TReMbLiNg TIME

I’ve only seen the Tabernacle once in my life. I had been about 7 years old when my father had taken me to see it.
I had spent my time wandering its great crimson courtyards with the other guests, reaching my hands out to grasp at the curtains of silken veils that caught the wind and danced delicately in the air.

Children are the imitation of their parents. They are as impressionable as mud. One only needs to press their issues and beliefs hard enough and sure enough that will most often be the child’s mindset.
A parent is given the responsibility of molding that child from simple mud into a hard self sustaining adult.
Unfortunately in my time, everyone had been molded by one idea.
And that idea was that vampires were beneath us.
That they were our god-given slaves. That they did not feel pain.
Slaves to the devil ,bettered by slavery to us.

Lies.

Impressions on us all, leaving ugly marks on every child of the time.

I had been standing by my father’s side bored and bursting my seams with rebellious wrath as I watched the towering adults prattle on about subjects that could put an insomniac to sleep.
With tiny sidesteps I trickled out of my father’s sight and high tailed it for the exit.
Before I knew it my thoughtless hysterics had taken me to a dark hallway lit only with torches in the shape of human hands. They all jutted from the stone walls, high over my head. Some of the torches were beautiful, white and perfect with smooth palms and slender wrists.
Others were grotesque , I now must realize. The hands were black and twisted , each long talon like claw tipped red. The fingers were abnormally long and thin. While the white hands seemed very serene as if there owners were in the midst of a soft slow dance and had simply stuck their limbs through the wall as if it had been water, the black hands were knifing the air grasping for something. Searching. Reaching almost pathetically for …something.
But no matter their position [ and each was completely different] they each held a handful of dancing golden flames that lit my way and warmed my face with its life.
In my child’s eyes every single hand was equally beautiful. Purified by the fire it carried.

Children learn hate. They aren’t born with it.

