You can’t stop the rain from falling down, so let it wash the city clean. Each drop is the forming of a river.

By Dr. Agonson

He walks away, he walks out into the rain. A crack, resounding and awful, screams across the sky. No wonder so many have thought, “Surely we have beheld God’s wrath.” Solomon said something, well, a lot of things, about a woman. What he’d give, and then it was all utterly despised. Yeah, that was right on the money.

Throwing his wallet into the sweeping current below it plopped splashing muddy water onto the sidewalk. The wallet was too large to be carried away, or even submerged, and just sat there as the water parted around it flowing toward the ever downward.

“Money,” he scoffed.

He then bent down and fished his wallet out of the mire. Using the back of his hand the man rubbed what mud he could off the leather and returned the soaked treasure to his back pocket. He felt the cold wetness against his cheek spreading down, forming a light trickle that rolled along his left leg.

For a moment Mr. George nearly turned back. He walked on. He didn’t know where he was walking. “In front of a freight train for all I care.”

But he carefully walks to the crosswalk, and waits for the red hand to yield for the walking man. He had passed the gutter where the stream of muddy rainwater had been anxiously racing. Now he paused and listened. Cars, their tires sloshing in the rain, their various engines humming and purring. A crack of thunder. More cars.

Footsteps.

High heels clocked up behind him. He sniffed. Yes, even through the powerful odors the rain birthed and the strong perfume was the familiar smell of a dead body.

“Feeling lonely?” the sweet voice inquired.

The voice was familiar. “Don’t I know you?” he asked.

“Would you like to?”

He did know the voice.

“Don’t you treat me like a stranger, not now.”

There was silence for a moment, a kind of silence; silence that is not disturbed by sound but overgrows the noise that would break it.

“Look at me,” she said. The silence grew. “You were never one to leave your blindside unguarded. Aren’t you afraid of me? Or are you? Turn around.”

“I don’t want to be turned to salt, especially in this weather.”

She laughed as her heels resumed their clocking sound, circling to his front. Mr. George had long ago learned to use silence as a weapon. He turned it on her now.

“Mr. George,” she said, “We have a different name for you.”

Crossing the street now, he thought about that name. The Crow, a bird of carrion. He could hear the approaching truck.

“Way back, when your hair was black like the raven,” She had continued as he had waited for the signal to change.

The truck wasn’t slowing down.

“And you took such pride in grooming that silly beard.” Mr. George had raised his hand to the untamed mess that covered his face.

“Monogamy,” he had replied.

She looked at him tilting her head ever so slightly, as if to ask, “What?”

“Crows, many of them practice monogamy.”

“Listen, I’m here to offer you a choice,” she had blurted.

The truck wasn’t going to break.

“If the House doesn’t want you, join us.” Looking down she hugged her arm to her side.

They had stood there waiting until the little white man appeared. Mr. George had then stepped onto the crosswalk beginning a mortal trek across the street.

“Immortality! Youth! Vengeance!” she had shouted after him.

He had walked on.

The truck was barreling down on him.

“It was a good offer,” he thought while sprinting madly forward, but the truck managed to nick him in the side throwing him to the ground. Mr. George’s head slammed onto the pavement. The truck pulled a U-turn to begin a second approach.

But Mr. George wasn’t there, he was already dead. Mr. George looked down on the whole scene with a strange curiosity. A warm and familiar presence was beside him, “I know you,” he said.

“Yeah, I’ve been with you for a while, though I doubt you’ve noticed me much.”

“Your presence is like fire,” Mr. George remarked. “How could I not have noticed you?”

“Eyes of flesh rarely pierce the veil of the world below and see what is above, but I was there.”

Mr. George watched the truck as it ran over his body a second time.

“That looks kind of painful.”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to bear it.”

The truck drove on into the night, as the lustrous but pallid vampiress clocked to the bloody leftovers.

“Is she crying?” asked Mr. George, “I’ve never heard of a vampire crying.”

“From up here you see the truth, not the image.”

She knelt down and began pulling on the lifeless form. Soon she had the head cradled in her arm.

“What’s she doing?”

“Giving you one last choice.”

Her hair, heavy with the rain, fell over her face. She drew the bangs back with a brush of her hand, tucking it behind an ear. With a savage delicacy she suddenly bit into her own wrist. She then pulled her head back tearing open the pale flesh.

“Drink,” she pleaded.

Listen to my beautiful voice: