Thessalonike of Macedon
Quentin Talbot stared at the picture on his hotel room wall in The Royal Alexandria Hotel in Alexandria, Egypt.
The woman looked familiar but he couldn’t quite place her.
The radio in his hotel room was tuned to BBC World News and on it, he could hear the voice of British MP Renfield R. Renfield,
“Washington state’s Neo-Communist governor Jay Inslee is making it mandatory for everyone to wear a mask in public. You can’t enter a restaurant or enter a store without one. No doubt wearing a face mask is just the prelude to taking the Mark of the Beast by which “no man might buy or sell without it” as recorded in the Book of Revelation Chapter 13. It’s time for the American people to wake up and smell the Marx, Engels and Lenin in their coffee.”
Quentin Talbot decided he wouldn’t be returning to America any time soon.
He recalled an email he had received from a traditional Catholic aunt of his last year in which she had recounted an interview with the nun Sister Lucia (who as a child had seen the Blessed Virgin Mary along with two of her cousins at Fatima Portugal) that she gave back in the 1990s.
In it, she had said that the last great world power to fall to Marxist-Leninism would be the United States of America.
Since Marxist-Leninism had collapsed in Russia and the nations of Central and Eastern Europe back in the early 1990s, it would have been absurd to think back in the 1990s that the U.S. would ever fall to Marxist-Leninism.
Even as late as last year with uber-capitalist Donald Trump in the White House, it would still have been absurd to think the U.S. would ever fall to Marxist-Leninism.
However with the advent of the Covid-19 coronavirus, various Democratic Party Mayors and governors throughout the U.S. were starting to show their true Red (as in Bolshevik Red) colours.
Then with the protests against racism and police brutality, radical Jacobin style French Revolutionary mobs were tearing down statues and trying to erase all vestiges of America’s past.
At the start of any Communist revolution, any vestige of a nation’s past must be erased.
The BBC was now reporting live from Raleigh North Carolina that a group calling itself the Disciples of Lucifer would be holding a Luciferian March For One World Government in Raleigh and 8 other U.S. cities tomorrow June 21st on the day of the “ring of fire” solar eclipse.
Insanity must have just been let out of Pandora’s box, Quentin Talbot thought to himself.
He exited his hotel room.
The hall corridor looked different.
It was the same but looked different somehow.
He used the elegant staircase to go down to the lobby.
The lobby too looked the same but different.
A bell boy approached him.
“You are expected in the ball room, sir,” the bell boy said.
“What year is this?” Quentin Talbot felt compelled to ask.
“Why, 1939, sir,” the bell boy answered with a sincere smile and laugh.
As Quentin Talbot approached the ball room, he remembered where he had seen the woman in the black and white photo in his hotel room before.
It was at the Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery in London last autumn.
It was an oil painting where the subject was Thessalonike of Macedon who was Alexander the Great’s half-sister.
Talbot entered the ballroom and there on what appeared to be a throne was seated Thessalonike of Macedon.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Saturday June 20th
2020.
Marianne de Lilith
Marianne de Lililth
Carson Cody Albion sat in his private eye office
From his window, he could get a good view of parts of the city burning
The private eye felt hungry so he ordered a pizza to be delivered to his office
Unbeknownst to Albion, the courier got his orders mixed-up
A pizza that was to be delivered to the leader of a rival gang
A gang in opposition to the gang that owned the pizza shop
Was delivered to Albion instead
The pizza contained several doses of toad venom
Luckily for Albion the pizza cook got his recipe books mixed up
He did not sprinkle enough toad venom on the mozzarella to deliver death
Only enough to give the eater a high
Although Albion might not have died anyways
He was immortal
Having drunk breast milk from the lovely knockers of
the Syro-Phoenician goddess Atargatis back on VE-Day
May 8th 1945
Albion ate the pizza
and drank his bourbon
And soon he was off on a hallucinogenic trip
That would have made Samuel Taylor Coleridge green with envy
For there was no storytelling sailor with an albatross around his neck
Nor a Kubla Khan in Xanadu stately decreeing a pleasure dome
Rather this sight greeted his senses
Marianne de Lilith
I am Marianne de Lilith
said the sexy redheaded witch
Well, Marianne, said Albion,
I love the way you’re holding that broomstick.
Bats flew in the light of the full moon
Behind the dead desolate tree.
“This is but a vision of the mind,” Albion reflected
“As I don’t think the Farmer’s Almanac called for a full moon this evening.”
“The tree behind me died as a result of being watered with toad venom,”
Marianne explained.
“That is a shame,” Albion reflected as he threw his cigarette lighter at Marianne’s feet.
Albion crawled over to pick it up.
“I’m reminded of fishing season for some reason,” Albion remarked as he gazed up her stockings and her skirt.
A spiked stiletto high-heeled shoe crushed his hand.
“This never happened to John Candy when he made a splash with his loose change aboard that boat,” Albion grimaced with pain.
Albion soon found himself in Marianne’s shack.
He started whistling that song “What A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”
as he gazed at the pair of knockers that weren’t hanging on Marianne’s door.
“I take it you still like being breast fed?” Marianne asked the private eye.
“I do,” Albion nodded, “I’m like Jerry Seinfeld in that respect.”
