NINE/ƎИIИ 4. Thyme Guide to Vampires

VampireGuideOpen

The collection of journals and unpublished books provided extensive information on the occult, myths, and bits of history on the Itoril people, but precious little mentioned vampires. What there was on the subject primarily focused on certain Itoril claiming to be, or considered to be, vampires. Only the most careful reader would notice the author, Augustus Thyme, had deliberately avoided the subject.

However his final book, kept secret in a box, was devoted entirely to the topic of vampires. So much detail and insight, Nine began referring to the untitled tome as the Thyme Guide to Vampires.

After reading the introduction, Nine began to realize vampires were not what she had imagined. The creatures from popular movies and modern literature had more in common with the Itoril people than they did with the traits and abilities Augustus Thyme described. Where had her grandfather discovered this knowledge? The second chapter left Nine wondering if her grandfather had gone mad in his old age, and she was reading a work of fiction. In the third chapter things started making sense to her. She began to question her own sanity.

Something moved, and Nine looked up from the guide. She sat on her bed, back against the headboard and legs crossed at her ankles. Her favorite reading spot, dead quiet and the opposite end of the property from the funeral home. If anything disturbed her in her bedroom, it was the wind blowing the tree limbs outside her window or the chirping of a squirrel. The movement had come from the direction of her vanity, and the large mirror reflected the corner of the room where her little desk sat. Nothing stirred. Light spilled out the open doorway into the hall. It was as silent as the grave.

Nine had the strangest feeling that someone had been watching her. Father was out for the evening. A break-in would have triggered the alarm. The silence reassured Nine, and she turned her attention back on the guide.

The writing seemed more candid than earlier books written by Augustus Thyme. It felt as though her grandfather spoke directly to her. This comforted her even though the nature of the content put her on edge. The guide seemed to describe two distinctly different creatures, one that resembled an Itoril and another having more in common with a ghost than the vampire of legend. The creature could remain invisible from the untrained eye, walk through walls, or ignore the passage of time. The topic of drinking blood was given only a few short paragraphs and included mention of consuming memory and knowledge. The end of the third chapter posed questions:

Upon consuming enough blood and memory, could the vampire become its victim? Or was the consumed knowledge used for some other nefarious purpose?

Considering the possibility a loved one may actually be a vampire in disguise caused Nine to shudder, and she slammed the book closed. The clap startled her, and she bit down on her lip trying to hold onto the silence.

Augustus Thyme had always taken care with his research, and like his previous books, this guide included footnotes. Nine recognized references to his journals and two names of professors she recalled from another book. New in this guide were footnotes referencing expert witnesses, one by the name of Helen and another, Steve Reynolds. Nine knew of a woman named, Helen, a friend of Augustus whom had lived in a mansion atop the hill, and thought the two must be the same. As for Reynolds, that name was entirely new to her, one she would need to seek out.

Movement, Nine’s gaze snapped to the vanity. There was no mistaking it, something wriggled within the reflection at her desk.

Lurching off the bed, Nine stood over her desk. It was a small thing more suitable for a child, but she still kept the desk using it for storage. On it was a cup of water she had set down earlier, two of Augustus’s research journals, and her phone. No spider or other creepy-crawly that might have caught her eye that she could find. She tapped the phone, and the screen lit up revealing a text message notification from Peter Gray, the owner of Autumn Twilight restaurant where she had applied for a part-time position. That must have been it, she decided, a flash from the incoming message. Grabbing her phone, she took it over to her vanity and sat down in her chair.

Nine Thyme gazed at her reflection. Her flesh appeared paler than usual, a bit puffy beneath her eyes. Too much reading wore her out, and the content of her grandfather’s final book weighed on her.

A vampire remaining invisible to the untrained eye implied one could learn to see the hidden creature. Learning this secret would have to wait for another day. The questions at the end of the third chapter tickled her curiosity. Augustus Thyme wasn’t the type of writer to pose questions and then answer them in the next chapter. The questions were for the reader to answer and continue the work.

Ghosts, Nine could deal with. During her childhood, she had kept company with spectral friends in the graveyard. She had long since overcome the trepidation of phantoms seeing her undress or watching her bathe. But the thought of a creature consuming enough blood and memory to become its victim, the possibility that someone she knew was actually someone else—something else, chilled her to the very core.

Her reflection in the mirror grinned even though Nine felt too alarmed to smile. Touching her lips, she found she was indeed smiling, if only a little. She supposed there was something worth smiling about. For the first time in years, she felt reconnected with her grandfather, and the chance to continue his work lifted her spirits.


Choose your path in Venom. You may continue Nine's side, or cross over (return to) Peter's chapter.

