dontravis.com
blog post #401
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| Courtesy of Pikrepo.com |
As a matter of interest, I went back and checked and this is actually the 459th post on this blog. I didn't bother counting for the first year, so am coming up short.
Hope
you enjoyed the beginning of Tancready’s story last week. Have you looked up the
word “prescient” yet? Don’t worry, Tancready will tell you what one is. Could
be a bane… or a boon.
Let’s
get to the second installment.
*****
THE PRESCIENT
Born the seventh son of an Upir, a
Russian Vampire Prince to a mother who was also an Eternal, I came squalling
into this world with my head hidden by a caul. Thus was my fate sealed; I was
given the kinetic challenge of all Vampires, inverted circadian rhythms and odd
body cycles that bring temperature peaks and sleep hormones at unusual times,
thus dictating that I was a night creature on a biochemical level. Even so, I
can function in daylight, although with difficulty. Sunlight is painful,
whether or not it reaches my skin. My eyes are ultra photosensitive, which
gives me marvelous night vision, yet renders me myopic in normal light.
Although shaded eyewear lessens that condition, I am most comfortable during
sunlit hours in repose, not in some draconian coffin, but comfortably abed in a
well-shrouded room.
Amassing huge amounts of wealth during an
endless series of lives presented no difficult challenge; however, reclaiming
it upon each new emergence was trickier. I was careful that adequate assets
remained available to me regardless of where they were concealed at the time.
Most of my many lifetimes were spent ranging from Russia to Europe, with long
periods in the Hungarian Carpathians and Transylvania. The persistent, amorous
pursuit of a Romanian strigoivii, a live witch who became a Vampire upon
her death, hounded me out of the Old World and into the New. I had been in the
Western Hemisphere for the past century and in this unassuming place called New
Mexico for a fifth of that time. Why this place? Why not? Except for some of
the more remote northern mountains where Penitentes held sway, Vampires, even
pranics, were merely the stuff of novels and films.
Now, as I prepared for the ordeal of a
daytime pursuit of the fair Boris, I examined one of my more exotic treasures,
an ornate Arabic chess set, observing its intricate carvings with renewed
pleasure. Then, moving through a secret dimension denied to ordinary mortals, I
arrived instantly on the university campus in a sheltered spot near what is
quaintly called the Duck Pond. Recovering my equilibrium, one of the effects of
my unorthodox mode of transportation, I scanned the area near the near the path
Boris Balint would shortly tread if the past was any true measure of the future.
Troubled by our near encounter last night,
I puzzled over the possible reasons for my disquiet as I placed the inlaid
board on a backless concrete bench shaded by an evergreen bower. Carefully
arranging pawns and pieces, all fashioned of ivory, ebony, silver, gold, and
Persian turquoise, I grew irritable over the unwelcome attention of passing
students drawn by the marvelous old set. I discouraged most with subtle
tendrils of hostility and put off the boldest with a display of cold curtness.
Anticipation always brought out the unpleasant side of my nature...unless, of
course, it is narrowly focused on a particular target. At last, a long, manly
stride bore the beautiful Boris into view.
As he came within eyesight, his calm aura
flickered. At fifty feet, I washed the boy in the aura of friendship and
congeniality, seeking to smother the orange of his alarm. Gradually, his
emanations subsided, and he slowed as he spotted my irresistible bait—the
ancient set. Appearing reluctant, he nevertheless approached across the
horribly bright green grass.
“That’s a gorgeous set. Unusual,” he
observed in a voice that came up out of his belly like a mature man’s. His
slate gray eyes examined my present persona, a slender, aristocratic man of
approximately thirty, possessed of dark good looks.
“I acquired it years ago at a New York
auction,” I lied smoothly. In truth, I took it as booty from a slain Moorish
emir when Ferdinand and Isabella’s troops, of which I was one, sacked a castle
in Leon. “You may examine it, if you wish,” I added graciously.
Instantly, he laid the camera he carried
on the bench and slid his long legs astride the concrete slab. Rather than
touching the board, he examined the positioning of the pieces and looked up at
me with a question in his eyes. Regretting my need for the dark glasses that
prevented me from directly engaging his beautiful orbs, I satisfied his
curiosity.
“Capablanca versus Corzo, 1901, Havana.
End game. Ninth match game.”
“Capablanca was just a kid, wasn’t he? A
prodigy.”
“Twelve at the time. He won.”
Only then did Boris carefully cradle an
exquisite ebony Knight trimmed in gold and silver in his strong, brown hand.
Gypsy blood likely coursed with the Hungarian in those pulsing veins.
“Beautiful. How old is it?”
“It is likely Arabic, but possibly
Persian, dating from circa 1100.”
