The Coming End Of Radu

Well, as of now there are only three chapters left of Radu, plus an epilogue. That is, unless I decide to break the last chapter up in order for the ending to not be so abrupt. More than likely, however, I will stick to plan A, because I want to get this first draft stage over with so I can move on (finally) to the editing stage. It has been a rough, wild and woolly ride.

It started out actually with a very simple plot device. Distilled to its basic essence, it was originally conceived as a novel about the struggle of life in the face of death, and dealt with the issue of what a person is willing to do in order to hold on to life until the bitter end.

From there, it eventually morphed into this bizarre psychodrama involving an international sex slave ring, which turned into an underground heretical Christian cult based out of Romania. Minor characters originally conceived as plot devices-in many cases they were little more than sounding boards for the major characters-took on a more important prominence. The most obvious example here would be Lieutenant James Berry. Originally a throwaway character of little importance, he became one of my favorites.

Others, originally conceived as major characters, ended up killed off relatively early on. Joseph Karinsky and his cult of Gothic vampire practitioners are the most obvious of these. Another such example would be Jason Talbert, who I ended up killing off without ever introducing him, aside from his shadowy, unnamed appearance in Chapter 7.

When I do the rewrite (which I am going to publish privately on another blog as a conduit to potential publishers), I do intend to play up the original theme a great deal more. As for the conspiracy, while I am not going to drop that, I am going to edit it down to where it is more feasible and much less intrusive.

The three main characters, of course, are Marlowe (Radu) Krovell, Grace Rodescu, and Father Aleksandre Khoska. I intend in the rewrite to put more emphasis on their lives aside from the conspiracy and its impact on their lives.

About these three, and the coming conclusion of the first draft of Radu, I will say only this. By the final chapter, two of these three characters will be dead, while one will undergo a transformation that will be staggering (to say the least) in its implications, as the unspeakable truth about Radu will be revealed, and Mircea finally makes his stand in what will (hopefully) be the most shocking revelation of all.

Well, that’s it for now, gotta go. It’s Cynthia’s feeding time.

American Idol's Carly Smithson-Superstar Rejected

Carly Smithson got booted off American Idol last night, though not to my surprise. She went down in a blaze of glory, obviously among the most gifted of an extraordinarily talented (for American Idol) group of finalists. Her song choice, I think, did her in. Unwisely taking the advice of composer Andrew Lloyd Weber, this weeks mentor, she decided to sing his Jesus Christ Superstar, from the “rock opera” of the same name.

This last night’s affair revealed more about the pretentiousness of Weber, who is obviously, and rightly, proud of what was his first successful major Broadway musical, than it did about either Smithson or the viewers. Bear in mind, by the way, they did not so much as “vote her off” as vote in greater numbers in favor of the five remaining contestants. The judges of the show were shocked at her elimination, which shows they are as clueless as Weber.

No, I am not saying Smithson was rejected by an angry coalition of conservative Bible-thumpers, as these folks would be unlikely, to say the least, to even watch American Idol, let alone call in votes after the show. By the same token, try this little mental experiment:

Pretend you are at Karaoke night over a weekend at your favorite nightclub. Imagine you live somewhere in the Midwest. This weekend’s Karaoke contest has as its theme songs from the seventies. This puts you in a quandary. You would really love to win the two hundred dollar prize, but you only know four songs from the seventies, so you know you should pick one of these songs, and should choose one that not only do you like and know enough to do well, but one the crowd will like as well. So, you decide between-

*Highway To Hell by AC/DC
*Imagine by John Lennon
*Jamie’s Crying, by Van Halen
*Jesus Christ Superstar, by Murray Head

Yeah, it actually was a hit song back in the early seventies, but you see, there is one factor that was current at the time that is irrelevant to today. Most people that listened to the song back then were more than vaguely aware of the Broadway musical, and later album and movie of the same name.

Therefore-and this is important-most people understood the context of the song. Outside of that context, that of one song within a Broadway musical, it loses that meaning. As a stand-alone song, it just doesn’t cut it for a variety of reasons. The fact that it is not that good a song to begin with is not the least of it. Added to this is the fact that-again, as a single song on its own-it can come across as pretentious, condescending, and yes, disrespectful.

To put it bluntly, it really makes no sense outside its original context. An average television Idol watcher of today is at a loss to understand the point of it. It goes without saying, of course, or it should, that the vast majority of Idol fans were not even born when “Jesus Christ Superstar” was a current hit.

It’s hard to fault Weber, who probably meant well, and probably honestly thought Carly Smithson well-suited to this type of number. It is kind of easy, however, to fault him for wanting to relive the feeling of this, his first great triumph, without giving any thought to the potential negative impact on Smithson. In fact, she did a superb job, and was among the favorites of the judges. Although she was not my favorite, she certainly was nowhere close to being among the worse. Another performer, Brooke White, who performed You Must Love Me, from Evita, lost her train of thought and had to start over.

The best performers of the night, in my opinion, were Syesha Mercado-who brought the house down with One Rock And Roll Too Many, from Starlight Express-and Jason Castro, who performed a very touching rendition of Memory, from the musical Cats. Both Syesha and Castro were, by the way, better than either usually is in my opinion, although the judges panned Castro (who in all honesty is usually among the worse of the performers).

By far the best though was David Cook, who is my own personal favorite among the group. He did a stirring rendition of Music of the Night, from Phantom of the Opera.

Cook is one of those performers who have been rare on Idol, a truly talented rocker and performer, and I expect him to at least finish in the top three, more than likely in the top two, and very possibly to win the finale. Frankly, he is the only reason I got interested in the show this season. Usually, I can’t stand to sit through it, and so, usually, I don’t. Cook, however, has the potential to be a great performer and recording artist. He will almost certainly have a brilliant future, regardless of whether or not he wins American Idol. Nevertheless, to win would obviously be a big and much welcome boost to a promising career.

Luckily, Weber didn’t talk him into performing King Herod’s Song.

Radu-Chapter XXXXIII (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)

Links to previous installments are at the end of this chapter
Radu-Chapter XXXXIII (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
10 pages approximate
Toby looked sullenly at the headline of the latest issue of the Baltimore Inquirer. His fists clenched as he read, inadvertently wadding the edges of the tabloid.

RAPPER RAPS TO THE FEDS

Those motherfuckers have murdered me, he hissed to himself, while his lawyer, Desmond Marcellus, paced the floor behind him, looking warily at the seemingly countless numbers of gallon jugs of gasoline that all but filled the confines of Toby’s house. He didn’t even want to know about it.

“I’m planning a long trip,” Toby had explained. “I’m stocking up before I have to sell another platinum album just to be able to afford to drive out of state.”

Desmond shook his head as showed Toby the Inquirer article.

“Do you know what this means?” he demanded.

“Yeah, it means I’m a dead motherfucker. They got me after all. They couldn’t charge me with anything, so they just put the screws to me in the worse possible way. I’m sunk.”

“Starting with sales of your CDs and DVDs,” Desmond added. “I guess I might as well tell you now. There’s going to be a massive burning at the city park this Saturday night. WBMW is telling everybody to bring all their Toby Da Pimp recordings. They’re going to bulldoze them, crush them all up, then douse them with kerosene and stage a big old bonfire. There’s even talk of burning you in effigy. They actually got city permission for all this.”

What could he say? Everything in the article, supposedly leaked from an official source, was the truth. It laid out the evidence for Letcher’s involvement in various criminal activities, and at the same time explained concisely why he never faced charges, nor ever would.

“That article even accuses you of complicity in the murder of Spooky Gold, claims you were the main beneficiary after the fact. Which, hey, that happens to be the truth. So how did that go down?”

Desmond was beside himself. His major client was finished, and he saw potentially millions of dollars fly out the window, and his own reputation ruined by reason of association.

“James Berry shot him dead, like a dog, in the basement of the Crypt,” Letcher explained. “Spooky gave up, laid down his gun. Berry just calmly, coldly put a bullet right through his heart. Spooky never knew what hit him. Berry said after Spooky admitted to killing Reverend Chris George, he had to go. Spooky was just out of control. Which, he was. What the hell could I say about it? The fool popped me right in the gut, just to make it look good. Damn well almost killed me in the bargain. It’s not like I had a say in things. Ever since that fucking Milo set me up-you know what, fuck all this. I’ve got enough money saved up, I don’t need this shit. I’m going off somewhere. I just got one more thing I got to do, and then I’m out of here. Fuck Berry, fuck Marlowe Krovell, fuck everybody.”

Desmond flinched at the mention of Marlowe. He wasn’t about to just take all this calmly.

“What about this Krovell guy anyway? Is he really still alive? Did you guys really bomb the hospital just to help him escape? What the hell was you thinking?”

“That was Marshall Crenshaw’s doing. Spooky went along with it. We all did what Spooky said. I had no idea it was going to turn out like that. I thought Marshall was out of his fucking mind when I found out.

“Yeah, Krovell is still alive-if you want to call that living. Look, Desmond, I really need to be alone for a while. Did you get that thing I told you to get from Hacksaw?”

“Yeah, I got it, but I really wish you would tell me just what the fuck it is. I can’t make any sense out of it.”

Desmond handed the sheet of lined notebook paper with the code in the handwriting of his partner Hacksaw, the computer expert and hacker currently in custody, pending charges on conspiracy. The charges would never come about. He and the other lone survivor of the Seventeenth Pulse, Mercury Morris, were both detained by the Baltimore PD. They would release them in time, but by then it would be too late. Letcher only hoped he was capable of understanding the instructions written by his partner, and that Hacksaw destroyed any other copies, as he promised he would.

Desmond decided to depart the company of his now infamous client. He was at least grateful that, for the time being, he had what he trusted was an adequate security detail to protect him from the wrath of the various street thugs eager to get their hands on anyone seen on the premises of the man who was now arguably the most hated man in America.

Dwayne Letcher was finished. Most people now considered him a terrorist, with a share in the responsibility for the deaths of numerous innocents. As if that were not enough, his own people saw him as a police and federal informant, which ruined his previously impressive street creds. To put the icing on the cake, even those who had previously heralded his music for its originality of interpretation now denigrated it as “derivative”.

He knew the end was coming, and the true irony was, he would go down as a hero, but would never hear the accolades. He had no doubt Marlowe Krovell had told him the truth. He did doubt it at first, but then he remembered the last trips he made through the inner city where he was born and raised. It was always a hard life, and one had to fight to survive with just a shred of dignity. Now, the last few times he ventured into the old neighborhood, the despair was palpable. The last time he played Spooky’s Joint, the place was barely half-full. Usually, on a Saturday night, it was standing room only. Now, people were dying like flies. There were few survivors among the many victims of the epidemic, and though it showed promising signs of abating somewhat, there was clearly a good chance that it could come roaring back to life with a vengeance at any given time.

Most of the neighborhood concluded it was a manufactured epidemic meant to clear out the inner city in order to pave the way for development. If only they knew.

He remembered the last days of Felicia’s life, of how the doctor’s desperately tried to save her, all the while keeping her quarantined, as Toby desperately turned to Doctor David Chou, the man who miraculously saved his own life. Chou, however, was coldly unsympathetic.

“It is always hard to lose someone you love,” he said dispassionately, almost dryly.

“Ain’t there something you can do?” he persisted. “Hell, you made me good as new, and no one ever thought Sean and Marcus would ever come out of the vegetative state they were in. It’s almost like there was never anything wrong with them.”

“There is a big difference,” Chou replied. “Exposure to the compound can prevent infestation with viruses, but it can not cure them once they have taken hold. Your affliction, as well as those of the two young men of whom you speak, were of causes against which the compound has no such limitations in its application. I am afraid your girlfriend is beyond my help. You might try praying. That would be the limit of my advice.”

Dwayne Letcher became desperate in those final days, and was to the point of begging. He apologized profusely for the murder of Chou’s daughter, assuring him that he had no knowledge of it, nor was in any way involved. Chou just looked at him coldly.

“Like I told you,” he said. “There is nothing I can do.”

Felicia died three days later, of bubonic plaque, an illness supposedly wiped out centuries ago, or so Toby thought. She died in horrible agony. She died alone. Chou himself was incarcerated, accused of complicity in purposely spreading the epidemic, in what authorities described as a terrorist plot of epic proportions. He professed his innocence, explaining that someone must have sabotaged his formula without his knowledge. He was, he claimed, a mere general practitioner-a dupe. Chou’s wife as well died from the effects of the formula, once heralded as a potential wonder cure. His surviving children were in hiding.

When the remainder of the blood-derived compound went missing, this seemed to vindicate Chou, and so the authorities released him on his own recognizance while obviously watching his every move. There was never any real proof of any involvement on his part with any criminal conspiracy. The real culprit seemed to be a certain Doctor William Sherman, an apparent minor associate to Chou, who was conveniently missing since the apparent abduction of the compound itself. No one had any ideas as to his whereabouts, and since some of the formula had in fact disappeared from the confines of the CDC, the indication was that the alleged conspiracy moved far beyond the confines of a few isolated individuals. There was real cause for concern, but the government naturally appealed for calm.

Calm was the last thing towards which Toby was inclined. He had seen too many people die from the effects of everything from the plaque, to polio, on down to what seemed to be an incurable case of the common cold. His aunt died from the suddenly debilitating effects of the lupus from which she suffered for years. He watched an uncle succumb to hepatitis. Various friends and former neighbors begged for help, as if his sudden fame and wealth instilled in him a godlike power to at least heal the sick, if not raise the dead.

The churches went from full on a nightly basis to all but empty pews on Sundays, while relatively restrained demonstrations gradually gave way to riots. Now, with this latest edition of the Baltimore Inquirer, he soon would find himself the focus, not of appeals for aid, but of wrath, a conduit for the expression of rage and demands for vengeance. His people would gladly sacrifice him on the altar of justice. They would make an example out of him. He truly felt sorry for Hacksaw and Mercury. They had enough money stashed yet in offshore accounts, they might well be able to live relatively peaceful lives, if they could get away in time.

He could as well, but he would do so in the knowledge that the crime that was about to occur would make the recent epidemic look like child’s play, and would in fact pave the way for it’s resurgence to an unfathomable, in fact an unstoppable degree.

He started the computer, quickly putting in the password written down on the paper Desmond smuggled from the jail in his visit to Hacksaw. The machine came on and opened up. Toby feverishly punched in the numbers, and letters, until an account opened that demanded a specific set of passwords in order to gain access. He typed in the twenty-seven character code, only to watch as the top secret, classified site denied him access. He felt his heart stop when he saw that, and looked once more at the code. Hacksaw must have copied the code down wrong, which would be understandable, given the amount of characters it contained. Now what in the hell was he going to do? He didn’t have that much time, and it was conceivable that his efforts to infiltrate the government intra-departmental secured web-site would not go by unnoticed. Still, he had to keep trying. What else could he do? He looked desperately at the code for some kind of clue. He perused each character slowly.

12q374444monnn*(wsitrf883UI

He reasoned that Hacksaw must have copied down the code correctly from one he carried with him. That meant, if true, he was missing something. He wondered whether Hacksaw had inadvertently used the wrong parenthesis character, and tried using the opposite one on the keyboard-to no avail. He considered the possibility that the “q” character should instead be a “g”. To his despair, this too proved futile. He decided it would be impossible to mistake any other key for the asterisk symbol, and so dropped that idea without pursuing it.

Then, Desmond returned. He seemed even more disturbed than when last he left.

“Those Feds,” he began, “that woman and the guy Fifer that interrogated you-they’re right outside the house. What do you think they want?”

Before Toby could answer, Desmond looked toward the computer screen. His eyes bulged suddenly and fiercely.

“What in the hell are you doing on a government web-site?”

“Desmond, never mind that, I need you to tell me something. Look at this. It’s important that I access this site, but I think I got something wrong here.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me. This looks like a classified Defense Department site. What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m trying to delete a code, one that will give the wrong people access to the wrong information,” he said. “Look, Desmond, I ain’t got time to explain this. I’m already on the site, and there’s a good chance those Feds will be in here any minute now. If I don’t take that code off, somebody will”-

“How did it get on there?” Desmond asked as he snatched the code from Toby’s hand. Toby reluctantly relinquished it, fearing that Desmond, in his determination to prevent Toby from digging a deeper hole for himself, might unknowingly pave the way for hell on earth.

“Hacksaw put it on there,” he explained desperately. “It was embedded on the DVD, in the song where Chou’s daughter was murdered.”

“What?” Desmond was incredulous.

“I know it sounds crazy, but that was the reason for the power outage a couple of weeks ago. During the repairs, somebody retrieved the code and put it on this site. Now I got to get it off here, or else.”

Desmond just looked blankly at Letcher.

“Or else what?” he asked.

“Or else a bunch of people are going to catch pure hell, to put it bluntly. If you don’t want to see the whole country, including Baltimore, up in flames, you’d better help me out here and stop bugging me with these stupid questions.”

Desmond looked at the code on the paper, unsure of what to believe. He did know one thing for sure-on rare occasions, he had seen fear emanate from the person of Dwayne Letcher, but never had he seen anything remotely like the naked terror and desperation from him or anybody that he now saw. Yet, accompanying it was a steely determination the likes of which he could barely conceive. Toby was telling him the truth-at least the truth as he saw it and believed it to be.

Desmond looked at the code on the paper, and then at the screen, which pulsated expectantly with the demand for the proper code.

“It’s case sensitive,” he noted. “Look what you’ve done. “You typed all the letters in lower case. The “M”, and the “W”, “R”, and “F” after the parenthesis are all supposed to be upper case.”

Toby looked at him blankly.

“You’re supposed to put those letters in capitals.”

“Now why in the fuck didn’t Hacksaw tell me that?” Toby said as he exhaled in relief, though obviously agitated at the same time. “Damn, I’m just used to that stupid fucking MySpace bullshit.”

“Toby, those letters in the code is plainly marked in capitals. The rest are in lower case.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever the fuck,” he replied as he punched in the code. He held his breath, until finally the screen changed, announcing his access.

“If Hacksaw was here, he would have done had this shit over with-damn!”

He scrolled down, noting the various passwords and codes listed in the encrypted web site, and continued for ten minutes with no luck.

“Damn, look at this shit,” he said. “The damn scroll bar is just barely away from the top. This could take hours.”

