Leaving her lover’s bed she pulled on one of his shirts and went downstairs, past his piano, past the sleeping cats on the couch, and out through the French doors into his garden.
A layer of fog covered up any stars she might have seen in the San Francisco sky. That didn’t matter. Shawna had come out to think and reflect.
What a wonderful romantic weekend it had been with her lover Andy. They’d been on and off for over five years. He was a tall handsome Vampire of 166 years, and looked like he was maybe 34 at the most. She was 58, going on 39. Hard work and good genetics had kept her looking young, but damn it, this was too weird.
She closed her eyes and was taking in the scent of the blooming roses when she heard a low growling noise. She turned and saw a horrible sight.
A man, if she could call it that, stood before her. He was at least seven feet tall with long dark hair surrounding a narrow face with sharp features that at one time might have been attractive if not for the silvery blue hue of his skin and glowing red eyes. As she stared too shocked to say anything, or even move, he spread huge leathery wings out from his back. All she could think of was how his leather jacket was constructed. Were the wings inside with a pocket or outside of the jacket?
“Beware the forces which you know not of,” he growled in a death metal kind of voice.
“I dig up dinosaurs for a living. I know about…” she said not even knowing what to say. She DID dig up dinosaurs for a living. Lately she’d switched gears to her first love which was giant ice age mammals, but for some off reason it always came back to dinosaurs.
“You know not of the forces that bind the society in which you tread,” growled the winged guy, whatever he was. “You are but a mortal woman.”
“Who sent you here. Is this some sort of joke? Seriously I do dig up dinosaurs. I raised two sons who are now successful adults who respect women, despite the fact that their father was a cheating dirt bag. I grew up in a time when women were not expected to have careers, but I was, am successful in my field. Don’t you give me that mortal woman shit.”
“You are a weak mortal woman.”
“Fuck you asshole.”
Shawna was pissed off. She wasn’t a large woman but she was strong. So when the winged demon stepped towards her claws out she picked up an iron patio chair and clocked him across the side of his head. He fell to the ground.
“What the…Shawna,” said a voice behind her. There at the French doors stood her love Andy. He looked at the demon man sitting on his patio. “Who are you?”
The creature stood, then staggered back, eyes glowing. He growled then flapped his large leathery wings and flew into the night sky.
“What was that Andy? What was it? Who was he?” Asked Shawna.
“I have no idea who he was. I don’t know, maybe a fallen angel. A demon maybe,” said Andy.
The sky started to turn light as the sun began to rise.
Andy put his arms around Shawna. “You want coffee?”
“Sure. That would be great.”
“Sorry about that.”
“It’s ok. I’m a mom. I can deal with shit.”
Andy kissed her, out on the porch, under the foggy dawn sky, with the smell of roses and sulphur in the air.
On the edge of the Sandia Mountains, My friends Amelia her husband Raul and I drove down the gravel road to the home of Ximena, an ancient woman who mostly lived in solitude with the company of the birds and the wind.
Ximena’s home was a large old adobe structure rimmed with bells and bushes of purple flowers. She greeted us at the door, as always wearing a long colorful skirt. Her black hair flowed down her back almost to her knees. Dark eyes smiled at us in a welcome greeting, as did her fangs. She is almost as ancient as Tellias and Eleora, and like them Ximena looks like a young college girl.
We came into the main room. Walls lined with books and crystals flanked part of the room with windows on the other side looking towards the mountains. We could smell the dried chiles rastas hanging in the kitchen. A red shouldered hawk perched on a wooden chair. It called out when it saw us.
“Maria, you still sing so sweetly,” I said to the bird. She gave me a cold stair then allowed me to pet her feathered head.
Maria the hawk had been around since I was a young woman, more than a hundred years. I wondered at times how she could live so long, then I stopped wondering and chalked it up to magic, love or pure mystery. It is what it is. That is how things work here in the land of magic.
A youngish man with dark hair and eyes like Ximena, but pale skin, came into the room. He was introduced to us as Kyle. But he wasn’t like us. I could feel his warmth as soon as he walked into the room.
Kyle was a man of many talents. He was a photographer, a teacher, a writer, an engineer and apparently a lover. After talking over wine and a light diner we also discovered Ximena’s young friend was also extremely opened minded.
He was also a young widow. One night left him alone with his dreams dead, but he kept going and kept at least a portion of the dreams and spark alive.