I was in awe. Wandering through a mist filled fantasy. I was a child who never knew fear. I knew it as well as I currently know Chemistry. Not enough to save my ass from anything, vampires or summer school.
It’s a wonder I lived to age 5. If a stranger had pulled up my house and asked if I could help him find his “little lost puppy”, I would have grabbed a fistful of meatballs and asked “ where do we start?”
Therefore it elicits no surprise that I wandered right down the phantom hallways and chasms and somehow ended up in the servants hall.
A quiet soft room , green and gold and simply furnished more for the eye than for comfort [ though I didn’t know at the time]. I was entranced by the skyscrapers of books piled in shaky towers reaching up high over my head into the black marble sky].
But never the less now, I was a little girl in a blue satin dress walking in circles and squealing, at least 20 minutes run from her father and the rest of humanity.
Surrounded by a silent wall of staring expressionless vampires, carrying ladles and serving dishes.
They were all impeccably dressed in black and silver tuxedo vests accompanied by either black skirts plated by silver ribbons or black pants that made them seem as if they were floating.
Perhaps they were. As I said. I was an idiot. I would have believed anything.
One face stood out to me in the crowd, a vampire with midnight hair cropped short in the back but with long bangs in the front that curled elegantly down his face to trace his lips and chin lightly. His eyes were corn flower blue transparent as all vampire eyes are. But he was scowling at me. The expression was what caught me in sea of statues.
And my urge to annoy my way through life sprung up as easily as I trotted over to this vampire.
“ hello” I crowed. It makes me cringe now remembering how boisterous and obliviously loud I was. Too bad hindsight is always 20/20.
Seeing that I was addressing him, the other vampires parted from him the way water parts from oil. They moved as swiftly and smoothly as eels. He threw the crowd of them a look that would have parboiled a turkey.
“ hi. What’s your name. [ it wasn’t a question. It was a demand.. heh wasn’t I charming?] Mine’s Cari. “
“ do you often give strangers your personal effects young mistress” he growled in the same smoky sort of voice I heard over the radio every morning when on my way to school.
I smiled at him. The other vampires shifted in that imperceptible way they do. The shifted as one, the tiniest step. If I listened really closely I could just barely hear their hair rustle in wind I couldn’t feel.
“ Are you a radio man?”
He blinked.
I smiled wider at my successful rooting him out. “ I knew you were! Are you Mr. 123.5 the night! Or 67.8 the pear like grow?”
“ peripheral glow” he corrected prudently, eye brows quirking in bemusement. The vampires stirred, I heard a few soft mumbles. The little brat that I was, I was having a wonderful time, basking in the spot light. I was the kind of child who would have stolen a ham just to get the attention. Such is the tragedy of motherless girls.
And then I turned and looked out into the midst of them. Blank white faces . White and black hair. Lips dark to the point of indigo, others the palest hue of grey. And their eyes. A vampire’s eyes are said to be its most powerful weapon. Translucent eyes of black and green and yellow and blue. No warm rich browns, no soft hazels, no deep blues or greens that are speckled with light so that if you looked deep enough you could find yourself in the deep ocean or the warmest wood.
I looked straight into those eyes.
And I knew why humanity feared vampires so much.
No one but I breathed. My heartbeat was alone in this room. I might as well have been talking to a collection of staring dolls. Their cold eyes bored holes into my flesh. My knees began to shake. Unknown fear, simple animalistic fear entered my heart and all innocent mirthful plans left my heart. I was so afraid I was sick.
And I was sick that I was afraid.
I started to back away, the flight of fight response stupid and screwed over in my tiny seven year old brain.
Suddenly I was swept up into a pair of strong lean arms and I instinctively wrapped my arms around the chilled yet offered neck and buried my face into a cool still chest.
Immediately I heard them arguing , voices soft but tone threatening. Their cold mechanical voices were as tempered as steel . I clung to the radio man vampire. I tried to remember to breathe.
“ put her down fledgling!”
“ don’t touch the human, they’ll know and they’ll kill you do you understand”
“ where is your proprietary?”
“ just send it the way it came!”
“ someone ring up the Core. “
My vampire seemed to stiffen and then without a word regarding the rest of his colleagues, I felt him turn and then we were rushing off in some unknown direction. But not the way we’d come. I clung more tightly. I was just begging to be kidnapped.
“ they were afraid of you” Smokey voiced vampire said softly in said velvety tones. “ they are usually more receptive. They just don’t want to be punished that’s all “
“ why would you get punished?” I said softly , fear leaving me and shame taking its place. I was embarrassed and blushing at being such a baby?! [What an ass I was!]
“ we are not allowed to associate with humans” the vampire said softly. At this close distance , I could feel the coldness radiating off him. It was like being cradled against a snow man in a suit. I decided enough was enough and reaching up prodded him on his cold sharply pointed nose. He glared at me. The human expression was very comforting. I carved out a small fond place in my heart for him. “ I wanna get down. I can walk now” he looked as if he would prefer to protest but with a shrug let me slide gently to the floor. Every move he made was artful graceful. It was like watching a dancer, dancing out every day gestures in real life.
I guess for vampires life really is a stage. [ Yes I know I’m lame…. But it’s a freaking vampire. And I was freaking seven…Grr….leave me alone]

“ we should hurry. “ the vampire said blankly glassy blue eyes staring at me with a hawk like regard.
“ Blood will spill and heads will roll if you are discovered missing and strolling in the veins of the tabernacle. “
“ Did you say veins?”
“ veins.”
“ ew.”
“ precisely Madame”
“ your gross “ I laughed but knew better than to take his hand. It would remind me of that cold tomblike room, that quiet grave like stagnancy. Eyes like glass staring out of life-size doll’s faces. For a moment I had looked into the many eyes of Death. It scared me.
“ what’s your name” I asked as we walked , marveling at the paintings on the passing walls. Beautiful portraits all. It hardly disturbed me [though it should have!] that none of them had faces.
“ my name is irrelevant, young mistress “
“ my names Cari”
“ pardon me Madame, young mistress Cari”
He was a cheeky little smart alec. I adored him already. Though I hated his long legs. I had to take 4 steps for his one. It was infuriating.
A silence passed. Pictures passed. Time passed.
“ my name was “ such special inflection on the word “was”

“ David, Madame. My name was David McKaidus”