So Marianne breast fed him.
Breasts that were loaded with toad’s venom and not milk.
Albion went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to an LA hospital.
“Beware the breasts of Marianne de Lilth!” Calpurnia’s ghost warned as she strolled the corridors of the hospital emergency ward.
Her warning came a little too late for Carson Cody Albion private eye.
-A poem and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Saturday June 13th
2020.
The Inspector and The Baker’s Daughter
The Inspector and The Baker’s Daughter
“Are you looking for something, Inspector?” The girl asked him.
A day began like any other for the Inspector
Yet no ordinary day
These are no ordinary times
Covid-19 pandemic in world.
2 days ago police in Beijing
arrested a professor
Chen Zhaozhi
Former professor at the Beijing University of Science and Technology
for calling Covid-19
The Chinese Communist Party Virus
But Beijing’s arrest did not concern the French police detective
What concerned the Paris police detective was a matter that concerned
The Paris Grand Orient Lodge
For British MP Renfield R. Renfield
had sent a confidential report today
to a French and European politician
The Kraken who called himself Napoleon VI
The leader of the French Aquarian Age Bonapartist Party
French President Macron had ordered surveillance of the Kraken’s
emails and text messages
And today Renfield had sent the Kraken
a confidential report
which was said to be from Five Eyes
The joint intelligence service of the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom
The report claimed that the Covid-19 virus
Was indeed a virus that had accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology
At an emergency meeting of the Grand Orient Lodge
Isis, Osiris and Horus
demanded to know
whether the Renfield report
was an actual copy of a Five Eyes
Intelligence Report
or whether the whole report was a
piece of Renfieldian disinformation
designed to prevent Emmanuel Macron
from ordering take out deliveries of Chinese food in Paris
A person that the Paris Police Inspector
thought might know
was Marmalade Montague
a baker and a man
from whom the Kraken bought
his croissant rolls and Chinese hot steamed buns
The Paris inspector himself used to buy his cinnamon buns from Marmalade Montague
Montague had recently been thrown out of his bakery
for lack of payment of rent
due to decline in business
during the Paris Covid-19 lockdown
However the inspector decided to visit Montague’s apartment
Perhaps the baker still lived there
As the building’s landlord had died
from the Covid-19 virus and his estate was still up in the air
The Inspector entered the apartment
As he passed by the kitchen, he noticed hot cinnamon buns lying on the counter
So the inspector stopped and ate one
He ended up eating all 6 dozen.
The Inspector received a text message on his smart phone
saying that Marmalade Montague kept poison in his bathroom medicine cabinet.
He went to check out the medicine cabinet
The bathroom door was still open
And that’s when the Inspector noticed Marmalade Montague’s lovely daughter Irene
sitting in a chair
in a corner of the living room
“Are you looking for something, Inspector?” The girl asked him.
“I was told your father kept poison in his medicine cabinet,” the inspector replied.
“He did but it’s no longer there,” Irene told him.
“Where is it?” The inspector asked.
“I added it to my dad’s recipe for his famous cinnamon buns that I left on the kitchen counter,” Irene answered.
The Inspector never did show up to that evening’s non-social distancing meeting of the Grand Orient Lodge.
A copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story Murders In The Rue Morgue was sent to the meeting
with a notation on the page
before the title page
that this was where the Inspector was to be found.
-A narrative poem
and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Wednesday May 6th
2020.
Carson Cody Albion and The Zombies of 1950s Havana
Carson Cody Albion and The Zombies of 1950s Havana
The year was 1956.
Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara were busy working on their plans to topple the Cuban government of President Fulgencio Batista.
Britain, France and Israel would attack Egypt over the Suez Canal.
And John George Diefenbaker would win the leadership of the Canadian Federal Progressive Conservative Party.
The last good leader the Federal Progressive Conservatives would ever have.
And the last good Prime Minister Canada would ever have.
So naturally he was a threat to the Canadian establishment and elites as well as the U.S. State Department.
The State Department got global bankers and investors to sabotage the value of the Canadian dollar during the 1963 Canadian election campaign so Diefenbaker would be blamed for it and lose the election.
Which is what happened.
Canadian Federal Liberal Party leader Lester Bowles (should really have been spelled Bowels) Pearson became Prime Minister of Canada in 1963 and eventually paved the way for Marxist-Leninist Cultural Marxist Pierre Elliot Trudeau (should really be spelled Turdeau) to become Prime Minister in 1968 and to set forth plans for the destruction of Canada as a great nation.
The destruction became complete when Progressive Conservative Party leader Brian Mulroney (should really be spelled Bulroney) was elected Prime Minister of Canada in 1984.
Bulroney was so obnoxious, he drove the Federal Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to extinction to be replaced by the Reform Party later Canadian Alliance Party and later just plain Conservative Party of Canada.
So Diefenbaker was Canada’s last great hope before the onset of political zombies (mindless living dead corpses who went around eating brains) on to the Canadian political landscape which governed the country ever since.
And speaking of zombies, Cuban casinos were having a problem with zombies in that year of 1956.
Zombies were entering the casinos and frightening customers.
As well as stealing cash from the casino safes and safety deposit boxes.
