The Eclective: The Haunted Collection

by The Eclective

  The vampire leaned closer and inhaled deeper. “You don’t smell like the other pansy-ass vampires that haunt this city.” One black brow shot up. “Does your skin burn in the sun?”

  While keeping his gaze fixed on the stranger, Blehdward slowly nodded.

  A subtle smile cracked the vampire’s granite expression. “As it should.”

  Blehdward gasped. “But everyone knows real vampires sparkle.”

  “Where did you hear that shit?” he snapped.

  Blehdward shrugged. Honestly, he had no idea where he’d heard it. Maybe from a book? He’d just always known vampires were supposed to sparkle.

  “Vampires are not supposed to sparkle,” the stranger growled. “Sparkling is for sissies.”

  Hope surged inside Blehdward’s cold chest cavity. If vampires weren’t supposed to sparkle, then he might have a chance to prove himself cool again.

  “Do you know who I am?” the strange vampire asked.

  “No.” Blehdward shook his head. “Should I?”

  “I am Raithe, a true descendent of the ancient and powerful Vampyren. I am here to right the wrongs done to the Vampyren race by the clan of sparkling vampires.” He leveled Blehdward with a sinister glare. “And you will help me.”

  * * *

  “Are you sure the sparkling clan frequents this establishment?”

  “Yeah, at least three times weekly.” Blehdward enthusiastically nodded while he scanned the craft store’s exit from his hiding spot behind the dumpster. “It’s where all the high school chicks hang out.”

  “Yes, but it is all very peculiar—and degrading.” Raithe frowned as he slowly stood from his crouched position. He peeled a crusty wad of gum off his pant leg. “Vampires should be haunting cemeteries and stalking darkened alleyways.”

  “They have really good prices here,” Blehdward said with a little too much excitement. “Last week their spring floral arrangements were half off.” He pointed toward the sliding glass doors. “Here they come.”

  A pair of pale-faced men dressed in low rise denim, leather studded belts and matching button up shirts, casually walked out of the store. They each sported a skanky high school chick on one arm, and a bag filled with newly purchased crafts in the other.

  “You there!” Raithe called as he stepped from behind the dumpster.

  They took one look at Raithe and ran in the other direction at full speed. They didn’t even spare their whiny high school chicks a second glance.

  It was over before it began. Raithe had caught up to them within a few long strides.

  Blehdward caught up with them a few minutes later, very winded and nearly out of breath.

  The vampires had both been knocked on their backs.

  Raithe was going through the contents of their bags. “Glitter glue?” He pulled out several sticks of roll-on glitter.

  “It repels the sun’s rays so we can go outside during daylight,” one of the glitter vamps whimpered while rising to a sitting position.

  Raithe shook his head. “This is just pathetic.”

  “I’m tired of sleeping during the day.” The other glitter vamp slowly sat up from his fetal position. “It has completely messed up my circadian rhythm.”

  Raithe sneered as he hovered over the two of them. “So you are willing to wear gobs of glitter glue rather than face who you are?”

  Blehdward scratched his head. All this time they’d had him convinced they could actually sparkle. What dicks. “I can’t believe you lied to me.”

  No wonder whenever he tried to sparkle in the sun, the ultraviolet light’s rays burned holes through his skin.

  The glitter vamps simply looked at him with goofy grins and shrugged.

  “How do mortals feel about sparkly vampires in their midst?” Raithe asked.

  The glitter vamps puffed out their scrawny chests. “All the girls think we’re sexy.”

  “I thought the purpose was to feast off their blood, not get dates.” Blehdward gasped as he pointed an accusatory finger at the vamps. “O-mi-god, you’re not eating high school chicks, you’re sleeping with them!”

  Raithe shook his head and snickered. “Pathetic excuses for vampires.”

  Blehdward saw a flash of metal. In the next instant Raithe had decapitated both of the vamps with one swift slice of a sword. Their glittery faces rolled to the ground, their mouths still hanging open in shock.

  “Whoa!” Blehdward wrapped protective fingers around his neck and looked at Raithe with wide eyes. “I didn’t even know you had a sword.”

