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To Natalie, easily my favorite thing
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to everybody at St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books, especially Peter Joseph, one of the editor-types who get it. Heartfelt shout-outs to Tom Dunne and Margaret Sutherland Brown.
Thanks to Jason Allen Ashlock of Movable Type Management, a righteous dude and an excellent agent.
Thanks to Lisa Wheatley, for offering her thoughts on the first draft, a draft that’s now a mere twinkle in my eye.
And, as always, thanks and love to my wife, Natalie Rosenberg, for, well, for everything.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Interlude #1
Chapter 3
Interlude #2
Chapter 4
Part 2
Chapter 5
Transcription of NPR’s “Book Week”
Chapter 6
Interlude #3
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Interlude #4
Part 3
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Reader’s Guide
Also by Alan Goldsher
About the Author
Copyright
INTRODUCTION
Salzburg, Austria: The Last Revolting Days of the Thirties
THE BAT WAS DIFFERENT, not at all like your common, everyday Desmodus Rotundus.
For one, it flew with a purpose, which was an oddity unto itself. Unless they were seeking out their evening feast, the majority of the bats who populated the Alps—and there was an enormous bat population in the Alps, which had been the case for as long as the locals could remember—drifted this way or that, no patterns, no destinations, no purpose. They simply flew for the sake of flying. This particular bat, however, glided as majestically as an eagle, sometimes moving in tight concentric circles and sometimes in magnificent up-and-down swoops. Sometimes it punched through the air like a bullet, and sometimes it floated like a dandelion puff. The rodent’s movements were so precise that if one didn’t know better, one might suspect that it was playing to an audience. Or a movie camera.
Yet another oddity: Your typical Austrian bat was ugly. Vile. Repulsive. Repellent. It wasn’t uncommon for one of these odious creatures to sport jagged rips in their wings, or oozing sores on their midsection, or an empty eye socket or two … or three. Our bat, on the other hand, was … was … was radiant. She—and it was fair to assume that our bat was a she, so daintily did she move—had lustrous coloring; her eyes were a clear brown—brown eyes are rare among rodents, of course—and her teeth were whiter than white. If one were so inclined, one might consider inviting that sort of bat into their home to keep as a pet.
If one were so inclined.
Our bat paused in the air, hovering motionlessly as if she were frozen in time, her black, spiky frame silhouetted against the preternaturally blue sky. After a moment of stillness in which she gazed over the grassy hills with an inscrutable expression on her squashed, triangular face, our divine bat spread her wings as widely as she could, and executed a perfect barrel roll, and then another, and then another. The speed of her twirls doubled, trebled, and quadrupled until she was a thick black smudge against the otherwise pristine tableau.
And then she came to a screeching halt, her cessation so abrupt and jolting that one might surmise she had crashed into an invisible wall … but one would be wrong. Firstly, it’s common knowledge that there are no invisible walls in the Alps—there are plenty in the Pyrenees, of course, but none in the Alps—and secondly, our bat was just that skilled. She could stop on a shilling, and give you change.
Our bat had another rare, intriguing characteristic: She could sing.
She couldn’t sing in the traditional sense, of course—bats have tiny lungs, tinier tongues, and even tinier vocal chords, making it impossible for them to form actual lyrics—but our bat could emit specific tones with intonation that could only be described as astounding. She let loose with a high E-flat that was three octaves above middle C, a note she held for a good 120 seconds. That was followed by an A440 three octaves below middle C, after which she modulated up a half step to a D-flat, then back down to a B-flat, after which she ran through an impressive series of Dorian minor scales. And then, as she flew, no, as she rocketed straight toward the sun, our bat launched into an aria from the second act of Joseph Haydn’s “Il Mondo Della Luna.” Perfect vibrato, perfect pitch, perfect everything. Had she been able to voice the words, the Vienna State Opera would have hired her on the spot … even if she was a bat.
Once she reached the edge of the atmosphere, she did an about-face and plummeted face first toward the grass-covered mountain. As she picked up speed, her wings grew hot, so hot that they smoked, and the smoke was crimson, and then gold, and then violet, and then azure, and then black. Several centimeters before she hit the Earth, our bat came to yet another jarring halt, after which she floated delicately to the ground. The second her claws touched land, the smoke doubled, trebled, and quadrupled until she was a rainbow against the otherwise pristine tableau. When the smoke dissipated, our bat was gone. Gone. Simply gone.
In her place stood a woman, an exquisite woman with short, glossy brown hair, piercing brown eyes, and alabaster skin. The woman was naked, and not the least bit ashamed … but why should she have been? For you see, her body was perfect: Muscular arms, a graceful neck, firm breasts, a flat stomach, and strong thighs, the kind of flawless form that many a mortal would kill for.
Let’s not forget her equally flawless fangs.
Our bat-woman spread out her arms and spun in circle after circle after circle, her face turned toward the sun, her short hair ruffling in the light breeze, a radiant smile plastered onto her countenance. She continued on with the Haydn aria, but now she added the words to the melody:
Oh che ninfe gentili! Oh che fortuna!
(Oh, the kind nymphs! Oh, what luck!)
Oh benedetto il mondo della luna!
