Blood Sisters

by Paula Guran

  Since Suzy Charnas McKee’s Nebula award-winning novella, “The Unicorn Tapestry” (1981), is re-published in this anthology, I’ll only note that it became part of an episodic novel, The Vampire Tapestry, featuring the unique vampire Dr. Edward Lewis Weyland, a vampire of biologic rather than supernatural genesis. This, coupled with Weyland’s social behavior, has led some critics to consider The Vampire Tapestry as a major work of feminist science fiction.

  Also in a science fictional vein: the alien vampire species explored in Jacqueline Lichtenberg’s Those of My Blood (1988) and Elaine Bergstrom’s vampires of alien origin in her six-book saga of the Austra family that began with Shattered Glass (1988). Bergstrom’s story, however, is modern Gothic and the Austras have been part of human history for thousands of years.

  Lee Killough’s Blood Hunt (1987) played a part in the establishment of the vampire detection novel. In it, Gareth Mikaelian, an honorable police detective, is transformed into a vampire—and retains his human personality. P. N. Elrod introduced Jack Fleming, a hard-boiled 1930 private investigator, who—transformed into a vampire with his “murder”—seeks his own killer in Bloodlist (1990), the first of twelve novels.

  Married Victorian-era investigators James and Lydia Asher are involved—at the instigation of the vampire aristocrat Don Simon Ysidro—in solving a vampiric crime in Those Who Hunt the Night (1988) by Barbara Hambly. In its sequel, Traveling With the Dead (1995), Ysidro joins forces with James Asher.

  Victoria “Vicki” Nelson (also known as “Victory Nelson,” for her success in solving crimes), a Toronto police officer forced to turn PI due to a degenerative eye disease, teamed up with Henry Fitzroy—a vampire born as the illegitimate son of Henry VIII—in Blood Price (1991), the first of Tanya Huff’s five Blood Books. (A 2007 Canadian TV series, Blood Ties, was based on the books.)

  Nancy A. Collins’s debut novel, the award-winning Sunglasses After Dark (1989), introduced punk vampire/vampire slayer Sonja Blue. The character begins as Denise Thorne, a human raped and left for dead by the vampire Morgan. Denise awakes in a mental hospital. As Collins has explained: “… her identity had fragmented during the trauma, wiping out her memories and creating the persona of Sonja. Although Denise died in the operating room, she had been revived via modern medicine—but not before the vampire ‘seed’ planted in her took hold. Sonja is technically a living vampire, meaning she has their powers/attributes, but still possesses a soul. Unfortunately, the vampire side of her personality—called The Other—is constantly fighting for control of their shared body, and has a tendency to go on horrific rampages, killing foe and friend alike …. The world Sonja Blue inhabits can best be described as Vampire Noir. She lives on the fringes of society, hunting the supernatural creatures that pose as humans while preying on them—such as vampires, werewolves, ogres, and demons—known collectively as Pretenders. She uses her own unique Pretender abilities to identify them and hunt them down, as they are ‘invisible’ to average humans. Sonja views herself as a one-woman hit squad, determined to rid the world of those who prey on humanity—especially vampires.” There is also a element of detection involved in the plotlines as Sonja seeks the truth about herself and the world and the vampire who unintentionally made her. Graphic and violent, Collins’s vampire fiction is action oriented. Although the now-influential character may return someday, the last Sonja Blue novel, Darkest Heart, was published in 2002.

