Year of the Vampire

Back in 1976, my older sister brought home a paperback novel called Interview with the Vampire. A fifteen-year-old Ru read it and it changed her world. Anne Rice’s vampires did what Bram Stoker’s could not—they made the night sexy and romantic and tragic and gorgeous. The story was Louis’, but Lestat stole the show.

Walking through the mall in 1985, I spied a display of hardcovers in the bookshop, each titled The Vampire Lestat. Apparently, the villain in Interview had captured more souls than mine, and while it took Anne Rice a decade to publish the sequel, it was worth the wait. Her writing inspired me to pattern my own style after hers; oft accused of indulging in “purple prose”, she painted scenery and sensation like no one else I’d read. I wanted to paint the pictures in my head with the same robust strokes, employing the same air-brushed hyperbole to burnish the end result. I read each successive volume of The Vampire Chronicles (The Tale of the Body Thief remains my favourite), but hopped off the bandwagon when Ms. Rice veered off to tell stories of ghosts, witches and werewolves. I admit, fascinating as the other creatures of the night may be, vampires top my food chain.

This past year, Ms. Rice returned to the vampire world with Prince Lestat—I am nearly finished devouring my copy (thanks, Ter!), and once again, my imagination has been fired by the beauty in liberating darkness. The ultimate predator, armed with preternatural allure and indomitable will, the vampire does more than inhabit that darkness. He owns it.

Over the past twenty years, I’ve written a slew of my own vampires, each from a wholly different world and possessed of entirely unique and individual personality. Each of my top three exists in his own nocturnal sphere that, like parallel dimensions, operates side by side with, but doesn’t cross over into, the others. I recently had the brilliant idea of bringing them together for a writing exercise, but every one of them wanted to know why he should oblige me.

Except Black, of course. Black flatly refused … which opened the floor to his arch-nemesis, Raymond de Haven, but still, with Julian reluctant and Darius plainly unconvinced, my great idea seems doomed. Unless they have something to say, none of them will cooperate. I guess it’s a sign of pure character development that I can’t make my vamps do my bidding. Apparently I work for them …

… as it should be.

Mood Music

My twice-weekly writing nights have been sporadically successful. Tuesdays seem to have settled into the schedule, but the second night has bounced around between Wednesday and Thursday. I had back-to-back nights this week, but only wrote on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I read an old short story to generate some momentum for today.

Working in Calista’s world has awakened me to an “I-never-thought-of-that-before”. The story is a period piece, so you would think that music from the period would provide an appropriately inspiring soundtrack. I blew the dust off of Joseph Haydn’s Jagdmusiken disc, but it’s only gathered more dust in my writing room. Instead, I started with the soundtrack to Eyes Wide Shut—a film that I have never seen (and apparently haven’t missed). The album was bought purely on the strength of Chris Isaak’s “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing”. The rest of it is creepy/weird yet happily fit perfectly for the beginning of this story. Two-thirds in, I’ve switched to Sade’s greatest hits.

Jazz for the late 18^th century, you ask? All this time, I’ve unconsciously assumed that music sets the scene for what I am writing. Sometimes, that’s true. More often than not, however, when I look back at what I’ve written and what played as I wrote it, the music is geared toward a particular character. When I pull that character from modern day and plunk him into the past, the music stays the same. And why not?

My only modern day characters who have literally lived in the past are vampires, so it’s no stretch to write Darius Wolfe into a frock coat though I first wrote him wearing Bill Blass. He was developed in a present day setting, which called for a present day singer, so while it seems incongruous, I suppose it was natural to call on the same singer to support me while writing him in the past. The reverse is true of Julian, despite his original incarnation as a mortal rock star. Once he became my immortal beloved, Chopin was the prevalent aural accompaniment. Even when writing him in the present, it’s Chopin or bust.

