ROMAN SLAVE VAMPIRE BODYGUARD TELLS US MORE... 7/28/13

The things I speak of already happened, but not that very long ago. When you read this, it seems as if you peek into the distant past, for my true time is far removed from yours. I know not what calender you use. I'm told the Zoroastrians have one and the Jews have one and the Egyptians have one based on ancient dynasties. The Romans base theirs on The Founding.... the establishment of 'The City.'..... Who cares? Days are days and nights are nights. And all of us ultimately die. Do you think bodies in the grave, or ashes in the urn worry about numbers? 

But please forgive me these outbursts, for I have seen bad things. The lady's maid, from my master's household, asked me to save her father, held in bondage quite nearby, though in a strange and grievous place. Rome holds many secrets behind plain, rough, street-side walls. Her ruling families turn inward, away from the disgusting mob they need so much.... I ask you... who is the real vampire... I, or a clueless, eight year old prince-ling playing knucklebones with the real thing, made from the chopped-off hands of a hungry slave-thief trying to filch a fresh, hot, pigeon pie. They still have him... the slave, I mean.... Play ring toss games on the stumps. And he  eats his food from a bowl like a dog.

I picked the lady's maid's father out right away. They share the same scent. Mortals smell like bread to me, or sausages, or even cat piss. Not vile odors, though decidedly alive and of the flesh. He was packed in tight, down in the 'pits,' mindlessly humping up against a more or less anonymous mound of meat. Must have been a kitchen slave. They do tend to corpulence. Funny, no one chops their hands off. Probably because they're afraid of ground glass in their porridge. Causes heart problems, you know. And by 'problems' I mean death. 

Now, the father in the pit was painfully thin and his illness was quite manifest. Perhaps he'd have lived a season or two more. But the daughter, the lady's maid, was very attached to him. For the first six years of her life they were owned by the same people. She didn't even have a name, not an official one anyway... not a name given her by the master. Most called her 'Outy,' after her navel. They tied rags 'round her feet and used her to polish the floors. But one too many trips to the gaming tables of Capri forced a series of liquidations. She was sold with the cleaning supplies. He was sold as a 'rooster,' for back then that's what he was.

But back to the pit, which was more like a round, deep, well-like dungeon. I think I've mentioned it before. The close, nighttime quarters facilitated mating and frankly guaranteed a good crop of future merchandise. Some of the others knew what I was and called for me to favor them, or to finish them off.  Slaves have such simple wishes. But a vampire bodyguard who feeds off potentially valuable assets, especially other people's assets, walks on shaky ground.

So I fished him out and made him well. Those in the pit cheered and wept. A few drops of life-eater blood passed mouth to mouth is a potent thing. That much I knew...

That much I knew quite well... 

And I did intend to talk about the acid baths, but these episodes are real and truly 'organic.' Isn't that a word endemic to your time? See, I observe. I see things. 

Now let me retreat to the shadows. Next time I'll tell you more...
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wander through all of the VAMPIRE WONDERLAND at ~> THE TALE OF 700,000 WORDS ... join me on Twitter~>@wilkravitz ... your COMMENTS are very important to me... thank you very much... 

Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: MEANWHILE DOWN AT THE JERSEY SHORE.... a glimpse into a story line from two and a half years ago.. scroll up or down if you like it... 7/27/13

Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: MEANWHILE DOWN AT THE JERSEY SHORE: Baylah could feel everything. She could taste the events in Philadelphia. She knew about Papa and what he did to the others. Did she hate hi... I am still so very, very tired.... but here's a peek into one of our best pixilated portals.....  a time when the twenty eight thousand year old, neolithic vampire, known as 'Papa' (a dead ringer for the thirty two or thirty three year old Richard Gere) did some very bad things. Baylah, originally a princess in Old Mali and now a 'life-eater' in Philadelphia, retreats to her mortal boyfriend's commodious shore house near Atlantic City, where she breathes in the salt air and plays 'vampire poker'..... Scroll up or down if you like this story arc and want to read more... You know how to do that. Click on 'NEWER POST' or 'OLDER POST' down at the bottom.