NINE/ƎИIИ 3. Death Certificate

How far could a ninety-four year-old man get on a cane and with some pocket change?

That was the question Nine Thyme often asked herself when she sat down in the library to read one of her grandfather’s journals. There was a great deal on the occult, both myth and historical fact. Augustus Thyme had interviewed numerous experts and researched old books from different parts of the world. Besides recounting interviews, the journals contained notes separating fact from fiction. And on vampires. Some of the scribbled notes in the corners of the pages could be interpreted as the ravings of a madman with an unhealthy interest in vampires.

Nine had read all of her grandfather’s journals and his three unpublished books. She had read them for research. Now sitting in the leather chair in the light of an antique lamp, she searched for clues that might lead to where Augustus Thyme had disappeared to seven years ago with only a cane and the clothes on his back. It wasn’t her first time digging for clues, and likely not her last. She would search until she had an answer.

This was more of a sentimental dig. Today was Augustus’s one-hundred-and-first birthday. None of the Thyme men had ever married young putting generation gaps at over forty years. Eighty years separated the births of Nine and Augustus, and that was only because Samuel had married young for a Thyme at the age of thirty-six. Nine considered herself fortunate to have so many memories of her grandfather like the day they spent together on her sixteenth birthday, him retelling the story about how her father had gone missing as a child, and how Augustus had recovered the boy from an ancestor.

A living ancestor from several generations ago. Thyme generations.

Nine need not bother with the arithmetic. Old Thyme was ancient by any count.

It was a story her father had never believed. Someone had scared the shit out of old Augustus and drove him mad. Cruel, but as her father always pointed out, it was the sixties and people were really messed up in those days.

The door popped open, and Nine’s father strode in. He set a wood box down on the table beside Nine. After taking the chair on the other side of the table, he placed an envelope on the box.

Nine didn’t need to open the letter. The official seal told her it was Augustus Thyme’s death certificate. She set the letter aside and opened the box. Inside she found a leather-bound book. On top were two envelopes, one with Samuel’s name and the other with hers, both in Augustus’s handwriting. She set her father’s letter on the table and set the other in her lap.

“We’ll have a ceremony,” said Samuel.

Nine nodded. There was the family section near the top of the graveyard where two generations of Thyme men, four generations of Thyme women, rested peacefully. She already had a design prepared for the stone which would go beside the stone marking the grave of the old man’s bride.

“I just want you to know it was my idea,” said Samuel. He nodded and scratched his balding head. “Your inheritance. The old man left everything to you.”

“What?” Nine couldn’t believe her grandfather would pass over his son. The Thyme Funeral Home had been with the men for three generations, four counting Samuel.

He shook his head and smiled. “I was never good with the business end. You get that from your mother.”

It made sense. Her father had made a habit of hiding in the mortuary while her mother had met with the clients up until a car accident took her mother away. Since the age of ten, Nine had been working the books, setting schedules, and these last few years, running the services.

Opening her grandfather’s letter, she found a brief message and the answer she had been looking for these last seven years.

Augustus had unlocked the Thyme family secret and recorded it all in the leather-bound book found inside the box. As for his late afternoon walk seven years ago, he had left to join his ancestor in trade for more time. He had bought his granddaughter nine more years before the original Thyme would come for her.

How far could an elderly man travel with a cane and some cash in his pocket? As far as he damn well must go to protect his family. Protection from what, though? What did their ancient ancestor want? Eager to learn more, Nine picked up the book and opened it to the first page where she found a handwritten scrawl:

Nine Thyme, the perfect child, may this book guide you and keep you from evil.

VampireGuide

NINE/ƎИIИ 2. Crematorium Burn

Vampire Thyme FieryFog

Blazing heat poured into the hall. The two occupants didn’t mind, though, waiting quietly within their cramped boxes for their turn. The dead never argued.

Lamia complained, cursing as she cleared the retort. It wasn’t the heat that bothered her, though. According to her half-spoken words, her sensitive nose found the smell most disagreeable. Nine couldn’t help but laugh as she fetched the empty gurney pulling it into the hall. Glancing over shoulder, Lamia flashed a cruel look then burst out laughing.

Autumn was the busiest season at Thyme Funeral Home second only to May, for reasons Nine could never quite wrap her head around. Suicides were highest during the rainy winter months, but death came most often in Autumn and Spring. At least it did in Roseland. Nine often wondered if funeral services in other cities enjoyed busy seasonal periods. Whatever the reasons, the family funeral home required extra help during these periods, and that was when Lamia worked evenings and weekends.

