Nights on the Soul©

She was the Lady Arabelle Nadina, at 13 years old, the most sought after young noblewoman in all of France. Her father, Earl Nadina, was forever in the sickbed at their estate Boutoux Cheville, and her mother, the Countess, was forever at his side offering care. The nubile Lady Arabelle was left often unattended, for she easily escaped the English governess, Miss Hanberry. Arabelle would dress in her stash of stableboys clothes, cover her long red hair under a sturdy leather cap and gallop off to town atop her favorite steed, Brute. Boutoux Cheville was built not fifty feet hence from the north eastern French coast looking on to the English Channel. Callais was a major docking area of trade between England and France and the city was always bustling with activity from the boats and their crewmen, the merchants and their wares, the brothels with those women. Arabelle loved the excitement of street fights and steady ambitious flow of down to earth working class men. Mama and Papa provided a useless string of court jesters for her short term amusement. Arabelle was not impressed. The likelihood of her being betrothed to one of the horrid aristocrats her parents kept company with was unacceptable. Yet the time for her to be engaged was fast approaching and so Arabelle took to the city on her horse with increasing regularity. Surely if Pere were truly sick and dying, the famille would want her married of at no delay to be producing heirs for the Nadina fortune.

“One evening I rode into the city,” said Deen. She was telling about the night she met Brian. I loved to hear the stories of their romance. “I was especially longing to be away from home, for my Papa was hacking and coughing ferociously. Oh, it was pain to my ears to hear my father dying away like that. But I was a child of spirit and somehow I knew that I was not going to die sick and old and tired. until about the age of 25 it seems everyone believes in their own immortality. Then after the excitement of adolescence that old death hormone kicks in and starts sucking life away. Well, there I was, 13 and full of life. I tethered my horse outside my favorite gambling establishment and set myself up in a game of cards. There were plenty of reckless youths out losing money so I was welcome in the game. I was generally pretty lucky being a fair hand at cards, but this evening I was losing bad. I’d only brought a few francs in my purse and I was heading into debt. Then a handsome shiphand I’d never seen before stepped up to the table and sat behind me during the game. He gave discreet but winning tips and we walked away with a bundle. I offered to buy him a drink, but he already had his own flask. We walked off down to the shore where his ship was docked. He was a merchant marine for the French government, by the name of Martyn Brianche. He was working the ship to travel and see the world, and had sailed for six years. He had been to America, to Africa and all of the Russia. But France was his home and for several months out of the year he wandered the country in search of…” Deenie stopped at this point and started to giggle uncontrollably. She loved to tell this story, “ME!”

“Oh, Deen,” I said, “how did he know it was you if you were dressed as a stable boy!?”

“Well, he didn’t know, at first. He was just drawn to me, as intuition, as a friend. You see, he had already come to his realization and figured there must be others who felt and lived as he. He’d already said goodbye to his family, as one must do. They would be frightened by the change and then never growing old. So, Martyn, who ended mortal life at 19, was searching for his mate. When he realized his true life course and had communion with God, he prayed for direction and knowledge. Martyn needs some friends, you see and off comes my poorboy hat and down flows my long hair and Martyn, he was so funny, looking at me all dumbstruck silly and he just starts laughing and falling to the ground and rolling around laughing so hard it’s like he’s having convulsions.

Then he jumped up and kissed me straight on the lips and hugged me and kissed me again. He was pulling at my hair and fanning it out arms length and saying ‘I knew it! I knew it!’ Well, I was just sort of standing there not exactly sure what he was doing, but feeling happy and pleased just the same. He asked me how old I was and I told him, 13. He rolled his eyes and swore. He told me we’d have to wait several years. Six as it turned out. He wanted me to be fully physically ready and at 19 he bled me.

I ran away from my home, my family and my fortune for him. We took on names from part of our surnames, Deen from Nadina and Brian from Brianche. He got me on board his ship sailing towards America. It turned out he was the Captain’s mate and had very little to do but give orders. I came on as his steward with my stable boys’ clothing, hair cut very short and the few jewels determined mine at that young age sewn into a carpet bag. I actually have some very nice pieces but they’re so bombastic and we like living low. When we play dress up, it’s fun to put them on, but it’s just like pretend. We prefer to live the grunge life of second hand clothing, most of my clothes are so old, I’ve had them for so many years as my own everyone just thinks they’re vintage.”

