Vampire's Dilemma

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 2012 by Sime~Gen, Inc.

  Cover Art © 2012 by Penny Ash

  “Cursed Blood” copyright © 2012 by Penny Ash

  “Sunrise Decision” copyright © 2012 by Anne Phyllis Pinzow

  “The Face On The Coin” copyright © 2012 by Robyn Hugo McIntyre

  “Take My Breath Away” copyright © 2012 by Rusty Goode

  “Thin White Duke In Sneakers” copyright © 2012 by Laura Wise

  “Uncle Dmitri” copyright © 2012 by Roberta Rogow

  “Farmer” copyright © 2012 by James A. Dibble

  “Sale Season” copyright © 2012 by Ellie Fleming

  “They Shall Take Up Serpents” copyright © 2012 by Elsa Frohman

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  Dedication

  To fan fiction writers, readers, and publishers everywhere, but especially to the independent film makers and those aspiring to become film makers using YouTube to learn to please an audience.

  —Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  In addition to Karen MacLeod, who slaved over the copyediting of this anthology and made it possible to finish this project, I must acknowledge all the many people who have contributed to my determination to bring this anthology to market. Most of them have no idea what they did.

  Chris Jacobs, a fan fiction writer at that time, and I apparently had the idea for this anthology (new original universe vampire stories by fanfic writers) simultaneously. I can’t remember who mentioned it first. But she gave me the idea before she told me she had it.

  She ran a convention in 2004 in Las Vegas called Writercon, specifically for writers of Buffy and Angel fan fiction who wanted to improve their writing, even if not intending to go professional.

  I had just written articles for two books at the invitation of the editor Glenn Yeffeth, Seven Seasons of Buffy and Five Seasons of Angel. So I had a strong critical focus on the two TV shows that drew together the majority of these fan writers (some of them professional writers in various fields). I taught a section at Writercon, and spent a lot of time walking around listening to the fan writers discussing their stories.

  I noticed something. If I closed my eyes and listened to the tones of the voices, it was as if I were surrounded by a group of Star Trek fanfic writers from the 1970s.

  So I acknowledge all those who made Writercon a peak experience for me.

  As the primary author of the 1975 Bantam paperback, Star Trek Lives! I had planned a center section for that book composed of Star Trek fan fiction from the fanzines. That fan fiction was as well written as any professional fiction. Unfortunately, the book’s interviews with Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nimoy and other Star Trek creators, ran so long that Bantam decided there was no space for fan fiction.

  My co-author, Sondra Marshak did eventually sell Bantam a book of fan fiction called Star Trek: The New Voyages

  The other co-author on Star Trek Lives!, Joan Winston, went on to write several non-fiction books about Star Trek. She was an inspiration.

  Meanwhile, a number of Star Trek novels were professionally published that had been written by fans for fans—even if the writers were already established professional science fiction writers. Fan writing went pro and opened the door for fans making a first sale. Someone finally understood that it matters whether the author loves the material.

  One Star Trek novel was a first-sale which I agented, after I demanded that the ending be changed to conform to Paramount’s specifications. I sold Yesterday’s Son (Star Trek #11) by A. C. Crispin to Pocket and it went to the New York Times bestseller list. Crispin then founded a career doing novelizations, collaborations with Andre Norton, and original novels. Crispin has made this book possible.

  Also meanwhile, Jean Lorrah, a professional writer who had written some Star Trek fan fiction, started writing fan fiction in my Sime~Gen Universe. At a Star Trek convention, she showed me the beginnings of a Sime~Gen fan story. I said do 3 chapters and an outline and we’ll sell it to Doubleday for hardcover. We did. It was her first novel, and she thinks she may have been the first woman to get a Full Professorship based on a co-byline of a science fiction novel. She and I may have been the first female-female collaborating team in sf. She went on to sell Pocket some Star Trek novels based on her Star Trek fan writing, and they hit the best seller lists. We still write Sime~Gen together. And now she’s co-editing this anthology, a big honor considering her vampire novel, Blood Will Tell, won two awards.

