Tag Archives: demons

Short Story Sunday: Chaos and Mistletoe

by

4

Marsha stomped the mud off her boots, threw her coat on the couch and stretched out her leathery wings. Fuck winter. Fuck Christmas. Fuck everything jolly and nice. Fuck peace on Earth, and all goodwill to everyone. Fuck Will, whoever the fuck he was.

She brushed back her hair and noticed a snag in her black Cashmere sweater. Damn it all. Her tail whipped around and hit the side of the Parson’s table she’d put in the entryway last week. Damn it. That hurt. Tears welled in her yellow green eyes.

Nobody understood how hard it was sometimes being a Demon. Nobody. Especially this time of year. Even the Vampires and Werewolves were making merry and bright. Damn them.

She poured herself a tall glass of twenty something year old Scotch and plopped down on the couch in front of the TV. She clicked through the channels. Three hundred Christmas movies showed up. How many fucking Christmas brides can there be? For Hell’s sake. She could watch one of the five thousand British murder mysteries on Netflix but they ALWAYS found the killer. What fun was THAT?

Looking out the window at the tiny yellow and brown song birds Marsha felt a little twinge of envy. You can spread your wings whenever you want. It doesn’t matter if anyone sees you. You don’t have to hide your tails. Then she wondered what they tasted like.

She guessed she could have gone out again and stirred up more trouble, and made people more miserable but she didn’t feel like working. It had been ages since she’d had a few days off. Everyone else was taking time off so why not her.

There was a knock on her door. Marsha was sure the doorbell worked. Why wouldn’t people ever use doorbells? Putting down her glass she answered the door.

“Hey baby,” said a voice as smooth as silk and the best chocolate ever made.

Marsha’s bad mood left her. Oh it was a rare event when she wasn’t feeling like she wanted to kill something.

“Ace,” she whispered his name and pulled him inside. Everyone called him Ace but his real name was Azazel, the fallen angel. Marsha didn’t care if he was one of them. She was alone and off the clock.

Ace stretched out his slate gray feathered wings. Damn, it took up almost the entire entry way. He was so hot.

Later that night she lay entwined in her lover’s arms. She almost felt happy and content. She almost wanted to wear a sundress and go to the beach. She almost felt like she was in love.

“What are you thinking?” Ace asked as he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.

“I don’t know. I was thinking what it would be like to be a Christmas bride.”

“Well, you’ll never know now will you,” said Ace.

“You’re such a dick,” said Marsha.

“Merry Christmas baby,” said Ace with a long hollow laugh.

Marsha closed her eyes tight then opened them wide. “And a nasty New Year.”

And they fell asleep as a carpet of black mold grew over their dark souls, and they dreamed of chaos and mistletoe.

~ end


Trained

by

4

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I won’t come when you call me but I still love you so much.

I came downstairs in the wee hours of this morning to find my brother Max making coffee. Being the eldest of my four brothers, and my husband’s best friend since childhood Max frequently crashes at my house when he’s in town.

“Watching Queer Eye?” I asked. Max usually wears all black being the brooding alpha male Vampire he is. Today he was wearing tan shorts with a button down multi-colored flowered shirt, a gray sweatshirt and red Vans without socks.

“Very funny Jewels. Yes, but no tha.” he said. “Coffee?”

Max poured two mugs full before I could answer. My German Shepard Alice nudged him with her squeaky dinosaur toy.

“Is she crate trained?” Max asked me.

“She isn’t anything trained,” I said. My dog has gone to dog class. She knows what all of the commands mean and then some. But she does what she wants. All I ask is that she doesn’t pee in the house.  “She goes to her bed when I tell her to,” I said.

Max is getting married sometime next year. I wonder how trainable he’ll be. I know crate training won’t be an option.

“Do you go to bed when you’re told to?” I asked.

He smiled. “Rarely. I’m housebroken too, if you’re asking.”

I looked at the long dark red scar on his arm. “Does it still bother you?”

“No. Not often. I’m not letting the demons get the best of me.”

I thought both mentally and physically but I didn’t voice it.

“Where are you and Mehitabel going to live after you get married? Your house is practically haunted.”

“Funny coming from my sister who has a ghosts in her house.”

“My ghosts are harmless.”

