Bedsit Banquets of the lost and lonely

There is an illness that drugs cannot cure, it is the oldest disease there is and it has been with mankind from his earliest conscious beginnings. It is called loneliness, in unusual cases it can be with us from an early age and no matter how hard we try it is a hole in a person’s soul that can rarely be filled. Or which is more common, a negative set of circumstances in life dictate how people can contract this malady. The latter form is curable but it is completely down to the individual afflicted however it can require an equally unique set of circumstances to concoct the right cure, this can then be taken only if the patient or patients concerned are brave enough or desperate enough to hold their noses and swallow. That is the trick about loneliness, as it is such a unique disease to human nature it is only the best of human nature that can help cure it but in every case the person afflicted can remember the exact set of circumstances or indeed the moment in life when they knew they had it.

The eight year old boy sitting in his class at school surrounded by twenty other students, the chats and banter of his classmates he looks around and sees then even age eight the social groups and clicks of society being formed, knowing he will always be the outsider he decides he would rather be alone. Raises his hand for the teacher’s attention and informs the class that his parents were going away and that he was required home early to mind his brothers and sisters. They believed him and when he gets home he informs his mother and father that there was a gas leak at school and everyone was sent home early. Goes to his room opens a book and embraces this parasitic creature loneliness that is now his best companion. In many childhood cases it happens a lot less bluntly, it creeps in under the guise of their imagination, loneliness visits and they see it but as children do they visualise it in a different way in a positive way but it’s then that it takes hold and only as adults when that moment of crisis arrives that memory floods back and loneliness gets it’s chance to come knocking. A child in the back seat of their parent’s car on a journey by night, they don’t understand the conversation taking place in the front but they know they don’t like it. Looking out through the window they see the moon full and bright, it’s winter time he his clear and the craters form a face, they see him smiling down at them and he then becomes a friend, always watching over them on all their journeys by night . It’s only years later in that moment of crisis they find themselves standing outside alone and hurt at night and looking up they remember their friend the moon. Moments like that can go either way, they can truly see the moon as their pal and feel strength in their soul or it can be the straw that breaks the camels back.

They are the circumstances of this diseases onset but let me tell you a story of how if we are brave enough as people even the most lonely of us can find a cure and the strange thing is about this cure it can readily be found in others who are afflicted with the same condition. However there needs to be a common denominator, to be lonely isn’t enough, another common interest other than that must be there. Let me tell you a story about three such lonely people and their common denominator, food. Had they never of had this not only would they have remained tragically lonely but the world would have been a far emptier place. But firstly these three people love food, no they are passionate about it, cooking it, its flavours, textures, ingredients etc. They are not well off in fact they have very little to live on and instead of having TV dinners or eating takeout seven nights a week, they eat cracker bread, cereal and rice. Then every Saturday with the money they have saved they cook all day a banquet for themselves.

The entire week is one big reconnaissance mission, for example by Monday they would decide what they were going to cook for the following Saturday, then where to get the best ingredients, what’s in season?

“Monday, I passed Mohammed’s today, he has got lovely fresh figs in stock, they will be lovely and overripe by Saturday but I will wait until Thursday to get them as he reduces the price once they’re a day or two old”. These are the type of people who go to bed on Saturday night without washing their teeth as they want to spend Sunday with the papers or a book savouring the flavours of yesterday’s feast.

Our three heroes and their love of food pulled them from their loneliness and isolation towards each other and in finding themselves that way they revealed a wonderful discovery to the world which would never of happened had they not embraced the cure which was their unique set of circumstances. As of this point in our story they don’t know each other and they have never met or spoken. They have seen each other around especially in ‘Constantinoples’, the gourmet food hall in town. They have over a period of time observed and watched each other with the wicker shopping baskets ‘Constantinoples’ use, recognising the other for what they are… artisans of food.

No list so they are buying for themselves, feeling and checking all the produce before they select. Asking the right questions at the meat and cheese counter, it must mean they are cooking from scratch. Each character unknown to themselves secretly looking forward to seeing the other, wondering what they might select, guessing what the other might be cooking, each one secretly silently starving.

Firstly there’s Roger, Roger is a Mathematician, a very good one, in fact Roger has twigged something that no one else has spotted before. Walking around the City he has mathematically worked out a theory that everything can be measured by sound. Measured, planned, mapped, weighed, organised, designed, and built by measuring everything with advanced sound waves. Roger has one problem, Roger is rubbish with people, really bad with people. He also has a touch of OCD which probably helped developed his theory, but awful with people. So bad that although he graduated top of his class he couldn’t get a job as he bombed at every interview. Now he works in a fast food outlet at night on his own prepping and cleaning. He is so bad with people that he rents a bedsit, a rather large posh one that he can hardly afford because he couldn’t possible live with someone else. This means he has little money left for sundries. So every Saturday he has a banquet. Roger has one other talent, an amazing one, he is a fantastic French cuisine chef. He doesn’t know this because he has obviously never cooked for anyone else so that they might tell him. He is completely self thought and unknown to himself he simply gets better and better.

Our second hero is Isabelle, Isabelle is a cellist, a very good one bordering on brilliant. She doesn’t come from an established music background so it was amazing that she got an audition with one of the best orchestras in the world. Isabelle was told she would have to perform this one piece at the audition. She practiced and practiced until she knew she would amaze. Five minutes in two of her strings broke and that was it, don’t call us we’ll call you. It wasn’t her fault there was nothing different she could have done, in fact it happened on a production line in China where the strings were made, the machine was set at the wrong level and faulty batches were sent out. It was just bad luck!

The cello sits in the corner of her bedsit with the two broken strings still in place, she hasn’t played since, this was everything, her life’s only ambition. Isabelle fell into a terrible state of depression, her boyfriend left her, he couldn’t take it at how angry she had become at loosing her chance.

He was a sculptor, in fact she had once got him to build her a cello out of scrap metal that she had designed for the fun of it, but it made a funny noise and he was gone now and money was running low as she had lost her last music teaching job due to the fact that you can only teach so much without playing yourself, someone’s going to notice.

Isabelle has one other skill, she is an amazing pastry chef, quite brilliant and a great cook to boot, but it’s the pastry she loves. She makes it to music not music played on a CD but the piece she practiced for her audition she plays it perfectly in her heart and head and moves her hands to make beautiful pastry. Then the flavours of her cooking make music with your tongue some people knew this and remember but no one gets to enjoy it anymore. She bakes cooks and dines alone.

Our third hero is Ciara, Ciara is an Archaeologist, well, she was until about six months ago. Ciara was always a little shy and found it difficult to explain herself. Which was really strange as Ciara was, is, exceptional at languages, the ancient written kind. Glyphs and symbols would just jump out from whatever she looked at, Ciara could really read it but she doubted herself.

Then on a dig in Jordan, six months ago she found a piece of text by an ancient Egyptian engineer called “Lakhar”. He spoke of a device he was waiting on from Egypt that would help him build the temple he was working on. It was the one they used to build and design the Pyramids. A method they used a device that used sound. The others on the dig had overlooked its significance, even Mike the Project manager, the man she was in love with, (he didn’t know that) but earlier that day he had asked if he might have a private word with her.

Ciara had jumped at the chance and had suggested he call round later to hers, back at the base that night. She had collected some amazing food with what little time and money she had during the week. Ciara had told him it was the night to treat herself and cook. She loved the food and style of cooking in the Middle East and unknown to her, Ciara had become an amazing cook.

Now tonight in private she would have a chance to talk to Mike and with what she had discovered finally impress him.

Unseen by the others she took some carbon paper and made a copy of the writing to show later. Mike did call by, he wasn’t hungry but he reluctantly took a glass of wine. “Look”, he said, “its just not working out, you don’t seem to have a feel for the work and your certainly not a team player, I am sorry Ciara, but I will have to let you go”.

Ciara never said anything about what she found, she kept it folded up and locked away in a small wooden box along with her love. When she got home she had managed to get a job as a low level Library Technician. The pay was ok but with her college debts it was tough except for Saturday’s when she cooked, she loved the smells. Ciara would close her eyes and be back in the desert with Mike, eating all alone.

All three meet one day, they have too, they couldn’t go on. Life can’t exist without interaction. Each of them breaking oaths silently sworn, coffee first then again by chance the following week and a conversation on food and then finally why not cook a banquet.

Then over time lots of patient forgiving caring time over food and friendship Roger talks about the only thing he really can talk about, a theory he has. He explains it as best he can and Isabelle helps because it really is just acoustics. In fact Isabelle says she might even have a funny type of cello that she had made once that could help him explain his theory better and she could help.

Then Ciara takes a fork full of food, a nose full of smells, closes her eyes, swallows deep says goodbye to undeserved love and to the sand and says with a smile “hey Roger, Isabelle let me tell you about something I once read by a man called ‘Lakhar’”. So she did and the three of them together through food and their desire to cure themselves of this malady this disease called loneliness, made a great discovery in sound waves and revealed hidden secrets about the ancient world. Roger found the confidence with the help of his friends to prove his theory to the world and in doing so Isabelle finally got to perform an amazing piece of music to the scientific community of the world. Even if it was on a funny shapely made Cello, it didn’t matter she played again and smiled. And Ciara could tell them they were right as it had been done before, with her transcript of Lakhar’s writing she filled in the blanks to Roger’s theory and helped explain to Isabelle how the music was to be played for the strange cello to work. Then after months of hard work and a bit of luck they returned to the desert, the three of them and as the world watched by television and in front of hundreds of scientists and diplomats at the Pyramids of Egypt they illuminated the night sky with blue sound waves and showed that there had been other many other older Pyramids.

That night in a large tent our three heroes smiled together and cooking a banquet to celebrate they shared it with some new friends they had made on their journey to success together. Some of these new friends were very grateful for the invite to share in this food as they were quite lonely in their lives at that time….. but not for long.

—The End—

Below is the final installment of Gods Vampire I hope you like it…

Gods Vampire – Part 5

Part 5 

The Drums of War

Christmas Eve in Dublin, Ireland it was snowing heavily, it had been for almost a month now and the city and most of the country had ground to a halt. Brabazon Wade stands outside a window of the cities general post office looking at himself in the glass. Not his reflection but an image of himself through the glass, the fifteen foot bronze statute of the Celtic legend Cuchullain that sits in Dublin’s general post office, who lived over two thousand years ago, the man he once was before he became a vampire.

He is waiting on Levi, he is arriving back from that little job on NantucketIsland on a ship coming into Dublin’s docks with news of the woman Claire. As he stands in the snow stricken quiet city, he focuses on the statue, the image of him strapped to the stone with the raven on his shoulder. He closes his eyes and he can see and hear it even now, two thousand years later, the cries of men the clash of steel, the drums of war and the beat of wings as the raven lands on his shoulder.

He was born a boy named Setanta over two thousand years ago in that land that is Ireland and the ancient plains of Louth were his playground. Then as a man he became know as and was the feared Celtic warrior chieftain called Cuchullain. The Roman Empire feared his name and those like him who lived at that time, the Empires eagle standard never flew over them. He died as he lived, battling an Irishman’s worst enemy, his own people, and for him that was it, that should have been it, and to many who know the history of Cuchullain that was it. It wasn’t, yes he died physically as Cuchullain but he was reborn and in time he found a new name, Brabazon Wade. Deceived before that great battle and feeling his life force draining from him, taken by the last of three magical spears, Cuchullain lashed himself to a rock with the harness from his crushed chariot and with what strength he had left slaughtered the last fools to approach him.

