The Book of Sarah

We walked. We walked back to Philadelphia, to a new existence in our new tabernacle in the sky. I led the way. Sarah, Bob, Baylah and a Pow Wow woman named Rachel followed. She was the one who claimed to have a vampire Indian in her lineage. I sustained the two weak mortals with small infusions of my blood. The journey took about three nights. We could not travel by daylight for obvious reasons. The first day, we slept in a forgotten, old mine. On the second day, we found shelter in an abandoned chamber built to contain a sweet water, underground spring. It was a 'mikvah', or baptismal pool used by a late nineteenth century Orthodox Hebrew meeting house (synagogue means 'meeting house' after all). Central and southern New Jersey had a few such congregations comprised of poor, but industrious farmers and chicken ranchers. The people drifted off to the vast cities of the eastern seaboard long ago. But the blessed  water survived. The clean spring still ran true, a trickling, holy presence as we slept. And in the gloaming, when we awoke, I went down the rough, stone steps to bathe in its water. Sarah came with me. After a few moments, the others did too. We were preparing for a battle and we knew it. If this righteous ablusion could give us any help, so be it.. And with the setting of the sun, on the third night, we crossed the bridge and entered The City of Brotherly Love. Considering our rather frayed, woodland appearence, we could not rise up to our new abode, but instead found refuge with my homeless friends in their shadowy tunnels deep beneath the throbbing heart of Chinatown. I summoned an especially well connected 'familiar' of mine, a certain high profiled sports agent. No, not via the spirit, but through a stylish, little cell phone borrowed from one of my underground devotees. The 'mole people' do keep up. He arranged for us to shower and change into clean, stylish attire, in a shuttered, off season basketball clubhouse. When we were all presentable, when we once again looked 'human' , he ran us into Center City. We went up to the penthouse. Thank God it had its own private elevator. After 'oohing' and 'aahing' over the stellar views and peerless surroundings, the six of us settled in and took our ease among the tastful artwork and fine furnishings. The vampires among us, namely everyone save Sarah, that Pow Wow person and The Old Woman, had commodious accommodations fitted out with plush, nest-like sleeping cabinets, safe, dark, private places to dream away the day and hide from the desiccating light. They even came equipped with small, built-in, flat panel TV's hooked up to DVD players so we could take in our favorite programs. I don't know what the others watched. We had a library. But I stuck with my Andy Griffith Show classics. I find them to be spiritually  comforting. Yet that day, Aunt Bea seemed to gaze at me with a threatening look in her eyes. I saw hatred. I saw the feral face of our enemy. And it wasn't just her... Otis too. Bob watched Happy Days and apparently Fonzie gave him no such problems. Baylah didn't watch anything. She just went to sleep. Look, whatever comes, we will just have to face it, along with that guy from the floor covering place who's due here after sundown. Bamboo or cherry? Cherry or bamboo? What the hell do I care. I was born in Spain and we tend to go for the tile. But would the others ever listen to me? You get the tile. You throw on a few thick orientals and you're set. That's how my mother did it. And she came from class, let me tell you. Perhaps I will retreat to those times for a bit. Perhaps I will once again walk across the cool tiles of my youth. Why not, my dreams are very real.