He shrugged.

I glanced out the window and could see Nigel The Ghost flipping me off from my back deck.

“Max, what if you have kids? You can’t have a baby in a house with demons?”

“I’ll get to that when the time comes.”

I can see why he doesn’t want to move to his home with a grand view of the Golden Gate. He has been there since the 1930’s. But no matter how much you like where you live you don’t need to share demons with your children.

We talked some more about marriage and my kids, and our niece and nephew (our bother Aaron’s grown children.) More coffee too.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

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Below is the original post about Max’s demons. As a side thought: Don’t let your demons get the best of you. You don’t need to be carrying that poison around inside of you.

Demons

I’ve had several posts mentioning Demons, especially concerning my brother Max. A few years ago I visited him at his house in San Francisco. Our parents and brother Andy, also live in the City by the Bay. I’m the one everyone calls when things get weird. Max is single and lives alone, and I’m also married to Teddy, his best friend since childhood.

Anyway, this is why we don’t like Demons around, at least one of the reasons.

strangereyes

My eldest brother Max, for those of you who don’t know, is one of those alpha Vampires who hunts Vampire Hunters, Rogue Vampires and all sorts of nasty evil and just plain annoying creatures and things that go bump in the night. He is a hunter and sometimes a killer – that said, he and his associates protect us all from things we shouldn’t need to deal with.

Max looked like Hell warmed over. He’d been out on a call and found himself up against a group of Demons. Yes, that kind of Demon – nasty and evil, no doubt straight from Hell and running rampant trying to cause problems anywhere it could.

Teddy still has the cold hard fear of Demons. That isn’t a bad thing. We don’t like them. They’re creatures that don’t derive from humanity but like goblins, have no problems pretending they derive from humans.

A long nasty deep pair of scratches ran across Max’s arm. There was no sign of healing on the ugly red marks. He’d been cornered and put up a fight before his back-up team arrived. The Demons were taken care of but not first without doing damage to Max and who knows who or what else.

Late into the night we talked over several bottles of wine and blood. Our brother Andy came by as well for a few hours to visit. Max was restless the entire night. Just before dawn we all retired to spend a rare day sleeping (Teddy and I live during the daylight due to school hours.)

I was awake before dusk. It was a beautiful clear day. From the back window I could see a panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay going out into the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge. No wonder Max loved living here so much.

In the kitchen making tea I discovered Max’s old friend Celeste. She was beautiful beyond compare, wearing nothing but a pair of black lace panties and a magnificent seal skin coat. That wasn’t unusual because Celeste is a Selkie. On the land she is a women and in the ocean a seal. I was and wasn’t surprised to find her there. Max says he won’t mingle with those who aren’t like him, but I know who his friends are. I have no problems with Celeste or her kind.

Celeste rolled her shoulders and told me about my brother. “He called me last night. Said he needed some distraction. You know how Max is. His brain just gets full or he gets bothered and doesn’t know what to do about it. You know, Juliette we’re just friends with benefits. I just fuck him and talk. Nothing else. You think I’d be crazy enough to fall in love with a Vampire? Not on your life. Just friends. Always just friends.

Celeste then put a wedge of lemon in her tea and continued, “There is someone else, a Vampire girl he has a strange sort of bond with, but he doesn’t want any emotional entanglements with her. He was afraid she’d be too much for him, for his heart. I’ve never seen a guy try to logic and think his way out of falling in love like Max has this time.”

I saw a long burn along Celeste’s arm. “Oh that. I brushed against Max’s arm where the demon scratched him. Damned if it didn’t burn me too. The salt water will heal it. But you need to check in on him. He’s in pretty bad shape. The Demons really got to him this time and not just physically. They really fucked with him big time,” she told me in her whiskey and silk voice.

I took her arm and looked at the burn. It was hot to the touch. I spit on my finger and rubbed it along the burn.

“It stopped hurting. Thanks,” she said with a smile full of sharp white teeth. It was a smile that she won’t show a Regular Human. I have to admit I was flattered.

After a bit more small talk she left and no doubt went back into the Pacific Ocean and turned back into a seal.

I went upstairs to Max’s room. He was asleep, curled in soft gray blankets wearing a black silk robe. I took his arm and looked at the deep scratches that had turned an angry blackish red.

