The Old: A Night Novel

[ChrisGibson]

While they sat almost casually watching the large blaze in the backyard, Lewis read the news from his phone and said, “They’re putting up a Satanic Temple about thirty miles away. Look at em. Smiling white folks in black with little pentagrams and upside down crosses.”
“They say they do good work,” Seth said. “They say they don’t believe in an actual devil or an actual god, that they are working for human improvement and enlightenment.”
“Well, then it would make more sense if they did that,” Loreal’s mother said, “and left the Devil alone.”
“They say there is no real devil,” Seth repeated.
Lewis scrolled down and said, “Look at this.”
“Oh, Lewis! No.”
“Morgan, you don’t even know what it is.”
“If it’s something about Satan I don’t want to see it. “
“I do,” Owen held his hand out. “Good Lord,” he murmured.
“What?”
There was a loud crack and a pile of wood fell into the blaze . Sparks and whirls of fire rolled the burning wood.
Owen handed the phone to Loreal and she said, “Wow. Now I bet these people do believe in the Devil. Mom, you wanna see it?”
“Only because you want me to.”
“You know you want to.”
“Good grief.”
“That’s a Satanic temple in Colombia,” Loreal said, “and you know whatever white folks say up here, down there these fuckers are praying to the Devil. “
Loreal murmured, “I bet all sorts of shit goes on down there.”
“I think they’re both fools,” Owen said. “It’s the problem with white people, with Americans. They no longer really believe. The Wiccans who don’t actually practice the Craft, the Satanists, who think they’re being shocking. They don’t undertsatnd that when you call out to something long enough it will show up, regardless if you believe in it or not. And those people in South Amercia, who willingly worship devils... They don’t understand a devil isn’t a thing to be worshiped. A devil never thanked you for your service. Or loved you.”
“Ethan said—”
“Ethan,” Morgan murmured,
“Ethan said,” Loreal continued, “that devils were to be commanded, not worshiped.”
“Devils are to be left alone,” Owen said. “There’s more than enough out there to speak to. They can be left to their own devices.”
“I don’t know what to think,” Loreal said. “I thought that witches didn’t really believe in God and Jesus and the Devil… you know, in Christianity.”
“Witches worship in many ways,” Owen said as the reflection of the fire played in his glasses, “and certainly no witch is an orthodox Christian. But all of those things you mentioned stand for something, and we all believe in the things for which they stand. The Gods are God. The Light of their presence in this world is Christ and low spirits, fallen spirits, creatures who produce evil are demons. They are wholly deceptive and meant to be left alone. Many witches and patheons do not even deal with them. That may have been a mistake. Christians loved them, and their magicians==from which much of our craft comes—loved devils. And that was a greater mistake by far.”
“I think,” Morgan said, “we’ve had enough talk of devils.”
“Cousin, I wholly agree.” Owen rose. “Seth, Lewis. Shall we check the fire?”

Early in the morning they had risen, when most of the visitors were still there. and began to build the elaborate crossing and recrossing almost altar of wood in the clearing in the backyard. By late morning, in silence, they had borne Suzanne Dunharrow down the stairs and placed her on it, and now, through late morning into the noon they watched it burn.
“Burn to the bones, burn to the bones,” Owen murmured, “just as in Roman times.”
“Are you a little grossed out by this?” Seth asked Lewis.
“Not really. The truth is I didn’t know her enough to be grossed out, and since we can’t have the funeral until the Ninth Day, and she didn’t want to be embalemed, this was the only way to do it.”
Then Lewis added, “And to tell you the truth, this is a lot better than a dead body sitting up on a bed like last night. That’s a thing I can’t really get used to.”
“When it comes my time,” Owen said, “just a crematorium and be done with it. None of this,” he waved hand around the yard, “business.”
“Oh, that’s not poetic.”
“I’ve had enough of poetry,” Owen said. “Keep the Ninth Night, but everything else you can do quickly.”
On the porch, Loreal heard a knock at the door, and she got up while her mother wondered, “Who can that be?”
“Maybe Eve. Maybe Ethan.”
“Maybe,” Morgan said, but she didn’t sound particularly convinced.
She had passed through the kitchen and down the long hallway though the idning room before Loreal thought, “This is a much bigger house than I remember,” and opening the door she saw two men, both long and tall, long faced, fine cheekboned, cheeks nearly hollowed, removing shades from their pale eyes. Now that she had met the first one and knew what a vampire felt like, she could tell the dark haired one was a vampire as well.
“You must be Lewis’s friends,” Loreal said, bowing, and her aureole of cinnamon colored hair bobbing with her. “Come in.”

Chris was nearly as taken aback as Lewis by the way Laurie swooped down on him and ambraced him.
“I am so sorry,” Laurie said, his eyes shining with… tears, “So terribly sorry about your loss.”
Lewis was not about to say that he had not been terribly close to Suzaane, and that she had been very old, and he was just about to retrieve her bones from a pile of ash. So he said, “The truth is; Loreal was her granddaughter, and it’s really she who deserves condolesnces.”
:Laurie set his gaze on her and said, “Then you have them,” and there was something so comic about his sorrow that Loreal would have laughed except it was absolutely sincere and she said, “Thank you…”
“Lawrence Malone.” He held his hand out. “You can call me Laurie.”
“Laurie. Loreal,” she said with a smile. “We should be friends.”



Morgan was preparing tea and Seth was sitting at the table saying, “We dreamed about Eve and about that Evangeline together. I mean, we saw them together.”
“But what were they talking about?” Owen asked.
“That’s what we don’t know,” Seth said. “And we haven’t really been able to get back to them. Just other dreams. About other things. Dreams where I feel like I saw Lewis, and he had the sword, the sword you have, Owen. Only in those dreams he was called—”
“Malachy,” Chris said.
“Yes!” Seth raised an eyebrow, but did not ask. “That’s exactly right.”
“Well, that bit makes sense if you link it to Eve,” Owen mused as Morgan set the tea tray down.’
“I’ll get the cakes,” Lewis said, rising.
:”Whaddo you mean?” Loreal asked.
“Eve tried to steal Owen’s sword,” Seth said.
While Loreal looked amazed, Seth said, “She came to ask for it first, which was crazy. Owen said no. So she came ot the house and thought she would steal it, but Owen had put a spell on it, and it burned her hands.’
“So that’s what happened!” Loreal said, almost laughing. “She wouldn’t tell me.”
“I don’t imagine she would,” Owen said, helping himself to a cake.
“But why did she do it?”
“Because your grandfather wanted it,” Lewis said.
“To do what?”
Owen said, “I didn’t ask.”
“You should have,” Loreal told the older man. “If you had you wouldn’t have to wonder and we wouldn’t be in the dark.”
Owen nodded. “You’re right.”
“Do you think,” and they were surprised to hear Laurie’s voice, “it’s some kind of… I don’t know… a great plot to.. do something? You know, like the sword is a great treaure and it will change the world or … I know its a movie plot sort of thing, but…”
“No, no,” Owen said. “Friend, Lawrence, I would have told you no. That Augustus simply wanted what was not his. But now that Seth and Lewis have seen this… Evangeline, who can say?”
“Who is Evangeline,” Loreal asked as she poured tea for Chris, and pushed the cup toward him.
“She is my sister. As Eve is your sister. She… is not part of the vampire family I belong to, our House. Her house has different rules, and I think this may have something to do with her and Eve. I think… I think there is a lot to unfold. About Malachy and about Lewis. About my past. About your family’s past, lots of little things to unfold, one by one.”
“It means that you have to tell me everything you can about Malachy,” Lewis said, “and I have to remember.”
“Who is Malachy?” Loreal asked.
Lewis was about to answer when Owen said, “Malachy was the head of the clan once upon a time, and not only that, he is our ancestor, the founder of this family.”