Physically his life was spent but the fire and magic that had burned inside him all his life was like a furnace still, he was enraged, he had been tricked and betrayed. Through blurred vision and with sword gripped tightly in his hand he waited for them to come and then he felt it, the beat of wings at his head, then large claws resting on his shoulder. It was Corbalus the shape shifter, Corbalus the druid, disguised as a raven. ‘Cuchullain, warrior’, he cawed in his ear, ‘it has ended you are done, but we need you, this world still needs you. Help us keep the balance, fight for a true cause, give your soul to us and we will give you life eternal’ said Corbalus’s silver tongue.

Of course he accepted, still in death he was greedy for life and so as he took his last breath Corbalus stabbed his skull with his raven’s beak and devoured his eyes, after all they are the windows to the soul.

He was in the Druid now, he could feel himself being carried high above the battlefield his enemy Lughaid brave enough now that he was dead stepped forward and cleaved his head from his lifeless body. Lughaid turned and faced his army holding the severed head high for them to cheer, then Corbalus flew them low over the scene and he could hear him speaking within, ‘a parting gift’ he said. He watched as his sword arm swung from his headless body and severed Lughaid’s hand off, never turn your back on an enemy you bastard he mused to himself. Filled with rage and fear Lughaid’s army tore Cuchullain’s body to pieces after that, it mattered not to him his spirit still lived and Corbalus flew them high again over the land that he had died for.

They had flown far and it was approaching night when suddenly Corbalus dived for the earth, to feel the air rush past him and through him was a feeling greater than any battle won, and standing in the cold snow of the city Brabazon could remember it even now. He thought Corbalus had changed his mind and had decided to smash them both on the land below, but he turned upward at the final moment. Flying low to the ground they were heading towards a high grassy mound with an outcrop of stone boulders. He recognised it now not a loose pile of stone but a camouflaged entrance. Through the narrow tomb entrance Corbalus flew, through a long constricted tunnel, until suddenly they came into a chamber of light.

It was a low circular stone chamber; in the centre was a large stone basin of smouldering ash and bone. Standing in a circle were seven other druids all holding burning torches giving light to the chamber. With Corbalus they were the Eight, the leaders of their society, some old, some young but all revered.

Corbalus still in his ravens form landed on the basin of stone and Brabazon could feel himself leave the Raven, and he did as the Raven regurgitated his eyes into a pile of warm ash. He could see them all now, being alive within his eyes, as if he were lying there watching them as a man whole. Corbalus lifted from the stone basin beat his wings and was suddenly standing there within the folds of his long dark cloak.

He stepped back to the others taking a torch from the nearest and nodding towards them with the signal to begin! Bending to the stone floor each Druid took charcoal from their pockets and they wrote a strange set of symbols on the floor as if some code each set different from the others, each individual to the Druid who wrote it. Standing back up there was a clap and all eight torches blew out. Brabazons eyes the vessels to his soul twitched and moved amongst the ash and bone trying to see what was happening in the dark.

Then it happened a blue fiery light grew from each set of symbols the Druids had made on the floor, swirling higher and higher illuminating each of the Druids as it rose. Their faces a mask of intense concentration, focusing on each flame until manipulating them into a blue ball of fire which then to Brabazons horror came racing towards him in that stone basin.

It was not painful as he remembered, it was not like the pain that Levi had felt when he made him, instead it was spiritual, but the pain was to come and it was deeply emotional, he had never forgotten that. Instead of knowing that he was there as a force he began to feel himself whole again, his line of focus now lifted as his eyes did the Druids magic mixing with bone, ash with eyes and his entity. He could feel himself grow limbs as the ash and bone swirled around and around mixing with the blue fire like a tornado. A man tall and powerful, but not as he was, he could tell he looked different he felt different…..invincible. Then it stopped and Brabazon was there reborn standing before them, falling to his knees gripping his throat, he thought he was choking. No it was a thirst that burned like hot irons a thirst he could not control, a Druid stepped forward handing Brabazon a cup and he drank deep.

It was so welcome, the sweetest most gratifying thing he had ever tasted like a fine wine red and deep. He ran his tongue across his lips savouring, devouring the taste, copper metallic, a sense of panic suddenly gripped him a deep fear and loathing, he dropped the cup his face contorted in disgust ……..blood.

Brabazon looked at where he was now, taking it all in what he was standing in, looking into the faces of the Druids as they circled him a deep fear he could sense in them. Druids did not make human sacrifices but something had been cremated here to make him. He roared the words at them in disbelief shaking stone from the chamber walls, Leanhum Shee …………vampire. Corbalus had given him immortality alright; he had done it by turning him into a vampire, taking the magic of his own warrior spirit, the Druids had mixed it with the undead.

They begged and pleaded with him, tried to explain he was not evil his thirst could be controlled, used against his enemies, their enemies, he would be invincible, a warrior immortal to watch over the world of men. They needed him, a champion to help defend them through the ages to come. The Black League a new unknown force had emerged through the Roman Empire from the heart of Germania, a powerful enemy coveted their magic and wanted their most precious secret and would destroy a balance in the world the Druids strove to keep.

The League they said wanted only control, to rid man of his free will, they thrived only on chaos and would destroy all hope for the balanced choices man would make. Brabazon did not care, so furious at what he had become, what they had made him, taking  Corbalus by his throat and spitting  bloody words in his face ‘I will leave you to your fate then as you should of left me to mine!’ He left that night turning his back on their pleas vowing never to return. He travelled far and wide across lands and seas, there are places still that talk of the death he visited upon them. That was Brabazon Wade, so great was his thirst, bitter and hateful was every bite and remembering now he had to admit for a time he enjoyed the excuse.

In time his thirst subsided and as it did a growing understanding of his powers developed, the gifts of the eight druids’ and his own fierce warrior spirit burning still. Daylight can kill him and of course that old cliché, to loose ones head. Crucifixes… hmm well it is true that vampires fear them but not because of what humans have read or thought of. Other vampires fear the sight of a Crucifix because Brabazon Wade wears one. However he can travel by day in animal form, although he is vulnerable as that animal or bird. Bird yes a large black raven, it was as a raven that he travelled across the Mediterranean and found himself standing on the shores of what we now call Lebanon, what was then part of Persia. This was 65AD if memory serves me right Brabazon thought to himself as he attracted a momentary gaze from a group of drunken party goers as they navigated their way home in the snow. He had just flown from Rome and he had quite enjoyed himself there, Nero had been the Emperor and Brabazon’s feasting had been easily swallowed up in the madness of that weak mans rule.

He was exhausted it was the longest he had travelled in another form, but he had time it went well and he had landed at nightfall. Still he was not hungry, rest was more what he needed, no crypt no need for he had learned he could bury himself deep in the earth, even as the suns rays chased his tail. Transformed back from the raven as himself he gazed out on his favourite wonder, the sea, like a vampire itself a timeless dark consumer hardly ever giving up its dead, always keeping its secrets. As a man, as Cuchullain he had fought and died over land, but the sea held a new interest for him.

A swim, mmm he wondered, contemplating this idea his eyes travelled down the line of that isolated coastline until he saw a dot of light. A firefly to the human eye but not to his as he pulled the light close to him as if with a zoom lens creating a picture, it revealed a caravan of travellers. At least ten men, camels and horse all sitting around a campfire. No harm in finding out what the lay of the land is, a chat why not he remembered thinking to himself.

The distance to the camp was probably about twenty miles but within minutes he was there standing in the shadows of the camps fire. The animals of the caravan sensed his presence, but only slightly, only as much as he wanted them too, to arrive without any forewarning would definitely raise suspicion. A new land a new language, he had learned the hard way that he had only to listen just a moment to a new tongue and he could then speak that language. Another gift of the Eight he pondered, it was deep in Gallic France that he learned this, he had tried to deny himself for what he was but demented and starved he crashed through the door of a farm house. Pausing just for a moment to take stock of the inhabitants and  announcing “I’m sorry but I’m going to drink every fucking drop of your blood”. It was only when the words had left his mouth he realised that he was speaking their language and thus ensued the chaos as they were not overly keen on the idea. Sadly he remembered he did, all of them drained of every drop of blood they had to give.

Now here in Persia as it was, he listened to the traveller’s conversation, he heard of a journey, of tiredness, like Brabazon his hosts to be were new to this land. He was about to leave his cloak of darkness and enter their camp, but something held him back and he decided to wait and listen a little longer. Then the eldest, their leader it seemed, a tall lean bearded one retrieved a bundle from one of their travelling packs and sat down with his companions by the fire. Taking some bread from one of them as he sat back down he told him that it was time, and all of them on hearing this quickly got up casting of their travelling cloaks to reveal themselves as they truly were. A band of heavily armed men, some with the roman style gladius sword, some with short double headed axes and one or two with poleaxes. All of them it seemed more then well equipped to take a vampires head from his neck. Then their leader spoke again only louder this time “it is time….time for our guest to join us” and he was looking straight into the darkness right into Brabazons eyes as he said it.

Brabazon let a low laugh leave his throat as he heard this, as a vampire he felt no fear and as a man he rarely ever felt it either, it was the potential for conflict now that he found  somewhat amusing. His laugh echoed around the camp and startled the men, it seemed up to that point they hadn’t been convinced of his presence, their leader stayed as he was his eyes never leaving Brabazons and tearing some bread he smiled as he put it in his mouth. His lips never moved but Brabazon heard the words clear in his head “come Cuchullain sit by my fire, I only wish to talk and I have travelled far to deliver a message to you”. He had not heard that name in a very long time and it flared his temper. The men never saw him move from the hidden dark and he was sitting at the camps fireside in the beat of a wave on the beach, to their credit they had steadied themselves eyes fixed on him now, their knuckles bone white from their tightened grips and Brabazons smile making them ever more uncomfortable. ‘Who are you and how do you know me’ he asked.

The old man told him his name was Thaddeus but that he might call him Jude, he was one of twelve and he had travelled to this land to spread the word of Jesus Christ and their church. Brabazon had heard of them from his time in Rome and told Jude with some amusement ‘I’m a lost cause and beyond penance’. It seemed it was the old man’s turn laugh and dipping some bread in wine, he said that lost causes were becoming a specialty of his ‘in fact all you see behind me considered themselves thus’ the old man indicated to his companions opened palmed. But I am not here to preach to you warrior chieftain, like I said I have a message for you, a message delivered to me in a dream and I might only have thought of it as such, had it not been for this  bundle here which I found under my head as a pillow when I woke. The one he had seen him take from one of the camps travelling packs.

‘Corbalus’ he said. Yes that was his name said Jude and Brabazon shifted slightly in his gaze expecting the old Druid to appear and Jude caught this. No he will not be here like I said that was his name, they are all gone, all eight of your creators, all dead slaughtered by the Black League. Their magic gone and as they feared the League now have the Druids true power but not as secret as they had hoped and guarded since they had first discovered its existence when man began marking the passing of time on cave walls.

