. But vampirinas can be different.

wilkravitz tries to talk him out of it. But Tomas never listens. He just throws him some money to shut him up and ponders what's to come...

What could you do with your bare hands, or even with your teeth?....

Think about it...

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FANG FIGHTS .. This is how they settle grudges.. THE VAMPIRE REVELS

Now you gotta remember, these are basically feral creatures. Yes, I know about the reverent types. I know about Tomas and the Philadelphia crew. And they're not the only ones like that. Still, losing one's religion is quite common among night-folk. It could happen to anyone. And Tomas never expected to see Sir Richard.  He despised that slimy bastard. Didn't want to get old. Couldn't bear to change. So vain. So studied. So hateful. 

You know, a lot of people bought titles in the late sixteen hundreds. Parliament created one especially for that purpose.  A baronetcy it was called. The holder was styled 'baronet.' They called him 'Sir.' But unlike a simple knighthood, this thing could be passed on, assuring his descendants at least a toe hold among the nobility. They got a manor, an entree, and probably a monogrammed snuff box. I don't know. Many were former alderman, or county sheriffs, or some such thing like that. And oh, how they reveled in it. Petty, little 'merry monarchs,' that's what they were. Wore the same wigs, the same clothes, the same mustache, the same everything, as Charles II, their perceived benefactor. Some paid over ten thousand pounds for the much coveted social elevation.  And it is ironic, that Tomas left London for safe harbor in a nascent Philadelphia, itself a fiefdom of one such fellow. Though being a Quaker, Penn never styled himself a baronet. He was Lord Protector of Pennsylvania, a realm more grand than many a principality on the continent. 

But Tomas had no gripe with him. His nemesis was Sir Richard. They say he owned a coffee house, perhaps two. Gentleman of quality frequented these establishments, for the rich, aromatic brew newly brought to The City from Hapsburg realms, by way of Paris. Sometimes they had dinner too, simple things like sausages and cabbage, or perhaps a willing wench.

Richard's place had false walls meant for spies, narrow hidey-holes just right for blackmailers, honor-thieves and robbers. They'd listen as merchants, parliamentarians and slavers,  mapped their lives, remembering certain potentially embarrassing tidbits for later.  Men say things when wigs are off. Everyone knows that. 

Guineas and ducats by the score danced into Richard's pockets via straw men who made their threats on his behalf. Unpaid taxes? Dangerous liaisons? Plots against an already unsettled church? Such whispers dusted every crevice of those old, paneled walls. High backed booths, meant to grant privacy hid traitors.... and sometimes vampires. 

Tomas de Macabea liked London, in many ways one of the most 'modern' and inclusive polities in the Christian world.  He appreciated the expansive park-like estates to the west and the grand palaces, such as Saint James. Opulent pleasure barges ferried monied gentlefolk to suburban entertainments in such newly established amusement centers as Vaux Hall and Chelsea. They strolled manicured grounds, rode festooned round-abouts and sipped fine, chilled, sweetened wines. Chamber ensembles provided discreet accompaniment to quick, chaste kisses and some not so chaste.  Many a bastard began in the bushes of Vaux Hall. And many a duel began there too.

Her name was Sylvia, the same as Tomas' more recent mole-folk sex-friend. And he loved her. True, marriage was out of the question. He adopted the raiment of a not so proper Andalusian emigre. The second son of an old Seville family, of late at odds with The Inquisition. London appreciated people like that, but they did not mate with them.

Sylvia's father was a gentleman, not a noble, but in every other way indistinguishable from the breed. He had the 'house' in Sussex and the requisite stables too. She came out at court and danced at all the finest assemblies and cotillions.... her gowns made by skilled Huguenots come for the freedom and financial opportunities of The City. And her jewels were fashioned by Tuscan craftsmen, some of whom were discretely Hebrew, as was Tomas.

He doted on his sweetheart, never her acknowledged swain, but always there, in the shadows, with a bauble, or a bon-bon, or a kiss. Indeed, his blood brought her through the plague, although she didn't know it. And when Richard's greasy machinations brought her father low, she suffered greatly. A girl from a titled family may of least have had that. But she did not. How sad that money, or the lack of it, changes everything.

I am not able to tell you more tonight. Dawn comes. Some spirits dance through sunbeams, but I cannot. The frothy energy diffuses the nebulous particles of my being. And so I hide in darkness, sleeping with the vampires.

I go now to my rest. Molest me not til moonbeams shine again....

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AUTHOR ANDREW HARDING SPEAKS ~~~Straight Out of London

OK, from looking at this, you can tell what comes next may be just the slightest bit 'blue'..not too much. You can read it at work...if you know how to close that screen real fas'... COPS & VAMPIRES & ADVENTUROUS PARAMOURS & ENGLAND after midnight... Welcome to the world that is THE HYBRID SERIES...... and this is how he does it, the ANDREW HARDING interview..... Click on THE INTERVIEW ANDREW HARDING'S PINK DIAMOND TELL ALL ..... after you're gonna want to go see the books on Amazon...
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WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME.: Actor Tom Hardy.....Latest review!

WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME.: Actor Tom Hardy... ..Latest review!: My latest 5 star review on AmazonUK, #59 out of #102 reviews. In the review it is suggested that Tom Hardy plays me if my book turns into a...When it goes to film, you'll be able to say 'I told you so.'.......Writer David Perlmutter lived his own 'wrong man' nightmare and shares it all with us...