As Loreal was cleaning out the freezer, dumping long, freezer burned articles wrapped in aluminum into the waste can beside her, Owen was saying, “We can head back in a few moments.”
“And Lewis and Seth have already left.”
“Yes,” Owen said, nodding to Chris. “They had things to discuss. About his teaching, and about the visions and all. And Morgan will stay on here for a while, In this gloomy old place she likes so much.”
“I like it too.”
“Well,” Owen shrugged, “you are a vampire.’
Chris grinned, but Owen would not.
“It was good of Laurie to offer to take Loreal back.’
“Yes, and I’m surprised he brought it up,” Chris said. “Not that he isn’t a good person. He’s the best. It’s just. He really has a sympathy for her.”
“Well, you both have an abnormal, or maybe not so abnormal sensitivity for death.”
“Do you think that there is something bigger than you first believed happened between Augustus and my sister?”
“Yes,” Owen said. “Yes I do. I was thinking of all the ways to find out and the finally the quickest way seemed the most straightforward. I will just have to ask Eve at the funeral. Or ask Ethan.”
“Will Augustus come?”
“Oh, I doubt I will see my dear old uncle here at all.”
“But Susanna was his wife.”
“Was being the most important word in that sentence. They had taken their sides and were looking across each other from a great distance long before the other night when she died. I don’t see him coming to this house at all.”

 

[JoelR]

Wow, what a great novel

 

[ChrisGibson]

Thank you so much! That really means a lot.

 

[ChrisGibson]

and please always feel free to comment

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an interesting portion with lots going on! I am liking the family dynamics being played out here. They are supportive of each other which is good. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

The Dunharrows are a strange lot, but they are a good family, I agree. They support each other and give love when needed, and when you're naughty they make swords set your hands on fire. This is a story all about family and we're going to meet some more families before this whole business is over. Thanks for reading and I hope you're having a great day, Matt.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER CONCLUSION

Seth drove. Lewis never did.
“Owen said that the Devil was to be left alone,” Seth said.
“Yup,” Lewis, who was half asleep, acknowledged, “He did.”
“But,what of the Great Goat? What of the Ram? What of Baphomet and Pan? What of the fact that when I was initiated the other night I saw him coming to me, not just the Green Man Pagans talk about, but the Black Man, the Witch’s Devil. What of him?”
Lewis had hoped to sleep, but now he sat up, and cleared his throat.
“The Christians made the Witch’s God their devil,” Lewis said. “And before them, the Jews made all others gods but theirs into demons. There is the witch’s devil, true enough. He is the Lord not only of witches but of all, and everything, which his why the Greeks clled him Pan. That’s true. He is the goat footed God. He is Khnum of the Egyptians, as well as Set, and Azazel. He is the lord of desert heat and deep waters. Cornish witches call him White Bucca and Black Bucca. He is the God of the outer places, the places outside of Eden and the boundaries people made for themselves when they made a small, jealous god and called him God.”
“In or rituals, when the candle is brought in,” Seth said, “we always say, Lucifer comes from the south.”
“And he is Lucifer,” Lewis said, “And he is Prometheus, and the Trickster. He is Goyote, Fox, Wolf, Loki. Do you know the Mormons say that Jesus and the Devil are brothers?”
“What?”
“They may not remember they said it. It is in their oldest scriptures, scriptures which are laced in equal parts with accidental brilliance and profound idiocy. There they speak of the mystery of God the Morher as well. But they do not go far enough in their theology. What the Satanists do not understand, and the Christians cannot, and what the Pagans with their Horned One and Green Man, and their made up Goddess steer clear of is this: names and titles, the roles of villain and hero, we make up. But in the end, in the unity, God and the Devil are One. A demon is a fallen angel, but the Devil is the part of God men do not wish to understand.”
Seth nodded, accepting this, and Lewis wished he wouldn’t simplu accept. Loreal would have questioned, but now Seth said, “
“Did you explain to Chris sleeping beside me?”
“When we dream?”
“Yes.”
“Not really,” Lewis said. “Chris doesn’t ask many questions.”
“And you were always short on explanations.”
Lewis grinned and shrugged.
“I did the first initiation.”
“Yes. Yes I know. Now you must prepare for the first ring.”
‘But I was thinking how much stronger I was in the past. How much stronger our magic used to be.”
When we were sleeping together?”
“Yes,” Seth said.
Then he said, “I miss that, Lewis. Having sex with you.”
“I miss it sometimes too.”
Then Lewis said, “I miss it more than sometimes. You’re a part of me, Seth. And you’re right, I think everything would be a lot easier if we were still… whatever we were.”
“Lovers.”
“Lovers sounds very grand for cousins who were having sex with each other on again off again.”
“Aren’t we like fourth cousins three times removed?”
“I’m not quite sure.”
“Well, I feel like by the time you’re not quite sure we’re not quite related anymore, and anyway, the more I talk about it the more I want to have sex with you right now.”
Lewis sank low in his seat.
“So don’t talk about it.”
“You want it too,” Seth said in a tone of discovery that was not gloating. “You want us to have sex too, don’t you?”
“What I want and what my relationship want are two different things. But yes, Seth. I never got tired of us being lovers.”
“That’s funny,” Seth mused, smiling wistfully.
“What’s funny?”
“How you said its not what your relationship would want, not, it’s not what Chris would want.”
“A relationship’s a thing, like a family. It’s not just what I say is okay or what he says is okay but what makes us okay, and what makes us okay is me not sleeping with you.”
“Yes,” Seth went on dreamily, “I see that now. I think you’re right. It’s really sweet. We should drop it then. I should drop it. I will.”
Seth was odd and rambling and weird and prone to being possessed by spirits, sleep walking and being plunged into his own dreams. Lewis was not entirely sure if this is why they had ended or why he still loved him. After all, Seth was right, in any modern since of the word, they weren’t even related.
I wanted to, the other night. I wanted to make love to you, Lewis thought of saying. But he didn’t.



Loreal was standing before the bookshelf in her grandmother’s room when Laurie found her.
He was quiet a while before he said, “Can I help you?”
He had thought he might startle her, but she shook her head and turned around.
“I’m just… It’s strange you know, to be in her room qnd she’s not here. And she’s not coming back, Part of me feels like I’m stealing, like I don’t have a right to any of these things.”
“If you don’t,” Laurie said, still standing at the door, “then no one does.”
Then he came forward.
“What is it? A book. A—ohh.”
Loreal’s hand went across the books before her.
“Her journals.”
“Take them and think about if it’s wrong later.”
“Is that your philosophy?” she smiled at him.
“Yes, Laurie admitted. “Usually. It makes life better. At least open one. Open it. What harm could that do? Besides. Anyone who ever kept a journal meant for it to be read eventually.”
Loreal was not one who needed much persuasion, and she had pulled down the first volume but even as she did, Laurie noticed what she had seen.
“It doesn’t seem very old. I mean, old, but not as old as she must have been.”
Loreal put it on the bed and sat down on one side while Laurie sat on the other.
“Open it,” he prompted.
She looked at him a moment, and then she did.
There was a portrait of her grandmother in an oval pocket on the other side of the cover and, across from it, at the frontispiece, was painted in gold, intricately, the sign of the Clan, and then turning the page, Loreal read her grandmother’s spidery scrawl.
“This is the compilation of my journals, for much was written that should not be read and that is gone. This is a history that others may find it, of my long life, which encompasses much of the life of the family Dunharrow. Whoever found it was truly meant to, and what is learned is what is in danger of being forgotten. Read well.”
The sun was setting and the room going greyer, and now Laurie reached up to the shelf, taking the next volume and then the next and now the next.
“What are you doing?” Loreal asked.
“You heard your grandmother,” Laurie said. “Read well. But you’ll be reading in the car. It’s time to go.”

