The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Chapter Fifteen



The next morning, as Thea rested still, Shade found the gift he’d been given, when he looked in the mirror. The Silverman who he’d become was no more. In his place was the man Thea had met all those many years ago… and, he was stupefied; there was no long white hair, no lines or deeply weathered, leathery skin. Shade was renewed.



Shade was still looking in the mirror an hour and a half later, wearing just his battered old bluejeans, when Thea rose and padded down the short corridor in bare feet; again she wore the multi-coloured diaphanous gown and, his gaze was drawn away, from his reflected self to the doorway, where she stood.



“Well, I’m glad to see you, again,” He said with a smile as Thea stepped into the small cabin. She walked toward him and ran gentle fingers across his unshaven face.



His arousal for her was evident, in his bluejeans.



“Have a shave and, we can kiss,” she told him.



“I’ve already had a look in the mirror Thea, what happened to me?” He queried.



Again, she ran gentle fingers across his face, “As the Walker went where she did, it was this face she recalled anf, it helped me stay who I am… so, I gave you a gift…”



An eyebrow raised, Shade asked; “A gift?”



“When we kissed, I gave you some of my chameleon nanites, programmed to make you look as you do?” She explained: “I hope I didn’t annoy you?”



“Hardly,” Shade muttered, then he asked; “So how long will it last?”



Thea smiled, a smile to lighten his heart, “You like it? Good! I hoped you would!”



Shade grinned, “So do I still need a shave?”



“Yes,” the nanites affect cell degeneration, not hair growth…” she explained.



“How long will it last?” He quizzed, momentarily quite serious.



“As long as the cabinet functions, as long as I function, you remain as you are…” She admitted; feeling curiously flustered: ‘Was this embarrassment?’



“So you like what you see Thea?” Shade asked curiously; with awareness of the answer already.



In answer, Thea stepped back into the corridor, “Before we head back to the stars Shade, you need a shower, to go with that shave?”



‘Yes,’ she thought, ‘it had been embarrassment.’



She bowed, then asked in a soft voice; “Does Mister Shade need assistance?”



“Aye” Shade retorted, “You can remind me where the shower is? I guess you’re right...” He grinned, “I haven’t seen it, in awhile…”





…

Chapter Fourteen



Again, Thea’s head turned from one attacker to the other, to ascertain who to remove first: as her arms extended from out of the coats sleeves, her hands became blades, wide and very sharp… borne of the sites nanites that made here… and…



She dispatched O’Hare first, then using her other arm, ran the blade across the neck of Ferris, causing arterial blood to fountain outward.



His death cries caused his companions to run toward Thea, who slay them both easily.



“What kept you?” Shade queried, through eyes half-open.



“I got distracted,” Thea told him calmly, as she stepped over Swanne’s body.



“I can see that,” he said, stating the obvious and holding his right hand out, to be held.



Thea did as he wanted, taking his hand between both of hers and sat to Shade’s right, near his chest.



“And how are you?” She asked, aware of his heartrate pounding.



“Well, would you believe, pleased to see you?” He retorted, staring all around Thea’s feet, at the corpses she had walked across, to get to him.



“I’d believe that,” she assured him, running her left hand across his right cheek; then she leaned forward and gently pressed her lips to his.



Shade the Silverman was unaware of her gift; as his lips parted to accept her tongue; taking possession of his mouth for but a moment, his hands at the back of Thea’s head, holding her close, to him.



As they parted and Thea stood, offering him her hand: “C’mon Shade, the ship is waiting for us… it’s to go, back home, to the stars…”



Shade stood, unsteady at first, until he accepted Thea’s help. Then, as they made their way across the bloodied bodies of those Thea had felled, he looked to her and smiled.



“I’m glad you came Thea, I was getting tired… from waiting…” he said softly.



“Well, I’m here now,” she told him simply and, kissing his cheek Thea led him outside. The early morning light was bright and she passed his love his shades and Stetson, before speaking into her comms bracelet: “Ship, two of us… alright…”



If it were possible for a ship built at the time of The Forest to sound pleased, then Shade imagined that his ship sounded so, as it responded; “The Captain returns?”



“Yes,” Thea responded with a light smile on her lip, “The Captain returns.”

Chapter Thirteen



Ohare’s large frame loomed over Shade in the gloom of his small bedroom, his machete drawn; “I’m gonna cleave his skull in two!” He bellowed.



To his side, Ferris snarled but was pushed aside, as Ford watched from the doorway and a wild-eyed Swanne made her entrance through the kitchen, as the blade began its descent and, for a moment it seemed as though time froze…



And in The Umbra, the Travelling Man felt the threat to the Silverman’s body… and briefly Shade wondered if it were possible to make his return, before the Silverman’s death, or would he continue to be the Travelling Man?



