[The Reading] The World Reversed

[Jack Diddly]

The Devil Reversed

May danced above him. She was the girl he’d grown up with, the lady he loved. She had been his rock, his strength to escape from the creeping darkness that crowded the vast pits of his souls and lingering insanity that twisted his imagination. And as she spun under the hazy ambience of the dim candle light like a daring, but dizzy diva, he wondered how he had gotten them to this point, to this place. They were just no longer children, adults by the right of their age. As he watched the woman he loved shed away the innocence of youth with each provocative pivot, however, he’d never felt so young, so helpless.

The walls were red, the color of blood, and a darker hue of the same murderous tone graced the stage curtains. Sconces of dim flame lined the walls and a grim chandelier of candles dangled overhead. It seemed to spin ominously, spinning the gathered into a time long past. And of those gathered, they were dressed in their finest garb, three piece suit would not suffice as an adequate description. Truly, none wore anything brand named, other than Jack himself, each suit worn was custom tailored, privately commissioned. Despite renting a tuxedo for the occasion, he still stood out like a sore thumb. It was amazing that he had been admitted at all, but Jack had never had a problem talking his way into a place. It was a trick he picked up from May.

He wondered if she knew that he was gazing up at her from below as the sensuality flowed from her soul. He wasn’t the only one with his eyes on her of course, others gazed longingly, no hungrily at her exposed flawless, freckled skin, at the way her long, curly locks seemed to float around as if she were gently drifting through the air, and at the way her grace seemed to demonstrate a dominion over the body, a dominion they desperately sought to invade. They couldn’t see her face though. Like the rest of the women both on stage and on the floor below, she was masked. It was a simple thing, white in color that ran from her hairline down just above the curve of her lips. It glimmered as if made of glass. Even if they could, they wouldn’t have paid any mind to her eyes, Jack though, was sure he knew what those eyes were looking like.

He’d driven her away, he could never believe it had been anything else. He couldn’t believe that she had grown bored with their vagabond lifestyle, with their life on the run. He couldn’t believe that the thrill of the spotlight, the excitement of a needle prick high, could murder the restless artist that had warmed him on the coldest of nights. No, it had to have been him. It had to have been the contracts he’d turned down, the alcohol he found himself drinking, the lonely places he found himself thinking. It should have been paradise out West, but instead they wove themselves into a web of corruption and darkness. A web that had found themselves in as children, brand new in its way, but all the same when it came right down to it. Only this time they lost each other in the process, tore each other down instead of propping each other up.

Shadows seemed to slither all around him. It made the place seem more dense with men than it truly was. Perhaps though, the fades that lurked across the dark stained floor boards and in the murky corners were reflections of the true nature of the monsters and their empty brides that surrounded him. They were captains of industry and finance, political and corporate players, those that lurked behind the pretty faces in television and movie screens. They all knew one another, Jack was sure, but much like the slow moving, bare, beauties that entertained them, they were masked, though much more elaborately. It was how Jack hadn’t been discovered. His own mask had a sophisticated mardi gras flare to it, resembling a pale crescent moon. He’d rented it along with the tux. Black doorways lined the red walls each leading to a room where a man could live out his darkest desires all to the soft sounds of the piano. How had he come to find himself here? He’d befriended a rather popular musician who’d happened to have seen May at this particular venue only a week earlier. He’d warned Jack, begged him, pleaded with him, not to come, but in the end extended him the details, which included a series of passwords, which needed to be kept in memory for they could be requested at any moment.

May spun down and leaned her petite, slim, figure backward on the stage, her upside down eyes reaching his, they locked for a moment, before she jolted upright once more, her dance fading with the keys of the piano as the heavy curtain dragged to a close around her. Jack, downed the flute of white wine in his hand, and placed the empty glass on stage. He’d said he wouldn’t drink tonight, he’d promised himself a lot of things like that. The empty glass seemed to mock him as it stood under the murky red light. It hadn’t been his first drink of the evening, but it would be the last he’d have a chance to have. The quick bare footsteps, nearly stomps, pulled his attention away from the glass, from the bitterness of the stage it sat upon.

It was May, she approached with an unassuming smile. She wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him close to her. She leaned into his shoulder as she ran her free hand through the back of his wavy brown hair. Her pale skin was cool and refreshing against his own, even her breath had a coolness to it, a coolness that bled into the words that she whispered into his ear, “You shouldn’t be here.” “Neither should you,” Jack replied in a soft, but gruff tone, almost, automatically. “You’re drunk,” he could hear the venom on her tongue. “And you’re high,” he wanted to shout, but he kept his voice down. She pulled back from him in that moment and he immediately regretted his words. He could see the glare behind May’s mask and he knew he needed to keep her with him, this might be the only shot he had, “How’d ya’ know it was me?” She laughed, it was a high, sweet, singsong sound, but there was a bitterness to it, “Are you joking, I’d recognize those cold dead eyes anywhere,” there it was the full poison from her lips, but Jack could see her visibly recoil as she said it. There was truth to it. The life had been sucked from his eyes and lay somewhere in an empty bottle.“Why are we doing this? What would Sheena think?” Jack knew the answer, but he had to ask.

At those words the shadows seemed to close in on them. As a few sharp dressed gentlemen began to pass, masks turning to them, May pushed him against the stage, lifting his mask just enough to expose his lips, and forced a rough kiss upon him. A kiss to cancel his words, a kiss to keep him unnoticed. He welcomed it and yearned for more, even the sharp bite of his bottom lip that she threw in at the end, “get out, you don’t belong here, they’ll kill you if they find you.” May seemed to say each word with individual emphasis, but quick enough to not be overheard all the same. “Not without you…” he responded simply as she pulled the mask back down over his face. He could see the frustration in her large, green eyes, frustration that brought her to the verge of tears. She grabbed his wrist, “Come with me,” it wasn’t a request and he acquiesced.

She led him to one of the dark doors, pushing it open, May led Jack into the shadowy fade. She threw a light switch and the room came alight with a dim glow. It was similar to the red glow that permeated the main hall. There was a plush, antique, king size bed with metal restraints hanging from each of the hand carved posts. The symbols and pictures in the wood of those posts were unfamiliar, but seemed to be occult or pagan in nature. A winged creature with large eyes, resembling an owl, was beautifully crafted into the back of the bed frame. May sat on the edge of that bed, “There’s only one way out of this for me, Jack.” May slowly removed her mask and looked up at him as he stood gazing at her from his place near the door. He couldn’t help but love her as she sat there, he’d never have a drop of liquor again if it meant he could only hold her in his stare forever. She blushed suddenly as if she were Eve and realized for the first time that she were naked. She looked away from him and down at her knees, "How I missed those eyes…” she mummered through tears, “She’d be pissed,” she looked back up at Jack with a fury between those tears, “Sheena, she’d be pissed that we couldn’t do better, that we were ensnared like she was.” There was a pause as she wiped her face with a hand. Jack didn’t speak, he just moved to sit by her. May wrapped her arms around him and leaned her head on his shoulder. He moved to take off his mask, but she grabbed his hand to stop him, “Don’t, someone could walk in at any time. Just hold me tonight. Tell me stories about our life, that beautiful mind of yours seems to stockpile every moment.”

