By Blood We Live Read online

  By Blood We Live

  by

  John Joseph Adams

  Table of Contents

  BY BLOOD WE LIVE

  by John Joseph Adams

  By Blood We Live © 2009 by John Joseph Adams

  This edition of By Blood We Live © 2009 by Night Shade Books

  Cover art © 2009 by David Palumbo

  Cover design by Michael Ellis

  Interior layout and design by Ross E. Lockhart

  All rights reserved

  "Introduction" and author notes © 2009 John Joseph Adams.

  First Edition

  ISBN 13: 978-1-59780-156-0

  Night Shade Books

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  Acknowledgment is made for permission

  to print the following material:

  "Much at Stake" by Kevin J. Anderson. © 1991 Kevin J. Anderson. Originally published in The Ultimate Dracula. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Twilight" by Kelley Armstrong. ©2007 Kelly Armstrong. Originally published in Many Bloody Returns. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Finders Keepers" by L. A. Banks. © 2008 L. A. Banks. Originally published as an e-book from Red Rose Publishing. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "House of the Rising Sun" by Elizabeth Bear. © 2005 Elizabeth Bear. Originally published in The Third Alternative. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Lifeblood" by Michael A. Burstein. © 2003 Michael A. Burstein. Originally published in New Voices in Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Lucy, in Her Splendor" by Charles Coleman Finlay. © 2003 Charles Coleman Finlay. Originally published in Mars Dust. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Snow, Glass, Apples" by Neil Gaiman. © 1994 Neil Gaiman. Originally published as a chapbook from DreamHaven Press. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Sunrise on Running Water" by Barbara Hambly. © 2007 Barbara Hambly. Originally published in Dark Delicacies II. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Abraham's Boys" by Joe Hill. © 2004 Joe Hill. Originally published in The Many Faces of Van Helsing, and also in 20th Century Ghosts, copyright © 2005, 2007 by Joe Hill, published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Blood Gothic" by Nancy Holder. © 1985 Nancy Holder. Originally published in Shadows 8. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Ode to Edvard Munch" by Caitlín R. Kiernan. © 2006 Caitlín R. Kiernan. Originally published in Sirenia Digest. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Vechi Barbat" by Nancy Kilpatrick. © 2007 Nancy Kilpatrick. Originally published in Travellers in Darkness. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "One for the Road" by Stephen King. © 1977 Stephen King. Originally published in Maine magazine, March/April 1977. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Wide, Carnivorous Sky" by John Langan. © 2009 John Langan. Original to this volume.

  "Hunger" by Gabriela Lee. © 2007 Gabriela Lee. Originally published in A Different Voice. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Nunc Dimittis" by Tanith Lee. © 1983 Tanith Lee. Originally published in The Dodd, Mead Gallery of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "For Further Reading" by Ross E. Lockhart. © 2009 Ross E. Lockhart. Original to this volume.

  "Foxtrot at High Noon" by Sergei Lukyanenko. © 2009 Sergei Lukyanenko. English-language translation copyright © 2009 by Night Shade Books. Original to this volume.

  "Necros" by Brian Lumley. © 1986 Brian Lumley. Originally published in The Second Book of After Midnight Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "In Darkness, Angels" by Eric Van Lustbader. © 1983 Eric Van Lustbader. Originally published in The Dodd, Mead Gallery of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author, and Henry Morrison, Inc., his agents.

  "Undead Again" by Ken MacLeod. © 2005 Ken MacLeod. Originally published in Nature. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Hit" by Bruce McAllister. © 2008 Bruce McAllister. Originally published in Aeon. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Infestation" by Garth Nix. © 2008 Garth Nix. Originally published in The Starry Rift. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Do Not Hasten to Bid Me Adieu" by Norman Partridge. © 1994 Norman Partridge. Originally published in Love in Vein. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Master of Rampling Gate" by Anne Rice. © 1984 Anne Rice. Originally published in Redbook. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Endless Night" by Barbara Roden. © 2008 Barbara Roden. Originally published in Exotic Gothic II. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Beautiful, The Damned" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. © 1995 Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "A Standup Dame" by Lilith Saintcrow. © 2008 Lilith Saintcrow. Originally published in The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Peking Man" by Robert J. Sawyer. © 1996 Robert J. Sawyer. Originally published in Dark Destiny III. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "This Is Now" by Michael Marshall Smith. © 2004 Michael Marshall Smith. Originally published online in BBCi Cult Vampire Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "After the Stone Age" by Brian Stableford. © 2004 Brian Stableford. Originally published online in BBCi Cult Vampire Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Under St. Peter's" by Harry Turtledove. © 2007 Harry Turtledove. Originally published in The Secret History of Vampires. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Exsanguinations" by Catherynne M. Valente. © 2005 Catherynne M. Valente. Originally published online at www.catherynemvalente.com. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Life Is the Teacher" by Carrie Vaughn. © 2008 Carrie Vaughn. Originally published in Hotter Than Hell. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Pinecones" by David Wellington. © 2006 David Wellington. Originally published as a limited edition chapbook. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Child of an Ancient City" by Tad Williams. © 1988 Tad Williams. Originally published in Weird Tales. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Mama Gone" by Jane Yolen © 1991 by Jane Yolen. First appeared in Vampires: A Collection of Original Stories edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg, 1991 by HarperCollins. Reused with permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  Introduction

