Part I Scissors Beat Paper
Angelique watched him from the corner near the floor length window in his study. He had been reading for over an hour. She took the time to practice, in her head, what she might say tonight. Since last night had gone so horribly, she wanted to try to make amends. After all, it was she who needed his help. It was completely against her character to press such an issue. But time was of the essence and really the favor she needed from Victor was actually a tiny one in the grand scheme of things.
‘Haunting’ she said aloud. ‘I think that is the best of course of action to take.’
“You have been standing there for over an hour staring at the back of my head and all you were able to come up with was haunting. Truly you are the most pathetic ghost I have ever seen.”
Angelique moved to the center of the room taking up the space between the fireplace and Victor. “Cool curtains. Are they velvet?”
“Yes” Victor answered flatly.
“Kinda cliché for a vampire though don’t you think? I mean, this is 2010, vampires could have brocade curtains at least. I mean brocade fabric is still heavy and oh so old fashioned but its chic too. Brocade is even in Pottery Barn nowadays! Add a few tassels and we’ve moved the whole room into the present day. And since you’re a nice vampire, you could even go with something macho metro sexual like brushed suede or even a silk as long as it was in an ice blue or mocha color. Either color would go with the leather couch and the fainting chaise. Fainting chaise…I mean, really? Can you actually make a woman swoon and fall under her spell just by looking deeply into her eyes? Cause if you can, this chair would definitely be defined as not only decorative but functional….”
“How long do you plan on driveling on like this?” asked Victor, his voice straining to sound smooth.
“I’m not sure. While I have been floating around, I haven’t just been contemplating haunting you. I’ve been redesigning this whole room. I mean you must have something like two thousand books in here. I checked actually, when you tried locking me in here the other night. By the way…. I can’t believe you thought I was just some creepy girl from eharmony.com. Now you have to admit, I was pretty clever. And you know, I had to manifest energy all day just to be that solid for our first meeting. Pretty convincing, eh? Well, I mean, you don’t have to answer that, because you already answered that question when you chased me in here and locked the door.” Angelique laughed nervously.
“Enough! Just leave!” Victor shouted.
“Leave? I can’t leave. I’m haunting you.”
“No you are not.”
“Uh, I think I am. Yes.” Angelique pulled out something invisible from thin air and waved her hand as if she were turning the pages of some unseen book. “Ah yes, here are the specific criteria.” She cleared her throat. “Do you feel anxious?”
“Yes”
“Do you have a deep desire to run away from your established place of residency?” Angelique peered over the top of her invisible book to look her interviewee in the face. “Answer truthfully now because this is my first haunting and I want to do well.”
“Yes!”
“Do you want to comply with my wishes just to get away from me?”
“That’s not haunting, that’s blackmail.”
“You’re good. You caught me. I was just trying to see if you were any closer to accepting my request.”
“Why can’t you haunt my house like a normal ghost? Rattle some pans, move things around, stare back at me from the reflective side of a mirror. For once I’d have a reflection! Oh, oh! I’ve got it! Why can’t you make the walls bleed? I would actually enjoy that! Work on that why don’t you?!” Victor paced back and forth thinking. Then he snapped his fingers so loudly he made Angelique jump. “What about moaning? I could ignore moaning.”
Angelique smiled innocently and shook her head. “Sorry. Even dead, I’m too pretty to moan. You’re still a full functioning male. It would turn you on and then you’d want to take me to bed, and then just as you were about to cum, I’d run out of manifested energy and poof, you’d go right through me! Or worse, I’d sink into the bed and land underneath it leaving you frustrated and irritated. “ Angelique paused. She placed a thin, smokey finger to her lips. “Then again, if the goal is to irritate you….. some moaning might be in your future.”
“I’m not helping you. As a matter of fact, you are leaving right now” said Victor, directly.
“You can’t get rid of me so quickly. I looked it up on Wikipedia. There isn’t any defense that a vampire has against a ghost.”
“Try reading a book sometime!” Victor shouted and from the leather bound pages in his hand, he recited something that to Angelique sounded like Greek or Latin. Suddenly, she found herself stepping backwards towards the windows against her own will.