He opened his eyes. The usual blue gray hazel had turned dark, almost a dull black. I could tell he wasn’t well.

“I saw Celeste. She is worried about you.”

He gave me a “join the club” look. He didn’t need to say it out loud.

Taking his arm, I put my hand over the poisoned gashes and saw the ugly face of the Demon who clawed him.

“Don’t little sister. You’ll get sick,” Max said.

Ignoring him pricked my finger with the tip of my fang and let a drop of blood fall on his wounds. I put my hand back on his arm and willed the poison away.

Yes, I did end up making it to the bathroom before I threw up and almost fell over from my head spinning, but I was fine after a few minutes (ok hours). The poison wasn’t meant for me so I was fine – bothered but fine. It could have stayed with Max for weeks or even months. It could have set him back into a spiral of depression and hopelessness that if not taken care of could have done permanent damage. Demons are like that. They’re horrible evil things.

I kissed his cold cheek and left my brother to sleep.

When someone you love is poisoned by Demons you need to help them get through it – no matter what kind of Demons. They do a lot of damage, but it can be fixed. Demons hate any kind of love or understanding and will poison us against it. So we fight them. And those like Max fight them so they can’t hurt anyone else.

Like I’ve said, when you’re a Modern Vampire every single day has the potential of being weird, but we do what we can do avoid it.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A conversations over coffee and musings about the lives of others (or don’t trade in your soul because you can’t get it back.)

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0

coffee

Coffee with Vampires and Ghosts

A conversations over coffee and musings about the lives of others.

This morning I met for coffee with my brother’s friend James.

James is one of those people I find extremely obnoxious, but we have a connections through my brother Andy and through some shared experiences. We all have friends like James.

When he isn’t just hanging out with old friends, James is a psychiatrist to some pretty well known individuals. He is good at giving people ways to find normalcy in their lives. That is their normal. Everyone has his or her own normal, they just have to find it. The same goes with inner peace and contentment. James gives his patients the tools and teaches them how to use those tools to keep healthy.

As I drove to his house, through one of the more exclusive neighborhoods in the city (East Sacramento), I passed a home I’d once been in, years ago. The house belonged to a wealthy man. I’m talking insanely wealthy. A friend of mine was his executive assistant.

I was there for a party. He was lovely and friendly. I’d met him before and he remembered me. My friend adored him. He was a good man.

Unfortunately his ex-wife, his narcissistic daughter, and his psychiatrist only saw dollar signs. They poisoned him with their demands and their bad advise. It was never about him. People who cared couldn’t get through to him. The women took and took from him, stabbing out pieces of his soul until one day he killed himself.

“There is a special place in Hell for them. No, really, Jewels, the reservations have been made,” James told me as he poured me a second cup of coffee in his well-appointed kitchen.

I believed James, because like me, he is a Vampire. He lives with one foot in death’s door at times. He knows what it is like to grab up your own soul and hold it tight. For unlike Regular Humans, Vampires can’t give away or trade our souls, but sometimes there are those who try to come up from the depths of Hell and steal them away.

“And to think,” I said, “people call us ghouls.”

“They’re such hypocrites,” said James.

We had more coffee and talked about our friends, our work and books we’d read over the summer. I looked around the beautiful kitchen. Too bad not much cooking happened in it. Most Vampires don’t cook much. We do, but not much. I don’t need to explain why.

James made a lame joke about cooking and I laughed. Then he smiled with a sexy bit of fang and said, “Let’s go upstairs and fuck.”

I smiled back. “You know I’m married.” Yes, that is the reason I don’t see much of James.

“Right, you’re married to the most handsome Vampire in the world, but come down to the dark side with me this morning. Nobody will ever know. Mix it up a little.”

“Oh James,” I said, “even if I was single I’d have to say no. It isn’t going to happen. But thank you for the coffee. It was delightful.”

“At least I can try,” he said taking my hand and kissing it.

Now I’m home, taking a break from my work, sharing my morning. I’m also wondering if anyone is mourning still for the lovely man who was driven to his death by demons who took the form of friends and family.

I look at my old dog sleeping on the cool tile by my feet. I hear a hawk outside. It is a calm space where demons are not allowed. I will not let them in.