While Raul, Amelia and Ximena went to a back room to examine some old maps or something, Kyle and I went out to the porch. Bats flew about as the sounds of the bells filled the air.
Kyle asks me about my husband Teddy. I smiled shyly and told him how we’d met as kids and fallen in love a hundred years later. I think I’d always been in love with my husband on some level.
Then Kyle spoke of his lost love. “After Kayla, my wife, passed away everyone kept asking me if I’d go back. Over and over they’d ask the old what if question. You know, you can’t go back. I can’t bring her back. I will never forget her. She is part of me, but I live in the world of the living.”
“No ghost?” I had to ask (always thinking of obnoxious Nigel)
“Only a Vampire in the Southwest would ask that,” Kyle answered with a knowing smile.
“A Vampire anywhere would ask that. Don’t get me started on the ghosts I see all the time.”
“No ghost. Kayla moved on the night she died. That is a good thing.”
“Yes it is. You’re a wise man with a loving heart. In some circles that is a rare thing.”
He leaned against the rail. “I don’t know you except by reputation but I want to ask you a few thing, or at least see how you feel about a few things.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I’m in love with Ximena. I know what she is. I know how old she is. It doesn’t matter.”
I shrugged and laughed. “My 500 or so year old Grandmama is in love with a 35 year old. What are you, about 38?”
He smiled. I was correct. He was 38 and absolutely a delight – young, yet years ahead of most men his age.
“Dear Kyle, you also want me to tell you if I think it would be wise if you became a Vampire? Right?”
He smiled an uncomfortable hot blooded smile.
I said to him, “Kyle, you are in love with the cold wind under the moon and the sprint of night. She is an amazing being. I’ve always admired her. If you feel you can make a life out here with her then do it. But don’t lose yourself in her. Always be who you are, even after you become a Vampire. That is the only way it will work. If you try to be too much like her she will leave you, because she fell in love with you, not with herself.”
Raul and Ximena came out to join us with wine for Ryan and spiced blood for the rest of us.
Ximena whistled and Maria the red shouldered hawk came and landed on a table next to her hand. Ximena gave the bird a piece of meat she took from a bag in her pocket.
Into the night we talked until the sun came up and created unbelievably beautiful light and shadows on the mountains.
Tonight I stood outside in the cool breeze, under the sky with few stars, only the moon and the planet Venus, and occasional airplanes. How different the world is where there is so much light at night that even when it feels dark we can not see the stars.
It was the year before Louis XIV, The Sun King, died. I did not find out that for another three hundred years. I had heard another group of Vampires had left for the New World. I missed the American Revolution. My own country, my own small bit of the world fell into chaos and ruin…
I stood under the night sky with the wind in my long honey colored hair fell to the small of my back. I wore a coat of the finest wine colored fabric trimmed with ribbons with gold thread. My boots were of the finest leather and the color of my jacket. My shirt was trimmed with lace. It would all have been approved of by the Sun King, or any king, because I, Vlad, was King of the Vampires.
Here I take a deep breath and wonder what the Hell happened. I was standing alone in my thoughts enjoying the night air in a Foreign land, returning from a trip to Italy, when the last thing I remember was the sight of a beautiful woman and a sharp pain in my heart. It had nothing to do with romantic thoughts.
My attackers, who are still unknown to me, sealed me in a crypt, and there I remained for the next three hundred years. My location was unknown to my family, friends, or allies. My citizens were without a leader and lost to the winds and ravages of marauding hordes. Those who were not slaughtered went into hiding. My friend Randolpho was one of them.
For three hundred years I lay in a state of trance like sleep, occasionally mixed with consciousness, unable to move, or cry out for help. I was dead, but undead, in a cruel state of hibernation. My heart had been stabbed with a stake but not fully pierced. My throat had been slit but my head not severed. It is rather disgusting now that I think of it.
Of course one can imagine what it was like when Randolpho and my love Gillian found me. First I heard the lock snap, and the gates of the crypt forced open, then the top of the tomb moved off, and then they opened the coffin.
“Oh shit,” was the first words that I heard, coming from the mouth of Randolpho.
Gillian bent over and kissed me. I opened my eyes. “It’s him,” she said in a now unfamiliar accent. “Let’s get him out of here.”
My fine clothing had all but rotted away. My hair was in tangles with years of bugs and mice having their children in my golden locks. When I awoke I found myself not in a coffin but in the softest of beds with sheets so softer than anything I could have imagined.
