Vampire Rising Read Online Free PDF Page B

matter, Nosferatu? Afraid?”
    The tallest Vampire leapt at her and bared
his fangs. With a scream, she fell back and dropped her cross. The
Vampire picked it up and flung it at her retreating back. “Next
time, leave your religious toys at home, little girl,” he growled.
“They have no power over us.”
    Standing under a street lamp, an elderly,
white-haired man, who looked as benign as a church elder, held a
placard with a crude drawing of a Vampire with exaggerated fangs
and blood dripping down his chin. Under it, written in a font
designed to resemble blood running down a wall, were the
words: Unclean. Unholy. Undead.
    As a Vampire walked past him, the human
holding the placard shouted, “Undead!”
    The Vampire seized him by the throat and
hoisted him in the air. “You, moron! Undead means not dead, which
in turn means   living . Does my
hand around your throat feel   dead   to
you? Does it?   Does it? ” The
Vampire, his eyes glowing red, flung the man, already turning blue,
away from him. The man fell against a slender young tree which
snapped under his sudden weight. His placard tumbled over the
balustrade, and disappeared into the river.
    Minutes before the hour, Malcolm V appeared
in the archway at the far end of the square. He was dressed in a
long, dark wool cloak with a hood which was pulled over his head.
Black wrap-around sunglasses hid his eyes. As the clock in the
tower, high above City Hall, struck the hour, the square filled
with Vampires dressed in what Barnabas now recognized as
traditional Vampire garb—gray high-collared shirts and gray vests
worn under black suits. Folding themselves like pretzels, they sat
on the ground in a great fan around the podium that had been set up
in the center of the square. Seeing the seated crowd, Malcolm
shrugged off the hooded robe, which an assistant caught. He removed
his sunglasses and, moving with the remarkable speed peculiar to
Vampires, appeared almost immediately at the podium. He wore an
earpiece, coiled like a snail, inside his ear. A thin microphone,
looped over his ear, snaked along his jaw bone. He bowed, and
waited for the applause of the Vampires, and the catcalls of the
protesters to subside. He looked up at his image on the Jumbotron;
his red eyes blazed like rubies.
    “To be a Vampire is to spend your life in
hiding—not just from the burning sun but from the stinging enmity
of humans.”
    The words cracked, like thunder, over the
square.
    “To be openly Vampire is to risk being
shunned by your family, rejected by your friends, fired from your
job, no matter how competent you are. In society’s eye Vampires are
worthy of only the dregs and crumbs no human wants. To be a Vampire
is to know your pale skin and red lips offend others. To be a
Vampire is to be mockingly portrayed in the media, or stereotyped
as bloodthirsty and oversexed in books and movies.”
    Standing at the podium, he was majestic and
passionate, a winter storm gathering strength. His features were
too heavy and hawk-like to be handsome, but he was magnificent
looking. He had large freckles so pale against his alabaster skin,
they appeared to be translucent stains. His ginger hair stood
stiffly on his head, like a cock’s comb, having defied the taming
attempts of brush and comb and gel.
    “Even our gay brothers reject us! We have
all seen the dating profiles that say ‘No Fats, fems, or Vampires.’
Yes, our gay brothers reject us—when they don’t they objectify and
sexualize us. Yes, some will fuck us but they’ll never introduce us
to their friends and family. Can you imagine that conversation? ‘My
boyfriend can’t join us for brunch—the sun you know—how about tea
dance?’”
    The Vampires roared, while the humans
maintained a puzzled silence. When the laughter died off, Malcolm
continued, “Did you know the Catholic Church requires its
cemeteries to be lit with full spectrum lights from dusk till dawn,
presumably to keep us from waking—as if we sleep