“Toby, are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”

“We all damn well better hope I am,” Letcher replied. “That’s assuming I’m going to be able to find the code in all this fucking mess.”

“This is just a suggestion, but why don’t you just delete the whole damn thing. It wouldn’t take nearly as long.”

Toby’s eyes widened at the thought.

“You might have a point there. What if the same guy just gets on to repair it and ends up putting the thing back in there?”

Desmond didn’t answer as he perused he screen. He suddenly realized something.

These are locations-latitudes and longitudes. Toby, every damn one of these things is code indicating a place on the globe. Scroll down fast to the bottom.”

Toby did as Desmond suggested, and discovered that the page ended with an icon. Toby clicked on the link, which took him to what put him in mind of a profile page.

“Desmond, I think we’re home clear,” he said. Toby realized that on this page, he could change his password.

“I can block this sucker’s access to this page for good,” he said. “I better come up with a good one though. What do you think?”

“I think you’d better know damn well what you’re doing,” Desmond replied. He was sweating, obviously anxious, and breathing heavily. He began chewing his nails, a habit he had not engaged in since his first year as a struggling law student. Toby just looked at him.

“Man, I’m nervous enough, would you stop that shit? It says here the password needs to be twenty-seven characters exactly. What in the hell should I do? I don’t want to make it something whoever it is might be able to figure out.”

Desmond walked toward the window, worried that at any minute the Federal agents waiting somewhere outside might get the word of Toby’s intrusion on a governmental website and come barging through the doors. Worse-what if Fifer and his buxom partner were themselves part of the conspiracy? They might not need a pretext to break in. In any event, if Toby didn’t move quickly enough, he might be up to his neck in trouble. He might lose his law license, at the very least.

“Alright, I know what I’m going to do,” Toby said, as Desmond thought he heard the sound of footsteps coming up to the door.

“Toby, somebody’s coming,” Desmond warned him. “They’re coming this way.”

Desmond could hear the sounds of Fifer seemingly communicating with someone by way of cell phone. They seemed to be halfway down the sidewalk between the house and the street, but Desmond was even afraid to look out the window to see. Luckily, they did not seem to be in a hurry. Toby extracted a book of matches from his shirt pocket. Lighting one, he set the paper with the code ablaze.

“Let’s just hope I don’t need this anymore.”

He then began typing quickly, as he punched in twenty-seven characters at random, as haphazardly and quickly as possible. Seeing that he had to repeat the process, he copied the code he typed and then pasted it once, then two more times, into the spaces at the bottom of the page. He then clicked on the link, whereby the site displayed the new password for his verification. Toby confirmed it, without even looking at it, and then proceeded to delete the entire set of coordinates on the previous page, as quickly as he could, while the old code now emitted smoke, a crumpled pile of dark ashes.

He had only one thing left to do. He reached down inside the box that sat under his desk. He found what he was looking for, the one machine he could depend on that would completely erase any records of his actions on this computer. He turned on the switch, and then turned to Desmond, who waited anxiously at the door.

“Thank God it’s over,” he said. “Desmond, you’d really better get out of here.”

“Are you sure?” the attorney asked.

“If I need you I’ll call you,” he said. “I think it’s pretty much over with though.”

Letcher’s demeanor now seemed the polar opposite of what it had been just ten minutes before. Where earlier he seemed in a state of complete nervous anxiety and near collapse, he now acted as though he was at peace with himself. He seemed transcendent-even spiritually calm, as he lit up a cigarette as though it would be his last act of any significance.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

Toby smiled.

“I’ve never been better,” he replied.

Desmond opened the door and carefully peered outside, now seeing no sign of the two Federal agents.

“You call me if you need me,” he said.

Toby flashed him a Seventeenth Pulse gang sign that indicated all was well. Desmond nodded his head and left. Toby finished his cigarette. He sat there for another ten minutes as his life flashed before his eyes. He remembered singing in his church’s youth choir, as a little boy. Even at the age of eight, he could bring crowds of people to their feet. That was so long ago, it seemed, before the day he was gang raped by four neighborhood girls-after which he was later in the day badly beaten-all a requirement of his initiation into his first gang at the age of fourteen. The robberies came later, and then the executions.

All the time, he just kept on singing and rapping. He reached up for the CD player and turned it on. He sat and listened to his version of Frank Sinatra’s That’s Life as he lit up another cigarette. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, followed by the voice of Fifer demanding entrance.

He wondered if they would just go away if he ignored him. A part of him though wanted them to enter. A part of him did not want to be alone. He decided it just wouldn’t be right, but they persisted.

“Get the fuck out of here, Fifer!” he shouted. “I ain’t got nothing more to say to you. The same goes for your bimbo partner.”

As he said this, he picked up one of the gallon cans of gasoline that sat piled up in the apartment and poured its contents on top of the still running computer. He was half-finished when Fifer kicked the door in and entered, his partner Bridgett right behind him. Fifer’s eyes widened with shock as the computer hissed and sputtered in protest, and then finally went blank.

“What in the name of God are you doing here? What’s all this gasoline?”

“Is it against Federal law to store gasoline in your house?”

“It is if you’re trying to destroy evidence pertaining to a federal investigation,” the agent responded. “We have orders to confiscate your computer. Luckily, it doesn’t have immunity. We’re still working on rescinding yours. Don’t worry, Toby- it might take a while, so you have at least a few more days yet to record an appropriate swan song.”

Bridgett overcame her initial revulsion to the stench of the gasoline that doused the now disabled computer, and looked around at the numerous presumably full jugs in amazement.

“Maybe you’d better check out some of the other rooms,” she suggested. “While you’re doing that, maybe me and ol’ Toby here might get better acquainted. I think I’d enjoy spending some time with him.”

“You might be spending more time with me than you bargained for,” Toby replied as Fizer suddenly approached the rapper.

“Let’s have your cigarette lighter,” he said. Toby handed it over without objection.

“I think I just had my last smoke anyway.

“You keep an eye on him,” Fizer said. “As for you, you mind your manners.”

“Just who is it that barged into whose house anyway?” Toby asked with a shrug as Fizer made his way to the back room.

“Holy crap, every room in this place is piled with full gallon jugs of gas,” he shouted from the adjoining bedroom.

“So, what have you been up to, Toby?” Bridgett asked. “Funny, you don’t seem quite as happy to see me as you did the last time we talked.”

“That could be because I’m not hyped up on Viagra now, you reckon?” Toby said.

“Or maybe you’ve just been relieving yourself with the help of some porn sites?” she responded. “You might as well tell us now. As soon as the other agents get here, we’ll confiscate that computer, and we will find out, you know. Of course, as long as its not kiddie porn, or another snuff film, that’s not a problem. Something tells me you’ve been doing a lot more than trolling porn sites, though.”

“Well, you could say what I’ve been logging onto is obscene,” Toby replied. “I doubt you’d find it much of a turn on though. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if you did.”

“So what’s with the gasoline, Toby?” Bridgett continued. “Whatever evidence you’re trying to destroy on that computer, I hate to break it to you, but it’s too late now.”

“It might be too late for you and your partner,” Toby said with a smile, “if the two of you don’t get the hell out of here within the next twenty seconds.”

“Hey, Fifer, I think Toby just threatened us,” the female agent called out to her partner, who suddenly reappeared from his quick inspection of the rooms.

“He’s got enough gas in here to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserves,” Fifer said in amazement. Toby peered down inside the backpack at his feet.

“Yeah, I guess I might as well tell you-I got stacks of boxes full of dynamite in that closet over there,” Toby said calmly, almost quietly, as he looked down into the box under his desk.

He looked up at Bridgett with a smile as Fifer warily walked to the side of his female partner, his eyes alternating between the closet door and the box under the desk..

“What the hell is in there?” Fifer asked as he bent down toward the box, as Toby obligingly rolled backward in his chair out of Fifer’s way, while Bridgett cautiously opened the closet door. Sure enough, there were boxes, one stacked on top of another too high for her to look into the top one, though they were all palinly marked “Dangerous-High Explosives”.

Fifer peered inside the box under the desk, and then raised his head toward Toby, as a suddenly terrified Bridgett joined her partner, urgently tugging at his sleeve, while Fifer stared wide-eyed at Toby, who looked past both agents with a smug grin. He seemed absorbed in the music of the CD that played from the CD player on the desk beside the disabled computer.

“What’s wrong, Bridgett asked?” but the unintelligible whisper of the agent belied the look of horror that exuded from his bulging eyes.

Within the next instant, one blinding flash accompanied one deafening blast, as everything went black.

Links To Previous Chapters
Part One
Prologue and Chapters I-X
Part Two
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
PartThree
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XXXX
Chapter XXXXI
Chapter XXXXII

The Killer Rabbit Chronicles

Not too long after his first and only term as President of The United States ended with his disappointing and humiliating defeat by Ronald Reagan in 1980, Jimmy Carter related how, while on a fishing trip, his fishing boat was boarded by what he described as a "killer rabbit". It looked at him, growled menacingly, and then departed, evidently hopping away before the stunned Carter had time to process the sudden phenomenon.

What he probably actually saw was something known as a Neutra, a small mammal that frequents fresh water, can be noticeably hostile if suddenly encountered, and is in fact more the appearance of a dark brown rat.

