The Crimson Crimes (A Vampire Revenge)

By Patricia K. McCarthy

What Could Possibly Happen Next? Does a curfew have the power to shut down a kitchen party? Does a time dream-machine hold the answer? It’s the dead of night in the dead of winter and bodies have been found, stacked ceiling high, in a hillside cave. The press, police and public have whipped each other into a panic over someone called “The Vampire Undertaker”. Samuel and Magdalene Crimson (along with the Irish Coffey boys, Auntie Aileen and David Three Rats) have all the time in the world for danger, free-flowing beer and rum. Their daring attempts to right a wrong are well-seasoned with smutty bits - every good plot deserves a little pepper.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia K. McCarthy
• Release date: Apr 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9780986702556

Patricia K. McCarthy

Patricia K McCarthy is the Canadian author of the wildly imaginative Crimson vampire series, presently consisting of six (6) novels: The Crimson Man, The Crimson Boy, The Crimson Woman, The Crimson Time, The Crimson Crimes and The Crimson Dream. Each novel can be devoured as a standalone story, read in sequential order, or consumed in whatever order your heart desires. Patricia has also authored three collections of erotic poetry, as well as numerous short stories. Her work has appeared in publications in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Her Crimson vampire series has been described as sensual, romantic thrillers with mature language. You have likely not encountered vampire novels as unpredictable as Patricia's Crimson series.

Book preview

Foreword

The adventures continue and I feel like part of the family as I follow along with the Crimson clan and their rag-tag friends through a well-known Ottawa neighbourhood — one I won't likely visit in the dark ever again. And not in daylight either without, well, calling ahead first: for bodyguards, protection dogs, and maybe a few bags of garlic, a cross or two, a stake . . . Oh, wait. Garlic doesn't work. That's a big ol' myth. And it's also a big ol' myth, too, that Vampires can't come out in the daytime. The Crimson Series is a unique — and marvellous — take on the Fanged Ones. Patricia K. McCarthy's abilities as a writer have drawn the Crimson family so well, they make Drac look like a weenie. And speaking of weenies, we see plenty of those. This series is not for the kiddies. It is wonderful! While reading it, I found myself giggling and saying Ooh. How horrid! I love it. I love it. I love it.

I cannot say I take a pernicious delight in shocking people. That would be a fib, but it seems I've always ended up doing it through my stories anyway. It's comforting to have learned, through my reading of the Crimson series, that someone exists who can take the heat off. And do a much better job of it than I ever could. Patricia K. McCarthy shocks, delights, terrifies, intrigues, titillates, and addicts with her everyday characters doing extraordinary things.

Brava.

Christina Crowe

author of A Girl Dog's Breakfast, scary stories and rude poems

[e-mail]

Part I

1

NAKED WOMEN CLUNG TO THE steamy warmth of his body. His lips and fingertips were smeared with the drops that oozed from their punctured necks. The smell of wet blood drenched the air and still the women kept coming. In an orgy of breasts and bums and in fissures of fluid-soaked flesh, sensual pleasures thrived and writhed. Their eager spirits flocked to him, frantic to worship a man who embodied eternal darkness. Before slaking his thirst for blood, he had made tender love to each in turn, caressing and kissing their olive skins by the glow of torchlight. Young and mature women alike languished inside the cave that pierced the base of an extinct volcano in Spain; its bulging mountain towered over the barren plain, miles from any town. One after another, women pleaded to be consumed by him, convinced their journey to the afterlife would be nothing less than wondrous.

Outside the cave, the stench of fires choked the sky and blackened the sun. Embers fell away from burning crosses haphazardly stuck in the mountainside. A terrified crowd prayed to the Lord Almighty to be saved from the diabolical creature hiding within.

And still, the women kept coming.

Samuel Crimson, slick with sweat, dreamt of his late father, Sir William Simon Hennessy as he had lived in the year of One Thousand and Seventy-Nine. He was disgusted by his father's murderous lechery — loving women before draining them. Samuel felt the thrill of his father's charisma but as the dreamer, he could only watch and do nothing. The precious gemstones of emerald, ruby, and sapphire, bequeathed to Samuel by his father, allowed him to travel back and forth in time. It was a rare opportunity for Samuel to witness first-hand how his father had operated. Sir William Simon Hennessy had never asked to be made into a vampire. After fighting for years and barely surviving the First Crusade, he wanted only to return to his Scottish homeland and find a redheaded village girl to marry.