And so Jack did. May inserted the finer details that Jack would leave out, either purposefully or due to a lapse. They laughed and cried and kissed as they held each other in the murder glow of the lions den. Jack managed to slip out without being confronted and May returned to him the next afternoon. They left the city then, heading towards the south east. It was their escape, escape from the tendrils of corruption that had coiled around them and pulled them into the depths of the abyss. Their second escape, but now they were headed for the place they called home for so long. Unfortunately the cracken that hunted those depths had longer tentacles than they could ever imagine. Unfortunately they’d never make it home.

[Jack Diddly]

The Four of Wands

Some folks called the road their home. They told stories about it as if it were a living and breathing thing, filled with the zest of youth and the wisdom of age. Most stories were embellished of course, after all, what was a good tale if it wasn’t a tall one? Even the exaggerations had kernels of truth sprinkled throughout, however. It was those nuggets that most folks on the road could relate to it. Life lessons that meant food in your belly or going hungry, sleeping outside or finding a warm bed, and sometimes dying in the gutter or living to fight another day. If the road was a home, it was as hard of one as any with timeless lessons and infinite experiences. The two teenagers were certainly lucky that it wasn’t one that, like so many others, they’d have to face alone.

It was January and New York City was far behind them. It was west that they were headed, the utopia of every eastern adolescent's imagination. They’d had to stop here and there on their journey of course. The money was thin and they had to come up with a bit more and there, as they said, a sucker was born every minute. That and the midwest seemed entertainment starved, at least in the areas around the bus stations. There had been ample opportunity to rip off a few unsuspecting rubes and play them a tune or sing them a song while they did it. For Jack and May, this was what their life had been like since their flight from the South, their flight from the monster that had consumed the only mother they had ever truly known.

It was a bitter cold, morning in Kansas, but despite the numbness in his fingers, Jack strummed his guitar softly, playing a old folksy tune with all the passion that its original composer breathed into it and adding a bit of his own to it as well. Much like the road, a song had that peculiar quality of morphing as the days passed while retaining its original vigor. May stood a bit off to his left singing along to the chords he played. His empty cap sat between them, no passerby had even dropped a penny this morning. It was an ill omen, as about three dozen or more folks had already passed by since they began. It was just one of those days were no one seemed to take much notice of you, one of those days where escaping the cold was priority one. May’s voice soothed him though. Despite the song not being for him, in particular, she still seemed to sing it like she’d been plucked from Heaven to stand among the snowy banks and spread a little love.

Christmas Eve was only a few weeks ago and the kiss that they shared, the night that they shared, had not been repeated, nor ever really talked about. May would sleep on his shoulder and they would hold hands, hug each other for warmth and when they were just goofing off, but none of that was out of the ordinary. Jack wanted to ask her, but he felt like some questions were better left unasked. May seemed to feel the same way. Despite the fact that they had virtually grown up together, had spent many of their formative years as brother and sister, it felt nothing but natural, after all they didn’t share any blood and had both lived apart before coming together all those years ago. She had come back for him, even when the rest of the world had seemed to turn their backs on him. She had pulled him from the void of the darkness that swam in his soul, gave him a voice when he had all folded in on himself.

It would have been a stretch to say that no one else in the world had cared for them. It was just that no one cared for either of them as they cared for each other. Jack knew it, in the very pit of his heart. He poured that feeling into every song he played and he could hear it in every song she sang, ever laugh they shared. He could still remember when she taught him to laugh again, they were no more than a few lost children, but she would talk and talk. May always had the ability to talk with anyone about anything. She was forever curious and always interested. It had been shortly after they had first met and May had put their house mother, Margerie, to the question while they all sat together one morning. Jack couldn’t contain himself over the sheer number of questions and the simple innocence of each and every one of them. The way that they had sent Margerie spinning with frustration to the point of her up and walking away with arms thrown wide in the air, was what really sent him into the fit of giggles, however. May had succeeded in getting them out of trouble for swiping a few cookies before breakfast.

Though Jack was still a bit more reserved than his counterpart, being around her, he picked up on the tricks of her charms and learned to use his own innate abilities to his advantage. It got them out of much more than getting their hands caught in the cookie jar. Despite the mischievous and often, criminal, acts they had participated in, they were kind to anyone who happened upon them. It might have been the pacifistic nature and beliefs of their adoptive parents, but when Jack considered May as he played he couldn’t help but remember the natural way she was good to people. She shared when she could and took when she didn’t, but only when the taking never would truly hurt someone else.

Yeah, it was an idolatry of sort and Jack had her on a pedestal. She’d been just what he needed, when he needed it, friend, mother, sister, and lover. May brought out the best in him and Jack hoped that he brought the best out of her as well. The song was done and before Jack could pick up a second tune, May turned looked at his empty cap, and then over to him with a smirk and a shrug. "Play me another, Johnny Frost,” the playfulness in her tone indicated that she wasn’t worried. They’d figure out how to get some cash, they always did. They owned the road, it didn’t own them, even in the bitterness of weather. Jack started up an Trio melody and her soft voice drifted through the biting breeze once more. There was a haunting quality to it now, just haunting enough to grab the attention of a sharp dressed gentleman who dropped a twenty to the two kids in worn leather jackets and fingerless gloves. Two kids who could find home anywhere they happened to be.

[Jack Diddly]

The Ten of Swords Reversed

'Live.’ The world swirled through his mind like twister, wreaking havoc as it tore down its unpredictable path, leaving any structure completely demolished in its wake. It was the sheer pointlessness of it that fueled the heart of its destruction, the essence of what gave it all of its strength. It would have been a sick joke if it hadn’t been the last word she said, the last time he’d ever hear her voice. The chill of knowing that alone, had yet to leave his soul. Alone, that was all anyone really ever could be, alone with the machinations of their own torments. God, he could still feel her sticky blood all over his hands, could still hear her shallow breathe in his ear.

The dank smell of hops and old cigarette smoke wafted through the grey bar. It was some roadside rathole, surrounded by for miles by desert sands, and it made no attempt to be anything more than just that. As fine a place as any to wait out the moment when his liver might give out. With his mahogany acoustic slung over his shoulder (tucked safely away in his old leather guitar case of course) the tall, sullen fellow sucked away at cheap whiskey in the middle of the afternoon. His eyes seemed to have sunk into his skull, while the skin on his cheeks had stretched significantly thinner over his skull. He hadn’t had a decent meal, well, since he couldn’t remember when, unless you counted Jack Daniels as a hearty breakfast. And sleep, that only came once inebriation finally conked his mind into darkness. It was a wonder no one had taken his guitar, he’d found himself passed out in may precarious places. A wonder and a blessing.

He still played of course. He was booked to play this bar this very evening, though with the looks he was getting as he continued his whiskey requests from the bartender, he wondered if they would rescind their invitation. It would be folly in their part to do so. Jack could play with the best of them, even when he was drunker than a skunk. Besides that, the money that they were paying him would be put right back into the bar anyway. It was a win/win situation for them. Nothing to do but drink, now. And playing well that wasn’t something he did because he wanted to, but because he had to. He’d poured as much pain into each and every melody as he tried to drown out with every drop of liquor.