This is not the first time Jimmy Carter has misread or misinterpreted the facts in front of his own eyes to absurd effect. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to be the last. His latest antics, however, are more potentially horror story than ridiculously comedic farce.

This article in US News And World Report by Mort Zuckerman details what might well be the most extreme example of not only misinterpretation, but perhaps a profound state of denial, and even outright deception by the former President in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Could Jimmy Carter possibly pick a worse time to meet with the leaders of Hamas? This is something that might have a dramatic and even drastic vital influence on the current Presidential race. Whoever the eventual Democratic nominee is, whether Clinton or Obama, that candidate could have the entirety of the Carter legacy to deal with, hanging about their shoulders like some kind of hateful albatross.

It would be bad enough that Carter will undoubtedly have a seat of honor at the convention. He will most assuredly give his voiced support to the eventual nominee. He will likely be treated in a deferential matter at some point during the convention.

All of that would be bad enough without Carter's recent grandstanding regarding his current Middle East tour. Carter's Presidency has inflicted a visible scar on the American psyche that becomes more pronounced with every provocation by the power-hungry Shiite Mullahs whom he, by his policies, helped install in Iran. Strike that "helped" bit, he made it possible, and even inevitable. It would not at all be inappropriate were Tehran renamed Jimmy Carter City in recognition of his contribution from their perspective.

Every terrorist act conducted by every terrorist group supported by the government of Iran can be placed squarely on the doorstep of Jimmy Carters Iran policy. Every act of murder and repression perpetrated on Iranians and others by that murderous regime has Carter's fingerprints at the scene of the crime.

At least in part due to the chaos engendered by the Carter years, you can also thank him, by the way, for the inordinately high cost of oil and gasoline.

Now, he turns around and adds this recent trip and meeting with Hamas to his list of initiatives.

The Israelis have denounced the deal and even went so far at one point to announce they would not cooperate with Carter's security detail. His welcome at Ben Gurion Airport was with minimal attendance. In fact, no elected officials greeted him. Hardly surprising, when you consider Carter has referred to Israel repeatedly as a Zionist apartheid government, while simultaneously engaging in the most obvious denials and deceptions concerning the activities of Hamas. One might legitimately wonder if, in fact, Carter is acting as a paid lobbyist for the radical Islamic terrorist group that Carter unbelievably denies is a terrorist organization.

The Democratic Party of course will gloss over Carter's pernicious influence to their overall detriment when they laud him for his one valuable contribution in encouraging and helping to forge a peace deal between Egypt and Israel. As laudable as that was, like the similarly welcome peace treaty it led to between Israel and Jordan, it is an exception to the overall Carter foreign policy legacy. It is almost like a blip on the radar screen by comparison to the overall foreign policy disaster that was the Carter Administration

The Democrats, during the course of this election, can try to play hard and loose with the facts of those long-ago years, when Jimmy Carter turned his back on a dependable ally in the Shah of Iran and so paved the way for the pernicious reign of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors. They can feign a kind of moral equivalence based on the Shah's own admittedly bloody and repressive regime.

Of course, comparing the Shah to the Ayatollahs is like comparing the Dark Ages to the Renaissance-and this by the way would be from the perspective of most Iranians. That just won't wash with most of us.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, thanks to this latest insanity that is the arrogance of Jimmy Carter, they will now have to deal with it as an open and on-going issue of profound importance. They will not be able to ignore it.

Jimmy Carter is a fool. No one takes him seriously. I suspect even the radical left-wing sees him as a useful idiot.

To paraphrase John Kerry-how do you ask a candidate to be the last one to sacrifice his campaign for a mistake? A better question might well be, why should they? They could easily denounce this latest Carter initiative in no uncertain terms, and should. However, I fear they will not in any more than the most tepid, timid terms, if that.

In the meantime, the Killer Rabbit strikes again, hopping to and fro, and the Killer Rabbit Chronicles will probably be an ongoing series. Where will the Killer Rabbit make his next appearance?

Only time will tell if he manages to put in an appearance at the next White House Easter Egg Roll.

John McCain-A History Of Bipartisense

This article in Slate goes a long way toward explaining John McCain's tendency to cross the aisle and to try to achieve bipartisan solutions to problems. Thanks to Mo Udall, that is precisely what got him where he is today.

Regardless of what you think of McCain-whether you believe he really is a Maverick, a calculating politician who is just too clever by half, or simply just another RINO, it would be difficult for even the most jaded and cynical to be untouched by this story.

Ironically, by the time he's through, he might single-handedly demolish any urges among the American people for politicians to "put aside their differences and get to work for the American people", to use a commonly overused bit of phraseology.

Maybe McCain is a unique, well-meaning individual who is simply too honorable to be a partisan. Unfortunately, as long as the two major political parties have a death grip on Washington politics, partisanship might well turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

McCain, in the end, might conceivably turn out to be just another well-meaning chump who, for all his arguably good intentions, might do more harm than good. This of course is even giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Antiochus Epimanes

Antioch University went from what many considered a great institution to what might accurately be described as an asylum. Unfortunately, in this case, the inmates are running the asylum, and seem to be having serious difficulties attracting new customers.

I went into this story here, but it begs a revisit, since as of June 1st, it looks as though Antioch will be closed, presumably for at least a year. It is in debt, and needs more than twelve million dollars to satisfy its creditors.

And now, the madness continues as the end approaches.

Antioch University officials are still hoping for an 11th-hour agreement with the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, a group of wealthy alumni created to negotiate independence for Antioch College, despite rejecting the group's "best and final" offer on Friday, March 29.

But a late announcement Saturday night that the university would seek offers from "any party" to help the ACCC come up with $12.2 million cash at closing does not mean the university is for sale, spokeswoman Lynda Sirk said Tuesday, April 1.

But the ACCC said Tuesday it's too late to close a deal and still meet regulatory approvals to open the college in the fall. The only offer on the table now is a "10-10" proposal: $10 million now in exchange for 10 of the 19 seats on the board of trustees.

"This way the college can stay open because the same entity owns the college, but allows us more time to work on independence," said Eric Bates, co-chair of ACCC. But Sirk said the university would not consider the offer.

So, what exactly are the sticking points?

Chancellor Toni Murdock said the university has significant bond debt on the new Antioch University McGregor building in Yellow Springs, and buildings in Seattle and in Keane, N.H.

Another sticking point in negotiations was ownership of WYSO, the NPR-affiliated radio station based in Yellow Springs. The ACCC wanted WYSO as part of the $12.2 million purchase.

What it amounts to is the current Administration is bogged down trying to make a success out of a college that is run on a formula for failure. The Antioch College Continuation Corporation is determined they can do a better job, and want control of the college in order to prove it. The faculty and current staff want to keep their positions and salvage their reputations. The corporation wants to save Antioch and salvage their ideals.

Any students who are lured to the place will still get the short end of the stick, unless by some miracle the college adapts to reality. Good luck with that.

The only truly surprising thing in this story is that there actually are wealthy Antioch Alumni.

Denver Calling

I have a healthily sick sense of humor, so I can appreciate this story

Aliza Shvarts, an art student, impregnated herself with the sperm from donors whom she calls fabricators, and then subjected herself, over a period of time, to abortifacient drugs in order to induce miscarriages. She saved the whole bloody mess while videotaping her miscarriages. She then collected them in the form of a bloody collage which she wrapped in plastic and kept preserved in Vaseline in order to prevent drying.

She presented the collection, along with the videos, in the context of a performance art exhibition. Yale claims the whole thing is a scam. It was just a big joke, meant to make some kind of statement-though damned if I know what that might be.

Shvarts, for her part, claims it was for real, although she concedes that she can't be certain whether or not she was ever pregnant at any given time. So, where did all the blood come from? Well, it could all be simply menstrual blood. This artistic masterpiece was undertaken over a period of several months, you see. All great art, such as the Sistine Chapel, to use one example, is time consuming, after all, and requires dedication and energy.

The internet world is aghast. For once, the different sides of the abortion debate have joined hands in objection over this spectacle. Pro-choice advocates claim that it trivializes abortion. Translation-they are afraid, rightly so, that it makes them all look bad.

Moxie claims to be pissed, but I think deep down she is inspired.

Liz, from White Trash Republican is pissed, whether it's a joke or not.

I'm waiting to see the video.

Everybody should calm down. After all, this is art, remember? There's a better than average chance that Miss Shvarts will be invited to create a collage for presentation at the Democratic National Convention. For his acceptance speech, Obama might explain to us all how white rural voters cling to their kids out of frustration.

Bulleyes And Bullshit

It would really take a book to explain this, but I'll try to keep it simple. In between Obama's insistence that rural whites cling to their guns out of frustration, and Hillary's sudden yearning for the days of Annie Oakley, I think something is getting overlooked.

This obsession with guns is not an American obsession, it's a Democratic Party obsession. How are Americans' obsessed with guns? It's quite difficult to be obsessed with something you've always had around. In fact, you start to take it for granted. Fifty years ago, this was an issue limited to a few oddball precincts, cities, and regions. This was far from the norm. It didn't become a national obsession until following the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963. It kicked into high gear after the assassinations of RFK and MLK, both in 1968.