She did not read on her way back, though. At first it was something as simple as the fact that doing silent reading in a sports car driven by a vampire seemed a waste of so many things, but Laurie was easy to talk to, and they didn’t talk about Grandmother or the journals or about anything vampiric.
“Vampiric?” Laurie said as they left the country road and turned to the long road that went up toward campus, passing the fountain as the brick chapel coming into view.
“You know, like the low sad music starts to queue and you tell me about your life back in New Orleans in the seventeen hundreds.”
“Nope,” Laurie said. “I don’t like hot weather. I’m a Midwest boy. Now, you’re going to have to tell me which of these fine brick buildings is your dorm.”
That one, to your right, closest to the chapel.”
“Ah, that;’s nice. Can I just go up that road to drop you off?”
“That works,” Loreal said.
“Let me help you?”
“I got it.”
“You don’t,” Laurie disagreed. “And it’s dark. You get the key and open the door. I’ll get your bsags.
Loreal thought about this, and then wondered why she was thinking about it. A tall gorgeous dark haired white guy with high cheekbones was escorting her back home and that could only be good gossip on a campus where people suspected her of being either an uptight virgin or a lesbian.
She opened the door and noted, “Your shades are still on.”
“Do they make me look cool?” He flashed a smile.
“They make you look like an FBI agent,” Loreal said, then added, “Which I think is cool. Laurie, give me a bag. We;’ve got to go upstairs. I don’t need you to carry everything.”
He took off his shades, and she was a little upset with herself for the way she felt about his eyes, hazel and light and full of some warmth she loved. And did vampires shave? He had a bit of a five o’ clock shadow.
“The shades are because our eyes really are sensitive to daylight. It’s not a total fashion statement,” Laurie told her.
She readjusted the bag and was about to say, “I don’t need you to carry anything, really,” when she realized there was no need to say this, and she did want the attention of man in the silver grey slacks and the white shirt with the silver grey tie. And it was innocent enough. Laurie had already spent a half hour talking about this Lynn back in The city, and how he couldn’t wait to get back to her so they could have a late dinner.
“You really should come up and stay with your uncles one weekend,” Laurie said, “It would be great to see you again.”
“Thank you, Laurie,” she said, “For everything. I hope I see you again too,”
Loreal held out her hand, and Laurie raised an eyebrow, and then she overcame herself and hugged him quickly. He hugged her and it was warmer than she thought someone who was what he was would be, and he smelled great, and she told herself to stop thinking about that. He smelled like a man, like an actual grown up, just the right amount of cologne, not a bucket or none at all. And she supposed he was a grown up. She hadn’t asked exactly how old he was, but he had casually talked about things that would have made him at least a hundred. You couldn’t get more grown up than that. And yet the smile he gave her now was almost boylike.
“I’m glad you told me about that Lynn,” Loreal said.
“Why’s that?” Laurie asked.
“Because I’m a little… how would they say it in your day…? Taken by you, Mr. Malone.”
Laurie laughed.
“Well,” Loreal said.
“It’s not you,” Laurie said. “I mean, it is. You’re very… honest. I’ve known a lot of women. None like you.”
“Well,” Loreal shrugged, “I’m a witch.”
“So, you are.”
“I always wondered about those girls that fall for vampires in movies,” she said. “There was this show with this horrible set of asshole vampires, and one who just tortured the fuck out of people, and when I said I hated it, a classmate told me, once I saw that asshole vampire’s back story I’d love him. I’d understand him. I thought, this bitch is crazy, and here I am, a little fallen for you. So you have a good night, Lawrence Malone.”

She was getting ready to sit down on her bed, call her friends, return to real life.
“I kill people to live,” Laurie said. “I don’t sparkle. I don’t drink fake blood, and I don’t kill animals because I’m guilty. I am loyal, though. If that helps you, I’ll see you soon.”
In the moment it took for Loreal to open her mouth she saw him walk away and go down the hall, and before she could turn to shut the door, she heard the roar of an engine and ran to her window to see the taillights of his car.
“Fuck,” she murmured, “I guess that dead travel fast thing is true after all.”


“Ohhh God,” she groaned. “Ohh God, fuck me. Fuck me. Stay in me. Stay!” her voice rose.
“Fuck me! Fuck me!” she insisrted.
Under the lightf of his luxurious apartment, on the white blanketed bed in the center of the white carpeted room while the long uncurtained windows looked over the cobalt night sky and the twinkling lights of the city, head buried in her shoulder, ass nearly arched up as he buried himself in her, “Laurie fucked Lynn.
“Stay in me stay in me stay in me,” she prayed, her voice shallow, her hands on his back, down his back, caressing his sides, the sides of his thighs, his buttocks.
“I’m about to—“ he almost croaked.
“come in me,” she whispered. “Come in side of me.”
A month ago, when he had reached for the condom she said, “No. You don’t need to do that. I’ve taken care of it.”
She placed her hands on either side of his face and she said, “don’t hide from me when you come. Let me see you.”
She tightened her thighs around him and received his thirsut, and the bed moved and then his body froze, He was perfectly still, as buried inside of her, his lips parted, his eyes almost far away, almost frightned, he came. He closed his mouth, gritting his teeth, his body twisting for the last of it. When it had passed over him, as it had passed over her, Laurie lay across her and in her her, wrung out. She stroked his damp hair while his cheek rested on her shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re home,” she said.,
“I’m glad to be home..”
“I thought you said Lewis and Chris were coming home in the afternoon.”
“They did,” Laurie said, turning over and lying on his back, his chest rising and falling. “But I dropped off a cousin of theirs who wanted to stay at the house a little longer.”
“That was kind” Lynn said, turning over and pulling she sheet over her. “You’re a kind man. “Was he as interesting as you say Lewis is?”
“He?”
“The cousin.”
“Oh,” Laurie said. “Well, yes, I suppose. “
He smiled at Lynn, and said, with more force than he meant, “The truth is I can barely remember.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an interesting portion with lots going on! It was nice to read some more of Loreal and to see that Laurie and Lynn are still going strong. I am glad Seth and Lewis still get on so well while keeping their status as lovers in the past. Great writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you are having a great night!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Why do you think Laurie and Lynn are going strong?

 

[CharmedFan28]

I guess it just seemed like they were still seeing a lot of each other? Maybe I am wrong.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Now, I fully understand that most of what is printed on here requires very little thought or reflection, but the only reason I really write is to engender thought, reflection,s questions and even a little bit of doubt, so when I ask questions, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm actually legitimately asking why you think what you think. A story ought to stretch you a little in a good way, and I've worked hard so that more is going on than what's happening on the surface, so I hope you feel some of that effort, and are stretched a little.

 

[CharmedFan28]

I had not thought of it that way and what you say makes a lot of sense. Reading back there is more going on with Laurie then I thought in my first reading. I will just have to wait and see what happens with his part of this great story. I do feel the effort you put into this story and I appreciate it!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Some things came up, so it took a while to post. This will be the first of two postings of the The Old

N I N E

REMEMBRANCE






He who enters the crater also becomes chaotic matter, he melts. The formed in him dissolves and binds itself anew with the children of chaos, the powers of darkness, the ruling and the seducing, the compelling and the alluring, the divine and the devilish.