As the burn of the whiskey numbed his throat he could feel the warpath of today’s alcohol cyclone ripping away at his thoughts. Soon he wouldn’t have to relive dressing her in that gown she so loved and the scent of the earth as he dug her grave. The old willow that sat above her final resting place seemed to capture the late afternoon sun in its branches as it softly rustled a funeral march in the breeze. Dirt covered his hands and his boots, it caked his white t-shirt and the knees of his jeans, he even had to shake it out of his hair. The dirt was the last thing they truly shared. Though he should have been down in that pit with her now. What gave him the right to live, there was that word again, ringing like a curse, but by what measure should he be allowed to linger among the living while her body would rot among the worms. Maybe they shared that as well, maybe they were both surrounded by their own worms.

The whiskey had stopped tasting like anything early on. All his taste buds could register was bitterness. The last true emotion he felt was a savage hate, a rage filled fury that demanded murder. Once it had been satisfied, he failed to feel anything. There was nothing after revenge but the despair of loss. But before that despair, it had been as it had been when he was only a boy. Something deep within him took hold, a vicious beast that was unchained and given free reign. It choked the life out of the man he’d thought was his friend. The man who’d sold their souls for a quick buck. He played that fellow’s journey into and throughout their life like some kind of twisted, macabre, song. From the very first he had brought on their misfortune, had crafted the wedge that shortened their last days together, had wielded the knife that cut down their future. Jack could still feel his hands around his throat, hands still covered in her blood, their betrayer’s throat had become red with it. Was it envy that drove him? Or was he just a demon, sent to doom something heaven sent? Perhaps to release the creature that had been born in Jack all those years ago? Whatever the case, there was no satisfaction to be found in the way he could feel his windpipe crushing under his grip, in the way his eyes bulged and turned upward, or in the way he had struggled under Jack’s weight, it was just an automatic response. He had been an instinctual carnivore and that ******** was his prey.

It wasn’t the first time he had killed. There had been another instance. Like this one, he’d done it for May, only here he couldn’t save her. The pale haze of inebriation bowled over that scene where he held her in his arms, trying to get the bleeding to stop, trying to do something to not feel powerless. It wouldn’t do away with her voice though, it couldn’t drown out that word, ‘Live.’ What a silly notion, to live in a world without her. A senseless life it would be, he had no one else. Nothing but the clothes on his back (no longer bloody), the guitar over his shoulder, and the whiskey in his hand, the later which would be quite gone soon.

The afternoon seemed to have faded quickly as the hazy sunlight dipped to a darker orange glow. Time flies as they say. He placed the empty tumbler on the dusty oak counter and stood. He stretched a bit before moving with a bit of a stumble towards a small area set for him in the corner of the bar. It was a stage of sorts, cobwebbed and shadowed, but a stage nonetheless. The wooden floorboards creaked underneath him as he made his way through the hustle and bustle of drunken revelry and jukebox bullyin’. The good thing about a crowded bar was that it was easy to get lost in, though in a few short moments he’d been the center of attention, once they killed that radio they’d all be looking to him to play away their troubles for awhile. It was a bit ironic, how he weaved his own sorrows, his own torments into the songs that would relieve others of theirs.

He lumbered up to the stage. It shrieked like a mad banshee under his weight, but it would hold. He sat in the wooden chair provided, slinging his case out in front of him and unzipping the thing in one single motion. He’d done it so many times that only blackout inebriation would stop his success. As he pulled the mahogany acoustic from the leather he began to tune it. He wouldn’t introduce himself and he surely wouldn’t be singing. He might never sing again. Singing was for those with at least a little bit of joy in their heart to do it. Jack’s heart was a ball of ice. He let the bartender know upfront that he wouldn’t be entertaining with any kind of vocals, but they still wanted him for tonight. Truth was people enjoyed the simple things, even when they, themselves, seemed complicated. The music would haunt the background of their thoughts as they made merry and drank their troubles away. They’d enjoy it just because it was there, something they hadn’t listened to on the jukebox ten times a night. The simplicity of something new, something different. You could never be a thirsty artist if you knew how to play your crowd.

Jack played into his first tune, an upbeat, bluesy, folk tune. Something that he composed out here in the sand, thirsting for a whiskey. The song that the proprietor of this joint heard, the one that had snagged him this gig. Only now his hands stopped working right. The chords seemed to criss cross under his fingers in an unnatural way and the entire guitar seemed to move in a rhythmic wave. The noise that resulted was anything but impressive and the crowd’s reaction was a sure sign that they, despite their simple natures, were quite aware that he was blasted. In fact, he could hardly keep his head up straight. A beer can smacked into said head as a rowdier bunch screamed with laughter. The crowd definitely showed their approval for the act and their disdain for the musician. Next thing Jack knew the radio was roaring again and he was being hoisted to his feet and off of the stage.

He found himself outside of the bar, in the heat of the summer evening. Not quite sure how he got there, Jack noticed that his guitar was laying in the dusty dirt next to him outside of its case. He struggled to get the instrument back into its home his head swimming and the light whirling around him. He didn’t move to stand, but happened to catch the purplish glow of the burning sky above as night began to peak over the horizon. There was the distant sounds of laughter and music, the roar of a passing vehicle, and the late summertime chirping of so many little creatures. Oh and that word, ‘Live.’

This wasn’t living. It was a ghastly realization brought on by the purple dusk and the appearance of the moon, of the first evening stars. The twilight glow, May’s favorite sight. How many times did she pull him out to see it? How many times had she chatted away about all there was to see in it? How many times did she sketch all the possibilities of where following those stars could lead? He had become the betrayer by forgetting all that, by failing to continue where they had left off. Tears streaked his face as he stared off, but he could hardly feel them, he could hardly feel anything, at least from a physical perspective. No, this was no way to honor her final request. And that was what it was, the last thing worth saying had been her asking him to press on in a world where she was no longer. How could he not honor it? He recalled the moment when she returned to the group home, with her, and soon to be his, adoptive parents. The way he could hardly believe she was standing in front of him, those large, lovely eyes swimming with an excited uncertainty, almost as of he wouldn’t recognize her. Truth was there hadn’t been a day he didn’t think about her and same was true now. She was his family, his heart, his soul. And that meant she was eternal in some way beyond his understanding, though he knew it to be true.

What would he do now though? Since drinking himself to death had been taken off the table? Because if he couldn’t strum up a melody, he might as well be dead. That was who he was, that was what he did. He couldn’t drop dead though, he had to keep May alive, had to keep playing her into his songs, had to keep seeing the things that they always talked about seeing, feeling the things they dreamed about feeling. Alone in the world with everywhere to go, where does one even start? He stood slowly as the spinning world began to halt under the starlight. He slung his guitar bag over his shoulder. Then it hit him and he spoke aloud, though there was no one around to hear him, “Guess I’ll go home.” It made the most sense, maybe he could find something out about himself there. He wasn’t talking about Mississippi either, he was talking about Canada, the place where he was born. Only question was, where exactly was that? He’d left when he was only five. It would take a bit of digging, a bit of backtracking, but it might be worth it. Maybe he could dig up some blood of his own there, relatives that is.

As he began down the desert road, thumb outstretched, hoping for the kindness of a stranger, the pull to dig up his roots seemed to grow stronger with each moment. It definitely wasn’t a passing notion. He needed to find his people. He needed to see the place of his birth. Most importantly though, he needed to 'live.’