Why should I care Brabazon told Jude from the shadows of the camps fire which he had to admit  seemed to have grown darker with Jude’s words, although he told himself he didn’t care he knew none of what Jude said was good and he sensed the threat coming. ‘More importantly’ he said ‘why do you care……..the druids and those of their kind were no friends of yours’.

‘That is true but our mission and who we are has always been for the same goals although the druids and Christ’s followers have different views on how this might be done and now that the eight are gone, well the enemy of my enemy is not my friend they are now my foe. What they have now makes them a terrible threat, before the Leagues aims and leadership was passed from a master to pupil but now they have the Druids ultimate prize their secret of leapfrogging through time. They will live a mortal life but they will always be reborn and their power is spread through eight just as the Druids were however there will come a time when they can meet, all eight their time travelling will overlap just once just as the Druids did. This is the time when their power will be the strongest and they can bring all they have gained together for their ultimate prize. The Druids had this opportunity only twice down through the ages of man’s existence from when they first discovered this power and always for good’ Jude said. ‘The last such time the second time was to create you, an immortal warrior who could bring down the League and guard the druid’s secret but now they are gone’. 

‘For many years after they are reborn they will live a normal existence then at the right time and at the right age they will follow their instincts to complete a key task. When that is complete the file of their memories of who they are and what they must do slip into place and they continue on. This was how the Druids maintained balance following through time taking with them secrets of the ancients and yet always learning anew. For them their key task to awaken their memories was a spiritual journey and test, but for those who now possess that power it will be the corruption of an innocent, betrayal and deceit that will awaken who they are their key task is a reflection of who they are’.

‘Cuchullain, no you are not him any more, I have a name for you if you want it and I will christen you now anyway regardless, I christen you Brabazon. The Druids made you, not to defend them but to destroy the League and now with it all the magic they have stolen. The druids could have saved some of what they were but they sacrificed themselves in their final moments to seek out the mind of an appropriate soul who might cross your path and deliver this message to you, me. The League knows of your existence, what you are and what you were made for, when they are more focused they will begin their hunt for you’.

Brabazon remembered with a smile he hardly even heard the old man call him that, too concerned about this threat to his world and the sport he was having, he could only ask  ‘what do you mean when they are more focused why are they not searching for me now?’.

Jude smiled ruefully to himself, it was time for more bread and wine, when he was done he said “such is the folly of man”. ‘The League are currently at war, a civil war, you see as I said only eight can possess the power and the Leagues hierarchy exceeded far more than that, combine this with the fact that you have the same number of pupils who suddenly realise that they will never attain their promised positions and you’ve got a problem. It will be settled they know it has to be, these people are not immortal…….yet. Corbalus told me that you can defeat them but you must use your time and if you control your thirst your mind will become more focused and you will master all your gifts’.

‘If you can do this you will learn to stay hidden, even at times through plain sight but for the next while you disappear, it is necessary because Corbalus told me to defeat the league you must wait and watch and firstly one a man who is as much a victim as he is a perpetrator of the wickedness in this world. Corbalus told me he will come to you in a Tempest. When this happens you must create your own blood line, this man and your human daughter Luaine, and then you must wait and follow this line, it is their destiny that they will cross the path of the League and the one who does will be a warrior to join you’.

This was too much even for him and from a crouched position like an animal he roared at Jude ‘what madness is this holy man my daughter is dead and why would I wish such a faith on her?’. ‘Calm Brabazon the sun is coming we have not much time and I must deliver this message to you, and I would not do it if I knew it was not the right thing to do, the League must be stopped and if it were to take two thousand years then so be it. They will infect everything and I fear they will make a mockery of the Church others and I would strive to build. You must leave here and seek out others of your kind, there are none like you they are a subspecies to you but vampires yes and over time they could be allies, when the League begins its hunt for you they will start with what they know that you are a vampire and so they will hunt that kind in the hope of finding you’.

‘Go back to Europa find the ones they call Nealapsi, you will have to use force initially then diplomacy but get them to tell you how to contact the Fomorians’.

What, he now spat at him, ‘Fomorian’s, as a man my kind battled with those beasts, the bodies of men with the heads of goats’, Brabazon said.

‘Yes that is them’ said Jude, ‘they have slipped from this world and they have become the merchants of time, in silver ships they live in glass towers in an icy land that lies between time, you must find them and make your deal with them. It is they who can take your daughter from this world and bring her to you when you find the one who is to be her mate and create your blood line. To find the Fomorians is a quest and journey that will take you from this world and time, it might take you a hundred years but that is a good thing because your disappearance will frustrate the League and they might even forget about your existence for a time’.

‘This is Corbalus’s message this is all he asked me to tell you, wait and watch, create your line and follow it never interfering and the one who crosses the Leagues path is the one who must join you of his own free will and then it will be time for the hunted to become the hunters. The Druids are gone Brabazon but their cause was just, it is my cause now’ and shaking his head with a smile Jude said ‘no you are Gods Vampire now’.

‘All of what Corbalus said is true and as you wait and pass the centuries you will see the League and what they are and know that they must be stopped. That is his word and my prayer for you also and this here’ said Jude as he threw the bundle to a stunned Brabazon.

He was sitting back now wondering how to proceed, to take all that Jude said with a pinch of salt and follow his own path or listen to what he was starting to believe might be true. He stared down at the bundle that Jude had thrown at him and he started to unwrap it, looking down and holding the two items in his hands he thought it must be a joke. The handle of a sword of Celtic origin, black with silver engraving but with only an inch of steel for a blade and the smallest shield he had ever seen, something that might suit an infant. He looked at Jude awaiting an explanation but all he would say with all seriousness is ‘they are yours and yours alone, they will feed from your immortal energy, you will figure it out’.

The shield was solid silver but only twelve inches in diameter with a raised sphere in the centre, he turned it over to look at the flat underside. It was silver like the top side except for the centre, looking at it initially he thought it was a leather of some kind but as he looked closer it split like skin and four barbed tentacles came snapping out of what was obviously their home. He dumped the shield and sword handle back in their covering  wrapping them back up and looking up at Jude he asked ‘what now holy man’.

He looked at him and smiled ‘Brabazon I continue on my path and I hope that you will think of all that I have said and know that it is the truth and your destiny. There is a cave not far from here my men found it when we arrived here there is a higher level at the back hidden by a rock, the sun will not reach you and we will be long gone when you rise. I have blessed you as I named you and I will think of you as we both enter this world to battle for the souls of man, so I bid you well and wish you good hunting’. Brabazon left as quickly as he had come taking what he had heard and the strange gifts with him. 

I have lasted the test of time Brabazon thought turning now from the window of the general post office ,the ancient image of him cast in bronze and he began to walk to O’Connell street bridge and the river Liffey where he knew he would meet Levi. Crunching footsteps in the snow Brabazon wondered now about it all, he had  followed Jude’s message, he died soon after he gave it to him martyred they call it, a waste Brabazon thought. He had found the Fomorians and that as Jude predicted took him some time and making his deal with them they had delivered his daughter, no he thought Cuchullain’s daughter to him that night with the help of Caleb and Samuel. The real cost of that deal he had yet to pay.

He had taken his time and he had waited, creating his bloodline as Corbalus wished, his  human daughter Luaine with the cabin boy Daw, nearly five hundred years ago. He had nearly forgotten his cause until that night as he and the wreckers climbed on board glancing at the name painted on the stern of that ship………..Tempest. Then on deck the boy covered in blood, only Brabazon saw the fire in his eyes.

Since that time he watched his blood, their offspring down through the ages a dark troubling streak like a dirty smear ran through them all and he wondered how long must he wait. His task unending he watched, collated and followed all the while slowly forming his own war chest, his own anti league, learning the ways of men. He learned all he could about the Black League it had not been easy. They had settled their dispute and formed the Eight a controlling layer and hierarchy, the ones who won through to win the power of the Druids and become immortal. As Jude feared they even infected his church, Brabazon knew of two of the eight who have been Popes. The rest and the Leagues minions are nothing more than a plague of locusts, the little grey men who feel that a system is the way, the system of how men live is to be protected. This task that he had chosen to accept has not been easy for him going on through time watching what MEN had become, their continuing decadence and avarice sickened him.

The lowest living in fear of a system of control too afraid to stand up and simply say no, these limp handed stammering sycophants how dare they look in a mirror and see a man. The great con of man technology has done nothing but enslave them, marching along with their heads bowed, palm petting phone screens bitching on social networks too afraid to look each other in the eye. Oh the League have capitalised on this well, always with the ultimate aim of eroding free will. The system built on fear and control and ran by the leaders of the world, politicians, company chief executives, the so called intelligentsia dull grey little men who blindly march to serve a system that deprives them of their manhood. Some do know like our recently deceased Philip, Brabazon thought. It had been men like this that he still allowed himself to indulged his thirst for blood on.

All that was ever intended for fairness and good has been infected, corrupted and turned against itself by the Black League and its eight Board members, now immortal, forever leapfrogging through time. Coming ever closer to their ultimate time, when they will meet at the overlap of a timeline.

Now he had found his way in, his blood line had crossed not only the League but one of the Eight as she carried out her key task, her memory task to reawaken who she is, what she is.

Yes the woman Claire, and now Levi his blood the man they will come to know and fear has left his mark in Nantucket, Levi will drive them to me as they hunt him, their   greatest mistake the one they forgot about, me. ‘I am the vengeance’ Brabazon said out loud over the water of the Liffey, forever burning in my immortal blaze and nothing shall withstand. Then he heard the voice he wanted to hear and had missed ‘hello Brabazon, you in one of your moods or can a two thousand year old vampire actually get senile dementia?’

With his back to him Brabazon allowed himself a smile before he turned in seriousness ‘You’re late Levi but better late than never, and better late alone than with uninvited company and on time’. Levi raised an eyebrow and picked god knows what from behind his formidable canine with the elongated black nail of his little finger. ‘So no luck then you are in one of your moods’ Levi replied, ‘how do you fancy a trip to Switzerland it might cheer you up’. ‘Really’ said Brabazon, ‘Switzerland so that’s where she’s been hiding. I take it all went well did you manage to find out any more and I hope you were just a little sloppy, enough to perk the Leagues attention. There was a hidden extra camera in Philips study, one he didn’t even know about, I left it on and yes I found out one or two more things than planned’. Brabazon let out a roar of a laugh that carried down the Liffey, ‘and I’m sure you gave them quite a show’.

They both turn and begin to walk through the silent city with Brabazon talking, ‘I had a vision Levi, some day soon an aid worker will stagger through a famine camp in Africa, lost needing a moment alone to find the strength to carry on for another day, they take a walk through scrubland bush that is no more than kindle. Eventually they come into a clearing and before them will be a twenty foot high voltage fence that stretches for miles in either direction and behind it will be thousands upon thousands of acres of wheat growing in the sun. Hanging from the fence at intervals will be a notices and it will say “Property of the PeoplesRepublic of China do not enter”’.

‘Levi a war is coming a silent deadly one for control, but it will be a third world war and it will not be over oil, it will be over food. The League are at the heart of this and we must strike as all the Eight are reborn, but some have not gone through their key tasks and they don’t know who they are, we must find them. If the war is allowed to happen it is then that the inner sanctum of the League, the Eight will strike and it will be through this chaos and destruction of the world that they will show their true faces and rid man of free will’.

