Vampires Don't Cry: A Mother's Curse Read online

  Vampires Don’t Cry:

  A Mother’s Curse

  By Ian Hall & April L. Miller

  This book is a work of fiction written within a factual timeframe. Some names, places, characters and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living, dead or undead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 (Hallanish Publishing) thru Smashwords Inc.

  Ian and April are members of Hallanish Publishing.

  Published by Hallanish Publishing at Smashwords Inc.

  ISBN; 9781310547133

  All rights reserved, and the authors reserve the right to re-produce this book, or parts thereof, in any way whatsoever.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Also from Vampires Don’t Cry

  (The adventures of Lyman Bracks and vampire Mandy Cross)

  Book 1: Vampire High School

  Book 2: The Helsing Diaries

  Book 3: The Rage Wars

  Book 4: Blood Red Roses

  Anthology (Backstories)

  The Vampires Don’t Cry “Tomas” trilogy

  A Mother’s Curse

  A Father’s Revenge (expected 2015)

  The Will of the Order (expected 2016)

  From Ian Hall

  The Connecticut Vampire series;

  A Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur’s Court

  A Connecticut Vampire in Queen Mary’s Court

  This is the two voiced story of Valérie Marneffe Berthier Lidowitz, and the vampire Theresa Scholes.

  The two characters alternate in telling the story, I’m certain you’ll soon get the idea.

  Towards the middle/end, two new characters appear; Tomas and Ivan.

  They are both old vampires, and held a lot of history in their dark vampire years. We enjoyed them so much, we wrote their individual backstories, going all the way back to 1699.

  We have included these stories as Appendices.

  We both hope you enjoy.

  Thank you.

  Ian and April

  Chapter 1 Distant Childhood Memories

  Chapter 2 Immortal and Pathetic

  Chapter 3 Doctor Fabrini

  Chapter 4 Lessons Learned

  Chapter 5 The SS Coronata

  Chapter 6 College Daze

  Chapter 7 Growing Up the Hard Way

  Chapter 8 Vacation in the Sun

  Chapter 9 Growing Tired with Life

  Chapter 10 Training Begins in Earnest

  Chapter 11 Training Continues

  Chapter 12 Enter the Căluşari

  Chapter 13 The Final Training

  Chapter 14 The Mission

  Chapter 15 Interrogation

  Chapter 16 The Goat-Herder Rears His Ugly Head

  Chapter 17 Paul Ramirez

  Chapter 18 Out of the Frying Pan

  Chapter 19 North to New York

  Chapter 20 Senator Chuck Eagerson

  Chapter 21 Different Stages of Invisibility

  Chapter 22 Mother

  Chapter 23 A Meeting with Mother

  Chapter 24 The Yellow Velvet Plant

  Chapter 25 Helsing Central

  Chapter 26 Where is Gregor Arizona Anyway?

  Chapter 27 The End Begins

  Chapter 28 Duel to the Death

  Chapter 29 Aftermath

  Appendix 1; The Rise and Fall of Tomas Lucescu

  Appendix 2; Ivan’s Story; The Fall/Rise of a Jesuit Vampire

  Distant Childhood Memories

  Valérie Lidowitz, 1860’s, Florence, Italy

  When I look back on my early days, I see them through a red veil of rage. It seemed the one emotion; the singular driving force that both encompassed and propelled me through that time.

  I can dimly recall my father’s face, weather-worn, drawn and pale. I could not comprehend then his great, fierce love for me. To my childish understanding he held the warden’s keys, holding me against my will. No amount of affection could have tamed the torment contained within me.

  Those distant years of the 1860’s come back to me in dreams. I’m wearing a blue silk dress with white lace at the collar and sleeves, a yellow bow and ribbon in my long, blond hair. I know that it is me and that I am four. Meant to be a lady, bred to good standing and high society, yet, beneath the fine garments beats the heart of a savage.

  As soft as a butterfly’s wing, father brushes the hair from my moist, angry brow. “Valérie,” he says, “Be still, child.” Gingerly he pries the dead bird from my clutches, its crimson blood still fresh on my lips. I am scraped and bruised, the smell of my own blood increasing the never satisfied hunger. Father, holding my arms by my sides, lifts me by the waist, tears in his blood-shot eyes. I kick and scream as I’m carried from the garden, my one sanctuary through the madness of those hazy, turbulent times.

  He is always so tired; Father can scarcely bear the burden of my small frame. Like miniature daggers, my tiny nails dig into his soft skin and peel four concentric lines down the side of his neck. The wounds are deep but not fatal, but to my child’s mind, they still serve their purpose. Out of shock and terror, Father loses his grip and I go tumbling onto the plush grass as he drops to his knees beside me. I am free to run, but I’m held in place by the promise of a fresh meal. Instead I lunge. The first trickle hardly coats my tongue and yet it is enough; the frenzy engulfs me.

  It takes two servants to pull me from Father’s bleeding throat. They drag me to my darkened bedroom and secure me to the wooden post that long ago replaced my bed. Alone with the rage, I bellow into the cavernous space. I pull against the chains and bite the shackles at my wrists. And then I smell it: the coiled skin beneath my filthy nails. I chew at them until even the flesh of my own fingers hangs in shreds.