Close the door if they knock, even if they look like someone you know.

Beware those who have already traded in their souls at the expense of others.

OK everyone, have a nice day.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

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I’m on the road with my handsome husband and beautiful daughter this week touring one of the colleges by the ocean in Southern California. Yes, this is the parenting part. So anyway, this is a repost from August 2015. Thanks for dropping by. I’ll tell you all about it soon.

Short Story Sunday: Mere Mortal

by

6

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.

Sure she was a mere mortal but life was good.

~ end

Demons

by

5

I’ve had several posts mentioning Demons, especially concerning my brother Max. A few years ago I visited him at his house in San Francisco. Our parents and brother Andy, also live in the City by the Bay. I’m the one everyone calls when things get weird. Max is single and lives alone, and I’m also married to Teddy, his best friend since childhood.

Anyway, this is why we don’t like Demons around, at least one of the reasons.

strangereyes

My eldest brother Max, for those of you who don’t know, is one of those alpha Vampires who hunts Vampire Hunters, Rogue Vampires and all sorts of nasty evil and just plain annoying creatures and things that go bump in the night. He is a hunter and sometimes a killer – that said, he and his associates protect us all from things we shouldn’t need to deal with.

Max looked like Hell warmed over. He’d been out on a call and found himself up against a group of Demons. Yes, that kind of Demon – nasty and evil, no doubt straight from Hell and running rampant trying to cause problems anywhere it could.

Teddy still has the cold hard fear of Demons. That isn’t a bad thing. We don’t like them. They’re creatures that don’t derive from humanity but like goblins, have no problems pretending they derive from humans.

A long nasty deep pair of scratches ran across Max’s arm. There was no sign of healing on the ugly red marks. He’d been cornered and put up a fight before his back-up team arrived. The Demons were taken care of but not first without doing damage to Max and who knows who or what else.

Late into the night we talked over several bottles of wine and blood. Our brother Andy came by as well for a few hours to visit. Max was restless the entire night. Just before dawn we all retired to spend a rare day sleeping (Teddy and I live during the daylight due to school hours.)

I was awake before dusk. It was a beautiful clear day. From the back window I could see a panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay going out into the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge. No wonder Max loved living here so much.

In the kitchen making tea I discovered Max’s old friend Celeste. She was beautiful beyond compare, wearing nothing but a pair of black lace panties and a magnificent seal skin coat. That wasn’t unusual because Celeste is a Selkie. On the land she is a women and in the ocean a seal. I was and wasn’t surprised to find her there. Max says he won’t mingle with those who aren’t like him, but I know who his friends are. I have no problems with Celeste or her kind.

Celeste rolled her shoulders and told me about my brother. “He called me last night. Said he needed some distraction. You know how Max is. His brain just gets full or he gets bothered and doesn’t know what to do about it. You know, Juliette we’re just friends with benefits. I just fuck him and talk. Nothing else. You think I’d be crazy enough to fall in love with a Vampire? Not on your life. Just friends. Always just friends.

Celeste then put a wedge of lemon in her tea and continued, “There is someone else, a Vampire girl he has a strange sort of bond with, but he doesn’t want any emotional entanglements with her. He was afraid she’d be too much for him, for his heart. I’ve never seen a guy try to logic and think his way out of falling in love like Max has this time.”

I saw a long burn along Celeste’s arm. “Oh that. I brushed against Max’s arm where the demon scratched him. Damned if it didn’t burn me too. The salt water will heal it. But you need to check in on him. He’s in pretty bad shape. The Demons really got to him this time and not just physically. They really fucked with him big time,” she told me in her whiskey and silk voice.

I took her arm and looked at the burn. It was hot to the touch. I spit on my finger and rubbed it along the burn.

“It stopped hurting. Thanks,” she said with a smile full of sharp white teeth. It was a smile that she won’t show a Regular Human. I have to admit I was flattered.

After a bit more small talk she left and no doubt went back into the Pacific Ocean and turned back into a seal.

I went upstairs to Max’s room. He was asleep, curled in soft gray blankets wearing a black silk robe. I took his arm and looked at the deep scratches that had turned an angry blackish red.

He opened his eyes. The usual blue gray hazel had turned dark, almost a dull black. I could tell he wasn’t well.

