Deborah Smith - Vampires? What the...

I'm pretty sure I met a vampire last week.

Maybe my imagination is a tad-bit hyper. Maybe I've spent too much time working on Bell Bridge Books' vamp novels, Bite Me and Once Bitten. I've also been immersed in the Southern-gothic world of Flowers for Elvis (04/09), the scary thrill ride of Primitive (10/09), the dysfunctional family drama of Tender Graces (04/09), the dark humor of Haywood Smith's Twelve Sacred Traditions of Magnificent Mothers-in-Law (04/09), and I'm putting the finishing touches on the next installment of my Solomon's Seal ebook series, about a mythical giant.

So it could be that I'm living in a whacked-out editorial world that colors my perspective.

Hmmm.

Nah. I still think I met a vampire. Really.

She lives in an 1820's antebellum mansion smack in the middle of an old-South historic district along the moss-draped coast. Picture a massive, street-front "porch door" of carved cypress, fronted by black marble steps worn down by nearly two centuries of foot traffic. Enter that doorway into a dark alcove at the base of the mansion's first floor. Climb steep wooden steps to an enormous, Greek-columned veranda curtained by thick tangles of wisteria; Tarzan could swing from the woody arms of these antique vines.

Heavy wicker furniture squats on the veranda's scarred wooden floor, dappled with wisteria-shaped sunshine. Ornate cushions hint that a decadent soul or two has sprawled on the wicker lounge, naked behind the veil of vines, sipping absinthe. Look up, and the veranda ceiling is painted a pale, ethereal shade of blue. A tour guide smiles nervously and explains that blue ceilings keep the "haints" away.

We step through a towering doorway directly into a formal dining room with sixteen-foot ceilings. The main table can easily seat twenty, and judging by pedestals as thick as a body, probably weighs more than a small car. Massive sideboards and liquor carts display a variety of incredible silver services, crystal decanters, elaborate ceramics and bronzes. But all of it is gently tarnished or scuffed, and the decanters look dusty, like the wicker outside. The windows are hidden behind heavy brocade drapes; a stuffed peacock stares back at us from one corner. Fading tapestries hang on the walls. The light fixtures are old, and dim. There are shadows everywhere.

Lestat could walk in here and it wouldn't surprise me at all, I whisper to my cousin.

In the midst of this shabby-chic creepy-Victorian ambience is a large oil portrait of a young woman. She perches over the mantel of a marble fireplace in a low-cut evening gown, her neck draped in long pearls, her blonde hair swooping back. She is painted in an oddly overwrought style, contemporary and campy.

The tour guide says quickly and loudly, as if to ward off more indelicate comments, "That's the owner. She's in the next room."

Sleeping in her coffin? I want to ask.

We are led through another giant doorway, entering a dark parlor where flickering candles on a gilded table give off scents of, of . . . blood, decay, undead flesh.

"I think it's just sage and lavender," my cousin whispers. But she's touching the cross on her necklace.

We stare at more tapestries, more sideboards, armoires, antique satin couches, Greek statuary, and dried flowers in funeral vases.

"Welcome," the owner says in some unrecognizable but vaguely European accent, stepping out of a dark corner. Or maybe she just floated out of her burial chamber.

We jump.

She's far less perky than her strange portrait. Sunken, darkly outlined eyes peer at us from a frame of straight yellow hair parted in the middle. Her skin is ashy. She's dressed in a snug brocade jacket and black tights. She's very thin.

Must not have fed recently, I'm thinking.

I hitch my bandana a little higher around my neck.

She politely tells us the history of the architecture and antiques. The whole time, she gazes at us without blinking. She offers no personal information.

I think of a question to ask. I'm trying to bond with her so she won't stalk me for dinner. "Are you an antique dealer?" I croak out in a high-pitched tone. I bet she can smell the fear in my Type O blood.

"No. A floral designer," she answers, still not blinking, her lips moving carefully over her fangs. She says it like this: Noi. Eh flur-all dee-sign-ar. Suddenly it dawns on me. Her accent? Transylvanian.

A floral designer? For what . . .mausoleums?

"That's all," the tour guide announces. "Y'all have a nice day." And she ushers us out another grand door, back to the shadowy, vine-swathed veranda with its blue, ghost-be-gone ceiling, back to the world of the living and the safe, garden-variety dead.

That night, after I'd steadied my nerves with wine, I sat with family on a rooftop patio overlooking the coastal village's gothic, secretive, elegantly mysterious cityscape and the vast harbor beyond, where cruise boats filled with tourists glide alongside gigantic cargo tankers from the other side of the oceans. Anything is possible here. The Southern low-country embraces the unknown.

Flitting through the salt breezes are the misty spirits of black slaves, red natives, white belles, blockade runners, fallen women, hanged men, victims and villains, the innocent and the guilty of too many old-coast generations to imagine.

Down an alley and across a street a willowy figure glides swiftly.

I clutch my wine glass and lean over the patio rail, hoping for one more glimpse. Her? The vampire? Or just an eccentric rich woman with dusty silverware and a funky accent?

She vanishes in the blackness. Poof. I nod. She had blue ceilings and stuffed peacocks and a life filled with shades of the night.

A vampire. Yep.

I met one.