The Who - Happy Jack..SLUNDTRACK FOR A CAREFREE VAMPIRE... 11/6/15

So that's how it was. I took up with Heidi. In the beginning we slept in cheap hotels. Not too cheap. The place had to be clean. Mostly we stayed where salesmen stayed. If you tip the maids the leave you alone. Trick is to move around every three days. That way they don't catch on... to me being a vampire, I mean. But I had an idea... Why not make friends with the staff at one of these places? Give them money... jewelry... whatever I could get. We raced around the city in an old taxi cab. One of those big, old Checker Cabs. Like the Black Cabs of London, only they were yellow with narrow bands of checkerboard trim running under the windows. We had a driver... Maurice. Think he was from Jamaica. Oh, he spotted me right away. Knew I was a vampire first thing. Was he scared? No. Had all these charms. Said if I touched him my innards would be consumed by fat, white grubs. I said - How do you know?... He laughed and pulled out photographs. They were old and creased and ragged 'round the edges. One showed what looked like a partially decomposed body, naked from the waist down and scarred all over with little round black edged pits... I said - Did you do this?.. He said - No. The charms did... I said - What did he do to you? The man (I guessed) in the picture?... I do not tell you now - went Maurice. And we were off to hunt the little 'woods' behind the big art museum on The Parkway.... a clandestine 'jungle' of drugs and debauchery. Couples of all varieties vibrating in the bushes... Young kids high on whatever they could get. Imagine how it all smelled to a newborn vampire just getting used to his heightened senses. The air, space itself, was alive with 'colors.' That's how it was. I'd go for the druggies. They were easier. Who noticed another kid squeezing in with the group? And some of them got high alone. Heidi knew a few of them. But she didn't want to start anything. She didn't want to answer a lot of questions. So she stayed back in the cab. There was a little parking lot. Sometimes the cops came through... Sometimes they didn't. After a few weeks we learned who they were and paid them off too. Rich kids from the suburbs wear good watches, you know and they got wallets too. I learned how to take them to the brink of death. Some vampires can't do that. They lack control. Can't hold back. But I can. And when I couldn't, there were never any bodies... That 'cold' blue, all consuming flame, you know. Neighborhood rodents made quick work of any remaining grease. The perfect crime. Though from my vantage point, it wasn't so much a crime. It was just natural for me. That's just how vampires are. I didn't know any other organized bands... of vampires, I mean. I could smell them. I knew they were there. I knew the one you call 'Jonathon,' or 'Tomas.' I knew Baylah and Blackie and Minnie... a few others too. Did I know their names?... No. I knew their scent. I didn't follow them I never stalked them. Just knew they were there. Maurice, our driver claimed to know a few others too. But he was a liar. That photograph he had turned out to be a victim of some guy shot up in a coup... not in Jamaica... somewhere else.

We were crazy then. During the day, we holed up in hotel rooms. A few of the kids I knew had mothers and fathers who worked 'in town.' But I was never out and about when they were there. And my friends were sixteen years old too... hardly old enough to frequent Center City clubs and bars. Some might come in for a movie once in a while, usually matinees. I was safe. It was fun. We bought clothes in all the South Street boutiques. This was the height of that area... South Street.. South street, where all the hippies meet and all that.... We saw Pink Flamingos and The Rocky Horror Picture Show umpteen times. I had a Brad get-up. Heidi went as Janet. Did I like it? Sure, I liked it. It was great. Remember, I wanted to be an actor.

Soon we had a nice, little apartment three stories up in a great pre-war building on Locust Street. Tiny, little terrace and everything. I used to love sitting out there on cold winter nights. Nobody could see me all wrapped up in that dark gray blanket. I watched the street from my not too high, not too low perch. Saw all kinds of things. Mostly I liked the normal people in their expensive, soft, wool coats and discrete furs out for slow, quiet strolls at three or four o'clock in the morning.  You can tell when someone is trying to be quiet... light footfalls. The women even hold their handbags a certain way. If a stranger approached from the opposite direction they'd move up against a building and try to disappear. In the dark, that late sometimes you can. ... I'd see people silently throw things down into the sewer, or try the door on a car. did I see crimes?... Once I saw a murder, a strangulation. Fast and professional from the back. Even as a vampire I could not look away. It was like a movie. He took her life and just dropped her there, against the side of white, marble steps leading up to one of the townhouses across the street. Heidi said she was still there when the grocer made his delivery at seven thirty. The kid almost broke his leg...

