by P. N. Elrod
Ha.
The Doctor plagues me about souls. Perhaps he should've been a man of the cloth. He wants me to feel guilt for devouring all those little buggers. But I have not eaten insect souls. Show me, Dr. Seward, where? I want none. I have no use. It's Life I want. And will have. Perhaps flies are poor things, after all. And bees and spiders; well, blow them all! I'll move up the evolutionary scale. Scale the heights. From birds and rats and rats and more rats still, to cats and the higher orders yet to come. Horse and ape, and especially that jewel in the crown of Creation—Man. The ones that run the operations, pull the strings and make the rules and make us pay, while breaking those selfsame rules! Homo sapiens—God, how it rolls off the tongue! And if there be angels, why, I'll pluck their wings and eat them too. Lip-smacking good!
But each bite is a link in a chain, and I must start somewhere. Yes… The little bird in the bush in a garden; this is Renfield's tale: the story of a boy impossibly old beyond his years, who was hurt and needs to heal. A ward of the state, messed with and betrayed. He left the home at seventeen, but not for long. In and out and in again for years. Jobs that didn't last. He was given to inexplicable crying jags and sleepless nights and more than the occasional drink.
During one of his years in the Real World, the orphanage had made a deal with the government and was reclassified as house for the mentally disturbed. Thereby did their subsidy rise ninety pennies per youth per day. The boys were all still there, but now were "not all there." A small, wayward joke. They almost had me convinced. I am not mad. Somehow.
So Timmy came back to the fold. Hardly prodigal—just back. He was now old enough, you see; he was left alone. Not really an inmate—just "in." He tended their garden and swept their halls. Became the handy-man. He closed his eyes and ears…
'Til one day, years later, a new boy entered the picture—not unlike Timmy, when he first came through those large oak doors. He befriended that new boy. Be-frien-ded… Look, he needed something—guidance; I don't know. I told myself I was just protecting him from the others. Be his dark beacon and save him from the blinding light of, of Brotherhood. I'm not worthy. If I could've been a father to this child and thereby gained my own… But that purity just wasn't in me. Oh, I did not creep; I only wished to reassure. The healing touch. But I touched places I should not have been! He pulled back and so did I, but the moments between—it was a lifetime—mine and his. Where did one end and the other begin? Oh God… !
God…
I have called this my home for most of my life. I have been murdered by inches. My poor crushed brain knows things, but can't seem to, to… Nowhere to go; but go!
I too am lugging my native soil, sleeping deep while the sun has shone. Dreaming… Nosferatu… come. The vision has somehow turned. I don't want to be powerful. Just at peace.
Vlad, Vlad, Impaler Vlad. Can I dump the earth and sink the ship before he reaches port? I must not deceive myself; he has always been here. He is my father and my mother, the Brothers, and the pain. The Doctor of my youth and my Doctor's little book. All the bits of life consumed, the laughter and the tears. He's the whole bloody ball of wax, rolling from my day of birth to… St. George's Eve, when, it is said, all the buried treasures are at last revealed, even while all evil things hold sway.
At midnight, the Dragon and the Saint are one. Lance and claw, shield and wing, and scales… of justice wildly pitch. Where does one end… ? We cross ourselves and lose our way in the smoking breath and rising dust of hooves. We are teetering by the hissing gorge, and the rough and tumble fall from Grace may actually be a soaring up. But I seem to be suspended on a thread, neither here nor ever there. I'm squirming in a pupal state, pressing 'gainst the membrane, poking feelers out. Yes, cocoons can rip apart, as chains can break away. And doors, yes doors, can surely open!
I am a veritable work of Art. I am Magic.
That is, one day, I hope I can
believe…
About the Authors
Julie Barrett is the author of Quantum Leap A-Z and several short stories. She also writes ad copy and designs web sites. Julie lives in Piano, Texas, with her husband and son. They all enjoy watching the cats chase a very focused beam of red light.
Nigel Bennett won the prestigious Gemini Award for his role as the vampire patriarch LaCroix on the series Forever Knight. British-born Bennett directs as well as writes and has appeared in many stage, television, and film productions, including The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hamlet, Psi Factor, Legends of the Fall, Murder at 1600, and Lexx. His website is www.blackhatstation.com.
Elaine Bergstrom is the author of several novels, including Blood to Blood; The Dracula Story Continues, Mina, and The Door through Washington Square. She lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
K.B. Bogen has a head for technology, a knack for humor, and a taste for the macabre. A native Texan, she holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Engineering from UT Arlington. Her favorite form of communication is humor; she prefers to make people laugh rather than cry, though she is not above causing the occasional shiver in her audience. Part-time party decorator, and full-time wife and mother, she plays domestic when she has to and reads forensic anthropology textbooks for fun.
Gary A. Braunbeck is the author of the acclaimed collection Things Left Behind, as well as the forthcoming collection Escaping Purgatory (in collaboration with Alan M. Clark) and the CD-Rom Sorties, Cathexes, and Human Remains. His first solo novel, The Indifference of Heaven, was recently released by Obsidian Books, as was his Dark Matter novel, In Hollow Houses. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, and has, to date, sold nearly 200 short stories. His fiction, to quote Publisher's Weekly, "stirs the mind as it chills the marrow."