Magdalene Crimson rested her hand on her husband's beating heart while he dreamt. In her mind's eye, she saw the vivid images of her predecessor, Sir William Simon Hennessy. She did not recoil from the killings as had her husband. Rather, she well understood Sir William's craving for fresh blood. The spectacular taste of blood was as refined as the highest quality of red wine she had ever tasted. Blood was also her food of survival, for like her late father-in-law, she, too, had been transformed from human to vampire. The gift of superiority, to live as the one true vampire on Earth began in the Middle Ages. In the eleventh century, Petrabella first transformed William, who, after receiving his knighthood in the eighteenth century, pledged to create a new hybrid race by biting pregnant women in their ninth month. Throughout the world, many sons had been born. Almost all died in their first year. Only a small handful, like Samuel, survived as hybrid human-vampires.

After reigning supreme for over nine hundred years, Sir William succeeded in his quest: Finn, the first offspring from a hybrid vampire and human woman, was created by Samuel and Magdalene. Sir William then marked the dawn of the twenty-first century by choosing Magdalene to become the next vampire to rule supreme.

Neither Samuel nor Magdalene knew what to expect from the dreaming stones. They followed his father's strange instructions to the letter, to place the stones in the precise order — emerald, ruby, sapphire — into the ancient wooden holder positioned above Samuel on the bed's headboard, and for Samuel to take 350 milligrams of magnesium citrate and 50 milligrams of vitamin B6 before he slept.

Magdalene could never experience the dreaming stones, for she did not sleep and would therefore never dream. She was always wide awake, through every minute of every hour of every day and night, not having had one wink of sleep since the day she had been transformed from human to vampire. In the morning, she saw to Finn's needs promptly, often taking extra time to watch her husband, son and aunt sleep.

Samuel, on the other hand, slept and vividly dreamt and despite having no previous experience with the stones, was determined to be the first to time travel within a dream since his father.

The dream toyed with his peace; Samuel's hands clenched into fists. His eyes fluttered under closed lids, watching the dreadful scene of lust, blood and death. Magdalene sensed, while remaining connected to her husband, that he was terribly upset. They were not alone in their modest home in Sandy Hill. Oblivious, their son Finn W.S.H.S. Crimson slept in the next room like only a baby could. And standing at the foot of Samuel's bed were his loyal weed runners, Kevin and Derek Coffey, two brothers and partners in crime; Aunt Aileen, Magdalene's last remaining maternal relative; and lastly, David Three Rats, a new friend who had snapped Ottawa's graffiti art before being welcomed into the exclusive Crimson world, and who happily accepted the burden of responsibility of recording Samuel's first time-dream.

Do you think he's having a nightmare? asked Kevin to Magdalene.

Possibly, replied Magdalene, without revealing to Kevin that one of her special vampire abilities allowed her to see in her mind the dreams of those she touched.

Can you see what he's seeing? probed Kevin.

Faintly, lied Magdalene, like seeing the invisible.

Wicked, said Derek.

The devil can't be far off now, child, commented Aunt Aileen.

David Three Rats laughed. Auntie! Of course you believe in God, my dear. You are a realist who acknowledges that life has greater meaning with purposeful spirituality— not religion, mind you — but bona fide spirituality in the purest emotional sense. That of feeling and being connected with the Universe, which is God of course. And therefore, a belief in God, logically and naturally, would propel you to consider the presence of the Devil.

That's quite a mouthful from a taker of doodle-pictures, scoffed Aunt Aileen, because only idiots don't believe in God. But I tell you this much, Mister Three Rats, all of this vampire business will bring nothing but a snootful of trouble to the whole lot of us.

Trouble is my middle name.

I can't wait until V-man wakes up so he can tell us what went down in the time-dream, said Kevin. And then, man, I'm going to ask V-man to let me take the next ride.

Kevin's younger brother, Derek, was a simple man of few words, noted for his penchant for unabated smoking of the herbal treat variety and somehow being able to conduct himself lucidly despite spending every waking hour of each day in a foggy haze.

