A Slip of the Fan may sink the Vampire Community

Merci to Toni V. for posting this article for me and to the Fuzzies for allowing me to blog about my newest histoire courte, "Working-class Vampires," another entry in the Clan Andriescu series. Vraiment, are these three the most hapless of les vampires, n'est-ce pas?

They were living peaceably enough in Transylvania (no peasant uprisings or anything at the time). While big brother Marius--head of the clan--was cutting a swathe through the female populace, younger brother Valerius was attempting to following in his footsteps (or should that be wing-flaps?) Cousin Timon, on the other hand, was still a little batling and a pest as far as the older vampires were concerned. Then, Marius's swathe cut a little too deeply. He seduced one too many a female from the Prince himself and promptly found himself exiled from his homeland. When he protested, the Prince, totally uncharitable and completely beside himself with jealousy (and if one infuriated prince is bad, two you don't even want to think about), exiled Valerius and Timon, also--out of sheer, Royal spite. So here our heroes were...cast adrift in the Big Bad World of Humankind...flitting all over Europe...until they land in New Orleans, Louisiana, home of Bourbon Street jazz, the vampire Lestat, and voodoo (not necessarily in that order).

Some of you may be familiar with Marius' story ("Sometimes Love Returns") and its bittersweet ending. A few may have read the slightly slapstick tale of Valerius' marriage which I asked Toni V. to submit under her name because I was too timide to use my own. (At that time I was just dipping mes orteils in the writing world's mer and was incertain how I would fare. Today, I am the auteur edite, so I now have courage to place my own nom on my work.) That story "Love, Vampire Style" was published as a Black Rosette by editeur The Wild Rose Press.

This time, Cousin Timon, is the culprit...uh, hero. "Working-class Vampires" involves him and his new bride.

Like Marius' love, Caity, Timon's wife is human...Laura Atwood. She is a best-selling auteur of romans de vampire. She also is unaware her new husband is a vampire. Interesting, n'est-ce pas? One night, as they share a romantic evening and glass of wine (Laura drinking her favorite Bordeaux and Timon a specially-bottled dark red from the family cellars--and we can guess what that is, can't we?), they discuss the route her next novel should take. In a weak moment, Timon makes crucial suggestions, never believing Lisa will take them. (After all, she rarely does what he tells her, anyway.) The next thing he knows, his wife is advertising her new novel which proves vampires are real and living in New Orleans, and the Louisiana Undead community is up in arms. It seems there is a law against revealing the actual existence of vampires and Laura has just broken it! The punishment for such a crime is death...and at the request of the New Orleans' vampire Lord, the Prince's executioner is on his way from Transylvania to carry out the sentence.

Timon and Laura have to think fast in order to escape death by broadsword.

"Working-class Vampires" will be available this month in the August 1 issue of Sounds of the Night magazine, released by sams dot publishing. Here's the trailer. Appreciez!