  INTRODUCTION, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  They used to laugh at me for taking fan fiction writing seriously. Today, I get scoffed at on Twitter if I don’t.

  I sold my first Sime~Gen story, “Operation High Time,” to Fred Pohl at If Magazine of Science Fiction in 1968 before I began contributing my Kraith Universe stories to Star Trek fanzines. Professional writers told me to stop writing fan fiction entirely or I’d never have a professional writing career.

  Today there are fans writing fan fiction based on my Sime~Gen universe which are all once again available, this time not only in paper but ebook and audiobook. Fans of my professional writing have been inspired by it to become professional writers or have had their writing influenced by my style of Intimate Adventure, which is what I call the genre I write in.1

  Most prominent among them appears to be Ronald D. Moore, the Star Trek producer who now has created a runaway success with his new Battlestar Galactica. When Star Trek: Enterprise was cancelled, Moore mentioned me in his blog. I emailed him and asked if Battlestar Galactica had become Intimate Adventure under his hand. After looking at the definition posted online, he responded thusly:

  The intimate adventure genre is an interesting theory and I see no reason not to include Galactica within it.

  As you probably picked up from my piece, I was a fan of your work for many years and I’m delighted to finally be able to thank you for it directly. Your work really spoke to me when I was growing up and definitely influenced my own writing ambitions and desires, so thank you, thank you, thank you!

  And then he asked where he could get a copy of Kraith. I sent him a set.

  So I conclude my persistent fan writing in Star Trek fanzines did not in any way vitiate my professional writing.

  However, there is a certain validity to the underlying concept behind that advice I rejected. There is a way to use fan fiction writing as a stepping stone to professional writing as I did, but there is also a way to use it to barricade a tender inner life from the harsh realities of the world.

  Both ways and both purposes are valid and admirable. As long as the writer chooses a method that furthers that personally chosen purpose, not a single moment is wasted by reading and writing pastiche derived from TV, radio, comics, novels, or films.

  Regardless of the chosen purpose, the fanfic writer has to learn the same craft as the professional writer. The writer must hone that craft even in today’s online marketplace where readers don’t have to pay printing and postage. But readers still expect value for their time even if they don’t pay for the stories.

  As a result, writing fan fiction is the ideal way to master the craft of writing for those people who have been struck through the heart or had their soul awakened by some TV show.

  Readers of fan fiction respond first and foremost to the payload the author is delivering—to the sharing of the vision, experience and emotions of that personalized fictional universe. Even a badly crafted piece can deliver that payload.

  A new writer can use fan fiction to master one writing technique at a time. The world has been built, the characters are fleshed out, many of the visual effects
are established, and the readers know it all. Writing for readers who share so much is like learning to ride a bicycle with training wheels. Just as you can fly down the driveway on your new bike, you can please your readers before you’ve mastered all the techniques necessary out on the road.

  Once a new author gets a fan letter from a delighted reader—the addiction sets in. The will to write the next story even better ignites, and there’s no stopping until the craft is mastered and the subject plumbed to its very depths.

  It is a heady thing, connecting with an audience that shares values and vision and speaks a special language. Family and friends may consider that the fan writer has gone completely nuts and try to stop this wasteful activity. But it’s not wasteful.

  Learning to write is hard. It requires the writer to pass from being a recipient of stories and ideas to being a generator of stories and ideas, from being a passive follower, to living the heroic life of leadership.

  That transformation requires the mastery of organization, presentation and articulation of ideas, the mastery of concrete things like spelling, punctuation and grammar, the use of a word processor and perhaps even HTML coding. It requires learning not only how the world actually works, but perhaps more important, learning how the readers think the world works so that story events seem plausible.