A meeting of Cuban casino owners was held in the Glowing Sun and Burning Sands Whorehouse in Havana to discuss the problem.
A follow up meeting was held in the city’s Sexually Transmitted Diseases Clinic waiting room.
It was agreed to call in Los Angeles Private Eye Carson Cody Albion to investigate the problem.
Albion was recommended to the Havana Casino Owners group by a Monte Carlo casino owner (who had employed Albion as a house detective in a Monte Carlo casino and hotel the year before).
Albion arrived in Havana the following week.
After spending an evening drinking Cuba Libres in a Havana bar with a couple of interesting fellows named Fidel and Che, Carson Cody Albion set to work on the case.
Meanwhile in an Anglican Church in Havana that served British and Commonwealth diplomatic staff at the city’s embassies, an intensely stupid looking man with fish eyes and weird looking silver hair (that would have easily given Donald Trump’s urine golden coloured toupee a run for its money) sat playing the organ.
The man’s name was Keith Bennett.
Although that wasn’t the man’s real name.
His real name was Armilius Wolfstein a Nazi scientist (but not a very bright Nazi scientist unlike many of the evil geniuses of the Third Reich) who served as a somewhat dim witted assistant to the evil and notorious Dr. Josef Mengele.
Armilius Wolfstein fled to Argentina when the Second World War ended.
Wolfstein had had an interesting history.
He lived in Munich in the 1920s where he had tried unsuccessfully to apply to various universities and post-secondary institutions in the city.
He landed a job as a commercial and advertising salesman for a newspaper and magazine publishing firm in the city.
He had a friend Kitz Mjolnir (like the hammer of Thor) who lived in Munich.
When Kitz’s father died and the Mjolnir family estate was sold, Kitz had taken a small preliminary payout from the Estate to move to Berlin where he hoped to get into that city’s burgeoning film industry.
Armilius Wolfstein had told Kitz that if he ever needed help or decided to move back to Munich to get in touch with him and he’d move an arm and a leg to help him out.
While Kitz was in Berlin, his father’s Estate lawyer in Munich, either due to being a crook or due to gross incompetence, had absconded with most of the Estate funds.
Kitz was now left with nothing.
Unable to pursue his chance of a film career in Berlin and unable to land a job, Kitz returned to Bavaria.
But to the city of Regensburg.
Having trouble settling down in Regensburg, Kitz decided to move back to Munich but would need help finding a place.
He recalled Armilius Wolfstein’s offer to help so wrote him a letter.
Being the pompous asshole that Armilius Wolfstein was, Wolfstein had replied to Kitz with an arrogant and condescending letter.
Kitz thought of writing a letter in which he’d tell Wolfstein that he (Wolfstein) was so full of shit that if they gave him an enema before he died, they could bury him in a cigar box.
But he decided not to waste time in replying to such a venereal disease infested piece of rubbish.
So having stabbed a friend in the back, Wolfstein went on to join the German National Socialist Workers’ Party (the Nazis).
. . .
When the Nazis succeeded in taking power in Germany in 1933, Wolfstein like numerous misfits across the country was able to land a job by acting as a total brown shirted brown noser to the Nazi Party and moved into a position of importance, power and prestige.
He became a lab assistant to Dr. Josef Mengele although he bragged to friends and acquaintances that he was a scientist.
He assisted Mengele in performing the various inhumane experiments that the Nazis’ Dr. Death performed on individuals belonging to groups that the Third Reich had deemed and labelled as subhuman.
During those experiments, Wolfstein had occasionally run into an individual known as Franz Kohler of the Nazi SS Ahnenerbe Occult Bureau.
When the war ended in 1945, Armilius Wolfstein had fled to Argentina.
There he changed his name to Keith Bennett and claimed to be an English expatriate living in Argentina.
Bennett had taken up the study of music and became an organist (although in fact he played the instrument very badly).
Whilst living in Buenos Aires, he came across a Spanish language edition of The Necronomicon (mentioned in Lovecraftian lore) and getting help with the translation from a professional Argentinian wrestler, Bennett started using dark arts sorcery to raise the dead.
It was while he was doing this, that Keith Bennett (the former Armilius Wolfstein) once again encountered Franz Kohler of the Nazi SS Ahnenerbe Occult Bureau.
Kohler then took Bennett (as he now called himself) to Haiti to study under Haitian voodoo practitioners in raising the dead.
Bennett posed as an Anglican lay missionary while in Haiti.
No one thought of asking what an Anglican lay missionary was doing in learning voodoo, raiding cemeteries and cultivating plantations of zombies.
Although Bennett in the 1950s was doing what the later Anglican Communion of the 1960s would be doing when such notables as U.S. Episcopalian Bishop James Pike would be busy consulting spiritist mediums such as Arthur Ford on television.
Pike would go on to die a horrible and mysterious death in a desert in Israel for his efforts.
But that would not be the fate of Keith Bennett, Anglican lay missionary.
Having mastered the art of zombie raising, Bennett was then taken by Franz Kohler to Havana, Cuba.
There Bennett would start raising Cubans from the dead.
Kohler was hoping to raise an army of Cuban zombies to attack Florida and establish a Nazi Fourth Reich beachhead on the United States of America.