“Please” she pleaded. “I need your help. Jeff only has a little bit of time left. You helped all those other women. Why can’t you help me?”
Victor stopped pushing with his invisible force and look sympathetically at Angelique. “All those women had been beaten or worse by their lovers. I have a way of getting the truth out of the women over the course of the evening. When they tell me their circumstances, I perform the justice that most court rooms cannot deliver. Do you understand Angelique? A vampire does one thing and one thing only very, very well. We drink blood. And we drink until the body is completely left void of the liquid. Even if I wanted to help you, I couldn’t. Once I bit your Jeff, I couldn’t stop.”
“I think you could. I have faith in you. It’s worth a try” said Angelique with desperation in her voice.
“No! Now get out!” Victor chanted the words from his book again and Angelique found herself thrust out of the windows and onto Oblieque street. She sighed.
“Well there was another night well spent” she said to no one in particular. She thought of Jeff lying in his hospital bed, but the sound of peeps and hum of monitors was just all the more depressing. She needed to forget for a little while. She needed a good possession.
In defeat, she walked a few blocks from the river front down to the Manchester pub. Drinking wasn’t called “consuming spirits” for nothing. Once a living person’s mental defenses were down, ghosts often entered their bodies. Some ghosts enjoyed the simple sensation of warmth. It reminded them of their days when they were living. And some did it just to make the living look stupid. Angelique liked to picked out the most interesting conversation in the pub and possess a host body just to have some meaningful banter with a stranger. Being dead was lonely, after all.
Angelique swirled and stalked potential victims; poking them in the head to see if they were drunk enough to penetrate. The sensitive ones among the living donned their coats or sweaters as she passed them by as her cold vapor washed over them. It was a slow night. Those who were easy hosts were drunk sports fans with little or nothing to talk about save the “rack on that cheerleader” or the pool they would win in the office the following morning. Then there were some who were just too boring to bother with like the guy in the corner who was apparently so nervous on his first date with a rather lovely brunette that all he could talk about was his money saving manipulation of the corporate tax code. “ Poor guy”, Angelique thought to herself. “Buddy, this first date is also your last date….with her anyways.” For a moment, she considered possessing him and taking over his body, driving his boring personality away and telling the woman across the table all the things she wanted to hear. What women truly want is universal. She might at least land him a one night stand providing he didn’t open his mouth once he got her home. But another conversation distracted Angelique and she left the boring accountant to his own sad and measly devices.
An intense conversation was heating up in the corner booth. Father Carolan was apparently visiting his younger brother who had just returned home from a tour of duty in the Middle East. The existence and vitality of the human soul was the topic of heavy debate and Angelique could not resist the urge to listen in and possibly contribute. As she listened, she realized that the priest, while boasting the more logical and sensible of opinions, was too kind and soft spoken to possible win the debate against the more aggressive demeanor of his brother. Jumping into the priest’s pint of IPA, she soon found herself taken in by the priest and easily possessed his alcohol ply brain.
“I disagree” Angelique said in a deep voice. It made her pause for a moment and then continued before the man across the table could reassert his position. A soul, no matter what it has done, can be redeemed. I believe the Divine even gives those souls wanting to correct things a chance to make peace before they are judged.”
“Ok, how long then?”
“Pardon?” asked Angelique and the priest.
“How long is the redemption period? I mean surely there are souls in hell. Are you telling me those are only the ones who didn’t care who got sent there? I don’t think so. How long does a soul have before its time is up?”
Angelique could feel herself panic. She hadn’t thought that her redemption period might be limited. Her mind raced, making the priest confused. He finished his beer to buy himself time to answer but Angelique couldn’t think of a good defense. “I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone knows, really” she said honestly.
Victor, rinsing the shampoo from his shoulder length hair and face, opened his eyes to find himself nose to nose with a pretty blonde of roughly twenty-six. He jumped back in alarm. Angelique smiled as she started her monologue. “You know what’s really annoying? The clothes I die in are the clothes I’m stuck in for eternity! Luckily, I had my silky nighty on and my good undies but still. This look isn’t going to stay sexy forever! And I can’t even tempt you with my perfect body! I wonder if there are any naked ghosts anywhere in the world?!”