That thought piqued his curiosity, for less than a nano-second.



Shade could only be with her in a corporeal form; so that had to be. Yet, that meant ending his search though. But, Shade could only be with Thea in a corporeal form

… so the search had to end, he had to return… he… had… to…



And thought gave way to action, as he swept downward, to the Silverman’s body and a physical plane, once more…



Then as the Silverman’s eyes flickered open, a figure appeared in the centre of the room.



Short of stature and lithe of build, the young woman of seeming Asiatic appearance wore a long dustcoat, bluejeans and boots, nothing else.



She looked about quickly; appraising the situation, before making her own move.

Ferris had turned as he sensed her arrival, his own blade held at his side as O’Hare’s poised mid-air.



“What the?” the big man barked, as Thea appeared before Ford and Swanne.



She snapped her head round, in a fashion impossibly fat for a human: but she was not.

‘They would be last,’ she decided.

Chapter Twelve



“Ship… Is your Captain on the planet still?” Thea asked, guiding the craft into a low orbit, furious with herself, for not using the ships AI before now.



If her mind had been where it should, Thea knew that she would have. But, it hadn’t.

That was a cause for annoyance and not recrimination though and, soon she got the response she had awaited.



“Yes, Sub-Captain, the Captain is on the planet still…” the ship informed her, the voice and intonation giving no clues as to the answer truly sought...



“Is he alive?” She quizzed, anxious to hear what she wanted and, dreading to hear what she feared was inevitable: ‘he was human, after all.’



“Yes Sub-Captain, the Captain is alive, but…” their was a pause, as the AI sought the right words from it’s Lexicon’s: “But, it seems his mind is elsewhere…”

Chapter Eleven



Ferris, a scowling Ohare and two others walked through the small ramshackle town, followed by Xpire, running to keep up, as he finished dressing.



“Wait for me paw!” He called, as the men walked onward.



Each man was armed to the hilt; carrying knives, swords and a flintlock pistol each. Both Ferris and the men he had brought had reason to despise the Silverman, for the inconvenience he had caused their operation. But, for Ohare it was personal and, for him there could only be one outcome of the mornings event, the Silverman’s death.



“What makes you think it was the Silverman who killed my boy?” Ohare snapped.



“’Cuz my boy said so and, you figure it… the stranger comes here and everything we had changes… it just, seems to fit… don’t it?” Ferris explained, with a certain logic that none could argue against: after all, each of them had been affected by the changes that the Silverman had brought to their town.



“Well, in a short while that fraggin nuisance won’t be a problem any more,” Ford added: a large man, although his size said nothing of his brainpower.



Next to him, a red-haired warrior from the North smirked at the remark, as she cocked her pistol, already alert for possible threat: her name was Swanne and, she considered herself equal to any man in the wastelands of the New World Order.



She watched Ferris and Ohare approach the Silverman’s front door, gesturing to them that she would go round back, ‘just in case’. That left Ford on guard and, that irritated the big man, as too often he found himself placed in that self-same role.



“Gonna be a good day, when you’re gone…” he muttered, watching Ferris kick down the Silverman’s front door.



Inside his bedroom, the Silverman lay as if asleep, as the men approached his body, weapon’s in hand and, Shade had no knowledge of what was happening…

Chapter Ten



The bedroom door burst inward under and Xpire’s Father’s right boot, rousing him from a stupefied slumber.



“What the…?” He bellowed, kicking skinny legs, as his bedclothes were pulled from his thin body.



Ferris Thompson grabbed hold of a bony shoulder and shook his son hard.

“I just got back from a night with the lads and you know what I found, at the bottom of where you go hunting that… that…?”



He shook his son again and again, his eyes wild.



“Pa, what’s the matter? Whattcha find?” Xpire shouted, trying to shake himself free of his Father’s grasp.



“I found your friend, battered and bloody… whattcha do last night?” The man snarled at the youth, his face mere inches from his face.



“Nowaaay Dad, it couldn’t be me,” I was in bed, “I’m sure Mum saw me.”



His Mother was hiding behind the doorframe, cowering, with a blackened eye: she had already tried to defend her son.



Again, Ferris shook his son; then dragged him naked from his bed, “Goddamnit boy, whattcha done to that boy? He thought a lot of you and now, he’s dead! Goddamnit, just wait till his Father gets to you…”



Xpire knew Tyree’s Father OHare, by reputation only, he was big and mean and known to have killed four men, one with his bear-like hands.



