They began to prepare the townhouse. A grandmother vampire and her eighty or ninety year old mortal grandchildren moved out and into a large, commodious pre-war residence in The Tourraine. Neighbors thought she was the offspring and the old ones her elders. Humans are so easy to confound. But the townhouse was not empty for long. Edith came back to set things right. She knows how Tomas, also known as Jonathon likes things. And the city during winter suits her. Vampires like the cold months. The nights are so long and the bracing temperatures so refreshing.
The elferinos and elferinas are all there. They never left, occupying their usual haunts in unused old, stone outbuildings scattered throughout the venerable, mossy warrens of Laurel Hill Cemetery. And they have other nests too. The space above the ancient filigreed ceiling at The Academy of Music. Not in the theater, but upstairs above the banquet hall. Underground in the ruins of the old Gimbels Department Store, amid the dusty remnants of Santa's Workshop. Elves, indeed, but of a different sort. Well, they await the return of Tomas too.
Familiars (helpful mortals) arrange many things. Rug beaters clean antique Persians. Clock makers quicken an assortment of tick-tocks scattered about the old Revolutionary structure. Even the ghosts are happy. But I should not call them 'ghosts' for I am one of them, a disembodied spirit floating through the narrow, cobbled lanes of this fine, dear, old town. Papa hasn't come back. And to be truthful, I lost track of Annie. Is she dead, or deader than usual? I don't know. But Sarah's on her way. Baylah's coming too.
Edith still wants to do something about the referrer spammers. She confers with witchy-wimmen on both sides of the Atlantic, even practitioners in Moscow. Baba Yaga was a Russian, you know. And they have a bead on a certain young man occupying an apartment on the Nevsky Prospect, the glittering avenue at the heart of St. Petersburg. Haven't been able to reconstitute the oligarch-vampire known as Grigory Usipov. The powerful Chinese entity, called Madam Shang apparently still has him obfuscated between the infinite singularities we term 'reality.' She can do that, you know. It's a hobby of hers.
Edith does all this from the townhouse kitchen, an expansive space tricked out in the requisite wood and granite.... stainless steel what-nots too. She doesn't use any props... no junk.. no doo-dads... no 'throwing of the bones'... (that was sickening). It's all a matter of mind control. We are but particles... collections of singularities suspended in an infinite ether spanning every possible place and every possible time. You've been dead forever and you've lived forever. No big deal. That's just the way it is. Open your eyes and see. Magic is a simple thing, once you know the drill. But that young man in St. Petersburg will have to wait. Mikhail I think he's called. What exquisite tortures lay in wait for him. Everyone dislikes referrer spammers.
But Tomas approaches. I believe he's in the Catskills now, silently drifting through autumn valleys... sublimating when he can... walking when he can't... an eighteen year old traveler upon a public highway. Can't tell you where he sleeps by day. But he is very resourceful. I'm sure that's not a problem. Old forgotten root cellars abound, as well as ancient mines.
Tomas approaches and the being also known as Jonathon has many tales to tell.
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They're worse than what passes for zombies. From insidious haunts in (primarily) Eastern European hardscrabble redoubts their slimy tentacles reach out to ruin our stats and foil our dreams. Referrer spammers are modern day pirates, invading the sites of innocent people for their own low life scams. Sticky hootchie mamas and get rich quick swindles abound. Few ever stop them, not effectively anyway. That's why we went to The New Jersey Pines. They got 'witchy-wimmen' there... and they got 'means.'
Edith, our own Piney Woman, who sometimes keeps house for the vampires, gonna throw a hoo-doo. She real good at it too. Once made meat fall off the bones of a real bastid what lived down on Delaware Bay. Don't know what he did, or how often he done it. But never gone do it no more. Settin' in his boat he was.... little flat bottom sixteen footer. Gettin' drunk with 'Smash-Foot.' Everybody know 'Smash-Foot' what got his foot all torn up in an old wooden escalator in the big old Lit Brothers Department Store. They give him two thousand dollar for 'bout three toes and few other bones. Feet was a lot cheaper back then. Get hisself a iron tipped boot with a lead weight in it. He become a professional rib kicker, breakin bones for the bastid what owned this here boat. Sometime he crack a head too, like to break up the monotony.