That's when Lyndon Baines Johnson, at the instigation notably of Ted Kennedy, passed the first gun control legislation, which was supported curiously enough by Charlton Heston. Of course, as unfortunately happens to be the case more often than not, give some people an inch and they want a mile every time. Due to the increasing and suspiciously obtuse demands of gun control advocates, Heston bolted from the movement and became the hard core social conservative and Second Amendment advocate he is remembered as today. There's a lesson there somewhere.

So what is behind the Democratic Party obsession-not the American obsession-with guns? Whatever it is, they've been taken aback by the curious fact that most Americans are unwilling to give up their personal prerogative of self-defense in return for a raise in minimum wage once every decade or so.

So, what do they do? They try to reframe the debate. They are sudden staunch supporters of the Second Amendment, it seems. In fact, they have no problems with law-abiding citizens who are gun collectors, or who like to go hundting, or enjoy the "family tradition" of target shooting.

Listen to them sometime-carefully. In all these reassurances, you never hear them mention the rights of American citizens to have guns for the purpose of self-defense, of themselves and their families, inside their own homes or businesses.

To hear them tell it, the Second Amendment was crafted in order for people like Daniel Boone to settle places like Kentucky. He and his fellow pioneers would never have made it after crossing through the Cumberland Gap without their trusty muskets with which to hunt deer for food.

Of course, it also happens that Kentucky was quickly settled and became a state dependent on river trade and agriculture, even before it became the fifteenth state of the union in 1794. Hunting by this time was in fact not considered as vital to life in the western states as so many seem to assume today. At best, hunting augmented pioneer life. Few, if any at all, depended on it solely or even mainly for their sustenance.

The Second Amendment has nothing whatsoever to do with hunting or target practice, nor does it take into consideration the whimsical hobby of "gun collecting". Amendment Number Two was written for the precise same purpose as Amendment Number One, and Amendments Number Two through Nine. It was meant to protect us from the potentially abusive grasping of tyrants not only foreign, but domestic-ie, the Federal Government. Those are just the facts.

An enemy of the state can come in many forms. It can come in the form of a foreign invader. It can come in the form of unelected and/or unaccountable domestic tyrants. Finally, it can take the form of the criminal element that exists unfortunately within all societies, and whose very existence, by their very natures, is a threat to the domestic tranquility.

Unfortunately, again, you will almost never hear a Democratic politician (nor for that matter most Republican ones) frame the debate in this matter. There are two reasons for this.

1. Most criminals from whom one might have occasion to protect oneself, whether black or white, have for the most part one thing in common. The majority of those who vote strangely tend to vote Democratic.

As important as this is, however, it pales in comparison to the importance of the following point.

2. An admission that people might, at any given point in time, find it necessary to defend themselves with guns against a criminal element, is tantamount to an admission that the government has failed to protect the citizens of the United States. It is a failure that reaches from the bottom level of local politics, on up through the state and federal levels.

It is not just an admission of the failure to fight crime, but a failure to combat the root causes of crime, those societal factors and conditions that breed the criminal element. The Republican Party wants to approach it from the corrective level after the fact. The Democratic Party seems to focus traditionally on solving the root causes, the problems of poverty and unemployment, with the added factors of race issues and other cultural factors.

Give them the power to solve your problems, and over time, they would suggest, the crime rate would drop to manageable levels. They will give you a Cops program with 100,000 cops on the streets of America. They will fund after-school programs aimed at targeting problem kids in troubled areas. They will have this and that program aimed at "uplifting" the poor. In time, this will solve the crime problem and so guns will be unnecessary.

You can still go dear hunting, though. No problem. Go along with us, and over time, everything will be just great, and crime will suddenly become a rarity throughout this great land of ours. Just trust us. Would we ever lie to you?

Ouisch

To all the numbnut losers trolling the internet and in other ways attempting to discern the current whereabouts of Ruth Ann Moorehouse-

Just so you’ll know, she’s no longer the young, hot, pretty sixteen year old hippie chick that will (supposedly) fuck all comers. FYI that was forty years ago. Now she’s a fifty-six year old, probably drug-addled sixties era sloppy fat and wrinkled hippie broad, whose only resemblance to the past might well be the hair growing from her stinking armpits, which might well be matched only by the hair on her legs, and the sewer-like stench of her cunt. Have I shattered your illusions yet? You are obviously proof that man is indeed an ape if none of this has ever occurred to you.

Of course, I could be lying. In any event, stop wasting your time. Go buy yourself a Big Mac, sprinkle liberally with LSD, and jack off.

Radu-Chapter XXXXII (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)

Links to previous installments are at the end of this chapter
Radu-Chapter XXXXII (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
13 pages approximate
Marlowe Krovell never felt so powerful in his life. The blood of Agnes Khoska made him seem invincible, and unstoppable. He could barely control himself. He watched lustfully as the various patrons filed in and out of The Crypt. He smiled when he saw Marty Evans, his old friend, standing outside the newly opened Goth club, passing out samples of what he promised was an “immortal elixir”. The last time he saw Marty was when he used him to help him retrieve Raven’s corpse from the Baltimore Morgue. From the top of the adjacent building, he turned to see Cynthia eyeing him curiously.

“I won’t be long, old friend,” he promised the creature. Within an instant, he was at Marty’s side.

“You,” Marty shouted in shock. “What do you want now?”

“Now, Marty, is that any way to greet an old friend?” he asked. “That is my blood you’ve been handing out, you know. You have done an admirable job at that.”

“This stuff-is yours?” Marty replied in disbelief.

Before Marlowe could respond, a young Goth girl named Brandy approached them both, her eyes focused on the cardboard box which hung around Marty’s neck from a leather strap.

“I’m glad you’re still here, Marty,” she said. “How much would you charge me for some more of that stuff? Is that really some kind of blood? Whatever it is, it’s great.”

Marty informed her anxiously that he had no more and was going home soon, but the girl now had her attention focused on Marlowe.

“Hey, I know you, ain’t you Marlowe Krovell? Damn, I thought you was dead.”

“Me, dead? Naw, I just been hiding out, ya know? Joseph and his crew already tried to kill me and they did kill my mom and dad, and I just learned they all got what was coming to them. So, here I am. Man, you look fine. Rachel is it?”

“No, Brandy,” she replied. “You remember, don’t you? You were at my party a couple of years ago, though you didn’t stay long.”

“I just broke up with Raven, and when she showed up it was time for me to go,” he explained, all the time noticing that Marty looked increasingly worried, as Brandy stepped up closer to Marlowe.

“Hey you know,” he continued. “This is a good night to just kick around town. You ain’t with anybody are you?”

“Nobody important,” she said. “I could use a Latte. There’s a new place down the street that beats the hell out of Starbucks, and don’t cost nowhere near as much. You ever been there?”

“Yeah, here in a few minutes. Hey, Marty, hold down the fort here for me, will you?”

“What fort?” Marty asked suspiciously. He was well aware that Marlowe was telling him plainly not to bother to try to tag along, which he had no intention of doing. He knew deep down exactly what Marlowe was up to as they started walking on down the street. Marty watched them helplessly, aware there was nothing he could do or say that would not put his own life in extreme danger.

“Talk to you later, Marty,” Brandy said. Marty just said, simply, “Goodbye Brandy.”

Marlowe shot him another cold hard look as they continued down the street. Marlowe’s breathing was becoming labored and erratic, though he tried with great effort to conceal this. Brandy did not seem to mind, if in fact she noticed it at all. She is a horny bitch anyway, Marlowe thought to himself. She probably has every intention of being fucked after leaving what she called “Duke’s Coffee Joint”. For that matter, she probably wants to fuck well before then. Marlowe of course had other, more pressing matters on his mind.

Suddenly, well out of sight of The Crypt, Brandy stopped abruptly.

‘Wait a minute, I just remembered-I was at your funeral,” she said. “Your Uncle Brad”-she stopped short of any further observations, as though unable to process the sudden re-emergence of the memory of her attendance at his own fake funeral. The bitch was probably high, if not totally fucked up, he realized.

“What about Uncle Brad?” he prompted her.

“He had a closed-casket funeral for you,” she said. “So, he was in on this as well?”

“Yeah, in a manner of speaking,” Marlowe replied, now suddenly tired of the pretense. He needed her now in the worse possible way, while still dreading the consequences. This filthy bitch, he realized, in ordinary circumstances would render him almost incapacitated, as bad as-or worse-than the results of his assault of April Sandusky. He looked up in the sky above his head, and perched on a distant ledge was Cynthia, glaring down at them sullenly, and expectantly.

“I heard about what happened to him,” she continued. “That must have terrible for you, to lose your only surviving relative, especially so quickly after your parents died. You and he must have been real close.”

“We had our share of problems,” Marlowe said. ‘Like I told you, he was only in on it in a manner of speaking. There was a body in that coffin, and it was mine, in a way. Just a spare I made out of some random DNA from some teeth and spit. I didn’t have enough blood at the time to do the job, so I had to improvise. It was kind of rough ripping out my appendix, but hey, I had to have something for the DNA to build on. It was too bad you didn’t see the body. You would never have known it was a fake. Hell, it fooled Brad, and he was an expert mortician-what can I say?”

She digested all this without comment, though her eyes seemed to betray a sense that he must have been joking. Yet, he seemed so serious. He stepped up to her closer. There was now no one around, and a deathly silence pervaded the night. Only the cool of the night air betrayed any sense of reality as Marlowe Krovell now hovered over her.

