Vampye: Hunting The Moon.

Just finishing writing my 'Vampyre: Hunting The Moon' novella. It describes the lives and deaths of several vapyres, their daily struggles and century spanning romances. It explores morality and death, amorality and reincarnation.

Don't wish to give the plot away, but have included a small sample below, from a flash back to the early twentieth century, during the later half of the story. In this extract, Charlotte is introducing Victoria to type of life which she was born for. This gives a the reader a fair ideas of the type of Vampyres which the story is about (no supernatural silliness, these vampyres are psychotic chaps who happen to like blood rather more than they like day light), and the sort of debauchery they get up...  

 “There were initiation rites, most of which you would find immoral and horrific, but which were mostly very enjoyable. I became a Godi, a Priestess of Freya, but I became something more. My teacher knew it, she said that nothing of the like had happened since her grandmother’s time, and she accepted my authority. The blood lust fell upon me, as did the night love, and the sure and curtain knowledge that I would never truly die until the Ragnarok, and that even after that, I would rise again.

            “I became what I am now. I believed that The Lady had made me that way, so that I could slay Her enemies, and so that I would always remember and honour Her. I have died many times since then, but I have not forgotten Her, I have not changed. I am what you are- a Vampyre.”

            “A vampire? You are telling me that we are vampires?”

            Charlotte stubbed out the end of her cigarette and finished drinking her mead.

            “Yes. We are the Daughters of The Night. The creatures which men call vampires.”

            “I find that hard to believe.”

            “I am sure that you do, but you find it harder to ignore. You are beginning to remember.”

            “Yes…”

            “Come with me, Miss Victoria,” Charlotte stood and took her hand, “I shall show you something beautiful.”

            They steeped out of Lady Charlotte’s chauffeur driven Rolls Royce into a dingy street of narrow building in the East End of London. The night was dark, and the smog thick.

            “Meet us back here in two hours, please,” Charlotte told her chauffeur.

            “Yes m’lady.”

             Charlotte led Victoria along the street, then down a cobbled ally between dilapidated buildings until they reached a door with peeling red paint.

            Charlotte knocked on the door three times sharply, paused, then two more times.

            They waited for a few moments.

“Who is it?” a girl’s voice asked from behind the door.

“Charlotte.”

They heard a bolt slide and a key turn, then the door opened.

A tall, slender young lady stood in the door way. Her large green eyes were unusually bright, and her red hair hung below her tiny waist. She wore a gentleman’s smoking jacket as though it were a dressing gown, and had no shoes on her stockinged feet. She looked inquisitively at Charlotte, then Victoria, then back to Charlotte.

“The usual, Charlotte?” the girl asked.

“No thank you, Violet, my friend shill be wanting something special tonight.”

“Come this way,” the girl said.

Victoria followed them up steep narrow stairs with a thread bare carpet. The rational part of her mind told her that the situation was very odd, the girl was clearly of the lowest classes and that Charlotte was being very silly in taking her to this horrible place. Yet some animal instinct, some mad hunger, drove her on. She found herself in a small, dim room with a low ceiling, a hookah pipe stood in one corner and the rest of the room was furnished entirely with an assortment of rugs and cushions.

The girl, who looked to be the same age as Victoria, reclined by the pipe, and Charlotte sat at the other end of the room on a pile of cushions. Victoria sat beside Charlotte, her back against the wall.

The girl undid her smoking jacket to reveile corset, briefs, stockings and a great deal of white flesh. Victoria could not help noticing how long and pale the girl’s neck was. Taking a candle, the girl lit the hookah, and puffed on it, filing the room with sweet smoke. She then offered the pipe to Charlotte, who inhaled deeply from it and offered it to Victoria, who declined.

“What’s it to be?” the girl asked sleepily.

“My friend has not done this before, I shall let her go first,” Charlotte said.

The girl looked at Victoria and smiled sweetly, then beckoned her over with her little finger.

Victoria had no idea what was expected of her, but a dreadful yearning was building inside her.

“Go…” Charlotte said, softly but firmly.

Victoria did not respond, the girl took her other hand and placed it on her thigh, leaving Victoria’s hand on her thigh; she then held Victoria’s head gently and faced it towards her. Victoria looked at the beautiful face inches from her own, smiling at her and gazing with emerald eyes into her own. She closed her eyes, and a moment later she felt soft lips on her own, and then a delicate tongue slide into her mouth.

Instinct took command of reason.

Charlotte lit a cigarette and watched as they kissed and ran slender hands over each others bodies.

Victoria’s lips found the girl’s neck. The skin was unbelievably smooth and the taste and sent irresistibly sweet.

The girl lay back, so that Victoria lay on top of her. Victoria held one of the girl’s hands in each of her own.

Then she bit.

The girl screamed as Victoria bit deep into her neck, fastening her jaws around her jugular. Then the scream turned to a sickly gargling and chocking as Victoria ripped her throat out. Still holding her hands, Victoria began to drink from her bleeding neck.

Vampyres

Vampyre Eyes.

Stare defiantly at the day,

Look wistfully at the night,

And curse The Hand of God,

Which shows Itself in light,

Sit comfortably on the tomb,

Dreaming of long gone days,

Of endless, endless nights

Spent in hellish ways,

See beauty in a slender neck,

And lust for joy in blood,

Taste the grave in every bite,

Which would steal you if it could.

Wrote this poem last week, whilst writing my novel 'Vampyre: Hunting The Moon.' Have decided to make that more of a novella than a novel, think a dramatic ending would be better than dragging the thing out. Ought to have it finished in a few weeks, then shall put some highlights on this blog whilst trying to get it published.

Have found it odd how popular the subject of the undead blood drinkers has become in the last year or so, what with all those books and films and television programs. Vampyres have always had a part in folklore, but they really seem to be quite the thing at present.

Partly this is because they are real, and people are aware of, and fascinated by, it to one extent or another. Not necessarily the stake dodging, bat transformers; but the 'blood sucking' bosses and landlords and the people who are just rather keen on biting a bit of neck and drinking a little blood (and those are quite common).

But the Vampyre also represents something. In the Jungian framework, the Vampyre is The Shadow; the part of ourselves which we repress because it is not socially acceptable. But 'tis more than that, because the Ego hates The Shadow, but we adore the vampyre. The vampyre appeals to us because of its wildness, 'tis darkness and freedom.

The vampyre is a predator, whilst we are conditioned to be herd animals.
The vampyre appeals to our desire to be wild, and beyond that it is forever young and it lives for ever more. It satisfies our desires, and our subconscious knowledge that our souls too shall live forever.

Image by Victoria Frances, a girl who knows how to paint girls.