Trigger warnings: raw language, potential violence, sacrilegeous banter, and it’s all just a little silly.
Reading time: Approximately 7 minutes.
It isn’t often that I get together with The House of Morana, who hail from Eastern Europe and have been known to hunt male vampires for sport (this has a lot to do with why I avoid them).
However, the color purple has come up a lot recently in online Discord channels in the vamp world. For example:
moranabeast: sup with all the weird arrests by humans in your country?
londondaggerhound: Yeah, what are those clowns doing?
atticus [me]: hunting people based on skin color.
moranabeast: that’s medieval
londondaggerhound: I don’t think they did that shit in medieval days
moranabeast: what about us?
atticus: Not many vamps not shedding their skin, so doesn’t matter much
moranabeast: but some be brown right?
atticus: sure
londondaggerhound: They like to collect brown.
moranabeast: Our house, we never shed our skin. We favor our natural purple shade. Always will.
atticus: good luck coming to america then
londondaggerhound: They collect purple too?
atticus: Anything not bleached
moranabeast: good luck to anyone fucking with us
londondaggerhound: u should exit that godforesaken place, atticus
atticus: been here a long time bro
londondaggerhound: couple centuries is all. it’s always been a cesspool. savages. why do they love snatching non-bleached people and putting them in chains? been doing it since before they chased the native people there to the worst place on earth
atticus: oklahoma is the worst place on earth?
moranabeast: close to it
moreland: that’s why they sent them there
skinnyvamp: that stallone guy seems to like it
moreland: that’s a tv show, you dipshit
londondaggerhound: okay, anyway, so I think we should fuck with these people big time. See how they like the color purple.
atticus: I think it would take less than a couple weeks to get fully purple if I don’t shed my skin.
moreland: me too
londondaggerhound: samesies
skinnyvamp: yep
moranabeast: i’m in
So it was decided. We would all abstain from shedding our skin for a month so that our natural purple skin color would return. Then we’d meet somewhere we could draw attention to ourselves. Then, feed like maniacs. How would ICE react to a group of purple people who were all seven feet tall or close to it, chomping on burritos in Pilsen and chewing on ICE cankles for sport?
We figured they’d run for it, but we were too fast for that.
Morana arrived in Chicago ahead of me. We met in a café in Evanston, where we could easily blend in, if that’s possible for very tall people with purple skin. We figured that since purple was the color of the Northwestern University football team’s jerseys, people would assume we were sports fanatics. Very tall ones.
She showed up in a Northwestern University football jersey. I was impressed. It even fit.
I found her in a seat in the back of a dark corner of the café. I sat across from her. Sitting down, Morana towered over the young needle-studded waitress who took our order. The waitress seemed oblivious as she took our order of oat pancakes and coffee.
“What is she?” asked Morana as the waitress walked away, “About two feet tall? And what’s with this phone scanning to place our order?”
“Just some new thing they do these days. Fun fact: In the 1970s, the Northwestern University student body voted to rename the football team from the Wildcats to the Purple Haze.”1
“Damn, humans are stupid,” Morana replied.
“Is your house still on a sex boycott?”
“Shit, dude, get down to business why don’t you?”
“Just curious. You and the Mouras Encantadas are the only ones I know doing that. You’re gonna go extinct, you know. Pfft.”
“We’re hard to kill. Speaking of, killing, killing you would be hella lot more fun than having sex with you, from what I’ve been told.”
“You’ve seen that internet Giphy that says, ‘Why not both,’ right?”
She raised one of her two thread-thin dark eyebrows at that. Like all vamps, her long black hair paired well with her purple skin. Mine was cut woefully short these days. It looked like hers hadn’t been cut for years.
“So what’s the plan here, Don Juan? We all just meet up somewhere and do what?” She looked around. “Everyone should be here by now. Where is everyone?”
I shrugged. “No idea. But that sounds like as good a plan as any. It’s not like this is going to be a challenge. The ICE dregs are bottom of the barrel. About as athletic as ketchup.”
“Your friend Moreland hates it when vamps expose themselves to the public.”
“You need to be careful with words like that. We live in the Epstein era.”
“Dude, I wouldn’t have sucked that guy’s blood if you offered me all of Bulgaria’s remaining male vamps as a sacrifice to the Morana House.”
