I am aghast! Nay, flabbergasted! Not only have two full pale moons danced at mine eye since last you bent your back to the quill to write to me, but in doing so you have concluded that you, The Darkest of all before us, now identify your lithe spirit with a likeness to the Queen of Sheba! What drugged-blood have you gorged yourself on since last we traded communiqués? Have you lost the siphon betwixt your tongue and teeth? But I jest of course, for jest sleeps best on humour’s chest, and heaven forbids that I do anything with this onward trawl of Time, save laugh hardily, sleep as uselessly as I can manage, wake at an ‘appropriate’ hour, and take to the streets in my black woven shawl to dine on Dublin’s Delights!

You have cast, within your letter, a bust of yourself, the shape of which I must now draw upon. Concerning your agedness, 'tis truer than Our Thirst that you are indeed The Elder of us both. This fact, coupled with all I know of your character, spirit, and penchant for frenzy has lent itself to our renewed friendship. Having suffered so long in absence from each other, we are now, (are we not?) beginning to see Time shatter like shale upon stone, as She breaks down tidily into fractions of Past and Present.  Finally, we are emerging from the 'non-light' of Her confusion to view again her seemless perspective! For how else were we to recognise Time’s Passage if we stood unable to identify moments ‘within’ Time itself? And Time, She acknowledges you, Freake! You are the Elder of the Two. And so, The Queen of Sheba may have had her moments, and indeed she certainly stands out as a feisty old tart on the trifle-tray of History. But you Freake! Are you not riddled by now with conceit with the underlying fact I herein present? You Freake! You! The Oldest Living Vampire on Earth!

I cast mine eyes across this, your magnificent letter, once more. Oh yes, of course, I must undress with sympathy that Strange New Thirst you speak of. But first, please ponder upon the suspicions which I hold of its true nature, won’t you Casper? Allow me to question its Method of Arrival into your quarters with a series of queries. Comes this Sunlight rushing down to you by nightfall as a ‘River’ might?  Flows this river upon your tepid brow? Snakes this river not outside and over your aggravated body, but inside and under, as would a rapist in the night? And finally, as it leaves your rooms, does it leave a stench? For if so, perhaps I can offer some reasoning to its presence in your sleeplessness, since I too have, on past slumber, been rudely awakened by such apparently beautiful visions, only to discover them, on closer inspection, transforming themselves into a Oneness Being, a most abhorred entity indeed of which we Vampires know so little but are often haunted by!

Perhaps, I have surmised, that your preternatural ‘proximity’ to those ‘youthful neighbours’ you have mentioned on Maiden Lane is at odds with your ‘true nature’? Hence, the un-heralded arrival to your rooms of a possible Oneness Being! For if you have as yet taken sustenance from Not One of those human delicacies which inhabit Maiden Lane, then undoubtedly you shall be hounded by this nauseous Sunlight for nights and nights on end. Dare I say that, if I myself were faced with the prospect of such festival booty walking and talking and playing cards and music below my very preternatural nostrils, not ‘one’ should by now be on foot, and all should be laid out in Bone-Cloth beneath the ship’s planks of your Great Abandoned Floor. Take heed Dear Casper Freake, a Vampire is a Vampire, and of that ilk you are! Drink, at least, of one my friend, and you shall soon find that your annoying Vision of Sunlight shall dissipate in gradual shades. Or alternatively, ‘wear’ shades. But please, I pray you shall eventually feed me upon your return letter with the news that you have nourished that spider-like body of yours with the man-blood of  The Croat Benefactor! For without him, perhaps the Fold of Youths shall draw closer to you one by one, in their eventual hour of despair.

And so to my round of ‘possibilities’ for a perfectly sumptuous table sitting. You have penned that this Benefactor to the Fold speaks to you and asks of you your ‘nature’. How curious he has become! Perhaps you are in some danger. Not that human diddle such as ‘worry’ could consume me now, after all these years. But take again a reading on your scale of disguise, and be wary of all who seek a glimpse of what lies beneath your austere proportions.  If he, as you have noticed, is willing to strip away the mask of another Creature in one hemlock-loaded confide to you, then surely beware of his abilities to, in his time, expose you and lay you out as a rack of venison to a pack of wolves.

Round One: Invite him around for a goblet or two of Montepulciano and attack him with zest across your fake dining arrangement as he gloats over his self-righteous beliefs that your likeness is to that of a Mutant!

Round Two: Dig deep your talons into the fullness of his writhing neck and gouge with the force that only the Oldest Living Vampire on Earth is empowered with!

Round Three: Upon the surge of a sanguine stream to your rabid lips, drink as yet you have, in long shapeless, thoughtless heaves, and until the very last beat of his bitter heart has played out its Croat folksong!

Casper Freake, you still amaze me! A Vampire with no ability to walk upon this Earth in the company of but One! Denial is a lapdog that licks and vomits impossibilities at your splendidly leathered and laced heals. Kill that intrusion once and for all! When shall thou make peace, as have I made such peace, with the knowledge, nay ‘Unavoidable Honesty’, that ‘Our Existence’ in this World of the bizarre, the weird and the wondrous is unique! Unique! You search…I familiarise. You seek…I find. You explore…I buy sacks of potatoes for my sideboard. You find another Vampire…just when I was praying for the return to you of your Sanity!

I reiterate, with strength and force. We are the Last Remaining Vampires on Earth.

Remember Freake, ‘Different Provisions for Different Incisions’. Now demonstrate to me a display of honour that only you are capable of. Go eat someone!

Bemused, Mordi Kildare.

Mordi Kildare, Christchurch, Dublin, Ireland. 10 April 2001