“I need you now,” he said, and she fell into his arms. With one quick, savage thrust, he ripped open her throat with his long, black painted nails. She gasped as she jerked back, as the blood spattered all over him. He hungrily lapped it up as he held her tightly. She swooned as the blood gushed to his face as though it were a fountain. He pressed his lips up against her throat, feeding on the hapless girl as every desperate thought and random memory raced through her head and into Marlowe’s mind, much as a quickly racing stream that ran faster with every second that ran toward oblivion. She finally died, after putting up not the least bit of a struggle. He then ripped open her chest and extracted her heart. He had no desire for her to return, and so he devoured it completely, like a ravenous wolf, in the space of under a minute.

It worked, just as his grandfather had promised it would. The blood, the sacred blood that she and so many others had imbibed, had enabled Marlowe to feed upon her with impunity. More importantly, the virus they all now carried would easily transmit to any they encounter. It would spread further, ever further, until soon there would be few, if any, upon whom Radu, in the person of Marlowe Krovell, would be unable to feed.

Cynthia flew down now and began feeding upon the freshly slain corpse. Marlowe watched her intently, until she stopped after some ten minutes of gorging, and met his gaze.

“Lead the way, old girl,” he said. “We have much work to do tonight.”

Marlowe gazed into the creatures eyes, and soon the green aura surrounded his consciousness, bathing him in it until a form took focus within his consciousness. He could see it- the church, with its many members now exposed to the same virus that enabled Brandy to fall victim to his designs. Though it was yet nighttime, the church was not empty.

Marlowe gleefully bounded up toward the top of the nearest roof, reaching for the corner, and pulled himself over the ledge with little effort. He bounded from rooftop to rooftop, like some great mythical ape, no distance too great for him to traverse, until after a relatively few number of minutes, he found himself on the opposite side of town. He looked directly toward the Catholic Church, the one attended by Lieutenant Berry, who had unknowingly and inadvertently infected the sacramental wine with the virus that raged through Marlowe’s blood stream, turning all who partook of the sacred Eucharist into his potential and unwitting victims.


Like Brandy before them, they too would have no defense against him. Where before, the faithful of the church, the devout, could repel him with the power of their faith as channeled through the crucifix, now they were as so many sheep. Their accursed savior would not protect them now. His power, if all went as it should, would be useless to them. Even their most devout prayers would be to no avail.

He approached the Church. No longer did the giant crucifix attached to its roof fill him with dread. He looked over toward Cynthia. The creature waited expectantly for Marlowe to make his move. He could see the family inside the church. They seemed as devout a family as any other that entered the edifice. That they were here at this time of the night was solid testament to that fact. There was a problem. The child, the infant recently born, just under a year ago, was not well. Were he to live, he would be a hopeless invalid due to some rare disease of the blood transmitted through the mother.

They prayed earnestly. The father was grief-stricken. The mother was guilt-ridden. The teenage daughter was bored out of her wits, and resentful, as she looked out the window, and saw Cynthia. She stifled an automatic gasp, then continued to gaze. After a few minutes, she informed her mother she needed to walk outside, for just a few minutes.

By the time she walked out the door, she had forgotten all about Cynthia. She came out here for a cigarette. She lit one up, certain neither her father nor her mother would follow her out here, at least for now. She extracted a cigarette from her purse and lit it. She took one deep drag after another, allowing the smoke to waft out of her mouth, and then inhaling it through her nostrils and out of them again in an effort to minimize the scent of the tobacco on her breath. Finally, she allowed herself first one, and then another, long, luxurious drag through her mouth and down her throat. Marlowe waited in silence, behind the large evergreen, as she finished. She put the cigarette down to the ground and cautiously ground it out with her foot. She was not ready to go back inside-not just yet.

Marlowe however was ready, and waited long enough. He pounced, and quickly ripped open the girl’s throat before she had time to so much as gasp, let alone scream. As he fed upon her blood, her thoughts flooded through clearly into his consciousness, unlike the hazy and dazed ramblings that emanated from the mind of the Goth girl named Brandy who was his previous victim.

This girl, he realized, was on methamphetamines, hooked as badly as her last victim was on heroin. No longer did any of this have an effect on him. Ordinarily, his addiction would roar back to life and make him crave the substance as much as any mortal junky, perhaps worse. The pain of withdrawal had been constant and fierce. Now, he was free from this effect as well.

As had also been the case with Brandy, with this girl he saw concisely everything in her life. It was as though, in those final few seconds, her life flashed before Marlowe’s eyes. It was most amazing. He knew everything about her, her likes and dislikes, her needs and fears, her desires and her-wow, this little girl was a lesbian, he realized. Now, she was just dead, and not only did he know the entirety of her life, but much of the people who waited yet within the church-from her perspective, of course.

He entered the church openly, and the two people stopped their prayers and looked at him with obvious shock and some trepidation. He sensed a degree of loathing from woman, and not a little fear from the man.

“Who are you?” the woman demanded.

“Are you here to see Father Chuck?” the man asked warily.

“No, I came to ask you why you’ve been treating your step-daughter so badly,” Marlowe replied in an accusatory tone of voice.

“That’s a lie,” the man stammered, but the woman looked at him with a suspicious fury.

“Did Jean tell you that?” she asked.

“Yep,” he replied. “The first time was when he went into her room during your vacation to Disney World. I think that was like three years ago. She was what-twelve, thirteen? Of course, as I said, that was the first time. According to her, there have been others-many, many others, in fact.”

“Mister, I don’t know who you are or what Jean has told you, but it’s all bullshit,” the man insisted.

“Where is she?” the woman demanded. “I’ll go talk to her about this right now.”

She headed for the door of the church as the man just stood there, enraged and yet fearful, trembling with impotent fury.

“Who in the hell are you?” he demanded in a coarse whisper.

“Radu-Radu Dracula,” came the reply. “I just did you a big favor, by the way. Your stepdaughter has been talking to the cops. Oh, and to her father, who desperately wants to kick your ass in the worse possible way. You see, after so long, they expect you to do more than just feel them up. It seems she knew it was getting to the point that if she didn’t do something, something bad was going to happen.”

“I swear, mister, I would never do anything to hurt Jean. I”-

“You love her?”

The man just looked down to the ground, and toward where the infant waited for a salvation and healing that was months long in coming. In all the time he had been inside this church, the child had made no sound. Suddenly, the woman came back inside.

“Jean is gone,” she said, obviously mystified. “There’s a vulture out there, sitting on the ground, just staring at me.”

“Let me get right to the point,” Marlowe said. “I am here to heal this child. I can remove every disease in his pain-wracked little body, and in fact, I can make him not just normal, but better than normal. I can remove the curse with which your cruel God has afflicted him. All of this I can easily do, but not without a price-a steep one, as it happens.”

“Why should we trust you?” the man demanded.

“Shut up!” the woman shouted, then turned her attention back toward Marlowe.

“I don’t know who you are, but if you can do what you say, I’ll pay you anything-I don’t care what it is.”

“You can’t be serious,” the man replied. “This guy is a demon. Look at him. He has entered the House of the Lord and is talking about some abomination involving our son-our child, not just yours. He is as much mine as he is yours and I say”-

Before the man could continue, however, Marlowe had him by the throat. Within a matter of seconds, the woman watched in desperate terror and, what was worse, uncertainty, as Marlowe drained the life force from the body of her husband of four years. He then turned to the woman, now paralyzed with fear and anxiety.

“Please-do what you promised,” she stammered.

Marlowe, now gorged on the blood of three victims, looked at her with a perverse serenity, the blood and gore caked and dribbling from his lips.

“You must hand him over to me,” he said. “Before you do that, however, there is one other thing you must do. You must give yourself to me, willingly.”

The woman began silently praying, unsure of what to do. A part of her resisted his entreaties, which was just as well. Marlowe grabbed her by the head of the hair and pulled her against him. She resisted him automatically and called on the Lord, but Marlowe had her pinned helplessly against his body and bit into her neck fiercely. He continued to feed upon her until she collapsed. She lay on the floor unconscious, next to her now sufficiently dead husband.

He walked over to the child, and fed upon his frail form, extracting just a small sip of blood from his lips. The child jerked and finally made a moaning sound. He opened the mouth of the child, regurgitated a small amount of blood into the open orifice, and then sat him upon the floor by his unconscious mother. As the child lay there trembling, Marlowe extracted the heart of the father and fed upon it. By the time he finished, the mother awoke. She rose in fear, and then saw the child on the floor beside her. The child now cried. He was on his hands and knees. For the first time in his life, the child crawled. The child smiled, and babbled.

The mother looked upon the sight of her child with delight. Forgotten, at least for now, was the fate of her daughter and that of her treacherous husband as well. Forgotten for the time being even was Marlowe, who stood over her, well satisfied with the events of this night, as the door opened to admit Father Chuck, who stood in obvious shock at what he saw.

“Who are you? What in the name of God has happened here?”

The woman rose and in a delirium swept the child up in her arms.

“This man has healed my child, Father Chuck,” the woman explained in delight, as the priest looked in horror on the mutilated body of the man on the floor.

