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DISCLAIMER: The following story is mine, thanks for asking.

The Graveyard
by The Brat Queen

You're going to be disappointed. You're expecting a tale of daring deeds and dramatic nights and righteous young Englishmen haring after me with wood and the glory of God in their eyes. You're expecting me to be lurking in alleys, charming the rich, seducing the wicked and always speaking of the hot gush of blood in my mouth. You're going to be disappointed because I can't. Not right now. Now I need to rest. But you may read on if you like. You never know when I'll say something interesting.

The location should please you. It pleases me but not for the reason you think. My lair is not here. I have not secreted away my worldly possessions or my native soil inside of one of the tombs. I am simply lying in a graveyard with a rock poking rather annoyingly into my shoulder and my eyes getting dizzy by the sight of the stars above. Am I here for a reason? Yes. But you could be here for the same reason too. There is nothing special in this.

There is something special in me, of course. And you know that. Which is why you think I live in this dirt or should be gazing deeply into your eyes. Some other time, my dear. Don't pout. I'd kiss you for that, but not drink. Or perhaps I would. It wouldn't be the first time I couldn't control my drinking problem.

Isn't that frightfully mundane? I'll bet you never thought of that one. Why should you? The literature of the time glamorizes us so you wouldn't expect anything less of us than Godhood. Or Satanhood. To have lived this long and still have that itch for good cheap wine and a night-long buzz simply isn't done.

But isn't that what we are? Corpses with drinking problems.

Hello, my name is Vlad and it's been five centuries since I last had a nip.

No wonder the poor bastard went mad enough to find the English interesting.

If you hear a laugh, by the way, coming from the ground under me, pay it no mind. It is only a bastard of another kind, the one I came to visit. He knows all about my crutch of vices. He should. He started them after all.

But ignore him. He's a fool and dead besides. Of course, so am I but at least I'm still breathing. I'll take what advantages I can get. I'll sit on this cold ground and he can enjoy the hot kiss of Hell. The exchange is fair.

Ignore that laugh too. In fact, ignore him entirely. He doesn't exist, never did and I was raised to be the heir to the spirits in the woods. Want to play pretend with my inner child? I'm told it's fun. Who knew stuffed animals and finger-paints could do so much? And here all I thought I had to do was kill myself. Silly me.

I have no patience for the psychology of this time. All well and good to tell me my mind is broken. Now tell me how to fix the damned thing.

You want to hear about my life? Go to Hell. I've given enough of my soul away. Find your own loves, live your own pain and if you want to know what America was like before the Revolution then crack a book. Vlad had the right idea after all. Live like a son of a bitch and make no apologies. And you can take that Romantic imagery and rape someone else with it. I'm tired of being your tortured soul. My pain is no different from yours. Get over it.

There is no secret on this side of it, you know. We don't become the Almighty and clear a path through the mass of humanity that stands in our way. Death is death, pain is pain and I'm still visiting this son of a bitch's grave. There's your hero for you. Century after century of living the life of a fool. And the kicker is that we never learn. Which is also just like you. You expect answers after death or at the very least an end to it all. Let me be the first to tell you the bad news that there is no such animal.

I've friends of my kind who still weep for what shred of a mortal life they had and cling to whatever straw of the past they hold on to. Do you want immortality? Break a vampire's heart. We'll weep and hold on to your memory forever. We're pathetic like that. How else do you explain the drink? Mortal after mortal becomes father, mother, husband, wife, friend, lover in our arms until the light goes out of their eyes and it's nothing more than another body to bury. We're masters of fantasy. Stay with me long enough and I'll turn you into the love of my life that I could have held on to if only I'd tried hard enough to not be the monster that I am.

Don't flatter yourself into thinking that I'm speaking of being a vampire when I say that. Monsters have nothing to do with drinking or nighttime or graves. You want a monster? Look past this shell and try my black heart. Then go back a few hundred years and say hello to my father for me. The most mortal man that ever lived while still being more of a monster than most of my vampire friends put together.

Immortality doesn't change you. Bastard before, bastard after. It's all the same. If God damns us, that choice is made long before any vampire makes you one of us and it will stay the same long after. An eternity ahead of you makes your conscious too lazy to care. Given infinity, anything's possible. Monkeys could write Shakespeare, camels could pass through needles and I could get through the Gates of Heaven.

If God has a fault, it is that He is too caring. I've fallen under that trap too, you see. My life is Hell but it's still easier for me to believe that all of Creation is ruled by someone who knows what he's doing and somehow manages to care. What then? Pain is caused by Satan? Why not? Let's get that debate overwith right now before you ask me to tell you the meaning of life. If I knew that do you think I would still be here?

Ah, what do any of us want? What's the old joke? That we should only wish for simple things because then we will get them, yes? Right now I wish to talk with my father again. He's dead. Oh well. Another theory shot down the drain by the ravages of reality.

What to do instead? I could tell you tales. I could tell you all about my life as a child of the woods until my kind maker turned me into the creature you see now. And I could tell you all about the men and women I've loved.

My maker? He was my father, my lover, my rapist. Those I've loved? They all hate me. And all my life I've danced a dance which has led me right into the arms of a man who acts so much like my father I'm sure it's a reincarnation. If I ever lose him, I'm sure I'll find another. I always do. After all these years I've perfected my ability to look, even when I didn't know that's what I was looking for.

I know now, which is why he laughs. He knew all along. He raised me never to forget. He found an immortality in his children he never even dreamed of.

You've no idea how cold this life can be. No, that's a lie. You do. You know and that's why I am here. And why you are still here, reading these words. Better me than you. I know the rules. I always have. Goodness cannot exist if it does not have Evil to be compared to. I am your evil. Your darkness. Your every fear of shutting your eyes forever to find that there is nothing there.

I am your hero for living what you dare not. You love me because evil must be done and only I can do it. The shadows must have life and only I can live it. I live alone so that you may have friends. Yes, I know the rules.

I'm a hero then. A hero for being a villain. For never getting it right and never being quite sure what 'right' was in the first place. How was I to know? It's not as though he taught me. What a lovely paradox for life. Strength in ignorance and the nobility of raising your children to be obsessed with you.

What is there in the end? Me, of course. Someone has to keep the memories alive long after the words have vanished and even his dust has faded away. It's touching, it's romantic, it's annoying as all Hell but it's the so-called life I'm stuck with so I'm going with it. For how long? Forever of course. How do I know that? Because you now carry as much of me in you as I carry him in me. And as long as I have mortals to remember my name, I'll live until the end of time.

Next year I'm writing a book. I'm nothing if not efficient.