But like the best laid plans of mice and men, the best laid plans of Nazi SS Ahnenerbe Occult Bureau officers often go astray as well.
Two men named Fidel and Ernesto were planning a Communist revolution in Cuba.
So what would Cuba end up being?
A Communist state?
Or the Caribbean launching grounds for a Neo-Nazi Fourth Reich?
In fact it would be neither Franz Kohler and the asinine Keith Bennett nor Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara who would throw the deciding and winning pair of dice in which way the winds of change on the Caribbean island of Cuba would blow.
That would be decided by Carson Cody Albion Private Eye.
. . .
Albion was lying in bed after spending the last several hours making out with Dolly Castro (a cousin of Fidel and Raoul).
There was a pounding at the door.
It was the hotel and casino manager.
“Zombies,” shouted the hotel manager, “zombies have crashed the hotel’s dirty dancing competition and one of them has carried away the U.S. Ambassador’s niece.”
“Wow, someone certainly hasn’t been having the time of their life,” Albion opened the door.
“You’ve got to come quickly,” the manager said.
“That’s the opposite of what Dolly has been telling me all evening,” Albion remarked.
“The U.S. Ambassador’s niece is in danger,” the manager cried.
“I guess you don’t want the U.S. Ambassador’s niece dirty dancing with a zombie,” Albion followed the manager down the hallway.
. . .
The zombie was dragging the Ambassador’s niece into the house owned by Keith Bennett Anglican lay missionary and badly playing organist.
“I’ve never felt this way before,” the Ambassador’s niece cried.
The zombie (whose name had been Patrick in his mortal life) was busy swaying or swayzing in the Caribbean breeze on this moonlit Havana night.
Within seconds, salt pellets being fired by a machine gun sprayed the zombie killing him instantly.
For of course blessed salt kills zombies.
Albion picked up the U.S. Ambassador’s niece and carried her to his red convertible.
Screams could be heard from inside the house.
Just as Keith Bennett was playing The Old Master Painter on his organ.
Albion returned to the house with his machine gun containing 400 rounds of salt pellets, kicked in the door and began firing.
Franz Kohler’s army of zombies began dropping like flies.
Bennett reached for his own revolver to shoot at Albion.
The former Nazi pseudo-scientist turned Anglican lay minister and incompetent organist had his head blown off by Che Guevara’s machine gun as the young revolutionary came charging through the backdoor.
“Brains, brains,” a dying zombie tried to lick up what was oozing out of Bennett’s gaping head wound.
“No brains,” were the zombie’s last words before he died.
“Nice shooting,” said Albion.
“Thanks,” Che smiled, “I always have this recurring nightmare about being killed in a shoot out in the mountains of Bolivia.”
“You don’t want that to happen,” Albion noted.
“So, where are you going now?” Guevara asked.
“Out to my convertible to entertain Uncle Sam’s niece,” Albion answered.
“Really?” Guevara had a twinkle in his eye, “Do you know what Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s favourite quotation is?”.
“Can’t say that I do,” Albion admitted, “I’ve never read his Little Red Book.
“His favourite quotation,” Che winked, “is screw the U.S. Imperialists.”
“An excellent idea,” Albion smiled and walked out towards his car on this warm Havana night.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Wednesday January 22nd
2020.
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro Solves The Mystery of The Amazon Rainforest Fires
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro Solves The Mystery of the Amazon Rainforest Fires
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro managed to get a copy of the incomplete report that London private eyes Agathor Christie and Magog Rhys Petley had given to Lev Tomi the Secretary-General of the UN Secretariat On The Environment and Climate Change on who was responsible for setting the Amazon Rainforest fires back in the summer.
Christie and Petley were frightened by the creatures, gods and goddesses and other supernatural beings they encountered in the Amazon Rainforest so they eventually gave up on their investigation.
But that still didn’t stop them from charging a huge exorbitant fee to Tomi for their incomplete services.
Bolsonaro had called a press conference to reveal who was responsible for setting the fires without bothering to read the incomplete report.
Now that he had read it, Bolsonaro realized that he was up Shit Creek without a paddle.
He helped himself to another jar of those delicious Uncle Ernie’s Australian Fruit Gummy Bears that his good friend Donald Trump had sent him and downed several handfuls.
As he reflected, he suddenly recalled a name that his wife Michelle had called out in her sleep last night, “Leonardo.”
Furious, Bolsonaro walked out into the hall, faced the press and accused Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio of “giving money to set the Amazon on fire”.
Foamed Bolsonaro, “This Leonardo DiCaprio is a cool guy, right? Giving money to torch the Amazon.”
. . .
The Norse trickster god Loki watched the Jair Bolsonaro press conference on television.
The idiotic pronouncement gave Loki an idea.
It would certainly make for a wonderful joke if the phantasm that was the spectral ghost ship of the R.M.S. Titanic suddenly made an appearance on the Amazon River.
To do that, he went to see Hades the Greek god of the Underworld to see if the plutocrat would grant a temporary dispensation to the phantasmal shade that was the spectral ghost form of the R.M.S. Titanic to sail down the Amazon River.