The Book of Sarah

They had this little sub-basement.They called it the root cellar. It was a hidey hole left over from Prohibition, but seeing as this crew were still moonshiners (a venerable profession in these parts), Prohibition was still in force. We slept down there, Sarah and I, I mean. It was perfect and actually quite like the pit in my late, lamented townhouse. Sarah could have kept the hours of our benefactors, but out of loyalty to me, she chose to keep my peculiar schedule. And in the time we spent together I dreamed... And I shared those dreams with her. She saw the warm, golden plains of my homeland, the faces of my loving family and the teeth of the being who made me. We drifted through the palaces of old India and joined in the wild, peasant dances of ancient Muscovy. She lived within my skin as I culled each wicked victim. She felt it all and never once did she flinch. During the night, we sat with the Piney folk and we talked. They asked questions and I answered. One of the senior Pow Wow women, who claimed to have a vampire or two in her own family, asked me why I was so afraid of The Enemy. She wanted to know why I couldn't sublimate through any. human vessel he might sent to confront me. I asked her how she knew about the sublimation. She said that she had a 'life eater' in her family, a Native American, a plains indian , who told stories of flying on the 'smoke wind' and she wanted to know if I thought it was the same as sublimation. I told her I was sure they were one and the same. She asked me how come I was so concerned, seeing as I possessed a tool as potent as that. I explained about the magical serendipity we of the darktime encounter every night. The powers are rarely constant. They change. They fluctuate, like sun spots, or freckles on the face of a child. I told her how that which could save a 'life' could also destroy it. And I think she understood. They asked me about Sarah, how we were bound together and why she stayed with me. Sarah squeezed my hand as I responded and I was glad to have her near me. For as I shared our truth with the forest folk, I was also sharing it with myself. We would always be together. I am not sure what form our union might take, but I know that it is real. From what I can taste of Sarah's soul, she feels the same way too. And those nights 'round the fire were pleasant. Quiet talk. Coppery light. And mellow tunes on old banjos. I think Bob could have remained with them forever, a sylvan 'windago' haunting the thickets and taking the occasional 'meal' or two. But Baylah was impatient to get back. She had things to do in the city. Halloween was approaching and she was a major subscriber to the annual, charity ball. The Enemy? She would face him in her own way. And as I've already stated, she was something of a fatalist. If it was her time, it was her time. But I viewed things quite differently, especially since finding Sarah. and I wanted our time to go on. One night, just as we climbed up out of the root cellar, our guardians told us we had a visitor. It was the Old Woman. She found us. She used her own powers. Strange powers. Old powers. Powers that have little to do with vampirism, but rise from the spiritual birth of humanity. Most mortals fear these abilities and ignore them. But she did not and so she was there. Her clothing was torn to shreads and she seemed to be a bit older. Her usually neat silver-white hair was knotted and matted. And her voice was dry and weak. How did you get here? - I asked. She said that she walked, because it would arouse less notice and it was easier to elude The Enemy that way. She said that she had removed a gemstone or two from a certain safe deposit box and with the help of a dedicated 'familiar', translated the glittering valuables into a new bastion in the sky. We were now the proud owners of a three thousand square foot, pre-War penthouse in the Rittenhouse Square district of Center City (our Manhattan) Philadelphia. and it was imperitive that we return, for the interior designers were coming in a few nights and we had to tell them if the floors were to be Japanese Bamboo or Brazilian Cherry. Ah, the responsibilities of the undead. What would we do about our Enemy? How would we confront him? How would he confront us? And could the contractors get all our granite installed by The Holidays? Bob and Baylah left with us. Their dens were none too safe and with three thousand square feet, there was room in the sky for us all.

The Book of Sarah

This is me, Tomas. I don't know how this is getting through to you. I think it is being channeled through wilkravitz, but I am not sure. I hope it is coming to you via wilkravitz. I do not think any of my other familiars are doing it. May God protect us. We (Sarah and I) spent about fortyeight hours with the underground squatters. The matriarch, Crazy Mary has a 'husband' up topside. She got in touch with him on a 'borrowed' cell phone. He met us on a bench  in a little used station somewhere under Chinatown. We followed him up to his truck, a battered pickup, parked in a sticky, litter-strewn rat trail behind some bus station. The windows were coveered in that dark film much loved by would-be drug lords and paranoid, pseudo-celebrities. He floored it and took us over the bridge into Jersey. I was trying to contact Bob and Baylah. He's not too adept, but she is very strong and I was able to get through to her. She sent me a picture of her surroundings. I described the scene to Crazy Mary's parttime husband. He hunts muskrat, and recognised it as somewhere in The Pines. I instructed Baylah to visualise some structure, no matter how decpreped, nearby. She pictured some little shanty, moonshiner hideaway. There was a dried up old sign on the front. It said 'Zeke's Bait and Gas. I told the 'husband.' He chuckled. He knew where it was, because he and his cousin catch rattlesnakes right by there. They skin them. The skins are valuable. I suppose God was looking out for us. I suppose He was helping us, for ninety minutes later we were there. The 'husband' didn't say a word. He just let us out. Then he turned around and sped back the mud track toward the city. Some people were watching from the tilted porch of a little cabin. I think Jed Clampett used to live there (another TVland show that I like). There was a man and a woman. Bob and Baylah were there too. We were all silent. We all went in. I sensed that the two mortals were very adept. They could read my mind. Not every word, but they got enough. Actual words were not necessary. I told them what happened, telepathicly and verbally. Bob and Baylah told me what they learned from a certain TV host-real estate tycoon in Atlantic City. We just sat there thinking. We had to come up with a plan.  The mortal woman, a big thing, a real virago, toothless and all, started to laugh like a crazy woman. Spit flew out of her mouth. The male just sat there, hugging his skinny elbows and chewing something (a dark wad) in his mouth. The female, after regainning her composure, said - We are in for it now. The Enemy got a wild hair up its ass. But don't worry, at least not too much, 'cause we got some good 'Pow Wow' (folk wizards, like shamans) wimmen in these woods and they know what to do. Sarah said - What, what will they do? The woman said - Not just them, us too. You too. 'Specially you too. You know that hair he got stuck up his ass? Well we all gotta pull it out. We gotta reach up there and pull it out. We gotta pull it out real good. And that's when her male companion softly started to cry. That night was especially dark, even for a vampire.