We went to shows at the Forrest, the Shubert, the Walnut, the Erlanger, the Locust, the Society Hill, the Academy, the Arden... oh God, all of them. I even wrote reviews for Philadelphia Magazine and some of the, I guess today you'd call them 'hipster' Center City papers. You want to know my by-line? 'Boz.' the same as Dickens.. Oh, life was good.

Did I miss my family?

What do you think?

One day.. obviously not really day, more like late dusk. I saw my parents going into a specialist's office on Twenty Third Street. They must have come in town after work. Still dressed up. My father wore a suit. My mother wore a dress. They held hands and walked slow..

That's when it started.....

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HOW A VAMPIRE GETS HIS FIRST FAMILIAR... 11/6/15

They let me stay till my hair grew back. Vampires 'heal' quick. I don't know. It took maybe four or five nights.  Seemed a little thicker than before. and when it reached the length it was when I passed over, it stopped. How can they say the whole thing, vampirism, I mean, is natural and scientifically caused? They talk about prions and ancient contaminants that somehow found their way into humanity... tiny bits of arcane DNA that only activate near death. But they forget so very many other things. Can 'germs' foster flight, or sublimation? Can microscopic bits of biological data work magic. People are fools. I'm a young vampire and I know that. Sixteen in nineteen seventy one... so that makes me sixty years old today... My God! Susan Lucci is older than I am

When she left, when the Russian woman abandoned me, five ounces of gold was all I had and that bought less back then than it does now. I think it was worth about seventeen hundred and fifty dollars. I had that, a pair of blue jeans, Addidas sneakers, my jacket... I don't know what kind of shirt. I don't remember. Must have worn a sweater, maybe a sweatshirt too. It was November after all.

And I walked a lot. I mean I walked all night. What else could I do? No where to sleep. I wanted a hot mug of tea. You know night-folk can take in clear, or thin liquids. Sometimes if and when we miss mortal food (it does happen)we eat. Ten minutes later it all comes up. But so what? Who cares? It's only a hobby. But I wanted that hot drink real bad. Couldn't sell one of the little gold bars. Who was open that late? And I didn't need blood... I didn't NEED it, but I wanted it. So I mugged some rich looking guy coming out of a WaWa (Philadelphia convenience store). Took his coffee. Took his wallet. Took his life. Not there on the street. Dragged him back into the little service alley they got behind most blocks in Center City Philadelphia... He wanted to scream. He wanted to fight, in his YSL suit and Gucci loafers. But I didn't realize what my vampire strength could do. It was instinct.. just took over. Grabbed his neck. Squeezed tight. Pulled him off his feet and that was it. Might have taken the suit, but I think he shit in it a little bit. Three hundred and twenty dollars in that wallet.

Went into an all night coffee shop. Passed some girl sitting in a booth. She said - You got any money?.... Not a whisper, but real quiet. Figured she was a runaway. Said - Yeah, I got money..... She said - Buy me some eggs?... I sat down across from her. She had her eggs, home fries, sausage, diet coke and a sticky bun. I had coffee, black. Told her I just ate which was true.... She said - Can I go home with you?.... Guess I looked older.... I said - Look, I don't even know where I'm gonna sleep myself... She looked sad, worried too.... I didn't think she was a whore, not yet anyway, so I said - Here's some money. Get a hotel room.... A hundred dollars I gave her. You could get a nice room for a hundred dollars back then. And from a trip I made with my family to Disney, I knew you could ask for a late check out, if you get there after midnight. She didn't want to leave me. I told her I'd meet her  back at that coffee shop the next night. Made it for nine o'clock, so she wouldn't expect me to eat dinner or anything. Slipped her an extra twenty for food, or like if she wanted to buy herself clean underwear.