Thank you. The hum from the refrigerator's about to make me pass out. As always, look for more at ~> browse.feedreader.com/c/Billy_Kravitz_vampire_wonderland ... or jump in on TWITTER at~>@wilkravitz ... COMMENTS make nice gifts too. I'm s-s-s- sooo tired. ZZZzzzZZZzzz (collapsed on the cold, kitchen, gray, slate tiles....)

THE VAMPIRE BODYGUARD, JANUS, ENTERS THE SLAVE KENNELS... 7/26/13

It took a while for me to get that sublimation thing. The lady's maid wasn't much help. She's mortal and cannot do it, but she has a book, supposedly written by a highly respected Assyrian vampire back in ancient times. I like that name.... 'Assyrian'.... The 'Assyrian' Empire... The 'Assyrian' Lion.... 'Assyrian' pancakes.... I don't know if they had them. But almost every country has them. So why not? 

The book makes ancient Nineveh sound like quite the place. Ritual disembowelments and death by ants and honey.... The sacking of the Israelite Sanctuary at Shiloh..... Hot damn! Those were the days. Vampires slept in temples, protected by the priests and fed the most nubile delights. They had crypts down below the fine, inlaid, lapus lazuli flooring, lined with costly, gold brocades brought overland from the Kingdoms of Hind. Must go there someday. Not the city of Nineveh, for it is but a ruin. But Hind still survives... indeed, flourishes. I know. I've tasted the curries. Not first hand, but in the blood of certain Roman epicures given to rare and exotic, foreign cuisines. Dhows bring it over, offloading at what was once Solomon's treasure city of Etzion-Geber (Ait-cee-yon Geh-bare). How I'd love to see the East. 

Still, after some trial and error, I acquired the ability to pass through solid matter. First through gauze... Then through sheets... Then through wet sheets.... After that, people. Naturally, the ordeal killed them, so we only used the coarsest, cheapest slaves we could get. The master got us some off a bankrupt latifundia (plantation) down toward Calabria. I was shocked by the outcome. Shredded... They were completely shredded and showered down onto the atrium pavers like so many tiny shards of wet, red glass.... Then they fizzed and disappeared, running down into every little crack and seam in the stone. Masters appreciate bodyguards who can sublimate, so this was a win-win all around. 

Two nights hence, I entered the slave kennels of a splendid villa not so far away. But these pens were vile, like dungeons they were... dark and hot and steamy. People screamed like maniacs locked in the luna-teriums for the insane. And they writhed, each against the other, a vast worm bucket of human flesh. I'm told this ups the crop of little slave-lings. For the master of this place 'dabbles' in the trade and is very scientifically oriented.

Well, he was...until I killed him. But more on that tomorrow. ..... Look, if it was up to me, I'd go on. But that 'wilkravitz' person  is inscribing this and he want a go beddie-bye.

So let the bastard sleep..... I'll be back.
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A REQUEST FROM THE LADY'S MAID, as told by the Roman vampire, Janus... 7/25/13

I am causing this material to combust upon the page, though from what I gather, it does not combust upon an actual page, but manifests in a rather ethereal manner on the surface of some sort of magic mirror. Yours must be a wonderful age. That 'wilkravitz' person prefers an earlier bedtime now and some woman called 'Edith' set it up so my thoughts are able to come to you in this fashion. In case you've come late to the tale, I am Janus, vampire bodyguard to the illustrious Clan Nesso, in the imperial city of Rome, during the reign of the great Marcus Aurelius. And though not a citizen (my forebears hail from the north-west corner of Iberia), I  move in rarefied circles as the pampered slave (only for legal reasons) to a family of decidedly senatorial rank..... If you don't know who Edith is, google her (whatever that is)... Search for ... Edith, Vampire Wonderland by Billy Kravitz (whoever he is) and the magic mirror will tell you. 

