Kindred: James Toulor: Part 12

December 31st 1999,

The entire world anticipates a new year and here I sit as paranoid as ever.  During the last decade, I have built a compound to keep out the she wolf who, as I experienced in my youth, will be just as vicious as my "mother," and none as caring.

My father killed the wolf of my childhood and now I face the wild again.  Cyrilla looks enraged that she can't go out on the town but I am convinced that the devil will show herself tonight.

"I have watched you over the centuries, darling.  You've been a bad boy and have not waited for my return."  I hear these words in my head and scream out, "NO!" but as no one else can hear them, my staff looks confused and terrified and Cyrilla simply looks obstinate.

"You fear me, little man.  I have been coming for you for years since you broke my heart."

Regaining my composure, I try answering without talking.

"You left me, Arabella.  You sent me away when you told me you would meet me again."

"YOU FOOLISH MORTAL MINDED DOG!  You think in terms of ephemeral existence when you should have known that through the bite, we were connected.  I needed my time to put together myself and you left and found yourself the harlot of ancient Greece.  Look at the bitterness in the whore's eyes."

My heart dropped in my chest.  I sensed her nearby but not so close that she could see my Cyrilla and definitely not so close that she could sense her mood.  I heard her begin to laugh hysterically in my mind.

"Foolish boy.  So powerful, DISCIPLINED and even experienced and yet you still don't know that I see through your eyes."

I immediately shut my eyes.

"Awww sweet darling, do you not wish to see me coming; to watch your aggressor take out her revenge?"

I said nothing, I thought nothing and after an hour or so of listing my centuries of mistakes, she was silent.  The silence scared me more than the volume though.  I felt her presence everywhere like the born again feels god.  I held my breath and did everything I could to stop from screaming.  Terrified by the overwhelming connection I felt to her, that it was almost romantic fear, if there is such a thing.

Confusion abounds as I look around the room and carefully analyze the faces around me for ones I may not recognize.  Just as I think I know every one, the voice speaks but this time out loud and on my neck.

"You should have waited for me, we could have had such a beautiful requiem together.  No matter, you brought me the Kallisti and she is valuable in ways you cannot even begin to understand, child."

I turn around and in her full glory dressed in war gear, there she stands.  The beautiful and haunting Arabella DeGalle.  Without warning, she grabs me and begins to drain my blood.  I fight back and a battle unlike our world has ever known ensues.

Outside, the flood waters begin to roll in as I throw Arabella into a wall that breaks like it's been hit with a sledge hammer.  Test tubes smash and the lightening can be heard hitting our building in sparse bouts of almost godlike fury.

From somewhere in the room, I hear Cyrilla crying and screaming and calling out my name.  For the first time, as a Kindred, I experience more emotion than I'm accustomed to.  I feel incredible fear.  Flash bangs erupt in the room and soldiers of unknown origin come flooding in like the waters begin to do in Yazoo.

Gunfire erupts as Kindred and Kine fight on my side and hers and the clash brings the fury that is as real as sweat and rain water that begins to flood our bodies.  The blood in the room runs thick and I feel bullets pierce my skin as the rage takes over me and I become blinded to a good fight.  Arabella is far older than I and quickly takes the upper hand in our fight.

From the ceiling she reaches down and grabs me as I begin to notice an apprentice at her side.  Just like the prissy princess to have the audience of my child during my last lament.

She picks me up off the ground and holds me by my head as my body goes limp from loss of blood.

"...And now, lover, time to die..."

I feel her fangs rip into my throat and from a TV somewhere nearby, I hear, "10... 9... 8... 7... 6... and then...

Kindred: James Toulor: Part 11

November 9th, 1989,

As I sit in my little cottage outside Yazoo City limits, I watch the television with Cyrilla and we cannot believe our eyes.  What we are watching is the wall that divided democracy and communism being torn down and I know that this marks the end of an era known as the Cold war.  I also know that the stability that this will afford the Europeans will also bring back the demons who wish to destroy me and my companion.  It is only a matter of time before they find me and I know the Spanish Harlot can probably feel me from whatever cesspool she exists in now.

Oh princess, do you come for me?  I have had time to prepare.  I have had time to build an army.  I have had time to get ready to ruin your nights.  In 1990, I feel your presence near to me. 
You're here for me.  Leave her out of this.
You know what she is?
You sense her presence too?
You will never take her from me.  Do your bidding quickly because at the end of this night, you will be dead or I will.

