Summary on Sunday

I've decided to resurrect my blogs in 2020. I have a fair few.

On Fridays, you'll find new installments to the tale of Sean the Vampire and his love / hate relationship with Doctor Death as they try to rid the world of baddies. 

I started this adult fairytale back in 2010. Consistency is the key to getting things done. There a currently four episodes. There's blood and guts and all kinds of perversions, so be warned.

It's been years since I've read. Life can really get in the way of even the most basic of wants and needs. I hope to read an average of one book a week in 2020. You will find what I'm reading and what I think about the books over at Nessa's Reading Room. Two books down so far.

Editing is not my favorite thing. It's like real work. But I am doing final edits on Revena's Revenge (my daughter, Erika, is my accountability coach and cheering section.) I'm a quarter of the way done. I will be self-publishing when they are all done. For a taste of Revena's world, there's the blog, "What Would Revena Do?" (big thanks to my friend, Mike Keren, for the spectacular idea.) There will be posta there on certain Wednesdays about life in Medieval Bavaria. 

This coming Wednesday, we will see an example of scrying. Right now, you can see the book cover.

If you'd like to receive my monthly email, Nessa's News, sign up over there on the right. In it you will find practical magic spells, herbal lore, ancients crafts, and other things that will not be posted online.

Bite Me

Read the previous parts at Sean the Vampire’s Blog.

Sean the Vampire – Part 006


“A man in Oregon kidnaps children and sells them to people outside of the country.” The Ghost Toasty, Doctor Death, hovered over Sean the Vampire.


Sean sat at the large, oak desk in the library of the mansion, Mount Olympus. He sucked on a tube inserted in a bag of blood. Sean chuckled at the thought of TV vampires drinking blood from crystal goblets. In reality, they would die of malnutrition if they fed that way. Blood could not be touched by air if it was to retain its nutritional value for a vampire. 


Doctor Death floated in front of Sean. He stirred the papers on the desk. Sean looked at him.


“What do you think?”


“About what?”


“The child trafficker in Oregon.”


“Horrible,” Sean said.


“Are we going after him?” Doctor Death tried to squeeze Sean’s bag of blood. Affecting the physical world whenever he wanted required more effort and concentration than the ghost could yet muster.


Sean shrugged his shoulders and continued to suck.


“A woman, known as ‘Mom’ physically abuses her foster children. She’s killed three so far and gotten away with it.”


“I never felt comfortable targeting people for dinner.” The bag compressed and squeezed together as Sean sucked out the last of the blood and air. He tossed the tube onto the desk and stood up. “Now that I have all this money, I can buy blood. With the rest, I just want to help people. Carry on the work with the orphans. Maybe expand to homeless families.” Sean wandered around the room as he spoke.


Doctor Death became dense. He thrust himself at the book shelves over Sean’s head. Books rained down on Sean, striking him about the shoulders until he moved away. He picked a book up from the floor and threw it at Doctor Death. It went through the spirit and struck the shelves.


“We made a deal,” said Doctor Death. “I expect you to stick to it.”


“Judgment and punishment should be left to someone else.”


“Don’t be such a wishy washy wuss. The rabid vermin of this world need to be put down and you are the perfect exterminator.” Doctor Death floated over the desk. “Come look at this article in this Oregon paper.”


Sean drifted back to the desk.


“Look at the faces of these missing children and then tell me you can’t go after the monster stealing them from their families for his profit.”


Sean spread out the front page of the newspaper. Pictures of five children covered most of the page. The headline read, “Missing From Three States. Authorities Baffled.” Sean looked at each child in turn. His eyes reached the little girl in the fourth picture. His back stiffened and he grabbed the edges of the paper in both fists bringing it closer to his face. He held his breath. He became whiter than usual and his fangs extended.


“Are you ok, Sean?”


“My daughter.”


Doctor Death smiled as Sean dropped the paper and rushed from the library.

I am going back to responding to comments in the comment section beginning with this post.

Thursday 13 – 1850 US Census Questions @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

      

Wordzzle #57 - Sean the Vampire, Part 3

These are the words to Raven's Wordzzle game. I have taken the words but changed the rules a little.

To see the directions and other players, visit Raven.

