'Author's Note' And Chapter One

Before you read any of the words I've put down here, I want to tell you that most of it's probably bullshit. After centuries of sitting around and doing nothing but killing people in cold blood, I figure vampires have nothing to do but find the most gullible author on the market and tell them their 'stories' as part of one highly amusing undead practical joke. However, that backfired on my acquaintances when they realized I could easily make more money in a month off of their buggery than they have in a few centuries on legit jobs.

As such, they're all pissed with me. Seriously so. I decided it would be beneficial to my health to move to a nunnery in Italy, where garlic and Catholicism is abundant. If you're reading this, that means that Felizia has finally come around and found out how to use a typewriter, maybe even a new-fangled computer. I feel now that it is my duty to expose the existence of such creatures to the world, if only because one of them is a major cause of high infant mortality rates everywhere.

Peace And Love,

Verity Jones

Carson didn't regret for one moment becoming a vampire.

People seemed to be under the impression that vampires went through tortured existences, wondering what had become of the people they had used to care for and searching for love. Carson had fixed the former problem easily- one of the first things he had done as a vampire was to kill his parents and partake of their blood, so he knew exactly what had become of them. The latter problem had been even simpler to fix- as a vampire his soul had been snatched away and sucked into the depths of whatever hereafter there was, so both his sense of humour and romanticism were dead.

Strangely enough though, Carson enjoyed music, despite all that talk about music being the language of the soul. Think of music as his one saving grace. There was nothing quite like ripping out a sweet virgin's throat and then playing a sonata on his prized black violin. Sometimes, if he really wanted to piss the mortals off, he would stand on the rooftops of rich people's houses at midnight and play until five in the morning.

The noise some people make at good music is absolutely amazing.

Most authors these days seemed to think that vampires were beautiful, sex-crazed and/or angst-ridden eternal teenagers. He wasn't quite sure which planet these people came from, but here on planet Earth, he was fairly sure all vampires looked like death warmed over, because that's just common sense. Far from obsessing over his unavoidable fate, Carson liked to live this day as though there was some religious zealot coming after him with holy water, spaghetti, and Latin tomorrow.

In one hundred and fifty years of eternal 'damnation', Carson had travelled most of the world and had become fluent in several languages. The people he had drained the blood of probably ranged somewhere in the hundred thousands if not the millions. In the highly unlikely event that he didn't feel like killing someone for a snack, he always had some leftovers in an Aquafina water bottle that dated back from the early nineteen-nineties (the bottle, not the blood). He had also mastered the art of preserving bodies, but that's a different story.

Something that Carson had discovered was that children had the best kind of blood. Obviously there were hazards, but after you got past the screaming, the crying and the scratching (Ladies, trim your kids' nails now and again!), children had a sweet sort of flavour that was really quite hard to describe. He had first tried a five-year-old some time in the nineteen-fifties and had almost regretted not starting sooner. He still habitually ate sixteen-year-olds and such, but grade schoolers were by far the best.

No, Carson was not a very likeable vampire. Being undead can do that to you.

It had been an ill-advised trip to Cairo that Alexandre Dormand had developed his undo fear of sunlight. Flies just wouldn't leave him alone. They picked at his flesh even as he regenerated, making Dormand feel as though he were a Prometheus, bound to the rocks and fated to be tortured like this for all eternity. It was only during the night that the torment stopped, so Dormand associated the pain with the sun, and would only go out during the day covered from head to toe if he had to. He didn't care that he looked like a graverobber or that his mother thought he was a coward for doing so. He knew that if the sun ever touched his flesh again, he would die.

Dormand had been an undead fourteen-year-old for three hundred odd years now. He had been turned by a crazy baroness near the end of the French Revolution. It was a little disheartening, actually- Dormand had been clever enough to survive the bloodshed with just his mother's guillotined head for company, only to be killed by one of his own distant relatives.

Needless to say, he went quite mad. This was a result of shock from the atrocities committed in the Reign of Terror, his family's very bad habit of inbreeding, and the strain of becoming an soulless unethical member of the undead has on a developing child's mind. He was delighted to find out that he could hear his mother's voice in his head much more clearly when he became a vampire, and he treasured the marionette that his creator had given to him with all the love in his shrivelled black heart.

Not that being a vampire was all sunshine and roses. Dormand discovered quite early on that looking like a sickly fourteen-year-old has its disadvantages, particlarly in countries with truant officers. And he also realized, especially in the more recent years, that fourteen-year-olds can't do anything. So he immediately disposed of any ideas he might have had about a relatively normal existence with just him and Maman, and instead opted for a life of violence, murder, and downright fun.

Only Carson spoiled his fun, and for that Dormand's mother loathed the other vampire. Dormand truly didn't mind. He loved getting under Carson's skin and ruining his plans as well. He knew there would be a day when he would have to kill Carson for not playing nice, but until then, he was quite content with pissing him off.

Paris was starting to tire Carson to no end. What was paricularly frustrating that this rotten city was that it was one of the many capitals of classical music, but its classical radio stations, in a word, sucked. He switched through stations in the blue Smart Car that he was folded in like an accordian, and was assaulted by the musical stylings by some American rap 'artist' who had apparently risen to fame by rhyming 'dah media' with 'chlamydia'. He switched quickly to a local news station, where a calm lady's voice was reporting the day's most horrid events in her deceptively pleasant voice.

'Another shocking discovery was made today, this time in the home of Roxane Laduc,' she said,

'Mme. Laduc is the mother of five-year-old Thomas Laduc, who was reported missing earlier this week. This morning, he was found by his mother in what used to be his bedroom, his blood drained and his eyes taken out. Police are not commenting, but a reliable source informs us that they suspect a Satanic cult. This is the third time on a weekly basis this month that a murder has been carried out in such a fashion. We will keep Thomas and his mother in our thoughts.'

"Like hell you will," Carson snorted in English with a blatant American accent. Years living in Paris had taught him that the best way to infuriate frogs was to talk like someone from the New World any time he could. So he had promptly picked up the accent.

'On the brighter side, diamond tycoon Piet Rondain and his wife Jacqueline are hosting an elaborate costume party this Hallowe'en,' said the reporter with an uneasy laugh after that most disturbing report. 'Paris' most famous, as well as some up-and-coming celebrities, will come out at twilight in costume. Our fashion reporter, Cecile Bertrand, will be there with more reports later tonight.'

"How interesting," Carson said, making an abrupt turn at a red light and ignoring the chorus of honking horns that erupted at this latest show of his total lack of etiquette. "Sounds like fun."

Beside him, Carson's jars rattled in the cardboard box they were being kept in. Carson lifted the lid and made sure none of them were leaking. They were all filled with formaldehyde, and while Carson didn't particularly care if it got on his upholstery, he had a sensitive sense of smell that inevitably would be irritated by the fumes. To his relief, the jars were all intact, the eyeballs within were bobbing up and down as he drove along the cobblestone street. He nodded satisfied, and returned his attention to the road.

A Hallowe'en costume party. How incredibly... frivolous on the mortals' part. Carson allowed himself a humourless laugh, and pulled in outside the tenement he was staying at. He would attend this costume party. What a marvelous oppurtunity for him and his violin. Plus, if he was lucky, he would have another addition to his extensive collection.