POTN 9

POETRY  |  FICTION EXCERPT

Kiss of the Black Angel

by Della Van Hise, art by Janet DuPuy

Have you come to a decision in this matter, Stefan?" he inquired in a voice so clear and beautiful it should have been the song of some mythical siren.

He was asking me to choose between life and death, yet all I could do was sit there listening to the clink of glasses and the din of meaningless conversation. At the table next to us, Batman and Robin were sharing an order of french fries, thick red catsup bleeding toward the center of the plate in a slow motion dance that was erotically obscene. At the lavish buffet, Captain Kirk and Mister Spock chatted about the "prejudicially Terran cuisine here at Starbase One" a the Vulcan popped a fat black grape in his mouth. In the lobby, hotel employees strained to maintain neutral expressions in the face of a 200 pound Catwoman and an overly boisterous Jean-Luc Picard whose skullcap was peeling away to reveal scraggly locks of burnt auburn.

My head spun from the wine. I was drunk on illusion. I was sick on grief.

And the creature sitting across the table just looked at me and smiled to reveal the most elegant set of teeth I’d ever seen. It was no make-up job worthy of the best Hollywood technicians, nor had this handsome blond waif undergone permanent dental alterations.

Looking at him now, it was as if I’d known him always, though we’d met less tan 24 hours before…

[][][][][][][][]

The 15^th Annual MystiCon was well underway, but I didn’t belong here among the role players and the storm troopers and the knights and ladies in their Arthurian finery. At the booth to the left of mine, an elderly lady with silver hair to her waist and one blind eye gave Tarot readings as dulcet tones of a celtic harp played in the background and sandalwood incense thickened the air. Across the aisle, t-shirts from a plethora of science fiction movies hung like colorful flags from a make-shift display. Not far away, a young knave in green sued hat reminiscent of Peter Pan extolled in grandiose tones the virtues of handmade swords he was selling, proudly proclaiming, "Guaranteed to sever the head of the nastiest dragon or your money back!"

It was chaos under some semblance of control but chaos nonetheless, and not entire plugged in to the reality most people would consider normal. So when I looked up to see a vampyre standing in front of me as if he’d appeared out of dusk’s own vapor, it never seemed particularly unusual…

…He arrived just after sunset, not long before the room was scheduled to close for the night, and stood there looking at the occult books, Star Trek momentos and movie posters, which were all that remained of my daughter. Her collection was her prize possession, and she would have wanted some other girl with sallow skin and dyed-black hair to garner the same fulfillment from her things that she’d had over the years…

…Ironically, had she been at the convention (or "con" as they’re called in such circles), she would’ve recognized young Demetri for what he was. She would have tugged on my arm and skirted behind me the way she did when she was a little girl, drawing me aside and whispering in my ear, "He’s a vampyre, Daddy. Don’t talk to him and don’t look in his eyes." I would’ve wanted to indulge her so much that I would’ve played along. I wouldn’t have replied when Demetri first spoke and I never would have known that he wore those mirrored Serengetti shades to conceal more than just his identity…