Victor turned off the water. “Try to morgue” he said flatly.
“Yeah, but even those guys had some like hospital gown on or papery thing on them, right?”
“Hmm” consider yourself lucky then. I don’t imagine that look is ever fashionable. At least you’ve got style for a little longer” spat Victor, thick with sarcasm. “And while this conversation is wildly stimulating, I do have some work to get done. So, if you will excuse me..” Victor left the bathroom wearing a small towel around his head as he continued to dry his hair as he walked down the hallway.
“I get it now” Angelique shouted, following at his heels. “You’re trying to redeem yourself, save your soul. That’s why you only hunt wife beaters and abusers. That’s why you think you shouldn’t help Jeff, but you’ve actually missed a very big point.”
“And what might that be?” Victor replied absent mindedly.
“Saving Jeff would be the hardest redemption attempt you’ve ever made. If you were successful..”
Victor cut Angelique off. “What…if I were? There has never been a single account of a vampire’s soul being redeemed. Never. Ever. I am doomed for eternity and I don’t know nor do I want to know what you did to this poor Jeff. But whatever your sin you are stuck with it! Ok? My soul and yours are just damned to hell with no escape so instead of wasting your time with me, why don’t you say your proper good byes now?”
Angelique opened the front door of Victor’s townhouse, letting the last dregs of the evening sun cross the threshold, working like a safety barrier between priest and vampire. Victor was suddenly aware that he was completely naked. Father Carolan looked shocked and immediately looked down at his shoes. “Here” he placed his hand just within reach so that Victor might safely grab the large envelope from the priest. Victor didn’t budge; remaining still as stone. “It’s from the secret files of the local diocese.” Again, Victor said nothing. But Angelique watched Victor’s eyes move from the priest to the envelope. “It’s two documented cases of vampires returning to their human forms …redemptive transformation, they called it.”
Victor said nothing but turned to walk the rest of the way to his bedroom. Stopping just a few feet short he said aloud, “the sunlight can’t protect you for much longer. Go and leave the envelope at on the floor. If your so called case studies have any validity, I’ll be in touch.” Victor turned and vanished into a blur of speed into his room where his door slammed shut.
“Thank you” whispered Angelique from the ether.
“Saving souls is sort of my business and this is far more interesting than baptisms on a Saturday afternoon. What do we do now?” asked the priest to the thin air around him.
“Go, quickly, like he said. I’ll keep haunting him and let you know” said Angelique. She watched over the priest until she was sure that Victor would not follow him back to the church. When she returned to the town house, she found Victor staring out the window, the envelope torn open and the papers placed methodically on the desk behind him.
“Sit down” Victor ordered. He didn’t turn but Angelique knew by the graveness in his tone to obey.
“Before I consider this, before I even let one single millimeter of my body hope for what is in those papers, there is something that you need to see.”
“What? What more is there?” Angelique was still thinking of her limited time. She was anxious for Victor’s final decision.
“There is a man who lives upstairs in the penthouse. For the last seven weeks, he comes home each Friday and drinks himself into a stupor with whiskey. Then, he wakes up his sixteen year old daughter and makes her scrub the house from floor to celing. Last Friday, she missed a fork in the sink. In her haste and fatigue, she missed one fork, and so as her punishment, he stabbed each of her palms with it until she bleed.” Victor turned to face Angelique and he was no longer the handsome young man who could have stepped out of any number of GQ magazine covers. Instead, he looked more like the cross between a leopard baring his fangs and a corpse. “Before I consider helping your friend, I want you to see what you are sentencing him to. Tonight, you will watch me kill a man. A ritual you condemn Jeff to for eternity.”
Part III Paper Beats Rock
Angelique lay on the leather couch in Victor’s library. To her surprise, he sat next to her and tried to place his arms around her. She was pulsing with so much energy that she was nearly completely solid. For a moment, they were like any normal couple, sitting together on any normal Saturday night. The difference was, both were sans a pulse. Angelique leaned her head on Victor’s shoulder and stared at the bookcases filled with books. “When I was a little girl, my brother Jeff and I would play this game called rock, scissor, paper.”
