My Favorite Things with Michelle Renee Lane

They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome back to My Favorite Things, the weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we sit down with guest author and new Speculative Chic columnist Michelle Renee Lane, whose debut novel, Invisible Chains, comes out today, July 22nd, from Haverhill House Publishing.

What does Michelle love when she’s not writing about mysterious strangers, slave catchers, conjurers and even a loup-garou? Spoiler alert: let’s just say you can easily title this “My Favorite Vampires (Fictional AND Real!).” Intrigued? Read on to learn more!

When I was twelve years old, my mother bought me a second-hand copy of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. Prior to reading what I jokingly refer to as the gateway drug for vampire fiction, most of my encounters with vampires had been in films and on television. And, I believe, with the exception of Barnabas Collins, all other vampire films and TV shows I had seen up to that point were about Dracula. Bela Lugosi will forever be one of my favorite Draculas, but my first encounter with The Count (not the purple muppet with OCD) was Christopher Lee in the Hammer Horror classic, Horror of Dracula (1958).

I don’t know how you spent your Saturday afternoons as a kid, but I spent a lot of mine watching Creature Double Feature, where my horror film education began. In my opinion, all monsters were great, but there was something special about Dracula that made him stand out. My fascination with Dracula led me to watch any and all versions of Bram Stoker’s story I could find. I even had the 3-Reel Dracula set for my View Master. And, until Gary Oldman graced the silver screen with his interpretation of Dracula, Frank Langella’s Dracula had my undivided attention for years.

I’m not sure if my mom was sick of watching Dracula films or simply wanted me to expand my interest to include other stories, but Interview with the Vampire did just that. That spark of interest at twelve became a life-long obsession that has lasted more than thirty years. I have consumed vampire novels, mythology, films, TV shows, academic articles and just about anything else I can get my hands on. Vampires are in my blood. I’ve written fiction and my own academic work about vampires and I believe that I will continue to do so as long as I live.

So, if you haven’t guessed, my favorite things are vampires. Vampires should be homicidal maniacs filled with conflicting emotional turmoil that keeps you guessing as to the nature of their motivations while they are literally charming the pants off of you. Here are three of my favorite fictional vampires (aside from Dracula), and one real vampire just for good measure.

Elijah Mikaelson, The Originals (2013 – 2018): In case you’ve been living under a rock, The Originals is a spinoff of The Vampire Diaries (TVD) featuring the supernatural trials and tribulations of the original family of vampires, the Mikaelsons,  who have been living their best undead lives and creating progeny for over one thousand years. Elijah Mikaelson is the eldest brother in the original vampire family. He made his first appearance on TVD as an antagonist who plays a role in the Katherine Pierce and Elena Gilbert doppelgänger story arc, but over time he becomes an ally and a recurring protagonist. Elijah’s first appearance on screen heralds what will become a series of elegant ass-kicking scenes. The fact that he remains completely calm and shows no emotion while explaining how he’s going to kill everyone in the room before they can even think to run makes him one of the scariest vampires on TV. In TVD mythology, when someone becomes a vampire, the strongest part of his or her personality becomes amplified, and interestingly enough, Elijah’s strongest quality is morality.

Of all of the legendary original vampires, he is known as the noble one. He is exceptionally fast and powerful, spooky intelligent, and has a knack for rescuing damsels in distress. He is a passionate and caring individual, but don’t take his kindness for granted. To say that he takes pride in his appearance would be an understatement. He prefers designer men’s wear, suits mainly, and seems to almost never have a hair out of place. In fact, the only time he really gets dirty is when he’s saving someone from explosions and/or fires, is the victim of torture when someone manages to get the drop on him, and when he’s covered in blood — usually someone else’s. He has blood on his hands a lot, because his favored method of killing is to reach inside people’s chests to rip their hearts out. It’s kind of his thing. Charming, handsome, well-dressed and very dangerous. What’s not to like?

John Mitchell, Being Human (2008 – 2013): Before I begin talking about one of the sexiest/scariest vampires on TV, I need to make it perfectly clear that I am referring to the original UK version of the series. Like most US adaptations of UK shows, the US version of Being Human can barely hold a candle to the original. However, I will admit that I watched most of the first season on The SyFy Channel because Mark Pellegrino played a particularly sadistic vampire. Okay, I’m stepping down off my soapbox now.

What can I say about John Mitchell? We’ve already established that he’s a vampire. But all vampires have their own unique tale. In the first episode of Being Human we learn how and when Mitchell became a vampire. He was a soldier fighting in Europe in World War I. In the midst of battle, a battle he believed to be his last, he met a group of vampires in uniform. The next thing he remembers is waking up in a pile of dead soldiers killed in the battle with a craving for blood.

Blood is a staple of the vampire diet. The food of life. Human lives. Some vampires eat regular human food, others exist on blood alone. Mitchell eats human food and drinks blood. Mitchell would like to stop drinking blood, because the guilt he feels for all the people he’s killed is unbearable most of the time. So, much like a drug addict, Mitchell tries again and again to kick the habit. He believes initially that if he stops living among his own kind, he won’t be tempted to behave like them.

The vampire who made Mitchell, Herrick, has been around since at least the Middle Ages, and he has established a position of power within vampire society. Herrick has plans to take even more control by targeting humans in positions of power and turning them. He wants Mitchell to be his right hand man, because they used to be murder buddies. They spent decades living an intensely hedonistic lifestyle — sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, and bloodlust. They killed a lot of people together. Mitchell’s kill list is legendary and he’s viewed as a hero among the other vampires. A poster boy for serial murderers if you will.

