Welcome to my stop on the SCP Paranormal Blog Hop! I write
in many genres, but mainly paranormal with an emphasis on my favorite vampires.
I love writing about them so much, I have three distinct series. I have also
co-authored a series with my husband, Mike, telling the story of Drake Martin
and Kady Hartley. He’s a private investigator who has the special talent of
shifting into a Yorkshire terrier. Yep, that was a fun story to write that Mike
and I wrote a sequel. We’re planning the third one now.
To add to the fun of the day, I’m reposting a fun fact about
vampire lore blog I did months ago. I love sharing interesting facts about my
favorite paranormal characters. I’ll be giving away a $10 GC to Secret Cravings
Publishing to one lucky random commenter. All you have to do is give me an
interesting “fact” about vampires that I haven’t listed below. Winner will be
drawn on Monday, June 17th by Random.com.
I’m also giving a sneak peek excerpt from my most recent
release, A Vampire’s Bite of Flesh,
Episode 3 of the Misadventures of Dick Grewcock. Enjoy!
Good luck and have fun this weekend. Oh, don’t forget to
link back to other participating SCP authors!
Cynthia
CLOCKS: According
to European folklore, a person’s house can be protected from a vampire attack
by stopping the clocks at the time of death. Stopping a clock is said to put
the corpse into a sort of suspended animation, preventing demonic forces from
entering the body until it is ready for burial and therefore not becoming a vampire.
COUNTING: In Chinese
narratives about vampires, they state that if a vampire comes across a sack of
rice it will have to stop and count all the grains. These are similar myths
recorded on the Indian continent and even in South America. The vampire isn’t
repelled or pierced by the objects, rather the creature is compelled to eat
them or count them one at a time, thereby slowing them down and away from the
living. (I used a variation of this in the Born Vampire series. The vampires
have OCD, I explained.)
INCENSE: Composed
of grains of resins and spices that are burned or sprinkled on lighted charcoal
to create a sweet or pungent odor, incense has been used in many religions over
the centuries to drive out evil entities from a person or a place. In fighting
vampires, it ranks alongside garlic as a preventative measure and as a way to
counteract the stench of death. In some regions of Romania, it was often pushed
into the ears, eyes, and nostrils of a corpse to stop an evil spirit from
entering and reanimating the body.
SECONDARY POWERS:
Folklore, not of the fictional types created today which have variations ~
The ability to cause impotence ~ This surely wouldn’t work with any of my vampires.
The ability to cause plagues, epidemics, crop
failures and the deaths of livestock.
PROTECTION:
Methods of protection differ from
region to region and country to country, but some of the most common means of
securing safety are listed below:
Thorns: Considered to be magical
barriers against vampires and witches.
Calling three times: In Romanian
lore it was believed that one should never answer someone unless they call
three times, because it was said that vampires can only ask a question twice.
If someone answers a vampire, the vampire has the power to kill them.
(This sounds like a “Beetlejuice” variation!)
Lemon: In Saxony in Germany, a lemon was
placed in the mouth of suspected vampires.
Bread and cheese: Among some Slavic
Gypsies, offerings of bread and cheese were made to appease vampires. In Transylvania
wine was buried with bodies for the same purpose.
Holly, hawthorn, and wild rose are all
said to harm vampires.
SNEEZING: There are
numerous widespread folk beliefs that the soul temporarily leaves the body
through the mouth during a sneeze and is therefore vulnerable to the forces of
evil. Sneezing creates an opportunity for evil entities to enter the body
through the mouth and take possession of it. In the folklore of Romania,
sneezing can attract or empower a vampire unless a blessing is given
immediately after.
SOCK: According
the lore of the Gypsies from Eastern Europe, the left sock of a vampire can be
used to drive it away or even kill it. Vampire hunters steal the sock from the
grave, fill it with rocks, and throw it outside the village, preferably into a
river or running water. The vampire will then wake up, miss its sock, and start
searching for it, even if that means entering the water and drowning in an
attempt to retrieve it. Like the use of seeds and grain to distract the vampire
into counting for centuries, this is based on the widespread belief that
vampires are obsessive creatures. (Why the hunters just didn’t stake the
vampire instead of stealing its sock just doesn’t make sense, but this is all
myth, right?)
VISION: The eyes of vampires are often described as hellish and
hypnotic and able to paralyze victims. They may also turn blood red when the
vampire begins to feed. The superb night vision of vampires isn’t explained or
even mentioned in folklore but it is implied, as generally the vampire of
folklore is a nocturnal creature. (My vampires’ eyes turn red not when they
want to feed, but when their sexually aroused.)
And last, but not least, is this one!
WATERMELONS: Among the
Muslim Gypsies of Yugoslavia, watermelons like pumpkins, could become vampires,
especially if they had teeth and had been kept for more than ten days or for
too long after Christmas. Stained with drops of blood, these not very deadly or
threatening vampires roll around making growling sounds, for no other reason
than to irritate the living. (Yep, fanged watermelons rolling around the ground
certainly would irritate me!)
All these
interesting facts are from “The Element Encyclopedia of Vampires” by Theresa
Cheung and I hope you have enjoyed learning a few new things about vampire
folklore, myths and legends.
BLURB from A Vampire’s Bite of Flesh:
Dick Grewcock is a vampire working full-time as a computer
consultant for Vampires ‘R Us. He had everything he wanted—a pretty girlfriend
and a great job—or so he thought. A hurricane blows through town a week before
the Fourth of July making a real mess, including riling the sugar craving
mush-brain humans. Operation Zombie Takedown begins at Fang Shui, the local
vampire bar, to get the infestation under control. Dick’s existence was about
to change—again.
