BLOGFEST OF DEATH entry / DEATH NEVER APOLOGIZES

I am shortly going into madness.

53 hours of nearly straight work with perhaps 3 hours a night sleep. 24 hour blood drives to replenish our dangerously depleted supply are necessary ...

and near murderous (for me.) So I am posting early for a promised appearance in my friend's, Tessa's, blogfest.

It is finally time for Tessa's BLOGFEST OF DEATH http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com/2010/05/announcing-death-scene-blogfest.html

This comes from FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE. Some have noticed that Samuel doesn't kill often. There is a reason. And now, you'll see it for yourself.

{Sam is in the mirror world with his mysterious Apache blood-brother, Elu. His brother has just berated Sam for not ... feeding.

He is now showing Sam how the mayor of New Orleans is in danger from his aides who are actually members of the Russian mob} :

Elu shook his head.

"When is the last time you fed your hunger, Dyami?"

"It's ... been awhile. I haven't met anyone bad enough to leech from."

His right eyebrow shot up. "The rapists and murderers in the Convention Center were not dark-souled enough for you?"

"They were children. Rabid children. But children."

Elu scowled. "You must explain your maze of rules to me one day."

"As soon as I've figured them out myself, you'll be the first to know."

Elu gestured gracefully again, and a scene of mist wavered to life before the two of us. "I think I have found three souls dark and aged enough even for you, Dyami. But beware. Cossacks taste bad."

The filmy window to my world showed a scene of one of the best suites in the Hyatt hotel in New Orleans that I owned.

It was on the 27th floor as I recalled. Nagin would gag if he knew it was me that offered it to him when he had made it plain he planned to stay out the hurricane. I owned a good bit of my city through dummy corporations.

Nagin was pacing about like a caged tiger, his eyes shining from lack of sleep and fatique. I knew the feeling. He was surrounded by aides.

Most were soft-bellied bottom-feeders. But I spotted the three members of the Russian Mob, though their clothes were similar to the toadies.

The Russian Mob or Bratva, Russian slang for "brotherhood."

It was a brutal organization.

Since 1991 and the fall of the Soviet Union, it had gained considerable power and influence.

I might have been more impressed if I hadn't known they were unknowing catspawns for the European Revenant Empire. The ERE as I called it. I refused to call it what its empress Theodora called it, even in my head.

Revenants. Vampires.

Neither name really did justice to the horror they were. I had crossed trails with them off and on since 1853, when aboard the Demeter, I had scared pure hell out of them by revealing I could kill them through acupuncture.

But back to the Russian Mob.

It was easier for Theodora to control since it was made up of diverse criminal syndicates, not one global entity. She could play one off the other, keep them off-balanced and easier to manipulate. I had thought she and I had an agreement.

America was off-limits. The rest of the world was her playground. Maybe I didn't understand how she thought.

Now, KGB agents, them I understood.

One of the three Russian mobsters playing undercover aides to Nagin I recognized as KGB. I didn't know his real name. He probably had forgetten it as well since he had used so many false ones in the past.

And that he would join something called Vory v zakone or "thieves in law" was almost funny. Almost. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, KGB agents had found themselves unemployed and had taken their skills to where they were welcomed.

I wonder where his tattoos were hidden?

Probably had gold stars on his knees, symbolizing he would kneel to no man. The Russian Mob was a lot like the rest of the world when it came to symbols. To them, the tattoo was a precious symbol, so prized that ultimately it became the reality.

No room for miracles and the divine gift of compassion. I didn't begrudge economic and educational progress. But was it really progress? And at what price and in what coin? More questions. And not an answer in sight.

The other two mobsters weren't hard to spot.

The Gulag changes you, the way you hold yourself, compact and ready, and the deadness in the eyes, mute testimony to the murder of the soul within. They were probably posing as security. An oxymoron if there ever was one.

If Elu wanted me here, they were working for Nagin to be in the perfect position to kill him. And now, during the chaos of Katrina was the perfect time.

Nagin was pacing, listening to the voice he most loved to hear : his own.

"The people of our city are holding on by a thread. Time has run out. Can we survive another night? God knows. And who can we depend on?"

The KGB agent clamped a hand on Nagin's broad shoulder. "You can depend on me."

"I know I can, Peter."

Nagin shook his bald head. "But who else? We are going to lose a sizable portion of our population."

I made a face. Lose? He meant the dead. Was he worried about the votes or the lives? I was hoping he was concerned about the lives.

A toady on the edge of his chair seat urged in a tinny voice, "Mr. Mayor, we need a decision."

Nagin scowled, "You guys are pushing me in an area that I don't want to go. I don't want to lose another person."

He bit his lower lip. "This is a sad day in the city of New Orleans when you want a hero to make a decision such as this."

Now, I was the one doing the frowning. What was he talking about? I stopped worrying about trifles. Peter was slipping his right hand under his jacket. Crap. It was happening now.

He preached to the captive congregation. "I mean doesn't it strike you that God is mad at America? He's sending hurricane after hurricane at us."

He was worked up now, ignoring the fact that the three Russian mobsters were white. "It's time for us blacks to come together, to stop killing one another. I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. By the end of the day, New Orleans will be a chocolate city the way God wants it to be."

Peter stood up slowly. Nagin looked at him, his face frowning like a prune. Peter slipped his hand completely under his jacket. Crap. He was going to kill him now.

Peter dropped his cultured pose, speaking his words heavily tinged in an Russian accent. "I have always preferred bitter chocolate myself."

The automatic with the long silencer was held steady, aimed right between Nagin's startled eyes, and Elu wryly smiled, "Time to save the 'hero,' Dyami."

He shoved me hard into the misty scene, while ripping my right glove off. "And feed that hunger of yours."

Damn Elu. Not in front of the mayor. I appeared seemingly out of nowhere to those in the suite right beside a slack-jawed Peter. I wrapped what passed for the fingers of my right hand around the Russian's throat.

"I dunno, Peter. I've always been partial to white chocolate. How about you, Nagin?"

He stepped away from me, his trembling fingers to his open mouth. "Oh, God. Oh, God."

My right palm felt like I had plunged it into acid, and I arched in agony.

Flashes of the memories of Kirill {his real name, ironically meaning "lord"} stabbed into my repulsed mind.

Not just memories, but the smells, sounds, and sensations of those images sizzled into me.

Gutting his first victim with a linoleum knife. Kissing the young girl that would later become his wife. Strangling her twenty years later. Bouncing his little boy on his knee. Pouring acid into another boy's face of the same age in front of the screaming father. Getting drunk the night Russia fell.

A thousand thousand unwanted sensations and images seared into me. I staggered.

His two fellow Russians drew their weapons.

To my heightened senses it seemed that they moved under water, slow and strangely graceful. My world on fire, I took Kirill's automatic from his withering fingers. I shot the two of them through both eyes.

That way they would endlessly wander through the Spirit World, blindly seeking the peace that would be denied them. Or at least that was what Elu used to believe. Like me, he had come to doubt much of the lore attached to the Great Mystery.

The soft-belied aide closest to me wet his pants. "Sweet Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Mother Mary help me."

I looked down at him. "Seeing as how you sold yourself to the world a long time ago, pilgrim, I think you're a mite late."

As I dropped the completely withered corpse of Kirill, Nagin looked at me, his face gone pasty. "What the hell are you, McCord?"

I forced down my self-revulsion and smiled like a wolf. "Full."

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And there you have it. Samuel McCord has become what the Apache call a Gahe ... drainer of the souls of men ... and hater of his own. I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into Sam's personal nightmare.
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