Though he, too, is partial to jazz. And rock. And R&B. And pop. And maybe even some New Age. Julian is a musician first, a vampire second, and particularly nitpicky third. With him, I play what he wants me to play or he won’t play. Darius, on the other hand, was a born vampire; it just took him some time to make the physical change. I could probably play rap and he wouldn’t even twitch so long as I get the job done. He’s all about the end result.

Which is a huge relief actually, because he does enjoy opera. Not just the music, but the vocals. If he was as tyrannical about tuneage as Julian, I’d have quit working for him long ago.

Did I say “for” him? I meant “with”…

Last of the Summer Whine

Back to work tomorrow. I’m not ready. The pace, the paperwork, the people – I like my job and I like the people I work with, but during the past fortnight my life has settled into its own rhythm and it has been heavenly.

Though I’m trying to be reasonable about it, my inner two-year-old is stiff as a board and screaming. I took her on a long beach flânerie this morning, keeping as close to the water as possible to avoid the “pound pound pound, huff huff huff” of the ubiquitous joggers. Good that the tide was out; regrettable that the beach is rocky and tipped at an angle that makes walking more difficult. Every step required presence of mind, which I guess was a positive given that it kept me focused on the moment rather than dwelling on my resistance to the inevitable. When I got home, Ter reflected my feelings with her own, then suggested we enjoy our day rather than waste it fretting about tomorrow.

And tomorrow and tomorrow.

The Calista/Darius story got serious traction during the past couple of days. I’m at the two-thirds point where I finally foresee an ending though I’m yet unsure how it will look for Calista when I get there. I also took another look at the urban vampire series I’d started BL (before Lucius); the character sketch of Rob Browning was taken from it and now I’m contemplating how to rework the whole story because it won’t farkin’ let me go. Rob and Cassie are the star-crossed lovers and Darius is the bad guy. The universal plot portent, I know. I recently watched an interview with George RR Martin wherein he quoted Faulkner’s reminder that the human heart in all its conflict is what makes a story. Whether it is set in the wild west, outer space, 17^th century France or the Amazon jungle, the characters make it real … even if one is a vampire.

Big Bad Wolfe

My best bad guy is a vampire named Darius Wolfe. Few of my devoted followers have met him, but I have seen him through the eyes of too many of his victims to think him anything less than the most villainous villain I have ever written.

And he’s totally good with it.

The stories about him are always told through the eyes of someone else. That will never change. Unlike Julian Scott-Tyler or Ariel Black, it’s a waste of his time for Darius to tell his side of anything. He expects unquestioning acceptance that he does everything for a reason and woe befall anyone who opposes him. I’m uncertain if he’s a psycho or a sociopath; I’d have to consult an expert on whether he fits into a category or is in a league of his own, and I’m not going there because my go-to defence of “I’m just the scribe” might not survive the scrutiny.

Besides, he’s too much fun to write. I’d stopped for a while, three and a half volumes into a series about the woman bound to serve him that may yet see the light of day, albeit in a different way than originally penned. He popped up in last year’s story of a hit man who discovers a girl washed up on the beach, and a couple of weeks ago, I heard from the woman he married when he was still a mortal (I can’t say he was ever truly human). I’ve been working with her since then, telling her side of the tale, and wouldn’t you know, he was a rat bastard in mortality as well. Maybe even worse, given what he did to become immortal.

No, he did not sacrifice his wife. That was Marcel de Chauvigny, who squared off against Julian in the 1890s. Oh, and let’s not forget Raymond de Haven, the bane of Black’s eternal existence. I have a pantheon of vampire baddies to choose from, and of them all, Darius thrills/alarms me the most.

What makes him so scary? Maybe the fact that immortality hasn’t changed him. He wasn’t a mortal so much as he was a dry vampire, waiting patiently for the opportunity to pounce on the potential for limitless power.

I’m writing that story this week. I know how it ends for him (and so does anyone who’s reading this post), but how it ends for Calista, I can’t predict. I hope it ends well for her, but when you’re married to the devil incarnate, being a witch is no guarantee that you’ll survive in one piece.

As with all of my stories, I’ll have to write and see.