“Geez, almost a thousand years old!” His
husky voice was rich with awe.
“Do you play?”
“Love it!” he enthused. “But I’m not very
good.”
“Black or white?” I asked by way of
invitation. He hesitated only a moment before claiming the white.
The boy was an instinctive player, and
with tutoring could become quite good. I beat him readily the first game, and
then critiqued his handling of the pieces. His enthusiasm fired, we undertook
another game while I nearly swooned from the effort of refraining from draining
his energy. Eventually, onlookers gathered, and I sent my thirsting quests
toward them, sopping up their energy while refracted sunlight bled away my own.
By the end of the third game, I was
sweating and weakened, but by the effort of pure will, I held onto the
self-possession needed to advance to the second phase of my plan. “You carry a
camera, I see.” I pointed to the instrument between his exciting legs. “Canon
Z155 thirty-five millimeter. Nice.”
“I’m sort of a shutterbug,” he said with a
depreciating grin that sent blood rushing to my head.
“I have some equipment that might be of
interest. I own some Leicas. A M7 Rangefinder, for example.”
“Wow! That’s worth a couple of grand.”
“And a Hasselblad 205. Also some Japanese
equipment, but I prefer the German lenses.”
“Man, I’d give my eyeteeth for a Leica. I
found a Minilux Point and Shoot for five hundred the other day, but my budget
doesn’t stretch that far.”
“Perhaps you would like to go shooting
some afternoon. I will be happy to allow you the use of some of my cameras.”
Uncertainty scrolled across his fine
features. His aura flared in warning. He ran an agitated hand through his
shaggy brown locks. He was fighting a furious battle without knowing or
understanding it.
I quickly extended my arm. “My name is
Tancready,” I announced, exuding all the magnetic charm I possessed, which was
considerable. His hand closed around mine firmly. Washed in the yellows and
golds of my will, he relented.
“Sure. I’d like that. My name’s Boris.
Boris Balint.”
“Ah, Hungarian,” I noted.
“Way back, maybe,” he grinned engagingly.
“Well, my great-grandfather, I guess. I probably know more about my mother’s
people.”
“Spanish?” I ventured. “No, let me guess.
Pyrenees Gypsies.”
He laughed. “Right. Mountain people all
the way.” He began to look uncomfortable, so I reluctantly released his manly
grip.
“Tomorrow is Saturday, and I am free,” I
ventured.
“I guess I could,” he said hesitantly. “No
classes. Can I try the Leica?”
“Of course. I have a Minilux such as you
described that I will bring along.”
“Great!” he allowed his enthusiasm to
surface, costing me my control. I drew energy from him before I could stop
myself. He wilted visibly, but quickly drew on reserves. After we made
arrangements, he walked away with vivid, warning blues among the more pacific
hues of his halo. I watched him hungrily.
In years past, I was a bloody Vampire,
although my donors were voluntary and survived my feeding without lasting harm.
None, for example succumbed to that ridiculous old wives’ tale that the bite of
a Vampire created a Vampire. Preposterous! Were it so, the preponderance of the
global population would be Eternal after all this time, undoubtedly
overwhelming the world’s resources and dooming us all … Eternal or not.
It took half a millennium, but I
discovered another powerful source of pranic energy and rarely opened human
veins thereafter. That source was semen, the distillation of the essence of a
man…his cum. Since then, I prefer the company of men, young men, mature men,
seniors. But the most powerful and intoxicating elixir is the seed of a youth
in his sexual prime. And this I needed from Boris Balint. But there was also a
strange, long dormant stirring deep within me that I recognized as a yearning
for the taste of his rich, ruby blood. Only a Vampire can directly absorb the
life energy of blood. After all, as the Bible correctly states, the blood is
the life!
Harvesting a man’s semen for the
maintenance of my life force exposed me to yet another danger. The human’s
irrational terror of Vampires is matched only by his homophobic fear of
deviants. The pursuit of a man’s seed resulted more than once in the hasty use
of my other dimension to escape the wrath of closed minds.
*****
I sincerely hope there
wasn’t too much black space in the foregoing, but hopefully, you persisted.
Tancready has now made contact with the beautiful Boris. Determined two areas
of common interest—chess and photography. Now can he reel in the young man, who
seems unusually aware of the vampire… given his aura’s colors and tentacles.
Could he be a prescient? Patience, an explanation is coming.
Next week… more
Tancready.
The following are buy
links for my last BJ Vinson mystery The Voxlightner Scandal.
Barnes
& Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-voxlightner-scandal-don-travis/1132632844?ean=9781640809260
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on writing.
You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Note the change in the Email address because I’m still getting
remarks on the old dontravis21@gmail.com.
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
New
Posts every Thursday morning at 6:00 a.m. Mountain time.
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