Noelle St. Nicholas is Dick’s girlfriend, but four months
ago she met with an unfortunate accident and ended up in a cryopreservation
chamber at a high security laboratory. She’s revived and Dick isn’t sure she’ll
forgive him for what he did.
Dick battles zombies with fireworks exploding and learns
what it means to be the vampire he was meant to be, but at what price to losing
what’s left of his humanity?
EXCERPT:
Dick
blinked a few times, adjusting his eyes to the brighter light and to gain his
bearings. The stench of sweat and cigarette smoke filled his nostrils and every
breath he took burned his lungs. God, he knew having the planning meeting here
would be a mistake. Why not the VRU offices? At least they were private and
smoke-free. But, no, that would have been too easy. Vlad insisted on checking
out his latest acquisition, and as he put it, the bar was a good place to keep
an eye on others in his coven. Killing
two birds, yada, yada, yada.
Dancers
scantily-clad in G-strings and sequined pasties climbed, turned and twisted on
the brass poles bolted on the five mini-stages scattered around the room.
Gyrating couples, males, females and others—Dick couldn’t tell what they were—writhed
in a sea of limbs, music, and flashing multi-colored lights. He glanced around,
disoriented from the pounding in his head. Where the fuck was the bar? And
where was his partner?
Urgh!
A partner. Another vamp. A pain in the ass vamp cohort his sire insisted on him
having until the zombie infestation was exterminated. Dealing with the punk
vampire was another reason for his headache. Why did I have to find that ad in the Yellow Pages?
It
took him several minutes, but he finally saw his target—a vacant place to sit
and have a strong drink. He forced his way through the oversexed crowd of
sweaty skin, strong perfume, and the tables with seated customers, advancing
slowly to the bar on the far right side of the nightclub. He strode quickly
toward his objective, an empty stool at the end of a long, curved bar. On the
other side of the sleek wood counter, a man stopped restocking bottles of
Vlad’s popular blood soda and stared in Dick’s direction.
Halfway
on his trek to the bar, a woman slammed into him. Obviously drunk or high on
something, he instinctively sensed she was human, not vampire. He pushed past
her, cursing under his breath. What the hell was the world coming to? Vampires,
zombies, and what would come next? Werewolves and the Easter Bunny?
Dick
reaffirmed his reasons as to why he hated coming to Fang Shui. The dildos that
worked there were no different than the types he dealt with when human. Nothing ever changes. Not even the
predictable weather.
The
first week of July in Florida brought the bitch heat of summer in full swing.
Ninety degree days and seventies at night made for sticky situations when
hunting for the zombies on the loose. Hurricane Chucky blustered through the
Orlando area only a week ago. Eighty-five mile an hour winds along with spotty
tornados ripped roofs off houses, damaged parts of the international airport,
and the amusement parks suffered enough to keep them closed after seven days.
Not that any of those problems affected him directly, but it did make for
interesting news to take his mind off Noelle.
Buck Rogers’ Spaceship! Stop
thinking of her.
Despite
how he didn’t want to be at the meeting, safety at the bar was a welcome relief
compared to the chaos he passed on the drive over. Traffic lights were still out
at some of the secondary intersections, and people didn’t adhere to the rules
of the road. Long lines at gas stations didn’t make sense, either, when the
power didn’t work. Did all common sense
get blown away with the storm? Was I that dense as a human?
Shaking
his head as he grabbed the edge of the wooden barstool to stake claim to the
valued real estate, he hauled himself up onto one of the last remaining seats.
The place looked like the entire population of vampires and wannabe human
groupies had decided to join in the rowdy behavior at the same time. A lot of
residences had been damaged, as well as night haunts of the blood-kind.
Hurricane Chucky wreaked havoc on the area in more ways than one. The scare of the zombies must be driving
them here. What’s with the public display of sex? That’s a new one for this
place.
Blooding
and sex always seemed to go hand-in-hand in this new life he led, but Dick
hadn’t seen such an overwhelming sense of laissez
faire toward revealing what he considered a private matter. Was Vlad aware
of this? Granted, he’d only been a vampire since last October. Halloween
exactly, which was more like November first, but he’d seen a lot of action in
those eight to nine months. Maybe this is
a special event night at Fang Shui, like Karaoke Night. No, Stormin’ Chucky Sex
Night!
He
laughed to himself with the thought. With a wave of his hand, he caught the
bartender’s attention. He’d frequented the vamp haunt four or five times in the
last two months. Ted had been tending bar every time.
“What’ll
it be tonight, Dick?” The young, hip-looking vampire bartender asked. The man
wiped a towel along the varnished wood bar top waiting for an answer.
Why couldn’t I have looked like him
as a human?
“VieSang,
cherry.” The nasty stuff was his favorite among the flavors available. Since
turning last Halloween, he’d supplemented his need for blood with the weird-ass
concoction. The blood-laced carbonated drink came in ten varieties, and he’d
tried them all. Some he couldn’t get past his lips, let alone down his gut. The
tart one had the most tolerable taste.
“For
a change?”
The
sarcastic tone wasn’t lost on Dick. “What can I say? I like popping cherries
with my blood.” Not really, but better than nothing. As one of the many
creations in Vlad’s business empire, the ten flavors of the nasty tasting drink
acted as a change of pace for whole blood. Cherry at least was more palatable
than the peppermint-flavored one he made at Christmas-time. I’d have thought after eight months I’d get
used to the crap. But, no. I wish spiking it with alcohol was tolerable. I
could use a stiffer drink. Unfortunately, he learned the hard way that the
only way vampires could tolerate spirits was by assimilating through sucking
blood from an imbibing human. With all the numbers of humans in the bar tonight,
he was tempted but brushed the thought aside quickly. He knew that would be
nothing but trouble waiting to happen.
“You’re
early, if you’re here for the meeting. Vlad hasn’t shown up yet.”
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