Recent DJ Posts

I'm looking at a man lying on the floor, bound in ropes, while a woman talks to me about him. He doesn't have a shirt and the ropes are cutting into his skin, I can smell blood, though he's otherwise unhurt. I can't see his face. The woman's saying, "We would walk a (something) of this guy. (Something long) lest he move-" I'm thinking that this situation reminds me of something I did under Charlemagne's rule.

FK, catching up with Janette. She's shocked to learn I haven't turned anyone since we separated in 1683 - it's been a century or two since then. She finds it impossible to imagine spending all that time without your own kind.

On the subject of writing, the man I'm speaking with is arguing that using a gateway to hell as a plot device is trite. The gateway to hell should be the book itself, not a device.

Walking aimlessly down the halls of the McKittrick Hotel, I was considering passing the time at Hecate's replica bar - she'll be out for a while yet but it's always possible someone interesting will stop in. But I heard the beautiful sound of a piano coming from the room just beyond the bar's entrance, and followed it, and met a classical composer who I could not convince to give me his name.

I'm trying to hold a conversation with a giant. He's holding an ax, the blade of which is currently buried in the roof of a building, and there are a few terrified people running away - they're being very loud and making it difficult for me to continue our conversation. But the giant's just thanked me for something, and I respond in disbelief, "You thanked a jinxed magician." That's something you shouldn't do, very bad luck.

At the McKittrick Hotel, I ran an errand for Hecate, and in return she's granting me access to a certain flight of stairs. I hand her written note to this effect to the doorman, and he removes the rope blocking off the stairs. He looks bored. He warns me that the things I'll see up there are just ghosts, so don't take any of it too seriously. I tell him I know. I'm still looking forward to seeing something new.

At the top of the stairs, everything is airy and bright, and there's the dead body of a soldier in dress uniform sitting against the railing that overlooks the ballroom, arms spread and head dangling forward in a way that reminds me of a scarecrow. His name's Jeremy. A woman in white walks up to him - there's something careless about her. Jeremy gets up from the railing, and they begin to dance through the rooms of the hotel. There's no music.

A woman who's been flirting with me - neither of us seriously - is taking my hand under the pretext of palm reading, turning it this way and that. She'd been joking around, but as she's 'reading' my palm, she notices the tiny raised circle on the tip of my thumb that holds a retracted needle and she stops smiling, though she doesn't understand what she's looking at.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I've been sitting in a lounge room in the McKittrick. There's a host and a microphone, allowing the guests to listen in on his internal thoughts as we eat and drink. He's been sitting in the booth next to mine, having a conversation with a woman, another resident of the hotel. But when she leaves, he comes and sits across from me. He's bewildered as to why I've spent so much time here tonight. Of course the guests are all free to enjoy our stay at the hotel in any way we choose, there's no wrong way to go about it, and if I want to just sit here and watch his story unfold, that's fine - but my stay is half over already. Why don't I go out and see the show?

I'm thinking that I'll come back another time to enjoy the show - but nonetheless I leave the lounge and walk up to the next floor, which is in complete chaos thanks to the work of the three witches. Fragmentary memory here - I remember seeing the boy witch in passing and being annoyed with him, but no context beyond that. In a small room, I came across a woman who I realized has been/will be the next bald witch - right now she's another lost soul who came here on a mission but wound up getting drawn into Hecate's world. By the end of the night she has/will have shaved her head and altered her body language completely, transforming into one of the three witches for the next night.

The last of the three witches and the people under her sway are surrounded by sexual images. I only saw her briefly in passing as she led a young prince off down one of the halls. But instead I come across the naked prophetess who'll be taking this witch's role for the next night, currently in the process of transforming into that role. She puts her hands on my shoulders and pushes me to my knees in front of her, and I'm thinking that it's always a man she chooses for this part of the performance - the other guests in the room with me are all women, and they remain standing, pressing in close around us, watching her with a look of worship. She has a woman standing guard next to her during this dance, making sure none of the guests attempt to touch her without her permission. One of those women watching laughs off this restriction, and to show how ridiculous she thinks it is, she reaches out and puts her hand on the prophetess/witch's thigh with a familiar attitude. The performance comes to a complete stop. In the trouble that follows, I move away from the crowd and into the staff-only halls of the hotel.

Visiting the McKittrick, I've been following the taxidermist - a bald man with sunken eyes, looks starved and intense - as he talks to a young blonde man with a heavy jaw who works for the hotel, very earnest type. When it's time for the final banquet, they meet up with two women in clothes from the Victorian era and accompany them down the stairs - but I come to realize their final scene won't be with everyone else at the banquet at all. The women dance down the stairs, floating from one bannister to the other. Standing with them on the bannisters, so close to the ceiling, I'm very aware of Hecate's influence on the floor just above us.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I've just walked away from a room where I'd been talking to a woman. Now I'm standing in the ruins of a building, on a street where a lot of buildings have been destroyed. Nearby there's a large brown rat on top of a pile of rubble, and I have a sense of fellow feeling as I watch it. I don't really want to go out into the street - it's much too exposed - but I don't see any way around it. Once in the street, I catch sight of a woman in a white dress two or three buildings down, behind a wall of iron bars. She sees me and jumps up and down to get my attention. "Nick! It is Nicky, isn't it?" I recognize her, we're close. I (or rather my POV character here) use several different names - 'Nick' is for all intents and purposes my (POV character's) real name, but I haven't heard it for a long time, so this is something of a reunion. But I'm debating whether I want to take the time to rescue her from behind those iron bars.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I've been walking around backstage at a sort of club in the 1930s or so after leaving the audience of a show on stage in the main room. Talking to various people, overhearing conversations by dancers. I'm just now leaving a smokey room where two men have fallen asleep. I've been looking for someone, a specific woman. There's a disaster or a tragedy that's about to occur here, and I have to find her first.

The show in the main room ended while I was backstage, and everyone's straggling out. In the lobby, I come across a large man I remember meeting earlier. He's putting on his coat. Near the doors, his wife and daughter are waiting for him, and he introduces them to me. I recognize the daughter as the woman I was looking for - she's just a kid. I hadn't been expecting that she'd be a kid in this era. I kneel down to introduce myself to her eye to eye, using the name "Deacon Willfire" - it's the fake name I've been using here in the past, but Deacon is similar to the name I'll be using when she meets me as an adult in the future. She's very shy here, can barely look at me, but I'm aware that meeting me here will make an impression on her, and the similar names will help that memory along when we meet in the future.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm in that kid's room, standing by an empty fireplace that's so large I could easily fit in it just by ducking a little - it's grabbing my attention. But I'm also talking to the kid, saying to her, "A 300-year-old vampire for an imaginary friend?" (I'm referring to myself. She thinks I'm imaginary.) "You're trouble for sure." I'm thinking about the way I'm meeting her at various times in her life out of sequence. From her perspective, proceeding through time in the usual linear fashion, I've wound up being someone she grows up knowing, someone who's been around for most of her life.