Everything smelled good. I smelled good like flowers and fresh spring herbs. I wore a soft robe, and drawstring pants. My hair was clean but now short to my collar. I often think of growing it long again but maybe not.
Gillian came in, not as I remembered her, corseted in a long gown and elaborate ringlets, but in a short skirt and a long jacket. Her hair was straight and down her back. The skirt was black leather, the jacket was a pink color I could not describe, her shirt was simple white lace. She smelled like oranges and roses. Later she told me it was grapefruit scented lotion. Her legs were showing. Almost all of her legs.
In all of my centuries I could have never imagined the modern world in which I had awakened into.
Louis XIV was the King of the Sun, and I was the King of the Moon.
Now I wear jeans. I am no longer King. As for Louis, alas he is still dead.
~ Vlad
Dear Diary,
Gillian said, “You could wear a burlap bag and you’d still be cute.”
“What is a burlap bag?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. The door bell rang and she left me standing, once again wondering what she was talking about.
I quickly looked up burlap bag on the Internet. Why would wearing a brown bag made of rough cloth make me cute? What did she mean by cute? Do I look like an onion or potato or coffee bean? Onions are not cute. I do not understand half of what she says to me.
Friends came to binge watch Netflix. I asked them once what Netflix represented. They told me that movies used to be called flicks because of how the film would flicker. They explained more but I was lost. I smiled and thanked them. Gillian and Randolpho tell me not to be overly concerned about the names of companies. I disagree. One never knows what might be lurking in secondary and secret meanings of names. They laugh at that. I scoff. I was not Vampire King for 306 years by not paying attention. The one time I did not pay attention I ended up in the 21st Century.
Tonight we watched something called Queer Eye. In my wildest dreams I never imagined such a thing. We watched for five hours.
Five men go from town to town and fix the lives of other men who need fixing. They also help women, but mostly men. How do I say this… they are what is now called “Queer” or “Gay” which in this language means odd or happy, but also means they choose to be with romantic men.
Back when I was King of the Vampires in my old country and old centuries back world we did not care who anyone spent their time or lives with. It did not matter. We were Vampires and I was their King.
As a youth it did matter. There were men who were afraid of those who loved freely. They were violent against those who were not the same as them. That was my uncle and cousins who were unfortunately eaten by wolves or ended up somehow, mysteriously with their heads on posts.
They would torture me when I was young because they said I looked like a pretty girl rather than a boy. They also tried to take advantage of my sister and harm her. They were not the kind of Vampires who would binge watch Netflix. But they are no longer here and I look around my home and have decided that I need to how do I say, step up my game.
Alas clothing for men is so plain now. Everything looks good on me but it would be good to know what would look best on me.
Among the seven Vampires watching we used two entire boxes of what is called Kleenex while watching the shows. We might be Vampires but we are what do they call it, suckers for sentimentality and turning lives around. After all, that is what Vampires do. We turn lives around as well.
Antoni, Karamo, Tan, Bobby, and Jonathan made me laugh and think about style. I believe my hair would look good if it was styled the same as Tan’s. I do not like angels, as most Vampires do not, but in this case I believe Bobby is the human form of one.
When the sun came up and we decided to sleep, I wondered if Bobby would help an old Vampire design his guest chambers?
I almost stayed up to watch the rest of Season 2 without the others.
~ Vlad
Dear Diary,
In my bed, with Gillian asleep in my arms, I wondered how out of touch I am with the modern world. Maybe it is not that I am so out of touch as… I do not know. I seem to adapt.
It is a full moon. I wonder if I will hear the Werewolves howl tonight. I wonder if they will have their sinks clogged with fur. I wonder where they keep their clothing when they run as wolves. I wonder why even now Werewolves still dress in such tacky and distasteful clothing. I wonder if I get measured and order some new suits tomorrow how long it will take for me to get them. I wonder if ribbons and lace will ever be popular again for men to wear openly without shame?
Gillian runs her hand across my chest and up my neck. She never asks what I am thinking. She knows. Her cool touch to my face brings me out of my own thoughts.
“Do you think I need a Queer Eye?” I ask.
She smiles with a hint of fang. “No, just a few history books.”
Then she kisses me, and puts her naked leg over mine, and this is where I stop writing.
The dogs were huge. The male weighed 170 pounds. The female was a mere 120 pounds. They padded silently behind her as she walked home from the bar.
Mehitabel had gone out for a bite to eat with the dogs due to the fact her boyfriend Max had left them with her while he finished up a job. He’d be back in a few hours. It was odd to call him her boyfriend. It was odd to think she was engaged to him. Everything was odd so she thought as she walked along in the cool night air.
At the bar she’d spoken to some nice young men who’d walked down by the beach with her. She put her fangs to their wrists and taken about a half pint of blood. They’d been scuba diving earlier that day. She could always pick up on divers due to their oxygen levels, and the salt on their skin. All they would remember was the pretty young women with the two giant dogs who’d showed them the trail to the beach.
As she got closer to her house she heard loud raspy laughing behind her. She turned around and saw them. Witches.
These were not nice ladies who get energy from crystals, or read tarot cards, make healing lotions, and try to conjure up spirits from the earth. These kind of Witches were the trailer trash of the paranormal world.
Mehitabel knew that six months earlier the one named Blanche had charged ten-thousand dollars to give a woman’s ex-husband’s new wife breast cancer. The other, a Witch who called herself Tourmaline would make love potions that would cause the unwitting recipient to fall in love, but always loathe themselves for falling in love with someone they found repulsive.
Both Witches wore tacky tight dresses with too much cleavage, too much make-up, and too much bleached blonde hair that reminded her of fried onions. They toddled on six-inch heels, while walking along with their back sides sticking out in an unnatural way that made Mehitabel think of stink-beetles.
“Hey, look,” said Blanche in a gravel and honey voice. “It’s the pretty little Vampire. What are you up to tonight?”
“Show us those fangs,” said Tourmaline.
Mehitabel whistled to the dogs, then kept walking. She could hear the click of the Witch’s heels as they followed behind her.
She took a deep breath and stopped her heart beat. Then she slowly turned around. “Ladies, stop following me.” But the Witches were gone. All that was left was the smell of sickly sweet perfume and sulphur.
A half hour later, with her door locked, Mehitabel fed the dogs, then poured herself a glass of wine.
Love potions. She couldn’t even imagine forcing someone to love her. Then there was the revenge spells, meant to do nothing but harm to the innocent. Blanche and Tourmaline had ruined hundreds of lives and caused so much pain over the past thirty years. She should have killed them there on the spot. She could have. The dogs could have.
She woke with the touch of cold lips on hers, and a hand gently lifting the tilted wine glass out of her hand and put it, and the book she was reading, on the table. Max, the man who loved her, without the aid of potions or spells, smiled at her. She glanced over and noticed he’d put his gun on the table.
In the morning there was news of the bodies of two women on the beach. They’d each been shot once in the head. Their bodies were drained of blood and set on fire. The smell of sulphur and roasted flesh filled the air. Toxic fumes sent two detectives to the hospital.
Mehitabel put her arms around Max and pulled him close. A good Vampire was hard to find. She kissed his handsome face, closed her eyes, and smiled to sweet dreams of making the world a better place.
Carefully opening the package, Theo discovered a formerly unknown packet of love letters between Thomas Jefferson and the wife of one of his best friends. Unknown to the modern world. Everyone back then had known, well almost everyone who knew the couple. They were just too polite to say anything.
The paper was still in good condition and the ink strong. “Very good,” he said to himself. Dealing in old documents and antiques could be tricky if you didn’t know what was real and what was not. He always knew what was real.
As he gently lifted the old letters back into the box there was a sudden flash of light and a beautiful woman in jeans and a sweater suddenly appeared before him.
“Theo? Darling, what are you doing here?” The woman seemed surprised to see him. Well damn, he was equally surprised. It was almost 3:00 a.m. and his shop was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday week.
He looked her up and down. Tall, pretty, sort of out of place. No, really out of place. “This is my place of business. Do I know you?”
“You’re… are you a time traveler too? You didn’t tell me? Did you get here on the Tardis?” She gave a little laugh like they were old buddies with an inside joke.
Theo was not amused. “What are you talking about? What is the Tardis?”
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Dr. Who. His time machine. You know the 250th Anniversary.”
“Oh right. The 50th anniversary or something like that. I don’t watch it. Never did. You need to leave.”
She stepped towards him and smiled that dazzling smile of hers again. “How did you get here?”
Theo was not amused. “I’m sorry, I thought I made it clear that I’m no fan of Dr. Who. You need to go right now. I’ve had enough of your deranged game.”