  Raithe quickly sheathed the sword in a compartment inside his cloak. “You will relay a message to the remainder of the sparkling clan. The Vampyren will not tolerate sparkling, glittering or gleaming of any kind. Cease all sparkling or suffer the penalty of death and an eternity burning in hell.”

  Blehdward took a step back. “Uh, okay.”

  Raithe narrowed his eyes to slits and nodded toward the left side of Blehdward’s head. “What happened to your ear?”

  “Long story,” Blehdward squeaked as he took several more steps back. “Old lady tennis ball. I’ve got the ear in a denture crème jar. I was going to sew it on later tonight.”

  Raithe folded his arms across his chest and sneered. “You are lucky I’m in a charitable mood tonight, pruny vampire. Feasting off old people is almost as degrading as sparkling. For now on you will feast like a real vampire or suffer the consequences.”

  In the blink of an eye, Raithe was gone. He’d disappeared into the shadows like a phantom of the night, or else like a vampire who actually knew how to act like a vampire.

  As Blehdward’s underwear slowly filled up with seeping warmth, he was so glad Raithe had vanished, because he suspected wetting one’s pants was degrading vampire behavior as well.

  #

  PJ Jones is afraid of flyswatters and she thinks clowns are evil.

  Read more about PJ Jones at pjjoneswrites.com or follow her on Facebook and Twitter

  Franscesca

  Alan Nayes

  ILHÉUS, BRAZIL 1928

  The woman moved with the lithe grace of a female panther as she gathered herbs and succulents sprouting from the fertile banks of the Cachoeira River. On any world stage, the women of Ilhéus, Brazil, would be considered beautiful yet this girl surpassed even the aesthetic standards of Ilhéus. It began a decade ago when she was just fourteen. Sailors and merchants traveling to the port city would see her walking the town’s cobblestone streets or arranging scrimshaw figurines in her father’s ivory shop and dream of stroking that smooth caramel skin, running their fingers through her thick mane of black hair, or lying beside her supple body during the humid Brazilian nights. Only a few had ever achieved such sensual nirvana. One who did was a man known throughout the Amazonian region as El Escultor, the sculptor. Though the sculptor’s talent of carving stone was unsurpassed in the territory, his reputation as a paquerar as mulheres—womanizer—was a close second. Handsome and gregarious, El Escultor had been irrevocably smitten by the twenty-four year old woman’s extraordinary beauty when he’d consulted her on the opening of his new studio. Six months ago she’d entered his house to ‘bless’ his marble and granite projects, and in doing so had entwined his heart and soul more tightly than the thick lianas choking the great trunks of the mahogany trees growing in the town square.

  El Escultor was the reason for the woman’s foray into the tropical rainforest that afternoon. She was on the quest for herbs, one in particular—muira puama—a potent aphrodisiac. Tonight, she and El Escultor would celebrate her return from a tiny aldeola hidden miles up river by towering kapok trees and the impenetrable mangrove swamps. The woman was supposed to spend a week in Santa Santos, but her work as the territory feiticeira went very well, thus her arrival back to Ilhéus. That evening she planned to surprise him.

  She crept quietly along familiar trails, unafraid of the prowling jaguar or lurking anaconda. Her late mother, also a feiticeira or witch doctor, had
taught her well the ways of the jungle before succumbing to the poison dart of a former apprentice who’d set up ‘practice’ in a neighboring village. Feiticeira’s work was in constant demand, after all curses and evil spirits had been intimately ingrained in the indigenous cultures of the Amazon for centuries. And only a genuine feiticeira could control the power of the occult. With demand came competition. Yet in this instance, the former apprentice had underestimated the mother’s daughter. Barely seventeen and thoroughly familiar with the dark secrets of capoeira voodoos, the teen mulher de condomble—witch—had concocted a blend of jagupa and ayahuasca that sent the murderer into convulsions. The young conqueress stood silently and watched as the nightmares cascaded one upon the other, eventually resulting in the vanquished taking a machete and slicing open her own abdomen in search of the vipers she imagined coiling in her intestines. Whispers spread like ripples on a pond. No one wished to anger the newly christened queen of black magic.

