Mounds Of Trouble
The silence of the night was broken by the roar of the engine of a long, pink, '57 Cadillac, with three Elvis impersonators inside. Even more bizarre, one of the Elvi was a woman.
"A, hey-hey, whole lotta shakin' goin' on," bellowed the driver, in an odd tenor voice. His slicked back blond hair ruined the effect he was going for, but he didn't seem to notice. He leaned on the horn, and raced the engine. The birds in the trees on the lawn of Longwood erupted from the trees, unused to such a disturbance.
"We got a date on the edge of Lonely Street," sang the woman Elvis. "Let's get a move on, new guy. Don't want to miss the festivities!"
Uriah Franklin shifted his tweed jacket a little as he stepped out of the house and he smiled as he stared at the car. Damn, he was good. Elvis Vampires? Now that was some original writing, even if he did say so himself. You can suck it, Stephanie Meyer. He strode out and hopped in the car.
He looked in the rear view mirror as he ran his hands through his thinning gray hair, pushing it into its best impersonation of tolerable. "I'm ready to ride the rainbow, so let's hit that highway to happiness, my little Elvi," he said with a chuckle. As the car started moving with a jump, Uriah ran through his mental writer's bible to remember what he had written about Malkavians before. Insanity was the big thing. Which meant that he was right on target with the Elvis impersonators. The trick, he thought, was not to overdo it. If he wrote insanity as completely over the top, his readers would never believe it all. Which, of course, was why he always ran these scenes through his head first. Better to get them right this way before committing it to the proverbial paper. Not that anyone actually wrote on paper anymore.
The Elvi took a circuitous route out past the bridge, off to the Mound National Park. The top was down, and "Little Sister" blared from the speakers where it played on the eight track.
The rangers waved the carload of strange past the wide open gates, and the blond Elvis pulled in beside a wide array of vehicles in the lot abutting the river.
In all, the convocation consisted of The Author, three Elvi, Catfish, and a dozen or so others. Standing at the end of the parking lot, looking messianic, Catfish held an arm around a thin, depressed looking middle aged woman with coke bottle glasses and a leg brace.
"We all here? Let's get to convocatin', then!" he yelled. Turning around, he led the group down into the entrance of the nearest mound, excavated many decades ago as a tourist attraction.
Following the narrow path, Catfish led the way into the barrow mound. Inside the cave-like chamber, gas lights flickered, sending dancing shadows across the walls.
This was a great setting, Uriah thought as he was led down into the mound. Atmospheric and provoking just the right amount of unease in the reader, despite the earlier setup to establish the main character's willingness to go along. Then he settled in to see what he had in mind for the ritual. Hopefully, nothing too stereotypical. But spilling a little blood would help even that.
"First, came the mountain lion, strong, fast, and dangerous," intoned the Indian crazy man in a sing song chant. "Behind him came the coyote, the tricky one." The assembled babbled along, most reciting stories of their own choosing.
"Little sister, don't you do like your big sister done," sang the Elvi in unison, like Gregorian chanters. "Don't you step on my blue suede shoes."
"The eagle saw that the land belonged to the white man, and must have a white man to bring them into one tribe, one people, speaking with one tongue," continued Catfish, lost in his story. Slowly he bent the timid librarian's head back, exposing her thin white neck, the sinews standing out in stark relief, her pulse the only active pulse in the entire cavern. "With the blood, the Eagle lost his wings, his feathers now the head dress of the White Chief."
A short, rotundly fat man with a ZZ Top beard and a floral print mumu dress panted excitedly. "Apres moi, le deluge! Le deluge! Deluge!" he screamed, louder and higher pitched with each repetition.
Catfish nuzzled his face into the crook of the librarian's neck; she gasped, and fell limp in his arms. Slowly her arms lifted to first cradle his head against her neck, then passionately pulling him face first into her as her breathing became ragged, his skin flushed with a growing pallor. His obvious effort, he pulled away, her shining red blood swathing his mouth. Fangs extended, he tore at the flesh of his wrist, and pressed his arm to the middle aged woman's mouth, his slow, gelid black blood seeping from the wound.
"I reckon that's far enough, you crazy Injun," a harsh baritone spoke loudly from the unobserved entryway. "Step back, you knowed this was happenin'." With a backdrop of the ambient light of the moon framing his body, Cotton closed the barrel of his double action shot gun. Behind the tall prince his coterie of roughnecks and his black as night sheriff stalked into the mound chamber.
Atmosphere is good but drama is better. Enter conflict, stage right. Uriah watched the sheriff carefully. Two powerful vampires, their goals at odds with one another. This drama was going to power the entire story, he could feel it in his bones. So of course, that meant no solving the problem or getting a fight right now.
Catfish dropped the woman, her body slumped to the rough earthen floor. "You wear your feathers like a peacock, not an eagle," he said, but stepped away from his victim/childe.
Cotton Johnson looked around at the convocation, and narrowed his eyes. "Go on now, get!" he said, and the group shuffled out the opening, leaving Cotton, his bruisers, the sheriff and the newly created Malkavian alone in the mound.
Uriah walked out with the Malkavians and waited for the inevitable ending to the little vignette inside the mound.
As the Malkavian's milled around outside the mound, there was the sound of one muffled scream, and as one, they turned their eyes away. "It will not always be," said Catfish.
The fat man in the fat lady dress looked up into Catfish's eyes. "Why, mister? Why you let him treat us like this?" He started to cry. "J'accuse, c'est travestie."
"I know what I'm doin', and I know what he's doin'," said Catfish, as he walked towards the broad flat dark waters of the Mississippi. Stalking forward, he walked knee deep into the black water before turning to his clan again. "I gotta own what I did." Refusing any more questions, he continued walking, his head dropping under the surface of the rolling river, until he was lost from sight.
"Perfect," he cried out loud, so excited at the way things had ended. "Mysterious with the implication of more to come." Then he looked around, realizing he'd need to edit that part out of his character when he dropped Marcus into this scene. Marcus would never be so crass, especially in a delicate political situation with vampires who might not be happy about what happened. The prey had to always be careful to make sure the predator gave him no extra notice.
Well, the ride here had been a good read but no point in repeating for the readers. Time to move on to another scene, Uriah thought as he waited for the scene to fade to black.
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