‘Well that’s fine by me replied’ Levi, ‘a storm is coming and it’s playing my tune’. ‘Well then’ replied Brabazon, ‘as the last guy on this planet with a pair of balls once said as he crossed the Rubicon ‘alea iacta est’, the die is cast’.

Brabazon…
Yes Levi
I’m starving……………

Gods Vampire – Part 4

Part 4

 Monster

So Philip, there you are, in answer to your question that is who I am and I’m hoping that it might reinforce this evening’s mood, that as we sit across from each other you’re under no illusions as to the pedigree of your captor and the seriousness of the situation.

No, it doesn’t explain why I’m not dead, fair point, five times, really, I thought you only shot me four. Hang on, one two three four emmm oh five, JAYSUS Philip that one’s just above the crown jewels now that’s just rude. What do you use for target practice, dwarfs?

Think I need a decent drink after that and by the look in your eyes so could you, think there’s a bit of internal bleeding going on there my man, but you did take some putting down which is surprising for a bean counting accountant. So where do you keep the booze, over here and by the way I think you should know I’m famished!

Ah the old country Jameson aged eighteen years a favorite of mine, even for whiskey! I am impressed but then again this is a salubrious place you have here, ha yea sorry it was mind you hazards aside it’s obviously very lucrative working for the League.

Now you first and take a good drink as I’m not getting back up to give you another, I know bastard aren’t I. There we go, good man down in one. Ropes too tight, are they? Good they are supposed to be!

Ah now that’s a whiskey, hmm goluptious, that’s really going to get my tongue wagging and on that note what better way to explain to you why I’m not dead, you have been very patient so far your reward will be in heaven or hell it’s not for me to say what awaits you on the other side of the river, I’m just a modern day Charon in a zodiac, HA.

I digress, so now that you understand where the physiology of my being comes from and although that dark part of my family’s history was far in the past it always seemed ever present with me.

You see Philip several years ago I crossed paths with a very senior member of your corporation and it resulted in a lengthy stay in hospital, although at the time she wasn’t a fully fledged ranking member then. WHO? Oh well that’s the question Philip, my question and I’m not yet ready to ask it yet so sit tight and let me finish.

This incident meant that all chances of a decent life for me were gone and tired of trying to keep me on the right road my father, good man that he was organised my escape from hospital. Well you see I wasn’t there for a very good reason and in my defense Philip may I say it was the last time I was ever innocent of anything that I was accused off. Now that was a night I won’t forget, you just can’t beat the corruption of local cops their one constant in life and they know how to charge and get what they want in every way. Of course in their defense they needed a reason to call the two cops away from babysitting me at my hospital bed as well as taking a handsome bribe for giving me the chance to escape. That was the extra kick, a task I think that finished my father, always a man to deal with local issues in a firm if illegal way, burning four men in their beds as they slept was not his style. That was the price, four drug dealers had assumed squatter’s rights in a derelict bungalow at the edge of town and were running rings around the local boys as well as hanging around the school gates. It had been discussed with my dad and the local law that he and his men would dispense a beating in the severest way and dump them well down the road but I blew all chances of that. As my fathers only child he felt I would be the last chance for something good to come from the family name and therefore he loved me and was prepared to pay the Superintendents price. He was a ruthless bastard and took full advantage of the situation, a hundred thousand for the lads to turn a blind eye and burn those four scum where they slept, “ I want to send a message Tom, their no loss and the fire gives me an excuse to pull the lads from the hospital detail” a charming man. That act like I said finished my father as a man, it did however give me the chance to escape but I had to do it on my own, regardless of my injuries. The deal was if I could get out unseen after the cops were pulled I had to make it into town and wait in an unlit corner of the Cathedral grounds where a loyal old hound of my Dad’s would come and get me with a van.

It was three in the morning, the place was dead and freezing and I was struggling to not look suspicious to the odd car that passed through the streets, my head down my arms wrapped around me as I nursed the deep stabbing wound my lust and mistaken love had given me. Weak and dizzy I let my feet guide, only looking up as I passed the monument to the front of the court house giving a respectful glance to it’s faded words.

‘They rise in dark and evil days to right their native land, they kindled here a living blaze that nothing shall withstand’

I knew the words on the monuments inscription without even reading it and I thought of the blaze that was now burning that night and swore to myself that if I got free I would set a blaze of my own. I was coming to the end of my walk and crossing the street, I turned the corner past a bar where a small group of girls froze at the front door for their habit, the smell of the cigarette smoke reminding me of someone else, the draw on each cigarette creating its own mini blaze. Then crossing over another narrow street I turned right, into the Chapel car park.

How will this end I thought as I hugged the Chapel wall and watched fragments of what was my life drift past, then again I never fitted in so better off away from it. Where-ever I go whatever happens I promised myself it‘s better than here, fuck it I thought roll the dice and follow my instinct. Then the big blue van pulled into the car park, turning, it never came to a stop, the side door sliding back, I was pulled in and the van moved back onto the road on its way out of town.

There he sat my dad the publican / republican / enforcer and smuggler, his mass spilling out over the chair that tried to hold him steady as the vans turns shifted his weight. He was once a county Gaelic footballer now he looked like one of those pictures I had seen in history books at school of Zulu chieftains seated at the end of their years, their swollen bodies filling ivory thrones. He was hurt and sad, he knew that what he had done would be the end of his time as the iron fist he was known as. His giant head looked like that of a bloodhound, large folds of skin hung from under his eyes, I doubt he had slept in days and his ubiquitous old sailors coat lay open at the front no longer closing on him. He reached inside and pulled out a naggen of Paddy whiskey, unscrewing the cap he passed it to me after swallowing a third of it himself ‘this is the closest either of us will ever get to drink at the others wake, especially as your dead now son’.

I knew what he meant I was gone on the run never to return and if I did I was dead. I didn’t hold it against him I understood I hadn’t made it easy and going to college he had such high hopes and the reason of my leaving well the action didn’t bother him it was really the fact that people knew and that in his world this was just taboo. I wasn’t close to my mother she was more into the business than he was and probably left to her I would have been thrown to the wolves. But he was the M in McCarthy, the last of the old stock the type that would take a ship of secrets to his grave but then just when you think you know someone and how a situation would play out i.e. five more miles of drinking whiskey in silence, instead he surprised me.

 He looked at me and said ‘You’re dead to the world now son I think, God love you, you always have been. I can’t help you or give you what you need. I am not strong enough, I never was. You’re my only son and the last of our name, so here take this key. I’ve watched you fight who you are but now I say this to you, stay true to yourself and to who you are for as long as it takes, follow the path less traveled and eventually your time will come’. I looked down at my hands at the odd looking thing confused for a moment and then that feeling you get when your forehead uncreases when confusion clears and you remember or realise what someone is talking about. Yes he said Brabazons key I know your uncle told you the stories, he came looking for it many times and I told him I didn’t have it. I didn’t believe I still don’t, but son your different, you have never lied to me and that women Claire she has disappeared this whole thing isn’t right, so there take it and if it leads nowhere then just stay true to yourself but don’t come back, we’re done.

I didn’t give him the chance to say anymore the van soon stopped in an empty cattle yard on the outskirts of town, I was helped out by one of his henchmen and handed a set of keys to a clean Ford mondeo. To him Brabazons key was a memento of the history of our peoples past, who we were and I think he thought no more truth to it than that. But as soon as I seen it I knew it was what I wanted and he was right I did want to know, to see if the darkness in me that I always felt was just damaged emotions or does a blood line really determine who we are meant to be.

So several weeks went by and in a roundabout way I eventually found myself where I wanted to be. I had quickly made for the mountains that slope to the sea, on checking the boot to the Mondeo I found all my hill walking and camping gear, and food. Michael one of my fathers henchmen had always been decent to me, I suspected it was him. It’s the simplest way to hide in Ireland if you can survive outdoors or just have enough food and the right gear you can disappear. Day by day I slowly made my way across the mountain range then down toward the forest, back to the start, back to where my uncle took me camping once much to my father’s annoyance many years before, to where our family came from and even lived up until a hundred years ago, which is not so long in this part of the world. It seemed someone had gone to the bother of pulling up the drive that led to the house and we’re talking two miles of a drive through a forest pulled up and planted with trees. No one wanted visitors to this place and were doing their best to prevent the motorised kind, my father probably, for a man who didn’t believe he was afraid of something. The house long abandoned and boarded up looked as if the forest itself was pulling it down into the earth. The house was a strange building, its Palladian lines now sagging under the weight of moss and time, plaster falling from the walls leaving it looking like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle as blocks of stone were visible where the plaster was missing. It didn’t matter, what I was looking for lay in the grounds to the back, what once had been gardens. So off I went and the briars clawed at me as if to say no go back, but I pushed my way through to the back of that once magnificent place and there it was in the middle of what was once the gardens and completely out of place, a large long Victorian glass house. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of it, a structure built to absorb sun was the guardhouse to what I wanted. Surprisingly some of the glass still remained and now so close I started to wonder, I put my hands in the pockets of my coat feeling that strange key in one and the gun in the other. It had been in my backpack a Makarov PMM, it had been my Uncles the one he had ended his life with, I doubt Michael would of put it there, I suspect my mother did as a hint.

The door to the glass house was hanging off its hinges, there was nothing but weeds in it but the path through the middle was still there. It was a long narrow building with a circular part to the middle and a high glass domed roof supported by sagging wooden framed wall’s curbing out left and right.  In the middle of this circular domed part of the glass house, right where the path was going, lay a fountain ornamental in design, in that it was circular built with a strange black stone that could have been marble or granite two feet high but some fifteen feet in diameter.

I made my way towards it and looked in. The water looked lifeless, an eerie feeling coming from it accentuated by the black stone that lined its sides both inside and out and yet a circular shimmer of light the size of a football struck the centre of the water’s surface. The light ran down the centre of an octagonal black stone column that rose from the waters centre, which was then capped with a black ball. There was a Latin inscription running down every second side with four dried up green copper water spouts protruding from the centre on the plain sides. Now Philip my Latin is, well, it’s none existent and had I know what that inscription meant I might have sat and paused for a moment, but in truth just for a second such was my determination to go on. It said….

“The gates of hell are open night and day, smooth the descent and easy is the way”             

‘Virgil’ yes Philip very good, now I really am impressed with you. 

Now moving on, I looked up into the domed glass roof that covered the well and wondered perhaps were some of those panes of glass mirrors. The fountain wall was completely smooth, as if carved from the one piece of  stone marble or granite, whatever material it was, but you felt that it was timeless like gold it wouldn’t tarnish. The only thing that broke up its flawlessness was four black carvings into the outside of the fountain that sat like compass points. Each were all the heads of strange men, like river gods I thought representing the four seasons and each one corresponding with a compass point. North representing winter, the sculpture had its lips parted as if blowing a cold winter wind. The South facing one radiant and sunny, east a subtle smile on the face with a nest carved on his head for birds where his hair should have been. West the face was split one eye closed, with a crescent moon on that side and on the other a setting sun but the eye wide open and hallow. My heart was pounding now, I went down on my knees in front of this carving, a two faced man with a hallow eye open waiting for the night. I took the key from my pocket, it had a long shaft, a narrow set of teeth set on three points at the top and at the other the shaft was capped with a black ball stone identical to the material in the well.

