Free The Vampire-Alien Chronicles by Ronald Wintrick Page A

old conundrums of existence, so it was with great reluctance that I began the next evening to pack away all of my old, treasured belongings.  Besides having to travel to the Old World to seek out those Eldest of Vampires, most of whom still made their homes there, in the comforts of those old traditions, resting comfortably within their networks of Human caretakers, a vocation for some Human families passed down from one generation to the next, Sonafi and I had yet to find new residence and make our move to it.  Once the Others learned of our location it was never safe to return there again.  That's not to say we had not returned to such places, but it was always a risk.  I packed with regret, yet resolve, preparing for a hitherto unknown phase of my life; taking the fight to the Others, rather than the old business as usual, of waiting, hiding and hoping.
    “A Vampire should not have to hide behind the veil of his weaker Human counterparts.”  I said.  “When the smokescreen the Humans provide us is dispelled by their awakening consciousness, we will have no place to hide anywhere upon this world.  They will hunt us down like rabid dogs.  Brid is absolutely correct.   The fight has to be taken to them.”
    “You sound as if you are trying to convince yourself.”  Sonafi said, pausing in her own packing to study a small curio she held in her hand.  It was the small statuette of a female goddess of fertility.  Belly enlarged.  Many tens of thousands of years old and an artifact she had possessed a very long time.  I could see that she was considering the necessity of carrying it onward.  It was old and undoubtedly of immense do llar value, but even more so its value to her as a personal familiar than its financial worth.  Money was never a problem for a Vampire, but space to put such things could be.  I could see that this move was going to be a hard one for her, more so than maybe any we had ever before made.  We had many new modern things which had to be made room for.
    “Maybe I am.”  I admitted, watching to see where she was going to put that little goddess statuette she was holding so lovingly.  She had once possessed thousands of such little curios, a collection worth in dollars what many a country could be purchased for, but we have had to pick up our lives and leave in the middle of the night with whatever could be carried away before the dawn so many times that we had now come to the point where Sonafi could hold in her hand a treasure which she had gathered to herself above others, to carry onward while others were left behind, and contemplate leaving it behind now, tugged at my heart-strings in a way that I could not really describe.  That she could contemplate leaving behind such a treasure only because we had no stability in this world.  The idea that to keep such items now was pointless and irrelevant because sooner or later a day would come when there would not be time to gather it up before we had to flee.  “You should keep that.”  I said.
    Sonafi looked at me strangely and then back down at the little goddess, an artifact of such antiquity that authenticating its true origins would be completely beyond the capabilities of even man's vaunted new scientific ability.  The little goddess was the stone carving of a craftsman who was the member of a tribe of pre-Humans whose genes could not be counted among those of present day humanity.  One of the many branches of the Human tree pruned from the trunk before it reached the modern, conglomerate era.
    “I have had this ever so long.”  Sonafi admitted.
    “How many times has that statuette been one of the first things you saved?”  I asked.  “How could you consider leaving it now?”
    “I have so few of these old things anymore,” Sonafi answered, picking up several sheets of bubble wrap to protectively begin to wrap the curio, “but I suppose you are right.  I should not give it up.  One day things might be