The Book of Sarah

 This is coming to you through wilkravitz. Something happened. They firebombed the house. They burned it. They destroyed it. I was 'sleeping' in the pit. I was nestled in the bed of flowers. We were nestled. Sarah was in there with me. Everything was so good. Everything was working out. My sublimation skills were what they should be. Just a few hours earlier I took Sarah. I embraced her. We flew. We passed out of the house. And I took her. I took her to see my haunts. She saw all the places I told you about. It was wonderful. I felt completely tied to a mortal being (not counting my victims) for the first timme in twohundred years. We talked. Well, we whispered actually. We laughed, quietly  of course. She could not believe the matter of fact displays of misshappen humanity at the Mutter. And it was positively etherial gliding  through the marble halls of the huge Museum of Art (the Rocky Steps) on The Parkway. The illumination was very low. We could hear the air circulating through the massive structure, as we stood there looking up at a painting of a Trinitarian saint. Saint Anthony it might have been, or Saint Sebastian. His body was pierced by many arrows. Yet he was still conscious and seemed to be gazing from this world into the next. I kissed her. Was it a grandfather's kiss? I do not know. But I have pondered this before and we are seperated by so many mortal generations. The blood tie is very week. It has been almost one thousand years, after all. But the spiritual and emotional tie is very strong. The Old Woman was dusting my collection of ninth century Chinese porcelain when it happened. Two giant hounds came loping into our alley. She saw them through a crack in the heavy, velvet draperies. They broke into a run and made straight for the parlor window, vaulting up and smashing through the mullioned glass. It happened so fast. She thought she saw a bomb or some such device attached to their collars. There had to be a bomb? An instant later they exploded and vaporized into a universe of blazing lights. Fire was everywhere. The flames raced through our refuge. She grabbed my journal, plus my priceless, illuminated, hand copied volume of La Ciencia Vampirismo (always hidden in plain sight) and made it out through the back door. The spiritual and emotional tie we share is very strong as well. I can hear her thoughts. That is how I know these things. When I sleep, there is always a little part of me that spies upon the daylight world through her eyes. Instantly I was awake. I grabbed Sarah and threw aside the heavy stone slab. We crawled through a small, secret door (just as the flames danced down into our chamber) and scratched our way along a tight, earthen passage. You know that I do not actually require oxygen, but it was stiffling. It was suffocating. I can just imagine how it was for her. After a time, we forced our way out, dislodging some old subway tiles on the other side. We tore down a little used, subterranean concorse (Philadelphia has many), making for a certain encampment of delerious, drug-addled homeless folk who welcomed us gladly in return for tiny droplets of blood, which they greedily licked from my cut, scraped fingers. When they finished (I know not to rush them) they presented me with a terrified, babbling prisoner kept for just such an emercency. I took this much needed source of energy (a particularly dishonorable sort) and devoured him. The homeless folk cheered and clapped. Some of their women capered about. They attempted to roast a bag of stale marshmallows in the blue flame that consumed him. But such flames are fleeting and they were sorely dissappointed. Sarah just stood there watching it all in the flickering orange glow of a can of sterno. A few of their offspring tried to roast the marshmallows in that. But it was all very real to her now. We are fugitives. And we are on the run.