I have to admit my hand did tremble as I brought the key up to that hollow eye and pushed it in all the way until the stone met that empty socket to form a pupil with a very loud and scary click. I quickly stood up and as I did a slight tremor ran through the floor of the glass house, then silence. Nothing was happening and to be honest I didn’t know what was to happen, I knew of the location, the key and where to put it but after that the only words I knew were “to follow the path”.  I looked around to see if a door had opened from somewhere but nothing, I was furious, to come all this way then nothing, I felt the gun in my pocket and wondered was this it. I looked into what water was sitting in the lifeless fountain not even seeing my reflection, but I did notice that the shimmer of light had got bigger and strangely a circular pattern started to appear in the water’s surface running around the octagonal column. Then I realised what was happening, it was draining away and as it did a set of carved black steps spiraling downwards started to appear on the inside of the fountain. As the water drained, the light been reflected down from the domed room of the glass house grew in diameter illuminating the centre column as it cascaded down the center with the steps wrapping around it all the way to the bottom.

So now I had my path, and follow it I did, and how I didn’t brake my neck on those wet steps I’ll never know, but I had the centre piece of the fountain to keep a hand on as it ran straight down the centre . But what I couldn’t believe at the time was that it took me forty minutes to get to the bottom, that’s a long walk deep into the earth. As I neared the end I noticed light coming from the bottom, a soft orange glow and then I became aware that the walls and steps were dry, and in true ghoulish form as I went further I heard a mechanical click, and somewhere above me near the top a stone on stone sound was heard and the shaft of daylight disappeared. So that was it, trapped in and no going back, I took my time and felt I didn’t have far to go, the light started to get brighter as I was quickly getting closer. I reached the bottom and that soft orange glow was a storm lamp hanging from a hook at eye level from the fountains central column and I lifted it off as I took the last three steps of that never ending downward spiral.

As I lifted it off to look around the hairs on the back of my arms and neck stood with the realisation of two things, one, someone or something as I suspected was alive down here and two, this lamp was powered by a gas canister, modern.

I shone the light around the small circular chamber I was now standing in and quickly an archway was revealed to my left and through it a set of steps leading upwards. I stepped through the narrow archway expecting to enter a narrow tunnel of some kind, but to my surprise I had entered a high vaulted chamber, the steps becoming wider until suddenly I found myself standing in a large room. It reminded me of pictures I’d seen of the inside of a Viking beer hall, only spotlessly clean, the air somehow crisp and clear. The floor was still that black stone that had lined the well wall, but polished smooth as if looking at the night sky. Six large wooden pillars, three left and three right disappeared up to the stone ceiling, wood supporting stone when it should have been the other way around. All of this I saw in a second but what held my gaze was at the end of that room carved out of the black stone that lined the floor and ceiling was a fireplace, with a large unnatural fire burning brightly inside its large open hearth, and there in a high backed red leather armchair to the right of the fire sat my ancestor, Brabazon Wade.

He sat with his hands crossed on his lap unmoving, eyes unblinking, for a moment I thought he was mummified. Taking a step closer Brabazon then seemed to come to life, with the smoothest of movements lifting his right hand with open palm he pointed to an empty chair identical to his own that sat opposite to him.

This startled me as I hadn’t noticed the other chair before, then I lowered the lantern and started to walk toward him, the flames from the fire giving enough light for me to see my way, I thought my heart would explode. Passing the lantern to my left hand I put my right into my pocket fingering the Makarov and it’s comforting twelve rounds, then the faintest of smiles passed over Brabazon’s face. Again open palmed he indicated for me to sit, I was closer now, I could see him clearly. His bald head almost white as snow, a dark trimmed beard covered his face with long streaks of grey through it and out of this staring at me were large cold blue eyes. He was dressed in an immaculate black three piece suit, a black shirt open at the collar. Other than the gaze of his eyes it was his hands that made me feel uneasy, broad and large, the nails black, black as the stones on the floor and slightly longer than they should have been.

I was at the chair now, my mouth was dry and at this stage my hand gripped the gun in my pocket tightly. I knew if I sat down it would be more difficult for me to pull the gun out and this is what was going through my mind when he spoke.

‘If it makes you feel more comfortable take the gun out before you sit down’.  I laugh now when I think about it Philip, but I swear I don’t know how my legs didn’t fold underneath me. However what was said next really put my head in a spin.

‘How do you know it’s not a knife or something else’ I said, ‘how do you know it’s a gun?’ ‘Because a gun is the quickest way of killing yourself and I know you’ve been stabbed before and probably don’t want to repeat the experience’ said this creature this man, Brabazon.

I was furious, I started to shake, I pulled the gun from my pocket and cocked the hammer, ‘how do you know that?’ I said through spit and tears as the finality of my life closed in on me.

‘Because you came looking for immortality, because I know your an intelligent man, but from your eyes your an infant, but now in this moment in this situation you find yourself you know you can’t kill me with a gun so it must be for yourself. Some futile attempt to prove you’re a decent being not of my blood, you want to take your own life in front of me. Me your ancestor your creator, as revenge for the hate and anger that swells inside you. To be honest I had lost all hope and then she came into your life, lucky me’ Brabazon said.

I lifted the gun quickly and fired two shots at him as rage and hurt suddenly burst through me as quick and hot as the bullets that left the Makarov’s muzzle, but they simply went into an empty chair and in the same moment he was standing behind me. The last human gesture of my life was to lift the gun and try to kill myself, but the moment the signal left my brain to travel down my arm to my hand, I was lifted from my feet and spun around, his hand wrapped around my neck, his nails like ice cold talons cut into my skin. He slapped the gun from my hand and then coming closer to my face he spoke. His mouth now was open wide and he had teeth like that of a conger eel white as marble like the skin on his bald head, especially those long terrifying canines of the vampire that he was.

‘Why take this path, if its death that you seek, embrace who you are and I will give it to you’ Brabazon said his tongue whipping around inside his mouth like a black snake. ‘No, I’m not like you, I don’t want this’. He dropped me to the floor and moved towards the blazing fire, keeping his back to me, he opened his hands out wide as if to warm them though I had a feeling he felt no warmth. I sat crumpled on the floor massaging my neck, trying to swallow, watching him, this tall powerful, terrifying vampire, my ancestor.

‘Many others came to me, declaring themselves worthy of immortality but none were’ he said. ‘I found a way of bringing my human daughter to me, Luaine and chose the cabin boy, your ancestor, to sire the blood line with her, that I hoped would bring one into the world worthy to join me’. He turned now, looking at me all in black, his dark beard and with his back to the fire it looked as if a skull hovered in mid air with sapphire eyes.

‘It is you I have waited for, you know it in your heart you feel no fear only a hurt that has now turned to hate and it has consumed you as what happened to me in my human time. You see those around as they truly are, false, selfish, uncaring, cruel, and greedy. I have watched you from afar I have seen you standing on a storm battered shore at night lost and lonely knowing that you close your eyes and let the beat of your heart match that of each crashing wave. You crave life and know what it really means to be part of this world, but the people in it want no part of you and yet you cling to an illusion of decency’.

‘FOR WHAT?’ his voice now raised and stepping towards me. ‘To take a gamble on an afterlife, the saints and angels have fled this ruined world, they are not around to give you a pat on the back had that bullet met your brain. I give you what you seek and you will have an eternity to perfect it. Everything will connect, all that you are will make sense.

You know this is the path you must choose, there is no going back, you were used betrayed by all, they don’t want you and she didn’t want you. Come, embrace me my son take this gift and unleash yourself on the world and I will show you why’.

He was towering over me now, I had listened to his every word and the truth of it all burned through me like hot irons. I stood slowly, pulling myself from the floor as if it were a magnet, my energy gone. Pulling my coat off and letting it fall from my shoulders, I looked into his face and tore my shirt open at the collar, exposing my bare chest, collarbone and neck. A surge of energy ran through him as if he was suddenly aroused, his eyes almost too bright to look at but he calmed himself just as quickly and gently he took my head in his hands and pulled me close.

‘I have great plans for you, all will not be ready in an instant but we have time on our side’, he said with a smile. I turned my head in his hands and reached up to grip him by his wrists. He looked at me as my last tear fell from my eyes, he brushed it away with the black nail of his thumb.

‘Just one thing, I begin with her’, I thought he was going to bite without saying anything as he was quickly at my neck when in a whisper in my ear somehow I heard the words, ‘but of course it must begin with her, but it will end with many others’.

And that was it, deep into my neck his teeth sunk and immediately my hands and feet went cold as the blood drained from me in a rush, then my legs, my upper body, until I was lying on the floor, him still on me feeding. I felt so cold and could even see my breath in front of my face, watching it like a cloud of mist expelling from me slower and slower as I died.

Suddenly he stopped drinking from me lifting his head away and making a sound as if someone had burst through the surface after been too long under water.

I looked up at him as he knelt at my side, not a drop of blood anywhere on his face, but still he ran his tongue over his lips as if savoring the sensation. With hardly any life left in me I parted my lips as if indicating my turn to drink, when he smiled kindly if it is somehow possibly for a vampire to do that and let out a short chuckle saying ‘far too much television my young Wade’.

He quickly reached down and tore my shirt right open and I watched dying in amazement as the black nail of his right forefinger seemed to grow in length and I lay their paralyzed as it took the shape of a scalpel.

He leaned in close and said, ‘I’m afraid this will hurt you more than it will me, but trust me my son, it is the last pain your heart will ever feel’. In one quick movement he sliced open my chest long and deep exposing my heart, what little blood that I had left oozed in a pitiful effort from the wound. I stared up into blackness and realised that the darkness of the ceiling was quickly crashing down on me, with pain and death.

I looked up at him, watched him as he looked at me waiting, not caring anymore, thinking I got what I came for, I was dead.

In that moment Brabazon sliced open the palm of his left hand with that same scalpel like nail and as life left me he plunged his bloody palm deep into my chest, down to my almost drained heart. I lifted from the floor as if given an electric shock, Brabazon’s bloody palm acting like a defibrillator to my heart, his blood suddenly pumped through me with such ferocity I thought my head would lift from my neck. A shockwave burst from me which threw him high in the air but like a cat he spun and landed on his feet, quickly returning to my side pinning me to the floor as my body convulsed in its change.

Everything I felt, everything that confused me now seemed clear, all hate and anger now seemed good, positive, emotions to be used and how to use them flashes of history and time battlefields burst in vivid pictures through my mind. He knelt over me sealing up my wound with some sort of surgical glue saying that in future I will heal fast but that I needed this as the cut was made while I was human. The coldness of the floor seemed like a comfort to me and almost like taking a bath, I felt like I was slipping into it dipping under the surface.

I put my hands out as if to grip the rim and pull myself back up when I realised what it was, I had not slipped under, I was hovering off the floor. I turned and looked at Brabazon and now as a vampire myself I saw him in all his glory.

A blue blaze of fire, like the colour of his eyes surrounded him, cocooned him as if protecting him from the ravages of time. Like a magician performing an act he was running his hands above and underneath me, the final part of his ritual I suppose, as I suddenly became surrounded, encompassed in his flame.

