Midnight in the savage garden part 3

 I arrived back home to Montreal, Canada on a Wednesday, which gave me plenty of time to prepare for my interview with Voltaire on Friday.  I had so many questions for him, my head swam with questions.  I took out a pad of paper and pen and began to write them down.   

Halloween night 2023 

The pod cast

Christian sits in front of a microphone and desktop computer. Large headphones sit upon his unkempt dark hair.  

"Good evening welcome to another episode of  The Devil’s tea room" Music plays the intro theme song.  "I am your Master of spook Christian Knight.  Tonight,we have a special guest who comes up all the way from New Orleans and He has quite the story to tell.  He claims to be a 400 yr old immortal blood sucker. A vampire.  That's right folks, a creature of the night. Although he does not claim any relation to Dracula." Christian chuckles.

 "Hello Voltaire.  Did I say that right?" 

"Bonsoir, Christian, Listeners.  Yes you did fine with my name." 

"Now you must forgive me but It's not every night a real living centuries old being walks into my studio for a Chat.  I mean dude, I have had my share of supernatural experiences as a ghost hunting aficionado I have seen and heard my fair share of things that go bump in the night.  I've been to New Orleans on various ghost hunting expeditions, so I am no stranger to the paranormal but what differentiates your story from the countless other kooks looking to score with the hot chicks who are in love with-sparkles the vampire clown?" 

"Well, to begin with I do not sparkle.  Nor am I a mormon- Catholic Infact if you must know, or rather I was. Oh no I do not take offense to you.  I know my story is rather-how can I put this? Out of the ordinary?  We are a rarity not common. There are so few of us  existing in the world and we are not, as a general rule, ones to seek out to be known among you." Voltaire paused a moment 

"I May perhaps prove one of your more boring guests, honestly.  It may bore everyone to sleep." 

" Boring?!  Hell no bro!  You had me at,  I'm a vampire.  Please continue.." Christian said with an air of excited anticipation.  "I am, all ears man. As are all 20 of my listeners"  

"Very well." Voltaire said with a smile. 

“ My first questions are why New Orleans?  You didn’t always live in New Orleans did you?”  

“ It called to me, yes even all those centuries ago, a new world, a new adventure, a new life.  So I went across the ocean on a ship to New Orleans.  I will get to all that in my tale.” 

"Oh wait-Before you continue with the tale- Can I see them?" Christian said. 

"See them?" Voltaire looked puzzled. "See what? I do not have brides..sorry to disappoint but I do not have any scantily clad women in the back-Or hiding in a closet somewhere-If that is what you're going for." 

"Nah dude!  I want to see your fangs.  You know your teeth..The vampire teeth." 

Voltaire laughed a full on belly laugh.  

"My fangs.  Ah. Yes. Well I suppose.." Voltaire grimaced, baring his teeth at Christian, the fangs were rather small and in fact they looked like just normal canines that any human with average dental health would have.  Nothing at all cinematic.  Just, teeth.  

"Hmph So it's true vampires do not really have the Saber tooth fangs eh?"  

"Oui, chest vrai.  Alas I am not Christopher Lee. Although I can be just as monstrous as Dracula when I want or need to be. I have killed many in my time, some when I was still a human but I will get to all that. If you will forgive any inaccuracies in my tale, my memory, although vivid, is at best disjointed and often details are lost to the ether of time." 

"Shall I begin? " 

“ As you already have seen in my journal I spent time in the Bastille and was to in fact be the next one on the guillotine had Lilith not come in to whisk me away into this-new life as a vampire. You  have already read of my transformation into the monster that sits here before you  now. I want to go further now into some of my time with Lilith, our lives together as vampires.”  

As the heavy wooden doors of the Bastille swung open, a sliver of moonlight pierced the darkness, illuminating the cobblestones that lay before my feet. The world outside was a stark contrast to the gloomy confines of my prison, pulsating with life and rebellion. The distant echoes of footsteps and distant chatter filled the air, mingling with the whispers of a city on the precipice of change.

We walked out of the Bastille. An ancient monster of myth and legends. Biblical. Almost in a way she was biblical.  Her newly formed fledgling hanging by her side.  The world oscillated before me.  My senses flooded with colors and bright light.  I could hear everything, the clinking of coins hitting the cobblestones, as it fell out of someone's pockets.  

Judas' payment for a job well executed.  

Then the excruciating pain of death.  I doubled over in pain.  Soured my clothing as my bowels emptied my last meal.  Shit.  

"Come. We must get out of the street people are staring at us now.  We must get you cleaned up as this death passes over you. Come Voltaire. The pain will subside." Lilth carried me to this opulent Paris apartment.  