She took another step forward. “Then how did you go from being in 2318 back to 2018? That’s three hundred years.”
“So I know you in the future?”
“We’re lovers. Don’t you remember?”
He didn’t remember. But it suddenly dawned on him where she had come from and why she was there. “I haven’t been there yet,” he quietly told her.
She wasn’t the first time traveler he’d run across in his 465 years, but this is the first time he’d encountered her.
“What is your name?” He asked her as he stepped closer.
“Laura. How could you not know?”
“This is as far as I’ve come my dear. I can’t travel to the future.”
She looked confused. “You’re in the past Theo.”
“My present. You don’t know do you? In the future we’re still hiding who we really are. Laura are we in a relationship of the heart or is it just a physical thing?”
Her eyes watered up. “Theo, don’t do this.”
“Laura, do you know what I am?”
“You’re the man I’m falling in love with.”
“I’m the man who will take what he needs and either leave you or kill you. My advice would be to change time and let me be.”
A tear rolled down her beautiful face. “No. How did you get here.”
“The question should be how did I get THERE. Laura.” He whispered her name and stepped closer. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”
He kissed her than moved to her neck. He could taste unknown drugs of the future in her system, no doubt something to help with the effects of time travel or stress. He could read her memories of their affair. It was a strange time. Time Travelers always had memories that were confusing and somewhat ignorant. What they knew of the past was almost always based on fantasy and what they wanted it to be, not what it really had been.
Looking down on the sleeping woman, Theo thought that she must be intelligent to be part of a Time Travel program, but emotionally she was like a teenage girl all full of fluttery ideas and dreams of romance. He’d never fall in love with her.
Yawning, he looked at the clock to realize dawn was almost here. Time to sleep. “I’m the ultimate time traveler. A Vampire dear. I only go forward. Until we meet again.” Then he kissed her gently and left her alone to return to her own time and his future.
Austin stood outside under the stars, away from the motorhomes, tent trailers, and tents. He’d gone out to pee but remained outside to ponder the beauty of the night, and the weirdness of the campfire talk earlier.
His cousin Dirk almost set off a riot with his questions. “Are you Gay or what?”
That came with a chorus of “if he was would it matter?” from other family members.
Austin was in his late 30’s and not married, cohabitation, or otherwise obviously in a relationship with a woman, or anyone else. It was cause for a lot of discussion among his clan. He called them a clan because they acted like it – one organic mass made up of loud and outspoken individuals who all happened to be related by blood and otherwise.
Half of them were Vampire Hunters as well, a family trait that he couldn’t avoid and didn’t always love.
The other half, including his 89 year old Granny, habitually too massive amounts of garlic tablets which made a chorus of farts and a lot of good nature laughing around the campfire. He was surprised there wasn’t an explosion.
When he was a kid, maybe eight or nine, he’d gone on a camping trip with his Granny and Grandpa. In the middle of the night he woke and saw a dark shape crouched over his Granny. The next thing he knew the creature, who’d had it’s fangs in his grandmother’s arm, was spitting and coughing. It backed up out of the tent and fled into the woods. That was the first time he’d seen a Vampire. Since then he’d seen over a hundred of the things.
Over the years he’d learned there were bad Vampires, and Vampires who were not. He’d learned that he had, not powers, but a built in intuition, or connection with the creatures. He knew how to control them, and scare them, and if necessary, kill them. Austin didn’t like to think about that, but he had to admit it was sort of a rush. A big rush.
His phone vibrated. It was his girlfriend Elizabeth, the girlfriend he didn’t invite. He’d make it up to her later. She understood. After all, she was a Vampire, a fact that only his Granny knew.
He read the message. Love you. Have fun.
Love you. Miss you, he texted back.
He looked up to the stars and saw a full moon and a whirl of small bats flying across the sky. In the distance he could hear the yip of coyotes, and the voices of owls.
He felt a small hand take his. Granny was standing next to him.
“She’s thinking about you baby, isn’t she?”
He looked at his Granny. She knew everything. “Of course,” said Austin.
“You taking your garlic?”
“No.”
“Why not? You need to take that and put Vaseline in your nose so you won’t get germs in your system. You can’t fend off paranormals with a stuffed up nose. You know that Austin.”
As they stood under the sky they watched the first light of dawn together.
“Time for coffee Granny,” said Austin.
“Good idea,” said Granny. “Then let’s go fishing. I want to catch something without fangs for a change.”