That was saying a lot. Bulgaria had fifty vampire houses and the largest vampire demographic in the world, because many had fled to the Rila and Pirin mountains during World War Two before spreading across the country during the Cold War.
That still didn’t leave many vampires in the world. There were only a few thousand of us left. Morana’s obsession with taking out male vampires was irritating, especially given our steady attrition, so I said so.
She shrugged. “Where’s Needles? I’m hungry.”
I turned to look at the counter. There was nobody there. The café, crowded with breakfast customers just moments before, was empty, too.
I stood up. “Come on,” I said, motioning her to follow me as I advanced towards the front door.
A cacophony of whistles and screaming voices greeted us when we opened the door. The sidewalks on both sides of the chaotic street were filled with people raising their cameras, throwing things, and yelling at men whose windbreakers were emblazoned with the word “POLICE.” Several humans were banging on the tinted windows of a large Chevy Suburban.
Moreland approached us wearing a tight leather onesie and grinning ear to ear.
Longtooth, “londondaggerhound” in the chat, tailed her in a dark trenchcoat. He expanded his arms as if we’d fly into them, saying calmly to us in a thick, aristocratic British accent as he approached, “So glad you could join us.”
Longtooth had canines the size of small swords that arched menacingly from his upper jaw to below his chin. He wasn’t the kind of vampire who could blend in without claiming he was going to a costume party. Yet, the chaos in the street was so thorough that nobody noticed him.
“This is marvelous,” he grinned as I reached him. “A veritable hunting ground. I suppose you’ll prefer that I don’t take random samples.”
“Go for the law enforcement types, such as they are,” I said.
“They don’t make themselves known now, do they?” he replied.
“Just look for sleazy, overweight dudes stumbling out of SUVs like that one,” I said, pointing to one that had rolled up diagonally onto a curb in the mayhem.
And so it began.
“This is delicious,” said Moreland, stabbing at a cut of lamb.
Morana raised a wine glass filled with pink ice and blood-red liquid. “Welcome to the first Christmas dinner in several centuries at the House of Morana. In honor of our weirdo friend Jade, who, for some ungodly reason, calls himself a Christian.”
Moreland, sitting next to me, raised her glass, “To dipshit,” she said, looking at me.
“Body of Christ,” I said, raising my glass and winking at Moreland, who was wearing a translucent red dress that left little to my imagination.
“More like blood of ICE, but it’ll do,” said Longtooth.
It had been, perhaps, centuries since vampire houses had gathered together to feast and drink the stored blood acquired during a mass feeding frenzy like the satisfying event in Chicago. I only knew one vamp who was capable of snatching and storing blood this way, and he wasn’t here. I wanted to ask Morana, but it didn’t seem like the moment.
This was a special occasion. It seemed appropriate, given the season, which even non-believers participated in during these modern times.
“That was a delightful event,” said Longtooth, poking at a piece of meat on his plate. “You sure this is lamb?”
This story features characters in Psalm of Vampires.
Thanks for reading!
Ruminato has an eclectic set of posts, ranging from fiction to political rants about the crisis in the U.S. Becoming a paid subscriber helps keep it alive. Thank you
I’ll be home alone this Christmas. Feel sorry for me? Say it with cash! (As Sally, Charlie Brown’s sister, says, “How about tens and twenties?”)
Notes
Legal Disclaimer Regarding Vampire Behavior Toward ICE
Ruminato reiterates its firm commitment to non-violence, lawful discourse, and a strict “no vampires attacking anyone, especially immigration enforcement authorities” policy, no matter what that bug-eyed Patel dude tries to sell his reluctant henchmen.
Any attempts by authorities to arrest the author of this post will be met with an extreme display of flatulence that will reflect both my age and my attitude towards the regime.
Footnotes
True story.
Contributors. 2025. “Northwestern Wildcats.” American Football Database. Fandom, Inc. 2025. https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Northwestern_Wildcats.
Me too. My Da passed on the 24th and I buried him the 31st so I hate the holidays. But this little diddy made my day! ❤️
I enjoyed this story.
If it helps, I'll be alone at Christmas, too. My bro will be here but we don't celebrate the event at all and he'll be glued to his computer watching his maga videos. lol