They settin' out there raidin' crab traps and drinkin' 'Jack Bennys.' That what you get when you mix Jack Daniels and cream soda. Give you diabetes and liver problem all at once. Sky all silver an' hot. Water all gray and heavy. Look like it wanna rain real bad. Thunder storm comin', but not yet. They not out far. They in like the marshes. Green-heads bitin'. They the real mean flies. Big ones. Got dead, dull, green, round eyes. Look like they fill a snot. When you sqeeze 'em, they is. 'Smash-Foot' say - Shit, they eatin' me alive. Look all these bleedin', red welts I got. One got down my pants and bit off part a my ass too! Let's go in. We gotta go in....... But that bastid what owned the boat don't wanna go in. He wanna steal some more crabs. Think he once 'did somethin'' to some gal from the Pines. Think she was twins. He don't care 'bout no flies, 'cause fly don't bite no bastid anyway. It like a deal they make wit' them what own 'em.
But that when the hoo-doo get him. Drift out a the Pines and down over Cumberland County like a genuine soul crushin' miasma, only nobody see it. Some can feel it. They can smell it, jus' can't see it.
Hoo-doo kiss that bastid all over. Snake down his pants. Crawl up his shirt. Wrap 'round his head. He doan even know it there. But then, after 'bout thirty five heartbeat, it start rippin' in.
Bastid start goin 'aah! EEE!!'.... Start tearin' off his clothes an' dancin' 'round. Smash-Foot doan want no part a this. Jump overboard and swim to where the dirt get more solid. Then he hop on the road and run all the way home.
Bastid start scratchin' at big, old, red welts tracin' dark pink, puffy smiles all over his body. Cryin' too. That when they commence peelin' open... all the way down to the bone. And he jus' lay there, flat on the bottom of that skiff, as his flesh rip off, slip over the side an' go swimmin'. Crabs get most of it. Some kind a little worm eat the rest. Bastid just lay there starin' up at that hot, gray sky. Jus' a skeleton what got eyes an' a few globs a internal organs in where his belly used a be. Ten minute later he go 'guhk' an' die. Must a been a pretty rough ten minute.
Don't know what she gone do to them spammers. Edith, I mean.
Bet it gone be somethin' good.
I let you know...
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What I'm gonna say here really happened. This isn't one of our esteemed, weird and wonderful characters, or one of the helpful disembodied spirits. It's 'me'... Billy. And one night, a few years back, I had an encounter with something exactly like the 'hell hounds' in the current story-arc. It was like this....
An April night in Atlantic City. Didn't drive. Got a ride. Played video poker for a few hours at The (at that time) Hilton. Ate a rather good burger in the coffee shop and left. Thought I'd take a bus to the 'Downbeach' area (nice residential stretch... contiguous 'independent' towns ) tourists rarely see and stay over. But A.C. bus schedules, especially in the 'off season' are notoriously speculative. Sometimes they come every five minutes. Sometimes they drift along at a more leisurely pace like corpses on the River Nile. That night, they were few and far between. So I walked back to Pacific Avenue, one block off the Boardwalk and took a 'jitney,' the small, traditional local baby-buses in service for ninety eight years. They run every minute. That's good. The bad part is they stop at the forty eight hundred block and I had to go two or three miles passed that. So I rationalized and thought to myself - Eh, it's not a bad night... fifty two degrees (11C) clear, crisp, a little damp maybe (OK, so it wasn't so crisp), misty... Look, if I'm gonna tell you the truth it was a little sinister looking, but I wasn't gonna admit that. Clear case of whistling passed the churchyard. I picked up my overnight bag and walked. At first a few cars went by, but it was late (for April) and after several blocks they disappeared. Total silence, save for the quiet sound of the surf. Dark, shuttered houses... cozy bungalows... big, white stucco multi-generational affairs. Some streets were pitch black, brooding stage sets awaiting the arrival of the cast come Memorial Day. I made my way down Atlantic Avenue, first street inland from the beach. Think it's one of the yellow ones in Monopoly. Now every once in a while there'd be a light on in a window. Some old retired lady staying up late to watch Kings Row (which really is a good picture) or maybe HGTV... but they were few and far between. And then I came to a stretch where there were no lights at all save for widely spaced street lights, a few of which had the unnerving habit of winking out as I quietly walked by. Sometimes vibrations can cause that, but I blamed other things.
Thank God I had on sneakers, 'Chuckies' I think, and could pass by on my way without making a sound. But you know how it is. Every quarter block or so you turn around to look behind you, 'cause anything could be there. And the pool of light from the lofty poles is oh so very small.
