I shall begin with a rant of my own to get this page started off.
Vampire slayers come in all manner of shapes, sizes, sexes, and species. They come in small, private-sector firms, and large, government-sized organisations and they come in disguise. They come in through the doors and the windows and down the chimney if they can.
Now, I have taken the pledge, like this lot, for the love of a wicked woman: my Dark Bride; the beat of my unbeating heart; milady Lucy Bountilaire. Her tender concern for our fellow bipeds is compelling. Human beings are people (of a sort), and it just doesn’t seem sporting to take their blood without their permission any more.
Sigh.
Okay. So one is obliged to ask permission (if only to keep this lot off one’s chest). It requires dinner and a movie to take a drink on draught. The rest is from the bag these nights, and one is told one must be grateful for that.
I try. I really do. I go to meetings.
The question is... what to do with the beggars when they arrive unexpectedly and uninvited?
It’s all very well arguing, as Lucy does, that humans’ mayfly lives are precious to them. However much turning to dust is inevitable for them, to take such a small gift from the poor creatures would be cruel. Fair enough. I can exist above the level of my thirst and practise good works, and enjoy a blissful marriage. As opposed to the other kind.
Only. Only they don’t all potter past us in the night; oblivious to our existence and the thirst that never ends. Slayers arrive equipped with a variety of baggage. Burglary tools. Holy objects and substances (often toxic). Righteous anger you could shave with. The generosity and gentle forgiveness of a first wife. Plans for cardiothoracic carpentry.
One morning you settle down to rest, pull the lid closed after you, and WHAM! Some dreary Van Helsing wannabe’s scratching the lacquer and jimmying off all the ornate carving that’s going to cost a fortune to have repaired. Your bleary eyes, pale and bloodless with exhaustion, stare up into the humourless face of someone prepared to Do The Right Thing, no matter how much it hurts you or stains the flagstones, so it’s up you get, hissing and clawing, dancing the light fandango around the cellar/loft/castle room/belfry, avoiding the light from the cracks in the curtains you left there in your hurry to get to sleep. It’s the drink, you know. The fight can go five ways. You can die. The slayer can die. You can flee, blanketed and gasping. The slayer can flee.
Or you can capture the slayer. What then? Lucy says you should let them go with a warning and an invitation to come back for a chat some night to see if there is room for you both to compromise. Note that ‘both.’ You were just minding your own business, sleeping it off and dreaming of the plastic delights of a reheated half litre of A+ and watching a game of floodlit football before off to the seedy end of town to find the special muggers with too much stolen cash and too little interest in folklore and horror films. You didn’t ask some skinny pubescent or overheated dhampir with a sense of grievance to burst you door down. You only come in when invited. But no! They have to turn up, disturb your sleep, and try to fit you with an ash wood aorta. What room to compromise is there? The slayer believes you’re a Hell-spawned monster fit only for a Tequila Sunrise without the tequila but with a side order of Special Ribs. You believe that they’re about a hundred pounds of meat soaked in the world’s finest marinade. Now that they know where you live the only way to avoid having to relocate and find another nest is to slip them the enamel syringe, glug glug, yum yum, and it’s off to the mortuary for them and it’s down to the Coroner’s house tonight for a spot of hypnotic suggestion for you.
It makes me mad. Okay, going against my nature and living off ready meals is just about acceptable. I can do it. I really can. But an English vampire’s castle is his home, and I say that if slayers break in with mayhem on their mind, then drinks are on the house, and hard luck to the hapless housebreaker.
Adonais Blackburn
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