Man, said Derek, I dunno if V-man will talk. You know what I'm saying, man? He said diddly-squat about what went down at the station when those oinkers picked him up last week, so like why would he talk about his dream?

It's good that we're here to support Maggie, countered Kevin. Because if V-man wakes up in a rage, we'll be able to hold him in place.

Magdalene nodded in agreement to Kevin's demonstration of loyalty to her husband. She knew Kevin and Derek's banter could not possibly wake up Samuel who naturally slept heavy, rarely waking, not even to soothe his crying infant son in the early morning. The dreaming stones worried Magdalene. Would Samuel go back in time to the fateful day of her transformation? And if he could go back to that precise moment, would he witness exactly what went on between his wife and his father in his father's last rite of passage as a dying vampire?

Samuel rolled over from his side to his drenched back and farted, to which the group broke up laughing. He had laid his head down on the pillow late at night, after midnight, and had known that sleep would come to him quickly as it always did, although deep within, he feared entering into the same fitful dream he had endured each night of his life: the burning crosses atop the hill and him nailed to a cross while women and children died around him. The intense dream that visited him with regularity had plagued his sleep for years. It was only the reappearance of his father two years prior that had caused his dream to change for the first time in his life.

Auntie gripped the handle of her coffee mug, filled to the brim with strong tea laced with several shots of potent dark rum, and brought it to her lips, taking a healthy sip. As much as she fretted for her niece Magdalene and her nephew-in-law Samuel, she hid her truest concern for the little boy Finn, appreciating that his parents were vampires, one fully-fledged and one hybrid. The time of freedom for them would soon end and the walls of incarceration were closing around. Eventually, the Crimsons would have to flee Ottawa to avoid the publicity of Magdalene's being captured as the city's first serial killer, dubbed The Vampire Undertaker by the local press when dead bodies turned up having been drained of all blood. Auntie believed it from her toes to the tippie-top of her head that her niece and nephew-in-law could not escape the awful truth of their identities. Just like the Newfoundland fishermen for whom she served breaded fiddleheads and squid on stormy days when the lads and her husband returned home from sea, the long tales would be exposed for their truths, spilling out of the rum bottle regardless of how tight the cork had been rammed into the neck.

Auntie completed the Sign of the Cross over her chest as an unconscious habit to provide whatever protection she could for her family.

His dream must be a frightful one, child, said Auntie. Look how his feet are moving and his hands are opening and closing into a fist. You'd think the poor boy was getting ready to brawl.

Emotion, memory and time folded into metaphysical reality, twisting and turning Samuel's perceptions, igniting electric charges in his medial temporal lobes. The gemstones provided the conduit through which the energies of each state of existence became fused. Intense emotions felt by the dreamer pulled the mind toward that period of time, allowed memory to cross back and forth between both hemispheres, and rested in the corrugated outer layers of his neocortex. Samuel's torrid dream reached backward. It connected to his father's past in the cave with naked women and the mountainside spotted with burning crosses. He so detested his father.

Each dreamer never knew what time period would be traveled to or what event would be witnessed. But as surely as the dream soaked the body in perspiration, the gemstones' power shook the sleeping mind in the grip of floating time.

The depth of Samuel's hatred and begrudging respect for his father first took him to the very old past, to the pivotal moment that had shaped the emotions of William Hennessy. In the cave, William learned to accept the brutality of being a vampire, realizing that the deaths of many women would amount to little in the grand scheme of Earth and its expanding human population. He knew of no other vampires. Following his transformation, Petrabella's memories became William's memories. When he had felt the full weight of being the only vampire on Earth, his despair hurled him into a state of self-destruction. He tried all forms of suicide: poisoning and stabbing, drowning and fire, battle after battle fought against hopeless odds. In any and all cases, William could not be killed nor find a way of dying at his own hand. Petrabella had not prepared him. Through trial and error, he had learned about his feeding needs and the extent to which he could push his luck. He had been chased out of every country; his last stronghold had been Romania during the reign of Vlad the Impaler. But ever present was his desire for blood, to enjoy the flavourful variety of victims as their life essence poured from their carotid arteries into his mouth. The tastes of foods from the poorest to the most wealthy became the taste of the blood William ingested. An entire day's worth of meals would be compressed into one feeding. In this way, within his first year of being a vampire, William had come to prefer taking his meals in the evening.