  by John Joseph Adams

  How do we define the vampire? Are they barely animated corpses, of a horrific visage, killing indiscriminately? Or are they suave, charismatic symbols of sexual repression in the Victorian era? Do they die in sunlight, or does it only make them itch a little, or, God forbid, sparkle? Do crosses and holy symbols work at repelling them, or is that just a superstition from the old times? Are they born, or made by other vampires? And anyway, are these vampires created through scientific means, such as genetic research or a virus, or are they the magical kind? Can they transform into bats? Or are they stuck in the appearance they had when they were turned? Are we talking the traditional Eastern European vampire, or something more exotic, like the Tagalog mandurugo, a pretty girl during the day, and a winged, mosquito-like monstrosity by night? Do they even drink blood, or are they some kind of psychic vampire, more directly attacking the life-force of their victims?

  Vampire stories come from our myths, but their origins are quite diverse. Stories of the dead thirsting for human life have existed for thousands of years, although the most common version we speak of in popular culture originated in eighteenth-century E
astern Europe. Why is the notion of the dead risen to prey on the living such an omnipresent myth across so many cultures?

  Perhaps the myth of the vampire comes from a little bit of projection on the part of the living. We have a hard time imagining our existence after death, and it may be easier to imagine a life that goes on somehow. But what kind of life would a corpse live? Our ancestors were intimately familiar with decomposition, even if they didn't precisely understand it. If I were dead, I know I would have a certain fixation for living things. And perhaps I might, finding death an unagreeable state, attempt to steal from the living some essence that defines the barrier between the living and death. Blood stands in for the notion of life easily enough. Now I just have to get that essence inside of me somehow, hmm. . . slurp.

  Or perhaps there's a darker, more insidious reason for the pervasiveness of the vampire story. Is there some kernel of universal truth behind all these stories? Many of the tales included here will offer their own explanations for the stories and myths. Because if there's one thing we love almost as much as vampires themselves, it's exploring their true natures. With the wealth of material accumulated on the nasty bloodsuckers, no two authors approach the vampire myth in quite the same way. The commonality of the vampire's story means their tales can take place in any time and in any place. The backdrop changes, and the details too, but always, underneath it all, there is blood. All draw from those dark, fearful histories, but provide their own fresh take, each like a rare blood type, to be sought by connoisseurs such as yourself.

  Hear again one of our oldest and most well-known fairy tales from a new, darker perspective in Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples." And just who is the mysterious Tribute in Elizabeth Bear's "House of the Rising Sun"? He seems so familiar. . . Visit the Philippines in Gabriela Lee's "Hunger," and see the world from the eyes of a creature of decidedly non-European origin. If that is not exotic enough for your tastes, then travel into the future and beyond with Ken Macleod's "Undead Again."

  Is your thirst still not satisfied? Hunt through these pages for stories by authors such as Stephen King, Joe Hill, Kelley Armstrong, Lilith Saintcrow, Carrie Vaughn, Harry Turtledove, and many more. There is a feast here to be had. Drink deeply.

  Snow, Glass, Apples

  by Neil Gaiman

  Neil Gaiman is the bestselling author of American Gods, Coraline, and Anansi Boys, among many other novels. His most recent novel, The Graveyard Book, won the prestigious Newbery Medal, given to great works of children's literature. In addition to his novel-writing, Gaiman is also the writer of the popular Sandman comic book series, and has done work in television and film.

  The story of Snow White is best known from the 1937 Disney animated feature, which is about seven lovable dwarfs with names like Happy and Bashful. Gaiman's take on that tale is new, but in a way it's also old. For long ago, before Disney Disneyfied it, the story of Snow White was told to children—children who would almost certainly die before reaching adulthood, and whose parents couldn't afford to be so delicate about the cruelties of the world. It was a tale in which a woman's feet are shoved into burning hot iron shoes so that she is forced to dance until she falls down dead.

  This story harkens back to that earlier, darker tradition. . . and then takes it a few steps farther. Mutilation, pedophilia, necrophilia. This definitely isn't Disney.

  I do not know what manner of thing she is. None of us do. She killed her mother in the birthing, but that's never enough to account for it.