He stood from the floor picking me up with him carrying me in his arms like a child. I was alive, more than that, more than I had ever been, but exhausted from everything that had happened. I looked at him and simply said, ‘thank you, thank you for this’.

He smiled, said nothing and carried me to my new world.

So there you are Philip, from beginning to end, the reason why I am able to sit here drinking your very fine whiskey chilled with five rounds of lead. A lot of tides have ebbed and flowed since that night but as the saying goes “time and tide wait for no man”.

And although I have an eternity, you and other interested parties certainly don’t so I’m afraid it’s crunch time. Ha, I have to say in all my time as a assassin, contract killer, call it what you like no one ever batted an eyelid that I only ever took a job at night, bet your sorry that you ever did eh? But now you do Phil, don’t you, ah you’ve noticed, black nails, no need to wear gloves now. Anyway vampires don’t leave finger prints and I need these claws of mine out to emphasise my next point. Which is this, you’re going to die but you can choose which way you go.

Route one, I take this small sachet of powder that you see and I empty it into a nice glass of Irish like so, it’s a very powerful tranquilizer Phil, you will be out like a light before the last drop goes down your throat, then as you won’t feel a thing I pump two in your chest and one in the head, how’s that mmm?

Or there is route two, I take your head in my hands, like this, and give a little squeeze and although this hurts Philip I’ll squeeze harder, it will be like your head is in a vice. Then as your eyes bulge from the pressure and you don’t think it can get any worse, I’ll prise one of your eye balls out with this black thumbnail of mine and I’ll slowly drink the blood from your skull like milk from a coconut. After all Philip, I did warn you that I am famished.

Now, now, there there, stop you’re slobbering, what’s that oh, route one. Well can’t say I’m disappointed but I am a man of my word, yes Philip there is a catch, it’s time for my question and you must tell me everything and answer honestly or I’m afraid it’s route two, are we clear.

Yes, good.

Now, where’s your boss, where is Claire?

To be continued…….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gods Vampire – Part 3

 

 Part 3

The Cripple

The Cripple, hidden in the overgrowth of a large elderberry tree, bit his lip against the pain he felt in his twisted limbs, not uttering a sound as he concealed himself and  watched the scene unfold at the estuary. People and their behaviours were always of interest to him, but today’s events he knew would be of particular interest to someone else. It was to this person now that he made his way with haste. The Cripple gave one last glance at the bridge with its prisoner suspended from it as he painfully pushed his way back through the overgrowth to where his small donkey and cart were tethered.

A crippled old man severely hunched over with a withered left arm who spoke very little but had a kindly gentle look about him. He was not a native of this part of the island but he had been quickly referred to simply as The Cripple and he made no objection as he hadn’t thought of a suitable name for himself.  He made what living he could by offering the services of himself and his donkey and cart to anyone who wanted them. This was usually the farmers housewife’s, he would take what surplus eggs and vegetables they had to market taking only a small commission for himself and always returning with their exact share. With gratitude comes trust and with this the Cripple found came talk and endless information without ever having to ask, many things are told by the comfort of a fireside if you are pleasant company. This was his real currency, this was how he had found out about the fate of the one they called Daw and it was this news with this urgency that he brought to his master Brabazon Wade.

Ever since first mysteriously appearing in the Cripple’s coastal shack late in the dead of night, the Cripple had given what information he would gather to Brabazon. Always coming to the Cripple’s as if knowing that he might have some news for him always at night, the Cripple was never to seek him out. However there was one exception to these instructions which Brabazon had been quite clear on. “Watch the boy and if anything should happen to him Cripple, anything at all you come to me day or night”. The Cripple ran these words through his head over and over as he looked up to the dipping sun, and skipped the reins over the donkey’s hind reminding the poor beast of their continued urgency.

Although old and frail the Cripple was no coward, but he could not help but feel nervous, although he never doubted Brabazon’s instructions he had only given them once and it had been some years ago. The Man, if you could describe him as that, terrified him and the Cripple would never have chosen to work for such a man in any way, collecting information was just a by product of his travels. A towering giant of a man he could be no older than thirty but the Cripple knew he was old much older than anyone else could ever imagine, his eyes strange and dark and yet at times they seemed to burn with an unearthly blue flame. Brabazon Wade, a strange name for a very strange man he was Irish as much as the others knew but he seemed to have very foreign ways. Clever and ruthless and a night time wanderer, a man who always seemed to bring the cold with him, a man who could look into and freeze your very soul.  All men have secrets and shave twenty years off the Cripple straighten out his twisted spine and mend his withered arm and you would be looking at Freeney the notorious highwayman. Until his last robbery when a coachman’s blunderbuss took his trusted horse Spartacus from under him. The coachmen bolted from the scene not knowing how lucky their shot had been and not wanting to tackle the dreaded highwayman Freeney, leaving him trapped under his dead horse. Freeney was finished he would be dead by morning or found by the Kings Dragoons but Spartacus stirred, he had one last shot in him and the poor loyal animal moved himself enough to let Freeney crawl out from under him. Freeney had no regrets about the life he had lived his smashed arm or his ruined spine but he sobbed now over his beloved horse and fired his last shot as a highwayman. He crawled from the road and crawled for miles until he found a farmhouse and was taken in by those he had helped in his own time and left many months later a crippled beaten old man who was simply to become known as the man he looked like, the Cripple.

He would recount the tales of his own life many times to himself as he wandered along the narrow marshy paths from farmhouse to fishing village, his memories kept him warm and thoughts of Spartacus made him sad but to hear his life story told to him many years later by Brabazon in the dead of night sent a painful chill down his crooked spine. Hopefully now with this last piece of information he would be free of the hold Brabazon Wade had over him…..

He had always hoped that he would never have the occasion to visit Brabazon as the clan he ruled over knew nothing of their arrangement and were the type that would normally kill an old man like him and eat his donkey should they arrive uninvited. The McCarthy’s were a dark murderous bunch troubled for years by feuding and infighting. Then Brabazon came into their world and with little objection from the McCarthy’s imposed himself as head of their clan, the infighting ceased and their fortunes changed. Their stronghold a fishing village called Drumha at the foot of a hill that led down to the sea was the same place from where they preyed on passing shipping on stormy nights and used their fast rowing skiffs to smuggle contraband. Drumha was some distance away and with his good arm the Cripple pulled his button-less coat tighter around him with the thought of delivering his news. He would try and make good time but it would be a while yet before he got there and thinking he hoped the news he brought would not result in two deaths as he feared the boy Daw would not last long in the rising tide.

Troubled as he was the time passed quick and the deteriorating weather had temporarily taken his mind off his troubles. Eventually arriving at the village, blown about and soaked to the skin, the Cripples fears quickly returned to him as he came to a stop outside the village pub The Whale Bone, simply called as a rib of a whale hung over the door. It had been found by a fisherman tangled in one of his nets and he triumphantly declared in the pub that night (many years before) that it was an elephants tusk and that he would barter it for a line of credit in the pub. The landlord agreed and this led to much celebration that night, but as the night wore on and the heat of the fire grew the barnacles started to drop off said tusk as it had been surreptitiously placed on the mantle piece. Well the tusk was revealed as a rib of a whale and accusations and recriminations quickly followed as the fisherman and landlord found themselves impaled on each others knives. The bone now hung on a shingle over the pubs door replacing the old name and as a warning to others seeking credit.

Taking a breath the Cripple steeped through the door as if in consideration for those inside and out of fear he turned his back and gently shut the door. At this stage his presence was known to the patrons and a large group of fierce looking men were milling about at the end of the bar near the fire. Several of them had their hands resting on knives jammed in their belts. He simply nodded as he slid his soaked cap from his head and looked over to where the landlord was leaning on what stood for a bar. As was the custom in those times where the local pub had several functions behind the bar there was several large wide open shelves with smoked legs of ham a huge wheel of cheese and cloth wrapped butter on display. The bar area was narrow but long with a low roof with candles and the odd lamp providing some illumination, the Cripple afraid to move any further in tried to catch the landlords attention and was unsure if he had in that dim light when the landlord raised his right forefinger straight up without lifting his hand off the bar. The Cripple gripped his hat tightly between his hand’s almost ringing the rain out of it and watched the landlord slowly tilt his raised forefinger down to his left, once he knew his guest had seen his instruction he simply went back to work wiping his bar top down.

The Cripple followed the landlord’s finger like an arrow point and willed his feet to shuffle forward to a dimly lit end of the bar that turned into a dog leg. There were some small tables set about with groggy old men muttering to themselves or sitting on their own gripping jugs of beer like it was an old enemy’s neck or staring into half glasses of  wine as if trying to read tea leafs. This end of the bar turned into a slightly wider area with some bench’s and long stools laid out, this area although it had no door was known as the Debt Room. Men played cards here as a small group were doing so now or in times of death it was where the corpse was laid out and used as a funeral parlour. The Debt room the place where you paid your dues either way, eventually. Of course he thought no surprise that I might find him here and there in the corner of that room planted in a high backed chair watching all around him without moving his head sat Brabazon Wade and with a sharks smile through his black beard he beckoned the Cripple to join him.

Two stools were brought forward, one for the Cripple and on the other a large candle was lit and a generous tankard of brandy was placed. He sat down and Brabazon without looking at him opened his gloved hand and said “drink Cripple you have done well to come to me on this night I have but one question before you do…. does the boy still live?” the Cripple lifted the tankard to his lips but before he drank a drop muttered over the rim “alive when I left him he could still be but he won’t last long” then he gulped a large mouth full of brandy for fear that it might be his last. Brabazon turned to him now his piercing blue eyes a blaze “where ?”, “suspended in a cage from the wicket bridge over the Estuary” he replied, “the tide would have turned by now and it took me several hours to get here”. Brabazon turned his head and by gesture alone he had one of his men by his side listening to whispered instructions, the man turned and all those who had been playing cards or chatting in the Debt Room followed, leaving him silently and without a word. Brabazon turned back to the Cripple “you’ve done well Cripple move yourself out to the fire, dry off and stay the night. The landlord will take care of your chariot and fine steed, and has food prepared, your account is closed with me here is a bonus” and Brabazon dropped a meaty bag of gold sovereigns into the Cripples lap. He stretched his head up to look at this strange man and said “yes my Lord”. Brabazon paused for a moment and with a backward glance he looked at the Cripple and with blue blazing eyes said “goodbye Freeney”. For the rest of the Cripples very quiet comfortable life he would sometimes wonder what compelled him to say those words to Brabazon and then he would quickly remind himself that that was one piece of information he was probably better off not knowing.

Freeney now leaves our story Philip as the rest of my tale is based on generational whispers and legend, but we will continue as it is the basis for my family tree, it is who I am and part answer to your question.