[Jack Diddly]

The Ten of Pentacles

The silent rush of the grey void surrounded the diminutive vampire as he pushed his way through the empty streets. Though there was no physical force pressing him backward, he always found his movements here to be rather heavy. He often wondered if there was some truth to what they said about chains forged in life, as even his fiery red locks seemed to drag behind him as he made his way through the stifling gloom. The sidewalks seemed to crumble as he passed over them and the buildings around him lay in utter ruin. If you didn’t take into account the decaying plant life and tree husks that decorated the street sides and store fronts, it was not much different than what would remain in the world above, if he ever found himself back there. If they had succeeded.

In order to build a new world, the old one would need to be torn down. This wasn’t always the case, of course. There had been points in history where the old order could be built upon, revitalized, and upgraded to meet the needs of the up and coming generations. In this time though the ways of the existing order were too deeply entrenched, too heavy with the foul decay of corruption. That wicked corruption spread like a virus, infecting every aspect of humanity, before it began spreading to the world of the immortals. Not even those possessing life-everlasting could provide the necessary cure to keep the sick world of man, at the very least, comatose. No, humanity had signed the death warrant of this age.

No doubt the discovery of vampirism had exacerbated the decline of man. From the start their media sensationalized it, pitting man against monster, pumping fear into the hearts of ‘the hunted.’ ‘The hunter,’ the vampire, had become the perfect boogeyman, the very essence of the other, a rational beast who could perform all manners of trickery and demonstrated unchecked power. The vampire was pegged as a soulless carnivore, something which needed to be hunted to extinction, else it would never die, replacing humans as the stewards of the earth. The masses ate it up of course. The attacks from zombies and various other creatures that escaped from the void were often attributed to vampires. They failed to understand the delicate, symbiotic relationship that was necessary to balance the survival of both species. They failed to see that most vampires simply wished to lurk freely in the shadows. There was an attainment of liberty to a vampire’s peculiar nature, that could not be gained in life. The masses of man couldn’t be faulted though, by this point in history society itself, had become the mindless, soulless, beast which it so feared. They’d been carefully steered in that direction for decades and those at the wheel found the exposure of vampires as just another means to their end game.

Fear led to rumors of wars, martial law, demagogic leaders, draconian edicts, suppressment policies, and all manners of new technology aimed at tracking and controlling the populace. Monsters were becoming nearly as common as stray cats or squirrels gathering nuts, after all, and it was the responsibility of the state to keep the people safe. They, the masses of humanity, demanded it, one voice united in depravity and nihilism. Just symptoms of its greater sickness. Rumors of wars became wars, towns and cities were burned to the ground. Countless millions died either directly or indirectly. Harper Rock stood through it all though, not by some miracle, but by the determination of a few immortals. It had become a beacon of hope, the rock upon which the old order would finally fall.

The old order had its tendrils tied around the city, however. A united front of vampires and humans, ended the fighting and had brought a peace to the land. Though the peace that they brought had come at the price of freedom. The immortals that had held Harper were hunted by their brethren, who became the great vampire barons and lords of the 22nd century. They were powerful creatures, enhanced by a combination of technology and arcane arts thought to be lost to prehistory. They became like a gods upon the earth. There’s was an old cabal though, dating back to the beginning of time and this was the capstone of their order, the old order brought to full completion.

The barons enslaved mortal and immortal alike. Just as in the days when powerful men controlled the earth, these vampires stifled all opposition and twisted reality into a narrative of their liking. It was a feudal order for the modern era. They built lavishly and excessively on the ashes of the past, while aiming to colonize the stars as the goal of their future. They wanted dominion over all existence and this could not be allowed to happen.

Underground resistance had been there from the very beginning, however, it grew more rapidly as time passed. The vampire had found himself a key figure in that resistance, if only because of his sire. He was leaving the downtown behind him now as he headed towards the monuments that marked the various baronies within Harper Rock. In this mirror world they too laid in rubble and destruction. Great obelisks were toppled and in pieces, while the heads of massive stone dragons lay smashed at their cracking claws. Symmetrical pyramids had even seemed to crumble under their own weight. In the distance the extravagant manors that sat on estate hilltops seemed to whiter under the invisible force of the shadows. His hard, freckled features softened for a moment, it was truly a marvelous sight, one which he hoped to see for himself in the world above, one day. There was a lot riding on his last act, it needed to be the catalyst to bring the oppressive bastards to their knees.

It hadn’t been the first time he died and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. He hadn’t been branded, which gave him some sway, though once he lifted himself out of the rift he’d have to be careful, especially if they had failed and agents of the lords were still patrolling the area. It would be a hell of a fight to get away without being taken in. The vampire had a bit of notoriety to him as well, they’d been trying to get their hands on him since the end of the war. His sire had been one of the vampires that had held Harper, gone now, like so many of the others, not here amongst the shades and the shadows, but locked away in cryo-chambers, drained to the point of death. A underground prison was a sure assurance that they’d never rise again to oppose the barons. The vampire had the discovered the location though, and if all went off without a hitch, a segment of the resistance would be taking the prison this very moment. Perhaps they already had. There was no sense of time here in the realm of the beyond, it was one of the many fine aspects of this place that could drive a soul insane. One thing was for certain this rebellion was the only means of their escape now, maybe the last great chance they had.

Dying hadn’t been part of the initial plan, but once it was in place, it had become a necessity. For an individual like the vampire, this was perhaps his greatest performance. In the time before there was a resistance, when war was breaking the world apart, and rivers of blood poured down smoke filled streets, he had been an illusionist, like his sire. They traveled the streets, in the guise of men, performing strange and wonderful feats of trickery, telling marvelous tales, and though, not a musician himself, his sire would often play and sing while gathered folks would dance in laugh, forgetting the war, forgetting their troubles for awhile. It was during this time that his sire taught him a most crucial trick, how to alter one’s appearance. It was an art, that his sire stressed upon him to refine and it had certainly paid off.

The vampire had become a lord himself. It had required a great deal of effort, but he was able to hold a shift in his appearance just long enough to pass as a lesser lord for a year long period. The lord he was posing as had been done away with, a challenge, in and of itself, though the resistance had a few tricks of their own when dealing with these tyrants. Additionally the vampire had been able to enthrall both the human and vampire attendants of the lord, it gave him a nice household guard of deadly vampires, skilled in the various arts of combat. It also added to his legitimacy, no one questioned his motives, he made sure that they felt nothing but adoration for him. Skill over emotional control was another important teaching that his sire had bestowed upon him.

How had they gotten mixed up in the resistance in the first place? Easy, really, his sire had been one of the founding members. Much of his philosophy and planning had been key behind the successes of their movement and provided soul to their cause. His sire had seen the tides turning near the end of the war years and the survival of Harper Rock had always been key to their own survival as a species. His sire may have had an utter disdain for war, but he loved his people. Seeing what the vampires and men who would become the Barons had in store, his sire couldn’t stand idly by. He wasn’t the only vampire that felt that way, so was born the underground. It was led by ideas and not men and that was why when key figures were captured, it continued, it expanded.