“I saw Celeste. She is worried about you.”

He gave me a “join the club” look. He didn’t need to say it out loud.

Taking his arm, I put my hand over the poisoned gashes and saw the ugly face of the Demon who clawed him.

“Don’t little sister. You’ll get sick,” Max said.

Ignoring him pricked my finger with the tip of my fang and let a drop of blood fall on his wounds. I put my hand back on his arm and willed the poison away.

Yes, I did end up making it to the bathroom before I threw up and almost fell over from my head spinning, but I was fine after a few minutes (ok hours). The poison wasn’t meant for me so I was fine – bothered but fine. It could have stayed with Max for weeks or even months. It could have set him back into a spiral of depression and hopelessness that if not taken care of could have done permanent damage. Demons are like that. They’re horrible evil things.

I kissed his cold cheek and left my brother to sleep.

When someone you love is poisoned by Demons you need to help them get through it – no matter what kind of Demons. They do a lot of damage, but it can be fixed. Demons hate any kind of love or understanding and will poison us against it. So we fight them. And those like Max fight them so they can’t hurt anyone else.

Like I’ve said, when you’re a Modern Vampire every single day has the potential of being weird, but we do what we can do avoid it.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

Short Story Sunday: Fallen

by

0

Fallen

“Oh man, I wish we could turn into bats like in the movies. That would make things a lot easier.”

Max leaned against the kitchen counter listening to his friend Pierce. It had been a rough night for the hunters of shadows – the Vampires who were dedicated to keeping their world safe for both Vampires and those they lived among.

“Do you think she’ll be alright? I didn’t say anything in the car. You know how sensitive she is.”

Max poured himself another glass of wine. “She’ll be fine, eventually. I’ve seen her through worse. Mehitabel has seen herself through worse.”

“Mehitabel won’t tell you if anything is wrong. Come on Max, she took on…” Peirce paused.

“A fallen angel. Sure, and some people call us fallen angels. They have no idea. We’re just physically different. The fallen angels are pure evil.”

“So is the poison that entered our friend, your lover.”

“We’re just friends.”

“Bullshit Max. That is total and complete bullshit.”

The sound of the shower upstairs turned off. Max put down his glass and went to check on his friend.

Mehitabel sat on his bed, her hair dark and wet around her shoulders. She wore one of his robes, a burgundy colored brushed silk.

“Hey, how do you feel?” he said stepping close putting his hand on her cool cheek.

“Not good. Sort of weird, like someone broke my heart, but I don’t know how or why or who. It wasn’t him.”

Max started to pull the robe open.

“Not tonight Max. Please I don’t want to have sex with you or anyone right now, alright.”

“Mehitabel, I don’t want to… I… just let me look.” He pulled open the robe to see the large gash going from the top of her left shoulder down her arm almost to her elbow. The ugly wound had sealed but it was far from being healed. She winced as he touched it. An ugly blackness outlined the edges of the tear.

He put his hand over the wound. At first she tried to pull away but as he whispered words in an ancient language of their people the pain started to leave her arm. Then he bent over and kissed her shoulder. The blackness turned to a pale red. “I came to give, not to take.”

Tears filled her eyes as she lay back on the bed. Max lay next to her and put his arms around her. “Sleep. It is the best thing you can do. I’ll be up later. Nothing can hurt you here, not while Pierce and I are with you.”

Downstairs Pierce had turned on the TV. “Giants lost today. How is she?”

“Not good. I’m going to sleep with her tonight. Just sleep and be there.”

Max and Pierce stayed up to watch ESPN to get their minds off of the past 48 hours.

Mehitabel lay in bed, her fangs ready as she looked out at the creature standing on the window ledge. “You cannot hurt me here. You cannot have me.”

It looked like a man, but she could see the flicker of the forked tail in the dark and the fold of leathery wings above his shoulders.

He smiled an angelic smile of pure bliss and beauty, then mouthed the words, “You’re mine. You. Are. Mine.”

At the sound of the door opening the dark being vanished. Max crawled under the covers bedside her. “Just because, just because we’re the way we are, and because I can’t give you… it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

She didn’t respond. She was too busy watching and waiting as she looked into the darkness outside the window.

~ End