  Lost Souls (1992), a debut novel by Poppy Z. Brite, may deserve a better description than its author has given it: “…lush and passionate and energetic as hell … Basically, it’s about a bunch of kids: fifteen-year-old babygoth Nothing, who runs away from his suburban home to seek his … favorite band; the band members themselves, Steve and Ghost, a redneck and a psychic from Missing Mile, North Carolina; and Molochai, Twig, and Zillah, a roving band of freaks [vampires] who end up being Nothing’s real family. There’s a plot in there somewhere, involving trips to New Orleans during which the noxious green liqueur Chartreuse is consumed, love and betrayal, babies who eat their way out of the womb, and lots and lots of blood, sex, drugs, cheap wine, and Twinkies.” But that’s also a pretty accurate description of what became a cult classic for a generation of alienated youth. The sex is bi- or homosexual, occasionally incestuous and usually graphic; the use of drugs may well have established a new metaphor for vampirism. Brite’s vampires were a separate species who do not turn humans into vampires, although they can interbreed with them. (Vampiric infants kill their mothers of either species at their gory births.) Most fed on blood, but some found sustenance otherwise. The oldest (close to four hundred years old) is fanged, is sensitive to sunlight, and cannot imbibe in human food or drink. Younger (only about a century old) vampires filed their otherwise normal teeth to points, could tolerate the sun, and eat and drink. Like more traditional vampires, they healed easily, were very strong, and had superhuman senses. They evidently lack other commonly portrayed paranormal powers. Destroying the heart or brain (or giving birth) could kill Brite’s vampires.

  In another debut novel, AfterAge (1993) by Yvonne Navarro, vampires took over the world and wiped out most of humanity. Running low on their food supply, the vamps started capturing and breeding people like cattle. Although the tropes of vampirism having a scientific basis and bloodsuckers conquering Earth echoed Matheson’s I Am Legend, Navarro played the plot more like a war novel with a stalwart band of survivors defeating conquering invaders with savvy, spunk, and science.

  Toward the end of the last century—sometime after the release of Laurell K. Hamilton’s fourth Anita Blake Vampire Hunter fantasy novel, The Lunatic Café (1996), perhaps during the second (1997-1998) or third (1998-1999) season of television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and just before Christine Feehan’s romance Dark Prince (1999)—the first of her Dark series—was published, vampires started getting “hot.”

  The “good guy” vampire—usually sexy, often romantic, sometimes redeemed or redeemable, sometimes ever-heroic—started to dominate pop culture. So did sexy-but-empowered female vamps and kick-ass vampire hunters.

  Paranormal romance and “urban fantasy”—the terms and their applications were not always clearly delineated—became extremely popular for about a decade. The demand for these types of books gave many women new opportunities to offer their versions of the vampire mythos to the public in both novels and short fiction.

  The romance genre is not really this anthology’s territory. One practical reason is that romance does not lend itself to short fiction well; another is that I intentionally wanted a diverse mix of stories. Yes, the romantic is definitely an element in some of these tales of speculative fiction, but it is not the central theme. And a romance is a romance—that is its theme.

  Novels—like those pioneered by Lee Killough and Tanya Huff—that mixed the supernatural with detection/mystery and romantic relationships are, however, our turf. Primarily fantasies, these plots are set in alternate versions of a contemporary or near-future world much like our own in which the supernatural (including vampires) is present either publicly or hidden from most of humankind. And, for practical purposes, you frequently find this type of fiction (often as extensions of or additions to novel series) in the short form.

  Anita Blake’s adventures, related in Laurel K. Hamilton’s series, assume a world in which vampires and were-creatures have gained legal rights. Beginning with Guilty Pleasures in 1993, the twenty-first Anita Blake novel will be published in 2015.

  Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mystery series (now usually referred to as the Sookie Stackhouse novels) also posits a world in which vampires have “come out of the casket” and established themselves legally. The central character, a psychic waitress, solves mysteries in each outing. Starting with Dead Until Dark (2001) and ending in 2013 with the thirteenth Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead Ever After, the series gained even more widespread popularity when True Blood premiered on HBO in 2008. The television show, both a critical and financial success,
ran seven seasons, ending in 2014.

  In the first decade of the twenty-first century, numerous series featuring vampires—both good and evil—became bestsellers. But Twilight (2005)—a vampire fantasy/romance for teens by Stephanie Meyer—its three sequels and consequent films, propelled the blandly romantic, pretty boy/man vampire hero to stratospheric levels of popularity.