Most of the time, his friendship with George (werewolf) and Annie (ghost) grounds him and keeps him on a bloodless path. But he can’t always control his cravings. He slips up sometimes. Actually, he slips up all the time and finds himself in a never-ending shame spiral. So, like a drug addict who doesn’t want his friends to know that he’s using again, he lies to them.

Like most modern vampires, sex is a trigger for Mitchell’s bloodlust. Women who share his bed usually end up in the cemetery. Or become vampires like him. Either way, he kills them. Obviously, Mitchell’s relationships don’t last very long even though he’s passionate, complex, and feels things deeply. Or, more succinctly put, he’s emotionally unstable. Which, along with an unsettling acceptance of violence toward female protagonists, seems to be a recurring character trait/theme of contemporary vampire fiction. Perhaps even a trope.

Spike (William the Bloody), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 – 2003): Until Spike made his first appearance on screen in the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in “School Hard,” my heart only belonged to Buffy’s Watcher, Rupert Giles. But when the Billy Idol-esque vampire showed up in Sunnydale dressed in black leather with bleached blond hair and a very sexy British accent, my heart split in two. Spike’s prior experience killing two slayers, his love of violence, his desire to be recognized as a leader, as well as his attitude to rival all attitudes, quickly established him as one of Buffy’s most challenging foes. Spike arrives in Sunnydale with his long-time companion and Sire, Drusilla. Drusilla, cursed with the gift of clairvoyance, was stalked and driven insane by her Sire, Angelus/Angel. She and Spike had the mother of all dysfunctional relationships, but were truly (madly) in love.

When Spike chose to side with Buffy to stop Angelus/Angel from ending the world, Drusilla felt betrayed and ended their century-long love affair. Broken-hearted, Spike returned to Sunnydale alone to prove himself by trying once again to kill Buffy. In his many failed attempts to kill Buffy we learn a lot about him and long before they begin their ill-fated secret romance, he becomes an integral part of her life and the lives of her friends and family, despite their constant rejections. For a serial murderer, he has a large capacity for empathy and often has more insight into the human condition than most of the humans and other monsters around him.

Here is an abbreviated version of his advice to Buffy and Angel on relationships: “Love isn’t brains, children. It’s blood. Blood screamin’ inside you to work its will. I may be love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it.”

Sexy, funny, insightful, violent, and emotionally complicated, Spike is one of the most interesting vampires to appear on TV. And long before Bella Swan and Edward Cullen began their completely inappropriate love affair, Spike and Buffy showed us that it’s possible to have feelings for someone even though they will cause us more harm than good.

John George Haigh (1909 – 1949): Recently, I met an old friend for lunch to catch up on what’s been going on in our lives for the past twenty-something years since we last saw each other. She contacted me after her daughter found an old newspaper while hiking in the woods. A story on the front page of the Friday, March 4, 1949 edition of The Harrisburg Telegraph caught her attention, and she immediately thought of me: “Acid Bather Claims He’s a Vampire.”

This news story about the infamous English serial killer, John Haigh, more commonly known as the Acid Bath Murderer, proves that current events (including those from the past), are often more horrific than fiction can ever hope to be: “Dapper John George Haigh, charged with the acid-bath murder of wealthy widow Mrs. Olive Durant-Deacon, has confessed the killings of at least five other persons and the list may still be incomplete, reliable sources said today.”

Haigh was described as “a charming man who made friends with his victims, killed them, burned their bodies in acid and then sold their properties with forged power-of-attorney.” Haigh’s murders are despicable and unsettling even by today’s standards, but people reading this story in 1949 must have been horrified to learn that a man who appeared to be an upstanding normal citizen, but more importantly, white, well-mannered and seemingly affluent, could commit such heinous acts.

Okay, so he was a serial murderer. But what does dissolving the corpses of your victims in acid have to do with vampires? Not much, really. But, Haigh also claimed to have “sucked the blood of his victims through lemonade straws.” And despite this grisly discovery, “authorities were inclined to believe Haigh’s characterization of himself as a vampire might be an attempt to build up an insanity defense.”

Do you know what’s insane? This monster in a human suit who befriended people, drank their blood and killed them (not necessarily in that order), dissolved their bodies in acid, and then stole their money, was referred to as being “dapper,” “charming,” and “debonair,” by the news media. Sound familiar?

It isn’t just the fact that he claimed to drink blood that equates him with vampires. It isn’t even the fact that he killed people. What makes Haigh comparable to contemporary fictional vampires is the fact that despite his murderous urges and high body count, his story fascinated people and made him interesting on an international level.

Unlike the characters in modern vampire fiction, Haigh didn’t get a TV series or a fan-base of adoring women between the ages of thirteen and sixty. He was sentenced to death by hanging and executed for his terrible crimes.

The fact that I have been obsessed with vampires since childhood disturbs some people while endearing me to others. A lot of people think that vampire fiction is silly and overrated. But vampires are more than just spooky undead serial murderers. They’re more than just sparkly stalkers who take naive teenage girls to prom. They are archetypes that give us a unique view of the social norms of the time in which they are written. Vampires have evolved in fiction to meet the needs of the societies in which they were created. And we still have a lot to learn from them.

Michelle R. Lane writes dark speculative fiction about women of color who battle their inner demons while falling in love with monsters. Her work includes elements of fantasy, horror, romance, and occasionally erotica. In January 2015, Michelle graduated with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. Her short fiction appears in the anthologies Dark Holidays and Terror Politico: A Screaming World in Chaos. Her debut novel, Invisible Chains, will be available from Haverhill House Publishing July 2019. She lives in South Central Pennsylvania with her son.

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