Vampire Rising Read Online Free PDF

had reasoned one could not kill something
already dead.
    As he neared the end of his research,
Barnabas came across an ad for a Vampire rally scheduled for that
night at dusk. The main speaker would be Malcolm V—the V was used
in place of a last name to honor his Vampire heritage, a heritage
he insisted humans distorted and hid in a conspiracy of hatred and
fear. Malcolm V was a Vampire political leader who advocated for
the return of the Vampire Diaspora to its ancestral lands. “Our
seed and our feet are rooted in the Carpathian mountains,” he’d
once famously declared.
    The rally was to be held outside in the city
square along the river. It was held outside because of the peculiar
commandment that forbade Vampires from entering any building
occupied by humans unless they were expressly invited in by a
human.
    Most days, Barnabas returned to his studio
in the mornings, while Gatsby slept, to paint. Having painted all
morning, he’d then nap in the late afternoon so he was rested and
refreshed when Gatsby arose at sunset. He figured he could go to
the rally and be back at Gatsby’s in time for their usual late
dinner.
     
    * * * * *
     

Malcolm V
    THE CITY SQUARE was a brick-paved plot
of land set directly in front of City Hall. It was accessed via an
historic cobblestone promenade which itself was part of the great
viaduct that spanned the dirty river from which the city took its
name. Broad, elaborately carved stone balustrades on both sides of
the promenade kept pedestrians from accidentally plunging to their
deaths in the river below, while providing convenient leaning posts
on which one could prop one’s elbows while watching the five
species of native fish slogging through the river’s murky
depths.
    For the demonstration, giant projection
screens, aptly named Jumbotrons, had been mounted against the
granite walls of the city hall’s main building, and an elaborate
sound system installed.
    Barnabas arrived early, but already human
protesters were lined up along the promenade brandishing their
signs like weapons, and chanting anti-Vampire slogans. A woman, her
mouth a savage line of determination limned in pink, who held the
hand of a small bewildered child, carried a sign with a single word
in a circle with a line through it: “Nosferatu.” This she thrust
like a drawn gun in the face of everyone who passed by her. Looking
at the sign, Barnabas winced. It was a word so derogatory, so
meanly reminiscent of the horrors history had rained down upon the
Vampire nation that it was seldom used, and when it was, it was
often referred to simply as “the N word.”
    Barnabas hurried past her and entered the
square. Mockingbirds hopped about the ground on their long legs,
hunting for spiders, while others sat on telephone lines, on the
tops of lampposts, and in the trees that surrounded the square.
They seemed to be waiting for something.
    Police officers lined up along the perimeter
of the square, their backs to the City Hall. Like blue-coated tin
men, they seemed more decorative than threatening. It was clear
from their tense postures that they expected something to happen,
though it was also clear, from their puzzled expressions, they knew
not what.
    The skirmishes started well before the
demonstration, and foretold, in the way of prophesies, what was to
come.
    As dusk spread her rosy wings, staining the
sky magenta and purple, the street lamps along the promenade
ignited, spilling pools of lavender light onto the brick and grass.
A group of young Vampires wearing wrap-around sunglasses, hoodies,
and low-hanging jeans that sagged enough to show the colorful bands
of their superhero-branded underwear, walked along the promenade,
whistling. A phalanx of raw-looking girls blocked their path. “Hey,
Nosferatu!” one girl, of about nineteen with limp curly blonde hair
tucked behind her large pink ears, taunted them, “Where ya going,
Nosferatu?” She stepped forward brandishing a gold cross. “What’s
the