(Oh, blessed the world of the moon!)
Before she could launch into the next line, her upper front fangs began to drip, no, gush blood. The stream of blood shot several meters straight up into the air, then rained down upon her hair, her face, and her shoulders. The blood—which was far more watery than one would have expected—dribbled down her entire body, leaving red streaks all over her almost-translucent skin, streaks that wouldn’t have been out of place on an Oskar Kokoschka painting. She knelt down, then lay flat on her back and turned her face to the side, apparently hoping that the bloodstream would either spurt onto the grass, or cease altogether. A geyser of blood exploded from her ear, further soiling both the breathtaking landscape and her equally breathtaking body. When a single drop dripped onto her lady-parts, the woman at once shivered and screamed; it was difficult to discern whether the shriek was one of pain or ecstasy.
As she attempted to wipe the red mess from her eyes, she angrily grumbled, “I take to the skies when my heart is lonely, as my heart wants to scream every song it hears. My heart wants to beat like
the wings of a flying rodent who leaps from the trees in the dark of night. My heart wants to sigh like the green stench of undeath that flies from a coffin in a breeze. I want to sing songs that have been sung since before the dawn of time, yet the constant liquid that leaks from the various orifices in my skull makes this well nigh impossible. I pray that my heart and ears will be blessed by the sound of something other than the sound of secretions spouting from my incisors.”
This sort of thing—the singing, followed by the bleeding, followed by the rambling soliloquies that oftentimes sounded like bastardized song lyrics—happened to our bat-woman on a semi-regular basis.
Because, you see, our bat-woman was a Vampire.
A Vampire named Maria.
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
HOUSED ON WHAT the majority of Austrians agreed was the most rancid corner in Salzburg, the nameless Abbey was an eyesore, so painful to look at that nobody looked at it. Its asymmetrically constructed grayish-brown and brownish-gray stones, its cracked windows, its spiked wrought-iron front gate, and its rotting vegetable garden were a blight upon the city’s otherwise gorgeous architecture. And then there was the Abbey’s stench, an almost-living-and-breathing odor that some likened to that of a leprosy-sufferer, while others said it was reminiscent of a decomposing stag. Thus the general public avoided and/or ignored the Abbey, which was just how the Abbey’s Sisters of the Undead wanted it.
As was always the case, the moment the sun ducked under the horizon, the Abbey’s Mother Zombie let out a nausea-inducing moan that rattled the bottles in the underground “wine” collection. (Why is “wine” in quotation marks, one might ask? Well, one would have to figure it out for one’s self, but one shouldn’t have to think too hard, considering the presence of a Vampire in our story.) The remainder of the Abbey’s inhabitants followed suit, and the combined cacophony of their groans caused every dog within ten kilometers to howl as if their tails were being tied into knots … as was also always the case.
The 173 Zombies who made up the Abbey’s population dressed identically—black robes, black shawls, black sandals, and black head-coverings—and as the Abbey was badly lit—and as all the inhabitants were unable to stand up straight—it was difficult for the untrained eye to tell the Zombie Sisters apart. The only way to discern one of the beings from another was by her shuffle: Zombie Sister Brandi, for instance, had her mortal life terminated in a terrible female deer accident—after she fell off of her gigantic doe, Golden Sun, the beast stepped on her left leg five, six, seven times, crushing Brandi’s poor bones into powder—so she moved with a disjointed, distinct limp that could belong to nobody but her. As a human, Zombie Sister Cinnamon, on the other hand, died during childbirth, thus when Mother Zombie sucked her brains from her skull, Cinnamon’s body was in pristine shape, so she was able to glide across the cobblestone floors with ease. (It should be noted that “glide” and “ease” are relative terms when it comes to Zombies, as an undead glide was far slower than that of a mortal glide, and in terms of ease, nothing comes easy for the brain-damaged undead.) And then there was Zombie Sister Chesty LaBumm, who was so emaciated at the time of her expiration—her family was impoverished, and she had passed away from starvation—that even with Mother Zombie’s reanimating kiss, the periodic infusion of mortal brain slime, and the weekly silicone injections in her bosom, she did not possess the strength to move faster than the slowest tortoise.
While darkness enfolded the rancid Abbey, all 173 of the Zombie Sisters made their way toward the Auditorium of Worship. The Auditorium was, relatively speaking, an attractive room, replete with stained glass windows that were not all broken, rows of splinter-filled wooden benches that could more-or-less support the dead weight of the undead, and a workable altar that housed a mold-covered, nine-meter-high shale statue of The Being Whose Name Shall Not Be Uttered. With its palpable odor of burnt garlic, rotting raccoon carcass, and semi-fresh human feces, it was the ideal setting for a Zombie prayer gathering.
