Page 10 of Desperately Seeking Vampire
“Very well. Poetry.” He spoke to the people who headed toward the main part of the fair, dredging through his memory for his most effective poem. “It is a subject near and dear to my heart. I will now recite for you the opening stanzas of my opus.” He cleared his throat, sliding a glance toward the woman. She was alone now, her mark having no doubt given her all he had, leaving her to shuffle her cards with dexterity that bespoke familiarity. She was also not paying him one whit of attention.
O tender night, circling sweetly in the sky,
Now a cloud, now a drape across my desperate view.
O pure lily, soft and cool, dim Death to me,
Delicate shroud binding, hiding, blinding.
Your stretching fingers drag me down to the depths of hell
Evergreen in ever-dying coals of despair.
Aloft in the night, smothering my thoughts and dreams
Until at my last hope shrivels and drops to the earth.
Futility has claimed me for another day.
He bowed his head at the last word, feeling that he had never performed as well as that moment.
“Dude,” came a voice next to him.
He slid a glance over to the source. The shining-hair woman was staring at him with an expression of what he could only assume was profound appreciation.
“Madam,” he said, giving her a little bow of acknowledgment.
“Duuude,” she said again, this time drawing out the word.
“You might be interested to know that that was the opening stanza to ‘Ever-Present Blight upon the Seared Remains of My Soul,’ my most profound work.”
“Yeah, it’s something all right.” She shook her head, the curtain of hair shimmering around her, making him think of streams of molten copper. “Was it supposed to rhyme? I don’t know a lot about poetry, but the ones I remember from when I was a child all rhymed.”
“Madam,” he repeated, this time in as haughty a tone as he could summon. He looked down his nose at her, sensing criticism hovered behind her inquiry. “Blank verse does not rhyme.”
“Is that what it is?” Her face scrunched up in a manner that he should have found disfiguring but, to his annoyance, just rendered her freckled countenance adorably delightful. “I mean, I’ve heard about emo poetry, but that—boy, that really is something unique, huh? It’s very Victorian, too. Did you mean for it to sound that way?”
Ivo wasn’t entirely certain that she was criticizing the best of all his poems. Could it be that he was so out of touch with modern mortals that what he thought at first might be a negative reaction was, in fact, high praise? “The poem may seem a bit dated, but I stand behind it,” he said after a moment’s consideration of how best to deal with her question. “Are you fond of poetry?”
“Not really,” she said, giving him a little smile that he felt down to the tips of his toenails. “But that’s probably because I haven’t ever tried reading it. I’m very big on novels, though. Especially historical romances. All those lords and ladies doing the Jane Austen thing. So fun.”
He stared at her, trying to pick through her sentence, feeling oddly as if he were floating in an ocean, and waves kept drawing him under the surface, only for him to pop up and gasp for air. “Historical romances?” he asked, searching his memory again. “Jane Austen, yes, I am aware of her. I seem to also recall being entertained by Maria Edgeworth and Ann Radcliffe.”
“Those are a bit older than the types I normally read,” she said slowly, giving him an odd look. “Do you—this is going to sound rude, but I could swear I know you. Were you at the festival yesterday?”
“No.” He stepped off the stage, moving over to where she sat, noting that a sign had been written and propped up on her far side, informing him that she read tarot cards. “Those are tarot cards you have? I thought you were performing acts of card sharkery.”
“I’m not absolutely certain that sharkery is an actual word, but yes, they are tarot cards. I’m a cartomancer. Would you like a reading?”
He consulted the sign, thinking of the five thousand Czech crowns that Finch had given him, telling him he might want to buy something at the fair. He sat down, carefully placing the tablet on the crate while keeping one hand resting on it, since it was his most precious possession. “Three hundred crowns is agreeable. You may proceed with the reading.”
She eyed the tablet. “You might want to move your ... er ... what is that?”
“Windows XP Tablet,” he said, allowing a note of pride to creep into his voice. “My friend Finch has loaned it to me. He purchased it in the States from a man named Gates, and brought it home. No one in Moravia has one like it.”
“Huh. Tablet. Is it like a big mobile phone?”
“Yes?” Ivo answered, hoping that was true.
