I was awakened by the sound of someone driving nails into the lid of my coffin. Quite rude – a girl’s got to have her beauty sleep.
Over the past two centuries there have been a half-dozen times my slumber was disturbed by intruders intent on doing me harm, usually out of vengeance for a lost lover or family member. Most upsetting is the inconvenience such harassment causes, to have to uproot and move, to search, locate, and establish a secret, secure place. And it’s not easy finding a mover who can be trusted to keep secrets, given human nature, which explains the last time when a brawny mover with his horse cart went inexplicably missing after helping me move to my current exclusive abode.
How was I to know that, during my slumbers Notre Dame Cathedral would become engulfed in flames, due to the incompetent negligence of workmen making repairs on the chapel, thus possibly exposing my home of the last century – a neglected storage space deep in the interior? (It would later become clear to me that one of the workmen upon whom I had dined just a week earlier had been replaced by a new worker who lied about his work experience.) The big renovation job on the cathedral had been providing a bounty of easy pickings – I didn’t even have to leave the house, so to speak.
Who could be out there now, pounding on my cherished place of repose made of 16th century European Ironwood – Lignum Vitae – so rare it is now virtually irreplaceable. Such sacrilege alone is enough to ensure the perpetrator’s doom. What are they hoping to achieve? Haul my coffin off to a public bonfire with me inside? Or perhaps the motivation is merely the mercenary incentive of collecting a bounty when turning me over to the authorities or, much worse, the secretive Les Chasseurs Antiquus des Goules? The zealous fool couldn’t know I have two emergency exits built-in – I can either depart through the panel behind my head, or just by tapping a spring lever I can roll my body to the left and I’m free.
I take a sip from my flask of holy water – this girl’s throat is parched – and prepare myself mentally. The fact I am attired in a sheer black satin negligee is of only slight concern.
I am out, getting my bearings. The darkened alcove is quiet. A male figure wearing a priest’s cassock stands with his back to me – perhaps in a moment of reflection? In his hand – he has actually used a heavy crucifix to pound the nails into my coffin. Such a quaint and endearing gesture – just the thought of the religious fervor involved initiates a buzzing in my loins.
But wait, his other hand is holding a burning candle. Glancing down at my coffin, I see he has desecrated it by pouring chrism – consecrated oil – all over it, clearly with the intention of lighting me on fire. (I have found the same oil comes in handy when my nether parts are a bit dry). Thank the lord this foolish priest awakened me by hammering on my domicile before lighting the oil. If I don’t move fast, my cherished resting place will be going up in flames as quickly as the cathedral’s spire recently burned.
He suddenly beholds before him a tall, olive-skinned woman with luxurious hair spilling over her shoulders, her large black almond-shaped eyes fixing him helplessly in place. I am a Roma dancer. I was twenty-seven when I was reborn. It was after a night of revelry and dancing to Spanish guitar music in a Romani encampment south of Paris, wine flowing freely. As dawn beckoned and exhausted bacchants drifted away, I was enticed by an irresistible singer, son of the patriarch of the clan, to a nearby clearing with a mossy bed. In no state to think clearly, I considered it just another adventure. I lay in his arduous embrace, facing up at the stars as I met la belle mort.
In those days I lived purely to dance and feel the air in my lungs, and for the next day’s amorous fulfillment. In contrast to that era, today’s modern, civilized, spiritually void world is like a living nightmare. But still a girl must dance, feed, love…
I am delighted to discover that this priest, paralyzed and only semi-conscious in my arms, is young and healthy, his grooming and bearing indicating a certain level of cultural sensitivity. I savor the delicious tension he is experiencing before sinking my teeth into his neck. I prolong this last moment of his mortal being, the inciting moment he is sure to fondly recall throughout eternity. I snuff out the candle in his hand.
His eyes in a daze, I read his thoughts; he is acting alone, hoping to ingratiate himself with the foul bishop by presenting a fate accompli, the charred body of a demon, whom he thinks of as an angel of the night – so romantic. Now, how easily his arousal has turned him away from his impotent god. Every cell of this enticing, virginal human vessel yearns to join with and be consumed by me. He begs me to end the excruciating suspense, that after the final death throes he might live an eternity as an Undead. But wait, I realize I need him more alive, now that my sanctuary is exposed. He will move me to his rectory, where he will keep me safe and cared for, and I will enjoy a cup of his most refined sacred red elixir from time to time.
The scent of his neck carries an exquisite mixture of perspiration and frankincense. I hold his lovely, anxious gaze until the thrill overwhelms me, I cannot hesitate any longer. My teeth take the plunge. His rapture rocks both our bodies, he spasms and moans as I cling to him, my legs encircling his, for the takedown. The cathedral’s ancient bells are ringing in celebration.
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