Then I walked. When it started to get light, not actually light, just less dark, I went down into the concourse and wandered through almost dark, underground 'mall' passages. Saw a ghost or two. That I know. Hid from cops. Was I tired? Sure I was. Vampires crave rest, at least I do. Few hours later, when the stores opened up, I hid, not from cops, from everybody. What if somebody knew me? I was supposed to be missing. Three teens, in 'town' for an audition, never seen again. I could imagine what my parents were going through and I wanted to see them. I wanted to go home, but I was scared. I was so scared.

The next night, back at the coffee shop, I asked Heidi, that was her name, if she wanted to help me. That made her a little nervous. She didn't know what I meant. Probably thought drugs or something. But I sat there and explained. Now this was before vampires were hot stuff. We had Bela Lugosi Dracula and Christopher Lee Dracula and Barnabas Collins Not- Dracula. All them other ones were still a few years over the rainbow. She said - Are you gonna suck my blood? Are you gonna kill me?.... I told her vampires don't 'suck' blood. We drink it and no, I wasn't gonna kill her. She nodded. She trusted me. That was enough. Guess she spotted my fangs. Look, they were still new to me too.

So I had her, my first 'mortal' servant, my 'familiar.'

And you know what?... I still have her. Same age as me. We're both sixty.

Now ain't that something?

Come back next time. I'll be here...

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THE PAIN OF THE NEWBORN VAMPIRE... 11/4/15

Now I talk, the one he calls 'the Russian ballerina vampirina... the one known as Elaina Buchovina. Do you know I can barely read? I feel things. I intuit. But the letters of your western languages mean little to me and few books here are in my language. I have entered stores catering to expatriate Slavic community. Girl looks at me. Oh, she knows. She knows something. People in the eastern portion of the European continent are used to such things. Even now, in certain remote villages questionable corpses are 'pinned.' Long sharp needle goes through chest, just to left of breastbone and into heart. Sometimes questionable corpse is not completely corpse. But difference there is none. It will be corpse anyway, so pin goes in. True believers in old ways also thrust pins in eyes and tongue too. In that way, they believe, vampire does not rise.... Stupid helpless fools. Vampire, real vampire, always rises. What is pin to me?. Do you know how many times they stick me? I do not tell you. Humanity is as nothing to me. I pity them. Thick, plodding things they are.

Oh, you great Americans and the other ones, the Canadians, think you are so strong and modern. But you control nothing. Not even your own lives. You are serfs. You are as old peasant in my land was. Not farm serf. Work serf. Boss tell you when to sleep, when to wake, when to work, when to pee. If you do not like it. If you dance too slow, he get new puppet and your babies starve. Nature cries not for starving baby, or tortured baby or slaughtered baby. Do you want examples?

I help 'Danny.' I free him. I release him. Others I kill. His friends were garbage. The boy... the 'Jerry,' soil hisself. (giggles) He just go WHAAA! and then comes shit.. hot, stinking, watery shit. Foul aroma make me sick... so I twist till bone break and head pop off. Then I kick it and kick it and kick it.  Like little dance I do.  Singer girl garbage too. She cry. She go - Please! Please let me live! Oh God. Please! ... I pinch teat till blood come and say - Do you hear His approach? Do you think you live?... She sob. So I rip through throat with teeth and then she know she will not live. Her body I give to silver eye thing. He have use for it. (rolls eyes) I do not butt in.

Danny I liberate. Not work slave. Not human. Not weak. He free! He free! He see. He go. He kill. He take. Vampire not always happy. But vampire always proud.

I stay. I watch skin crack. I whisper. I kiss. I embrace. He whimper. They all whimper when skin go. Do you know how mortal peel from sunburn? Skin roll off. Flesh sweat. Meat raw. Well, this like that, but so much worse. All skin come off, not just top... all of it... every layer... down to oozing muscle. Some vampire give acolyte absinthe to deaden pain. But not me... not Russia girl... not vahmpiritza! What can harm him now? Pain is but distraction.