A busy week actually worked out well as the old retort required a great deal of warm-up time. The trade-off was having to clean out and prepare the retort for the next cremation without letting it cool down all the way first. And at nearly two hours per burn, three cremations resulted in a long day. Occasionally a family member wished to view the cremation, in which the Thyme’s always processed individually with the crematorium and hall kept perfectly clean and tidy. No loved one requested a viewing this week, thankfully, allowing them to prepare the caskets and park them out of the way in the hall. As Lamia liked to say, box ‘em and burn ‘em.

Lamia had begun her part-time seasonal employment when Nine was a young girl. At that early age, Nine had trouble pronouncing Lamia’s true name, and instead had taken to repeating her grandfather. The old man had jokingly called the seasonal employee Lamia on account of the woman’s sharp teeth. The name stuck like a nail in a coffin, and to this day, Nine still couldn’t recall the woman’s given name.

A vampire, the seasonal helper was not. That much Nine had understood since as far back as she could remember. Lamia’s people called themselves Itoril, named for some warrior back in the day long before anyone considered writing the Bible. The Itoril people didn’t exactly live in secret, but they were good at smiling closed-lip for family photos and appearing cool wearing sunglasses at night. Hell, a few of them had become mayors or movie stars, their unusual traits seldom noticed by humans. Except for sharp teeth and nearly iridescent eyes, Itoril appeared like everyone else. Lamia kept to herself, not to hide her vampire-like fangs, but because she wasn’t sociable.

“I thought Sam was working tonight,” said Lamia. She began emptying the contents of the catch each into a tin receptacle.

Nine shook her head. Her father seemed more distant lately, and she hadn’t been keeping track of him much. The extra work kept her busy, so she didn’t mind her father’s absence.

A buzzer snapped Nine from her thoughts, and she jerked around. There were no deliveries scheduled, and at the late hour, it had to be Diego with a drop-off. Diego’s special deliveries were rare, four to eight per year, but seemed to have picked up lately. This would make the second in a week, and that had Nine mildly concerned.

Popping open the double doors revealed Diego pulling a stretcher from the ambulance. The EMT spoke his greeting in a voice far too cheerful for the bleak evening. The back parking lot was dark and dreary, a cold mist soaking the leaves to the pavement. Diego always appeared cheerful no matter the weather. Nine hated the cold, and frowned.

The deliveries usually arrived in black zippered bags, but this body lay open on the stretcher dressed in blue jeans, a white shirt, and leather bomber jacket. Diego’s smile was business as usual, so Nine grabbed the foot end of the stretcher while Diego pushed at the head. From this angle, Nine could easily see the fangs within the gaping mouth.

She guided the stretcher down the narrow hall and into the mortuary. There, Diego helped her lift the body onto a steel gurney. The EMT went straight for the pockets and discovered a wallet containing cash which he dumped onto the body’s chest. Nine snatched up a pair of twenties and held one out for Lamia. Finders-keepers was the primary rule for shady work, but Diego always insisted on sharing. As far as the night delivery guy was concerned, none of them were paid well enough. The body disposal arrangement that had started with Grandpa Augustus hadn’t kept up with inflation, or the obedient son, Samuel, wasn’t as good with re-negotiating terms. Nine didn’t care to know the details. Rising property taxes threatened the business, and the share-the-spoils agreement with Diego helped out. This poor Itoril trash didn’t have much on him, but no one complained. Not vocally, anyway.

The snarl on Lamia’s face could have scared the piss out of a young boy. She started poking at the body searching for anything the EMT might have missed before setting her cruel gaze on the delivery man. She didn’t trust an everlasting grin.

“All yours ladies,” said Diego. He tapped two fingers to his forehead and waved goodbye all the while smiling like he held the best damn job on Earth. He even whistled a snappy tune as he pushed his stretcher out the receiving doors.

Something else had captured Lamia’s attention. Head lowered, she appeared to be sniffing the corpse. Doubting the woman could smell gold, Nine took a closer look at their arrival. Lamia uncovered a pair of bullet wounds, one just below the collar bone and another in the gut.

Lamia whispered an unrepeatable word and tugged the gurney into the hall banging into a cardboard casket waiting on a gurney. Urgency spread over Lamia’s face like wildfire, and she gave a hard tug dragging the other gurney scraping against the wall.

Rushing over, Nine grabbed the tail end, straightening the gurney out, and helped push it into the crematorium. Lamia moved in a hurry, and Nine not wanting to anger the woman with questions, took the other side of the corpse. Together they lifted the body into the chamber. As Nine pushed the arm over the chest, the hand grabbed hers.

Nine shrieked, and jumped back.

