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Prologue: A Gathering of Beasts

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Prologue:

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A Gathering
of Beasts
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ela Lugosi’s dead, and so am I. But what’s left of Bela is rotting in a pine coffin somewhere, while
I have the opportunity to sit here on the balcony, enjoy my drink and look at you. Correct me if
I’m being presumptuous, but I suspect that I have the better end of the deal.
I can tell by looking at you that you’re not comprehending. Of course you’re not — these are
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cynical, rational times, and you’re not going to believe that I’m a dead man just because I say so. A
century ago it would have been different — well, it was quite different the last time I had this little
talk with someone — but this is the age of facts. And the facts are that corpses don’t move, don’t walk,
don’t talk. I’m terribly sorry, my dear, but I have a surprise for you: This corpse does.
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So sit down. Please, I insist that you make yourself comfortable. Pour yourself something to drink,
preferably from the bottle on the left — the stuff on the right is an acquired taste. It’s going to be a long
evening, and you’re going to need a stiff drink or two, I suspect. After all, in the next few hours I’m
going to explain to you in excruciating detail why everything you think you know about life and death
is wrong. In other words, you don’t know a blessed thing about the way the world really works, and I’m
going to open your eyes.
But I’m afraid, my dear, that you’re not going to like what you see.

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What I Am
efore we go any further, allow me to
tell you that you’re getting an un-
precedented opportunity here. My
kind doesn’t talk about itself to your kind

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— not now and, for the most part, not
ever. We’ve spent five centuries weaving a
stage curtain that we call the Masquerade

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to hide the real show from you, but in the
end it comes down to one simple fact: We
vampires don’t want you mortals knowing
we’re out there. It’s for the same reason the
wolf doesn’t want the sheep knowing he’s
around. It makes our work so much easier.
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And so, for example, though we do indeed
possess the sharpened canines with which
dime novels and the cinema have branded
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us, you mortals will not see them unless we
choose to reveal them. Like so.
You’re looking pale, my dear. That will
never do if we’re going to be seen later —
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allow me to take care of looking pale for

both of us. Still, I must admit I’m disap-
pointed that you seem so disturbed by the
notion of my being a vampire. Take a
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moment and compose yourself, if you can.

Truth be told, I’m afraid that’s the least of
the shocks waiting for you tonight. Please,
don’t waste time trying to come up with a
rational, scientific explanation, because
there isn’t one. It’s just what I am. What
many, many of us are — too many, by
some accounts.
Prologue: A Gathering of Beasts
3
 Damnation, are you truly that much of a fool? Sit back down. I said sit. Now watch.
Hush, stop screaming. No one will come to rescue you, and no one will call the police —
not in this building. Discreet neighbors are a blessing to one in my condition. It’s positively
Victorian the way they ignore anything not directly in front of them.
So, at last you have your proof. Now do you believe me? Yes, it is blood in the other

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decanter; served cold like that, of course, the stuff loses much of its taste. You can try it if
you like, but I don’t recommend it, no. You’re not set up to enjoy such things, at least not
as presently configured.

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Don’t get ahead of yourself guessing my intentions, my dear. If I were going to act
according to your beloved clichés, you would be dead right now. I am a predator, after all,
and you and your entire species are my prey.
Beginnings
suppose we should begin with the basics of the whole thing. I am in fact a vampire,
brought into this state of existence in the Year of Our Lord 1796 by a woman who

humor.
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was introduced to me as a quote-unquote “lady of the evening.” The gentleman who
introduced us — one of her servants, I later discovered — had an odd sense of
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But I digress. Yes, I do drink human blood. Without the nourishment it provides, I
will wither away; with it, I will live forever. Yes, forever. Unless destroyed — and de-
stroying one of the Damned is no mean feat, I can assure you — we vampires are every
bit as immortal as the legends say. Only the sun, and the emotions it engenders, remain
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forever foreign to us; we Kindred can drink in the nights of countless ages, can remain
unchanging while all that we know crumbles to dust around us and is replaced by another
stage-set that in turn crumbles to dust, and so on.…
Ah, once again, I lose the way. Blood, yes, blood. I can get by on the blood of animals
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— most of us can, except the true elders of our kind — but such a diet is unpleasant.
Unpalatable. No, we all want to feed on the best vintages, otherwise one goes around
all the time with a dull ache in one’s gut that just never goes away. It gets worse the
hungrier one gets, I might add; a vampire who goes too long without feeding is liable to
demonstrate a regrettable lack of self-control.
There are other tell-tale physiological signs of my condition. My heart does not beat;
the strength of my will alone suffices to force the blood through my body. My internal or-

