Serial Killer Meets Vampire

Okay, so promising a new fairytale every Tuesday seems to be a bad idea. Sorry, folks, but sometimes there's just no way to get the writing neurons working. So let's revise the promise and say: one new tale every two weeks, and in between maybe a zine or two. Everybody agrees? Great, you're all such sweethearts! I love blog democracy ;D

So, after almost a month of nothing new, there's a new addition to my Imagined History Series. And this time things get really gory.

I'm not going to say anything more, save for that this tale is my bawdiest ever, and was inspired by a doll-sized vintage pewter candelabra. Read, and tell me what you think.

Blood Light
by Apol Lejano-Massebieau

Thirty candles he lit that night,
one for each of his ex-wives.

Six of them—the most beautiful—
had their heads now floating in glass.
From a clever system of hooks and
chains hung the eight pairs of legs that
used to boogie and tango the best
dancers of the lot.

To one particularly bosomy bride belonged
the honor of having her breasts cut off and
displayed on a marble pedestal.

Of the rest, he kept bits of pieces of his
favorite parts: an ankle here, an ear there.
The young one from the South, whom he
adored but considered far too loud, he kept
her lips as souvenir, but sewn with silken
thread shut.

With light from the thirty candles, he worshipped
at his subterranean church, but before he could
sanctify the shrine with his nightly rude benediction
—slash! His neck had been slit open, and he lay
bleeding on the ground.

From her hiding place had come out his brand-
new wife, still in her wedding dress, but instead
of a bouquet, something sharp and glinting
in her hand.

The young girl from the South may have talked
too much, but she had kept secret the presence
of an older sister who too early had had to leave
home after a series of bizarre events had led to
her developing a taste for man blood.

Going down on her hands and knees to crouch
over the man’s carotid artery, bride no. 31 sucked.
“How fitting,” was the man’s last thought, “as
it is our honeymoon night.”

The book is for sale in my Etsy shop here.