Vampires and Zombies (and Werewolves and some other stuff)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1, A lovely cemetery

Ernest, September 30

It really was a lovely cemetery. A beautiful mixture of age, marble, and Gaelic crosses, along with the overcast sky, made the vivid green of the grass stand out. An old tree, bare, for it was winter, and bleached white stood out against the greyness of the late day as well. It was not quite twilight, but almost. I hate traveling by day, but other creatures are not as particular about times of day as vampires are, and one of those creatures, a banshee, was our target today. According to my research, banshees helped to predict the deaths of members of prominent Irish families. I had hoped, in vain, that perhaps her abilities would translate to curing the current problems of the world, or if not, that she could put me in touch with some other sort of death spirit that could. I jumped up onto a particularly tall Gaelic cross and perched there, crouching down, my hands resting on the top of the cross and my knees jutting out at an angle, like some sort of gargoyle, though much more handsome.

Albert looked up at me and shouted, "Oy! Get offer thar, varmint! It's powerful disrespectful!" I smiled. I loved Albert, silly outfits and attempts to mix the slang of the Old West with his South London accent and outdated notions of proper decorum and all. He and I grew up together as humans, well, I was human; he's always been what he is, a werewolf. They have the ability to procreate in the natural fashion. Werewolves have long been indentured to my kind. A horrible system, really, and I was doing what I could to change it, before everything else went to hell. I told Albert centuries ago that he need not to serve or care for me, but we grew up together. This is done purposefully, a bit of a psychological trick to condition a bond between servant and master. I feel horribly guilty about it, but he has assured me many times that his feelings for me are genuine, rather than a simple product of our shared childhoods, and indeed, if he really wanted to be rid of me, he has had his share of chances. He was the one, after all, that found me when after I attempted to kill myself and brought my father to me to bring me over into the blood. It would have been all too easy to leave me to bleed to death and no one would have held him culpable. Indeed, the only one angry with him for some time was myself at his interference towards my retreat from the world.

That is not a fond memory. I previously recorded it in my old diaries, of course, but those have been destroyed, upon us fleeing to the North. Albert has been at me to restart, but I haven't had the heart, but I know that I need to chronicle our current bout of adventures as our trials and errors in solving this problem may be quite significant in the future. I would love to just start in media res, as well, but a recounting of those old memories may do me some good, according to Albert.

Unlike Albert, whose kind inherits their abilities and reproduces and eventually, and unfortunately, age and die, my kind are immortal, barring us idiotically causing ourselves to go extinct by this latest fiasco, of course. Those of us in England, who love our little aristocracies and rituals, have made the reproduction and coming into the blood ridiculous and ceremonial and oh so very delightfully British. The eldest son of a family (usually two or more are produced) will be turned by their father, who was turned by his father once the family well established, and thus, the immortal and mortal side continue on, with the mortal side inheriting and passing down the land and wealth without suspicion of the locals. I know, that is preposterous and entirely unnecessary, and of course, the tradition died with me. It also has a rather homogenous effect on the vampires in England of the misogynistic variety. Our ruling council and most of the population of British vampires is entirely male, due to these practices. There are a few females, mostly of lower class. It is an abominable practice and I had every intention of it ending with me in my family, as I planned to turn both my son and my wife when the time was right. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.