The ancient graveyard is filled with dreams of dusk. Jonathon stands within the grey twilight, just before the first rays of the morning sun creep above the horizon, looking at the headstone of an old, old grave. The chiselled epitaph is timeworn, yet still legible and his eyes move along the words.
Here lies
Robert Michael Raynard
Beloved son of
Jonathon Raynard
Born on the 3rd day of June in the year of Our Lord 1763
Died on the 22nd day of July in the year of Our Lord 1780
May God have mercy upon his soul
A tear plays in the corner of the vampire’s eye. A tint of red within the icy blue, like the sunrise that melts the morning frost.
Why was I too late? You could have been here with me even now, my son.
The graveyard is on the East side of the city, far even from the Raven to leave the authorities with a twisted mystery.
He turns and picks up the white, bloodless corpse of his latest love. He holds her limp husk in his arms and briefly kisses her pallid lips. He visits butterfly kisses down to the ragged puncture wounds at her throat and murmurs in her ear, “Thank you my sweet.”
He turns back and places her across the grave, like a flower cut in the fullness, a macabre wreath; as though her corpse could raise his son from the blackness of death. The immortal gardener looks for one second more at his monument of grief, before turning once again and racing through the last scattered shreds of night, before the rising sun.
And still the hunger roars.
© 1990 & 2006 Andrew M Boylan