My human death, although painful, did not last very long.  I guess you could say I died quickly, there were the spasms of pain that shot through my body, as the final stages of my transformation took place.  Lilith stayed with me throughout the process sitting on the chaise while I lay on the floor writhing in pain.  She sat and stared at me as if studying my death in a scientific sort of way I suppose.  It was as if she was studying death himself.  How death operates.  I am sure she went through the same process when she was turned but she never really talked much about that part of her life.  In all the years we did spend together she never explained to me much of anything.  I think she felt that all this was something one had to experience on their own without any kind of support. After the pain had subsided I cleaned up and changed my clothes.  Lilith had taken the liberty of finding me something to wear, a frock coat, a shirt, some pants, I assumed she had stolen these off some poor bastard she killed when she went out for a very brief moment and returned during my ordeal with Death.  She did well with getting the correct size. I do not know how she had guessed at my size but the clothes fit and were cleaner than my soiled clothes.   

After my death we went out together to find food.  I was starving, the thirst for something raged inside me.  

The cobblestones beneath my feet clicked as my boots struck stone.   The gaslights flickered in rhythmic tempo, their warm glow casting an eerie atmosphere upon the decaying brick walls that loomed overhead.  My senses were overloaded with stimuli.  Everything shimmered and blurred around me that first night as a vampire.  Lilith found us a nice juice couple to feed from.  

That first sip of blood was ambrosia, it was liquid fire and heaven.  I could of course taste salt, iron, that bitterness of blood but I tasted the soul, the memories of the person flooded into me with the blood.  I embraced my human meal like a desperate lover, as I drank them nearly dry.  Lilith’s voice sounded distant “ Voltaire stop! You must stop before their heart stops, otherwise you will be dragged down into their very death.”  

I reluctantly stopped.  I wanted more, so much more.  

France was in a state of chaos, back in those times.  Innocent and guilty alike were hunted and killed.  If one so much as smelled of royalty they were victims of madame la guillotine.  Lilith insisted we dress in rags to avoid suspicion and attention to ourselves.  I hated the idea, I wanted my silk and velvet, and had to wear cotton rags like some spook in a fairy tale.  

A pied piper pauper who plays for rats.  

“ No I did not eat rats..Although really any blood will do, but humans have a certain divinity to it.  A soul.  Animals are so simple.  I like a complex blend. But I jumped ahead, Lilith and I hunted the streets of Paris and the outskirts for the low life criminal to feast upon.  I once asked Lilith why she chose these scoundrels over the innocent.  She simply said her conscience would torture her if she took an innocent.  Nothing more.  I continuously asked her about her past to the point of being annoying.  She never talked much about it.  Once she told me she knew Cain and Abel and was a witness at the first murder.  She hinted that Cain was still roaming the Earth somewhere but would not say much more on it.  I suspected Cain was perhaps her maker.  It was only suspicion though.  I had no real facts and she was not one to discuss them.   We lived in rat infested streets for 20yrs, saw Napoleon rise and fall, the first world war, the second, Marxism, Lenin, Stalin, I could if I were a historian write books on all I had witnessed and heard.  But then would anyone believe any of it?  

My hunger was insatiable.  I killed many in those times.  Drinking up their very souls with their blood.  I was ruthless when I was killed.  Tearing into one man's chest and ripping out the beating heart, I drank it all up.  I developed a fondness for the rough and tough who were spoiling to fight.   I loved it when they kicked and screamed and it made it that much more fun.  I played with them much the same as a cat plays with the mouse before it kills it.  I still do this on occasion if I am in a particularly morose mood.  It seems to lift my spirits.  I enjoy being the monster as much as I loath it.  

Lilith and I lived together up until after the first world war, when I left her for New Orleans.  I never saw her again after I left.  I did try back in the 70s to get in contact with her again but I had no luck in finding her.  I tried leaving little messages to her in the places I went but nothing.  No response from her.  It is as if she vanished from existence, but then we are not the easiest to find unless we want to be found.  

This was centuries ago now. I still dream of it as if she calls me. My Lilith

Voltaire stopped at this point of the story, staring off as if reliving the memory he was recounting.  Minutes past. Dead air. Christian sat there jaw ajar in an expression of shock or awe.  He stammered to fill the dead air to let his listeners know they were still live on air.  "Woooowwww. Dude.  That's incredible.  Is-I mean can I ask? Is Lilith still-with us?" 

Voltaire answered 

"I do not know. She-or rather I left her shortly before WWI. Where is she now? If she even still exists somewhere I do not know. I have not seen her, not even a hint of her presence in all these centuries.  She was this ancient creature who came to me that one fateful night and made me the monster that sits before you now.

With the invention of the internet I dove into this online world.  Soon stumbled upon some vampire groupies online who wanted to start up a forum.  I was all in at first and did actually become administrator of the site for a while but soon I did get bored with all that and became less active online.  I left the running of the site to humans for the most part acting as only a sort of trophy Admin of sorts.  In name only.  I barely posted on the site anymore.  I simply would check in now and then, maybe throw out a reply or two, but nothing like I did in the beginning.  I had no part in the manipulation that the human admin did, it is really quite sickening to me what they did to people.  I was in fact watching your little friend Desdemona when you arrived.  I was doing what I could to protect her from these ruffians.  Discovered she had a more serious problem however, it seems her home is haunted and she has caught the interest of some local vampire who lived there before I came along.  A couple of brothers who terrorized the French Quarter back in the 1800s.  Seems they have returned.  Of course the humans who run that website feed off this sort of thing.  Children playing a deadly game.  “