-The Red Book



“But surely Lewis agrees with me a little bit?” Laurie said as the smoke rose around them in the small apartment,
When Chris looked to him, Lewis said, “I’m not in this discussion.”
Laurie Malone, smoke jetting out of his nostrils, declared, “But I don’t understand how you, a member of this country, can sit here and tell me you don’t really give a damn what happens to it.”
Chris’s eyes were bright through the smoke as he rolled another cigarette and passed it to Laurie and then rapidly rolled two, one for Lynn and one for Lewis.
“I’m just saying that this has never felt like my country, and I don’t really undertstand how you can’t see things falling down all around us.”
“You mean the president? The current chucklehead in office? The way other countries look at us?”
“Yes,” Chris said. “And you can’t tell me that he’s a good thing, or that what the world thinks of us doesn’t matter.”
“I would never say that.”
“Or that we aren’t filled with so much hatred for the world and each other, and such a lack of education and sense that things could be like this for a long time to come.”.
“Do they always talk like this?” Lynn asked Lewis.
“A lot,” Lewis said.
“And they don’t kill each other?’
“They’re best friends,” Lewis said. “Don’t you two have conversations like this?’
“No,” Lynn said in a tone of discovery. “I don’t think men and women really do. Is that how it is with you and Chris?”
“Not like this.” Lewis gestured to Chris in his jeans and tee shirt, temples red and sweaty, and Laurie in shirt and tie, elegant as ever, both of their legs apart, on their toes as they sat like two in a game.
“I don’t doubt that,” Laurie said, “But it’s just the way things are at the moment. This isn’t who we are as a country. The hateful part.”
“Are you kidding me? You’ve been around… a long time. You’ve been around long enough to know this is how we always were! Killing the Indians, enslaving Africans, making a virtually slave class out of poor white people and then galvanizing poor white people against everyone else and making them their own jailers, the biggest crime America ever did. None of this hate is new. You know it, Laurie. I mean,” he took a brief view at Lynn, “you’ve seen it. Seen how immigrants were treated and. all of that.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Laure said. “I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong, and I’m not going to tell you it doesn’t break my heart when I see some of the things that go on, lots of the things that go on—”
“Then how in the world can you be a Republican?”
“Really?”
“Or are you talking about that compassionate conservative nonsense?”
Laurie turned to Lewis, but Lewis said, “This is between the two of you. We will talk later.”
“I just don’t know how Democrats and liberals can think they corner the market on… compassion or kindness. How did that ever become the property of one political party?”
“When being a Republican became about making money and having nice cars and making yourself richer and richer.”
“Oh, but hold on,” Laurie said, ashing, “because that’s the one place where I will call bullshit on you. The difference between me and every other conservative who thinks you should have as much of the money you make and its not a sin to have nice shit—and a Democrat—is we’re honest about it. You guys love money and money and money as much as anyone else, only you pretend to feel bad about it while you spout out nonsense about toxic masculinity and being woke, whatever the fuck that is.”
“I do that?” Chris pointed at his chest savagely, but his voice was subtle. “I drive around in beautiful cars and hoard money?” He pointed at Lewis. “We do that?”
“I didn’t mean you,” Laurie said, half desperately. “Or Lewis. We’re supposed to be talking about politics, not jumping down each other’s throats. I stand by everything I say. I mean. I’ve given me—I’ve gone to war for this country.”
“True.”
“I’d do it again,” Laurie said passionately. “Cause I love this country, and I just… the one thing Chris is, I don’t understand how you don’t.”
“I think,” Lewis said, simply, “the two of you just have different ideas of what it means to love this country. Different ideas about what this country is.”

“The real difference is you are older than this country,” Lewis said as they returned to their studio after saying goodnight to Lynn and Laurie.
“Laurie was born here, when America was up and running. His whole life is being an American. The two of you have two totally different experiences.”
“And yet we’ve spent over a century together.”
“You all almost came close to saying things like that.”
“I hope he tells her the truth soon,” Chris said. “She’s a lovely girl, Lynn, but we have to not say so many things. If he’s going to stay with her, she has to know about him.”


“I didn’t know you were a vet,” Lynn said.
Laurie grinned at her while they drove toward her apartment.
“I guess there’s lots we still don’t know about each other. I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret.”
“Afghanistan?” Lynn said. He couldn’t be old enough for anything else.
“Yes,” Laurie said, quickly.
“If you ever want to talk about it I want to listen,” Lynn said candidly. “And if you don’t that’s fine too.”
“You sure you don’t want to come home with me?”
“I need to remember I have a life outside of your apartment,” Lynn said. “Does that make any sense?”
“Yes,” Laurie said, nodding sharply “It actually does.”
“I didn’t know you were a Republican.’
“Is that a problem?”
“No,:” Lynn laughed, “It’s just, you’re a much more serious person than I thought you were, and yet, I did meet you in a church.”
Laurie burst out laughing and Lynn said, “I don’t want to go back to your place tonight, but, would you like to come to mine?”
“Do you know I’ve never stayed with you?”
“It’s not quite what you have,” Lynn said, “but…”
“If you’re there, that’s all that matters,” Laurie said.


“Every war?”
Chris nodded.
“Not every war, but the First World War, World War Two, Korea. Vietnam.”
“Laurie fought in Vietnam?”
Chris shrugged. “He says you can’t understand the country until you do. Maybe he’s right. He also said it’s not like he can die or anything.”
“But that’s not really true,” Lewis said. He had heard something in Chris’s voice.
“Huh?”
“It’s not really true is it? I mean, there are so many types of weapons and, you aren’t impervious to everything. You’ve even said some vampires die. So it’s not impossible for him to get killed. It’s just more unlikely.”
“Yes,” Chris said. “Yes. That was always my fear.”
“And the Gulf War?”
“The first one.”
“Afghanistan?’
“No,” Chris hsook his head. “Not that one. I was relieved.”
“Because you love him.”
“Yes.” Chris said.
Suddenly Lewis said, “On the way back home Seth and I talked about a lot. We were lovers once. There is still an attraction between us. It is the magic between us, perhaps the family blood”
“Laurie was my lover.”
“Yes, I thought it would be easier for you to tell me if I told you.”
“I didn’t know if you would mind knowing that.”
“Do you mind knowing about Seth?”
“Should I?”
“Seth does not compare to us, to what we are. I told him that, that our love was everything to me, and so Seth could never get in the way of that.”
“Yes,” Chris said. “That’s precisely how I feel.”


They lay face to face, naked on the bed, and Chris reaches out to him.
“It will be better this way,” he says. “This has a way of cutting through the fog of words.”
“Is it possible?”
“Between us,” Chris says. “I believe. It is usually done between two drinkers, but I think it can be done between us.”
Chris presses his head against Lewis, and in the warmth of the apartment, after the old radiators have pinged to life, it is almost too hot for sheets. They meld into the warmth of each others, limbs linked. But the lovemekaing has already come, and then Lewis thinks: “Or is it coming?
The firelight shines on Chris’s body, and Lewis thinks Chris is wrapped up with him, but then how culd he be watching? Where is this fire from? No, and the grass is green, and there are the lengths of palms fronds, and beyond the drumming is heard

“Se mwen ki Bondye nan Bondye
Bonte Bondye a
Lespri Bondye a kontan!”

As one they got up from lovemaking with a delicate swiftness, and dress, and Lewis mourns the loss of the sight of Chris’s body. Before he had been so narrow and thin, living up in the hills he was lean with muscle and the buttocks now covered were round and lovely to the touch. And when he could see through Chris’s eyes, he saw that this man was not him at all, was, Lewis thought, more handsome, darker, balder, eyes wide apart, but a voice spoke to him. Stop thinking. Only watch.
They moved through the hills and the singing went on while the conch blew, piercing the night air.

Se mwen menm ki Pitit Bondye a,
yon fwa wè li toujou konnen!

Moun ki wè m 'wè papa a
Moun ki wè papa a wè mwen
Vreman vre, mwen menm ak papa a se Youn!