“I’ve just performed the Devils’ work, here inside this very church,” Marlowe bragged. “I have done what you, with all your prayers and useless rituals, could never hope to do. Oh, and by the way, that confession you received from this man, and the so-called therapy you attempted with the daughter-you no longer need concern yourself with the matter. Justice has been served, if I might be so bold, and the sins of both wiped clean from the face of the earth.”

Father Chuck immediately called upon God, Christ, Mary, the Saints, all in an effort to dispel the demon who stood in his presence, mocking him and mocking God, as he held out his crucifix to ward off the Satanic intruder. Marlowe snatched it from his hand as though it were a piece of chewing gum, and flung it to the ground with a snarl.

The woman sat with her child in the front pew, holding her son, who cooed happily at his mother’s attentions for the first time since his birth. She talked back to him in baby gibberish as Marlowe ripped Father Chuck’s throat out of his neck, and fed upon him. Blood splattered everywhere, as a stream once splashed upon the blouse of the now relieved and happy mother, who laughed as her child made baby faces as he smiled at her, both of them laughing merrily as Marlowe quickly gorged himself on the heart of Father Chuck.

“I hope the two of you will be happy,” Marlowe told the woman. “There will be questions asked, of course. Say that I came to leave a message for the Patriarch Daniel, and that I will be coming for him soon. He will know what it means. Will you do that for me?”

“Yes, of course,” the woman, said. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you. I’ll be sure and let them know. What is your name again?”

Marlowe, however, was on his way out the door, where he saw not Cynthia, but the Land Rover. They were just in time. Marlowe opened the door to the back seat. Toby looked at him sullenly.

“Okay, here I am,” he said. “What do you want, you freak?”

“I think you already know,” Marlowe replied, in no mood to trade insults with the rapper who he now had no reason to fear.

“Yeah, I think I do, but the question is, what the hell do you expect me to do about it?”

“Turn all of them off,” Marlowe replied.

“How the hell do you expect me to do that?” he asked.

“Just do it, or else,” Marlowe said.

“Now look here, you fucking”-

But before Toby could continue, Marlowe had him by the throat.

“Listen to me well, you fucking nigger,” he hissed. “I’m not in the mood to play games with your fat ass. You know what you have to do. If you can’t do it, somebody else can. Otherwise, what has happened thus far is nothing compared to what will happen. Do you read me?”

Toby pulled away and simultaneously fell into a near state of collapse. He then realized he had urinated on himself. The freak wasn’t playing games, and now turned his attention toward the driver of the Land Rover.

“Take me back to The Crypt,” he demanded.

Mercury Morris simply voiced a quick agreement and began driving away. Toby sat back silently, not uttering a sound, but breathing heavily. It was a silent ride of some forty minutes back to the south side of Baltimore, and to the front door of the Crypt.

“You do know how important this is, don’t you?” Marlowe said.

“Yeah-I know,” Toby replied. “I’ll do what I can.”

Satisfied, Marlowe stepped out of the car. Looking up toward the sky, he saw Cynthia perched on the ledge of the Crypt. He looked around, and saw Marty down the street. He still passed out the vials, a seemingly never-ending supply of them in his possession. As the Land Rover pulled away, Marlowe could hear Marty pronounce the coming end of the world and urging passers-by to partake of the magic formula that would enable them all to survive the coming destruction.

He turned with a smile and walked to the door of the Crypt. It was now empty, save for the lone figure of the new owner, who waited within.

“Marlowe, I see you’ve had a busy, busy night tonight.” The old man said.

“Grandfather.” Marlowe said by way of greeting. “Are you sure I will be safe here?”

“Oh, much safer than you would be at the funeral home, to be sure,” Martin Krovell replied. “It is only a matter of time before the old Priest will come looking for you, and he must not find you before you are able to face him. So, I take it all went well? You experienced no difficulties?”

“It worked even better than I hoped in my wildest dreams-such as they are,” Marlowe replied.

“Good,” Krovell replied. “Soon, there is going to be a brand new world, with a completely new order-a sacred world, one in which Christ will be the final ruler and arbiter. You, my grandson, will be the one chiefly responsible for helping to finally bring that about. It has been five long centuries in the making, you know. But the time and sacrifice will prove to be well worth it.”

Marlowe scowled at the mention of Christ, and at the thought of what this proposed new world would cost. Something was not quite right. There was something he was not being told. His grandfather promised that he would have a life free from pain and despair, a life of freedom and abundance. At the same time, his grandfather was not a man he trusted easily, for good reason. No Christian, of any sect, had ever given him anything but misery. A Christian and a champion of Christianity-his brother Vlad the Impaler-was responsible for the tragedies and the ultimate curse that afflicted him. Vlad did this not only out of his own malicious need for vengeance, but on behalf of the Mother Church, in their shared goal of defeat of the Ottoman Empire, against whom Vlad warred relentlessly. Now Vlad was dead for centuries, but his own Order, the Order of The Dragon, yet existed within the framework of what his grandfather hailed as the essence of the One True Church of Christ, driven underground two millennia ago first by the Roman Empire in it’s drive to extinguish the new Christian cult.

When that cult grew to predominance over the Empire, it became in time the Catholic Church, and al but exterminated what his grandfather called the true church, while insisting that the Catholic Church was the first of the heretical Christian sects. When the true Christians fled to Dacia-later known as Romania-it was not too long before they were driven into hiding yet again, this time by yet a new heretical Christian sect, in the form of the Romanian Orthodox Church.

As far as Marlowe was concerned, one faction was like another, all of them power hungry and intent on world domination as much, if not more so, than those Muslims of the Ottoman Empire with whom he was during his brief life obliged to align himself.

What would his new life be worth under such people as this so-called One True Church? If his grandfather achieved the entirety of his stated goals, there would be precious few people left on whom Radu could feed. He cared nothing for politics and power. That was another life, one long gone. He had no chance of relief from the curse with which Vlad afflicted him-nor in fact did he wish for relief other than the freedom to exercise his desires on anyone he wished. After five hundred years of suffering, he now had the chance to pursue this dream to the fullest extent possible.

He would therefore exist as he now did-if not forever, then certainly for a good time to come, far longer than any mortal human could hope to live-for many generations, in fact, or until someone finally destroyed him. That did not bother him. He would in fact have it no other way. He longed for nothing more than to feast upon the flesh and blood of those who now lived and who would come to live within the world-to feed his ravenous appetite during what amount of time he continued on the earth. He wanted only one thing more.

“My wife-what news do you have of her?”

His grandfather looked sullenly in response to this question. They had already been through this.

“I told you, Marlowe-or Radu, excuse me-your wife is gone forever.”

“That is a lie. She is here. I can feel her presence.”

“Of curse you can feel her presence. She will always be a part of you. We are all a part of the universal whole, Radu. Even when we die, we are all as one. Your wife is now with Mircea.”

“No!” Marlowe screamed with rage at this pronouncement.

“You do understand that she was promised to Mircea before his death, do you not? Her marriage to you came about after, and due to, his unfortunate early murder. It was all in the way of adhering to the family alliance-nothing more. You also had the chance to make matters right between the two of you, but of course you failed. Yet, this was to be expected. Now, she is with Mircea, the way the two families originally planned it to be-and as she always wanted to be, by the way. You must learn to accept this.”

“I will never accept it,” Marlowe said.

“Well, just sleep on it for now,” Martin suggested with inferred finality. “The sun will soon rise. Unfortunately, its effects on you are yet one more thing it seems will never change. Modern sunscreen, no matter how much you use or how medicated it is, is yet only good for so much, you know-especially in your case.”

He accompanied Marlowe to the attic, where waited not one, but two coffins.

“I hate sleeping in these damn things. Is there any reason I can’t sleep in a fucking bed like a normal human?”

“These protect you from the sun better than any bed possibly could, more even than any save the most completely sealed off room can. More importantly, they provide a ready made explanation to any who might inadvertently discover you.”

“Of course, as long as a dead body in the attic of a Goth bar is in a coffin no one would ever be the wiser, huh?” Marlowe stated sarcastically. “So what is this other one for?”

Martin opened one of them to reveal the mummified remains of Radu Dracula. Marlowe looked upon it with sadness.

“You should never forget where you came from,” Martin said. “Besides, if it fell into the wrong hands, it might provide information which could be used to your detriment.”

“Speaking of which, since you are obviously talking about that old busybody Priest,” Marlowe asked, “why not just kill him outright and get it over with?”

“If you don’t destroy him yourself, he will simply return in some later incarnation and resume the job, probably to greater effect, as he will be the wiser for the experience and so better prepared. Don’t you see, Marlowe-if you destroy him now, with your own hands, with your own power, directly, you do away with him for good.

“Of course, he is not the only problem. James Berry seems to have found his independence. His involvement was always problematic at best. We merely made use of an unfortunate set of circumstances. He will have to be dealt with.”

Marlowe looked morosely down at the coffin within which he would spend this night. He opened it and prepared to climb in. The exhaustion that now started to overwhelm him was not the same as experienced by normal humans. It was more like an approaching, inevitable death.

“Stop concerning yourself with your old life, Marlowe,” Martin advised him as he climbed inside the waiting coffin.

“You tell me that with that thing here in the room with me?” Marlowe asked indicating the remains that rested beside him.

