Rise of the Black Vampires
Amber Wharton was brought up knowing that there are special people who have special abilities, abilities which increase as they grow older. These people are called Vampires and fifteen year old Amber is one of them. She is a little faster and a little stronger than her classmates. She has all the problems of the average teenager, except for her daily need to consume blood.
Nightmares brought on by puberty have forced her to live with her mother in Angel Beach, California. She is faced with a new school, new friends, and a host of new emotions. She is a member of the Uhura coven; members of her coven’s eyes outline yellow when their vampire powers are used…Amber hasn’t received her powers yet.
Amber goes to school with humans and prowls around the big city at night. She has to deal with puberty,social issues and other nearby vampire covens… falling in love with a human only complicates matters.
Midnight: Rise of the Black Vampires is Part Novel, Part Graphic Novel, All Vampire
Chapter One
I saw little difference between my human classmates and myself. I was a little faster, a little stronger, but that seemed pretty normal to me. I was a fifteen year old Black girl and I didn’t have my vampire abilities yet. I lived with my father in Beverly Hills, California. I was insulated from the outside world; the breezes, the scents, the sounds.
My father was a hard man with few regrets and I adored him. In less civilized times, he would be in charge of our coven, the alpha vampire. In those days, vampires allowed what was known as The Thirst to rule them. It was simple arrogance that prevented the vampire from living longer than forty years. Vampires had no desire to fit in; they wanted to run shit. Integration for the vampire, for my father, had the same meaning as suppression.
He didn’t believe in killing humans, but only because of the war that would follow. I was born deep in vampire country, Savannah, Georgia to be exact. I was born in a simple house that my parents shared. They separated five years prior, before we all moved west to Southern California. I had no reaction to the shake up; I guess I was too young to even notice.
My father and I moved into a plush Beverly Hills condominium to live among the rich and famous. My mother moved to a modest three-room, one-story home in Angel Beach, California. I hadn’t spoken to my mother in years because it was agreed that my father would provide all of my vampire necessities. Big cities and vampires didn’t mix, so he spent half a decade hovering over me. Of course, when night fell there was always an endless supply of opened blouse women around him.
My father had an acute appreciation of women of all shape and sizes. As long as they weren’t all up in my face, his indulgences didn’t bother me. My dad and I lived in a world of expensive, luxury cars, precision time pieces, fine dining, and finer clothes.
Both of my parents were telepathic. My mother could communicate with minds; my father could only read them. Telepathy was a female vampire trait. The fact that my dad had any telepathic ability showed that he had taken a different path with his life. From what I had seen, my dad could absorb power from others, but I’m not sure.
My father was slim and muscular, standing about six feet three. He wore vintage hats that seldom left his bald head and he had tremendous vampire swag. He was a man of few words, and since he could read your thoughts, a few words are all he needed. I had never seen this, but the rumor was that my father had telekinesis. Telekinesis is the ability to move objects just by thinking about them. This ability is a power typically reserved for elders. All I really knew was that his irises barely turned yellow when he read my mind.
My father says there were more vampires now than there were before the middle passages. His father was killed during one of the slave uprisings, which killed dozens of southern plantation owners. He didn’t speak about his father and he didn’t talk much about his mother. She was from a time when vampires fought, loved, and reveled throughout the night.
Half a century ago when he was very young, a band of humans killed her. For four days, she survived their torture without blood. The elders found her in an old shed, just as her flesh gave way to skeleton. Her body was dismembered and urinated on. My father lived with constant vivid thoughts of this memory. I think that single wrinkle in the middle of his forehead appeared when he had fond thoughts of his mother.
It was important that I stayed safe. My steps were ordered and that led to unremarkable days of wearing black. I always felt safe with my father. He always warned me about the dangers of living amongst humans. He told me of the Neo-Nazi’s that roamed forests and near beaches, the Klan remnants in Orange County, and the slayers that sought the thrill of killing monsters, even if the monster was only a fifteen year old girl.
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Amber has all the problems of the average teenage, except she’s a vampire. Since the vampires animation from folk lore, they have been continually reborn in modern culture. Vampires give rise to a host of anxieties and desires in our every shifting culture as they are brought to life on the page or in film. Midnight: Rise of the Black Vampires is no different in the way in which it embeds vampires in their cultural contexts, exploring their relationship to modernity together with issues of gender, national identity, technology, consumption, and social changes.
Midnight: ROTBV leans on allegory, myth and cultural references as it combines an inventive narrative structure with dynamic characters and social commentary. Is Amber an allegorical representation of postmodern life? Is Amber a progressive feminist, a challenge to gender hierarchy? Is Amber a philosophical viewing glass of subjectivity and truth? Is Midnight: Rise of the Black Vampires a barometer for white supremacy?
