THE LION

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

SECRETS AND SHADOWS

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

BEFORE THE COMING OF THE MOON

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

BAD COMPANY

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

THE BIRTH OF BRITE EYES

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

DARK HORIZONS

Papa took Annie into the thickest part of this urban woodland, to a place where even the stars looked new. He held  her and whispered of the life to come. She was still. Her eyes were opened, drinking in the silvery spangled darkness. Everything was apparent to her. Each sleeping squirrel burned bright. And he was not concerned for his costly attire, as they sat on a dias of cold, dead leaves and pine needles. Icy patches commandeered the forest floor, sharing it with a sugar spun frosting of snow. A greeting card to herald the birth of a new little deathling, a spiritually unencumbered like-eater. Now sometimes the shedding of the skin comes early and sometimes it happens later. Annie, possessing the body of a child, would shed fast. Tiny skin breaks were already starting to appear. She whimpered at the strangeness of it,but he held her close, whispering words of encouragement and security.It happened quickly. The sticky, mortal mask slid off. He removed her dress and dipped it in snow, then used it as a rag to wipe away the remnants. She shivered, still remembering the danger cold could pose. But that was just for mortals, not for her. He took off his suit coat and wrapped her in it. Then he picked her up and carried her back to the refuge. Wide eyed., woodland life forms (some known and some unknown) silently watched them pass........................................................... And those inside never moved. Each held their place, staring off into space, comtemplating what was to come. The heavy, metal door opened. Papa entered carrying his new, little , prize. He walked right passed them and went downstairs to the sleeping rooms in the cellar, where he placed her in a bed of quilts, tucked in all snug and tight. She slept. But it was a fitfull sleep, for the hunger was beginning to build. He went back upstairs, walked into the middle of the open space and looked around. They knew what he meant to do. The silence in that room was beyond silence  Papa studied them all, paying special attention to the mortals. He focused on Edith. Her shoulders slumped. But then he moved on, settling on one of the Red Paint People, a young man who sat motionlessly holding a book. Papa looked at him and said - You, come with me......... The young man did not move. Edith spoke. She said - No, take me........ Papa ignored her. The young man found his voice and quietly responded. He said - No, I will go. It's all right. I'll go. My conscience will live on......

THE BAD SEED

I could hear the elves and cherubs bouncing off the walls downstairs. They knew what was happening. They remembered their own transformations a universally painfull experience for each and every one of them. At the time, while it was unfolding, they were transfixed. But after it was over and there was no turning back things were different. That's when the cold sets in. That's when the hunger starts. Some of them tried to stay with their human families. They tried to sit in their old place. They tried to sleep in their old bed. But the vessel containing their old life was broken. Loved ones shrieked and ran away. Priests came bearing heavy, ornate, silver magician's tools. Prayers were screamed. Spells were cast. Doors were slammed. And they were dead.....at least to that world. Yet if they had the good fortune to avoid the vampire catchers, especially the vile breed specializing in children, a new existence opened up to them. They'd make common cause with others of their breed, infesting the dark, forgotten crannies of the world. A ruined charnel house, a damp, stone, oozing crypt. What did it  matter? Just so it was dark. And their eyes grew wide, adapting to the  absence of the light. True, most refrained from killing their victims outright. A drink tonight. A drink tomorrow. And some next week. And then the sorrow. For a slow draining ultimately leads to death. But the small ones have their needs and cannot avoid it. The Old Woman clapped her hands. She cackled like a banshee. The rest of the us sat there, afraid to make a move. Papa progressed to the next step. He raked his strong and carefully manicured nails into the skin of his throat. The blood immediately began to flow. Then he lifted up his little demi-corpse, tenderly supporting her fractured neck, so that her mouth was level to the wound, as he nursed her with the crimson milk of death. A tiny tongue peeked out from between her blue and icy lips. She stole a taste. Look, she likes it. Watch her lap in up. See her drink and drink. Hear his low and throaty laughter, as he lures her ever farther from the sun. She shuddered. She burped. She actually did. And it was over. Her bones were healed. She sighed and leaned back, as he craddled and rocked her. Sarah cried softly. Edith whispered a prayer. The one or two Red Paint People present just stared into the middle distance, revealing nothing. wilkravitz silently witnessed it all, waiting for an opportunity to type it up and add it to our story. That's when Papa spoke. He said - See? No harm done. She is as good as new........  He rose to his feet, holding her close to him and said - Please forgive my sudden outburst. I have a temper and cannot help it........ Then he looked at me and added - Jonathon...Tomas...or how ever you style yourself, just don't lie to me again.........  We watched as he walked toward the heavy, metal front door, which opened before him, and carried her out into the cold, winter night......