In fluid motion, Samuel's dreaming mind crept forward in time. Synapses buzzed. He remained in the cave with his father and the multitude of women until the sun rose and its light filled the cave; yet his father did not seek darkness.

William stepped out of the cave into the dazzling light and stared directly into the sun, wishing for the harmful glare to blind him. He could not be killed or injured. His body was coated in the blood of the many women he had destroyed yet no power on Earth could exact revenge against him.

Samuel followed his father out of the cave, stood on the plain with him, next to him, watched and waited for him to act, wondered what he would do next. He felt like an invisible spy until his father's head slowly turned to the left and, for a frightening moment, it actually appeared to Samuel that his father was scrutinizing him.

Being looked at straight in the eye made Samuel's heart lurch in his chest — he was thrown forward in time.

Thrashing on the bed, Samuel's dreaming mind re-visited the Ottawa police station on Elgin Street, to relive the interrogation that had taken place less than a week ago. As a show of force, Superintendent Stevenson had tried to bend Samuel to his will. The dream exploded into vivid colours with a glaring beam of light from the ceiling. Without legal representation, Samuel sat across a large desk before two constables. He had agreed to come in under the pretext of being questioned concerning the death of Tina Sharpe, the former proprietor of La Maison Erotique, an illicit house of erotic pleasures located in Ottawa's exclusive Rockcliffe Village neighbourhood.

See this? he asked, sliding a colour photo across the table.

Sure. It's right in front me, replied Samuel looking at a bare skull with wisps of hanging hair attached to the top and a large hole in the back where a blunt instrument had been used.

This is what's left of Tina Sharpe… identified by her dental records.

Who did this? asked Samuel with all sincerity.

Funny guy, said the constable. Some graffiti punk found her skull sitting on the handle of an umbrella stuck in the ground on that island next to Cummings Bridge. Must have been there for over a year. Does that ring a bell?

Don't look at me, said Samuel. It's been years since I've spoken to her.

When was the last time you saw Tina Sharpe?

Shit, like I just said, started Samuel. Years ago.

When did you first meet her?

How can my first meeting Tina Sharpe shed any light on what happened to her? asked Samuel.

I'll ask the questions, he replied. When did you first meet?

Um… at least five years ago at a government reception on Parliament Hill.

Did she have something on you? Is that the reason why you killed her?

Kill her? You're out of your mind! exclaimed Samuel.

What was the nature of your relationship?

Strictly business and nothing ever but business, lied Samuel. Tina operated a consulting agency and I provided computer services to her from time to time. That's all!

No one filed a missing persons report on her… No one came looking for her… Her assets have been untouched at three of Canada's chartered banks. People don't just disappear without good cause.

I'm sorry, apologized Samuel. I can't give you any solutions.

Samuel raised his arm above his head; Magdalene remained close. She felt his heartbeat relax but his body temperature had grown unbelievably hot. The covers were pulled away from his chest, lowered to his pelvic bone.

Must be a great dream, noted Kevin. V-man's got a fucking boner.

Language, boy! chided Auntie.

I know, Auntie, said Kevin. I don't have control over what comes out of my mouth. It just flies out. You know what I'm saying?

I have half a mind to cuff you across the head!

Would you please keep it down, pleaded Magdalene. If Samuel knew all of you were in here during this dream he would be fit to be tied.

I adore these Old World expressions of yours, said David Three Rats to Magdalene, turning his head toward hers while keeping his arm extended outward, pointing the camcorder at Samuel.

No, I swear I didn't kill her, said Samuel speaking aloud, still dreaming and twitching, his hands opening and closing into fists.

Jesus, said Kevin. He's not having the best time. Maybe I'm not going to take the next time-ride until V-man tells me everything.

Wimp, insulted Derek. I'll go.

Don't be an idiot, said Aunt Aileen. I've been around the block once or twice in my day here and there and I'd be a better choice to visit the future or the past whichever bites me in the ass. After all, I'll be pushing up the daisies long before you can refill your pouch, you clunkhead.