  The slideshow of red-tinted images brings me forward. I must be close to nine years old, and now sheathed in a soiled cotton nightdress, my hair thickly matted. A Catholic deacon presses an ivory rosary to my forehead, christens me with sprinkles of blessed water and prays mightily that God will exorcise the demon from within. Again, I am chained at the wrists, my knees purple from the bare wooden floor I’m forced to kneel on. Three nuns hover behind the priest, crossing themselves for protection. I am laughing.

  I will never know if these are true memories or a collage of dreams my mind has pasted together. I only hope the truth of my youngest existence had yet to be revealed, that this nightmare of moments had been torn from my imagination. Time passed until there came a day that believers stopped praying and I had been sent away to be forgotten.

  My childhood in Italy should have been a time of play, a period of laughter and freedom. Instead it held nothing but restriction, first chains, then later bound in thick starched canvas, short leather and brass buckles fastened tight. Twice a day they prised my mouth open using a metal contraption, and a rubber tube passed between my straining teeth, down into my gagging throat. Then cold liquid trickled down from a funnel held high above my head. I resented the world for its invasion into my body, and twice a day I struggled against the snakelike intrusion until I eventually relented, tired and weak from the fight.

  Throughout this time I never spoke. I initially found the words difficult to copy, so kept them to myself. But I listened. I memorized every word, every nuance. For years I ke
pt the secret in my head, my source of solace through the long cold nights.

  One day, bound tightly in my starched contraption, I watched as father visited me. “Happy birthday, my child,” he said with a smile, but his face could not deny the revulsion he felt. “You are ten years old today.”

  I denied the urge to answer him, and stared antagonistically into his eyes. I regret that now. It was to be his last effort to make an effort on my behalf, and I knew I had brought my own fate upon myself.

  Days after my tenth birthday, I got carried from the tall walls of my home. I remember father’s sad tear-filled eyes. He stood on the wide stone staircase waving to my struggling form, but I could not return the gesture, my body again encased in the stiff, unforgiving canvas device. The carriage ride swiftly took me from the streets of Florence into the countryside.

  For the shortest time I cried pathetic self-centered tears, then as the city disappeared through the small barred window, giving way to long lines of grapevines, I allowed anger to rise. Anger against my banishment, anger against father, and of course, mostly anger at myself for my own condition.

  My life change that day, and my new room held little light, only two high dirty windows showed the sky of the outside world. The floor, walls, and door padded in thick studded wadding. Two long glass panes sat high on the inside wall, but the dark glass rarely revealed the watchers that lurked beyond. When I caught sight of them, their faces lay in dark shadow against the glass, silhouetted against a pale yellow ceiling.

  I spent my time running between the walls, propelling myself from one side to the other. I lived that way for a very long time.

  I don’t remember when, but at one point my days must have taken on a different routine. Each evening, two strong men held me to the floor, and a man in a white jacket stuck a long needle in my arm; a painful injection that propelled me into a deep dreamless sleep. When I woke, still groggy from my slumber, the same men force-fed me and changed my diaper. This went on so long that I almost forgot my previous regime. In time my muscles atrophied, the slack skin feeling strange as I lay, continually bound. I have no idea how many days the dark shapes of the observers watched from above, but on one morning, it all changed.

  Strapped in my canvas contraption, two men carried me to a small, bright room, where they laid me carefully on the floor, and walked away. A row of windows looked out onto brightly colored green sycamore leaves. I lay on the floor, smiling at their young beauty, my first glimpse of nature for many years, and did not see or hear the new man enter the room.

  “You can go outside, Valérie,” he said, his words suddenly spinning my head in his direction. “If you’re a good girl.”

  He stood wiry and tall, with closely cropped brown hair and beard. His smile exuded calmness, and I found myself listening to his monotone, somehow spellbound. He walked past me to the window and looked outside. “The summer here is very pretty. There are gardens and flowers, hedges, and so many birds.”

  I could see nothing but the tops of trees, but recognized a bribe when I heard it.

  He turned to me, returning my stare with quiet stoicism. “You could go outside. Are you going to be a good girl?”

  I nodded, having the notion I would pretend just long enough to get the buckles removed, then I would smash his face to a pulp.

  But then he shook his head.

  “You be a good girl first, then you get outside. You never struggle, you never try to bite us, you take your food without incident. Then you get outside.”

  I shook my head in anger and roared my protest past the mouthpiece in my canvas suit.

  “Never!”

  I jammed my jaw as tight on the bar as I could, but tears welled as I conceded his victory. My new enemy knew that I could talk and his expression betrayed his realization of the fact.

  I closed my eyes as he walked through the door into the dark corridor beyond, and the two strong men carried me back to my dark, padded room.

  Each morning, they forced the tube down my throat, then I got taken to the room with the windows and he repeated the bribe to me; being a good girl meant I could visit the garden.

  But each evening as they came with the rubber hose, I continued my rebellion.

  Soon the leaves began to change color, subtly dimming from bright green to a paler, subdued yellow. As I lay daily on the tiled floor, I began to realize how much I wanted to see the garden.