Brabazon met his men outside the pub, there were as he had instructed eight of the most ruthless of the McCarthy clan on horse armed with pistol and cutlass and a large black steed waiting for him. Mounting his horse in a lightening movement he singled out two of his men Samuel and Caleb, “ride now the two of you to the widow’s cottage that witch has whored her last soldier. Burn her and her coach house to the ground leave not a trace but take her son dead or alive its of no matter but I want him and meet us at the estuary NOW ride for you have the longest journey”. They left and without having to give instruction to the remaining six (as they now knew their destination nor would they have asked anyway) they tore off like hounds after a hare. No light guided their way and the six men fell in like a formation of geese behind Brabazon and his horse. They felt as if he was carving his way through the night, and felt safe in the knowledge that no harm would come to them riding like mad men in the dead of night. He took them close to the coast initially across dunes and he could see that the tide was now high on the shore, he focused his mind on the boy and willed him to be alive it felt right he was the one and now was the best opportunity. They made good time and he guided them through the marshy lands of the estuary and made for the small wood that hugged the estuary waters not far from the wooden bridge. This was the home of the Cripples overgrown elderberry tree and a small clearing behind it within the wood. They dismounted here and Brabazon leaving one in charge of the horse’s, gave instructions for no lantern to be lit and moved forward on foot toward the bridge. It was clear to all that they were alone but the McCarthy’s drew sword and pistol none the less. They were on the bridge in a matter of minutes, Brabazon’s long strides tearing ahead of them, when he stopped suddenly at the point where Daw’s cage hung. To the McCarthy’s it looked as if Brabazon sniffed the air over this point with frightening animal like movement’s of his bald bearded head and as they walked up to him he turned to them saying “ the boy’s alive I want him get him up and out of there but leave the cage so it can be re-secured”. They had never seen their leader so animated and carried out his instructions as quickly as they could and it was only as they got the bulk of the cage clear of the water that they could see for themselves that the boy was alive…barely.

Pulling the bolt out that held the cage door in place they opened it and lifted the boy out and without having to ask they followed Brabazon back to the clearing where the horses were. They placed him on the ground after first wrapping him in a horse blanket with one of the men dribbling brandy on his lips for fear that any more might kill him. “There’s not much left of him” said the man as he cradled the broken body in his arms. “We will see” said Brabazon, “hold him up and light one of the lamps and bring it here so I can see him more clearly”. They pulled what was left of the boy Daw to his feet, he could not stand on his own so there was a man standing either side of him and a third brought the lamp to his face. He stank, was covered in blood but still he managed to mumble his name Daw Daw. A sound was heard near the clearing three horses approached, Samuel and Caleb riding two with the body of the widows boy slung over the third. Brabazon turned his head slightly toward them never taking his eyes from the boy Daw “well done put the body in the cage and lower it back into the water”. Turning his gaze back to the business at hand he stepped from the darkness into the light of the lantern facing his men and the boy they held up.

“Why did you wait so long before you killed them” asked Brabazon. His men looked at him as if he had lost his mind they knew who Daw was, knew him to be a mute, some of them had been there the night they slaughtered the crew of the Tempest. He stepped closer, Daw’s eyes were vacant and lifeless he lifted the boy’s head illuminating it with the light of the lamp and Brabazon spoke again in a voice that sent a shiver down the spine of his own men. “WHY DID YOU WAIT SO LONG”. Then to the astonishment of those holding Daw up they felt his limbs stiffen, and the man holding the lantern watches as fire suddenly burned in the boys eyes, then he spoke.

“Because it was the first time ever that bastard farmer left me alone with them”. Brabazon threw back his head and bellowed a laugh that made the night sound more frightening and quiet if ever it could. He looked into the boys eyes and said “you’ll do and now begins the second part of my long wait”. “Take him back to the village, if he dies so do you, keep him and this night a secret and when he is fit enough bring him to my house in the wood’s, where the boy and I will spend some time together there”.

Brabazon called the boy Jude, as he said after an old friend, and after a time Jude married Brabazon’s daughter, her arrival on the scene and in this tale is something of a mystery in itself as Brabazon never had a wife or ever took one. Over time they and their offspring became McCarthy’s themselves. It is thanks to the last words of Caleb McCarthy on his deathbed many years later that we have some idea of how she came to be.

You remember Caleb, he and his brother Samuel were the two that had burned the widow alive and murdered her son only to have him as a replacement corpse for Daw’s watery tomb, the body workmen found centuries later when building the road!

He and his brother Samuel had been Brabazon’s most trusted henchmen, it had been them who brought Daw to the secret house that he had built deep in the forest, they were the only two who knew of its location and were the ones who had been charged with the supervision of its construction and the hiring of the strange foreign workmen to build it by Brabazon’s instruction.

Brabazon did as he said he would and spent some time away from the McCarthy clan, it suited them they had become wealthy by his leadership but more and more fearful of him and none dared challenge him. He had been gone some months when he appeared in the Whale Bone one winters night, none seen him enter by the door, the landlord just looked up from a conversation and there he was seated in his chair moving his gloved hands over a lighted candle as if to warm them. He didn’t need to speak, the landlord moved to him as he knew he should bowed his head and waited for his instruction. “Caleb and Samuel”. The landlord did as he was bid sending a barmaid to find them and the two men arrived not long after and received their own set of instructions from Brabazon and left. Brabazon was there in his chair for the last time for several hours after, mostly on his own except for those brave enough to approach and ask his counsel which he gave. Then he was gone and as they would attest none seen him leave.

What happened after, Caleb was only to reveal on his deathbed and this is what he said; “My brother and I made our way to the village stables where Brabazon himself would keep cattle for market, we took a bucket and made for his prize bull. Samuel took out his blade and slit the beast’s throat there and then without even blinking. I was sprayed by a gush of blood as I had to stand close enough to catch the beast’s last breath in blood, that is what Brabazon said to do, that was what he wanted. We made our way by horse and cart to the coast, I in the back holding the bucket to save the blood from spilling, gathering wood as we made our way along the shore. This took us some time and eventually we came to our destination the charred remains of that ship the Tempest. There as the tide gently rose up and fell back over sand and gravel we worked with its rhythm and built a bonfire from our gathered flotsam, doused it with lamp oil and lit it. We waited by the cart settling the horse as it was uneasy. We smoked some tobacco sharing a pipe, we spoke little, it was our way and waited for the only man we had ever feared. It was a cool crisp winter’s night, the moon was full and we did both note the clearness of the sky there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. We had just stuck our heads together to shield the match from what breeze there might have been so as to relight the pipe when I looked up and there he was standing by our bonfire warming his hands.

“As always you have done well lads, now bring the blood” Brabazon commanded. I walked to him and handed him the bucket, he looked in and gave it a swish in those big gloved hands of his which he always wore, it looked like a tumbler of wine. “Bull’s blood, many the man lost his life over such a thing” he said. He lifted it up to the moon and whispered “I call you now”, and then he turned to Samuel and holding out his arm over the bucket while gripping it with his other hand he said, “take your knife Samuel the one you used to kill the bull, cut my skin but do try and leave me with an arm, for I know how good you are with a blade”. Samuel stepped forward and drew his knife and for the first and last time in my life I saw him hesitate to use it. “Cut Samuel do it now” said Brabazon as he looked out to sea. Samuel did and blood as black as the bull’s drained through Brabazon’s coat sleeve into the bucket he held, then quickly he lifted the bucket to the sea this time and said it again, “I CALL YOU NOW”, then he doused the bonfire with the bucket of blood. It made a hiss as it boiled and a pungent black cloud lifted from the fire and as my brother and I followed it up to the clear night sky a cloud that had not been there before was now and it crossed the moon, a blood cloud.

The night felt a little darker as the moons beam disappeared from the still sea water, we looked at Brabazon and watched as all the time he looked out to sea. I remember looking up again and the cloud moved across the sky relighting the night as the moon was revealed again.

It was then that I heard Samuel gasp and looking down I saw what had caught his attention and what Brabazon was waiting for.

A ship the like of which I have never seen before with strange sails, appeared from nowhere, lying in the moons beam it sailed directly towards the shore, there wasn’t a breath of wind now but all of its sails were full. Samuel and I moved towards Brabazon for protection from this strange event but sensing us he half turned his head towards us never taking his eyes of that ship “be ready with the horse and cart and bring it close to the waters edge”. We moved to do as he asked but Samuel always that bit more braver than I had to ask “who are they”?, he turned and looked at us now fully and gave us our answer “Formorians Samuel, don’t fear they come to deliver not to collect”. We did as he asked and pulled the horse and cart to the waters edge and watched as he waded into the water up to his waist then stopped. The ship swung suddenly in the moonlight its sails flapped as the wind that was not there was spilled from them, and we could hear the splash as an anchor struck the water, but no crew could we see moving on deck.

Then as suddenly as they ship had stopped a small skiff appeared from its blind side, a small mast was quickly raised into position with a sail that billowed as if it was made of silk. This time as the boat approached we could see a figure standing at the tiller covered in black cloth from head to toe. It looked for a moment as if the skiff might cut Brabazon down where he stood in the water but then its sail was dropped it pulled to a gentle stop beside him. The figure stood with a hand resting on the tiller and then tilting it’s cloth covered head in Brabazon’s direction it stretched it’s other hand toward him, we could see as Brabazon dropped what looked like a purse into the open palm. The figure dipped its hand as if to measure the weight then satisfied straightened and placed it within the folds of material that hung from it. Stooping down now it picked up a sleeping girl from the deck of the boat, we could see her long black hair swinging from her head as the figure lifted her into Brabazon’s outstretched arms. She was wrapped in that same black cloth and as Brabazon waded back to shore the skiff with the tall figure at its tiller put wind in its sails and turned back for its ship. The girl was like a child in his arms and he looked down on her as if she were a Christmas present. He placed her in the back of the cart and turned to us “her name is Luaine take her to my home in the woods and care for her with your life”. Again as always we did as he asked taking our cargo deep into the forest to that strange stone fortress he had built. Before we left the shore I looked out to sea one last time and watched as that strange ship sailed from the moon light water and disappeared from sight.

That was Caleb’s deathbed tale and as I said in time Luaine became Jude’s wife they had many children but their union was not a happy one and this was reflected in the lives of their offspring.

Smugglers, thieves, cutthroats, murderers, failed businessmen, publicans, farmers, fisherman and even a priest. That was the line they spawned they are who I am descended from Brabazon Wade my unknown ancestor and orchestrator of all of this he disappeared one night leaving them all to their lives, fading from memory. I am of their blood, bad blood and for some time now I have lived my life true to my heritage, I am living it now by the new name that was given me, I EXIST now as Levi Wade.

To be continued……..

Gods Vampire – Part 2

Part 2

 Daw

It was a night such as this that a schooner the “Tempest” made it‘s way through a heavy gale towards the lights. The captain, a brave honest God fearing man had been at the wheel for fourteen hours. The storm had initially caught him and his crew off guard but he sailed his small ship well and now sighting the lights on shore felt his seamanship and hard work had been rewarded. As honest men do.

Those on the shore that waited, anticipated and watched as did my family’s clan in there fishing boats waiting to do their part. At this time my people were at the peak of their power in the land and this was due to one man, Brabazon Wade. A stranger who appeared in a time of great strife for my people many centuries ago. Not many remember his history, in a way fear made them forget but he was ruthless, intelligent and he had a plan.  He wielded total control over these/his people and without anyone really thinking or knowing it, he influenced the daily activities of others through out the land. He sat now in the stern of his boat one elbow resting on the tiller, the other on his right knee his chin on his hands. As others stared out to sea watching the kick and sway of the schooners lights waiting as it came closer Brabazon looked further, past the bow through the rigging, past the faces of the sailors, he looked with ice blue eyes straight to the mind of the captain. For Brabazon sensed all was not going according to the usual way of things.