  The energy, determination and maturity required to attain mastery in so many areas of life is more than any one person has inside them. It has to come from outside, from divine inspiration and from the readers who want the stories.

  Fanfic readers mold and reshape the writer to provide what they must have, ever correcting characterization, suggesting growing relationships, and refusing to read expository lumps. The readers work hard to teach the writers how to please them.

  Readers of fan fiction find in it a refreshing energy, an affirmation that they aren’t alone in how they view the world. Fellowship, community and teamwork in the fan fiction world provides the strength of spirit necessary to tackle the mundane world in everyday life.

  Being part of this process is so much fun, how can a fan writer know if it’s time to shed the training wheels and fly right off the end of the driveway into mainstream traffic? What’s the difference between fan and pro writing?

  Professional fiction writers must first engage the readers and entice them into the new universe whereas fanfic writers work for an already engaged reader.

  The professional writer must do the whole job of creating and presenting a fictional universe with engaging characters and an original theme. Beyond that, there is only one other difference.

  Audience size.

  Fan fiction is only for those so enamored of a particular universe that they know it by heart. Even the most popular TV shows have a limited few thousand who are that committed.

  When a writer has become famous writing pastiche from TV shows for those few thousand readers but is now brim full of ideas for original universes, then it’s time to try to reach an audience that might be as large as the TV show’s whole audience.

  There is one tried and true test to decide if an original story is fan fiction. “If you can take the [TV Show Name] out, and still have a story, it wasn’t a [TV Show Name] fan fiction story to begin with.”

  When the writer discovers that her new stories don’t belong in that fan fiction universe, then it’s time to go pro.

  The writers in this anthology are all known for their fanfic. They all share a love for shows like Forever Knight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, or Star Trek, Beauty and the Beast, Hill Street Blues, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., White Collar, Burn Notice, Leverage, Psych, Stargate SG-1, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, etc. all shows belonging to the Intimate Adventure genre.

  We’ve asked each author to tell us about the place of fanfic writing in their lives.

  1 See www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html

  CURSED BLOOD, by Penny Ash

  Prolog: Louisiana 1733

  Sheldon Jefferson rammed his shoulder against the boudoir door with a strength born of desperation. It barely shook with the impact. He put all his heart and soul into ramming it again. He felt it give. Backing up he took a deep breath and ran at the door a third time. It burst open tumbling him into the tiny silken suite.

  He fell, took a shoulder roll and came up slipping his pistol from his belt. Shel leveled the pistol at the woman who held his niece.

  “I told you what would happen if you tried to harm Kitty.” He prepared to fire.

  Movement to his side distracted him for a brief second. Isabel emerged from the corner, only the gold locket Shel had given her visible among the shadows. She hurried toward him, warily circling Madeline.

  Using the distraction, Madeline threw the skinny child she held directly at Sheldon. He raised the pistol even as he fired, managing to miss the girl. He grabbed Kitty and shoved her behind him where she wouldn’t see the Vampire’s fangs, the feral rage on the beautiful woman’s face as she prepared to feed. The oil lamp on the table made Madeline’s fangs glisten. He began backing toward the door. Sheldon shoved Kitty out into the hall. “Run!” The child’s footsteps echoed from the hall.

  “And I told you cherie, love is costly.” With a smile, Madeline plucked a small leather bound book from the table and gestured with it toward the door. The distant footsteps ceased. She tucked it into her reticule as if packing the last item for a long journey.

  Shel pulled Isabel close to him and faced Madeline, comparing the two preternaturally beautiful women. “I thought you cared, Isabel. I thought I could trust you.”

  Isabel shook her head, her hands to her lips. “She has stolen my book…” Isabel’s whisper went straight through him. She had endangered Kitty for a damned book.

  Madeline mused, “Trust is such a fragile thing is it not?” Madeline smiled a parody of sweetness. “Give me the child. Your own free will choice. And you can have Isabel. Or do not and I will kill Isabel. Choose.”