Hades granted Loki the request and soon reports of the spectre of the ghostly form of the R.M.S. Titanic going down the Amazon River were being reported and shared on social media.
As Loki walked back chuckling from Hades’ throne room, he walked past a room in Hades’ palace where the ghost of Leonardo da Vinci the famous Renaissance artist, scientist and inventor was boasting to the ghost of one of the Medicis that he had recently paid a nocturnal spectral visit to Michelle Bolsonaro the wife of the current Brazilian President.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Saturday November 30th
2019.
Albion’s Reflections On A Rainy Night
Albion’s Reflections On A Rainy Night
There was always something comforting about the sound of rain on the roof
Carson Cody Albion Private Eye couldn’t quite explain it
Maybe because it rarely rained in Southern California
The heat of the day
Would compete with the heat of the night
to see who would produce
the sweating heavyweight champion of the world
Rain allowed a cool down
The sky’s method of baptism
On the sinning and criminality that occurred below
Albion was getting tired of all the greed and the lust and the shenanigans
That he saw daily but more often nightly at his job
The rain kept everyone indoors
No exchange of larceny or bodies or souls was going on in the streets outside
Just the pitter patter of gentle droplets on the roof
Albion looked over at his dresser
And noticed his bottle of bourbon remained untouched and unopened
Something that was never the case on a hot and humid Los Angeles night
His head felt clear and free of headache
So this was what his room sounded like when the fan wasn’t running full blast
One could actually hear oneself thinking
And the rain drops on the roof were like a soothing melody
Albion reached for a stick of licorice
rather than his usual cigarette
Strange about the rain, Albion reflected,
It was like a return to innocence
Maybe that’s what God was hoping with the flood in Noah’s time
But once the sizzling heat returned
It was like eating the forbidden fruit in Eden
One had knowledge of both good and evil
And more often than not, evil.
The private eye decided to go out
And taste the gentle rain on his tongue
And feel the gentle rain on his skin
Albion for some reason
(He supposed it was the influence of Philip Marlowe movies on the silver screen)
always wore a raincoat when he went out
Like advertising a trademark for Private Eye
But on a night when he should be wearing that coat for the purpose for which it was created
He did not put it on
He went outside in a sleeveless shirt
And let the rain wash off any dirt
that was usually accumulated
and came with living in Los Angeles
-A poem written by Christopher
Wednesday June 19th
2019.
Fish and Chips With Holmes and Watson
It was a May evening in London at 221B Baker Street the residence of the world-famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes.
The year was 1899.
“Well, Holmes,” Dr. Watson put down his newspaper, “what do you deduce that Mrs. Hudson has made us for dinner tonight?”.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you this morning, Watson,” Holmes lit his pipe, “Mrs. Hudson is going to a Church Auxiliary Tea and Bake Sale this evening so sadly for us, no fine dinner from Mrs. Hudson tonight.”
“Blast it, Holmes,” Watson grimaced, “I wish you had told me. I’d have gone for dinner at the club tonight.”
“What and leave me home alone, Watson?” Holmes smiled, “Leaving me to fend for myself?”.
“Damn right, I would, Holmes,” Watson nodded, “If I can’t enjoy Mrs. Hudson’s fine cooking, I can get a very fine beef steak at the club.”
“What say we go out for some good old English fish and chips, Watson?” Holmes started putting his rain coat on.
“All right,” Watson put his jacket and coat on, “seeing as how they’ve probably stopped serving dinner at the club an hour ago.”
Holmes and Watson exited their room, walked down the stairs and through Mrs. Hudson’s parlour out the front door.
“Where shall we go for Fish and Chips, Holmes?” Watson asked.
“I noticed just the other day that a new Fish and Chips place opened up a few blocks away, Watson,” Holmes pointed in the direction, “What say we try there?”.
“All right,” Watson agreed, “Lead on, MacDuff.”
The duo walked enjoying the evening air.
“Here’s the place,” Holmes pointed at the entrance with his walking stick.
“The Captain’s,” Watson looked at the sign above the door, “Quite an original name for a Fish and Chips place.”
“Sarcasm does not become you, Watson,” Holmes remarked.
“Neither does being hungry,” Watson opened the door, “let’s go in.”
Inside both Holmes and Watson ordered the 3 pieces of Fish with Chips plate.
The detective ordered a brandy and his physician friend ordered a gin for liquid refreshment.
“Interesting portrait painting on the main wall, there,” Holmes said to the waiter when he brought the drinks, “who is that supposed to be?”.
“That is a picture of the Captain,” the waiter replied.
“He looks like a bloody pirate if you ask me,” Watson gazed at the painting.
“He was, sir,” the waiter nodded, “he was a pirate captain.”
“Oh, really,” Watson harrumphed, “What was his name?”.
“That we do not know, sir,” the waiter answered, “The restaurant’s owner bought that painting in an antique shop in Plymouth. The painting dates back to the 18th Century the antique dealer said. But who the man in the portrait is, he had no idea. But the painting inspired the owner to open up a Fish and Chip shop and call it The Captain’s named after the figure in the painting.”
“Bloody mysterious if you ask me,” Watson took a sip of his gin.
“And yet my trade is solving mysteries, Watson,” Holmes lit his pipe again.
