(a short story by LOGOS)
She only glanced at me as she walked past. She was a beautiful, half Asian-half Caucasian woman wearing tailored black leather and high boots. Her mother was Thai and her father was a vampire who was once a scientist and archeologist. Her real name is long and unpronounceable to the western tongue, so as is the fashion of the Thais, she chose to go by another nick- name, Rachel. Her sloe-black eyes caught the light of the fire behind me and had an otherworldly gleam when she glanced at me, reflecting like those of a cat's.
"Out to hunt vampires?" I tried again. She looked at me this time and stared. "You seem to disapprove, Mr. Greene."
"Hunting your own kind, I simply find it...curious", I said, swirling my scotch in it's tumbler. It was her turn to adopt a disapproving expression.
"I am *not* a vampire, Mr. Green."
"Aren't dhampirs half human and half vampire?" I enquired.
"Yes, but I am not a vampire".
"Only half" I added. "You seem to be somewhat in denial."
"Does being a vampire have its appeal to you, Mr. Greene?"
"It does seem to have its advantages" I said.
"Tell me, what would you give for immortality Mr. Green?" "And not only immortality, but eternal youth and perfect health, forever." "Tell me, would you set off a nuclear bomb and murder everyone in your Los Angeles County?" "Or better yet, would you kill one third of the population of the United States?" "One hundred million men, women and children, would you do that, Mr. Greene?
"Well, I..." I started.
"Let me up the stakes." "Would you personally murder every one of those men, women and children, all one hundred million of them with your bare hands, one by one, with your victims in perfect terror as you, with the mindless frenzy of a tiger in a fight, rip out their throats with your teeth and drink their life's blood?" "Because this is what we are talking about, Mr. Greene. We are talking about monsters, mass murdering monsters, not Brad Pitt with soulful puppy-dog eyes and wet full brooding lips and recent manicure. We are not talking about characters in a homoerotic story of foppish beautiful boys that are tragic romantic figures engaged in coy flirting, we are talking about evil beings that would happily toy with a tortured dying child like a cat toys with a crippled mouse." "I am NOT a vampire, Mr. Greene", she said, visibly upset by the topic of conversation.
"I meant no offence, madam."
"No, you are merely ignorant", she hissed with great disdain, absent mindedly flashing her permanently exposed fangs to me as she downed her shot of whiskey.
There was an uncomfortable quiet tension that hung in the air. Then she started again, this time more guarded and controllably calm.
"Humans are communal animals, Mr. Greene; and as such, they have instinctive morals like compassion, fairness & justice." "These ideas only make sense in a social context and humans are rather fond of extrapolating these instincts to the entire universe and calling it religion, and as such humans tend to instinctively believe in some sort of cosmic poetic justice where the good and evil scales of justice will be balanced either today, tomorrow or even after death." "Vampires may look human, but are no more human than moths are caterpillars." "They are mutants, Mr. Greene, and they are not communal beings." "They have no morals or compassion, and they do not care about right and wrong no more than a serpent cares about right and wrong." "They're not magic as silly superstitious people dream up." "They cannot turn into a mist, or an animal, they cannot turn into bats," she said now smiling a bit. "They're not even mammals." "Hell, I don't know what they are, but I know they're sure as hell aren't human anymore."
"How do...well, how do your kind come about", I asked. She downed her second shot of Wild Turkey and turned to me. "Well, as you may or may not know, vampires are not, nor have they ever been dead." "They merely give that appearance when they go into torpor, a hibernation type state." "It's a way of conserving energy" she said. "People often mistake this for death, which makes sense since going through the change is excruciatingly painful." "It appears to be an illness rather than a metamorphosis you see, and most people do actually die from it". "Some people do manage to live without being totally transformed and become ghouls, but this is rare, even by vampire standards."
"My kind are a product of love, Mr. Greene", she said giving me a toothy smile that probably had the opposite effect than she thought it did. "Turning into a vampire is a prolonged process." "If a child is conceived from a male who is turning and that of a human female, the child may be born dead, or die soon after birth, which is usually the case." "Or the child may live, as I did." "And as if we aren't screwed up enough as it is, we go through a change at puberty." "We are born after 18 months and live our early childhood aging about one year for every two of your years." "At the change, which comes at puberty, we become much stronger, our bodies toughen and our senses heighten and our reflexes quicken." "We heal at an incredible rate and our aging process slows down to about one year to your five and a half years. I was born in 1901, Mr. Green."