Tonight they came down through the hills, black and brown, Indian and African, and white, poor English, Irish, Scot, screaming with torches and machetes, and they came upon the plantations, burning, torching, and the power moved through Chris’s body. He was no drinker, not yet, but this was more than the power of a man. This was the power of a man filled with magic and desire for a witch, and he hacked his way through overseers, always watching Melek on his horse, dropping his sword on those below like Ogun himself, and the words of the song continued in his head.

I am the God within the God
the goodness of the God
the joyful spirit of God

I am the Son of God, once seen always known!
He that seeth Me seeth the father
And he that seeth the father seeth I
Indeed, I and the father are One!

Over and over again he sang to himself, “Indeed, I and the father are One! Indeed, I and the Father are one! Indeed!”
And it was on this indeed that blood invaded his vision as Melek was struck and fell from his horse, and shouting, Chris lost his concentration. But as he turned to duck the blade it struck him, and then another, and then another, and sword blows slicing him, battering his head and cutting up his body, his vision went red and then dark and then he knew nothing.

 

[ChrisGibson]

SECOND PORTION

“Can you do anything?” he heard a voice above him asking.
“No,” the woman said, “but you can?”
The other voice, Kruinh’s, said, “That is not lightly done.”
“And this is no light thing,” the woman said.
Chris opened his eyes and, opening his mouth coughed up blood.
“Wha….:” he began, his mouth thick with blood, his chest open with lacerations.
“What?”
And then he called, “Melek!”
“Dead,” Kruinh said simply.
“And you will be soon too,” the woman said. Her white hair and mushroom aureole about her, it was the Maid.
Chris’s eyes widened and then went dim. He coughed again.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” The Maid said.
Chris turned to Kruinh, white faced, green faced now, and Kruinh said, “She is right. And if you make the choice, if the choice does not suit you, you can turn away from it, step out in the sun and end your life.”
Chris nodded rapidly, coughing up more blood, though he wasn’t entirely sure what he was nodding to.
Kruinh bent down toward him and for some reason, now Chris smelled the blood all over him, This close, Kruinh’s teeth were most visible.
“Do you wish to live?” Kruinh asked, “or to die?”
And Chris croaked, “Live!”
And no sooner had he done so, than the fangs, precise and sharp, were in his throat, and blood was being drained from him as something else entirely new entered, setting his veins, setting all of him on fire.


Lewis opens his eyes and asks,” What was it like?”
Chris does not open his eyes. His long hands are on Lewis’s cheeks.
“Pain. There is a great pain, but not mawling, for this is rather a surgical procedure. The bite that gives life is not like the bite that only kills. The bite that kills is with the top teeth. They deal death, but they do not usually exhaust the body of the blood already in us. Sometimes it does. Sometimes as the blood is taken with the top teeth, after a time, the old blood is released with rthe lower two. When you are not making a drinker, you do not bite with those lower two. The old blood is not red or thick. It is like water. It is called ichor. It is what blood transforms to. It makes the drinker live forever but beyond that gives no permanent sustenance. It must be renewed. When you make, you make with both the lower and the upper teeth and so, when Kruinh made me, I felt the pain of his teeth in my throat, the headiness of my life slipping away. But next I felt the pain of the lower teeth, and I felt my body filling with that thing which is life to a drinker, but final death to one who is mortal. And so, my last minutes as a man, as a mortal human, were in the strong grip of Kruinh’s arms, my throat caught in jaws, pain lacing through my arteries and I…not drifted off to sleep, for it is not really like drifting to sleep... I died.”



I cannot say anything about it. Not really. I cannot remember it. Later I saw it done to others, but of course you cannot really describe your own being dead. If I saw a white light I do not remember, If I went to heaven I cannot say. This is the reason why, by tradition, we stay away from death beds and from funerals. Because we have died, but still death is a mystery to us. We have passed through death but we do not know what it is.
When I woke up, everything assaulted me. Even though it was dark, the darkness was too much. I could see everything. Everything rocked and reeled. The low noises were too loud, every movement was too much. I opened my mouth and began to scream, but a hand lowered over my mouth gently, and my head was placed to a breast.
“Calm, calm,” a voice whispered, soothinglu\y. “Calm, calm, there there.
“Drink,” he murmured.
And obeying, like any infant, not even thinking of the strangeness, I bit into his chest and felt Kruinh wince with a pain that he said, and I have experienced, was also a pleasure, and I felt, for the first time, the pleasure of blood entering my mouth, some of it, yes, going down my thaot, but most of it saturating tongue and gums and roof of mouth, being absorbed directly into me, as if my body were a sponge, for that is what drinking is for us.
“Yes, yes,” Kruinh crooned, “Drink, drink your fill. You must have your first drinking. You are a child again. You are a baby. Drink.”

“What is it like? To change so?
“Kruinh was right. It was like being a baby. That first time I was so weak, and then, as I drank from him I grew stronger and stronger. Strength filled my limbs and he said, ‘But that is enough for now.’ I tried to walk and tottered. Kruinh said, ‘We are on a ship, but still, you might have tottered anyway. You are new.’
“I walked through the dark spacer and said, ‘Is it night or day?’
“‘It is day, and so you cannot go above deck. You are newly made. If I had made you at a more convenient time you would have been born in the night, but I had to make you when I could, and so you are born at the day. Soon the sun will set, and you will be able to go out at night and, in time, when you are stronger day or night will not matter.’
“‘What do I do for now?’ I asked him.
“‘Do as I first said,’ Kruinh said with patience. ‘Rest.’”



When I woke again I was hungry, and Kruinh said, “That will soon be taken care of.”
“You will feed me?”
“You will feed yourself,” Kruinh said. “It is better that you learn to do this on your own as soon as possible.”
And I understood what this meant, that I would have to kill.
“You are not on a ship of the innocent,” Kruinh said. “That was done purposely. You are on a slave ship bound for Hispaniola, and if I have anything to say about it, it will never make it there.”
Kruinh dressed me and the hunger rose in me as he did. I longed to drink from him, but would never have dared ask.
“You will drink from me again in time, for I am your father,” Kruinh said. “It is my duty. But I have to teach you to hunt. The hunting will be very quickly learned. Go up that gangplank and take your food.”
“I am going alone?”
Kruinh held out his black hands and gestured to his black face.
“Ah,” I said. “I see.”
Then I said, “Should I bring you anything back?”
“That is gracious but no,” Kruinh said, smiling. “I am older. I can live without the blood for some time, and when it comes time to hunt, I can be most swift. They will not see it coming.”
As I emerged onto the deck I began to feel the changes in me. When I had been freed from the plantation I was stronger than I had ever been in my undernourished years in England or as a beaten serf. But now I felt such strength in my limbs. Tall as I was I never felt so tall, and every star in the sky was a lamp. The moon shone bright as day for me. I walked about the deck, my feet light, my hands and limbs fairly flying.
Up from one of the holds a deck hand came.
“You!” he demanded. “What the fuck are you doing lounging about when there’s work to do?”
I did not know what to say. I was sued to being told what to do, and what not to do by white men, but I was not used to disssembling. Answering back had always been my trouble.
“I was looking at the stars. You really ought to try it.”
“Ought to try it,” he began. “Why you miserable fuck—”
And I have never understood why so many people respond to everything with violcnce and a raised hand, but as he came at me, my hand caught his wrist like a magnet to iron, and just as quickly crushed it, but before he could scream, my teeth were in his throat, and I held him to me, drinking, filled with pleasure and strength, how to describe it? Blood taste like blood. But how to describe the pleasure I took in great quantities of it filling me, and then an almost eruption like the feeling before orgasm, and a voice in my head, Kruinh’s “Take out your lower fangs. Take them out.
And when I did suddenly something pouring out of them which should not pour into him, not long lasting, quickly now, and then Kruinh’s voice saying, “It is gone. There is only a little of it. There will always be only a little of it.” And I continued feasting until the body was limp in my hands, and the heart the shallowest, shallowest of beats. I removed my mouth from the ruined throat, such imprecise marks as I would not make now, four savage punctures.
Toss him overboard. Kruinh’s thoughts were one with mine.
I looked down at the black water reflecting back the moon and the stars, its waves rippling undifferentiated after the body had been plunged into it and disappeared beneath the surface.
I was lost in contemplation of the waters and more than this, contemplation of the fact that I could kill so easily, so fully, and so swiftly. Life, and yes, it took a time to realize it, joy, filled my body. I heard footsteps approaching and even as I heard them knew they were some way off. I was so fitted with Kruinh that his teaching was flowing into my mind, but I said, “Be invisible,” and as the man passed, he did not see me, and so I learned another power that was mine.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Those were both well done portions that really made me think. I liked the discussion on politics and it was very interesting to hear about how Chris became a vampire! Those two things are what made me think and as usual I am appreciative of your excellent writing.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I sincerely appreciate that. They made me think too. I mean, I actually don't know where I'm going with a lot of characters when I start, and I find out things about them too. now, I'm thankful you read and happy to entertain, hope that I did. I hope until we meet again you have a great day.

