Sign of The Times

Sir,

I read with dismay in an archived page of the Times that the local council had been hoping to restrict human immigration into these islands from Romania. I abhor such a notion; the more fresh blood that is brought into this island the better. Old World, New World, and Emerging World: each has its distinctive character and appeal; to both nose and palate. I applaud, by contrast, the European government’s liberalisation of the movement of livestock in this way as travelling to châteaux abroad can be tiresome and hazardous. However, there is a hidden peril here, which I should draw to the attention of our kind.

Were it not for one particular Romanian immigrant, the cattle would have known less about our kind, and our existence would be safer. The creature was a savage. He was ignorant of the ways of this land. He knew nothing of property rights such as our established hunting grounds. Imagine; taking unmarried girls before they could breed and perpetuate the herd!

He was an exhibitionist, with his killing and appearing in public and so on. The dissembling that we were obliged to perform cost us all dearly, in effort and treasure. Enchanting his servant to fancy himself the author of a work of fiction was my idea, as you may know, but our existence and natures were made known to the common herd in ways that previous, less successful chronicles had not employed.

Suddenly the toxicity of garlic, the need for an invitation to enter homes, the timber stake and the problems with mirrors were common knowledge, and our food was forewarned. Unless our plot to stifle humans’ fear of vampires by portraying us as sympathetic, unpredatory victims of circumstance is successful, then I fear that the cattle will never again be gullible enough to put themselves willingly into our clutches.

And he was a convert to the Roman church! An idolater! An indecorous, strutting, foppish barbarian who placed our kind in the light of publicity forever. Without his tale being published worldwide, when a rogue infected the President both she and her meal could have been staked and beheaded and the killing put down to a lone madman. The mortal world would have been none the wiser. All the expensive foolishness of graphite bullets, interfering with the forensic evidence, enthralling witnesses and so on would have been unnecessary. It would have been forgotten in a decade or so. Instead there are those humans who will now never cease looking for the truth.

Let that be a lesson to you, boy. Publicity is rarely to our advantage, though I admire the dissimulation which our servants are achieving in the worlds of storytelling, the cinema and television.

I remain affectionately yours,

Prudence Skelton, Lady Mobberley.

Post scriptum.

I once had spawn of my own. A fine young man whom I stalked, drained, and killed. Then I brought him back to the world and to this life of ours. He was such a sweet child; always ready with an unkind word and ever willing to perpetuate such acts of cruelty as to make a mother’s heart stay stock-still with pride. I remember raising him as a whelp; weaning him off solid food and staying with him all night while he was teething. I wonder what became of the boy. Perhaps he is too busy now with his affairs amongst mortals; trying to be their friend. Perhaps some slip of a girl, a Papist and a free-thinker both, is more important than the dam who raised him from a grave that she had made for him herself? Well, eternal life here on Earth can only become everlasting loss and grief. Tell me, Mister internet vampire, how can a mother mend a heart broken, not by the preacher's stake or the Sun's cruel light, but by the one she loves the most in all the world?

Farewell, Adonais.

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