Another member of the household, one lady's maid wants me to assist her. She claims my blood can cure the sick and extend human life. Her father, an old retainer in a nearby villa, suffers from a debilitating illness brought on by guzzling too much Thracian wine pilfered from the master's cellars. Everyone's noticed his sickly body. How can they miss it? The poor man serves as 'companion of the gate' and sits by the portal like a watchdog. No, really. I mean it. Certain chi-chi types in the capital have a thing for human watchdogs. They keep them out front, on little stools facing the street. Such slaves wear what a dog would wear, namely a neck collar attached to a chain, the other end of which is welded to a plaque cemented onto the wall. Duties are light.... BIG greeting for the master, the mistress and important guests. Lots of hand licking and all that. Rome is, after all, a weird and wonderful place. Though all tsk , tsk over his emaciated form..... the delicate rib cage and withered ass.. I don't know. Maybe it's not just the wine. But that's what the physician says and this one is very thorough, often killing people to get at the truth. Many say his shingle should read AUTOPSIES FOR THE LIVING.

The daughter, our lady's maid, wants me to 'sublimate' into his cubicle in the slave kennels and dose him with a bit of my blood. It's not that I am entirely unwilling. But first she has to teach me how this 'sublimation' works. 

I hear it can be dangerous and even fatal to life-eaters (vampires) unversed in such things. 

But she had a book and says she can teach me.....
(more next time)
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THE IMPERIAL ROMAN VAMPIRE BODYGUARD, JANUS, SHARES MORE INSIGHTS... 723/13

Now there was a lady's maid in the Nesso household... a quite comely girl who passed herself off as  British, but everyone knew she was from Panonia (ancient Hungary). I mean THAT accent? Come on! But she was well versed in peasant wisdom and knew her way 'around a cauldron.' That's a saying we have, here in the capital. It means someone, usually a woman, able to conjure and influence events via potions and poultices. 

My unusual condition intrigued her and we'd talk out back, after dark in the kitchen garden. Cook didn't like it. But she didn't like anything. And she was a fanatic against the vampires. Had a copy of The Septuagint (Greek translation of The First Testament), so you KNOW what her favorite part was???... 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'..... Guess who was the witch? In her eyes, I mean. The poultice girl she considered an idiot. But I was the real thing. She knew what I could do, even if I didn't.

The Britainia girl, by way of Panonia clued me in on 'sublimation.' Had a friend who's husband was a vampire, so she knew. This was before she got sold into slavery. Actually, not so much sold, as pimped. The grandmother, who needed money to buy a nice, little mercantile inn somewhere just outside of the new city of Aquincum ( Budapest) gave her to a returning legionnaire, in return for a gold, ceremonial sword, which she promptly pawned for thirty five thousand sesterces... far less than it was worth...

(Someone doesn't want me to tell you the rest. I am sleepy. I am unnaturally tired. Magic is upon me (in addition to vampiric magic)  and I grow lethargic and heavy-lidded by the moment.

Please..... (heavy lidded yawn) forgive me. All I want to do is curl up after a good, blood feast and retreat to the land of nod...
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THE VAMPIRINA KNOWN AS THE LADY EUDORA STEMS FROM ANCIENT ETRUSCAN ROOTS... 7/22/13

She looked alabaster in the moonlight. Some vampires are that way. The magic settles differently on each of us. And her calm, balanced grace recalled the ladies of Olympia.  Her rich, brown hair was artfully arranged, high up off her neck... a mass of loose curls. Whether she had help, or did it herself, I did not know. But who am I kidding? Vampires always have help. A tiny night bird lit upon her wrist. She gently stroked its velvety back... pondered things for a moment and spoke. 

Welcome to the land of the dead - she said..... And she referred not to life-eaters, but to the mortals that surround them....... Make no human friends, for they will die. Their lives are but sparks dancing on the wind. The radiance fades so soon. They are like toys to me now. I see them. I smile. I talk politely and kill them in the nicest possible way. Sometimes I don't kill them. Yet they still die. Three weeks... Three decades. What does it matter? They walk with Persephone and Hades. Their brief time in the sun but an overture to dirges yet to come...... Am I troubling you? - she said..... I shook my head. She smiled. Not a great, beaming smile, but rather a small and knowing one. 