“Dad!…” Xpire screamed, as he took blow upon blow to his shoulders and back; “It must’ve been that weirdo on the beach… you know, the Silverman… We saw him down there and, well he was giving us some well weird looks!”



“The Silverman? You don’t say…” Muttered thoughtfully, his son still in his grip.



Seeing his Father deep in thought, Xpire added, “He’s down at the cabin he took.”

Ferris knew where he would be; when he took the cabin, the taciturn stranger had also acquired the last spring capable of producing enough water for their still.



He let the townspeople use the spring, but the still had been no more.



“Well, Mister Silverman, time me and the lads paid you a call,” Ferris continued, as he pushed his son away, then made his way out of the small bedroom, as he began to look for his machete: ‘It was time to go calling.’

Chapter Nine



Shade rose from the Silverman’s body, looking down at the worn face. Unlike the Silverman his face was not aged, nor was his clothing. Shade appeared as he had the first time he had first met Thea, way back before the leg got broken and, he’d brought her to Earth, to seek help for him.



Drifting upward, Shade soared into the night sky, as he began his last search for Thea.



Time had moved on, of that he was sure; yet Shade’s desire for her company had not abated, at all. Rather, her separation had led the Silverman, to realise what he had lost, when his companion had left Shade, all those years back.



Thea had become much more than just a companion: and over time, affection had grown; then, as the years passed by without her, he realised the affection had turned to more, so much more.



And so, he soared the night sky, searching for his Love…

Chapter Eight



Wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, Xpire stood and looked around the crevice, surprised to wake and find himself alone…



He found the path that they had used earlier, then hurriedly made his way home.



“Sure, I’d not stick around, but I thought the pudgy one would,” he mused, as he opened the front door and entered quietly, being sure not to wake anyone.



Finally, up in his room, with the door closed and an oil lamp lit, Xpire sat on the edge of his bed and began to turn out his pockets in frustration, as he looked for his bag of the dried lichen, Elsewhere. Finding it a wide smile spread across Xpire’s thin face and he reached for his small brass pipe and his matches.



“I’ll fire one up,” he told himself, “And, I’ll find that fraggin dork when its light. Gawd knows where he went to…”



At that moment Tyree lay at the bottom of the escarpment they had climbed, his sightless eyes open, his body was broken and he was dead.

Chapter Seven



Once more at the controls of The Forest, Thea manoeuvred the starfreighter through a mountain range and downward, angling the ship back onto a horizontal plain, so she could continue searching for her former companion, her Shade.



For this journey she had dressed as he might, in boots, bluejeans and a dustcoat, worn loose, over her naked body. It was an affection affectation, in honour of her Love. Unknowingly Thea had replicated the fashion and rationale for the clothing he wore, to honour his former captain, of the very same ship.



“I will find you, before…” She murmured to no-one particular.



Thea was aware that she had passed her expiration date, decades earlier. And, with the cabinet, it was possible. Yet, without purpose, Thea was aimless and, she needed…



Thea needed her companion: he helped provide the purpose she needed.



And, many miles away Shade lay back on a tubular frame single bed, with a slim mattress and poor springing. He lay with his eyes closed and, his hand clasped behind his head, as he opened his mind, much as a Shamen had shown him years earlier, as his leg had slowly healed…



Now Shade intended to use the little he had learnt, to travel outward, to seek, Her…

Chapter Six



Xpire and Tyree watched the Silverman rise, then follow a path toward the cabin between small hills, from the vantage point of the crevice, where they sat two thirds of the way up the rise.



“He’s gone…” Xpire exclaimed, from where he was perched, “So get to work, we ain’t got much light left and, the Slime don’t make itself...”



His friend Tyree crouched next to him, pick in hand. They were looking for the lichen that could be easily processed into the fine white powder they smoked, in a small brass pipe, a hallucinogenic that the two used and abused, as often as possible.



“You makin a funny there?” He asked his friend, never as clever as he assumed.



“Me? No, why?” Xpire muttered, his mind distracted still by the Silverman.



“The green stuff…”



“Lichen,” Xpire reminded him, turning to look at him a second, before redirecting his gaze to where the Silverman had sat earlier.



Tyree was digging out lichen with a small shovel, “Yeah well, maybe that’s what it’s called. But it grows on rock and yeah, it kinda makes itself dunnit?”



Xpire felt stumped, having no reply for his friend, so blustered; “Well, it grows for us don’t it, so we can enjoy a good smoke and be Elsewhere awhile…”



This time it was he who had made a pun and, Tyree got it: laughing between coughs brought on from inhaling the lichen spores, though neither knew this.