“It’s timeless” remarked Victor, absentmindedly stroking Angelique’s nearly solid strands of hair.
“Now that we are adults, for a joke, we still play the same game each Friday night before we go out. The loser has to be the designated driver and the winner is allowed to get hammered. Only, Jeff wins all the time and I got sick of it three weeks ago. So, when he was out dancing with some Cougar, I order a few shots when he wasn’t looking. It wasn’t too much, I thought. When it came round to closing time, we hopped in the car and headed home, only I was still feeling kind of tipsy and wicked tired. My judgment was just a few seconds off but I ran a red light and….” Angelique trailed off into fits of sobbing. Victor patiently waited until she slowed down to ask the obvious question. “So you died in the car accident but Jeff?”
“Paralyzed from the neck down with a spinal chord injury” Angelique whimpered. “I read somewhere that becoming a vampire made one immortal and indestructible. And then, I saw you with that woman in the Manchester Pub and I followed you and discovered what you were and why you chose those men to kill. And I just thought…” she trailed off into another sobbing session.
“You realize, Angelique, that it will cure him physically, yes, but he will have other issues, I dare say, that you have witnessed tonight. Did you hear that rich man beg me for his life? He knew I was there to kill him. He knew a monster when he saw one, Angel. That is what you are trading, absolute physical cure in exchange for the damning of his soul.”
“What about Father Carolan? Couldn’t he help Jeff to undo the damnation thing?” Angelique was fading. She was growing tired from all of the crying.
“There are a few things I need to speak about with him anyways. Let me talk to him. Stay here and rest. You will need to be fully manifested before we can do anything more. You need to talk to Jeff. Give him the option and let him make up his own mind. I won’t do this to him if he is unwilling. Do you understand Angel?”
“Yes”
“Then you and I truly are saved. We have offered and worked together. His decision seals his own fate.”
Part IV Double or Nothing
Father Carolan wheeled Jeff’s hospital bed into the elevator where the two rode up to the top floor. As the doors began to open, Jeff yelled “Stop!” and Father Carolan pressed the button to keep the doors closed.
“Changed your mind?” asked the priest, with a touch of relief in his voice.
“No, father. I just want Absolution before we do this. Just in case what you say about my sister is true. Just in case the vampire can’t…..stop. Well, I want absolution for my sins.”
“That’s a very good idea” came a soft voice through the elevator doors as Angelique walked through the solid metal. Jeff’s pulse quickened according to the peeps in his monitor. Wide eyed, he was speechless. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to listen in, silly” she said as if her ghostly state were nothing but normal. “I just wanted you two to know that Victor is ready.”
“What exactly do you mean by ready?” asked Jeff nervously.
A painful expression swept across Angelique’s face. She stared her brother dead in the eye as her expression hardened. “He went to the morgue and drank the blood of a fresh corpse. The dead woman’s blood has weakened him to the point where he is barely able to sit without falling over.”
“Sounds as if time is of the essence” Father Carolan replied anxiously. He made a large sign of the cross over Jeff’s body. “For whatever sin is in your heart, you are forgiven.”
“Are you sure Jeff?” asked Angelique. “It’s now or never but no one will blame you if you want to punk out.”
“Like this? I’m already dead. Anything is better than this. I’m ready.”
“He has brought an extra dose for just after he bites you. I’ve been manifesting all day, so I should be solid enough to give it to him before he recovers from your living blood.” She sighed. “In the event that I can’t, for some reason, Father Carolan has two gallons of holy water infused with garlic that will kill Victor should he get out of hand.”
“Let’s proceed” said Father Carolan wheeling Jeff into the small, hospital chapel.
Rock Beats Scissors
Jeff lay helpless, paralyzed from the neck down. Victor approached slowly, cautiously. The vampire looked as though he might throw up, or burst into flames. It was a combination of reluctance and yet it was stalking all the same. Jeff suddenly wished he had called for some sort of drug to knock him out before leaving the safety of the life saving tubes and machines of his hospital room. His brain told him to run but his body lay cold and still; unresponsive to any thought of survival.
