You may run into vampires who claim to be 436 years old. They may even claim to be immortal (and as they are currently alive, how can you dispute it?) and witnesses to the great events in history. You’ll find vampires who drive hearses (with eight miles to the gallon mileage, I can’t imagine the expense) and sleep in coffins. There are vampires who have paid $300 and more for dental-quality fangs, and still others have had their own canines filed down into fangs. And yes, you will find vampires who drink blood, although consent is the general rule and precautions are taken to ensure safety.
Marilys Mars is a real vampire in Philadelphia whom I know rather well. As far as she is concerned, she was born in the eighth century, she stopped aging when she was 25, and she has witnessed the flowering of Western civilization. She’s not shunned for her outrageous claims, however, as she is a contributing member of the vampire community and a great source of real wisdom. Marilys has helped countless vampires through their period of awakening.
But there is no getting around what has made Marilys notable—Marilys herself. Of course when someone claiming to be Carolingian offers to share her story, I’m ready to listen. I felt kind of awkward starting out with, “So, been around a while, have you?” Fortunately, Marilys has something of a press release, a quick narrative covering the last twelve hundred years or so. She’s given me express permission to reprint her tale here.
“Vampirism chose me. I didn’t choose it. But however it came about, here I am, out and in the open. This is my story. Whether you believe me or not is your choice. Mine is only to tell you. Do not ask me to make you a vampire. Do not ask me to turn you or to embrace you. Vampires are chosen. If you are meant to be a vampire, then you too will be chosen. Do not force the hand of fate in this matter. You cannot imagine the agonies of the soul you will suffer.
“To begin with–that seems so trite, and yet it’s so fitting–I was born somewhere in the Kingdom of the Franks in the year 778. It was the year of Karlos Magnus’ shame in the southwest mountains. I joined the ranks of the vampires when I was no more than ten years of age. My father had begun speaking on my marriage and I was of no mind to perish in childbirth as my mother had. The vampires offered me a kind of safety in that vampire women could not conceive children. Thus my father offered me up as a barren sacrifice.
“That’s right. I was an unwanted child in an unknown peasant family. Wealth and infamy were not mine by birthright. In fact I had to suffer through three marriages to wrinkled old men who spat on me for my infertility until I turned 25. At that point, I was becoming an old woman even though the vampire strains in me kept me looking youthful. I engaged the vampires around me to perform the Rite of Attainment–that exchange of energies that would fix my age at 25 for all time.
“There was no returning to a normal pastoral existence after that. But I had learned that gold spoke with more power than anything–even sons. If I was going to enjoy immortality, I needed to get some gold. I did have physical beauty and charm in my favor. With luck, I could manage to set myself up in marriage with wealthy, aging men who would be so enamored of me and the great care I took with them that they would bequeath all their goods to me. After a few marriages I was able to purchase my own lands and my own keep.
“Believe me when I tell you that I paid quite a price to amass my riches!
“The world changed around me and I remained the same. I’m no one famous in what you would call history. So far as I remember I had one brush with history in serving (as opposed to serving with) the army under Jeanne la Pucelle. Gilles de Rais still owes me a few gold coins.
“We vampires have needed to lay low in order to survive. When the wars over religion and the bite of the devil were felt all through Europe, our lives became distinctly uncomfortable. Think about it. So many innocent people lost their lives–and we were hardly innocent. I thought about going into the Osmanli Empire and trying to sell myself as a qualified slave–at least I would be safe. I could do a lot worse.
“Eventually I heard about the new land discovered across the ocean, a land wild but for the most part tolerant. Naturally I had a little unease about travelling and settling with Puritans–not that I was religious at all, but I was certainly no Puritan. Then I thought of the opportunities awaiting a creature like myself in a new land. I made my way to England, learned to appear outwardly Puritan, and sailed west.
“It wasn’t long before I was playing old tricks to survive–marrying dying old men for their wealth. The game was simple enough. Generally they kept quiet, but if they had thoughts of exposing me…well, you get the idea.
“I’ve been in Philadelphia since the Constitutional Convention. My friends have come and gone, and still this seems as good a place for a historical relic as any. In the late twentieth and dawning twenty-first centuries it has become relatively easy to be a vampire in the open. I actually fit into the groups I live in now.
“Never in my life have I known love. I have known loyalty, friendship, kindness, pleasure, and affection. But my heart sits in ice. I often wonder whether I am able to experience love.
“This is my tale, such as it is.”
I suppose there are a lot of things I could say. I can’t say I believe it, and yet to say I don’t believe it seems so harsh. What’s important is that Marilys believes it. There’s not a note of insincerity to her, no temper evolved from years of shouting down skeptics. She is at peace with herself. We should all be so fortunate.
“You knew Joan of Arc?” I asked, since she’d mentioned encountering La Pucelle.
A lazy smile lit up her face. “Knew her? No, I don’t think anyone could have actually known her. She was not knowable. She was more of a presence, a motivation.”
“How about the Song of Roland?”
“What is that?”
Dear reader, let me fill you in. The Song of Roland is a French epic poem about Charlemagne’s troubles in the Pyrenees in 778—what Marilys calls “Karlos Magnus’ shame in the southwest mountains”. I explain to Marilys why I drew the connection. “I am unfamiliar,” she tells me. “I haven’t read it.”
“Are you going to offer to turn me?”
Shaking her head, Marilys laughed. “Not you. You’re too much the spirit of your age. You’d be miserable as a vampire. No, you’ve been kind to me, and I like you too much.”
Phobos, on the other hand, is mortal and quite aware of it. Whether he was born with some variety of vampirism in him or if he took in outside influences doesn’t occupy his thoughts. Secure in who he is, Phobos dedicates the time “certain others would waste screaming their immortality” to helping latent vampires understand what they are and are not. As something of a joke, Phobos offers vampires claiming to be immortal the chance to prove it by jumping off the roof of the vampire house where he lives. So far, no one has taken him up on the opportunity.
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