“I must confess, that was another reason I brought it here-to bring home to you the simple fact that that life is indeed over and done with, as well as everything that life revolved around. Your wife, your daughter, they are all gone. All the friends, servants, courtiers, down to your most trusted guards, are no more. Your new life bears no more relation to that old one than the world has to the one in which you were born and raised.

“You now have a new life, and soon, a new bride-not too long from now, a new child. They are your life now, Marlowe. Grace will soon give birth to a new child, free of the taint of this world and its wicked sinfulness, yet as ready as you to devour and feast off it. That time will be soon, I promise you.”

Marlowe lay there as Martin Krovell finally closed the lid on his coffin. He now felt cold, devoid of any semblance of life, as he began the sleep of death, a death that in his case ended nothing. He could feel the coldness embrace him as he saw a vague light that, as always, mockingly beckoned him to enter into it.

Yet, he knew he could never enter into the warmth of its embrace. He stood outside as he watched countless souls entered within, blissfully unaware now of their former torment, while outside the light, an even greater number of others moaned and wandered aimlessly, in despair and pain, bereft of comfort or guidance, tortured souls beyond redemption. He knew that if not for the curse that afflicted him, he would share their fate.

He watched as others called out to him, the generations of his family that proceeded forth from and after him. He saw the Krovell family, those original immigrants from Romania, watching him in longing for him to achieve their final vengeance on the world that rejected them and despised them for the heritage they were obliged to keep secret.

Magda, the old gypsy, looked at him with malicious glee, confidant that soon he would reap the harvest she had so long ago planted, as had her ancestors before her. Her son-in-law Vlad watched and twitched with hopeful anger, while even Irenea, his young wife, now the most ancient of them all, in her advanced degree of dementia seemed to understand, on some deep inner level, that their revenge would soon be complete.

All of the others stood and watched-the incestuous children no longer concerned themselves with the older brother who in trying to destroy them provoked a fiery Holocaust throughout the city of Baltimore. The older sister, though wracked with the pain of the hideous disease that destroyed her, nevertheless seemed at last content in her anguish.

All of the others, those who yet bore the scars of their ultimate fates, waited along with them. The multiple gunshot wounds of the soldier, the diseased heart of the youngest brother, the crushed skull and battered body of the dockworker, the rat devoured addict, all of them stood in muted anticipation, as they mumbled and moaned, until two other forms took shape, that of Richard and Mabel, Marlowe’s mother and father. Even they, who for their own selfish reasons had rejected the family tradition, now in their failure came to grips with their ultimate destiny, and seemed finally to understand the rightness of it.

No longer did Marlowe despise and fear them as he once did. Now, he felt nothing for them beyond pity. It was right that they should be avenged, as they spent their whole lives trying to avenge his own death centuries earlier as much as their own disenfranchisement. Magda now walked up to him.

“We all shall live again, through you,” she declared.

Suddenly they all vanished, and Marlowe was alone in his dream that was death. He knew he would walk one day in this shadowy world forever, with no ending. Nothing lived forever. Even the undead had no permanent grip on the world of life. Soon, it would fade away, unless he found yet another form in which to inhabit and possess. Unfortunately, he would never have the same grasp on any other form he might so possess. Marlowe Krovell was of his bloodline. In fact, he was the last of it. When he was finally gone-as eventually he would be-who could possibly take his place to anything near the same effect?

There was one more person he wished to see. Soon, he saw not one but two forms. His daughter stood beside him, alongside his wife. His daughter looked disappointed. She looked angry. She blamed him for the failure that cost her own place, her rightful royal heritage. Because of him, her life became that of a gypsy vagabond.

She transformed the curse of his brother Vlad into one that would extend into the ages. She fully intended to wreak destruction on the descendants of those who had raped her, humiliated her, stolen her birthright, and left her a legacy of shame, disgust, and fear. Even that would not be enough. She intended for the whole world to suffer, far more than she herself had suffered.

“It will not end until all or dead, or enslaved,” she declared.

“Do you see now what you have done?” his wife said to him. “Your thirst for power has brought all this about. I had no choice in the matter. She had no choice in the matter. Because of you, our lives were misery in human form. She, our daughter, lived a life of shame, as the wife of a despised gypsy. Can you fault her for wanting everyone on the face of the earth to suffer worse than she suffered herself, over things that were not her fault, while everyone she met mocked her, reviled her, and persecuted her as though she were the lowest born trash?

“Yet, even now, all you care about is living your new existence with no thought of responsibility, and hope that somehow you and I will be reconciled. It is impossible. My soul has been reunited with Mircea. You have no right to expect a new life with me. Go, Radu, live your life, your new existence, and start anew. Forget about me, just as I try to forget about you and the misery you brought upon me, and upon our daughter. You owe us at least this much. Leave us alone.”

He reached out but she turned away, and soon they both faded into the gathering fog, a gray fog that grew ever darker and more ominous, until soon, it engulfed everything around him, until two giant emerald eyes glared out through the fog and pierced inside him. He knew now that Mircea, who never really left him, was now with him. Now, he could feel Mircea’s thoughts as easily as he knew Mircea knew his own.

“You will end sooner rather than later if you continue on the road you are on, brother,” Mircea said to him as he suddenly took on the form of the man in the dark gray robe and hood, which covered his mutilated face as the eyes, in life burned from their sockets, now transformed into red hot embers. They burned inside Radu’s soul.

“You always loved the life of comfort and vice, Radu,” Mircea now told him. “You have never changed, nor will you ever change. Look where your life of luxury led you. Look at what the result was then. There is nothing inside you but a longing for pleasure and leisure. You were willing even to fight for it then. It seemed never to occur to you to fight instead for your birthright. You willingly and gladly sold your heritage for a bowl of pottage.

“Well, it will soon end, as surely as it ended then. This time, there will be no reprieves, no second chances. That is your true curse, Radu. The dead, even those like yourself who are conscious and aware, can do no more than suffer for their crimes in perpetuity. You are no more capable of learning from the mistakes of the past and changing your nature than you would be of atoning for your sins. You cannot atone-you can only suffer. Nor can you change-you can only rot. Good day to you, my brother. You will see me no more, until the day your miserable existence finally ends for good.”

Radu could do no more than rave and growl in fury like a maddened animal, and so he screamed and cursed as he kicked and flailed at the ground beneath his feet-only to discover no ground was under him. He floated in his death dream, until he found himself over the coffin that rested beside the one in which his present body now reposed, but which now was empty, as he seemed suspended above it as well. He watched as the coffin that held those ancient remains suddenly opened as if of its own volition, but it was the corpse of Marlowe Krovell upon which he gazed in confusion. He looked toward his now empty coffin, and toward a mirror, into which he stared to see the grinning, mummified cadaver of Radu Dracula staring back at him.

The room began spinning around as he was now surrounded by a mist, one that grew thicker, until he realized he seemed now to be in a stagnant lake, while all around him mosses, leeches, and lichens gathered around him, holding him down under the same water that he at the same time gazed into from the shore. He saw himself on the shore, looking down from the shore onto himself trying desperately to rise to the surface toward where he waited on shore.

He reached out from the shore to where he now rose to the top of the lake, and reached his hand toward his hand that reached to him from the shore. He raised his moss-covered head to see Marlowe Krovell, trying desperately to pull Radu out of the water of the lake. When Marlowe saw it was not himself but Radu, he tried to push him away, but Radu gripped the outstretched arm. He pulled himself onto the shore, and saw now that Marlowe had taken his place in the water of the stagnant lake. He was now trying desperately to rise back to the surface, but when Radu looked down into the lake, he saw not his own reflection, nor the reflection of Marlowe Krovell. They both had disappeared now under the waves, as the blackness of unconsciousness finally overwhelmed him.

The dream then finally gave way, as the sleep of death finally overtook him, again for yet this one more day.
Previous Installments-
Part One
Prologue and Chapters I-X
Part Two
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
PartThree
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XXXX
Chapter XXXXI

Princess Diana- Smoking Guns, Smoking Tires

According to the findings of the Inquest into the death of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed, they died not as the result of murder, but due to negligence and carelessness on the part of the Paparazzi and driver Henri Paul, whose blood alcohol level was significantly above the legal limit.

Some suggested that she died as the result of some plot conducted by the Royal Family and British Intelligence services. Such theories offered, by way of explanation, her romantic relationship with Fayed, who was a Muslim, and by whom she was rumored to be with child. Her work in various charitable activities was also mentioned as a possible motive for these shadowy forces to “shut her up”-particularly her work at encouraging a worldwide ban on the use of land mines. Some have even gone so far as to claim that Henri Paul was victimized by a drug inserted into his drink, not long before the parties left the nightclub in Paris that fateful night.

In the end, however, it was determined that Diana died as the result of a horrible, tragic accident.

Well, I don’t believe it. I believe that Henri Paul was indeed drugged, and the accident staged. I believe Diana and Fayed were in effect murdered, though not intentionally, nor by the Royal Family or any arm of the British government or British Intelligence. I believe she did, however, die as the result of a horrific and intentional assault, explicitly aimed at causing her accident. I cannot prove that, of course, but I do have one question. Well, a few questions, really-

First, before the accident that claimed her life, how much money did a typical picture of Princess Diana bring, such as the one here?

What about this one?

And then-

How much would you say this picture would be worth?