“ nice to you Mr. David” I said latching my little hand onto his white tux cuff. I thought he might smile then when suddenly a horrible sound filled the air. Something far off and through the walls was screaming, a high animal scream. Like that of a whistling train.
Without a sound , David gathered me into his arms and we were literally flying down the passages. My eyes stung against the wind, portraits whipped past like signposts outside a speeding car. I suddenly got the impression of what a bug feels as it clings to the window of rocketing air plane. I buried my face in his chest. If not for the screaming it would have been incredibly fun. I would probably have asked him for a repeat performance. But the screaming turned my heart to ashes. I felt horribly horribly sick. Suddenly without a skid or a jar we were stopped on a dime and he set me on my feet.
“ Cari!” before I could register what the hell was going on, my father lunged forward out of a crowd of well dressed, haggard faced business men and women and dragged me away from David standing in front of me protectively. I opened my mouth to say how sorry I was, that I would never wander off again, that daddy should thank David for being so kind to me, when a man stepped into the scene.

He was a very tall man with hunched shoulders and very long arms , that hung from under his dangling white lab coat like an orangutans. Enormous gaping green goggle took up his long angular face and only left a small amount of room for a tiny cruel smile that played across chapped lips, bruised from gnawing. In his long black gloved hands he was holding a small instrument that looked like a baton wrapped in red razor wire. David’s already corpse white face became a hollow green. But he was very brave. His eyebrows hitched only the tiniest fraction.

“ what’s he done to my daughter!?”, my father suddenly burst out his face beet red with anger.

Hate turned his usually warm voice to acid.

“ what’s this thing done to her!” “ Daddy!” I whined. He raised a hand violently in rebuke. I backed away. Shocked and affronted. I had never been threatened before, but I knew what it meant. I had seen the stableman hit his son that very same way. Back of the hand connecting to vulnerable cheek meat. I had been sure to leave tacks in every one of that stableman’s seats. I saw that he walked funny for a month. The lousy bastard.

But unlike the stable boy, I wasn’t afraid. I was a spoiled child. And the threat of violence was insulting. My reckless nature called for retaliation . I was used to taking fear and throwing it back at whoever had caused it. I don’t want it , had always been my motto, you take it, ingrate!

The orangutan man ironically sporting erratically spiked orange hair smiled maliciously and in half a blink suddenly was joined by a woman , a small woman in a black cocktail dress , her pallid cheekbones decorated by blue tattoos of roses, her minute face wreathed by short thin black hair that hung in feathered tufts at its ends. Her beetle black eyes were more sinister than the vampire’s. This woman was more frightening then the dead. She pursed her lips, painted stark black against her pale face. She looked vaguely annoyed.

Poor David started to tremble at the sight of her.

I rushed forward but was thrown back , harshly.
“ David.” the woman cooed. Her voice was like the sound of snake scales sliding over a nursery’s carpet, the sound of death approaching as the innocent lay helpless and asleep. David’s body quaked with a tremor and he lifted a frozen unreadable face. A mask.
“ my lady?”
“ how did you come into possession of this girl?”
David never faltered. His frosted eyes stared over our heads, as he stood at attention like a soldier before a court martial. “ she was wandering the halls , my lady. She had apparently lost her way and found herself in the north west lit chasm. Upon finding her , I was escorting her back to the courtyard when I heard the siren“ the screaming I thought with annoyance, you liar, that was as much a warning bell as I am a pair of socks.

The small woman absorbed this news silently, tapping blue tipped fingernails against a blue rose cradled in her frail looking hand.
“ Mr. Marley , do you except this excuse?” My father’s breathe was still coming fast. Temper was still ruling over him.
“ I don’t trust any of them! These filthy dead with free thought. How come he’s not like the others?” my father hissed with revulsion.
The rose woman’s black eyes turned back to David. She saw that his large agile hands….were shaking.
“ he is….. too ….impulsive….. isn’t he Doctor Gantry”
The lab coated man nodded, goggles making his face eerily cheery in the vile shadows of his irregularly planed face. He looked like a stretched out jack o lantern.
“ He has always resisted the Ways more than most,” the doctor said smiling as if he had said something extremely entertaining.
“ try as I might I can’t seem to break him. “ that sing song tone. Some people really deserve to die.
“ well you better take care of that” my father barked ,calming, face uncaring and unfamiliar to me.

