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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: A Philadelphia vampire who "watches over" a herd of human artists must discover who is intruding on his turf--and killing his artists.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Variations Three, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 1996; Dreams of Decadance, Summer 2000, 1996
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2007

29 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [27 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [33 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [13 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [146 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [13 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [75 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [85 KB] , hiebook (KML) [60 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [40 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [11 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [14 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [42 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [23 KB]
Words: 3932
Reading time: 11-15 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The blood palls, over time.

I believe this is the reason why so few of us exist beyond the hundred-fiftieth year of our making.

Over time, the blood palls. Feeding oneself becomes, first, a chore; then an agony; finally, for some--for most--a hell. Anything becomes preferable to the anguish of taking one more sup, so one fasts. And one dies.

Those who survive this crisis of sensibility--those who evolve--are ... formidable.

Formidable.

I am two hundred forty-seven years undead. Before my making, I lived 15 years in Philadelphia, the son of a textile merchant. I bear the face and form of a boy in the first beauty of his manhood, as perfect as the night she created me.

My mother named me Evelyn James Farrington. My colleagues know me as Jim Faring.

I am a painter. I do badly, which is all I expect. The others who work and live in this building--they take interest in my efforts, squandering hours of their short lifetimes to show me thus of perspective, this trick of capturing the light and this other thing regarding shadows.

My colleagues--young humans. So earnest. So full of life. Of--passion.

Understand that I am not human. I am--formerly human. In fact, I am a predator. But I spoke of evolution. The blood is not, entirely, necessary.

When one is new to the undead state, there is no draught headier, no nourishment more seductive, than a sup of that sweet claret. We drink from the artery in the throat--rich, full heart's blood, sparkling with the passion of life.

Yet, what nourishes us is not so much the blood, but that which the blood carries.

Passion.