The Blood Magic Bible

Chapter Notes: Ruler Ch. 45 - Keel as a serial killer

There's a bit of dialogue spoken by Mills in this chapter:

"We're from different worlds, Keel, and lately I seem to be constantly reminded of just how different and I don't know what to do with that. Up here, you'd be considered an abusive asshole, not just a murderer, but a serial killer. That's the world I come from; normal people don't hurt other people and enjoy it. Girls like me are supposed to run from guys like you. But in your world, everyone thinks you're practically a saint in your restraint."

This is something I've wanted to include in a vampire story since I started writing vampire stories.

Now, I love bloodsucker books - scary vampires, romantic vampires, literary vampires, all vampires - but one thing that has always bothered me, especially with the romances, is how quick the human women in these books often are to fawn over the vamps, as if no one would have a deep moral problem with being with someone who is essentially a serial killer and continues to be a serial killer. (Yes, yes, I know Lucia is 100% right that we can't really talk about the Nosferatu with terms created for human deviance but still...)

I personally would have a hard time living with someone I knew took lives for pleasure and this is part of the reason I've made Mills' struggle so difficult and excruciatingly drawn out in this book, because she is really is being asked to give up something that's a fundamental building block of who she is when she's asked to live with violent murder and in a look-the-other-way sense be complicit with it.