Ten Word Challenge will be: apoplexy, doctor, hummingbird, shallow end of the pool, brigadier general, mustard, greed, parallelogram, slumber party, casual

Mini Challenge: Mount Olympus, arsonist, portraits, birch trees, "that car needs a new muffler"

Part One

Part Two

Sean took a casual look for a map. He looked around and saw portraits of "The Most Wanted" on the mustard colored walls. He decided to approach his search for bad-men-food like a brigadier general on campaign.

He ignored the greed in his veins calling for immediate release. This would be no slumber party. When you hunted a serial killer, rapist or arsonist, there was no need to be careful or kind. He looked forward to causing apoplexy in someone.

Something rushed by his head. At first he thought it was a hummingbird, but he knew no living beings were in the town. An apparition appeared in front of Sean the Vampire. This was the Ghost Toasty he had smelled earlier. Its vapors were singed on the edges.

"Call me Doctor Death," said the specter, "I can help you find all of sinners you can eat." The haunt swooped around Sean's head.

"How did you die?"

"I went for a midnight swim in my parallelogram shaped natatorium after a day spent snorting cocaine, diving into the shallow end of the pool, hit my head and died."

"Not too bright," said Sean.

Doctor Death turned up the wattage and Sean had to shade his eyes.

"I know the first person on your menu lives in a mansion called Mount Olympus, surrounded by birch trees. You will need to go in with iron to protect yourself from his magic."

"Um, vampire," Sean said, pointing at his chest.

"Can you shape-shift right now or fly?" asked Doctor Death.

"I am weak right now from lack of blood, but I'll manage."

"Follow me."

The phantasm floated through the wall at the back of the store. Sean followed through a door into an alley where a cherry red Mustang sat.

"Get in," said Doctor Death. "Let's go."

Sean the Vampire got behind the wheel.

"Who's car?"

"Mine."

"Why would a ghost need a car?"

"The person before he became a ghost needs a killer car," said Doctor Death. "Start her up."

Sean turned the key. A horrendous rumble and a mean growl erupted from the running motor, shaking every inch of the vehicle. The vibrations made Doctor Death's vapors shift and quiver. Sean turned the car off and got out.

"What are you doing?" asked Doctor Death.

"That car needs a new muffler," said Sean.

"Begging vampires can't be choosy."

Wordzzle #56

"Topography"
Photograph by Vanessa V. Kilmer © March 22, 2009

To see the directions and other players, visit Raven.

Ten word challenge: partition, imagination, salvation, mirror image, green power, highway, roasting marshmallows, serial killer, autograph, cartography

Sean the Vampire, part two (the story continues from here)

It must have been his imagination, but Sean smelled roasting marshmallows. Ghosts rarely ate sweets, so maybe fresh blood could be had behind the partition of the next building.

Green Power sounded like a store catering to the newest fad to come down the highway. Instead of seeing recycled products behind his mirror image in the shop window, Sean saw the autograph of a famous serial killer.

Next to the John Hancock, a sign read,

"We specialize in the cartography showing where this butcher lives."

Sean entered the establishment searching for a map. Maybe feeding on evil men could solve his dilemma and be his salvation...

Mini Challenge: cell phone, Big Mac, panther, legendary, poets corner

Talking on his cell phone
feeling very much alone
with a drive through Big Mac
as an afternoon snack
no longer a sleek panther
just a stodgy old banker
dreams of being legendary
gone on a wisp so airy
his own hope's mourner
to be in Poets Corner.

Mega Challenge: partition, imagination, salvation, mirror image, green power, highway, roasting marshmallows, serial killer, autograph, cartography, cell phone, Big Mac, panther, legendary, poets corner (written with the words in the order presented.)

The partition of Juniper's imagination prevented her from going insane. Salvation came in many forms and the thoughts in her head were the mirror image of what went on in her daily life.

She worked for a company called Green Power. Her job consisted of walking down the highway near her home looking for people roasting marshmallows. A sure sign of a serial killer, burnt puffed sugar was like an autograph of guilt.

Juniper's cartography abilities allowed her to send directions via cell phone to the office, where her boss, Big Mac, took notes. He used her information to stalk his victims like a panther, a legendary hunter.