Heart pounding, she glanced at Lamia and pointed at the body. She started to speak, lost her breath, and took in a gulp of air instead. Lamia finished settling the body in place and opened the retort door.

Finding her voice, Nine spoke at last. “He’s not dead!”

It was too late. Door closed, Lamia pulled the lever. The furnace blazed, and the room turned orange. Along with the rolling waves of heat, cries of agony escaped the inferno.

Held captive by horror, Nine stared at the retort door. Suddenly, the screaming ended.

Crackling sounds filled the room.

Lamia grinned with cruel satisfaction. The woman enjoyed watching her own kind burn, but Nine had never witnessed anything so terrifying.

Light headed, Nine sat down on the floor. Her insides burned hot, but nothing came out. They had murdered a man. An Itoril man, but a man just the same.

Lamia knelt down on one knee. “Common, Nine-girl. It had to be done.”

Jaw dropping open in shock, Nine slowly shook her head. She had never. She would never. Disposing of bodies was one thing, but murder was the job for some nameless person. The killer out there. Not here.

“They pay us to burn ‘em,” said Lamia.

“Oh God,” said Nine. She hid her face in her hands. “They’re supposed to be dead already.”

“We burn ‘em, Nine. No questions. And we burn ‘em good.”

Lamia smiled in a comforting manner that to Nine felt all kinds of wrong.

“Get used to it, Nine-girl. We’re damn-awful bad folk, and someday it will be our turn to burn for all we’ve done.”

NINE/ƎИIИ 1. Sepulcher Reflections

Welcome to Nine Thyme's side in Venom. Reading the prelude, Old Thyme, is optional.

Thank you, and enjoy!


Death gazed out the window. Fog clouded the bottom half, the kiss of a ghost, where the glass bulged flowing over the bronze frame and onto the stone sill. Like melted clear wax, the window had nearly drained free of the top leaving a tiny gap within the frame. On quiet evenings, one could hear the dead whispering their secrets carried on the dusty breath escaping through slender opening in the glass.

As a child, Nine Thyme had spent many evenings peering through the old window at the dark shapes held within. Who would install a window on a sepulcher? Much like when she was very young, the window still captured her imagination. Her grandfather, Augustus, had often teased Nine telling her stories about the woman and child climbing out of their sarcophagi at night to gaze out the window. On several occasions she had waited for the sun to set over the cemetery to see if anyone actually came to the window. Only the ghostly kiss on the glass ever arrived at night.

The graveyard on the hillside was home to several of Nine’s childhood friends. Beatrix, an adolescent taken by influenza during the Great Depression, enjoyed talking about boys and playing chess. Beatrix had a simple stone marker, and Nine had on many occasions set the chessboard on the marker and learned about chess while discussing boys. Sometimes Douglass would sit nearby. He had been a hunter, accidentally shot by his brother. Douglass could explain everything about animals, and much about human behavior, too, but he never understood chess. He’d sometimes quietly watch Nine and Beatrix play until boredom carried him to sleep. Nine hadn’t spoken to Beatrix, Douglass, or any of her other childhood companions since her early teens. The ghosts had abandoned her years ago.

Looking into the window, through her reflection before the orange sky over the trees behind her, Nine searched the darkness within. She imagined a grieving man standing on the very same spot solemnly gazing in at his wife and young daughter. Instead of a door, the man had set a window into the tomb so he could watch his loved ones without disturbing their rest. Nine could make out the plaque on each sarcophagus, but she couldn’t read the inscriptions. The two women remained nameless, but not forgotten. According to Augustus Thyme, the girl inside was his father’s older sister, the graveyard’s very first resident.

In all her many visits, Nine’s ancestors had never spoken to her. She wished, just once, the ghosts within would come to the window and look out at her.

Nine pressed her finger against the clouded glass meeting her reflection’s cool touch. Slowly, she wrote her name backward so the sepulcher’s inhabitants could read it. Looking up, she met the gaze of her reflection appearing like a ghost looking back at her. As light faded in the sky, darkness consumed the tomb’s inhabitants leaving Nine looking at her shadowy reflection. Down at the bottom of the window, before her name written backward in the fog, she found a response echoing her message.

NINE/ƎИIИ

Old Thyme 15. Thyme for Samuel

Fog rolled through the parking lot. Within the murk, red splashed the airborne droplets. A flash, and another, slicing between trees, each pass of the strobe spraying a red mist, the dragon’s steaming blood rolling on the currents, disappearing into her frothy breath.

