Read Online An Unattractive Vampire by Jim McDoniel - Free Book Online

His eyes remained on the television, his arms folded. He was pouting again.
    “So, this Phantom is a ghost?” he asked without looking at her.
    “The ghost of a vampire,” she said kindly. Now that her craving was sated, she found herself far less annoyed at the beast. “He refused to drink blood and so starved himself to death.”
    “Impossible,” he muttered, still not looking at her. He seemed to blame her for the program’s existence.
    “Maybe,” she conceded. “But not in the world of the show. Anyway, this action of sacrifice gives Phantom a special kind of power and allows him to come back to the world of the living as a ghost.”
    “And then he solves crimes,” she added rather lamely.
    “And the friend?” asked Yulric. “A vampire,” she answered.
    “And the lover?” he continued.
    “A human,” she told him.
    “And the difference?”
    Amanda looked at him, an eyebrow raised. “I don’t understand the question.”
    “What is the difference between the friend and the lover?”
    “Well,” began Amanda, “Sasha is the woman Phantom loves and the reason why he died as a vampire. He refused to drink blood, for her. Nora, on the other hand, is Phantom’s best friend, confidante, and comrade-in-arms, who secretly loves him and is, in all actuality, a better match, but—”
    The creature waved his hand to cut her off. A good thing, too, as it allowed Amanda to retain a semblance of dignity. She had very nearly divulged the hours of message-board discussions and fan fiction she had spent on the Phantom-Nora relationship. Not that he would have known what any of that meant. To Yulric, a
shipper
was someone who hired out boats.
    “What I meant,” he clarified, “is how can you tell which is the vampyr?”
    “Because Nora drinks blood and Sasha doesn’t,” replied Amanda.
    “But did not this Sasha drink the blood of a vampyr”—he said the last word as if a skunk had just sprayed directly into his mouth—“to heal herself?”
    “Yes, she did.”
    “Then how?” The old man was now looking at her again. His eyes were growing in anger, but the muffled, futile anger of one who refuses to believe the sky is blue, gravity works, or people evolved from primates. “Well, Nora is super strong—”
    “Marginally,” he interjected. “Superfast—”
    “Barely,” he interrupted.
    “Immortal.”
    “If you can starve to death, you are not immortal,” he countered.
    “And much hotter than Sasha.”
    “Ha!” Yulric laughed mirthlessly. “Incorrect. Nora was said to be quite cold to the touch.”
    “I mean that Nora was much more attractive, physically. Sexy. More beautiful.”
    Yulric said nothing. He just looked at her.
    “Sasha,” she continued, trying to put it in terms the creature would understand, “is more . . . pretty. Not as beautiful. Therefore, she is human.”
    Laughter. A shrieking, dry, dead laugh erupted out of the creature on the couch. Yulric Bile flopped back into the cushions. His bones crackled and popped as he clapped his hands appreciatively.
    “So, this is what we have become.” He cackled, trying to catch his breath . . . or whatever he did instead of breathing. “Millennia of legend and lore, and now we appear to you as mere adolescents at the height of beauty and bloom. Tell me, are all the stories of my kind thus? Are vampyrs always immortal champions with rosy cheeks and marble physiques?”
    “Sometimes they’re bad,” she said.
    He laughed even harder. “Indeed, sometimes we are bad. Seducing mortals for nefarious ends. Immortality. Beauty. Power. All rolled into a single drama. A pleasant fiction.”
    “Mostly,” said Amanda.
    “Mostly?” mocked the vampire. “Is there a downside to their existence? Is the curse of the Phantom having to choose between locks of gold or tresses of auburn?”
    “No, the show is
mostly
fiction,” replied Amanda. “Because
The Phantom Vampire Mysteries
is written, produced, and acted by actual