Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation by M. R. Sellars Page A

isn’t the point,” I
replied. “Be serious. You know as well as I do vampires don’t
exist. Metaphorical vampires, as in people who prey on others, yes…
I’ll even give you psychic vampires because I’ve actually dealt
with a couple of them myself… But, even then it’s still a
metaphorical term. In the literal Count Dracula, undead, blood
sucking sense of the word, they simply don’t exist.”
    He held up his free hand and shook his index
finger as he narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, but what about the wingnuts
that think they’re vampires?”
    “That’s a whole bizarre subculture in and of
itself, and I really don’t know what to tell you there. It’s
definitely not my thing.”
    “Okay, just wonderin’. They touched on some
stuff about ‘em in a seminar I was at last year. The brainiac
givin’ the lecture said there was a crossover with Pagans and the
occult and all that jazz, so I thought ya’ might know
somethin’.”
    “Paganism in general attracts all sorts of
people, and it definitely gets its share of the Goth crowd, so it
wouldn’t surprise me to get some of them as well. But as to the
vampire types, I’m pretty sure the operative phrase there is think they are , Ben. Because that’s all it is. They aren’t
really vampires.”
    “You don’t want to say that to them,” a
familiar voice offered.
    We both looked up to see our waitress as she
was sliding a plate of biscuits smothered in gravy onto the table
next to me.
    I shook my head and apologized, “Sorry,
Wendy. I didn’t realize I was being that loud.”
    “You weren’t. I’ve got really good hearing,”
she said then pointed to the lunch counter a few feet away.
“Besides, I was just right over there.”
    Ben waved his fork absently. “So you actually
know somethin’ about these freaks?”
    “A little.” She shrugged. “Not a lot. I mean,
it’s way too weird for me, but someone a friend of mine knows is
heavily into the whole scene.”
    “You serious?”
    “Yeah,” she said with a nod.
    “So this person actually thinks…” he began as
he settled the fork on his plate then reached over to his jacket
and rummaged around for his notebook.
    Reading the unspoken question in his hesitant
pause, Wendy answered, “She.”
    “Thanks… So she thinks she’s a vampire?” he
finished.
    “Yeah,” she said with a nod. “And, she’s
pretty serious about it too. The first time I met her she was
really offended that I thought she was joking.”
    “So, what, she just walked up and said, ‘Hi,
I’m a vampire’?”
    “Not right away, or in those exact words, but
yeah, it was almost something like that. She brought it up while we
were chatting. She told me she was ‘out of the coffin’ and just
went from there.”
    “Out of the…” Ben muttered and shook his head
as he scribbled. “Jeezus, you gotta be kiddin’ me.”
    “That’s apparently what they call it,” Wendy
told him. “You know, like out of the closet.”
    “Yeah, I get it,” he replied. “I just… never
mind… So she just up and told you she was a vampire?”
    She continued, “Yeah. She called herself a sang vamp .”
    “So she’s what,” he chuckled. “A singin’
vampire?”
    She gave him a half shrug. “Actually, I guess
so. She does sing with an all-girl industrial metal band. But the
way I understood her explanation, the sang has something to
do with blood.”
    “It’s probably verbal shorthand for the word
sanguine, then,” I offered. “Bloody, or having to do with blood is
one of its definitions.”
    Ben glanced at me and nodded then turned back
to the waitress. “Hell, Wendy, sounds like you shoulda been givin’
that lecture… So are ya’ sure it ain’t just all part of her act for
the band or somethin’?”
    Wendy shrugged again. “I don’t know. I guess
it could be. She definitely dresses the part. You know, the
heavy-duty Goth chick look. But, she claimed she actually drinks
blood.”
    He harrumphed. “Not exactly shy about