  Slowing, the woman took a moment to admire the abundant plant life stretching for miles inland. She inhaled the sweet scents of orchids and bromeliads festooned above her in the forest canopy. Gardenias blossomed around her waist where her dark taffeta tunic was cinched tight, emphasizing her sensuous feminine curves. An indio coming upon her mystically vibrant form would think he’d discovered a living goddess.

  She stepped around a termite mound, teeming with activity. She’d used the crushed juices of termites in Santa Santos in invoking the spirits of the deceased village’s elders to return and drive away poachers from a nearby campsite. One of the poachers had stolen a young village girl and raped her. Because the men of the hamlet were unable to apprehend the rapist—he was fast and left no tracks to follow—the feiticeira was hired to remedy the situation. Utilizing the denizens of the earth, she’d temporarily brought back those spirits which the earth had claimed. The concoction was especially powerful because only three nights after fanning the vapors over the aldeola burial mounds, screams of terror could be heard coming from the poachers’ encampment. The next morning the rapist’s body was found tethered crudely to a tree, his eyes gouged out and his genitalia mutilated. The woman’s work was finished in Santa Santos.

  High above her head, howler monkeys raced along endless vines and epiphytes. Hummingbirds darted within easy reach. She spied an emerald tree boa coiled lazily over a gnarled tree limb. Ducking just under the serpent’s flicking tongue, the feiticeira pushed through a dense stand of philodendron and ferns, the fronds half as big as she. Tree frogs leaped out of reach. The ranas had many uses for the woman, but not today.

  The woman stopped. Just ahead, she spotted the tight familiar clusters of blue flowers. Muira puama. The petals were of no use, but the bulbous roots of the plant would create just what she desired. A sexual craving so powerful, tonight’s activities would last well into the following day. Deftly avoiding the buzzing honey bees and myriad centipedes crawling over the forest moss, the woman dug away the dirt, exposing the herb’s root system. Quickly, she picked the most succulent, noted by the deep reddish hue. Blood roots, her mother had taught her.

  On her return, she collected other herbs and leaves—hibiscus, cassia bark, pfaffia root, jalapa leaf, pau d’Arco—and added these to her leather bolsa which hung at her side.

  By the time she emerged from the jungle, the sun had touched the forest canopy, turning the horizon a rich saffron orange. A memorable night was only hours away, the feiticeira mused. She could feel the spirits already beginning the dance in her chest.

  The woman followed the dirt road to the outskirts of Ilhéus. Villagers passing her way smiled politely.

  “Ora essa,” a few greeted her in their native Portuguese, surprised at seeing her back so soon.

  Some, especially the children, looked upon her in fear. After all, she was the feiticeira, never to be crossed. Men, too, respected her power of the spirits, though none could deny the hunger in their loins for just one touch of her hot flesh.

  Fruit bats were already dipping low over the trees when she arrived at the sculptor’s studio. Dusk had descended over the town and gas lights sprinkled their glow along the main cobblestone thoroughfare. The woman didn’t knock, she didn’t need to, and went inside the two story brick edifice. She listened. No sound anywhere. The smell of polished marble and limestone dust hung in the damp air. For a long moment she waited in the tile foyer, gazing over what would be half hers in the near future. Three quarters of the entire lower floor was devoted to El Escultor’s projects, some only barely begun, others near completion. Marble blocks, slabs of limestone, obsidian, and granite lay stocked along one wall. The tools of his trade—rasps, heavy files, cleavers, chisels, mallets of all sizes and weights—were spread haphazardly over the entire length of a long mahogany counter.

  It was true, she realized. Her blessings and incantations had worked, just as she’d promised. El Escultor had never been more busy or his works in greater demand. His fame had spread to the neighboring states of Amazonas and Ceara.

  “I will do this for you, meu amor,” she had vowed the first night they’d made love. “But you will love only me.”

  “I pledge my entire being to only you,” El Escultor had promised in return. “This I swear by these hands that can carve life into that which is lifeless.”

  Some in the village had tried to warn the young feiticeira of El Escultor’s numerous infidelities. How his chiseled Italiano good looks created too many temptations for any mortal male, especially a man of his talents. The woman would consider none of their admonitions. Why would her lover drink bland tea when he could partake of the sweetest wine the natural world could produce?