  They call me wise, but I am far from wise, for all that I foresaw fragments of it, frozen moments caught in pools of water or in the cold glass of my mirror. If I were wise I would not have tried to change what I saw. If I were wise I would have killed myself before ever I encountered her, before ever I caught him.

  Wise, and a witch, or so they said, and I'd seen his face in my dreams and in reflections for all my life: sixteen years of dreaming of him before he reined his horse by the bridge that morning, and asked my name. He helped me onto his high horse and we rode together to my little cottage, my face buried in the gold of his hair. He asked for the best of what I had; a king's right, it was.

  His beard was red-bronze in the morning light, and I knew him, not as a king, for I knew nothing of kings then, but as my love. He took all he wanted from me, the right of kings, but he returned to me on the following day, and on the night after that: his beard so red, his hair so gold, his eyes the blue of a summer sky, his skin tanned the gentle brown of ripe wheat.

  His daughter was only a child: no more than five years of age when I came to the palace. A portrait of her dead mother hung in the princess's tower room; a tall woman, hair the colour of dark wood, eyes nut-brown. She was of a different blood to her pale daughter.

  The girl would not eat with us.

  I do not know where in the palace she ate.

  I had my own chambers. My husband the king, he had his own rooms also. When he wanted me he would send for me, and I would go to him, and pleasure him, and take my pleasure with him.

  One night, several months after I was brought to the palace, she came to my rooms. She was six. I was embroidering by lamplight, squinting my eyes against the lamp's smoke and fitful illumination. When I looked up, she was there.

  "Princess?"

  She said nothing. Her eyes were black as coal, black as her hair; her lips were redder than blood. She looked up at me and smiled. Her teeth seemed sharp, even then, in the lamplight.

  "What are you doing away from your room?"

  "I'm hungry," she said, like any child.

  It was winter, when fresh food is a dream of warmth and sunlight; but I had strings of whole apples, cored and dried, hanging from the beams of my chamber, and I pulled an apple down for her.

  "Here."

  Autumn is the time of drying, of preserving, a time of picking apples, of rendering the goose fat. Winter is the time of hunger, of snow, and of death; and it is the time of the midwinter feast, when we rub the goose-fat into the skin of a whole pig, stuffed with that autumn's apples, then we roast it or spit it, and we prepare to feast upon the crackling.

  She took the dried apple from me and began to chew it with her sharp yellow teeth.

  "Is it good?"

  She nodded. I had always been scared of the little princess, but at that moment I warmed to her and, with my fingers, gently, I stroked her cheek. She looked at me and smiled—she smiled but rarely—then she sank her teeth into the base of my thumb, the Mound of Venus, and she drew blood.

  I began to shriek, from pain and from surprise; but she looked at me and I fell silent.

  The little princess fastened her mouth to my hand and licked and sucked and drank. When she was finished, she left my chamber. Beneath my gaze the cut that she had made began to close, to scab, and to heal. The next day it was an old scar: I might have cut my hand with a pocket-knife in my childhood.

  I had been frozen by her, owned and dominated. That scared me, more than the blood she had fed on. After that night I locked my chamber door at dusk, barring it with an oaken pole, and I had the smith forge iron bars, which he placed across my windows.

  My husband, my love, my king, sent for me less and less, and when I came to him he was dizzy, listless, confused. He could no longer make love as a man makes love; and he would not permit me to pleasure him with my mouth: the one time I tried, he started, violently, and began to weep. I pulled my mouth away and held him tightly, until the sobbing had stopped, and he slept, like a child.

  I ran my fingers across his skin as he slept. It was covered in a multitude of ancient scars. But I could recall no scars from the days of our courtship, save one, on his side, where a boar had gored him when he was a youth.

  Soon he was a shadow of the man I had met and loved by the bridge. His bones showed, blue and white, beneath his skin. I was with him at the last: his hands were cold as stone, his eyes milky-blue, his hair and beard faded and lustreless and limp. He died unshriven, his skin nipped and pocked from
head to toe with tiny, old scars.

  He weighed near to nothing. The ground was frozen hard, and we could dig no grave for him, so we made a cairn of rocks and stones above his body, as a memorial only, for there was little enough of him left to protect from the hunger of the beasts and the birds.

  So I was queen.

  And I was foolish, and young—eighteen summers had come and gone since first I saw daylight—and I did not do what I would do, now.

  If it were today, I would have her heart cut out, true. But then I would have her head and arms and legs cut off. I would have them disembowel her. And then I would watch, in the town square, as the hangman heated the fire to white-heat with bellows, watch unblinking as he consigned each part of her to the fire. I would have archers around the square, who would shoot any bird or animal who came close to the flames, any raven or dog or hawk or rat. And I would not close my eyes until the princess was ash, and a gentle wind could scatter her like snow.