 

[ChrisGibson]

END OF NINE, BEGINNING OF TEN

There were many things that Kruinh taught me including that now I was a member of his clan, like any of his natural children. And there were also things I did not learn right away or, for that matter, within the next century. The ship made it to the shores of Hispaniola, far from Port au Prince, with not a white man on it, and black men landed on the beach and immediately went into the hills. We were there for some time, and there were other places I went, other adventures, but in a life like mine you must… edit is the best word, I suppose, and again and again I was drawn to America. It was the new and savage land, but new and savage because of the Europeans, not because of the many who had lived there for hundreds and thousands of years. The code of the Clan of Kruinh was to eat the wicked and the wicked of intent, and so I found myself drawn to the wickedest places I knew, the places where European powers building their colonies did so on the blood and backs of others. I could have chosen all of the Americas, but I chose what I knew, and where people like me were settling. Like a worm I stole into Virginia and gnawed my way deeper and deeper into the land, feasted into the nascent South, tasting the blood of slavers and rapists and murderers. That land was beautiful and often the people were too, but always, the deeper south I went, the more I could be certain of a meal.”



“Nigga!” Some hillbilly shouts.
“Niggaaaaaah! Come here, Nigga!”
They’re running through the hills, dogs baying after him, some are on horses, the lantern light shines on crazy eyes.
“Nigggggger! Come on over, Niggerrr! We gon get you.”
The dogs are all around him. They bark and one man is about to unleash his hound.
“He’s supposed to be brought back unharmed,” one toothless hick says. “More money that way.”
The other man, unshaven, sweat faced, is chewing on his lower lip.
“I like my niggers dead.”
But dead is the last word he says as a houndlike form lunges out of the dark ripping his throat out, and then bolting about amidst the chaos, and through the chaos you, who have been chased, are the only one who stands still.
When it is over they are all lying dead around you. Like enemies destroyed by the God of the Book of the Psalms.
“Please come out,” you say calmly. “Come out to me, please. I called you, but I do not know what you are. I waited on you, but I did not know if you would come. I thank you. Please come out.”
You are mildly surprised, not as startled as you thought you would be, to see this tall white man, skin whiter than any you’ve ever seen, mouth rouged by blood, his teeth, so large, killing teeth extracted, and still jutting out from the mouth.
“Sir,” you say, not terrified of the man whose terror has delivered you, “I have heard of you, but I do not know your name.”
“Call me Deliver.”
“I’d rather call you your name.”
“Do not worry about names.”
“Well, you can have mine,” you say. “It is Malachy.”



T E N

BODY
AND
BLOOD


The way of life writhes like a serpent from right to left, from left to right, from thinking to pleasure and from pleasure to thought.

-The Red Book

Again, she sees the ship. She has seen this ship every night, but tonight she looks into the hold and is it like looking at black people lined like sardines, all chained back to front, back to front, indignities revealed, and there is terror, the taste of fear and dread and despair more fetid than the smell of bodies. But all that night there have been those calling out and chanting and even when the white men could bear it no longer, came down and beat the manacled singers, still the chanting went on. That was her last dream and she could not get out of it. In that dream the storm was brewing.
Tonight there are peasants sitting in a stone cottage, or at least they appear to be peasants, and the storm is mightier than any they have seen all summer. The shutters are bolted, and they thank God that the house is strong and stone. There are men in that house, but she sees the woman, She is old and sitting by the fire and she croons, “They come. They come tonight, they come, and we have been separated from them so long.”
So there is it, in the woman’s accent, the confirmation they are some type of peasants, not Americans. Or maybe they are Americans, Puritans? Colonists?
“Let us go out to see,” says one, “you do not know what you’ll find tonight.”
“In a wind like this?” says another young man. “We might as well wait till the morrow.”
“Faint heart never won fair treasure.”
The first one goes out into the hills and is nearly blown away by the tempest of grey upon dark grey and blue grey wetness of clouds and wind and revealed stone. On the edge of the sea is a ship, and now the ship, so tall, so high masted, though many of the sails have come down, drifts toward the shore, turns on its side and slowly capsizes.
“Booty!” the fellow cries. “Treasure.”

The morning is grey and the sun weak. As they pick across the sand, now they find naked and black and blinking men and women like to whom they have never seen. They are not on their sides. They are sitting in a circle on the water, heedless of the cold, and when the first man calls out to them, the younger man says, “Josiah, don’t be a fool. They don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Are they slaves?” he demands. “Was that a slave ship?”
Cupping his hands to his mouth as if this would do something, the one called Josiah cries, “Are you slaves!”
There is a sharp rap to his head. The old woman is there. She must have been there all along. She says, “Thems is not slaves. They’s people. Might have been made to slaves, but free now.”
“We could sell ‘em and make a fair price.”
“They would kill you,” says the first man to Josiah.
All the black men and woman have turned with faces like mahogany masks, smooth and imperious, but beyond their hauteur, unreadable. The white peasants approach slowly.
In the midst of them rises a woman who seems as if she might be old, though her face is dark and smooth as jet, and she bears a bundle wrapped in battered cloth.
“Madam,” the old woman says, “Is you like us. Like me?”
The black woman’s eyes narrow, but not in anger, perhaps in concentration.
“I am…” the old woman says, “of the Wise kind, best as I can be.”
“My nan claims to be a witch,” Josiah said.
“Claims to and is, and shall be the end of you and me if you keep shouting such things in times as these.”
The black woman is silent, She seems, in her nakedness, to become more and more like stone, like a goddess, less and less like a slave, less and less likely to speak, but at last she says, “Witch?”
Then she shakes the cloth from what she holds and the men gasp at a bowl of deep yellow gold, a shallow crater.
Josiah rushes forward.
“A witch and thief to boot—” he begins, touching the bowl which the woman does not pull away from him, but even as he touches it, the younger man, Elias, screams, and the old woman pulls her shawl away, but says nothing as Josiah is emersed in flames, a great hot whish of fire that passes quickly and leaves charred bones, grasping hands, a mouth sull open in a silent scream, standing for just a moment before it crumbles before the black woman.
“Yes,” the black woman says. “Witch.”
She gestures to those around her now standing. She says, of them, “Witch. Ship, it take us. Storm we make. Home we are. New home.”
“Yes,” The old woman nods, coming forward, heedless of the charred body of Josiah. “Your new home. I felt you coming. Your kind here, we felt you coming. You are home.”



