Guarding the Vampire’s Ghost

Title: Guarding the Vampire’s Ghost
Author: Amy Lane
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Length: Novella (76 pdf pages)
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

A Guest Review by Feliz

Summary Review: In this bittersweet, heartwarming tale a dead vampire helps two angels realize that immortal love sometimes needs to turn mortal in order to become real.

The Blurb: For four millennia, Shepherd, Angel of Repentance, and Jefischa, Angel of the Fourth Hour of Dark, have worked as a team to provide heavenly assistance to those who call their names. Shepherd’s work has made him dark and dour, but he’s determined to protect Jefischa from all of the terrible pain the mortal world has to offer. Now an accident of divine politics has put Adrian, a twice-dead vampire, in heaven, and angels have been falling to Earth to engage in forbidden activities ever since. Shepherd doesn’t know how, and he doesn’t know why, but he’s heaven-bent on keeping the impressionable Jefischa out of Adrian’s clutches. But how is it that someone who was supposedly not human can teach two angels so much about the best of humanity? And how is it that—as long as he has Jefi by his side—no duty on earth or in heaven is as pleasurable as guarding the vampire’s ghost?

The Review: Sometimes the best tales  start out as simple bed-time stories to quell a childish mind’s endless curiosity and end up as wise fables about love and life.  I can totally picture the moment that gave birth to this story. “Mommy, what happens when a vampire dies?” –  “He becomes a ghost, baby.” –   “Mommy, will the vampire’s ghost also go to Heaven and be with the angels?” –  “Well, if someone talked God into admitting him, why not?”  – “Mommy, once he’s in Heaven, what happens? Will he bite the angels? Mommy, come, tell me…”

Adrian is a vampire who in life has had two lovers, a human sorceress and a male elf. His death causes quite the confusion in the order of the worlds, because he’s managed to retain his soul, which means he’ll leave a ghost  – and whatever is to be done with a vampire’s ghost? Since he has been dead before, he can’t very well go to Heaven, now can he? However  Godess, sovereign of the world of lore, decides he very well can. At first, God bristles at her request, but since he’s been separated from Godess for about four millenia,  he’s by now ready  to give her about everything she asks for. Thus, after what’s known now as “The Big Quarrel”, here he is, a vampire’s ghost in the anteroom of Heaven among the ghosts of humans whose ties to Earth are still too strong to let go, and the angels.

Shepherd, the Angel of Repentance, and Jefischa, the Angel of the Fourth Hour of Darkness, have been together from the beginning of time, fitting together like lock and key. They have never questioned their existence or purpose, never truely touched another being including each other, and never understood what might prompt an angel to fall from Heaven. That is, until St. Peter sets them to guard the vampire’s ghost, around who angels seem to fall like dominoes.

We have actually two intertwining storylines here. One is Adrian’s story, which tells about a love so deep and lasting it will withstand a separation of centuries, maybe millenia only on the tiniest spark of hope for being with the loved ones again sometimes. It is heartbreaking to watch the vampire’s sadness, his longing for his lovers, the way he turns his love on others in order to show them there’s always hope, there’s always something worth fighting for. The lenghths Adrian goes to for one single moment, one single fleeting touch with a loved one sometimes take on a very worldly form, which keeps his story from being teary and maudlin. In typical Amy Lane way the vampire’s antics provide several funny incidents; yet when he reveals his innermost darkness to Shep and Jefi, he shows a depth and a sincerity fit to touch another being’s heart, even though the other being doesn’t actually have one.

The love of an angel is different from mortal love. It has no boundaries, and is indistinct, as the angel is supposed to apportion his love to all those who are his charge alike.  The real sin, the sin that leads to falling, is loving exclusively, focusing all this endless, immortal love on one single other being. This is the second story line here, as Jefi and Shep gradually become aware that loving in a mortal way might actually be worth falling from the realms of Heaven, in spite of the risks, in spite of all the pain living on Earth might cause.

So many little details mark this story as the work of a masterful storyteller. For example how the angels get more and more corporeal as they realize that sharing the energy isn’t enough, each little solid body part indicating a step towards their big revelation. Or the characterization of Shep, whose task as an angel it was to provide forgiveness to those who were truely repenting their sins, and Jefi, who guarded the fourth hour of darkness, the hour of the musicians and the happily besotted ones. The angels were so innocent and so wholehearted in their slow evolution towards becoming beings of the flesh, it was like watching two wide-eyed children exploring a great wonder. On the other hand, both were mature persons in their own right who made a mature decision, perhaps with a timely little nudge then and again, but still… The author’s skill made me totally but all that, Adrian’s story along with the angels’. They rang true with an eternal sage wisdom, and made their point without hammering it in.

This is a beautiful, endearing story about how love is always worth something and sometimes can be worth everything. Highly recommended.

Although this story can be read as a standalone, it’s also a spin-off of Amy Lane’s “Little Goddess” series. Those who are familiar with this series will be happy to reencounter Green from Green’s Hill, Cory and Bracken along with Adrian.