  The woman smiled now as she gazed at proof of her Escultor’s loyalty. She walked across the wood floor, kicking up tiny puffs of dust with each light step.

  The huge block of azul pegaso granite took up nearly one quarter of one wall and stood over two meters in height. The color was a shade of blue she’d never witnessed before, extraordinary in its purity and boundless richness. Staring into the stone’s granite matrix, she could sense its depth extending far beyond the rock’s physical constraints. She felt at times, if the stars in the Brazilian sky aligned just right, she could actually walk into the stone and travel to any mystical place on earth. Reaching out, she placed one palm against the block. The surface was cool and momentarily she shivered. The sensation only intensified the dancing under her full breasts.

  One day, this pegaso stone of infinite beauty would be of her likeness. This, the sculptor had promised. Up and down the great Amazon River, people would travel to admire the magnificent gift El Escultor had created for her. The feiticeira would live on into eternity as a sculpture of granite that would last eons. Just this one singular thought made her heart leap and she laughed out loud.

  “Ahhh,” she giggled softly as she spread gardenia petals around the stone’s base. “Spirits watch over this rock,” she whispered. She recited a silent incantation her mother had taught her.

  The granite block was huge and too soon the woman’s bolsa was emptied of petals. She glanced at a table near the foot of the stairs and for the first time saw the generous bouquet of flowers. Gardenias, also. The woman smiled—her favorite flower. She could smell their ambrosial fragrance as she approached the stairs. El Escultor was planning to give them to her, she realized. The sweet bouquet should be in water, though, not wrapped in simple twine. They would have wilted before her return tomorrow evening when she was expected. She noticed he’d also neglected to seal the small envelope with her card. As she lifted the card, she heard the onset of a familiar creaking upstairs. Rhythmic and vulgarly metrical. El Escultor’s bed springs. Instantly, the dancing in the feiticeira’s chest grew still. She could feel the blood pulsing madly behind her eyes. Her breathing stopped.

  Slowly, she tore the card in half, not bothering to read the words. They weren’t meant for her.

  Quietly, like a cat stalking an unsuspecting rodent, she crept up the narrow
stairwell. His bedroom was right off the second floor landing. This is where he’d first loosened her tunic, letting the cloth drop to the floor, and run his powerful hands over the sensual curves of her body. She felt no sensuality now—only venomous hatred.

  Peering past the scarred wood door jamb, she looked only long enough for the image to be seared into her brain for all time—El Escultor driving himself into the naked girl sumptuously spread out beneath him, her bare feet held high in the humid air.

  The human heart is made of muscle and blood. That night, the feiticeira’s heart turned to stone.

  * * *

  One month later…

  Whispers quickly spread around Ilhéus’ rotunda like smoke from a burning flame. She was back. The feiticeira had returned.

  For four weeks after that night of betrayal, the woman had vanished into the jungle. Initially, questions had risen with no answers, but in short time it became known how El Escultor had taken another, this girl only a young puta used to service the mariners on the sailing ships. The feiticeira should have listened, the villagers laughed. She thought her beauty and magic would be enough. Alas, no.

  And today she was back in Ilhéus. On a day that was unusually warm, they saw no overt signs of humiliation or disgrace in the feiticeira’s demeanor. If anything, the woman appeared happy, in good spirits. The elders of the town warned the woman not to disturb El Escultor, carefully of course. They did not wish to draw her ire. They explained how the sculptor’s projects were bringing the town rewards, both monetarily and culturally. She received their admonitions in silence.

  El Escultor met the woman at his studio door. “Meu amor,” he boasted raucously. “Your past beauty is only superceded by how glorious you look today.” He embraced her as if the past were only a figment of a bad dream. “Entrar, por favor,” he boldly requested, gesturing amorously.

  “No.” But she promised to return that evening for a night they would both remember for all their lives. First, she wanted to gather a special herb from the rainforest.

  The moon was three-quarters full in the western sky when she arrived back at El Escultor’s studio later that same night. “And the stone?” she asked, allowing herself to be led inside.