It is a frightening moment realizing that one’s parents [or in my case parent…an angel can’t be flawed]
are human, that they are not perfect. That they are not the saints we believe them to be. They are people. Flawed and selfish people fighting every day to resist the evil impulses inside them. It is a lonely horrible moment realizing that no matter how you try, life will never get any easier, any simpler. Any better. That your parents must have believed that same of their parents and been just as disappointed as you were. All throughout time.

Usually this fact is discerned in the teenage years. In those crucial years of impending adulthood. The cocoon shedding of the broken butterfly. But I was seven years old and already knew this thing. My father could be cruel. Anyone could be cruel. And I hated him for showing me that truth so young. For making me the bitter person I would become [that‘s me] . I know in my heart not all the blame should be leveled on him. But its damn comforting. Not to have to blame myself for giving up hope.

But I digress, my father suddenly swooped and swept me up in his arms like a troublemaking cat.
The group o f humans started to walk away, although a few stayed. They had sick expectant smiles on their faces and were wringing their wine stained hands. It made my stomach turn.

“ you’ve been quite the deviant, David, haven’t you?”

To his credit he held his head up high, and my heart warmed at the sight of his brave blue-A flash of blue and suddenly he jerked into horrible spasm a scream of absolute agony ripped brutally from his body. He legs gave way , he hit the ground and writhed like a snake that had been speared through the belly and found itself pinned powerlessly to a wooden board.

The party of us stopped , my father flung his thick fingers over my eyes. But he was careless with shock. I saw everything. Red metal cuffs hidden beneath the white fabric , clamped suddenly over his wrists and rusted brown barbs suddenly shot through his skin and tendons , the back of his hand, tearing holes in his flesh, spilling torrents and torrents of brackish blood. I watched his face hollow, I watched that vampiric beauty start to drain away. My father handed me off to an elderly woman who was fleeing the scene in tears. He seemed unable to look away. I hated him for that. I hated myself for suffering under that same filthy human urge.

That horrible fascination with pain.

Of inflicting and observing it.

As the scene became smaller and smaller, the darkness gobbling them up, I saw the doctor lift his alien green lenses, face contorted with his perverse joy, as well as the rod clasped in his hand. Suddenly red brilliant fire shot from the ground beneath David engulfing him, tearing horrific inhuman shrieks from my smoky voiced savior. The old woman started to run in a panic and I smashed my face against her shoulder accidentally splitting my lip. My vision bled to red. I saw the fire consume him in hellish light and then we were blinded by sunshine and the old woman had sat me down and was trying to smear Vaseline on my lips.

The screams never left me after that day. I never partook of vampire jokes or mocking games again. I never let anyone speak against them without a passionate blow to the face or a jagged cut to their soul. If an accomplice owned a vampire , that accomplice was dead to me. I would not support this slavery. This cruelty. And I would support anyone who supported it . In any way. I was a renegade against my time. I was a Martin Luther of vampirism….except no one ever listened to me. Damn it.
The screams haunted me in waking and in sleeping until time numbed the wounds somewhat and only the memory of a memory tormented me. Unfortunately though it was too late for familial ties.
I never trusted my father again.
I loved him as a daughter.
Liked him as a person.
But I could never respect him.
And I could never again put my faith in him.


It was now those screams, David’s martyred screams of suffering that filled my ears for the first time in 8 years , as I clung to Wesley’s arm and watched the enormous walls of the Tabernacle approach. We would be staying in a manor on the Southside of the lit areas. The human areas. I only needed to spend one night in the nightmare. One evening. 2 hours. Maybe 3.
I felt sick. Violently sick with dread. Wesley rubbed my back absent mindedly but I could take no comfort in him. I didn’t want to lose my trust and love for my friend. I didn’t want to break apart my life again.
Not again.
Forgive me David I prayed as the limo slowed to crawl and [mercifully] a human valet approached to open the doors.
I couldn’t change the world for you. I couldn’t make them see. Your death, heh, your second death…was all in vain.
All of it, for all of us, so short and insignificant.
So very very vain.