The Captain had realised it too late, he called his crew to him, he had sailed his schooner well with her shallow draft, he had managed to come tight to shore. The Tempest was no ship but the reef would still have her and her captain had guessed too late that the lights were a trick he could not take the Tempest back out to sea, he could see the white topped waves as they broke on the reef. He would give his men a chance, he told them his fears and his plan the lights were no port, it was a trap but he would sail no further towards them. “We make for land now” he told them “arm yourselves and with Gods will if we drive the Tempest onto shore now we might have a chance before those murderers get us, if not we fight our way clear, we have been deceived with false light now dampen our own”.

Quicker than the others Brabazon sensed the reef would not do their dirty work this night and as he watched looking into the darkness he sensed the man at the wheel of this boat knew his business and was a fine seaman, he would try and beach his craft. The cry from the shore and the fishing boats went up at the same time as the lights of the schooner went out. Our prize is lost the wreckers shouted, the storm has taken her before we have. Brabazon stood now in his boat “to your oars” he commanded his crew and turning to the others waiting on shore in a voice that would scare the dead “we have been discovered, he extinguished his lights to hide his ship and now makes for shore, go now on horse, if any escape and raise the alarm all is lost for us”.

He turned to his men already following his orders “the wind is with us we stick to the plan”.

The Tempest cried out like a dying animal as she stuck the shore, her main mast snapping like a twig pulling rigging with it as it came crashing down over the side of small ship. “Use the rigging, get to shore” her captain commanded his men, too late, like gravel hitting a window a volley of musket shot hit the timber of his boat, his men held back from making for the shore over the rigging. Neither they nor their Captain could tell how many there was in the dark waiting for them and always with his men’s welfare at heart he told them to “hold fast and arm yourselves, hold fast till daylight”.

It was a mistake, only four of the wreckers had managed to arrive by horseback as the schooner struck the shore but they quickly unleashed a volley from their horse pistols towards the stricken vessel. They was never a chance of hitting anything but in the dark it was enough to put the uncertainty in the Captains mind as to how many there was. It was only as dozens of torches approached the beach from land that he realised he had been bluffed. He would hold now and for every one of his crew men taken he would take three of theirs, and that he did. A furious battle took place between the crewmen and the wreckers with the wreckers becoming more incensed every time one of their own was killed. They were not used to having their own killed and the Captain was doing a good job of it rallying his men “the light come’s hold till daylight they can not hide what they do then so easily” and with pistol in one hand and sword in the other he fought as man would with everything to loose.

It was a strange sensation, how was it that he now looked at his body his arms now suddenly loose by his side, gun and blade slipping from his hands. How do I see myself like this and who is that man standing behind me the Captain thought to himself as his head rolled off the deck and with a splash disappeared beneath the waves. Brabazon turned to his men and pointed to the stunned crew with his bloodied blade “finish them,” they did as he ordered.

Brabazon had stuck to his plan and attacked the stricken from sea while the Captain and his crew were so distracted fighting the wreckers off from shore they had forgotten to watch their backs. The job was done, Brabazon’s crew and the wreckers who had managed to get onboard made short shift of the remaining crew with murderous savagery. The morning quickly approached and Brabazon without hesitation directed his men to fire the ship. “Take no booty or contraband leave all bodies onboard but remove all our own dead, let it look as if the crew turned on each other and the ship set on fire then wrecked in the storm”. But this logic did not go down well with everyone, one of those who had been on shore a farmer a cruel and greedy man had lost a son in the fight and wanted compensation, he wailed it was such a waste after all they had been through to not take what cargo he wanted. It was at this moment that a shout went up from some men searching the ships cabin, a boy had been found, the cabin boy to be exact. They dragged him out and it looked as if he had been dipped in blood, a dazed and vacant look on his face as if the light had been extinguished from behind his eyes. They picked him up and propped him against the ships wheel and asked him his name and where was he from but all that they got was “DAW daw daw”. The boys lost his mind with all that he’s seen, slit his throat and have done with him one of the wreckers shouted. WAIT! Brabazon commanded and quickly turning to the farmer “ here you’ve lost a son I know you and what upsets you most, less help on your land so here take this boy he looks strong enough and dim witted enough to make a good farm hand, have him to compensate you for your loss if it grieves you so much”. The farmer had no choice but to accept, to say no would only show his greed and how little he valued his lost son and he knew that to push Brabazon further would be a mistake. So it was done, the farmer left with the boy and those that remained no longer questioned their orders and the ship was quickly set alight.

Daw daw daw daw it was all the poor boy ever said and in the years that followed regardless of what task he was set by the cruel farmer and his family it was all he would say. His bed, what fresh straw he could find in the barn, that he slept in and only to prevent his nudity was he given the odd cast off of clothing from one of the farmer’s sons. Other than that he would have been left in the bloodied rags they took him in. The worst of jobs he always got and for ten years he went no further than the farm yard gate.

One day the farmer left early as he did this time of year to work the fields. Taking his sons with him, those that he had left, but also all of them as his youngest boy was now of age to work the fields with his father and two older brothers leaving his sisters and mother at home for the first time. It was during the day that it was decided to do an extra bit of work mending fences and the young son was dispatched home to get the necessary tools.

From the moment he walked into the yard of his home the son knew something was wrong, a deathly silence hung over the place, he found the dog hiding under a cart in the yard shaking with fear and refusing to come out. A shiver of fear ran down the boys back with the hair on his arms standing on end. He opened his mouth as if to call out to those who should answer but no words came out, coughing he wet his mouth and tried again but all that was heard was the echo of his own words. He made his way to the kitchen where he knew he should find his mother and sisters working he called again but no answer. Before he even opened the door he got the smell, his hand trembled as he stretched it out to push the door and as he steeped inside daylight followed him into the darkness and feeling as if the world was spinning he fell back out into the farmyard and vomited.

The farmer stood up stretched his back and looked at the sky, it must be a gull he thought being not far from the sea and the soil newly tilled it would not be strange to see one circling overhead. No, no birds but there he heard it again a wailing, then one of his sons called to him and pointed to the end of the field in which they were working. His youngest, back early, running and stumbling towards them crying out, clearly traumatised and frantic. They ran towards him and picking him from the ground as he fell at their feet the farmer tried to shake what had happened from his son, but all he could sob was “daw daw bloody daw”.

He might of made it he might of got away, but the son had come back early and found what had happened and so could raise the alarm. It had not taken the farmer long to gather men, hounds and horses. It had not taken them long to find the boy called “daw”, they would make him pay, he had butchered the farmers wife and daughters, body parts were found in nearly every room in the house, the girls heads found neatly between the pillows on their beds.

When they found Daw they let the dogs have a go, then dragged him by horse to an old abandoned fishing shack. There they tortured him to the point of death but he would only scream “daw” as he was beaten and burned by day and at night those left to keep him alive sodomised him. This lasted three days and nights, in that time the farmer had the blacksmith build a body cage, tall enough to keep him upright but tight so he could not turn.

Not far down the coast from the shack there was a wide marshy estuary and where trails and worn footpaths could not cross water there was a narrow wooden bridge, some said it was so old that Christ’s cross could be seen in part of it. They took the boy they now referred to as Daw here, locked him in the blacksmiths cage and suspended him from the bridge, it was low tide and the water just lapped the soles of his feet but when it would come in the tide would tickle his chin. Spitting on him as they walked away they left him for the crabs and the icy water. Century’s later workmen draining part of the marsh land to build a road, found a rusty cage with a skeleton in it. It was only then that locals remembered the story and the reason why the area was known as DawsBridge!

Where am I going with this you so impatiently ask Philip well I’m going to take you there and it’s very important that I do, you see I’ve been chasing the right league member for quite some time and that’s you Philip. Now that I have you I want you to understand that you listen to my tale, it’s very important that you know the truth. So for that I have to turn you over to my uncle, not physically mind you, he’s dead you see, but it was him who really finished off my fathers bed time story. I would go fishing with him as a child as he was actually lovely company before he lost his mind and blew his brains out. It was on one of these Sunday mornings with rods in our hands by the river that I told him my father’s, his brother’s tale. When I had finished I asked him if he had ever heard it and my uncle informed me he had but he said” typical of your da he left out the best and last bit nephew he didn’t tell you about the Cripple”?  

 To be continued…….

Gods Vampire – Part 1

Part 1

 One step forward, two steps back

Present day, some years later at a fortress designed to look like a house at a secluded corner of NantucketIsland an uninvited guest  lays waste to the hired mercenaries paid to guard it. All while The Stunning’s ‘Brewing up a Storm’ blasts away on the fortresses internal room by room audio entertainment system, that frustratingly enough can’t be disabled by it’s occupants after it woke them from their rich fat slumber. It concludes with fourteen dead guards two and a half thousand rounds of spent ammunition, six used grenades, two dead rottweilers and oddly enough a flame thrower, however Philip the owner of said house lives and meets his uninvited guest. 

My what a rumpus that was, then again you guys will insist on doing things the hard way and here was me just looking for a chat. What am I, Who am I you say?

Well Philip how about I start with the WHO. They call me Wade but my name is Levi, Levi Wade and I’ve literally died to meet you. No never heard of me… good. Then again this is the closest I’ve ever got to a League servant, oh yes I know all about you guys. But finally I got to you it’s the age old theory follow the money, in the leagues case the right line of money as I wanted to find you Philip the right kind of bean counter.. So back to your question, Wade it’s not my original surname nor is Levi what my parents christened me but in essence it’s my real name, who I am, what I am from where I came. A little too cryptic I agree so allow me to demystify things a bit. When I was a child my father told me a bed time story granted not the most pleasant of ones but then I don’t come from the most pleasant of families.

Hundreds of years ago in Ireland, that rain soaked corner of the world that I come from my clan along with others took part in an activity known as wrecking. It involved the setting of false fires on dark wintry nights near the entrance to a small cove. To the sailing ships trying to make their way up the coast to port, unsure of their position at sea and desperate to make land, these lights and shape of the cove reached out to them like a hero’s hand to a drowning man. Unfortunately for them the port they wanted was a further eighty miles up the coast and the true intent of these lights lay submerged in the form of a reef that ran from the mouth of the cove miles out to sea. No pier had ever been built in this place for that reason but there was a small fishing village and for those who were skilful enough and who fished the reef right up into the heart of winter, they could get a small boat through even on nights such as these.

That was my ancestor’s job, my clan were fishermen and they were great seamen. When all other fishing boats had been taken from the water at the start of winter, theirs stayed. So it was up to them to get to the ships as quick as they could once they had struck the reef. It was also their job to clear the ships of survivors by means of axe, knife and drowning. They then floated what ever cargo possible and the same wind and tides that took the ships to their death’s, carried the cargo to the coast where the other clans and families waited.

A very profitable pastime to those who partook and as most did all would keep their silence and as the saying goes if all are innocent then none are guilty! It was on one of these nights that my father’s bedtime story actually begins.

To be continued……..