When Laurie arrived he looked strange in her dorm room, and she said so.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said pleasantly.
There was something about him, too much of a grown up, too polished, too handsome in his three piece suit, too… and she felt foolish for thinking this, kind. Hadn’t he warned her? He was a vampire, and not one of those new sweet ones from the teen section of the bookstore. He took life all the time, so how could she think of him as sweet?
“It was good of you to come and get me,” Loreal said.
“Not at all. Besides, the truth is I was eager to see you again.”
Loreal smiled and hugged him with a disarming innocence.
“That means a lot. I was glad to see you, too. Especially after you skipped off like that last time. Disappearing and everything.”
Laurie shrugged.
“Well, you know, that’s what we do. Vampires.”

“So you’ve been having these dreams since you started reading the book?” Laurie said as they whizzed along the country roads under the white sky, and the pale stubble fields passed.
“Yes,” Loreal said. “But the dreams don’t seem to have anything to do with the book.”
“Okay. What’s the book about?”
“My grandmother’s life, and it turns out she’s kind of old. I mean, like really old.”
“Well, I think we knew that. I mean, Owen’s not as young as he looks.”
“No,” Loreal agreed. “And my grandfather, Augustus that is, does not look old at all. My grandmother… I guess she let herself become old. But… she’s just a lot older than I thought.”
Laurie turned from watching the road to look at Loreal was disconcerted when she realized that, unlike a normal driver, Laurie was not turning back to look at the road.
“I wish you’d stop that.”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what you learned.”
“My grandmother was the daughter of a plantation owner in the South. In South Carolina. That’s where she met my grandfather.”
“You mean like… Well, wait,” Laurie said, scowling as he kept his eyes on the road more for Loreal’s ease than his need. “Like they were alive in eighteen sixty-five.”
And then Laurie said, “You know ,that’s not so strange. I was alive in eighteen-sixty five.”
:”How old are you?”
“I was born in 1852.”
“Shit, you’re old.”
“That was almost hurtful.”
“No,” Loreal said, “It’s just… I was kind of getting a thing for you. Which is stupid cause you’ve got a girlfriend. But you’re like…. Well, you’re over a hundred fifty years old. “
“I dress young.”
Loreal shook her head.
“So the being a blood drinking monster doesn’t get you. The being old gets you? That’s ageism I hope you know.”
“Okay, stop talking,” Loreal said, “because I didn’t even get through what I was going to tell you.’
“Oh, yeah. Your grandmother.”
“Yes,” Loreal said. “Apparently she was born during the American Revolution. Grandma was three hundred years old.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow Loreal's Grandma was 300? That's cool! I am liking where this story is at the moment and I look forward to reading whatever happens next. Chris's past just gets more and more interesting. Great writing and I look forward to the next bit of this epic story.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Epic? You're making me blush. But I'll take it. More tomorrow night, and more surprises. Have a great rest of your day.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WEEKEND PORTION

“I can remember parts of it,” Lewis said. “when I am with Chris. He helps me to remember, but it is a faint memory.”
They were sitting in the great room of Susanna’s old house, and Owen nodded his head.
“What can you remember?”
“Not the time,” Lewis said. “But the place. The woods, so many woods, and to many high trees. Deep valleys and so much beauty.”
“It was beautiful,” Chris said.
“But so much evil,” Lewis added. “And I was there to watch over the cast off people. The escaped slaves in the hills. The slaves who were still in the plantations. The white people even, who were ground into the earth by the feet of the rich, placed out of their lands. And even the Indians, who had their own medicine, their own magic, came to me. I remember I was learning things back then, reshaping what we already knew. We, the Clan, the family. The Clan was old, but our family was just beginning. I had students too. Cousins.They were family. Boys, young boys. I cannot put it all compeltely together right now.”
“But you could,” Owen said.
“Huh?”
“You could,” Owen said, sitting beside Seth. “It is said among us that there are several ways for life to return to this earth or remain in this world..”
Owen did not speak at once, and in the living room there had been a coffin for several days where now there was only a coffee table. They were on their way to a funeral mass for a casket full of bones, and so it seemed almost inappropriate to speak of this.
“There is, of course, the way of the blood drinker. And then there is the way of extended life, but that ends in death and the death is generally final. Then there is the method of tethering, vows and promises made by a soul that it will return to this world in due time to finish what it began. There are other ways, but those are the chiefest, and if it’s one you chose, and chose several times, then it is not for you to blunder about only remembering vaguely what happened in the past. The old life can be unlocked to you. All of them can be.”
“That’s right,” Chris said. “You spoke of it,” he turned to Lewis. “Or at least Malachy spoke of it. It was about your implements, the things of your house. The bowl you said, and the sword.”
“Yes,” Owen said. “It is by that ritual, the ritual of the sword and the bowl that your memories can be restored.”
“What would he do for that?” Chris leaned forward, but Seth waved it off and said, “Chris?”
“What?’
“Look at him,” Seth said, pointing to Lewis.
Chris did, and before Lewis could speak, Seth said, “He may not even be sure he wants those memories restored.”
“It is a thing, you know,” Lewis said, “to suddenly be strapped with a second and maybe a third and fourth life, to go from a memory that stretches back past my short life, and then goes all the way back to who knows how long. And we would have to see the Maid, and I have not seen her for some time.”
“And there is another thing,” Owen said.
“Which is?”
“The Sword is in my possession, because I am Master of the Clan, but the moment Lewis regains his memories, becomes his whole self, is the moment I cease to be the Master and he becomes Master once again.”
“Once he—” Chris started.
“For if he was Melek, and then he was Malachy, then he is Master of the Clan, and when those memories are restored, he must be Master again. That’s something to think about.”
“Yes,” Lewis said, standing up. “Well, it’s something to think about later and not at the moment. I can’t really think about it now. We have a funeral to get to anyway. We can discuss these things later.”

And how would you feel?” Lewis said, “If I became head of the Clan and you no longer were?”
“It was meant to happen, power received from one to another, as it has always been,” Owen said. “I am still Owen and still Master. That never changes, and, at any road, it was not as if I planned to hold the office until I died. It is your time, though you don’t believe it. The real question is not how I feel, but if you think it is time to rise to your… Destiny is a inaccurate word. More honest to say… inevitability.”



Once past the old house, the road opened up to a town larger than Laurie imagined. Near the heart of it was a large brick Catholic church, and the procession which had started out small grew longer and longer, the black hearse at head of it. How strange the grey white day was with its bare trees and leaves, once red and gold, now brown and faded yellow, against the first white snow. Winter was the strangest time to him, the time of death looked upon by one who did not die. And today the church was draped in death, death of the year, death of this woman who had so apparently defied the years until she felt it was time for her to go. The church was hung with pink and purple banners, and near the altar was a wreath with four candles, one of them burning faintly. Advent had begun, and in a few days another purple candle would be lit to announce the second week. Another year was nearly wrapping up.

You shall cross the barren desert
But you shall not die of thirst
You shall wander far in safety
Though you do not know the way
You shall speak your words in foreign lands
And all will understand
You shall see the face of God and live

Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come follow me
And I will give you rest.

He had read somewhere that what motivated all humanity, and what gave people fear as well as hope and meaning and definition, was the knowledge that everyone would die. But Laurie disagreed. Some would have even said that what tinged life with sorrow was the knowledge of eventual death, but this was not true either. For Laurie, in this church, as the old mahogany coffin was marched in ahead of the rest of the procession, and lain on the catafalque before rhe altar, it was this winter time knowledge of death not coming for him, the knowledge that while death did come, while the leaves faded and the air cooled and rain turned to ice turned to snow, like a tree, he still was, he endured and these things had no effect on him. Everything one looked upon passed, and still you remained to see it come again.