At the end of the walk, fog rolled into itself, swirling back against the breeze, and darkened into smoke. A moist boot-print stepped onto the walk. Another, a long stride carried the smoking fog closer. Stepping through the veil, a dark figure arrived, his step expending a dark cloud dissipating into the air.

Frozen, Augustus watched his visitor glide closer. With the streetlamp behind, shadow hid most of the cowboy’s features. And smoke. Writhing inky smoke seemed to rise from him. Squinting, Augustus searched for details. Not smoke, soot maybe. Each step shook soot free from the demon. The dark stuff even rose from the wide-brimmed cowboy hat. Recognizing the long strands of fine hair hanging over shoulders, Augustus realized this was the same creature that had been sitting in the chapel.

Cloaked in darkness, the patriarch of the family, Vampire Thyme, approached.

Trembling, Augustus raised the hefty Peacemaker.

"Vampire Thyme"

Stopping at the head of the corpse on the walk, the vampire gazed down at the mess.

Summoning his will, Augustus forced himself to look upon the vampire. Red-orange dust covered the hat and long coat, a rancher’s duster in tatters, and open revealing a big gun belt hanging low from the waist. The vampire appeared as if he had been wearing the same clothes for a century.

“A poor excuse of an Itoril,” said the vampire. He spoke under his breath, barely audible, clear and precise.

Arm shaking with the weight of the gun, Augustus lowered the weapon.

When the vampire looked up, Augustus dared to peer into the shadows beneath the hat. The narrow face, a dark shape against the lit fog. Irises like shards of stained glass, the fires of Hell blazing behind them, the vampire’s eyes held Augustus transfixed by beauty clashed with terror.

“I hadn’t anticipated the events leading to this night, Augustus,” said Vampire Thyme. “For that, I apologize. Still, we must deal with the hand dealt.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in, and even then Augustus fought to respond. He tore his gaze away from those terrible eyes and looked down at the body. “I want my son,” he demanded.

“The child is as much my son as he is yours, Augustus. Samuel is the result of years of careful selection.”

“Breeding?” Augustus didn’t want to believe it, but it made sense. Susan had been delivered to him in an arranged marriage. Had it been dark deals and social manipulation?

“Augustus,” said Vampire Thyme. His voice took on a deliberate, careful tone. “Have you ever asked yourself why you, like your father, are the custodian of death? It’s in your blood, my son.”

Augustus winced inside, and he fought hard to keep his face from expressing the hurt nerve. Generations of manipulation, lifestyle and dreams carefully constructed through breeding and social engineering. He loved his job, his home, and his family. Perhaps not by blood, but Vampire Thyme was family. The first Thyme. However, he couldn’t fathom the purpose of the selective breeding.

“Finish this, Augustus. End this creature’s suffering.”

“No!” Finding his strength, he shook his head. “I can’t go to prison. The bartender holds the evidence. This story hides my transgression back at the tavern.”

The bartender spit blood. Somehow with a big hole in the top of his head, the Itoril person was still alive. There would be no story if the bartender walked away!

Vampire Thyme held out a slender broadsword, an antique from the sixteenth-century Renaissance.

Augustus squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Having been warned and offered a large calibre handgun to take down the Itoril bartender, he was already deep in debt with the vampire, and yet Old Thyme wanted more.

In the distance, somewhere down the hillside, a siren cried out. No doubt, he thought, Sergeant Wilcox had radioed for backup upon finding the suspicious camper.

“I’ll return Samuel if you agree to my offer.”

Augustus winced at thought of another deal.

“Twice annually, deliver to me a harvest of Itoril venom,” said the vampire. “First harvest tonight with my instruction. Fail two harvests in any calendar year, and forfeit your next child.”

Holding the Peacemaker out handle-first in one hand, Augustus took the sword in the other. Vampire Thyme slipped the big revolver into a holster and waited quietly while the middle-aged mortician stared glumly at the Itoril slowly regaining conscience on the ground. With two chops, Augustus removed the head from the Itoril sealing the deal in blood.

~ * ~

Months later, after the case of the murdered men from Bend had closed—the missing owner of Pine Mountain Tavern found guilty—did young Samuel Thyme return home at last. A caretaker delivered the child into Augustus’s arms. Samuel met his father with a beaming smile, the sort of grin that melts the worries of the world away.

Over the years, the bargain proved challenging. Besides being difficult to harvest, Itoril venom was very rare. The devil only offered deals in his favor. Along with the rest of the inheritance, the debt would become the terrible burden for another Thyme.


Thank you for reading Venom Old Thyme. You may continue with NINE/ƎИIИ, start with Peter's side of the story in Kandy-4-Peter, or follow me in Time Wraith. See the Venom Table of Contents page to choose your path.