Angelique hovered in the corner of the room. She felt herself being pulled apart with emotion. There was the absolute need to protect her brother from harm as he lie helpless in his hospital bed. There would be a considerable amount of pain involved according to Father Carolan and his documents. She wanted to spare Jeff the agony. She had already put him through so much! But there was a stronger part of her that knew Victor’s bite was the only thing that might save his life. She anxiously clung to the ziplock bag of a woman’s dead blood and waited for the supernatural forces to work themselves into the play.
Victor gathered control over himself as the urge to all out feast was overpowering. His will to survive was propelling him forward and clouding his mind. By the time he reached Jeff’s body, the ringing in Victor’s ears was deafening. It took all of his concentration to focus on one bite and one alone. He reminded himself of the consequences that surrounded him should he fail, although his god-complex, a normal part of vampire ego, just laughed; reassuring him that at top form, the priest nor the ghost would be able to stop him. He had to fight his inner daemon.
Father Carolan took one uncomfortable step forward as Victor pushed Jeff’s head to one side with a bit more force than he felt was necessary. The vampire tapped Jeff’s neck, looking for the best place to plunge his teeth; much like a nurse would looking for a vein with her IV in hand. Jeff whimpered and tried to resist as the pupils in Victor’s eyes went completely black. His fangs elongated and his lips turned into a snarl. Victor tipped his own head back as his fingers intertwined with the hair on the top of Jeff’s head. In a flash, his teeth were deep into Jeff’s main artery and the vampire was drinking deeply. Jeff bellowed out a blood curdling scream. Victor was obviously doing more damage than planned.
Angelique sprang into flight with the dead woman’s blood in hand. She was racing as fast as her energy could vault her forward. Touching Victor’s shoulder, she was solid and then suddenly, her energy ran out. The ziplock fell to the floor, and Angelique’s hand vaporized through Victor’s upper torso. Jeff’s eyes were wide and filled with terror. The simple touch of the ghost was enough to bring the innately good hearted Victor to his senses. He instantly pulled his head back. Blood dripped from his chin. There was the look of temptation to dive in again, but Victor’s eyes met Jeff’s. The helpless man seemed to beg for his life and Victor was instantly ashamed. Dropping to his knees, in an act of penance, Victor plunged his extended fangs through the thick plastic bag and drank slowly from the dead corpse blood. Within seconds, he crumpled to the floor.
Paper Covers Rock….and Scissors
A Letter from Father Tom Carolan to his Eminence, the Pope
Father,
I have left the full sixty three page report with your clerk for you to study as your time and schedule permit. I am grateful for the open minded correspondence that it has received. It was, admittedly an experiment of life or death for all participants and it is gracious of your Holiness to look at this case objectively before removing me from my post. I will simply say that it is my humble opinion that two possibly three souls have been saved.
The ghostly Angelique was the first to experience the mercy of heaven. Soon after her disappearance, a gentle light seemed to come from the corner of the room near the stained glass window. First, I thought it was merely a beam of afternoon sun. But moments later, with my mind clearer, I looked at my watch and realized it was near two in the morning.
Soon, a papery thin image of a frail woman, sobbing and on her knees appeared. Angelique seemed unaware at first, but soon, she lifted her chin from her chest and raised her eyes to heaven. It was much like how I have envisioned Mary Magdeline at Our Lord’s feet as she washed his feet in repentance. The beam of light grew brighter until a figure neither old not young stepped out into the chapel. It is unclear whether the entity was male or female but by all definitions, was surely an angel. The angel reached for her hand and lifted her to her feet. With the other hand, he or she seemed to call to Victor. The vampire stirred and then cowered at first. I gather he felt the moment an impossibility. Never the less, the angel sent Angelique over and she helped Victor to his feet. The two were guided into the light with the Angel following behind them.
As for the young man for whom all of this ordeal was planned. Jeffery continues to reside here with me at the rectory. His story is perhaps the most miraculous. While his body healed within hours, there is no sign of blood lust or trace of any vampire tendencies. I have watched him round the clock. He goes out into the garden on the brightest days without effect, joins me for vegetarian dinners without complaint and is often found in prayer where he begs for the absolution of his sister’s soul as well as Victor’s. I have no explanation for it beyond a reaffirmation in miracles.
Your humble servant,
Father Carolan