Deen would tell of their beginning life in America. Of the studies she undertook with Brian to understand the all in everything. They would go to the Library of Congress, when it was built, in the great city of Washington to read all day for weeks at a time the passages of The Bible, the histories of the Jews and various Western religious texts. Brian had a stash of money that never seemed to run short and so they set up home on the downtown streets of Baltimore. Over the years they took long trips overseas to collect texts of The Quran, the Tao the Ching, the writings of Confucius and the story of Buddhism. “We went to Germany and England to purchase forbidden testimonies on witchcraft and Albert Magnus’s ‘The Book of Secrets.’ These histories were wonderful and provided many hours of amusement, but mostly we liked to discuss the meanings of God and life and death. We thought of man’s relation to God as a separate being, when truly we are all his children and He is as much a part of us as we are of Him. We liked to attend the different churches, mosques and temples. I especially enjoyed hearing services in languages other than my native French and English. I adore the Roman Catholic mass in Latin! It’s a shame the church has become so modern.”

Deen would talk on and on, and Brian and I hardly had to speak. She would bite into her own wrist then gently hold it to my mouth so I could suckle with ease. Her blood was sweet and delicious and rich as the chocolate she so steadily devoured.

When I drank from her and then she from me I hardly needed to hear the words she spoke, for I gained knowledge and emotion from the transference of her fluids.

After I drank from Deen, my blood mother, she would go to Brian and he would kiss her and lick her wounds and tickle her ear with light mumblings of deepest love.

I would lay in a stupor, as a sodden drunkard, feeling the blood flow through my veins. I would listen to my own heart beat and concentrate on slowing its’ rhythm. I conjured up an image of Dave, though his face was never completely gone from my eyes. I would focus with intensity my will to contact him, I became open to many spirits wandering as lost souls.

Brian and Deen were cutting their arms with razor blades and letting the blood drop onto the white sheets covering their Salvation Army couches. They would paint pretty little designs. Sometimes, for a laugh, they would see who could bleed the most. They both bled a hell of a lot so the competition often turned into a big mess and we’d have to go buy more sheets. Fun and games in immortality.

I was full with the hot fever of Deenie’s blood rushing swift and strong inside me. I went to lie beneath the open window, a fair stream of moonlight filtering inside. The tunes of Current 93 were on the tape player. Some cats were playing on the roof, mewing and swatting their paws.

I closed my eyes and felt the pressure of Dave’s body beside mine. I turned to my side so I could put my arm around him. I whispered words of love and devotion and acceptance of his ways.

“I’m not afraid, Dave. I know now. It’s not bad. It’s not even scary or hard. I love the blood. Deen is so sweet. I want you. I want you so bad I can hardly function without you. I love your sweet old soul, your body, your life. Come to me, Dave. Be mine, forever.”

My eyes fluttered up into my head as I felt the vestiges of sleep swallowing my consciousness. I heard my name called and slowly, lazily opened my eyes. He stood there, a transparent figure and I knew it was only his astral projection and not his true self that stood in the doorway to the cubby room. He was wearing jeans, black converse and a red sweatshirt with a hood. He looked so young and innocent. And unsure. It was as if all his confidence had regressed him to a teenage state of awkwardness. He looked at me with sad eyes and called my name.

“Miranda.”

“Oh, Dave, it’s you! Come to me, now! I cannot live without you. You are my life. You are my soul mate!”

“Miranda,” he said again, in a whisper, faint and weak. He smiled sadly and blew me a kiss as his ghostly form faded away as smoke on a breeze.

“Brian! Deenie!” I cried out. I was badly shaken from this unexpected visit cut so short.

“He was here! Calling my name! Oh my God! Why does he leave me so alone!?” I started to cry violently. Sobs from deep within my pain, held in check, racked my body so I was doubled over and then I fell to the floor as Brian and Deen came to me. Deen rubbed her hand over my short hair, cooing words of comfort. I wrapped my arms tight around Brian’s chest and cried within his embrace.

I explained that I’d seen Dave’s apparition and how he’d looked so sad. Why didn’t he truly come?

“Well, Mira,” said Brian, “it shows that he was trying to be with you. You’re in his thought processes, at least. Perhaps your initial fear of him sent him … there.” He looked up through the roof. “He’s gotten in touch with his higher consciousness and gone to his light form. There must be some will of his that will bring him back down. As I’ve said before, Dave could disappear for generations. But he will be back, I can assure you. He is hurt. We can still be hurt, you know. He needs to think about things. Sometimes, I’m sure we think too much. When that’s all we’ve got to do with our time. Mira, he is thinking of you. And he knows where you are.”

“But, Brian, my God! I’m so sorry I hurt him. I didn’t believe in him! I thought he was going to kill me!”

“Well, didn’t he sort of?” asked Deenie. “Maybe he thinks you’re mad at him. Or maybe he’s mad at you because you didn’t want his gift. After centuries of waiting for you to evolve enough for him to tell you the truth of your existence, well, you rejected it. Just because he’s lived, this long and has great amounts of patience doesn’t mean he can’t feel petty emotions or hold a grudge.”