“So, who is the figure in the painting?” Watson asked Holmes.
“I’m afraid I’ve never really studied the history of 18th Century piracy in depth to hazard a guess,” Holmes blew smoke rings.
“What you mean there’s actually something that the great Sherlock Holmes does not know?” Watson laughed.
The waiter arrived with their Fish and Chips orders and both men raised knife and fork to tackle the huge succulent looking pieces of cod on their respective plates forgetting the question of the pirate in the painting.
“So, what made you decide on a Fish and Chips dinner tonight, Holmes?” Watson asked.
“A dream I had last night, actually,” Holmes took a sip of his brandy.
“But I didn’t think you put much stock in dreams, Holmes?” Watson had to smile.
“Normally I don’t,” Holmes admitted as he wiped his mouth with a napkin, “Still the Bard did write We are such stuff as dreams are made on. And it was a memorable dream I had to admit.”
“What was it?” Watson was curious.
“I dreamed I was aboard a boat and a large octopus… a Kraken actually of mythological folklore fame was drinking 120 barrels of rum,” Holmes sucked thoughtfully on his pipe.
“How did you know there were exactly 120 barrels?” Watson laughed, “You counted?”.
“Brilliant deduction, Watson,” Holmes shook his head in dismay, “Obviously I counted.”
“Holmes,” Watson put down his fork in exasperation, “You’re the only person I know who would spend time in his dream counting exactly how many barrels of rum a Kraken was drinking.”
The duo started getting quizzical looks from customers sitting at other tables.
“So, what significance is there to the number of rum barrels the Kraken was drinking?” Watson cut into another piece of cod, “What does the number 120 signify?”.
“God only knows, Watson,” Holmes poured vinegar on his chips, “The number of years perhaps.”
The detective shrugged.
“Let’s see,” Watson did arithmetic in his head, “120 years from now, that would be May 17th 2019.”
. . .
It was a Friday evening in London in May 2019 and Dashwood Forrest the owner of The Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery was removing an old oil painting he had just purchased from the crate it was in.
“Good heavens,” Forrest’s Irish manservant Mulligan the Irish zombie spilled gin and brandy all over himself when he saw it, “That figure in the painting looks exactly like Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of The Caribbean.”
. . .
In the May evening in 1899, Holmes lit his pipe again and looked contemplatively at the ceiling.
“You know it’s strange, Watson,” Holmes’ pipe smoke headed in the direction of the portrait of the Captain.
“What’s that, Holmes?” Watson sipped his after dinner coffee.
“That we never seem to call one another by our first names like normal acquaintances seem to do,” Holmes chewed on his pipe.
Now there was a mystery.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Friday May 17th
2019.
The Maltese Falcon At Mar-A-Lago: A Poem
Narrator of poem:
“How are ya, sweetheart?
I’m the ghost of Humphrey Bogart
I was recently challenged by my friend the ghost of Orson Welles
to see if I still got tough guy and private eye skills
that I used to have in my movies.
So I took him up on his challenge and headed down to Florida
The site of one of my popular films Key Largo
I heard about this swanky place down there called Mar-a-Lago
A private Palm Beach, Florida club owned by a temper tantrum throwing
spoiled brat billionaire named Donald Trump
Imagine my surprise when I heard this bozo
was also the President of the United States
The country has certainly gone down hill
since the days of Harry Truman
I figure.
Anyways a Chinese lady spy named Yujing Zhang
was arrested at the club trying to enter it with a
thumb drive containing malware
I had no idea what a thumb drive is
Thought it might be that a car was driven by your thumb
instead of both hands in this day and age
or maybe some newly designed form of golf club
they came up with that quite literally relies on the rule of thumb
And as for malware, I thought it was some guy named Mel Ware
who just might be the uncle of Token Ware
a female character in a Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe story
I was set straight on the new developments in technology
by the ghosts of eccentric Serb-American inventor Nikola Tesla
and some British guy named Alan Turing
who made a name for himself in mathematics
Anyways it turns out this Yujing Zhang wasn’t the only femme fatale
causing intrigue down at Club Mar-a-Lago
Some woman named Li Cindy Yang is also involved
It turns out she owns a massage parlour
where prostitution is said to be going on
on the premises
One of her arrested johns was a Mr. Robert Kraft
the owner of a football team called The New England Patriots
The case is made even more interesting by the fact
that the team’s quarterback Tom Brady
claims he’s able to win football games
through the help of his wife
Gisele Bundchen
who’s a witch.
The whole thing reminds me of a film my friend Veronica Lake
made back in 1942
called I Married A Witch
So you can imagine my surprise when I walked through the door
of Club Mar-a-Lago
and saw the Maltese Falcon on the table
That old bird that appeared in the film by that title
That I starred in back in 1941
Around the table lay the bodies of various secret service agents
who had been completely drained of blood
A beautiful Chinese woman wearing a white evening dress
stood outside the club dining room window
in the middle of the pouring rain
“That most enchanting and intriguing woman is the Chinese Communist vampiress Mei-ling Manchu,”
The ghost of Orson Welles arrived in the nick of time
sipping a glass of red wine,
“She’s the daughter of Dr. Fu Manchu the famous scientist
whose exploits were written about in the novels of Sax Rohmer”.