Or this was just an hallucination in her brain's poets corner.

All 15 words in one sentence:

The legendary Big Mac sat behind the partition in The Poets Corner, talking on his cell phone to his mirror image, Serial Killer, in the band, Green Power, about the salvation of running down the cartography highway of his imagination regarding their new song A Panther Roasting Marshmallows which would surely lead to someone wanting his autograph.

Wordzzle #55

"Breakthrough"
Photograph by Vanessa V. Kilmer © February 27, 2008

The Wordzzle #55 game is brought to you by Raven.

Ten Word Challenge: humanity, shadow, ricochet, wrong, pluralism, mathematics, personhood, printing press, ink spot, choral society

Mini Challenge: kingdom, take names, best seller, three times, inner demons

Mega Challenge - all words in story

Sentence Challenge - all words in one sentence

Ten Word Challenge:

Sean the Vampire, part one

A shadow stumbled across the courtyard only to ricochet back to its owner when it passed the mirrored surface of the glass stagedoor to The Choral Society.

It was not true that a vampire cast no shadow or that he could not see himself reflected in a mirror. These were just fancies some fool with a printing press distributed to the ignorant masses.

It was true, however, that a vampire had no soul. Upon being inducted into the Great Undead, all humanity was lost and the pluralism of craving what one could no longer have warred with the need to feed on that which was forever lost.

Sean needed to feed.

While his long gone but not forgotten personhood knew it was wrong to suck a human dry, the mathematics of counting simple calories told him he needed human blood. He could live on rodents or larger animals, like dogs and cats, but human blood was more compatible with his demonic DNA and the calories were far richer. He even fancied on occasion that he could get some residual sense memories from a person's venous fluids.

Unfortunately, he found himself in a ghost town and ethereal bodies were not known for containing viscous substances and with no human trash around not even a rat scurried through the alleyways. . . . .

Mini-Challenge

I take names from my personal kingdom and write stories that have meaning for me. They usually reflect my own inner demons, worries and fears that plague me at least three times in my dreams because it takes that long for my subconscious to get a word in edgewise. One day I will have a best seller for all of my angst.

Mega Challenge:

Sara’s life felt wrong to her. The hours she spent working at the printing press cast a shadow over her spirit. Dangerous and dirty, at least one ink spot on each flowered, cotton jumper she owned, her humanity fed the machine and crushed her mind.

Sara belonged to the choral society of the small town where she grew up and lived these past forty two years. Her personhood, her very vision of her true self, depended on her membership in this group.

She craved the singing. When she wasn’t practicing or performing in a show, she organized fund raisers, collected costumes and researched music for the director.

The pluralism of her meaningless day job and the all consuming passion she had for the group contrasted like day and night.

Stan, the director of the singing group called Sara to his office one night after practice. His office was really a refurbished broom closet, dim and dank and cramped. Sara was holding a Chinese auction to have his office redecorated as a surprise for the opening season in two months.

“Sara,” he said, “we have too many contraltos right now.”

He looked passed Sara’s right ear as he spoke.

“It is a matter of mathematics, you see.” Stan’s chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. His gaze slid over to the door behind her.

“You are the weakest singer we have, so I must ask you to turn in your songbook.”

Sara’s breathing became rapid and shallow. The ricochet of Stan’s words in her mind caused her a splitting headache.

Stan held out his hand to receive the entrance card to the only kingdom Sara ever wanted.

Stan asked for the sheet music three times but Sara’s inner demons drowned out all of his words. She no longer heard his voice, just a buzzing and high pitched squeal.

Sara felt ill.

“Here,” said Stan, “you can take names and phone numbers of the members so you can still help with the productions.” He reached to take the music book from her.

It was worth more to her than any best seller could be.

Stan pulled on the bound music to pry it from Sara’s hands.

She vomited on him as he got the book free.

All 15 in One Sentence:

In this kingdom, called The Choral Society, we take names of the humanity who have shadows on their hearts and inner demons marring their personhoods, people who do wrong at least three times (this is the mathematics of evil and none of that silly pluralism of good and bad in each us,) slap the list on a printing press and create a best seller called “Ink Spot on the Soul” and let the gold coins ricochet into our bank account.