  That night, I did not struggle as they fed and injected me. Instead I lay still on the floor, looking into their eyes, accepting every violation of my body. For four days I exhibited no revolt against my captors.

  The next morning I woke not encased in my suit. I sat up, and flexed my arms and legs. When the men entered, they carried no tube or funnel. Instead they offered me a small waxed paper cup, which I gingerly accepted. I slowly drank the fluid from the cup, returning it carefully to the man’s hand.

  I sat back and watched them leave. I had been a “good girl”, I now awaited my reward.

  Soon the white coated men came. This time they carefully lifted me to lead me by the hand along the corridors to the tiled room. The tiled floors felt good on my bare feet, although my leg muscles protested the new exercise. Arriving at the room, I walked to the window, and holding onto the wooden sill, looked out onto the garden below.

  “Good morning, Valérie.” The thin man said. “My name is Dr. Fabrini; you may call me Alvise.”

  He came to my shoulder, but never touched me, pretending to enjoy the luscious view along with me. It seemed to be his gesture of trust, knowing full well the likelihood of my turning to attack. For the first time in my short life, mind overruled instinct; the small chance that I might feel nature beneath my feet offered me an incentive a father’s approving voice never could.

  “This view never fails to impress me,” he said whimsically. “I have worked at many asylums over the years, Valérie, and none offered such amenities. Most facilities I’ve seen could pass more for dungeons than a hospital, cave-like walls, dirty and crawling with infestation. You could never dream the horrors endured by the patients in those places, Valérie; they are treated worse than animals and their keepers are cruel beyond reason.”

  “Being strapped to a bed, force-fed through a tube doesn’t qualify as cruelty beyond reason by your definition, Dr. Fabrini?” I clutched the window frame to contain myself, but could not disguise the venom in my voice. I smiled at the pause before his answer.

  “You speak well, Valérie.”

  “Perhaps you would have me curse like your orderlies, Dr. Fabrini?” I reluctantly turned my gaze from the window.

  “Alvise, please,” He forced a grin. “The treatment you have endured here is reserved for only well-behaved patients. You would not want to know what becomes of the, eh, less cooperative inmates.”

  I looked down to the garden, content to allow the doctor to think he had baited me into a dialog. I kept my eyes forward, unwilling to grant him any further victory.

  He continued without my input, “You have your father to thank for your luxury accommodations, Valérie. Mr. Lidowitz has invested much of his wealth sending you here and ensuring no harm befalls you. His devotion is something quite spectacular and quite rare, my dear.”

  “You’ve spoken to my father?” I bit my lip, punishing the cruel flesh for allowing the hasty words to pass.

  “Oh yes. He personally commissioned my fellowship here, relocating my entire family from Sicily.”

  I looked up into his face. I’d never seen eyes so clear, blue as crystal water. Great patience lay behind them, and immense curiosity. “Does my father ever visit me?” I wondered if my father’s face had been one of those at the high window in my cell.

  Dr. Fabrini smiled. “He watches you sometimes, and wonders.”

  I turned to the garden and pretended to take in its details, but I felt conflicted by a longing to see father once again and anger that he’d confined me here. Reluctantly I accepted the fact that he still cared for me.


  At last I broke my gaze from the beautiful landscape and took in the full measure of Dr. Fabrini. He looked a young man, yet had the finest brush of gray at the temples.

  “Why would my father confine me here?” I did not need an answer; Italy did not need someone like me wandering wild.

  “Your father loves you.” Dr. Fabrini tried to appear humble. “I have a good deal of documented success in matters of healing the mind, Valérie. Your father is a tenacious man; he did his research. And now here I am.”

  “My mind is not sick,” I sneered.

  He continued as if I’d not spoken, “Most physicians in my field tend to focus on punishment for poor behavior. I believe in reward when appropriate behavior is exhibited.”

  The doctor cupped his hand around my wrist. Immediately, I flinched against his grip, then grudgingly allowed him his show of dominance.

  “You have earned your first reward.”

  Through a long, white labyrinth of halls, he led me to a heavy pair of thick, oak doors. For the first time since being dragged in through those doors I felt a rush of brisk, clean air in my face. Were it not for Dr. Fabrini’s persistent hold upon me, I would have run out into the open fields and put the asylum at my back forever. Instead, I walked out like a mutt on a tether, knowing my frail muscles would take little catching.

  He pulled me onto the manicured lawn, and my bare feet sunk into the soft carpet. I felt a thrill run up my toes and through my body. The air felt moist with the promise of a coming downpour. Above, clouds gathered and I remembered quite suddenly the sensation of bathing in the fresh rain.

  I remembered Father holding my arm, much the way Dr. Fabrini held me now, as I struggled to leave the dry awning of the porch and rush out into the storm. At last I managed to wriggle free, leaping from the stone steps and into the driving rain. Arms open and face up to the heavens, I spun and rejoiced gloriously. Laughing, Father ran to me, flung me into the air and twirled me about. We danced together as the clouds thundered above. For the first time in all my years away, I knew a longing to be held in the arms of someone who loved me and shame for my inability to love in return.