“What’s she doing here?” I asked Welles.
Welles smiled, “She’s hidden a bunch of condoms owned by the Knights of Malta
in that Maltese Falcon.
That way when they’re found by law enforcement authorities
who are already on their way over here
The find will prove to be problematic and embarrassing
for both Donald Trump and Pope Francis
And the Chinese government will have killed two birds with one stone.”
“Well, that explains the pair of sunglass wearing dead pink flamingos I passed by on the lawn on the way in then,” I remarked
“Those are actually lawn ornaments knocked over by drunken country club members,” Welles finished his wine.
I noticed Mei-ling Manchu approach a fire-breathing Black Dragon
and crawl on to its back
“Off to Venezuela,” she said, “There to watch the Donald play his final Trump card before we divide this land between ourselves and the Russians.”
She and the Dragon flew off into the night sky
I walked outside to watch the Dragon and the vampiress depart
I looked down at the two pink flamingos and remarked to Welles,
“Well, I suppose the problems of two flamingos don’t amount to a hill of beans in this world.”
Welles lit himself a cigar and remarked, “Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday and soon.”
Some young woman named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood outside the club and waved a document called the Green New Deal.
“Bogey on the 18th hole,” the ghost of Arnold Palmer remarked as he walked by with his golf clubs.
I laughed, patted Welles on the shoulder and said,
“You know, Orson, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship”
As we walked off into the misty greens.
-A poem and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Wednesday April 3rd
2019.
Isabel Esmeronde: Cuban Singer Extraordinaire
Isabel Esmeronde: Cuban singer extraordinaire
The year was 1956.
And U.S. Vice-President Richard M. Nixon sat in the LA private eye office of Carson Cody Albion.
Carson Cody Albion was an immortal Private Eye.
Quite literally immortal.
He had been turned immortal by the Syro-Phoenician goddess Atargatis back on May 8th 1945 when her breasts started lactating over the news that Nazi Germany had unconditionally surrendered over in Europe.
Albion, who was going through severe bourbon withdrawal at the time, immediately started drinking the milk and became immortal.
Atargatis: Prior to hearing the news of Germany’s surrender on May 8th 1945.
“I’ve been told you’re the height of discretion, Mr. Albion,” Nixon said.
“That I am,” Albion turned off his tape recorder, “Normally I like to record my clients’ conversations but in your case, I’ll make an exception.”
“Those tape recorders are kind of handy things, aren’t they?” Nixon looked at the machine, “I might have to start using them someday.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Vice-President?” Albion asked.
“Well, as you know I saved my political ass four years ago by the fact I owned a dog named Checkers and my wife Pat owned a good Republican cloth coat and not a mink coat,” Nixon said.
“I recall that,” Albion nodded.
“Anyways that damned fool Nelson Rockefeller went and bought my wife Pat a mink coat last Christmas,” Nixon frowned.
“Why did he do that?” Albion looked perplexed.
“I’ve been told that it was vengeance for my leaving his hotel room door open for his wife Mary at the 1952 Republican convention,” Nixon now looked perplexed, “She apparently walked into the bedroom while some British woman named Sherrielock Holmes was showing Nelson how to make tomatoed buns. I thought Mary would be happy about someone showing her husband how to cook but apparently she wasn’t.”
“So Rocky bought Pat a mink coat as vengeance?” Albion ate some jelly beans.
“That’s right,” Nixon said, “And now it’s been stolen. By the Mafia. And they’re offering it for sale to the highest bidder down at a casino in Havana. That bastard Joe Kennedy Sr., the father of Sen. Jack Kennedy, is going to try to buy it in a move designed to embarrass me. He’ll present it to the press as evidence that “Pat doesn’t have cloth to mink around anymore.” The swine.”
“So what would you like me to do?” Albion asked.
“It will be offered both at the cards table and then the roulette table prior to auction,” Nixon scratched his nose, “I want you to try to win it for me ahead of time.”
. . .
Fidel Castro sat in the lobby of the Spanish Crown casino.
He pointed out the decor and the clientele to his friend Ernesto Che Guevara.
Said Castro bitterly, “This is what Batista wants to turn all of Cuba into. A playground for America’s wealthy.”
. . .
“Who is the best poker player in all of Cuba?” Albion asked the British Ambassador to Havana.
“And what do you want with the best poker player in all of Cuba?” Sir Justin Burstpipes asked.
“I need him to win a mink coat for me,” Albion replied.
“You always come up with the most interesting answers to my questions, Albion,” Sir Justin sipped his gin, “We could use you at the Foreign Office in London. Your answers could shake the dust off the cobwebs there. But in answer to your question, the best poker player in Cuba is a her not a him.”
“And who is she?” Albion asked.
“Right over there,” Sir Justin Burstpipes pointed in her direction, “Isabel Esmeronde, Cuban singer extraordinaire.”
. . .
Isabel Esmeronde won Pat Nixon’s mink coat at the poker table.
Carson Cody Albion lived up to the British Ambassador’s last name as soon as he saw her as did the British Ambassador himself.
After Isabel left the cards table, Albion said to her, “Can I buy you a drink?”.