Blessed are your poor
For the kingdom shall be theirs
Blessed are you that weep and mourn
For one day you shall laugh
And if wicked men insult and
Hate you all because of me…

What then was it like for the witches? Was it like this for Lewis, who seemed to have a life far different from that of a tree, a life which was much less tangible, that came in the leaf that budded and lived and reigned and fell and rotted and left this realm to return when it suited in another season entirely? And how did Chris feel, who sat right beside him, for funerals were things all drinkers avoided. Did they not love, were there not attachments, and did not everyone dear to you pass as quickly and inevitably as the metaphorical leaf or the blade of grass?
Lawrence Malone had thought himself as tradiotnalist, one who loved the Tantum Ergo. One who loved the stateliness of the ancient hyms that were the hymns of his childhood. But this vaguely folky song, and the voices of the congregation singing as they went up to take Communion, passing the casket, sometimes patting it, made him rise too.

Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come follow me
And I will give you rest.

He had found himself there, before the priest he did not entirely believed in, but could not disbelieve either, and behind that priest and over the altar, one suffering sinewed arms open, bleeding face woebegone, who had died long ago, and whose blood gave life, and who had returned from the grave, offering his renewing blood.
“Body of Christ,” the priest said, and to Laurie it seemd like a question. “Body of Christ?”
He could not really answer, but he said “Amen,” ate, and then approached the chalice.
“The Blood of Christ.”
“Amen.”


While Lewis sat on the sofa watching the mourners move about the great room, Loreal sat down beside him. She reached out her hand, and he ashed the cigarette and passed it to her. She took a puff and handed it back.
“Well, that’s a done thing and now were onto Christmas.”
“Grandpa didn’t come.”
“Are you surprised?”
“I don’t know,” Loreal said. “On one hand, nothing he does surprises me. On the other hand, it’s awfully tacky.”
“Yes,” Lewis said, taking a very long inhale and handing her back the cigarette, “It is.”
“She was three hundred years old,” Loreal said, matter of factly.
“I knew she was old,” Lewis said. “That business, though, I did not know.”
“I guess she just decided it was time to go. She could have lived forever.”
“I doubt anyone can live forever,” Lewis said. “I don’t think anyone should. I… Well, there goes that cigarette.”
He crushed out the butt and, looking across the room noted, “It was very good of Mr. Malone to bring you here.”
“Laurie is… a good friend. Isn’t it funny that you can meet someone you don’t really know and know they’re a good friend?”
“Especially if they’re a vampire.”
“Chris is a vampiure.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Lewis said, “And equally aware that that should probably be whispered and not said so loudly.”
Then Lewis said, “You know that he likes you, right?”
“Hum?”
“Don’t hum me. You know Laurie likes you. Fancies you, he would probably say.”
“I…” Loreal colored and turned her face away. “I don’t really know that at all.”
“He likes you as much as you like him.”
“Stop!” Loreal said.
“Stop what? The truth?”
“Laurie said he’s afraid of you. He said you see right through everything and when you look at him it’s like you can see through him.,”
“God forbid that I should ever actually be able to see into the depths of Laurie Malone,” Lewis said, taking out his cigarette roller. “This much I can see, that he likes you. But this only takes having eyes.”
“And anyway, aside from being what he is…”
“A Republican?”
“He’s a Republican? Oh,” she sounded disappointed. “Nevermind, you kow I wasn’t talking about that. Aside from everything, he’s got a girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend,” Lewis said, “the weakest word in the English language.”


At the department of records, Lynn was carrying a stack of envelopes that reached almost over her head. She put them down on the table, and began to look over the genealogies again. She looked out of the window. Even in the approahcing winter, the broad drive leading to the Avenue and then the Park and the lake beyond was wonderful. She thought with pride, looking through the corridor of high buildings, “I have roots here.”
It was work that brought her from California back to the middle of the country. But her mother had been from Pennsylvania. She liked it well enough, but everything in that industrial land was like a poor cousin of this great burning city of wind and light. Her grandmother always told her about this place.
“We had family back there even before the Great Fire,” Grandma had said. And even though she talked about it, and even though a very zealous cousin on her father’s side had showed her a fanned out more than long family tree of her German-Italian side, only now did she realize that all her grandmother had said was that they had lived here for a long time, that her grandmother’s mother had lived here. Even her name was gone, except that it had to have been Loughlin. No, but that was her married name. In these last few days, Lynn had learned it was Catherine, so that was something. Catherine O’Loughlin, her great-grandmother. And here, in another record, it said Catherine M. O’Loughlin of Bridgeport. She had know they came form Bridgeport. Driving around the modern neighborhood, of mixed races, three story thin houses, viaducts decorated with graffiti, she looked for the old Bridgeport of that time. Now she fingered through prints outs of photographs the kind woman had been all too excited to show her.
“Here!” the archivist called out. There were only a few people in this room and Lynn thought, “But she is much too glamourous to be an archivist, to be hidden back here.” Or maybe that’s what archivist looked like, slender and blonde, flashing eyes, golden hair tied in a bun, walking with elegant efficiency.
“Here are some things you might like,” she said, “and here is something I found that is… I think, interesting.”
Lynn invited her to sit down, and the woman did while she fingered through old reproductions of sepias full of large families, woebegone looking women, hair in great buns, Irish husbands, square shouldered, sallow cheeked, overworked. Boys in black robes and white surplices, the tallest bearing a crosier.
“Saint Patrick’s” Ordination of Father Michael Kindly, April 6th, 1871.”
And then the woman said, “But it’s this I thought you might find fascinating.”
Lynn nodded and she looked at the census record. She was used to them now, how there were many families listed on one, and the 1930 record read, “Husband, Roddy O’ Loughlin, wife Catherine M. O’Loughlin, Dorothy, daughter, Andrew, son.”
Ah, Lynn stopped. “This is my great grandmother. Dorothy was my grandmother.”
“Well, there’s more,” the blond woman said, urging her to read on.
“Paddy Malone, brother-in-law and boarder. Nessie Malone, sister in law and boarder.”
“So the M must mean Malone,” Lynn said, delightedly, “and won’t that be a thing to tell my boyfriend when he gets home from where he’s gone.”
“Not only that,” the woman said, “but because we know her maiden name and her brother and sister, it can help, as you know, with earlier records.”
“Yes,” Lynn smiled, clasping her hands togerher, “and it seems from what you’re saying, and I cannot thank you enough if this is true—I can’t really thank you enough any way—that you have found that record.”
“That record and more,” the woman said.
“Pictures! Pictures!” Lynn clapped her hands. “But first…”
She opened the familiar census record and read from the back, looking for the names, “Patrick Malone, son. Vanessa Malone, daughter, Catherine Malone, daughter, aged 1. Veronica, wife. Laurence, father, aged 30.”
“Laurence!” Lynn clapped her hands. “My great-great grandfather’s name was Laurence Malone! I wonder if his wife called him Laurie. I wonder if I could get a picture of him. I wonder if Laurie and me are… long lost relatives. Fifth cousins or something. Say, do you think if I told him he would believe any of this?” Lynn demanded, gesturing over the papers in amazement.
“There’s only one way to find out,” the archivist said, smiling. “Won’t it be something to see the look on his face?”
She stood up now, but Lynn said, “I’m so sorry, you’ve been such a help to me, and I didn’t even get your name. When I tell Laurie about this, I’ll have to let him know who helped me.”
“That would be wonderful,” the woman said. “Well, let him know my name is Evangeline. Evangeline. And this was all my pleasure.”

SEE YOU AGAIN SATURDAY NIGHT/SUNDAY!