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4
gans, by all accounts, have long since atrophied into vestigial husks, but that won’t matter
to a coroner, as once I am truly killed I will rapidly decompose into dust. In the meantime,
however, I’m not troubled by such trifles as breathing, extremes of temperature and the
like. My skin is cold, unless I take the effort to warm it. Doing so takes effort, though,
and the expenditure of precious blood. Regular food is an abomination unto me, and it
doesn’t sit for more than a few seconds in what remains of my stomach. Even with eternity

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stretching before me, my dear, I have better things to do with my time than to crouch over
toilets, heaving ashes and gobbets into the bowl.

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In layman’s terms, then, I am no longer human. For all intents and purposes, I am sim-
ply a blood-drinking, ambulatory cadaver, indistinguishable from any body in a morgue
unless I am moving about. I save the niceties like warming my flesh and remembering to
blink for company, such as yourself.
Say thank you, dear. Keeping myself fresh and rosy-looking for you is costing me more
than you know.
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Ah, we return to the drinking of blood, the defining act, as it were, of my state. Yes, I
am afraid it is a necessity, though one can leave one’s prey alive. All that requires is a lit-
tle self-control and a touch of effort to close the wound — and no, we don’t all drink from
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the neck. You can cross another cliché off your list. The problem with leaving one’s prey
alive, however, is that unless one has certain…protections, she remembers. Such breaches
of the Masquerade are not looked on kindly by the vampiric powers that be. Oftentimes, it
makes more sense simply to kill.
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My Drinking Problem
he crux of the matter, really, is that drinking blood not only allows me to perpetu-
ate my existence, but also provides a sensation unlike anything else this world has
to offer. What is it like? My dear, words cannot describe it. Imagine drinking the
finest champagne and the sensation of the most sensual lovemaking you’ve ever
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experienced. Overlay that with the rush the opium fiend feels as he takes that first
breath on the pipe, and you begin to have some sense, some tiny, infinitesimal sense of
what it feels like to drink the blood of a kine — excuse me, a living human being. Your
modern-day addicts will lie, steal, cheat and kill for their little tickets to Heaven. Mine
is better, and it makes me immortal besides. Can you imagine the deeds I might commit to
feed that hunger? Don’t bother speaking possibilities; the truth is worse than you can

Prologue: A Gathering of Beasts

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 imagine. And I am considered to be a
gentleman of my kind. Now imagine, if
you will, some of my relatives, the ones who
aren’t so nice as I.
They can — and do — commit acts that

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even I don’t wish to consider.
And here you are, poor little mortal, learn-
ing how fragile your whole existence is.

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Are you starting to be afraid yet? You
should be.
The First Fatal Sip
n most cases, one receives one’s first
drink of blood on the night one be-
comes a vampire — one of the
e “Kindred,” as we like to call ourselves.
The process is called “The Embrace,”
and has two distinct and rather difficult
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phases. The first is simple: The vampire
who wishes to create progeny drinks every
last drop of blood he can from his intended
“childe.” This is no different from normal
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feeding, save that one doesn’t need to worry

about erasing the memory or disposing of
the corpse afterward, and that one gets a
very full meal indeed. The difference comes
afterward.
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Once the last bit of blood has pulsed

its way out, the “parent” vampire — the
technical term is “sire,” not that you care
yet — then returns some of his ill-gotten
gains. He bites his lip, or wrist, or what-
ever, and allows some of his blood to pass
his victim’s lips. Assuming that the mortal
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