Now it is over. He rest. He sleep. I give him 'food.' I give him blood. I give him victim. And he drink. He drink. He drink it all. I clap. I go - Good. Good. Good... I stroke his body... his clean, white alabaster body covered in new, fine, vampire skin. Hair come later, but that will grow too.

I leave soon, a vagabond of the night. I go from this place, this ancient munition factory. Mini-balls they made here. Little bullets for old muskets. You see picture of Civil War? You see them... Pit is where they drop them... Molten lead fall to bottom. Splash in water. Few know what buildings are... But night-folk know. Not just vampire... all manner of night-folk.

What kind vampire Danny will be? Problem is his, not mine.... Do I make vampire everywhere? No, most places I just kill

Now, please, I must leave you to over see gathering up of things... Not much, but sentimental what-nots I cannot live without.

Perhaps I go back to Russia?

Or maybe I don't.

Fate is funny thing.... He who would be actor, plays another roll...

'Danny'... (sighs) Now let me go. Is time to kill the 'help.'

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EVERY VAMPIRE HAS A TRUTH ALL THEIR OWN... 11/2/15

I climbed down into that deep, dank pit. Without the vampire blood, I could never have done it... hand under hand, grabbing with my feet, naked and scared. Was I a vampire yet? Well, let's just say I'd passed the point of no return, but had yet to reach my destination. Did I know I was still Danny? I don't know who I thought I was. I don't know if what I did was based on instinct, or what happened.

When I got to the bottom, the two pathetic victims huddled together, whimpering. The Russian vamperina-ballerina yelled down to me, from her place, seventy five feet above, leaning over the edge of the circular barrier. She looked like a crazed 'divinity' haranguing Roman believers on the floor of The Pantheon, through her perch on the Oculus high in its dome..... She said - Take her! Take her! The big one! The brood mare! The one I picked for you!...... But to be honest, neither one looked strong, or big to me. Though I knew what she meant. My mind was her mind. Whether forever, or just for now, I didn't know. So I 'took' one of the girls. I suppose the right one, for the voice from above yelled no more. Later, I learned this is a vampire custom, 'allow the human line to go on.' Some females are 'allowed' to bear a child before transformation. If you've been part of our group since the beginning, readers I mean, you know about Jonathon and how he 'came over.' You know how Sarah is a distant descendant of his 'mortal' line. Well, I have a mortal line too. Please remember that I am only forty four years in the blood. Sometimes I tell people it happened earlier. But that's a lie. Vampires relish a bit of notoriety, though at heart we are a private breed. Still, I will tell you that the child of that union, only forty three years old, now lives in a pleasant split level house just outside of Ocean City, New Jersey. And I have three grandchildren. Their matriarch, whose name I never knew, died, or was made to die in childbirth. But our daughter was given to a couple named Greyson and they did right by her. She married a good man too. I see them from time to time and leave gifts on the doorsteps. I'll have to stop that now, what with home-security-cameras and all. Maybe I'll mail them.

The remaining girl did not go on. She became my first meal. The blood we receive from our creators changes, but in no way nourishes us. Only living humans can do that.

When I first bit into that sad, sad thing she went limp ... 'the death swoon,' they call it. But when life finally left her all I felt was a col, enduring hate.

When it was over, when the ordeal was through, Two of the headless things carried me to a room... another dark place, dim, lit by candles. They were all like that. And that's where I suffered the 'shedding of the skin.' The last of my humanity, or my mortal self, I should say, was gone.

Do you think there is romance in this? Do you think vampires are infused with magic and wonder? Well, if they are, each individual vampire must weave that truth for himself. I saw no glory in it.

Now go follow your Jonathon and Sarah... your Vampire Revels and memories of Old Al Andalus. Go read about 'noble' vampires and their 'noxious' cousins and the beautiful Baylah, a kidnapped princess from Timbuctu. Talk about the enchanted 'Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn' and night-folk friends in London and every place else. That truth is not my truth.

But if it's pleasant to you, embrace it.

I had meant to whitewash my tale and gild it in theatrical perfection. I am at heart an actor and that seemed right to me. But as the words spilled out, what 'seemed' right no longer mattered. Sometimes things play out that way.

