Kindred: James Toulor: Part 9

January 1st, 1939,

I remember the events of 1776 quite clearly: Cyrilla and I had learned of the declaration that we were free of European tyranny and how horrid it was for a government to oppress its people.  I even recall the 1800's being a period of American isolationism.  However humorous both events were because the Europeans such as myself always found a way to take advantage of American stubbornness to cooperate with the rest of the world.  A month or two ago, however, I read of one of the most horrid things the Germans had done in a while and although it did not surprise me, I remember being slightly off-put by the way Americans reacted to "The night of broken glass."  For all nations of Europe this was the catalyst towards a great world war but the Americans seemed uninterested and even apathetic to the pain and suffering going on across the great puddle.

What arrogance it was to know that the world was fighting and we simply sat in our homes listening to the large talking box that would tell us tales of my own home being appalled by the aggression of its neighbor towards its own people.  Not like we French were really the type to be sympathetic but one does get concerned when the neighbors talk of imperialism...

December 25th, 1941,

At last the Americans have joined the effort and how appropriate I should make this entry on Christmas.  For the kindred, we would take the day off from the slaughter and I wanted very badly to go home to France to see the devastation to my lands.  Luckily for me, I had nobles who I had turned to keep my wealth and lands within Germany and France but never the less, the animals must have wreaked havoc on them to keep up appearances anyway.

Animals.

It always amuses me that the kind call kindred base and vile because we mercilessly slaughter them but war is like a time of play for us.  Human beings cause such destruction on their own that our feeding off them and even small amounts of death here and there become second to the atrocity they can claim as their own.  As a young man, I would experiment on villagers in great psychological experiments and even some medical experiments but the total coverage of the Nazis was so commendable that even I in my infinite cruelty could not have shook my little villagers with such vibrato!

I am but a simple killer, I have done things as a human being that were far crueler than any kindred could imagine and that includes myself but the Nazis, although foolish, were truly awe inspiring.  I hear they have created camps based entirely on slaughter of other humans like them.  In my wildest dreams I could not think of such a waste of blood.  I think their discrimination, though was also a bit naive.  Many of whom they killed would have been of greater use under torture or even slavery but killing them for  sport?  What unimaginable stupidity.

Well, I expect nothing less from mankind.  As a child, I scorned them and as a Kindred, I do not miss my connection to them.  On the dawn of this World War for America, I only hope that my brethren in Europe get to feast unmercifully on these impulsive quacks before the cowboys shred them to pieces.

I had a feeling it would be a while, however, before we got to Europe as a triumphant push.  It is not like a dead thing to show emotion and I usually do not but the cold in my bones stemmed from a foreign fear to the war.  The presence that teased me and taunted me with its proximity.

The war was no more than a scapegoat for a deeper fear and frustration.  I knew she was close.  I new she was near.  I was now sure of it, however, fiends of the undead were not like the walking monsters from horror stories who would haunt people short term before the abrupt climax like the human timeline; No.  The damned could haunt you forever and make you uncomfortable for centuries if they chose to.  If I were a human being she could have haunted me my entire short and miserable existence but since I am undead the "hair on the back of your neck feeling," based on close proximity of a nefarious demon lasted and lasted like a leaky faucet.  The frequency increase simply made it like a barn door slamming repeatedly in the winds of change.

I sat on the veranda of our chateau in Vermont and looked out on the valley as close to sunrise as I might get.  The evening frost glistened on my skin which quietly made a dead response and uneventfully I pondered embracing the sunlight.  Cyrilla appeared behind me like a wandering spirit and showed me her bleeding wrist while I took a quick drink.

"Come, my love.  The centuries make you weary but imagine the millennium.  Perhaps in thought of how long eternity truly is, you will rest well tonight."

We took rest in the cellar and all things large and small: feigning interest in the human world to have something to complain about that was not the Spanish dirt princess, her taunting of my weary existence, and simply existence its self; all seemed to fade to black and her bosom cradled me to wake in another 20 years.

Kindred: James Toulor: Part 8

December 3rd, 1933, Upstate New York

It has been four years since the audacious romp of the 1920's came to a vicious and abrupt halt.  For Americans, it was the worst years of their country's existence but for Europeans, we had the best time of our lives because we based our lives on foreign wealth. 

For the kindred, however, it was a brutal, remorseless, slaughterfest.  Rules exist in kindred society and those rules were enforced by a foreign council, however, anarchy existed for everybody in this apocalyptic revamp of America (pun intended).  All over, you saw American millionaires who now stood selling things like apples on street corners.  Even agriculture collapsed and the poor and destitute ran the streets with very little to keep track of their whereabouts.  A meal was easy to catch but entire crowds of people could go missing in this era or die from unknown causes and they might cite the flu or exposure as the C.O.D.  The brutality didn't stop there.  Kindred got lazy.  Many of them ended up in jail due to the criminal acts that they were caught for and this would have been avoided in today's competent and conservative culture.

I once heard of a Macellarian being caught with several carcases in a room and blood all over her body and walls.  The police labeled her as insane and sent her to an institution.  The institution knew what she was.

For some kind, the era was still a time of glory.  In 1929, one human  by the name of Al Capone made such a din in their world that to the end of the century and beyond, it would be remembered as the St. Valentines day Massacre.  How macabre these creatures were.  It's been centuries since I was one so I completely forgot how delightful they could be.  What rapture it was to be alive or something like it in an era where such brutality existed.  Sometimes, the only thrill we get as kindred is from things that are perceived as a danger and to immortals, that category is slim.

