Judas and the Vampires Read Online Free PDF Page A

once state that one time several years had passed?”
    “Yes,” I said, feeling my irritation grow. Maybe I would cut short our visit myself. “Glad to see you’ve been taking such copious notes, doc.”
    She nodded thoughtfully, which gave me a moment to reflect on a few of my death/rebirth instances. One of the worst deaths took place in England, back in 1454. Branded unfairly as a heretic, I had just procured silver piece number six. My sentence was severe, and I was to be stretched on a rack and strangled repeatedly to the point of death and brought back to full consciousness. Then, in the Tower of London’s courtyard, I was to be disemboweled and beheaded.
    Having gone through all of these tortures before, I really looked forward to getting to do them all at once! All sarcasm aside, the experience was far worse than I could have ever anticipated, forced to clutch the silver coin between my buttocks. I thought for sure I would lose it before my essence’s transportation elsewhere took place. Fortunately, I died before the executioner had finished cranking out my small intestine.
    Interestingly, I ended up in the New World, in an Appalachian forest. Still nearly fifty years before the European invasion would begin in earnest, the Cherokees soon accepted me as one of their own. I’ve often wondered if it was the reason why the native tribes were more trusting of the unscrupulous whites that arrived after I migrated back to Europe in 1500. Perhaps they thought everyone from the Old World bore an agreeable temperament like mine.
    And the coin? It was waiting for me inside my left hand when I awoke in America. After I had recovered another coin left by an earlier Viking visit to the area that is now Virginia, I counted my blessings that I only had twenty-three more to find. If only I’d known then that I’d still be on the same journey looking for the rest of my bounty five-hundred years later.
    “So, tell me what happens to your old bodies?”
    I could tell from her widening grin that she was trying harder to trap me in some sort of paradox.
    “My old bodies?”
    “Yes, you know...the ones you leave behind?”
    “Ah yes...I’ve often wondered about that as well,” I confessed. “And sometimes I’ve even investigated what became of the old me. What I’ve discovered when I did bother to investigate any of my deaths is something very curious.”
    She leaned forward, eyeing me with the expectancy of a little girl. Perhaps it’s the innocent Evelyn Rose trapped somewhere inside the pragmatic adult. Fingers poised over her laptop, this was new information to her and she was intently bent on collecting it.
    But I wasn’t ready to deliver...not just yet. A cliffhanger might do her some good, and maybe soften up her cynical side a bit. I pointed to the clock upon the wall closest to me.
    “Sorry, but it looks like our time is up for today.”
    Words she’d normally say, and the irony wasn’t lost upon her.
    “You are...you are such a devil!” she declared, and the smile she wore right then as she shook her head seemed genuine. A mixture of surprise and admiration...at least admiration for the psychotic storyteller, I believe. Or, maybe it was appreciation for the tailored navy suit I chose to wear that day, where normally I prefer the casual dress styles of the past forty years.
    “I haven’t been called that in awhile.” I stood up to leave. “But at least it gives us something new to talk about when I return from my trip.” I straightened my coat sleeves while watching her admiring gaze sizing me up, lingering the longest at my svelte waist. If nothing else, the suit didn’t hurt the storyteller’s allure.
    “Your trip? Where to this time?” Dr. Rose blushed.
    She stood up to show me the door. But I motioned that it wasn’t necessary—despite the prospect of one more glance at her sultry saunter, likely enhanced by her sudden arousal.
    “To the Middle East, doc.” I reached for the door handle.