The plan was centered around a grand ball held nearly every year by the most powerful of the barons, a vampire by the name of Dorian. He had been turned quite young and the vampire wondered if he had even reached true adulthood before becoming immortal. He was ghastly pale with cross-cropped black hair and sharp blue eyes that seemed to see through a person. He had a cherubic face devoid of any facial hair or scarring and was a rather tall and well proportioned fellow. They said he could woo any with just the flash of a smile and kill with a single word. Like many of the barons, the vampire was quite sure that Dorian had stolen his immortality. It made him a false vampire of sorts, at least that was how many in the resistance viewed things. He was the true target, the head of the power structure. It had become apparent though, that much like a hydra, cutting off a head would just create another that would grow in its place. If they wanted true victory, they’d have to strike at the heart.

Not even the barons had devised a technology or a magic that would allow them to become impervious to the light of the sun. It would surely weaken them, if not destroy them altogether. UV technology had been developed during the first modern vampire war and had persisted in its development. A scientist, working for the resistance had created a dirty bomb of sorts, micro UV particles that could be inhaled and absorbed by the skin or mortals and immortals alike. The vampire, disguised as said lord had placed various versions of the bomb throughout the manor, there was not a room in the massive place where one could escape to quickly enough to avoid the particulates. Andrenchrome highs were quite typical and trendy for the barons and lords, it left him sober, while the rest of the party feasted on fear, torture, and orgasm. Ritual would do them in for as was custom, each lord and baron would be greeted individually by Dorian. It was during the vampire’s greeting that he would make his move. As the vampires shook hands, he pressed the detonator against Dorain’s palm, it was a small device designed like a gag hand buzzer. The bombs around the manor all went off simultaneously as well as the vest of explosive UV that the vampire had been wearing around his chest. The entire manor flashed, lighting up the countryside.

The vampire was dead almost instantly, but the explosions were the signal for the pockets of resistance fighters to overtake the various baronies. No doubt, sympathizers would have joined the cause as well. It was the beginning of the end. A new world would be built on the ashes of the old. Power structures would be done away with completely. It was the end goal of the resistance as a whole, something that his sire could most certainly be credited for. And even if he had to wander through this darkness for centuries, he knew that the tide had turned above. All the rats and been routed out of their nests and the time of extermination was at hand. No doubt the area of the rift had already been taken. If the lords and barons and their loyal rubes tried to find their way out, they’d be stopped and either sent back or locked away, similar to the manner their people were locked away now. Knowing that he had helped fulfill the teachings of his sire, he was left with a certain peace within himself as the darkness snaked and slithered all around him. The one thing Jack Diddly had always impressed upon him was that there was nothing more important than freedom. It was the foundation on which all else could be built, but to be free, truly free, took a great deal of courage.

The baronies fell that night and they never rose again. A new order rose from the ashes of the strife that followed the fall. There was another culling, this time of vampires rather than men. Many immortals were reduced to the nothingness of the shadows, completely consumed by the darkness of the Realm. There was a new natural harmony to the world, as the vampires that remained returned to the shadows. Humanity soon forgot them again, though it was them, the immortals, who kept the memories and the history of the old age alive. A means of preventing the mistakes of the past, a means of ensuring a new golden age.

[Jack Diddly]

The Hierophant

The biggest lies are the most successful ones. A narrative can be easy reinforced when those spouting it continue to hold their own. They can look utterly ridiculous doing so, but the key is not in convincing the whole of the population, but rather just large segments of it. You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. A basic truth that is counted on for all big lies. Plenty of such lies were in place right now, the wool had been pulled over the heads of the masses until they were suffocating beneath it. The best lie though was that vampires no longer existed.

It was a feat that the musician didn’t think possible, but it happened! Vampires had returned to the shadows, effectively becoming ghosts that walked under the stars. What manner of preternatural magic had been used, the musician really couldn’t say. He was grateful for it though, each night he took the stage at some back alley bar or tuned his guitar on a downtown corner. The crowds had returned and they weren’t looking upon his with any kind of suspicion, hell they weren’t looking upon themselves with any kind of suspicion. They were back, caught up in their own hustle and bustle. Listening when they wanted to and dropping dollars in his hat when he happened to enchant their hearts with a song.

The soldiers had left as well. The looming threat of a complete government crackdown left with it. True that state still did its dirty deeds where it could, but their martial law card had been ripped from their deck. Yes, a certain balance was returning to Harper Rock. The musician found himself parked on a downtown curb this evening, patchwork ivy cap at his side, playing for the passerbyers of an outdoor art show. They didn’t see a vampire, nor would they have in the past for that matter. Jack had an aura of mortality about him, one of his many preternatural gifts. They simply saw a tall, tattooed, ruffian, in worn leather and faded denim, playing the blues. And they filled his hat accordingly.

He could hear a rush of giggles flowing forth from May through his mind as he jammed away on his mahogany acoustic. He wondered what in the world she was laughing about and as if she could read his mind her voice danced through his temples, "the times they are a’changin’,” there was a brief pause before she added, “and they’ll be changin’ again, love.” She was silent then, her presence fading away. Jack continued to play, May often said cryptic things. Whatever it was that she meant, the musician was sure, he’d find out in time. He began to wail away in that gruff melodious voice of his, and folks gathered, like moths to the flame.

There was a particular young lady that caught his eye as he continued his streetside set. Her hair was raven and filled with bouncing curls. Deep, dark, brown eyes graced her fair features and she seemed to sing and smile along to each and every note he played. A long flowing skirt and band tee, along with the sleeves of tattoos that decorated her arms, told Jack a story about losing oneself to find themself. He was quite taken by it and subsequently by her. He played out the set with a song that told a similar story. As he hoped she sang it with a longing look of nostalgia in her eyes. He could already taste the sweetness of her blood as his own tattooed fingers deftly danced over the chords, holding a mantra they both could identify with.

Jack hadn’t been a vampire before the myth that they were a myth had been exposed. He had, however been, familiarized with an old code of ethics, something in place to keep their existence shrouded in darkness. Secrecy wasn’t new to him though, even when vampirism had been the hot topic on every TV screen. Jack was quite unfortunate to have a cursed kiss, even the smallest nibble could kill a mortal and turn them into a vampire. It didn’t happen all the time, but seemed to happen more often than not. When it did, the vampires that resulted never came out quite right. Feral or cursed with madness, they were more monster than man. As a result, Jack found himself disposing of his dinner at least twice a week. It made for a lot of murders, a lot of disappearances. These things had been common when there was no veil of secrecy, when zombie killings were commonplace, and people were always leaving the city. So as he pushed raven-haired Rosey from the art show down onto her sofa, moving his passionate kiss from her lips down to the tender, pale skin of her neck, Jack kept it in the back of his mind that he would need to exercise a great deal of caution. His teeth sank gently into her flesh. Her blood was just as sweet as he had imagined

The news media dubbed it ‘The Vampire Murders,’ various young women had been found throughout the last few months, in their homes or apartments, completely drained of their blood. The first victim had been a Rose Rios. Other women around the same age had been reported missing during this time. The police weren’t ruling out cult activity. Jack rarely paid attention to the news, but happened to catch the story on a TV storefront. The young vampire had gotten himself caught up in the thrill of the alluring, the excitement of the secrecy, the high of the kill. He was taking more than he needed to take and it had been noticed. He cursed under his breath. It was hard to believe that he had allowed himself to go this far. It had been like riding a wave and now that wave was crashing.