“But Deenie! Now I know! I am a God damned fully fledged vampire. I suck people’s blood, for Christ’s sake. And I don’t particularly like killing a perfect stranger, just so I can be strong. If all I need is my other half than I want him. God Dammit, I want him anyway! You and Brian are being great and I will love you forever. God, it’s such a long time. I need Dave. I swear I’m going to die without him.”

“You know, Mira, it’s not like you can just kill yourself, now. Light doesn’t do it, like in the myths. Nor crosses, or holy water or a bloody stake through the heart. You’re not fully-fledged until you’ve reached the stage that we are at, nothing can kill you but each other. We no longer hunt for blood, so we are not a threat to anyone and our entire habitation goes unnoticed.”

“You guys, I don’t know if I can take this. I don’t understand who I am! What I am! Sometimes it totally freaks me out to realize the nature of my existence.”

“Mira, that’s basically what this life process is for, to truly realize the nature of your existence. It all comes down to the realization. You can’t really explain it to others, or they’d think you were crazy. I can only help you along, but you yourself must come to your own realization. And it is only true for you, but it basically means the same thing for everyone. Embrace the glorious being that you are, discard all the trappings of society and its’ judgment and you are halfway there.”

“Brian, you sound so much like Dave it scares me.”

“We are in the same brotherhood. I understand his mind. I understand.”

“Brian, do you feel guilty, even just a little, for all the people you killed?”

“Well, that was a long time ago. But, no I do not. I didn’t kill their souls, nobody can do that, I simply ended their present physical carnation. I gave them the chance to come back as something better. I sustained myself until I no longer needed the blood and now I am able to put questions out into the universe. I am able to guide novice scholars such as yourself. Having joined with my female counterpart, we are two distinct souls enmeshed forever as one, and that makes us stronger. We are the servants of God on this Earth plane. It is Deen and myself, Dave and his long lost soul mate, you, Miranda, our friends and siblings Jeremy and Irene, Harold and Maude, Christian and Gisella, dear lovers all. Oh, the ones whom you will one day meet. Mira do not worry for Dave today. It is only for you to gain strength and grounding. Become separate from the world, yet stick to it like honey. Feed yourself with the natural harvest of this planets’ produce, but give her offerings of seed, flesh and prayers. What will be done, will be done by the masses of this current race. The world’s population could easily annihilate itself and it would be a glorious burst of light and power to behold. Have no fear that Mother Earth could not recover. And there would be those who yet still roam her paths of sea and sky and crust. Deen and I could ascend to Heaven as the population happily destroys itself, yet we have Heaven on Earth for ourselves now. We prefer to be in the bodily form to experience the senses. Especially of each other. It is a beautiful thing you have become Miranda. The word vampire is a frozen label placed upon the newly realized masters whose need for life is so strong they must duly have it, the blood. That period is short lived and one fades into a shadow, only to be recognized by persons already in a higher consciousness. It is true I have killed and Deen has killed and Dave has killed. It is true that until my wife gave you our blood, you had yet a strong need for the sustenance. This business of death is so small in the midst of eternal life. It takes many incarnations to be ready for that everlasting blessing.”

“Brian, Deen,” I said my parents names quietly, with tears rolling down my cheeks. “I need some time. I’m going back to my house for a little while. I need to think alone. You know, I hate more than anything to be alone, but right now, the solitude of my own being needs to be addressed. I love you two so much, God help me I cannot live without Dave. God dammit why doesn’t he come?” I was sobbing as I left their tiny apartment. The walls of the cubby room had become my cocoon as I drank the blood of Deen and once of Brian. My senses had become acutely sharpened. I was in tune with all the sights and sounds of the universe. I was on a course with the winds and my breath rose and fell in deep inhalations as with the dawn and twilight. I did not sleep often, I feared dreaming about Dave as much as I feared not dreaming of him.

I walked the short distance from Woodlawn Cemetery where I had stopped to gaze upon the white marble forms of Dr. and Mrs. Hamilton, to my house on Emily Street in no time at all. I had long since given up any sort of time measurement, and though it seemed like only minutes before I was home, it could have in actuality taken hours. Alas, I stood in front of the picket fence innocently enclosing my overgrown yard of weeds.

I climbed in the side window, I still had no key for the front lock. I went through the kitchen to get to the spiral staircase that led to the back of the upstairs. I lay down upon the mattress haphazardly strewn across the floor. It was covered with several white sheets, one of which I wrapped around myself as I let my mind wander, emptying it of pinpoints of direction, opening to reception.

Dave.

***