That's just how it is.

I am here. I patrol these streets and do my job. We'll meet again....

I am Danny, in form a sixteen year old boy, but so much more than that...

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AND THE VAMPIRE DANNY IS BORN. PERHAPS THEY'LL CALL HIM DANTE?.. 10/29/15

But before we get started... that #ScoutsGuideToTheZombieApocolypse looks SO cool. Bet Bill Meeker the movie guy's got something to say about it... Google him.

OK, NOW we can start---

No, wait... another thing... It's supposed to be a dull gray, rainy, October day tomorrow. I ducked out to the market so I'd be prepared. Got lots of chunky hot soup... some cold cuts... potato salad... cookies... crisp bread and lox and cream cheese..other stuff too. I forget... oh yeah, maple-brown sugar oatmeal and almond milk and a gallon of iced tea... and that IS all I can remember. Love when the place is all battened down and locked up... alarms on and all. Cozy, cozy, cozy. And some movie station is showing primo-cheesy horror movies. Not as good as what @IvonnaCadaver ... star of late night's Macabre Theater shows, but... what can I do? (anybody know a little magic?)... Ooooh, the trolls are projectile vomiting.. Love to have seen that casting call.

Now back to our show. Brought to you by PLAYTEX LIVING BRAS ( why some have been enjoying active vital lives since the 1950's)

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

The Russian vampirina looked at Danny, sitting there in his t-shirt and briefs and said - Come, it's time that you see... She got up, stood by the doorway and gestured toward the darkness. He fell in and followed her. She moved fast. Lack of light meant nothing to her. He brushed his fingertips along the rough wall and hurried to keep up, occasionally encountering a 'house centipede' or some such thing, but that was to be expected.

Then the passage grew colder. They seemed to be spiraling down. The vampirina said - You may be blinded a bit. The chamber will have more light than you've become accustomed to. Quickly blink your eyes. It will go away. I, of course, am immune to such weaknesses..... Danny went - Uh huh.... He couldn't think of anything else. The whole atmosphere seemed to change, as if the ether itself subtly altered.

Twelve heartbeats later, he began to see the light, as a grey wash along the chill, rough surface. Then there was a sharp turn and they were there... a large, round space... stone walls .... perhaps fifteen feet high, lit buy flaming torches held in old, wrought iron fittings, mounted up, so as not to menace the 'people.' In the center was an opening, mirroring the shape of the room and surrounded by a low, stone barrier, just the right height for spectators to lean on.

Danny did have trouble seeing at first, but he soon grew used to the flickering torch light and the ten flames arranged around the perimeter gave off some warmth. They would have given off even more if hung lower, but the somewhat domed ceiling reflected the heat. For the first time in a while, Danny was warm.

The Russian vampirina-ballerina in her sooty tu-tu and Playtex Living Bra gestured toward the opening and said - Please, go. Look. See what comes next. He hesitated a bit then inched toward the barrier a few feet away, peeing down into a long, stone cylinder and its shadowy floor, seventy five feet below. At first it seemed there were only grey, dirty rags at the bottom, strewn about in haphazard piles. But then he saw something. Equally grey things moved about among the rags. The vampirina yelled - Show yourselves! .... And two naked, dirty girls crawled out, looking up through matted hair.

Who are they? - whispered Danny. Why did you take me here? Are you gonna throw me down there? I'll die. I'll die. The fall will kill me. Please don't kill me. You said you wouldn't. You said. I asked you after you killed Jerry and that singer girl.... He teared up... Please. You said.

The vampire woman, really a vampire girl, for she was quite young, no more than her early twenties, when they changed her, held up a hand to silence him. She said - Stop it. You make me reconsider my decision. Stop it.....