The Book of Sarah

Hello? Hello? It is I, Tomas. My wilkravitz is not typing this in for me tonight. I am doing it myself. I cannot believe it, but I think I am beginning to understand this device, me who could barely operate an astrolobe. Sarah is sending some sort of communication to the people who frequent her shop on her own smaller piece of apparatus. I do not remember the word. It is like bird-singing. She is bird-singing to them. She is telling them that the shop will be closed for a little bit, while she takes care of family business. And that is not a lie. I am family. Praise be to God, we do not hear the little running footsteps upon the roof anymore. I think that our Enemy is no longer planning a direct attack. Perhaps they have been distracted by easier prey, such as the 'wrong' type of politician or a clot of unassimilated foreigners? But they have many ways to get me. The Enemy can recruit other individuals to do it for him..Indeed, some believe he always operates that way. His 'familiars' are more than willing to goose step over the innocent and the relatively innocent as well. I don't know, but sometimes I wonder whose 'familiar' I might be. If things remain quiet, and I believe they will, at least for the foreseeable future, I told Sarah we might go out some night. I told her I would show her some of my other haunts - the old Gimbels subway store - the Mutter Museum - other museums - the crawl space above the ornate ceiling of the Grand Ballroom at the Academy of Music - the secret, underground chamber beneath  the 'X marks the spot' compass rose in the center of City Hall Courtyard, just to mension a few.That means I have to brush up on my sublimation skills. You remember. It is how we vaporize our bodies to pass through walls and such. Some of us are more adept than others. I myself am very good at it. Like an ice skater, I just keep going. The aura eminates out from my body transforming me and everything touching me, such as my clothing (it is why I do not wind up naked) or anyone I happen to be holding in my arms. I am going to try it with Sarah. But first I must practice. I must prove to myself that I am still the best.. Maybe I will attempt passing through the plastic shower curtain first. Then maybe I will try one of the interior, non load bearing walls of the house. It is important to be well prepared. A flamboyant vampire I knew back in Scotland, I think it was, once tried to sublimate through the thick, finnely formed, gray stone walls of Glaum Castle. But he did not make it. His body began to solidify while he was half way from the Dowager Duchess' bed chamber and the second, upstairs withdrawing room. It was horrible, like a Tim Robbins fantasy (see? I keep up) gone wrong. His head, his neck one shoulder and the arm connected to it, fell off right onto the Italian silk skirts of a junior lady-in-waiting. And the rest of his unfortunate body (on the other side) crumpled down upon an enraged herd of tiny Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. The Dowager Duchess collapsed and died (they said a blood vessel in her head exploded) just as the now dead, (so much for immortality) vampire's body ignited into the cold blue flame and disappeared. Her little yappy dogs were quite unharmed, a wee bit singed no doubt, but other than that, nothing. You should have seen them fighting to lap up the oily ashes. Well, yes I was there. Of course I was there. She was an especially favorite trysting partner of ours. What? You thought vampires could not have sex? How preposterous! How Bela Lugosi-early twentieth century! Of course we can have sex. Whatever force it is that deems to grant us animation quickens what we have down there as well. Everything that operates in your body, operates in ours. It is just not how we reproduce, that's all.. Ahhh, those were good times. I think I told you how much I enjoyed Restoration Britian. Remind me to tell you what the great ladies of the age really used those little lap dogs for. Methinks I could do with a fortnight or two at the court of The Merry Monarch. But what good is dreaming? Please excuse me while I practice my sublimation.

The Book of When Sarah Was Still Mortal. Tomas/Jonathon Relates A Tale From Before.....