The musician turned from the storefront only to find two very large, very muscular vampires standing behind him. They were dressed in grey suits and black trench coats, wearing wide brimmed dress hats that just covered their eyes. They were silent as they seized Jack. He tried to shout out for help, but a blow to the side of his head nearly knocked the skull out of his skin, needless to say, consciousness didn’t last long.

When he came to there was no trial, only an explanation. He had violated vampire secrecy and would die for his crimes. The vampire who he had been thrown before, a paper thin lady in a flowing white gown, with shimmering golden locks that nearly stretched to the floor and the longest fingernails Jack had ever seen, lamented that when he returned from the realm of death perhaps he’d not be as foolhardy. Jack was not allowed to object or speak in his defense. In fact he was not allowed a word in edgewise at all. Any time he opened his mouth his face was met with the marble hand of one or both of the brutish vampires at his side. May tried to sooth his thoughts, though she seemed quite miffed about the whole thing. She had always advised Jack to exercise caution, to stay out of the limelight. Now he'd forever be the target of entrentched, puritanical vampires.

As dawn approached he was drained of his blood and chained to the lawn outside of the large manor house he had been brought to. The musician was doused in gasoline and set alight right before the sunlight broke the horizon. The screams that filled the morning air were short lived as Jack crumbled to ash under the late summer sun.

[Jack Diddly]

The Six of Cups

The musician wiped the dust of the maghony surface of his fender. He moved the soft black cloth gently down the base of the now stringless guitar before working it back up again, towards the loosed pegs. The careful way in which he handled the object was similar to a way in which a mother would tend to her newborn. May sat across from him, the pale, ghostly blue of her spectral visage providing a bit of a glow in the low light of the room. Much like the musician, she sat with her legs crossed under her. She was barefoot, as always and in that lovely, white bohemian style dress. It wasn’t bloodsoaked today, a bit of a relief for the mind. She watched him with the same fascinated intensity swimming through the large hazel pools of her eyes, as she always had when he performed this task, this ritual of sorts now, really.

Placing the cloth aside, Jack readied a new set of strings for tonight’s performance. It would be an impromptu event in the courtyard of the clocktower, brought on by nothing more that a sky full of dancing stars. He arranged his strings largest to smallest, 6th to 1st, the same way he always began, they way he’d learned it so long ago.

May sat across from him, her long curly brown locks hung freely over her shoulders and he petite legs tucked under her. Jack also sat with his legs crossed beneath him. It was the position that Ray, their father and his mentor, always took when he readied his acoustic. There was no sign of sickness in him yet, at least none that the ten year old could detect. He sat between the two children who gazed intently with a mix of adoration and fascination. Ray could play and even then both children knew and respected him as the sort of guitar guru he was. His long brown hair was much lighter than May’s but no less long and he wore it tied behind him in a loose ponytail. There was a softness in the brown eyes that rested just beneath his circular spectacles, it was a softness that neither of his adopted children had, perhaps because it was something that couldn’t be taught, something you were just born with.

Ray began to arrange the strings as he always did, but paused, looked up at the ceiling and seemed to lose himself in thought. After a few moments, he turned to Jack and handed him the stringless acoustic, just cleanly polished. Jack looked at him blankly for a few moments, but Ray urged him on. He gently accepted the instrument with a reserved and undeserving reverence, almost like a priest receiving a blessing from the pope. Ray had been teaching him to play since they first had found, Jack, but it was the first time he had been handed the responsibility to string the instrument, an instrument that would become his in too short a time and one that he would regretfully lose, due to his own stupidity, down the line.

“You string it right, Jack, and you can play for us tonight,” Ray said with a wink and a grin. The kindly mentor had walked through it with him many times before with the careful patience of a saint. Much like all of their lessons, there were anecdotes and stories that kept the young boy’s interest while keeping him focused on the trade he was learning. Not that he’d need much help in that department, Jack had always had a fondness for song. It was a way to play the jumbled thoughts and feelings that clouded his head out in an orderly fashion that just made sense. With Ray’s astute guidance and the cold metal between his fingers Jack began the delicate process. May began to look at him with the fascination that she had once reserved for Ray. Jack couldn’t help, but smile, he’d be playing for them tonight.

It hadn’t taken the musician long to restring his baby. Despite the care which he took with the old acoustic, he’d performed the task so many times before that it had become like second nature. It was back in his case now, slung up over his shoulder. May was dancing down the stairs of the clocktower ahead of him, leading him out into the darkness.

It would have been erroneous to call the courtyard under the clocktower crowded, but there were quite a few folks about, even despite Harper Rock’s current situation. Judging by the various couples, both young and old, groups of college students, and gangs of mischievous looking teenagers, Jack imagined that it was the hypnotic glow of the stars that drew them about. It may not have been the best spot in town to do some star gazing, but it was always just dark enough to see a good amount of the distant suns clearly. Couple that we the easy paced atmosphere that always seemed to pervade the spot and you had a perfect hangout for folks just looking for a little bit of peace. There was some hacky sack a foot in one corner, while a bit of juggling took place in another. No music, yet though. Jack counted himself lucky for that.

The musician found himself a spot near the small pond, sitting in the grass against a rather smooth boulder. The newly strung guitar rested calmly in his lap as he made some final adjustments to the pegs at its head...had to make her sound just right. Though the night was a rather warm one, he worn a black and red flannel shirt, open over a plain black tee. The patchwork ivy cap that he often sported lay just at his side, overturned, a welcome mat for any donations that might come his way this evening. No one paid him much mind yet, of course, but once the songs started a few would stop by to listen. They always did. May was sitting behind him on top of the boulder, she let her phantom legs dangle just over his shoulders. Though it drove him a certain kind of mad, that he couldn’t feel their pressure against his torso or caress her smooth, tattooed skin, it brought back a certain memory. A day he hadn’t thought about in quite awhile. With a nostalgic smile he began to play that day into a spontaneous song of his own making.

Early on they learned that money does last long when there’s no one bringing it in. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to them, how fast a buck could be spent, but they were just a couple of dumb kids, lost on the roads of America. Truth be told though, they should have budgeted better. The money that they took in their flight for Mississippi would have gotten them much further if they had. Suffice it to say, they found themselves stranded in on the border of Delaware and Maryland as the summer was fading away. There were positives and negatives to this. They always found themselves a nice shady spot near the shore to sleep the day away. Ironic, how they had almost lived like vampires then, keeping vigil in the twilight. On the other side of the coin, they were outlaws, or so they believed, murders on the run from justice. Plus they were young, just barely teenagers, though with Jack’s height he could pass for much older than he was. May, on the other hand, had always been petite in stature and at this point still retained many of the vernal qualities of childhood. It was her mouth that had saved her (both of them really) on the few occasions that they had been stopped. She had the eloquence and grace of a thirty year old, she never had a problem talking them out of anything.