Danny just stood there. The vampire-dancer went on - I will keep my promise. Your light shall not go out. You will remain here, though I will perform a bit of transformative magic.... And on a visceral level he understood. So she embraced him, contorted his head, the better to find the artery and began to catch his blood, pumped out in great draughts. He swooned. She held him up, till the transfer was almost complete. Then laid him down upon the chill, stone floor, the better to finish the job. Over the course of the next few hours his blood and her blood would mingle. She took it in and gave it back, biting into her own wrist to create a font. He drank and was restored. A vampire? Not yet. Not till each and every cell of his body ceased it's reliance on normal sustenance and recognized the basic game change. But before that could happen something else had to take place and the pathetic females kept in the pit began to cry and moan. Indeed, it was their voices, or the echoes from them, he'd heard earlier.

The silver eyed being shambled in, accompanied by two other things, headless, squat, barrel chested drones, the stumps of their necks neatly sewn shut with black coarse thread. What manner of force kept them moving? They carried a long, thick, heavy rope. There was a hard, leather sleeve, ending in a large, brass hook at one end. The silver eyed being carefully affixed it to a stout, brass ring bolted to the edge of the barrier just over the side. Then they lowered the rope down to the bottom, seven stories below.

The vampirina said - Go. It is time for you to pass on your human line while some of your cells (and she chuckled) still swim..... She led him to the barrier. He looked down. The girls looked up. He said - You want me to climb to the bottom? I can't. I'll fall..... The vampirina known as Elaina Buchovina said - You will not. You have my blood too now and most importantly, my strength. Go. It's time.... He looked down at the naked, terrified girls and understood.

For eight or nine heartbeats he just stood there, watching his vulnerable prey....

And then he began to climb down...

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Underwear-Boy Listens As Vampirina-Ballerina Tells Of Sad Things... 10/26/15I

And the Russian ballerina-vampirina studied the sixteen year old boy on the sofa next to her and went on...

I learned that I was not the only girl from that place to become a vampire. One or two others suffered the same fate. The Autocracy had need of them. But we were slaves to begin with. Aristocratic girls never went to institutions like that. Rich, landed orphans always found relatives willing to take them in, for whatever wealth they had went with them. They were never left alone. did some become real life 'Cinderellas?' Yes, they did. But when they became of age, appropriate suitors vied for their hands and most escaped into fine, new homes.

Our girls were not so fortunate. Lucky ones were married off to artisans secure in their crafts... barrel makers... haulers... carpenters... men like that. Others became wives to widowers far older than they. Children need nannies after all and bread must be baked. Noble swains bought some girls to be groomed as mistresses. They were kept comfortably enough. But they were not like the demimonde in France. Few accumulated riches of their own. Like pets they were. And when they aged, most wound up as simple domestics... not even head housekeepers. Maids, or drudges, that's what they were.

Any girl children were returned to the somber institution from whence their mothers came. They drowned baby boys. Few families were willing to preserve illegitimate claimants. Occasionally some were given to serf families eager for sons. The lord might favor them with special gifts during the Christmas season. But not always.

This was Imperial Russia. One respected only wealth and power... and long standing wealth and power at that.

Now I progressed. The two women who groomed me in that strange establishment found other tasks for me to do. The cats resumed their regular positions, for I was no longer 'the mouser.'  I assisted them in the selling of 'bad' children to the Gypsies. And please don't think such wandering bands were all members of the nation now called 'Roma.' They were not. Most were free, though impoverished peasants from the south, outcast Cossacks, and God knows what. A ruble or two and the 'bad' child disappeared.

Then the vampire woman retreated into silence once again. Her sixteen year old prisoner- guest in his tightie-whiteys straightened up and said  - You told me it would be terrible. When does that part start?

She studied a point perhaps twenty two inches before here eyes and said - Be patient. Time is different for night-folk. I will not rush for anyone...... He blinked..... She said - What if I told you that unless you gouged some poor student's eyes out with your thumbs, I would kill you? What if I announced a change of plans and rather than becoming vampire, your skin is to be flayed from all underlying flesh for use as sueded drawstring jewelry pouches, of course after proper tanning and all that? Whether or not you died after the ordeal would be completely left to you. Though I suspect things would go a certain way. So don't be so hasty, underwear-boy... And she smiled, revealing her sharp, pearly fangs.

Underwear-boy shut up. They sat there in the low, flickering candle light, each lost in their own thoughts.

