The Vamps and I

By Tony-Paul de Vissage

One night, while walking at Savannah Beach, a teenager named Tony-Paul had an encounter with three sightseeing vampires.

That meeting evolved into this novel, highlighting episodes experienced by:

Marius, the elder brother. He can't understand why the woman he loves doesn't want to renew their affair. What does it matter if fifty years have passed since they last saw each other?

Isn't true love eternal?

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Valerius, the younger brother, running from an arranged marriage into the arms of a woman he could really love. Problem is, she's human, all right to bite but not to marry.

What's a lovelorn vampire to do?

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Cousin Timon, who thought marrying the author of the world's most famous vampire series was ironic but fun...until she wrote a novel proving the Undead exist. Now the leader of New Orleans' nosferatu has to do something about that tell-all book.

Stop the presses!

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Join Tony-Paul de Vissage as he relates these stories of three hapless vampires and how they found love, lost it, found it again, and fought to keep it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wordwooze Publishing
• Release date: May 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223780564

Book preview

Introduction

Within these pages you’ll find a fanciful and somewhat fictitious accounting of how I became acquainted with those interesting and, occasionally, most hapless examples of vampiredom, the Andriescus.

Caveat: I’m afraid the story must be taken with a very large grain of salt, though buried deep within the accounting, there may be more than one particle of truth.

In this version I was a youngster, a mere stripling when the vampires and I met. They were looking for something that didn’t exist. I was just goofing off.

The truth of the matter is, I became aware of the members of Clan Andriescu in 2008. Val was the first to come to my attention. Back then he was called Valerius but only by his family. He’d long ago Americanized his name to Val. He had stumbled across an old copy of the comic strip Prince Valiant and thought that sounded much cooler, though at the time that he, his brother, and cousin arrived in this country, I imagine either version still had a foreign ring to it.

Back then, I’d never considered myself much of a short story writer. I loved words too much to be miserly enough with them to write anything less than 100 pages long, but suddenly there I was with the story of a rebellious young vampire buzzing around in my head.

Val insisted on having his story told, so I reluctantly complied, though it was going to be a short one, definitely not long enough to be called a novel in any sense of the form. Well, he got his way, and Love, Vampire Style emerged, was submitted, and accepted as a novelette, and we were on our way!

After that, Marius demanded to be heard, thinking his history was much more entertaining than his baby brother’s, bittersweet though it was. It subsequently found its way into a magazine of fanciful stories.

Not to be left out, Timon added his own request to be immortalized in print (as if being merely immortal wasn’t enough). So, the tale of what a near-disaster he and his Laura made of things came about. I have a feeling that story wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but… Sorry, Tim, nothing you can do about it now.

Within these pages are all the stories revolving around these three sometimes willful, often lovestruck, definitely more human than they should be, vampires.

Reader, may I present to you the Clan Andriescu.

Read on…and enjoy!

Which Way to Bloody Marsh?

The following story may or may not be fiction. Only the names, sometimes the sex, and corporeal state of the characters on this plane of existence have been changed to protect both the innocent and the not-so-innocent.

The tourists were gone now, as were the volleyball-playing college kids, the old ladies in garishly-flowered muumuus, and the toddlers in Huggies Little Swimmers, their sunbathing moms wearily holding their pudgy fingers. Even the natives were at home having supper.

For the moment, with the exception of a few teeners who’d waited until after everyone and the local cops had gone, Savannah Beach was deserted.

At the extreme end, where most people never went, Tony-Paul trudged along the beach. Even during the day when the expanse of sandy shoreline was crowded with wall-to-wall bodies, no one ever came this far, so the deserted area was where he headed.

He was seeking isolation. To be alone.

He’d had to wait until Papa and Maman were settled in front of the television, telling them he was going to his room to study his homework. (How he’d hated that lie. Surely, his tongue was going to turn black and break out in sores one of these days if he kept that up.) Then he’d scarpered up the stairs and into his room, shutting the door, and heading for the open window and the ancient live oak growing just outside it.

After that, it was merely a scramble, a dash, and a skid to the beachfront itself.

Tony-Paul was currently in a State of Rebellion…against his parents, against school, against being a teenager in general. It developed gradually, coming to a head one night recently when he suddenly realized he was never going to be very tall, or very muscular, or have a winning personality. With that sober enlightenment, he locked himself in his room and got down to basics.