That's when I saw them... two large, low, black shapes drifting through the shadows.... rather nebulous and undefined and quite possibly hallucinations. At least I hoped that's what they were. No sound. No nothing. Just the quiet, distant whisper of the surf.
I crossed to the other side of the street. for a block or two I lost them. Then I passed a line of properties bordered by tall, dense hedges. That's when the 'mumbling' started. Something was trailing me. I never saw it. Perhaps there were two? There probably were. But they stayed hidden beyond the hedges, loping along and panting. Then they mumbled, or vocalized some more.... like dogs do when they almost sound human... almost. But quiet... extremely quiet. Occasionally one would get tripped up by a piece of lawn furniture. I could hear it. That was the worst part. Something would bang. Something would creak and the low mumbling would start again accompanied by an even lower, practically sub-sonic growl.
Then I heard the laughter. Well, it sounded like laughter. I didn't know canines (or lupines) could make a noise like that.... all quiet and breathy and sinister. Believe me when I say I didn't make any sound at all. Native American trackers had no lighter footfall. Thankfully the noises stopped. After maybe two dozen heartbeats I forced myself to pivot my head around and look at the hedge.... just as I passed a relatively sparse part.
That's when I saw them... two, large, unblinking, red-orange eyes, silently stared back.... not as high as mine, but plenty high just the same.... Think I might have moaned a little. Lucky I didn't pee. But that's not my pattern. That's not how I react. If anything, I get stomach cramps. Could I see anything else? Could I see a head? Could I see a face? Could I see a body?... No, just the eyes. And when the hedge thickened up I heard the breathing.
But then I crossed the street, proceeding on to a tiny commercial stretch, maybe three or four small shops, right by the MarVen (how it's really spelled) Gardens neighborhood, which really does exist. A tiny convenience store was still open. Someone walked in. Someone walked out. The next few blocks had more permanent residents and weren't so dark. The spell was broken. I hurried on to my destination, unlocked the door and entered. Then I locked it up real good, checked all the closets and under the beds... peeked behind the shower curtains (a phobia from The Shining) and turned on the TV. Kings Row was still on... and I was never so happy to see the 'Gipper' in my life.
The next morning they found a strange mangled dead thing on the beach. No one could tell what it was, or how it got that way.....
But I knew....
Seashore towns have a lot of 'off season' tales like that, but this one's mine.
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Please excuse this diversion from the adventures of Romulus and the Cajun Wolf-Folk. But we suffered much at the hands of Russian spammers today and I (Billy) have been charged by some of our venerable enchanted souls with their dispersal.
A telepathic epistle was sent to representatives of the ancient Chinese entity known as Madam Shang, for we believe she possesses a Muscovite vampire-oligarch known as Grigory Usipov and (if he still exists in the corporeal realm) he may be our best chance. I know he's a fiercely proud son of Mother Russia, but he's also still a vampire (as far as we know) and quite naturally dedicated to their cause. No other site shares true insights into the paranormal realm like we do and the night-folk value this two-way conversation.
Attempts will be made to triangulate the location of referrer spammers. 'Adepts' such as Edith and others (Jersey Pines witchie-woman) will throw off a hoo-doo, an emanation (energy aura) able to flush out hidden parties. Those who resist will be rendered sterile or worse.
The 'family' always gathers for The Holidays. Tomas de Macabea, also known as Jonathon ben Macabi is already in the vicinity. Disembodied spirits from New York State's Adirondacks reported his presence three nights ago. God bless the disembodied spirits, in many ways the true eyes and ears of the night. Some of them narrate this very blog.
For the uninitiated, Tomas-known-as-Jonathon is the facilitator of our group and the founder of the feast. He was, as far as we know, the first Old World vampire to enter Philadelphia. Most records indicate a crossing on The Welcome with William Penn, but we're not sure of the circumstances or if The Lord Protector completely comprehended the unusual character of his shipmate. Jonathon is frozen in the body of an eighteen year old Spaniard, a Sephardic youth from the Moorish city of Sevilla, however the family had holdings in Granada too. For those who don't know, Sephardic indicates believers in Spanish Rite Judaism, a faith he was born into just prior to The First Crusade. In fact he was on pilgrimage to study with learned clergy at a noted Hebrew Scriptorium near Narbone at the time of his translation and has been a vampire for approximately one thousand years... maybe a little less.