Isabel smiled and shook her head no, “I have an appointment with a time traveling Canadian vampire hunter later tonight.”
And with that statement, she bowed and left.
“Well with her answers and her assets, she’d definitely shake up the Foreign Office in London for the better,” Sir Justin Burstpipes remarked as he gazed at her entrance into the casino lounge.
Later in the lounge that night, Isabel Esmeronde sang, “Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger…”
Dracul Van Helsing time traveler from the future watched her sing.
He loved enchanted evenings.
Isabel Esmeronde: Some enchanted evening
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Wednesday March 27th
2019.
The Debutante’s Ball 1941: A Poem
Marissa Van Horne, Debutante
“You’re here to escort me to the ball, Mr. Albion?”
The laughing smiling face of the beautiful young woman
looked at me with merriment and amusement in her sparkling eyes
which glimmered like stars above her sunshine golden gown,
“A famed Los Angeles private eye reduced to a chaperone?”
I, Carson Cody Albion, stopped in my tracks
when I heard this statement
I was a private eye
But I had never thought of myself as famed.
“Don’t be so modest,” Marissa remarked with a wry smile as if she could read my mind, “of course you are!”
“The ball starts at 8 PM?” I queried looking at my watch.
“Yes, but drinks are served starting at 7,” she laughed.
“I don’t think your parents hired me to watch you get inebriated before the ball,” I said as I held open the arms of her fur coat
so she could finish her fashion ensemble for the evening.
Only the LA glitterati rich would wear fur coats
on a hot Los Angeles evening
But as the hired help, what did I know?
“No,” she slid her arms through the coat, “my parents hired you to keep me away from Lev Tomi.”
That was true.
They had.
Titus Van Horne was an influential newspaper editor in the city.
He seemed to know everything about everyone in the state of California
A West Coast J. Edgar Hoover as it were
Minus that DC bureaucrat’s penchant for wearing women’s clothing in private
Which was a good thing for the Van Horne family fortune
For the Paris dresses and gowns that Mrs. Van Horne and daughter Marissa wore
were already keeping the Bank of Monte Carlo afloat
to say nothing of Hitler’s Reich
while the Vichy government were reduced to making money off mineral water
A third Van Horne (and a male one at that) adorning the best of Parisienne feminine apparel
would definitely have put the Van Horne family fortune in the red
like Alger Hiss in the U.S. State Department
Van Horne knew all about Orson Welles’ private life
He had to
For the Boy Wonder of New York radio and theatre
was making a movie based on the life of Van Horne’s boss
But Van Horne knew nothing whatsoever about Lev Tomi
This older man that young Marissa had started seeing at the start of this year
Marissa just claimed that she was taking Russian language lessons from him
Nothing like a LA society girl with a hankering to visit the Soviet Union and see Josef Stalin’s paradise for herself
The movie The Grapes of Wrath had recently been shown in Moscow
Uncle Joe had hoped that this would cause outrage among Moscow’s workers
when they saw how the poor in America were treated
It caused outrage all right
but not in the way that Uncle Joe had hoped
Moscow workers had become outraged that the poor in America actually owned their own trucks
Viewings of the movie soon became obsolete in the USSR
Joining the obsolescence of most personally owned motor vehicles among the common people there
When Marissa came home and told her parents
that she had asked Lev Tomi to be her date
to the LA society’s debutante ball
Titus Van Horne finally put his foot down
causing him to be rushed to LA General Hospital
to get his now even deeper ingrown toe nail surgically removed
After a week of recuperation, Titus Van Horne and his wife Olivia came to see me
And asked me to be Marissa’s escort to the debutante’s ball
Since I had nothing pressing on me at the moment
Save some old white shirts that needed to be steampressed at the neighbourhood’s Chinese laundry
I took the case.
Olivia and Titus Van Horne asked Carson Cody Albion Private Eye to be their daughter Marissa’s escort to the LA society elite debutante’s ball
As I got into the back of the limousine with Marissa
I instructed the chauffeur to drive us to Ming Lo’s Blue Lantern Restaurant
I figured imbibing Marissa with a light Chinese dinner at 7
would far be safer than imbibing her with drinks prior to the ball
I turned out to be wrong on that
It must have been the spicy chop suey
that was the Blue Lantern special
It turned Marissa into a tigress in heat
And I was explorer Frank Buck
Bringing her back alive
It was now 11 PM
I had failed to present Miss Van Horne to the debutante’s ball by some 3 hours
Her beautiful gold dress lying on the seat of the booth along with her nylons and spiked stilettos
And all my clothes lying on the floor underneath the table
Implied a very unusual Russian language lesson was going on
when coincidentally Mr. and Mrs. Van Horne entered the restaurant right at 11 PM
I felt no inclination to open my fortune cookie which the waiter just brought
If it was accurate, I knew well what it would say
You can send me my cheque in the mail for my services
I hastily said to Mr. Van Horne before heading out into the night
like a stallion galloping out into the Santa Ana winds
I had no idea who this Lev Tomi fellow was
But I think I may have just saved his life
Too bad, I can’t say the same for my own.
-Carson Cody Albion Private Eye
-A Carson Cody Albion
Private Eye poem
and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Monday March 18th
2018