While from another part of the deep, dark compound came the sound of muffled screams...

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THE MORTAL 'GUEST' ASKS QUESTIONS.. A BRUTAL AGE.. 10/22/15

The vampirina-ballerina stopped. She did that a lot when she told a story. Just looked off into space and thought. Night-Folk don't feel time the way mortals do. Some get distracted by their own reflection in a big shop window. They'll stand out there, real early in the morning, like two or three o'clock. Won't move or blink, or anything. Sometimes it's not even their own image that gets them. Could be the way a car parked at the curb across the street looks, or the moon, or anything, or a dead cat. Usually happens when they're alone. Not with another of their kind.

Danny watched her for a while. He didn't know what to do. Thought it was a seizure... if vampires have seizures. Then she sighed and he said - Are you alright?..... Elaina (called Kitty for a period in her youth) looked at him and said - What?..... He said - I-I-I saw you staring off like that and got scared.... The vampirina said - Don't be scared.... Then she drifted off again....

The shrouded thing with the silver ball bearing eyes came from God knows where and stood in the doorway. They were in the room with the unplugged, old early fifties television and the mohair sofa. Some fat, yellow candles scattered about gave off a little light.... made the 'eyes' look even worse. Danny didn't move. Was she going to kill him? She killed the other two drama club kids. She killed Jerry and that singer girl. Janis, her name was.... Danny almost started to cry. He just wanted to get out of there. He just wanted to go home.

Then the vampire woman said something in Russian and the shrouded thing left. Without raising her eyes, she whispered - I am not going to kill you, in a manner of speaking...... He didn't hear the 'in a manner of speaking part.' The first seven words were quite enough. He nodded. He was afraid to say anything else. But the preternatural woman in the dirty tu-tu and Playtex Living Bra knew his thoughts and said - No, my young friend. Your existence will go on. I will not send you into the dark-beyond-dark, or wherever it is we go...... You read my mind? - he asked..... No - she answered. I do not read these things after the fact. I feel them as you feel them. The experience is quite different. I can assure you....... Then Danny wanted to find out if she'd let him go home. He didn't know if night-folk feared the cops or not. Circumstances indicated otherwise. But he couldn't do anything, so he sat there in his tightie-whiteys and waited for the vampirina-ballerina to make the next move.

She inhaled and said - I was reliving an episode from my youth. A portentous event is about to unfold and such things always cause me to reflect. ....... Danny, being only sixteen years old and more into dramatics than academics, had no idea what portentous meant, so he just looked.

Elaina went on - I have seen many people leave this life and sometimes I feel it.... Danny said - I-I-I didn't know that..... She said - I am vampire, not a monster..... He couldn't help it. He asked - What about the other two?..... She said - Your friends?..... He nodded... She said - Well, I may not be a monster, but some of my 'associates' are....Danny pressed back into the sofa. He wished he'd never gone to that audition. He wanted to ask about the silver eyed thing, but decided not to.

The ever so slightly intoxicated vampirina (you know they like alcohol) sniffed and said - Old Russia was a very violent place. Czars fried people alive in huge, copper pans. I saw it, not as a mortal, but after. They scream at first. The skin on the back of the head burns off and even the bone begins to smoke. Same with the hips, the heels. Eventually they contract into a fetal position. More than a fetal position. Like a walnut. Like something in a shell. They tremble. Life lasts as long as the heart does. The lungs too, I suppose. And when they wanted to be especially harsh, they'd douse the pathetic remnant with ice water, only to do it again a bit later. They'd shear off children's fingers with large scissor-like things used by metal workers and make their parents watch. A highlight of the spring pogrom season it was. I saw old men held down on the ground, their faces cleaved in two by axe wielding mobs. Did I say faces? No, I am wrong. The blade went clear through, shattering the bone and splitting the brain. Crazed onlookers capered about and danced....

Wait. Please. Wait - Danny said. Why are you telling me this?

She gave him a piteous look and said - To prepare you for what is to come....

Then she retreated back into silence and stared at nothing once again.....

<more next time>

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