Despite the intensity, amongst the chaos there is clarity.  The crazies run around so quickly that those of us who have drive and motivation (not to mention an intense paranoia that allows for one to be more perceptive) see the ripples in reality that threaten us.  Somewhere in this reality I noticed a presence I had not felt since assisting in Augusto Vidal's rise to power.  The princess of ashes, the destitute aristocrat was close and she watched me with contempt. 

I felt it as clearly as I felt my own skin.  My heart no longer beat but I had drank her blood; she had drank mine and we were bonded to each other so it was not uncommon that I would notice her presence were she near by.  However, I never saw her, nor had any reason to suspect she would come back to find me.  I had no debts to her and she had no interest in me or my world.  She was a blood reader and what would a blood reader have in me and Cyrilla who could not be read?

Kindred: James Toulor: Part 7

May 5th, 1923: Manhattan New York

The air was warm but the streets were cold.  I had been cautious and wary but, what later would come to be known as "the roaring twenties," had enchanted Cyrilla and she was the bell of the ball at every ball.  Walled up in our high rise castle in the heart of the city was not her idea of living our eternity but I knew that living only exposed us to those who knew who we were.

After many years of working my way up to advisor to Prince Vidal of New Orleans I had left my position after the debacle in Greece and become somewhat of a shut in.  Cyrilla projected visions of extravagant parties in Long Island mansions and I could only find myself scanning the faces that she saw for suspicious characters mixed in the crowd.  She never was far from hired goons who waited on her like secret service agents to the president but still, I saw the others: ever watching, waiting and these were the type of patient assailants who could wait an eternity as they had no timeline to complete some prophesied struggle for power.

Removing myself from a seat of respectability had only fueled their resolve even though I had anticipated it vindicating me from a spot light of the kindred world.  On the positive side, the world was wealthy and people were fat.  It was not the time of hiding for those not being hunted.  It had never been easier to have the luxury of not having to kill.  I could only feed on vampire blood for my level of power, but the readily available supply of any kind of blood overflowed and we were well taken care of.

I could sense the impending doom of mankind, though.  Not even through a vision of the future or anything like that but 300 years will give you somewhat of a skepticism towards good times lasting forever.  It amused me that with mankind's opiate being banned they were still as jovial as ever.  I saw a great many at, what the kind referred to as "speakeasy's," face down in a puddle of their own filth and yet they were happy.

As motor cars replaced horses, Cyrilla became enchanted with long rides to nowhere and the fast paced world of parties without me by her side.  It pushed me away from her so one night, as we stood out on the balcony, she looked at me and said, "I can't keep on doing this?"
"Doing what, my love?" I said.
"Ha! You don't even see what's going on, do you?  You're so wrapped up in some fear of the kindred that you are completely incapable of seeing the destruction of our wild lifestyle we've lived for over a hundred years."
"I've seen it Cyrilla but you have become childish in your age.  Do you forget your place in our kind?  Do you forget Greece?"
"Spare me!" She said, "What cowards hide from fear of death: I call them mortal."

The next day, I took a ride with her in a motor car that was relatively simple to go out and simply purchase.  Fear had overtaken me after such a sudden halt of so many years of frivolity but going faster than any man had gone over land save those in these metal carriages, re-invigorated me.  With such life back in my cold bones, I decided to go out to the kindred speakeasy later that night.

We got there around eight and Cyrilla had already begun snacking, in some back room, on a gorgeous, young socialite; the likes of which I never could have charmed like she did.  The difference was after feasting, many of her victims would end up wandering the street estranged from anything that remotely looked like what she wanted them to fear.  That, or they could be seen in mental hospitals.  How delightfully evil she was and in such dark times, it was my only source of solace to the problems of her would be captors.

As I had gotten a 20 something year old kindred to fall completely for me; they fall so quickly when they're young, I brought her into a back room and began to feed on her. through her blood I saw a young life of this century.  I saw poor beginnings and a drive for power; hard work and dedication to live the complete life of a human, a lengthy struggle to the top only to be turned by a covetous master who took her life, took her hard earnings and gave her a new one as a slave to him.  Fear not for merciful death has come to take you, child.  Within her last drop of blood, I got a glimpse of her master's blood mixed with hers to turn her and I saw Cyrilla.
"Who was he?" I screamed at her, removing my fangs and shaking her like a juice box, but she was already dead.

I burst in the room where Cyrilla had her dinner and found her dripping with blood and the pieces of a corpse strewn about with jagged edges.
"You're angry, darling," I said.
"Shut your mouth!" She screamed.  "That fowl was thinking of my face as if he'd been trained to think of it. He thought of hundeds of faces of people I've called friend over a thousand years.  Such insolence can only be the work of an old one."
"He was an old one and you took him apart with such ease?"
"He was a slave! No more than your trollop.  Yes I saw her.  You always pick such sleaze."

Her face was that of rage but her heart wreaked of sadness and offense.  It was as if these people were offending her personally by diving into her life; violating her past.  As I picked her up off the floor and brought her to the club showers, we bathed together and fed off each other. Our bond growing tighter as our forms literally meshed to one in every way.

The blood of infidels circled the drain and we trusted no one except the one in front of us, who had been inside of us.