Stripping and tossing T-shirt and jeans aside, he stood in front of the antique cheval glass—the one stored in his room because Maman had no place else to put it—and took stock. What he saw staring back at him wasn’t too impressive, and he once again asked le Bon Dieu, with plaintive teen angst, why… Why? Why couldn’t he have been tall like his uncles who were all over six feet? Even Papa, considered the runt of the litter, was five-eleven, but his son, his only child and heir?

At sixteen, Tony-Paul was five feet, four inches tall, and one hundred and fifteen pounds, showing no hurry to get any taller or heavier. He’d truly expected to shoot up suddenly as he’d heard Oncle Samuel had done, but it never happened. At twelve as well as at sixteen, TP could look Michael J. Fox in the eye. For all the good that would do. The only consolation was that no one laughed at Michael J. Fox, at least not when he was off-screen, so TP decided he was going to have to develop those few qualities he had and an attitude, as well.

His inventory didn’t take long, and it wasn’t encouraging. Short, not muscular, body almost completely hairless (damn it) and his …well, what was nestled below his navel was nothing but an embarrassment. It appeared to be the size of his baby cousin’s, and he’d been laughed at more than once in the locker room at school by those overgrown louts calling themselves jocks. Le grande sur-muscles steroide-ont pompe des batards! Or was that just his jealousy talking?

He was no good in sports, falling over his own feet when he tried to run. Couldn’t throw a ball worth a damn. No way he’d ever get a girl if he had to rely on his athletic prowess. If, by some miracle, he did get one? Better make sure there were no lights on. Ha-ha.

So, what were the good points?

As far as he could see, only three, and maybe, just maybe, if he played his cards right, and developed the proper comportment, and held his mouth right…four.

He had green eyes, a clear dark Coke-bottle green, even if they were hidden behind lenses as thick as those same bottles. He had naturally curly blond hair (which had always been the bane of his existence until he realized girls actually liked that tiresome stuff), and for a teenager, his complexion was good, only disfigured by a couple of very small zits that could be mistaken for little moles if the light was right.

TP went to work to cultivate what he had. Maman helped by buying him contact lenses for his birthday. He let his hair grow from a crew cut into something long, then longer. The bothersome curls disappeared, replaced by waves, causing l’envie in many of the female students in his classes. Suddenly, they started finding excuses to touch it. Surely it was only a matter of time before they went from touching his hair to touching him.

He also cultivated an attitude. Talking back, being a smart-ass, walking with a swagger. Dumped his slacks for distressed jeans. Skipped showers. His walk became a bantam rooster strut…small but deadly. TP rapidly became BA, and his bad attitude was a success.

Maman and Papa were suitably distressed. Where had their well-mannered petite fils gone, and who was this smart-mouthed delinquant sitting in his place, with that nearly waist-length hair, T-shirt, and ragged jeans?

They tried to be understanding, oui. So damned understanding, he wanted to yell at them. He’s going through a stage, Paul, Maman would say, and Papa would reply, I know, Warené, but how long does it last?

Once in a while, Papa would actually lose his temper. Keep that up, young man, and there’ll be no college for you! I’ll take your Maman on a cruise instead, and you can go down to the pier and hire on one of the shrimp boats to earn your living. Dieu, ce qui j’a fait pour meriter ceci?

Papa was Creole and proud of it. They spoke French at home because of that. It was an affectation, but who cared?

TP knew his father’s threat would never happen. Papa would die if the de Vissages had a shrimp boat deckhand in the family. So, he merely smirked, and pretended he didn’t hear, and strutted that much harder. When things got too heated between him and his parents, he’d escape, as he had tonight, to the serenity and solitude of Savannah Beach at dusk.

At present he was slogging through the rim of the surf, jeans rolled up to his knees, feet bare, his Nikes dangling from one hand. The swagger was gone, his stride normal and slow. Now and then he’d stoop and pick up a shell. Sometimes, if it was a fairly well-preserved one, he’d keep it. Generally, he threw them back into the rolling, white-capped water.

Shell collecting might not be a totally macho hobby, but TP liked it. Looking at seashells gave him an odd peace, for want of a better word.

He looked down the beach into the gathering darkness. Just back from the tideline, something was moving. At first, it seemed a large, bulky shadow.

Abruptly it separated, becoming three figures trudging slowly through the sand toward him. One hung back, seemingly playing Chicken with the tide. He’d dash in, wait until it surged toward him, then seconds before it touched his feet, he’d dart out of splashing range.

Again and again.

They were almost to him now, looked up, and stopped. Strangers and boy stared at each other.

All were tall, all dressed in dark coats