  Although generally disdained critically and considered more of a romance than a fantasy, Twilight’s “sparkly vampires”—so named because her immortal bloodsuckers can live in sunlight; they avoid it because their cold, hard bodies sparkle “like thousands of tiny diamonds” in bright sunshine—may have served a vampiric purpose beyond the commercial. Meyerpires had a keen emotional affect on its multitude of fans. For better or worse, few vamps since Lord Ruthven have done that.

  The vampire archetype is immortal because it is so variable. Despite the sparklers, nasty vampires still survive here and there in all media. The occasional highly metaphorical vampire (like The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, 2005) rooted in Count Dracula is still part of our literary psyche, as are viral/apocalyptic vamps, the comedic vampire, the “science-based,” and the science fictional/sociological vampire (The Fledgling, Octavia Butler, 2007).

  And there are still adult vampire novels: Robin McKinley, long known for her children and teen fantasies, moved into the adult market with the witty Sunshine, in which the heroine must overcome the terrifying memories of being captured by vampires, and help defeat her fanged foes. The winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature when first published in 2003, it was reissued in 2008. Gail Carringer’s Parasol Protectorate series—Soulless (2009), Changeless (2010), Blameless (2010), Heartless (2011), and Timeless (2012)—mixed a “novel of manners,” steampunk, vampire hunting, and madcap adventuring, while poking a bit of fun at paranormal romance.

  There is also a large amount of really adult vampire erotica around these days. Explicit and not always romantic, this vamp fiction has a wide audience.

  But, yes, the latest wave of vampire fiction has been fuelled by the “young adult/teen” market, which—although written for teens—is also read by preteens and adults. [The Twilight books/movies are not the sole impetus; fertile ground was laid by TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and its spin-off Angel (1999–2004); both mixed vampire fantasy with romance and horrific elements and were aimed at younger audiences. Other fantasy films and television series have added fecundity.] Although the majority of these works are either blandly romantic or center on a school milieu, some provide broader metaphors and much deeper meaning. Many writers of adult fiction have transferred their skills, at least for now, to this market. Older YA “classics” like The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Krause (originally published: 1990) have found new blood. Less classic, but entertaining, L.J. Smith’s The Vampire Diaries series (first four novels published 1991–1992) has not only returned from the grave, but become a television series (renewed, in 2014, for its sixth season.)

  As for short vampire fiction—which is, after all, why this anthology exists—2000–2010 brought opportunities for original urban and paranormal romance stories and both types of fiction written for the young adult market. Vamps also crept into many urban fantasy, paranormal romance, supernatural mystery, and cross-genre original anthologies without a specifically fanged theme. Even funny vampires found their way into anthologies in the oughts. There were fewer occasions, however, for writers with other vampiric ideas to show their talents.

  For Vampires: The Recent Undead, I compiled a list of two dozen selected anthologies from the first ten years of the twenty-first century. Four years later I can’t really think of any more to add other than Blood and Other Cravings, edited by Ellen Datlow; Evolve 2: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead, edited by Nancy Kilpatrick; and Teeth: Vampire Tales, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling—all published in 2011. There are, of course, still venues for a great vampire story—often, these days, in online magazines.

  Vampire fiction may return to its coffin at times, but it always seems to rise from the grave with renewed strength. After all, Anne Rice—who once stated she’d never return to writing her Vampire Chronicles—published the novel Prince Lestat in 2014 and Blood Paradise is expected in 2015. That Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment acquired the motion picture rights to the entire Vampire Chronicles series in August 2014 is another indication there is future life for Rice’s version of the icon.

  Where are we now circa 2015? Who knows? One way or another, you can bet fresh blood will be found.

  If you are an avid vampirist, you are sure to have come across some of these previously published stories before, but I think you’ll also make some new discoveries. You will find a wide variety of vampire stories, each written by a woman. In fact, the stories are so diverse, it was difficult to decide what order in which to present them. I opted to place them in, as closely as I could, in chronological order by the period in which each story is set, from the sixteenth century to the near future. It is an unusual editorial choice that, of course, can be completely disregarded by the reader. Feel free to bite into any story you please; you can even start at the end.

  As I noted back in 2011, such diversity is to be expected. Our times are marked more by division than cohesion. That new threats and new terrors have arisen seems to be even truer for 2015. How we face those fears—or escape them—has a lot to do with our preferences in vampires.

  As Nina Auerbach once stated: “Every age embraces the vampire it needs, and gets the vampire it deserves.”

  Only now, I think we need to make “vampire” plural.

  Paula Guran

  December 2014

  A PRINCESS OF SPAIN

  Carrie Vaughn

  Carrie Vaughn is the author of the New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty, the most recent installment of which is Low Midnight. She’s written several other contemporary fantasy and young adult novels, as well as upwards of seventy short stories. She’s a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at www.carrievaughn.com.

  Vaughn’s most famous character, Kitty Norville, may not be a vampire, but they are part of her fictional world. “A Princess of Spain,” however, has nothing to do with supernatural “modern life.” The story instead offers an explanation for a key moment in sixteenth-century English history—the consequences of which changed the world forever …

  November 14, 1501, Baynard’s Castle

  Catherine of Aragon, sixteen years old, danced a pavane in the Spanish style before the royal court of England. Lutes, horns, and tabors played a slow, stately tempo, to which she stepped in time. The ladies of her court, who had traveled with her from Spain, danced with her, treading circles around one another—floating, graceful, without a wasted movement. Her body must have seemed like air, drifting with the heavy gown of velvet and gold. She did not even tip her head, framed within its gem-encrusted hood. She was a piece of artwork, a prize for the usurper of the English throne, so that his son’s succession would not be questioned. King Henry had the backing of Spain now.

  Henry VII watched with a quiet, smug smile on his creased face. Elizabeth of York, his wife, sat nearby, more demonstrative in her pride, smiling and laughing. At a nearby table sat their two sons and two daughters—an impressive household. All made legitimate by Catherine’s presence here, for she had been sent by Spain to marry the eldest son: Arthur, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne—thin and pale at fifteen years of age.

  All these English were pale past the point of fairness and well toward ill, for their skies were always laden with clouds. Arthur slouched in his chair and occasionally coughed into his sleeve. He had declined to dance with her, claiming that he preferred to gaze upon her beauty while he may, before he claimed it later that evening.

 
Catherine’s heart ached, torn between anticipation and foreboding. But she must dance her best, as befitted an infanta of Spain. “You must show the English what we Spanish are … superior,” her mother, Reina Isabella, told her before Catherine departed. She would most likely never see her parents again.

  Arthur did not look at her. Catherine saw his gaze turn to the side of the hall, where one of the foreign envoys sat at a table. There, a woman gazed back at the prince. She was fair skinned with dark eyes and a lock of dark, curling hair hanging outside her hood. Her high-necked gown was elegant without being ostentatious, both modest and fashionable, calculated to not upstage the prince and princess on their wedding day. But it was she who drew the prince’s eye.

  Catherine saw this; long practice kept her steps in time until the music finished at last.

  The musicians struck up a livelier tune, and Prince Henry, the king’s younger son, grabbed his sister Margaret’s arm and pulled her to the middle of the hall, laughing. All of ten years old, he showed the promise of cutting a fine figure when he came of age—strong limbed, lanky, with a head of unruly ruddy hair. Already he was as tall as any of his siblings, including his elder brother Arthur. At this rate he would become a giant of a man. Word at court said he loved hunting, fighting, dancing, learning—all the pursuits worthy of any prince of Europe. But at this moment he was a boy.

  He said something—Catherine only had a few words of English, and did not understand. A moment later he pulled off his fine court coat, leaving only his bare shirt. The room was hot with torches and bodies. He must have been stifled in the finely wrought garment. Because he was a boy, the court thought the gesture amusing rather than immodest; everyone smiled indulgently.