Then she told me of her youth in Etruria (modern Tuscany), almost eight hundred years ago. And how a vampire found her one day as she tidied the family crypt. At first she thought him the resurrected corpse of her uncle. It was dark in there, providing shelter from the sun. Certain vampires, in primitive places and long gone times liked crypts.... I do not, nor does Eudora. And she laughed a little, when she told me how he took her... right then and there... 'A mid-day snack' - he called her. 

She asked me of my nativity and I told her about Iberia and Galicia and my tribe up by the coast. For the first time, I missed them and thought about the children I'd never have. Eudora sensed my pain and kissed me. We embraced on the cool, damp grass. And then we spoke again. 

But there was always the hint of sadness about her. She'd seen cities crumble and cultures die. Night-folk live in an ever changing world. Oh, the on-going cavalcade may seem slow to you. But to her it seemed like the hippodrome (term for Roman race tracks) and the horses never stopped. 

Am I the first to speak to you about such things? Probably not. In truth, I do not entirely understand them myself. I am so newly made. But if I am 'fortunate,' cultures will die before my eyes too.

Remember, I speak to you from your past. And the complexity of my condition still baffles me....

(the channeling stops... wilkravitz stops typing and eats some potato chips...)

til next time...
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WHAT I LEARNED FROM THE VAMPIRINA EUDORA..... 7/21/13

The senior Nesso, my 'master' knew of my curiosity and arranged for a meeting between myself and the Lady Eudora.  Such dalliances are rare in these parts. But he had little to fear from her sponsor (master is basically such a common term), at least not now, so it happened. 

I went out to dine. Not on any predetermined enemy, but on my own. I am told that some of your life-eaters kill but once a month. Well, more power to them. I, though not a glutton, prefer a more regular feeding schedule and polish off a plebian or two nightly.

Most high ranking individuals take lantern bearers and knife-men when they go out after dark. Public illumination is scarce. Oh, don't get me wrong. The empire has the where-with-all. Yet those in power like the darkness.... Keeps people in, especially the hungry classes. Fosters isolation. Cuts down plotting and all sorts of nocturnal intrigue. I suppose a cut-throat or two might be out there toiling away. What am I, after all? But garden variety malcontents are less likely to take to the streets. It's scary out there and they know it. Indeed, my meals depend on stealth and cunning...sublimating through walls.... listening 'neath windows and all that. I've learned to remove my leaden torque and hide it somewhere handy for after. Odd that so few 'sponsors' ever think about that. Granted, a few vampires do go rogue, but only a few. Important connections are indispensable in this place. And the cosseted existence of most lamia-sanguine (the Latin term for what we are) is not so hard to take.

We met in the gardens behind the Temple of Vesta, a discreet, little, hidden oasis... an orchard really, thick with carefully tended pear and apple trees.... Quite shadowy and very private. The mother superior (head mistress of the Vestal Virgins) knew we were coming and left a small pitcher of her best vintage on a lovely stone bench for us to find. Are you familiar with fine cider? If not, you should be. 

The vampirina Eudora was already seated when I arrived...(eight minutes pass)....... Excuse me, but the 'familiar' recording this, 'wilkravitz' stopped for a piece of cheese danish. I believe that is some sort of pastry. We in the empire have many baked confections, but I've never heard of that one. Though from what I pick up from his thoughts, it seems quite delectable. Those vampires who miss mortal food often revisit the experience in this manner. Mental symbiosis is not that hard to achieve. Now let me get back to the telling...

The Lady Eudora was naked, save for a leather quivver holding six gold arrows and a small bow 'cross her breasts. Impersonating the goddess Diana was a 'thing' with her. Made it easier to approach mortals, divine 'visitations' being all the rage. She beckoned me to sit down beside her and I did. She poured some of the delicious cider into a small silver goblet (silver being Diana's color) and I drank. Vampires, as I'm told most of you know, can tolerate and indeed appreciate most wines and fermented spirits. She had some too. In that way we relaxed and she began to talk.....

In truth, I had planned to tell more this time, but it grows late in Philadelphia, or wherever that 'wilkravitz' is. And he must sleep. For dawn comes early in the summer and the dogs will be up soon....
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