It was May’s mouth that kept them alive on the shore really. She could spange with the best of them. It kept them fed, when they couldn’t snag a cooler from some unsuspecting beachgoer. It wasn’t enough to keep them moving though. The beach was nice, but it wasn’t their goal. They were headed to the big city, the center of the world. They didn’t have much with them now. A few sets of clothes, Sheena’s camera, Ray’s guitar. They’d hit a snag around Georgia, lost the bus they’d been taking up the coast, lost a good deal of jewelry to pawn as well, but they’d gotten away with their lives, nothing else mattered. Except of course, finding to coin to keep those lives going. The cops had already been down to chase them away once for begging and they didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to themselves. A sad truth eventually befell them, they’d have to pawn the guitar and the camera, the only things they had left from the bitter short time that they had had a family.

They’d built a fire on the beach, the night before they’d finally planned their dreaded visit to the Shoreside Pawn. They sat next to each other in the sand, with the flames to their back, Jack playing a gentle tune to the sounds of the tumbling tide, as May rested her head on his lap, looking up into the sky, humming some nonsense tune. The sounds meshed quite well, but truthfully he just wanted to feel Ray’s strings beneath his fingertips one last time. A funny thing happened then though, something which would shape the course of both their lives on the road together. A couple passing by on the sand dropped a dollar in May’s spanging can. Jack smiled and tipped his head to them as he continued to play, but May’s eyes lit up like fourth of July sparklers. “Jack, I know what we can do!”

They didn’t hit up Shoreside pawn, nor did they sleep the next day away. Instead they found themselves on the boardwalk in the heat of the dying afternoon. The place was covered in late summer vacationers, looking to spend any and all the cash in their pockets. Jack had himself parked on a bench, just outside a pretty hopping ice cream parlor. With Ray’s old golden acoustic in hand he began to play some of the classics, Tom Petty, The Grateful Dead, Roy Orbison, Woody Guthrie, anything that really came to mind. Most important in his choices though were those songs that May knew the words for. She stood in next to him, in a little tie dye sundress with a crown of flowers weaved into her sandy curls, her sweet voice drawing in the crowd as she seemed to dance around with her spanging can ever in hand. It didn’t take long for the spare change to start rolling in, that was for sure.

It was rather short lived however, an old hippie tipped them off that the parlor’s manager had called the police to have them removed for disturbing his customers. May wouldn’t be stopped though. “Jack, crouch down, will ya’,” she asked with a bit of a devious, yet determined look in eyes. After his questioning gaze was returned with only an inpatient sign, he conceded. She hopped up on his shoulders, letting her legs fall just over his chest. Now Jack wasn’t a particularly strong boy, but May was as frail and as light as a feather. Her added weight was nearly nothing. Still clutching the guitar and with May balancing a hand on his head and holding the can in another they began to make their way down the the wooden planks. Jack couldn’t help but laugh as he played Ray’s guitar with the little girl on his shoulders, but whenever his laughter grew louder than her singing she would dig a sandaled heel into his chest, almost as if he were some unruly stead. They got a lot of laughs out of the crowd that evening though and filled May’s can up more than once as they traveled up and down the boardwalk. Sometimes she jumped down and give him a break, dancing out in front of and serenading a few surprised but very entertained boardwalkers, dumping the contents of her can into the leather guitar case on his back before jumping back on again. Some folks even followed them around, as if they were a sort of two headed pidepiper. They hadn’t laughed so much in forever it seemed and that night as they laid on the shore under the stars, Jack back pounding in a tired frustration they couldn’t for a moment stop their giggling.

By the time the song had finished a small crowd had gathered around Jack and Jack’s ghostly girl. He’d been so wrapped up in the song that he hadn’t even noticed their approach. He jumped a little seeing them surrounding him and those that caught the visible notion laughed a little between some soft clapping. Even they had seen how lost he had been in his melody. One stood out among them. She was a young raven haired beauty, with bright, but guarded blue eyes. Her arms and chest were covered in the most colorful of ink, easy to see beneath the black tank top she wore. He shot her a quick wink as he greeted the crowd, “Well evenin’ everyone, glad you could all stop by for a listen,” his gruff melodious voice seemed to sway through the crowd like a tune of it’s own. May was standing behind the lass that caught his attention, her spectral arms were wrapped around her and her head rested upon the girl’s shoulder. She mouthed the words ‘Pretty little thing,’ before she faded into the gloom. What Jack saw was, ‘tasty little morsel.’ With the flick of his wrist, a small purple paper rose appeared in the musician’s hand. He tossed it gently to the raven haired lady, just before he started gently plucking his strings again, “This one goes out to that little flower.” The song took on a bit more life now, but the musician was thinking less about the girl he’d most likely be having for dinner and more about the paper flower.

Painting and drawing, they were things that had never come easy to Jack. That had always been May’s forte. When it came right down to it Jack was a craftsman of song anyway. He felt quite at home with a guitar in his hands or a harmonica at his lips. Folding paper was never something that he would have even thought of, until May had given him the paper flower on the day she had come back for him.

May had been so excited by the simplicity of it, by the way she could make the flowers literally pop to life in any design she could fashion. That innocent excitement not only would send Jack into a flurry of giggles, but also warmed the heart of the lady who taught them the tricks of manipulating the paper, their new mother, Sheena. The redheaded, bohemian, photographer seemed to have a knack for anything and everything artsy and craftsy. Jack and May spent countless hours in her company just creating, bringing life to their ideas. Sheena would never criticize, nor would she patronize. She told you just what she thought about a piece, how it made her feel, what it made her think. And from you she expected the same.

It was the paper flowers though, which Jack found himself folding again and again, that he found the most interesting. The greatest of which was a rather ghastly looking venus flytrap, with sharp teeth and a long, human like tounge. May had been sore with him for about a week when he had set it to pop out of his palm as she bent down to see what he was holding. It took her awhile to accept another paper flower from Jack. He couldn’t help but grin each and every time she did though. Sheena had applauded his creativity, despite the grim creation, fostering the young boy’s imaginings. It went a long way, especially when he began composing his own songs on Ray’s guitar. Sheena had allowed him to feel free and secure all at once in his own imagination. Even the darkest monsters lurking in the back of his mind, could be made into something meaningful, something beautiful.

The song faded into the oblivion from which it was pulled. Like the last, it had just been instrumental guitar, rhythmic, groovy, and wild, something that folks could dance to (and those gathered around had). The lass was still among the now larger gathering, the paper flower tucked into the front of her tank top. When his eyes fell back upon her, a wicked little smile streaked across her features. Jack wasn’t sure he could make it one more song. The thought of holding her petite frame in his arms, the sweet taste of ecstatic blood flowing over his lips, it was more than a young vampire should be able to handle. One more song was itching to break loose, however. It would be another improv jam, something to tie out his evenings musings. The tune rose into the starry sky, laughing and singing with days gone by, crafted and forged by the ghosts of better days.