  Cold seared Shel’s heart. This was no choice. It was a trap. “I will never let you have Kitty.”

  “So be it.” Madeline snapped her fingers. Horror and fury choked him.

  A wave of black pain drove Sheldon Jefferson to his knees. His pistol tumbled from cold, numb fingers. What has she done to me? Madeline La Rouge stepped closer. He grabbed the shimmering red silk skirt of her dress. The dress he had bought for Isabel to celebrate her coming back to him.

  Madeline threaded her fingers through his hair. “You are beautiful mon amour,” she said, her voice low and sensuous.

  “Madeline…” he began. She clenched her fist in his hair and jerked his head back.

  “And treacherous.” She brought her lips close to Shel’s. “But not, I think, so treacherous as I.”

  “You betrayed me, mon amour.” She lowered her lips to his. “I do not like betrayal.” Madeline kissed Shel and whispered a strange, powerful word, her lips still pressed to his.

  He shivered. A wave of bitter nausea swept through him. Shel retched. The heavy silk slid through his nerveless fingers as he doubled over. He toppled to the floor.

  Madeline walked away, laughing; the click of her heels on the polished oak floor a painful echo in his ears.

  How could he have been so stupid, so blinded by lust? Another wave of pain stole the breath from his lungs. A sound cut through the red fog in his head. Sheldon forced his eyes to focus on the woman now standing beside him. Isabel knelt and took his limp hand, pulling him into her arms.

  “Isabel?” Sheldon clutched at her in confusion, the room spinning. “Where is Kitty, must save…?”

  “Hush petit amour, she has cursed you.” Isabel’s lips touched his. Heat ripped through him. Burning, metallic, salty fire. With her kiss, Shel’s pain faded.

  “Save Kitty…” His own whisper sent stabbing pain through his head. Shel tried to lever himself up only to slump back into her arms. He held onto Isabel, desperate for the contact with her warmth. She pressed him back to lie on the floor.

&nb
sp; “You cannot. Madeline has cursed you. She has made you like she, ruled by the need for blood.” Isabel gently loosened his grip on her. She stood.

  “No…I’ll kill her…”

  “Shh. Non. She is very powerful. I have done what I can to ease the curse. I cannot break it, only when you find true love will that happen. And alas, while le petit mort is très bon with you, I do not love you.” She looked at the door. He followed her gaze. Her servant stood impassive, waiting. “Gervaise will take you to the docks. You must leave this place.”

  Shel frowned at Gervaise. Something was wrong. A tiny dark spot at the corner of the servant’s mouth grew, then spilled down over the man’s jaw. A warm thick scent, almost sexual in its intensity, enveloped Shel. Blood. The servant toppled forward onto him. Isabel gasped and shrank back.

  Shel touched his fingers to the redness on Gervaise’s skin and brought them to his mouth. The taste ignited a raging fire in Shel. The desire for blood consumed him, forced him to feed.

  The rage of his first feeding subsided to reveal Madeline. Candlelight glinted off the bloody silver blade in one hand, Kitty cradled glassy eyed in the curve of her other arm.

  As Sheldon watched, paralyzed by the sensations ripping through him, Madeline very slowly, very deliberately, slid her fangs into Kitty’s neck, very erotically, she sucked, one slow teasing swallow after another, Isabel’s red dress flowing sensuously around her. With every move, Sheldon felt a fire rise from his belly.

  Kitty’s lifeless body thudded to the carpet beside Gervaise. Shel stood, no longer confused. He gazed at Isabel. He smelled her fear. It excited him. Isabel whirled to run but he caught her easily.

  Shel fought the pull every way he could even as he sank his new fangs into Isabel’s smooth, pale neck. He tried to break free of the spell her scent cast over him. It did no good, Shel couldn’t stop, the need in him was far too strong. He barely noticed Madeline watching avidly. But he saw Madeline fingering the little leather book as if it had something to do with his killing the woman he loved.