Here is a look at how things were two years ago. Sarah is still a mortal... a 'death eater', since mortals eat dead things. Edith is not with them, but the mysterious 'old woman' still is... And yes, Sarah does descend from Tomas/Jonathon's mortal line..... And remember....  first of all, we must agree that what comes next is fiction~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It is getting close to my monthly feeding time.I cannot leave the house. They are watching me. The Old Woman does not leave either. She cannot attend to certain daily business duties, such as going to the bank and other places. Fortunately, I have other 'familiars' who can help me. Some of the best ones, some of the most astute, I can reach via telepathy. They know it is I. They were trained well. Things will get done. If it becomes impossible for me to get to my intended victim (the one I see in visions) , my intended victim will be brought to me. I do not like to do things this way. It usually makes for quite a scene and I am by nature a very discreet person. They cry. They piss themselves all over my expensive carpets. You should see it. Luckily the Old Woman set up an account with Stanley Steamer. But the way things are going I don't know when they would be able to get here. I just hope this victim isn't much for peeing or shitting himself. Offering cash is all right, because we take the cash and kill him anyway. You do not approve? Well, what can I do? Believe me, it takes money to operate a household in this city. I have 'friends' on the police force too. They help me when I have to bring a 'guest' to my home. Not a true guest. Not someone like my 'granddaughter' Sarah. I'm talking about one of those accursed souls whose time has come. Believe me, the police approve of my work. 'Support your local sheriff' they say. Well I most certainly do. Bob and  Baylah are no longer in Atlantic City. They got word through a certain orange-yellow haired real estate tycoon that the enemy was sweeping the area. I do not know how this mortal individual knew this. I suppose he has his own network of familiars too. Well, good for him. I'm told that my two friends are hiding with a backwoods clan of Jersey country folk deep in the vast pine forest covering much of that state. I would wager that in the next week or so some one is going to report a sighting of the Jersey Devil and a very bad local character will coinsidentally go missing, for it is Bob and Baylay's feeding time too. I like having Sarah here. I wish it was under better circumstances, but I like it just the same. Sometimes we spend our evenings sitting in front of the television watching rerun after rerun of The Andy Griffith Show on TVland. I enjoy that program. It comforts me. Would that all of humanity were like the good people of Mayberry. If they were, I would never have lost my family. I would never have become a vampire and Al Andaluz would be a place of peace and brotherhood for my people and for all people. I do so want to see that land again. They tell me there are regions in California quite like it. But I was warned not to go there. California vampires are of the Noxious variety (not Nobel, such as I and my companions) and they do not take kindly to outsiders. I must stop now. Sarah wants me to sit with her while she eats her tuna fish sandwich. Luckily for us, the local grocery store delivers.

The Book of Sarah

I am afraid to leave this house. It's me. It's Sarah. I know he talks about me, so you must know who I am. He's sleeping now, at the bottom of his flower-filled pit. The Old Woman is down there in the cellar with him. No, she's not in the pit. She'd like to be, but she's not. She's burning the trash in the furnace. They never put out any type of trash or garbage. Everything gets burned. Large items, like worn pieces of furniture, are chopped up and then burned. The outside world must not find anything. Who knows what they could learn with the scientific tools they have today? I am writing this, not that wilkravitz 'familiar' character he has. Tomas told me about this site and I logged on. I have to do something to calm my nerves. He did let me have a beautiful, old, miner's cut, diamond ring though. They have treasure stashed all over this place. I don't know where it is, but the Old Woman knows. I can tell. She gave me a fried egg sandwich a little while ago. I think the toast was made with moldy bread. She must have known. She had to. I don't think anyone can get in here. The front door is solid steel. You know the kind, with the chipped, green industrial paint and all. The windows are relatively small and covered with bars. He tried to get the decorative kind, but they're still bars. It doesn't even look like a house from the outside. You would think it was a small wharehouse or something like that. It is as if we are at the end of an urban, brick, box canyon. All the other windows and doors on this little alley were sealed up long ago. Two rough looking guys (more familiars, I am told) patrol the opening where the alley meets the street. I can see them if I peek through the heavy, velvet drapes and twist my neck just so. There might even be more than two of them, but I can only see two. I should really try to sleep a little. You know how it is. I'm used to working the graveyard shift in my shop and my benefactor keeps the same hours too. I think he loves me. I do. I really do. Yet what does that mean? And if his stories are true, he's the only family I have. I'm a twentynine year old emotional basket case, living with a 'grandfather' who appears to be younger than me. Oh yes, and he's a vampire too. He's also somewhat of a writer. I found an old handwritten journal in the library. I read some of it. I'm paraphrasing, but this is what it said - 'If the Caliphate of Cordoba in Old Spain had not fallen and if the land had not fragmented into countless, waring principalities, I would have been content to remain there. But the Muslims, our fellow proclaimers of The Unity, turned on us, killing many innocent souls in the streets and in the souks. They blamed us for certain Trinitarian advances in the north. As a result, in the year of Divine Creation 4852, what Trinitarians call 1091, fundamentalists from across the Straight in Morroco, streamed into our beloved Al Andaluz, in an effort to bolster the faltering Muslims and turn back the Trinitarians. They forced their hard, austere ways upon us all. Jews and the resident Trinitarian minority, used to generations of relaxed brotherhood and acceptance, were now persecuted, tortured and forced to leave. It was too much for even a vampire to bear. It was the Crusaders in France all over again. My mortal family had already left. The villa in Seville was empty. The Free State of Granada (we had holdings there as well) held on by a hair, but it was not the same. And so I left to ply my trade upon another shore...'. That's all I could read. The Old Woman was breathing down my back. She doesn't like me to touch things. So I carefuuly closed the worn, leather volume and put it back.