Magdalene glared at the group and placed her finger to her lips to quiet everyone. She was ready to wake up Samuel to ask him what had happened. His eyes no longer rolled back and forth. He'd stopped clenching his fists. The rapid-eye movement stage generally lasted five to ten minutes with him as she had witnessed on the many times she watched him sleep. Instead of letting him wake up on his own, she wanted to prevent Samuel from going back farther in time to the moment when she read his father's first letter to her, after his father's death. In that hand-written letter on old parchment, Sir William had professed his love for Magdalene, had advised her to avoid admitting the truth to Samuel. She had followed his advice and had buried the letter in the basement in one of the potted marijuana plants, the one place Samuel rarely visited, apart from when he took the cured plants down from their makeshift clothesline. The letter should have been destroyed; she should have found a more secure hiding place, but the paper smelled like him, every time she pulled it out of the potted plant. She wanted to re-read his truth, remember his voice each time it was opened.

Magdalene never wanted Samuel to know the secret about his father, that he had fallen in love with her. Their act of consummation was not spoken of, it was quietly assumed that sexual intercourse would occur as part of the process of transformation. Not every secret had to be shared between husband and wife so long as their relationship nurtured their most important needs. But with each tourist drained of life by the sharp fangs of blood lust, the secrets Magdalene kept in her heart grew and festered. Only time possessed the power to uncover every secret, whether it was time elapsed in a dream or time unfolding in the present. And in the surreal Crimson world of vampires, marijuana, rum and ancient secrets, the truth would surely and eventually spill out like fresh blood flowing from the punctured neck of Magdalene's next victim.

2

MAGDALENE HAD LITTLE USE FOR clocks. Instinctively she knew the time to be 3:00 AM. Samuel had been asleep for three hours. When she requested that the group of onlookers quietly leave, they all pleaded with puppy-dog eyes for permission to remain in the bedroom.

All right. This one time only! When Samuel wakes up, you must promise not to speak. Let him focus. I speak first. Are we clear?

Cross my heart, said Kevin.

Hope to die, finished Derek.

Cut me a slice of blueberry pie, added David Three Rats.

Clunkheads, said Aunt Aileen.

Magdalene shook her head and sighed, reminding herself that she had good reason for asking Kevin, Derek, Auntie and David to witness the first time-dream. Later, she might need to solicit their objective opinions for perspective. Her special abilities as a vampire allowed her to access the dreams of her husband and son but still she could not read anyone's mind in the same fashion as Sir William had. When the gemstones were first uncovered in the bathroom wall of their home, she had incorrectly deduced that Sir William had been using the stones to know when and how each person would react in every situation. But now, sitting beside her husband, she realized Sir William truly did possess the ability to read innermost thoughts. That one special talent, perhaps the most powerful Sir William possessed — other than longevity and infallible health — had eluded her in the last year.

Her hand touched Samuel's forehead. No longer was he dreaming. She gently brushed his cheek with the back of her hand.

Samuel's eyes opened and he sat up with a start.

He's got nothing on me, blurted out Samuel. He paused before speaking again, collecting his thoughts; glad it was only a dream. The bastard tried to trick me. The sheets were off Samuel's torso and his body was slick with moisture. The room was partially lit. A small table lamp provided just the right amount of light for David Three Rats to record.

Shhhhh, said Magdalene. It is over, my gorgeous boy.

Come back from La-La-land, snickered Kevin.

Magdalene shot Kevin a deadly look, to which he silently mouthed the word, Sorry.

As wakefulness gradually came to Samuel, he moved his legs off the bed and hung them over the side. He wore only his underwear and a rock-hard erection. He scratched his balls and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Hey gorgeous girl, said Samuel. Talk about a whopper dream.

Darling, I do not want to alarm you but… said Magdalene, purposefully speaking in a soothing voice, the boys and Auntie were dying to know what would happen with the dreaming stones and I did not have the heart to refuse them.

Are they waiting outside the room? asked Samuel.

Guarding your very bedside, answered Kevin.

Samuel jumped. Who the hell said you could come in here!

Easy, V-man, said Derek. We're just here to make certain you didn't freak out and attack Magpie.

Was it a total head trip? asked David Three Rats with enthusiasm.

A trip to the past or future? probed Aunt Aileen, swilling the last drop of tea from her mug.

"Get the hell out of here,