Kindred: James Toulor: Part 10

December 25th, 1962,

It has been a year that I have been awake and the human world here in the states has begun a change that I believe will bring turbulence to every world and awaken a new spirit of humanity on all accounts.  We are kindred but our world has become fraught with escapists and "revolution" just as theirs has.

The spirit of the 1950's brought many new kindred into being.  A surge of sexual awakening for the kind has brought a surge of wannabe humans into our midst.  There are those now, who feed on human beings infected with drugs to vicariously live off the toxins in their blood and I find it vile.  To be an immortal means to transcend mortal indulgences and to truly exist on a higher plane within reality.

I observe more going into the light to extinguish their own souls based on "spiritual awakening" as if a spirit were even possible to one that cannot die.  The Bron I met centuries ago would be beside himself with glee.

On the positive, many culture shocks are being experienced within the Portuguese colonists in Africa and Spain is going through changes that grant be peace and tranquility as well.  Who knew that the detriment of the human species would haunt my skeletons as they haunted me.  I have felt little presence from my demons as if they had seceded to their own devices and gotten distracted from the ill will they bore me.

On the other hand, my own country had also struggled the conflict in Vietnam for a decade now with no looks towards a surrender of their foreign interests.  Money had gotten tight and my assets had become invaluable to me to feed my country's war effort.  They called it civil unrest but I knew it was their idea of bleeding the rich to feed the poor.

Socialism was, after all a growing popular idea in Europe and they had no idea how to tame it yet or even that it dawned on them like a full moon on the Mediterranean Ocean. I saw the coming of the late 20th century however and managed with my savvy to stay ahead of the idiots who payed close attention to an ephemeral mortal plane.

Cyrilla wished to engage in the freedom and feral nature of the 1960's but the 1920's still loomed over her like a boogie monster under a child's bed.  She kept careful watch over the human world and told me stories, as one tells a child stories of their grand exploits.  I followed their miserable existence myself and began to occupy myself with their chemistry.

In the winter of 1965, we moved back to Yazoo and sold our homes and luxury vacation spots around the country.  I set up a fairly successful pharmaceutical company and while I amused myself with human testing (the government occupied with protesters and sexual deviants and these "hippies" had no idea) my real doctors and researchers began to study practical methods to curing mundane illnesses or rather treating them (whichever kept me in a nice home living comfortably.)

Cyrilla became fascinated with newspapers and television and watched "movies" that brought her the great joy of assumed existence.  How lax we got in our little world.  We became willing participants in routine and enjoyed the breadth of freedom we were awarded during all the chaos. 

In 1969, we even watched broadcasts of a fairly talented black man playing guitar on a stage in a mud field.  These broadcasts gave me great joy because seeing the kind drenched in mud reminded me of what animals for slaughter mankind truly was.  It brought me peace to remember my darkness and why I so relished its pleasure.  The apathy of unchained destruction on their behalf reminded me of why I so enjoyed being alive; or rather, as alive as a kindred can feel due to the fact that our living circulates around their death.  Bitterness and hatred and overwhelming emotion without logic are human traits; as a kindred, we are dead and need to feel nothing we do not choose to feel.  Cyrilla brought out feelings in me because she was Kallisti and that's what her bloodline was born to do since ancient Greece but I felt nothing from the humans; not even remorse.

The great humor in this existence was that the era was such an era for mindless human passion that it awarded those of us who felt none great advantage over these mindless drones who conformed to our whims by being predictably non-conformist.  I could see a dirty mange on the street and almost guarantee he might say something like, "Peace in 'nam, man..."  To which, I would simply smile and nod and say, "sleep," as I drained him of his life force for sheer sport and pleasure.

The powerful blood in my veins was dependent on kindred blood however, and because of this, I researched ways of keeping myself stocked as I turned many and drained them into bottles like a fine Shiraz.  My ruthlessness got much skepticism from the kindred but for the most part it was kept low key enough to not attract too much attention.  Every once and a while, I had to go Al Capone on fellow kindred to keep my "experimentation" a secret.  It was nice, however, that due to the addictive substances many were drawn to, I could find willing participants from both kindred and kind; even if I did need to clean their blood for drinkability.

Yes, What years the 1960's were and even the 70's to a degree; I'd call them chaos at best but when the world and the politicians are in chaos, the level headed opportunists seem to blossom like dandelions in spring.  Cyrilla told me a quote once during the American Civil war, that, at the time, I believe it was intended as sarcasm but its truth rang out like the clang of our manufacturing line now, "all good things must come to an end."