You'll like him. Quite vain, you know, with his long black wavy hair, clean jawed face and trim, lithe form. How he dotes on those black, leather bootkins and specially tailored blue jeans. Quite a decent soul, actually, not counting that vampire thing.
Sarah, his American born enamorada will most likely be here too. And she has her own charms. I'll talk about her next time. Picture a twenty eight year old Susan Sarandon. You'll see.
For now we have to vanquish the dastardly Russian spammers. And I do hope the Muscovite vampire oligarch known as Grigory Usipov will help.
FADE TO the exterior of a red brick, Society Hill town house. All the windows are dark, save for one, just under the roof, on the third floor. A small bit of light peeks through the draperies. We FOCUS ON it a moment, til it slowly disappears.
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If only reality, as we know it, were a little bit more like this. The weird and wonderful personages I blog for 'WHOLLY' agree. TERRY GILLIAM made it. That says it all.
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There were birds on the place, mostly crows and ravens. Big, shiny, ebony, ones. Almost metallic. And I used to feed them small animals killed for sport. Werewolves regularly go after squirrels and rabbits to maintain speed and agility and I'd always throw the bodies to the birds. I liked them. Each mob had a leader. I think the term for the leader is 'wizard.' Maybe that's where the K.K.K. got 'imperial wizard' from? I don't know.
But as soon as Remus and his 'hell hound' lieutenants attacked, my avian friends appeared out of the darkness to help me, diving down from above like avenging demons. They go for the eyes, you know. I'm told the jelly-filled orbs are quite savory. Aw, hell, I'm not 'told.' I know. Werewolves sample everything. But I just didn't want to talk about it, because I'm still occasionally troubled by judgmental, narrow minded humans. Don't criticize me. Don't talk about us. Look to your own satanic perversions. Count the crimes your kind commits. Just because you sign a contract and have somebody else do it doesn't absolve you of the blood. You force sobbing, little toddlers into dank, sealed, chambers and kill them with caustic fumes. OK, maybe not 'you.' But what the hell difference does that make?! I'm sorry. I don't enjoy telling this part. Remus was my twin. He was my brother. He was my adversary and I destroyed him.
The 'wizard' made the first slash 'cross his face, ripping open the muzzle and tearing a lower lid. It flapped against his cheek when he ran. Hell hound number two, on his left got the same. Oh, a few of the ravens suffered too. Wolf-folk can jump high, you know, smashing birds in the air, crushing avian skulls and ripping off flapping wings. The first hell hound instinctively began to feed. That's when I got him, tearing open a gash in his soft underbelly. When he collapsed down onto the grass, they got the eyes. Two fast, deep thrusts... Pop! Pop!... Yelped like a miniature Poodle. Three heartbeats later he was dead, or at least passed the point of no return, 'cause he did twitch a little, but recuperation was out of the question, if you know what I mean. Quite beyond even our enhanced healing powers.
Look, how am I supposed to map this out for you? It all happened so fast. Maybe forty five seconds and it was over. I almost lost a foot...left hind leg. Don't ask me who did it. I don't know. You've seen dogs fight. You know what it's like... Like buzz-saws gone at each other. It's a frenzy... And Remus lived. I destroyed him, but he lived.... a neutered animal, bleeding like a pig. Ain't no pack gone want him now. Not as a leader. Not like that. Maybe I should have killed him? I don't know.
Then, WHAM BAM CHEESE AND HAM, it was over. The dead lay where they fell. I limped away. The servants would take care of me. Remus crawled behind some bushes. I sent some out to help him too. He drifted back into human form by then, but he's still in a daze.... mumblin' and whimpering.... saying 'I want to die. I want to die.'.... Birds all gone. Oh, they still here, but not like where you can see 'em. ... Ghosts what stuck to the place still agitated. Don't see each and every one, but I can feel it. Like a smell, or a sound, or a 'lectrical charge. Like a sneeze what never happen. Sun rise soon. That make 'em quiet. guess all the energy in the air drown 'em out. But they still there lookin' an' touchin' everything.... like narrators what don't never shut up.
I the one, leader deluxe now. But 'one leader deluxin'' gone be lot a work. I can tell you that.
Gone go people killin' soon... 'cause I got hunger for a lot a meat.
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And the thing is... many Earth sciences feel the possibilities of encountering life there are excellent. They're not talking about microscopic life. They expect something a lot more complex and capable.
Bodies in space are just widely separated islands and the surf touches every shore.
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