“Yes, you’re oh-so right,” Xpire muttered, drinking from a canteen, containing some of the last batch of their homebrew liquor.



“Elsewhere is good and Elsewhere is bad,” he continued, chugging down from the contents of the canteen, a powerful liquor indeed.



“And Elsewhere is where we ever be,” Tyree retorted, accepting the canteen from his friend and, beginning to drink himself…



His words left confusion in Xpire’s fogged brain; and he sat back, eyes glazed, drool trickling from the corners of his mouth…

Chapter Five



Silverman sat and wrote, as the sun reached its zenith, then beyond. He had much to write about and, while he waited for his companion, it provided an opportunity for distraction. And, as an obsessed individual, Silverman knew he needed to find some adequate distraction, or there’d be consequences; there always was…



He was calmer than his two previous incarnations, but even so; Silverman had his ways about him and, they allowed him to cope, with the vagaries of Life on Earth.



He had written of being found, his time in the military and, even touched on his manhunt; yet still there was so much to write of, much of it including his Love.



And, it was when he came to write of those time that the melancholia fell over him, for Silverman had begun to doubt that he would see his companion ever again.



So, as the sun beat down, Silverman continued to write, aware he was being watched.



“Punks can’t see a beautiful sunset,” he muttered, his pen poised above the paper, as he sought to recall the tree where he had sat, the day he had agreed to fulfil his end of a bargain with his former companion Thea.



He smiles beneath the battered Stetson, as he remembers the maelstrom of trouble her existence brought to his world and how he had thrived in her company.



“I miss her,” he told the sunset simply, as he packed his shoulder bag then set off on the long trek back to the cabin he had acquired from a businessman, whose business practices he had not liked.



The township had appreciated his efforts, if not his presence, so when he took up residence there some had balked at the action, whilst others had been welcoming.



The father’s of those watching Shade had not benefited from his actions and both resented the Silverman, who had brought change to their small town.



Even now, as he continued to wait, the trusty Magnum waited with him, it’s barrel tucked into the waist of his bluejeans, a worn dustcoat concealing its presence.

Chapter Four



A pleasure model, designed with chameleon circuitry, Thea did not possess the usual blonde Caucasian features desired by the human miners on the Outer Fringe, at the time of her creation.



Instead she was much shorter and of Asian appearance, to suit the apparent desires of her former companion, Shade.



It was he who she had hindered then helped find revenge, for the death of his wife.

It was he who had repaid her with her liberty, from the planet she had been left on, to satisfy the multitude of miners who might require the services of a pleasure model.



Then he had taken her on a journey to the stars, with the cabinet she would need to recharge her nanites and retain corporeal cohesion.



And, it had been in the void of Deep Space that they had encountered a spark, within the dark; and compassion had been shown for the travellers, compassion and teaching.



He had found himself expunged of his enmity, whilst she found a true companion, who grew to truly care for the former pleasure model, in a way that Thea had never envisaged possible, while she had rested in her cabinet in the bar, for a customer.



They had found Love, for themselves and each other. And they journeyed still.



Then after many, many years travelling her companion Shade had broken his leg, just as they had reached Mother Earth, now orbiting a sun turned red.



As he had sought aid at a township, Thea had become The Walker, as she became known, on the few remaining landmasses she took the starfreighter, WKD965



“It’ll take month’s to heal well,” the town’s healer had assured her, “don’t worry, we’ll take care of him…”



Her former companion had looked to her and smiled: “Go walk. Explore,” he had told Thea and she had, finding fascination in the wonders of this dying world.



Yet, that had been then. ‘When?’ She wondered; realising that everything and everyone has an expiry-date, even those touched by the Divine Spark.



Thea was born anew, knowing full well, that The Walker would return and distraction would be all there could be, ‘Until…?’ She was indefinite, while the cabinet worked.



“Yet, is existence alone enough?” She asked aloud.



Thea needed to see Shade, again… And soon, that desire became a compulsion and could not be ignored… ‘Not any more…’ she mused, staring out the cockpit.



Then she turned away from the vista ahead. The green and blue of the small island she had found, amongst the rock and dead earth had been a haven for The Walker; yet she was to be set aside, as was the green. Momentarily Thea was saddened at the idea of loss, yet she was bolstered by the prospect of seeing her companion, once more.



And, having preset the ships controls, Thea made her way down the main corridor and passed the wall cabinet, where her nanites re-charged; across was the mattrans, one of the first of its kind and now, probably the last.



Then, smiling serenely, Thea reached the captain’s cabin, a place she had rarely visited, for years. Now, it seemed appropriate…