[Jack Diddly]

The Nine of Wands

Her teeth sunk into to soft tissue of his lips as she pulled ever so slowly out of their kiss. His eyes opened in a delighted sort of surprise catching a mischievous sort of gleam in swimming in the hazel pools of her gaze. She traced a delicate finger over the bare, tattooed flesh of his chest, seemingly tracing the various artwork that decorated him. All the while she let her bite linger, leisurely retracting her pearly whites until his lower lip throbbed with a pleasant numbness. The same mischief that had shone through her eyes, now stretched upon her lips as her weight slowly pulled away from him. The hands that he found themselves tangled in her curly brown locks, greedily grasped, trying to drag her back for more, to pull her warmth back to him. She responded in turn with a sensual purr, grabbing both of his wrists and pinning them to the bed, just above his head. She considered him for a few moments, her eyes diving into the dark blue falls of his own, riding the flow down into his soul. A shine of satisfaction lit up her freckled features like the morning sun. As if acquiescing to his deep seated desires, she leaned down for one more fiery kiss.

May pulled the red sheet off of the bed and wrapped it around her petite, yet shapley form, almost in a mock sense of modesty. It dragged on the plush magenta carpet as she seemed to float across the room with a sensual grace. He watched her every move and she knew it, she relished in it. His exposed skin had broken out in gooseflesh, though they were in the desert, the suite’s air conditioning made the room an icebox. As he watched her comb out her long locks in front of the mirror, Jack realized the deep sense of peace that had calmed the torrent of storms that often raged inside of him. That was how it always was, when they were together. As she turned to speak to him, the room began to fade around them and she along with it. The velvet crimsons dripping away into pasty whites and grays, the soft light reduced to a deep darkness.

The vampire lay staring at the bleached wooden planks that made up the ceiling. He was still lying on his back, though no longer on the lush bed of the Nevada hotel suite, but rather on the soft, white cushions of the couch in the apartment he borrowed from his sire. His phantom paramore was absent, but the thoughts of the times they shared were ever present. It was a rare thing, for May not to be stalking around in his head these days, it made him wonder if the dead ever slept. The moments of solitary serenity he did have, however, always led him to thinking. May in life had always been able to keep the darkness at bay, she could burn it away with the touch of her hand or the fire in her eyes. May of the afterlife was a bit of a different story. She seemed to stoke the feed the beast, stoking the darkness, breathing new life into it.

Every man as a darkness that lies dormant in his soul. It’s something that lurks like a shadow left over from the dawn of time. For most that darkness remains asleep for a whole of a man’s life or, at the very most, sleepwalks every now and again. But for some, it awakens with the fury of a great kraken, wrapping its inky tendrils around the soul until every bit of light has been squeezed out. The manifestation that results varies from individual to individual, but one thing remains constant, once the soul has been snuffed out there’s not much that can ignite it again. Jack Diddly’s dance with darkness began when he was just a lad, here in Harper Rock, when the youthful innocence was murdered by the trauma of abandonment and fear.

First memories are like wisps in the wind. Partial images shrouded in a haze of white or in some cases, the bitter color of red. For Jack they included flying in the fall autumn breeze on an old wooden swing, zipping down warm hallways to jump into a woman’s arms, a woman whose face he seemed lost to time, a sound that was louder than the closest of thunder, and that same woman bleeding out in the sunlight. The abject terror and confusion of those later memories was the trigger that awakened the monster inside of him at the ripe young age of five years old.

Thus began a bitter struggle. Some monsters, though, are more patient than others. They slowly twist and tangle the soul, slipping their tendrils into the imagination, a delicate corruption of the mind. This was Jack’s story. Darkness infected his musings like virus, drawing the boy further and further into himself. That is, until he had met May. It’s a terrible thing to say, but it was almost like the darkness was instinctively drawn to her, like she were some kind of natural soothsayer that could calm its tortured spirit. That’s a secret about the monsters inside of men, they all crave to sleep again. Their existence is pain, even unto themselves, for they can never truly separate from the host which they inhabit. It’s when that pain becomes fully numb, that the monster refuses to sleep again.

The beast inside of Jack had become rather protective of the dreamy eyed little muse, taking full control when it felt that she was threatened. Jack could never fully recall those moments, though many were filled with violence, bloodshed, and even murder. The first time the darkness consumed him was upon their first real meeting, when it recognized her distress, likening it to its own. There was no murder that afternoon, but the monster was still young and adult intercession may have been the key cause for its flight back into the depths of young Jack’s soul. When again, years later, the demon inside would take control, it’s victim would not be as lucky.

The vampire’s eyes fluttered open again. He hadn’t moved, was still gazing up at the ceiling. Thunder clapped outside as a torrent of rain began to patter against the large, curtained window behind him. He had once found the sound of the rain rather soothing, now it was just fuel for the darkness that continued to lap away at his soul. He sat up on the couch, placing his head in his hands as he did so. His thoughts were on an endless race, on a path he couldn’t shake. The t-shirt he had taken off earlier laid balled up on the floor in a smattering of white and crimson, the same colors that haunted his memories.

With May’s most untimely and tragic death, the darkness should have completely consumed Jack. His monster did enjoy the long game though and there were years of happy memories to feed off of now, years of brilliant light that needed to be gently snuffed out by the creeping shadows. A long torment was the best strategy, one that would undoubtedly result it far too many drinks on far too many nights. Anyway now that May was gone, the monster would need a new way to sleep. Dying himself though, that was a whole new journey for the beastial pressence that lurked within.

In many ways you could say May had been the reason Jack had ultimately found himself here in Harper Rock. Not just because they had mused about visiting the land of the supernatural, once vampires had become the hot story, but also because with her dying breath she had urged him to move forward, urged him to live. Home had been their destination, but without May, there was no home to be found in the American South, just the corpses of memories. Not that Harper Rock would be much different of course, but at least it was new and perhaps it had some answers. Jack had never expected to take May’s final request to its literal extreme, but now he would truly live and live forever. Nor would he expect how much the darkness would take to his preternatural form.

Jack lifted his head out of his hands as another round of thunder seemed to shake the very foundations of the clocktower. He could smell the dampness of the rain and the sweet coopery bitterness of drying blood. He stood up off of the couch and walked over to the large, circular window that hung as the centerpiece of the efficiency. He drew back the curtains and pushed the window outward. Rain blasted over his face through a harsh, stormy breeze, water droplets streaming down his bare, skeletal chest. It was a hot, humid rain and he could almost see the haze of evaporation rising from typical iciness of his skin. He peered down into the gloom below. The darkness had pushed him down into the void once before. One could say that had been its truest of victories for it had led to the discovery of some innate vampiric abilities and a few simple truths.

These days taking a life had become second nature. It was, after all, a necessary condition of his immortality. And the lives that he often found himself taking, the souls that the manifestation of the darkness feasted upon, were doomed anyway. Already victims of a dying society, plugged into a great, clunking machine, slaves of their own making. In a way each soul he sucked the life from was freed in a sense, freed from the bonds drudgery, freed from the helplessness of a life led for them, freed from the distraction that could never fill their cups, freed from the prison of their own physicality, to become something altogether more amazing than the human mind could ever fathom. It was arcane wisdom, twisted and fine tuned to the demon’s desires that brought on such conclusions. Where the young vampire had once despaired and lamented over his victims, his conscience now could no longer weep. Every monster has its own delusions of grandeur, Jack’s was no different.

He turned from the void, another watery gust slamming into his back. May floated in the shadows, just across the room from him, her bare toes barely touching the ground. Her soft spectral glow seemed to ignite the room in a pale blue. A familiar mischievous grin slipped across her freckled features once their eyes met. Jack returned it with a devious smile of his own.