As they approached the Auditorium, the Zombies picked up a unison chant: Mortales spumae, et ne ius nostrum spirare auram, mors est satis, mors est satis, the loose translation of which is, “Mortals are scum, they should not be allowed to breathe our air, death is not enough, death is not enough.” Once the Zombies were seated, the Mother Zombie took to the altar, and wordlessly approached the statue. With surprising reverence, she slowly caressed The Being Whose Name Shall Not Be Uttered with her right hand, beginning at his feet, working her way up to his nose. She then stood on her tiptoes and ran her acne-covered tongue over the top of The Being Whose Name Shall Not Be Uttered’s head, after which she licked every millimeter of the statue, from top to bottom, and every bit in between. Following Mother Zombie’s tongue bath, each Zombie approached the altar one at a time and licked only the statue’s feet. (For centuries, each Zombie licked the entire statue, but once the Abbey’s populace grew to 81 inhabitants fifteen years before, Mother Zombie decided it was prohibitively time-consuming to have each and every one slobber over the entire T.B.W.N.S.N.B.U. sculpture. Zombies had many tasks, and as they moved sluggishly from duty to duty, it wasn’t logical to spend five hours in the Auditorium of Worship, and Mother Zombie was nothing if not logical.)
After the final Zombie Sister delivered the final Zombie lick, Mother Zombie gave her nightly benediction: Abite cretins terrae abi foetidus creaturis, abite sceleratos deformis, bathe secretion spiritalis entis cui nomen non dixisti, complectere foeditas, complectere foeditas, complectere foeditas, the loose translation of which is, “Be gone, cretins of the Earth, be gone, fetid creatures, be gone, hideous miscreants, bathe in the spiritual secretion of The Being Whose Name Shall Not Be Uttered, embrace the foulness, embrace the foulness, embrace the foulness.”
In the fifth row, Zombie Sister Cinnamon turned to Zombie Sister Brandi and whispered, “When will Mother Zombie learn that not a single one of us understands Latin?”
Unfortunately for Cinnamon, her whisper wasn’t whispery enough. “Do you have something to say, Zombie Sister?!” Mother Zombie roared.
Cinnamon stammered, “I … I … I … I…”
Mother Zombie said, “You … you … you … you must … you must … you must suffer.” And then she took a golden cleaver from under her robe and threw it at Zombie Sister Cinnamon’s neck.
The Mother had brilliant aim.
But Cinnamon ducked.
And thus ended the life—or, more accurately, the undeath—of Zombie Sister Blaze Starr, the unfortunate creature seated in the sixth row.
The Sister Zombies stared at Mother Zombie, and Mother Zombie stared right on back. As Blaze Starr’s decapitated head rolled down the aisle, one of the Zombies in the back of the room mumbled, “This again?”
Mother roared, “Silence, you odious death mongers! One of you, feed Blaze Starr to the goats.”
In unison, the Zombies chanted, “Lady, oh the lady, oh the lay hee hoo.”
Mother Zombie nodded, the tiniest of smiles playing about her lips. “That’s correct, my beloved ones. Lady, oh the lady, oh the lay hee hoo.”
After the goats were fed, and after the service was completed, Mother Zombie motioned Zombie Sister Brandi and Zombie Sister Cinnamon to join her in the courtyard. Brandi and Cinnamon both turned pale—or, more accurately, paler; most undead are already quite pale to begin with, especially those who spend nine-tenths of their lives in a dark, dank dump like the Abbey—because nothing good ever came of those meetings. For instance, earlier in the month, Zombie Sister Foxxxy was summoned to the courtyard to discuss her cleanliness, or lack thereof. “Foxxxy,” Mother Zombie had said with a quiet, albeit fearsome whisper, “we have discussed your fluid situation. Numerous times.”
Foxxxy stared at the floor. “Yes, Mother,” she mumbled.
“Your nightly discharge is completely covering the floor of the water closet.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“To clarify: I mean the nightly discharge.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“That’s the yellow discharge.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Contrary to your daily discharge.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“That being the brown discharge.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“We must also discuss your brown discharge, however.”
“Why is that, Mother?”
“Because it’s covering the entire floor of your sleeping chambers.”
Foxxxy mustered the strength to meet Mother Zombie’s eyes. “That brown discharge didn’t come from me, Mother.”
“No? Who, then? Who did it come from? Who left brown discharge by your bed? Who in this Abbey would do such a thing?”
“I, um, I believe it was Vampire Sister Maria, Mother.”
Mother Zombie moaned, then spit a gob of green goo on the wall; the wall steamed where the goo stuck. “Foxxxy, I’m aware that we tend to blame most of our problems on Maria. And that’s certainly understandable, because Maria is a problem, and an unsolvable one at that. But the discharge by your bed isn’t Maria’s discharge. You see, it’s common knowledge that any and all discharge coming from Maria is red. Any discharge.”
“What do you mean, any discharge, Mother? I thought the different types of discharge were limited,” Foxxxy asked.
“When you’re a woman, there’s plenty of discharge, Foxxxy.”
“What kind of discharge, Mother?”
“You don’t know?”
“I might have known at one time, but most of my mortal memories are a blur.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But I want to know!”
“It doesn’t matter!”
“But I want…”
Interrupting, Mother Zombie roared, “Never contradict me, Foxxxy! Never!”
“But I … but I … but I…”
“But you … but you … but you … but nothing!” She pulled her trusty golden cleaver from under her robe and said, “Now put out your hand. The left one shall do.”
My Favorite Fangs: The Story of the Von Trapp Family Vampires Page 1