"One hundred and six years old", I exclaimed. You're the sexiest centigenarian I've ever seen."
"Thank you", she replied half amused. She didn't look a day over 23, but by her explanation, she should appear about 27 years old. That's her Thai blood and genetics, I think to myself.
"But unfortunately, we also acquire the bloodlust during the change" she added. "Think of it as a necessary food supplement." "I receive my blood morally, from willing donors who understand and are sympathetic to my condition." "A high percentage of my kind dies during the change at puberty too, Mr. Greene, and then there is the other major killer of my kind, suicide."
"Suicide?" I asked half shocked.
"'Self loathing, self hatred for what we are and where we come from, and if I didn't have my donors, I would kill too Mr. Greene, and I know it as well as I know anything. I wouldn't have any choice in the matter...other than suicide", she added after a short thought and taking another drink. "When an otherwise intelligent and rational person effectively becomes a murderous animal approximately every fortnight, it can be a bit disconcerting to say the least, Mr. Greene." "That is one of the differences between my kind and vampires." "I have a soul."
"A soul?", I ask.
"Not literally", she said, "I'm an atheist". "What I mean is that I share human morals, the human spirit". "You might say that I have an instinctive knowledge of good and evil." "Vampires don't."
"Speaking of religion, what about religious artifacts, symbols and the like?" "What effect do they have?" I asked.
"They possess only the meaning we assign to them", she, said, "Superstitious people make superstitious vampires."
"So, you're not repulsed by a crucifix?"
"Yes, I find it repulsive, but only because it's a depiction of a torture device with an innocent person being sacrificed on it, which is exploited by another type of vampire; the metaphorical Christian vampire." "These are the proverbial wolves in lambs clothing Mr. Greene." "These are the people that will tell you that some God punshing children in the bible's Ezekiel 5 by starving them until they eat their own parents is so called justice rather than evil, even when this God chracter describes his own actions as evil." The same goes for Jeremiah 19, but this is a whole other story." "Corrupt fruit doesn't fall far from the corrupt tree."
"But surely you don't hate all Christians" I offered."
"No, of course not, I value people and human life-and death." "That's the whole point, Mr. Greene.
"Pardon me, death?" I asked. "You value death as well as life?" "Isn't death the opposite of life, Ms...er?"
"Rachel", she volunteered.
"And no, death is not the opposite of life. Death *IS* life, Mr. Greene." "It's the last and necessary stage of life, and as the philosopher Heidegger wrote in 'Being and Time', life has no existential meaning without death." "Part of our love of a rose is because we know that its beauty is only temporary, delicate and short lived & it will soon be lost to us forever." "It's death that makes life precious and valuable, Mr. Greene." "Without it, life is simply a meaningless series of events leading nowhere." "And since 'nowhere' is immortality's destination, it's as if there is no destination or purpose at all, just meaningless motion." "This is one reason vampires identify with the phrase 'the undead', even if they know they never died." "In many ways, we can say that to live is to grow and change and where we are talking about a single individual; that which grows and changes will die." "Vampires don't live as such Mr. Greene, and they will not naturally die." "Even when they first turn they feel an immediate disconnect with the world." "They are not simply out of touch with humans, but the whole universe." "They are not actually dead, but in many ways they are not alive either."
She sets her shot glass on the bar and gathers her things again. "It'll be a long day tomorrow, Mr. Greene." "I suggest you get your rest." "Tomorrow, during the day you mean Rachel?" I ask, trying the name on for size.
"Yes, I'm a day walker", I can sleep or move about day or night." "I have no preference." "It's one of my advantages over the undead" She said as she made her way accross the large study and toward the large wooden door.
"Gorgeous and charming" I think to myself.
"Thank you for those kind thoughts, Mr. Greene", Rachel called back to me without looking back. The door closed behind her leaving me with my scotch alone in the study to ponder my thoughts.
Story by LOGOS