IX. Vampyre Ghost- vi.

The prized leather tome at Prim's left hand slid slightly away from him across the chess-table. Relaying the next move, the vampire intended to use the opportunity to delve deeper into his mind. However, unwilling to be completely enchanted into servitude and the loss of mortal identity, Prim did not advance the chess piece. The vampire urged him onward by projecting the image of an invisible legion surrounding him in ever-widening concentric circles with thousands of desirous, devouring watchful eyes. There shall be no further hesitation in our brilliant game of chess! Suddenly, a series of counter images eclipsed the immortals intricate mind: absolute darkness, unimaginable cold, pale distant starlight and a landscape of cavernous towers of rock rising from unfathomable pits concealed by clouds to a impenetrable leaden sky. The terror of the cosmic void and unfamiliar fifth dimension was overwhelming. The vampire reluctantly reached out with long, artistic fingers and pinched the chess piece with distain advancing king's bishop's pawn to king's bishop's three between the tips of sharp, red nails. The prized leather tome returned to within reach near Prim's left hand. In the darkness above them, the furtive mass of breathing coarse hair and membranous skin patiently feasted on the fear energy of their thoughts, spread further across the ceiling and unfolded the tri-lids of an unflinching primordial eye. Where do vampires go when they die? Since there's nowhere else for them, they become immortal ghosts absorbed into the eternal dream-realm of interspatial time.

lX. Vampyre Ghost- v.

Snow danced in the golden auras of the north shore gaslights and frost continued to transmogrify into unnamable angles of geometry shaping themselves to the hypnotic rhythms of eldritch melodies beyond the pallid visage and sable shoulder length tresses. Reading the surface of Prim's thoughts, the vampire placed a mind-projection of pleasing abstract canvasses into his consciousness momentarily drawing his attention away from the game. Memory-ghosts encompass you, yet you remain aloof and neither avoid or allow them to impede your movement in the physical dimension. You accept such things and find them not troubling? Sensing the urgency of the immortsl's own Thirst, he calmly took a sip of heartsease tea. Focusing on the otherworldly classical music allowed him to think several moves ahead, for there was still so very much to be learned about this mysterious new Chicago thrall. In anticipation of the progress of the queen's bishop, he advanced queen's rook's pawn to queen's rook's three allowing for the queen's knight's safe return to protect the king. Shifting his gaze towards the ceiling of the now dimly lit tea parlor, he discovered an outspread mass of breathing coarse hair and membranous skin.

lX. Vampyre Ghost- iv.

The tea parlor's psychic transmissions, oral discussions and themes of otherworldly classical music was overwhelming to the sensitivities of one whose ability to discern each distinctly, thought by thought, word by word and note by note was often problematic. Shielding themselves allowed them to concentrate their acute senses on a singular activity like an artisan bringing abstract pictures from the creative mind to a canvass knowing the outcome of the endgame from their very first move beyond the genius of any accomplished mortal player. Having not fully explored Prim's thoughts, his repute only as an antiquarian and presently unaware he was a mercenary of sorts with deference to their existence unless there was leather in the game the vampire had accepted his terms of the prized rare tome in his possession anticipating victory from a mortal assumed to have limited linear thought patterns that lacked a full perspective as though standing in a gallery too near a great work of art to appreciate the composition of the whole. Nevertheless, Prim offered the opportunity of this brilliant game of chess calculating that his ability to absorb knowledge in detail and photographic recall would be enough to allow him to compete long enough to study this unknown vampire. Having both urban and rural experience, he could only describe his situation of finding himself among the harbinger of a new Chicago thrall like patiently observing a skeletal winter tree awaiting a rookery of ravens; therefore he hesitated before even contemplating his next chess move.