Roxanne Longstreet Conrad is the author of seven novels: Stormriders, The Undead, Red Angel, Cold Kiss, Slow Burn (as Roxanne Longstreet), Copper Moon, and Bridge of Shadows (as Roxanne Conrad). Her short story "Faith Like Wine" appeared in the anthology Time of the Vampires. Her next novel, Exile, will be published in 2001. She lives with her husband, award-winning artist Cat Conrad, in Arlington, Texas.
While a tech writer, Gene DeWeese produced everything from cleaning instructions for U.S. Air Force computer ball bearings to NASA space navigation texts. Since Robert Coulson recruited him to help out on a Man from U.N.C.L.E. novel thirty-odd years ago, he's also produced thirty-odd books, including The Wanting Factor, Something Answered, and Adventures of a Two-Minute Werewolf. Another book, on doll-making, explains how to make dried-apple shrunken heads. He lives in Milwaukee with his wife Beverly and two one-eyed cats, Toughie and Suzilla, and two "normal" ones, Octavia and Roscoe.
P. N. "Pat" Elrod has written over sixteen novels, including the ongoing Vampire Files series for Ace; the I, Strahd novels for TSR and Quincey Morris, Vampire Dracula adventure books for Baen. She has coedited two anthologies with Martin H. Greenberg and is working on more toothy titles in the mystery and fantasy genres, including a third Richard Dun novel with Nigel Bennett.
Amy Gruss, graduate of SMU (English/Creative Writing), is a prize-winning poet and a professional scriptwriter, who has been known to teach everything from Renaissance dance to water aerobics and Olympic-grade belching. Working with Tempest Productions as a writer, narrator, and production assistant for short documentary films, she fills the last three months of every year with song, as the musical director of the Omni Carolers. "Beast" is her first professional fiction publication.
Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Ontario with her partner, four cats, and an unintentional chihuahua. After sixteen fantasies, she's written her first space opera, Valor's Choice (DAW April 2000), and is currently working on a sequel to Summon The Keeper called The Second Summoning. In her spare time she gardens and complains about the weather.
Award-winning author Nancy Kilpatrick has published fourteen novels, over 125 short stories, and has edited seven anthologies. Her latest works include the collections The Vampire Stories of Nancy Kilpatrick (Mosaic Press, August 2000) and Cold Cont
act (Dark Tales Publishing, June 2001); the anthology Graven Images coedited with Thomas Roche (Ace Books, October 2000); Blood-lover, the fourth novel in her popular vampire series "Power of the Blood" (Baskerville Books, October 2000). Currendy she is working on several pieces of short fiction, a new novel, and is about to begin editing another anthology.
Catt Kingsgrave-Ernstein lives in Denton, Texas, where, in the company of her husband, four cats, and a surly hedgehog, she has been writing and publishing fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories in small presses across the United States and Canada since 1989. Spliced into the cracks between performing in her Celtic band, Ravens, forays in community and street theater, and seven years of running a professional fantasy art studio, her writing career waited to fully blossom until 1996, and the release of Time of the Vampires. "Beast" is her first collaborative work in publication.
Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as "spoiling cats." She lives northwest of Chicago with two of the above and her husband, author and packager Bill Fawcett. She has published twenty-five books, including five contemporary fantasies; four SF novels; four novels in collaboration with Anne McCaffrey, including The Ship Who Won; a humorous anthology about mothers, Don't Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear!; and over sixty short stories. Her latest books are License Invoked (Baen Books), co-written with Robert Asprin; and Advanced Mythology (Meisha Merlin Publishing), fourth in the Mythology 101 series.
Judith Proctor says, "My interest in writing grew out of an old British science fiction show—Blake's 7. My interest in theatre grew from my appreciation of the lead actor—Gareth Thomas. (My knowledge of Shakespeare has now progressed to the extent where my thirteen-year-old son can impress his English teacher by explaining bits of A Midsummer Night's Dream that she didn't know about.) Writing this story gave me a good excuse to read the Ellen Terry/George Bernard Shaw correspondence, which I'd been meaning to do for years. I also love folk music and play the concertina." She is also happily married with two children and lives in Dorset, England.
Fred Saberhagen is best known for his Berserker® series, about self-replicating robots that seek to end all organic life. The latest novel in the series is Shiva in Steel. He has also written in such diverse worlds as high fantasy, chronicled in his Swords series, and Gothic horror, in his novels about Dracula. His short fiction has been published in classic science fiction magazines, such as If, Galaxy, and Amazing, as well as Omni, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. He lives with his wife in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Not long ago Brad Sinor ran into someone who he hadn't seen for several years. The friend asked if Brad was still writing. Brad's wife, Sue, said, "There's still a pulse. So he's still writing." His short fiction has appeared in the Merovingen Nights series, Time of the Vampires, On Crusade: More Tales of the Knights Templar,
Lord of the Fantastic, Horrors: 365 Scary Stories, Merlin, and Such a Pretty Face.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is the author of more than sixty books, among which are the Saint Germain cycle of vampire novels.
Born in Detroit, raised in Montreal, and educated there and in London, Bill Zaget is also an actor (as Zag Dorison), playwright, director, and performance poet. "Renfield or, Dining at the Bughouse" is adapted from his one-man show of the same title, and is his first foray into short fiction. He presently resides in Toronto.
