Catholic Vampire Authors

So yes, this is a thing. Karen Ullo of Jennifer the Damned, Eleanor Nicholson of A Bloody Habit, Gabriel Blanchard of Death's Dream Kingdom, and myself (hi! J.B. Toner, Whisper Music. How the hell are ya?) have begun a small thing which, hopefully, will give rise to great things. A pebble that starts a landslide. A flicker that sparks a wildfire. A Facebook page that like, you know, inspires some other Facebook pages!!!

Check it out, it's pretty cool. Mostly, I'm not gonna lie, I just wanted to write this post in order to showcase my wife's photographic acumen. Here's Felix again:

WHISPER MUSIC!

My first novel:

What if the Virgin Mary was bitten by a vampire? Danyaela Morrigan is an ex-Catholic, ex-college student, and ex-human, furious at the God who allowed her to be turned into a demoness. In the mountain town of Medjugorje, where the Blessed Virgin is rumored to appear, Danyaela seeks to share her eternal curse with the Mother of God. In the bitter, destructive battle that follows, she becomes afflicted with the power to enter the spirit world and touch the soul of every human being at will. 

On Christmas Day, two Boston cops unwittingly find the body of a man who used to hunt vampires. Following the twisted trail, Detectives Blake and McArdle uncover the disappearance of a girl called Danyaela—and the woman known as Lady Claudia, who turned her. As they track the mortal servants of the damned, they draw ever closer to the heart of the Dark Lady’s plan to return from Hell for a virgin birth and a resurrection of her own. 

But the thirsting dead and the hunters from the Vatican are both thrown out of their plans when Danyaela meets Blake and begins to remember ordinary human friendship. Her strange new powers have cracked the ancient detente between the Lord God and the Lord Satan, and the mortal world is becoming the field of all-out battle, as she finds herself questioning her loyalties for the first time in twelve years. When Easter comes, many things will arise from the shadows of death—for good, or for evil.

Available here.

The Santa Saga

Hey, guys! I know this blog is usually a place for me to gush about my feelings and stuff, but we're gonna do something different today. You see, Part Six of my Santa Saga has just appeared in the lovely online literary journal, Aurora Wolf. That means you can now see all three pairs of connected tales arranged like a deck of cards on my author's page. In my own teeny little way, it's like having collected all the Infinity Stones.

I won't go into any particular detail about the series—I figure, if you're interested, you won't want it spoiled, and if you're not, then it doesn't matter anyhow—but in brief, it's about a bunch of mystical and mortal folk who hang out together at a (sadly fictional) Boston tavern called Dill's, and end up getting embroiled in a bizarre adventure involving the one and only Father Christmas. The fun part is that the entire thing evolved out of me going on Facebook every Advent to complain about the fact that Santa's helpers are called elves. They're obviously not elves, they're short bearded craftsmen who live in the mountains. Doy.

So over time, because I was a night janitor and had little else to do with my brain-mind, I started developing a mythos of my own regarding the Claus and his Arctic kinfolk. It became clear to me that Santa represented the Khazilim, an offspring of Angel and Dwarf, and that got me thinking about where the real Elves fit into all this, and that led me to discover the existence of Lyrilim, the offspring of Angel and Elf. And then of course the Nephilim got involved, not to mention the Cherubim, and things just went from there.

If my calculations are correct, the Santa Saga is now nearing its cataclysmic conclusion. The final chapters are set to be Parts One and Two of "The Eye of the Elohim." Look for the beginning of the end when April turns to May. And prepare. For. MAYHEM!

I am a servant of the Secret Fire

"Prometheus," you know, means Foresight. It was his brother, Epimetheus, that gave away all the gifts to the other animals, leaving none for Man. That name means Hindsight. That brother's folly led to the infinite sacrifice of Prometheus, who stole for us the Fire Divine, only to be lashed to a rock in Hell, to have his organs ripped from his steaming body and devoured by eagles every day, to regenerate, to be eaten alive, again and again, forever. For us.

I'd go to Hell for my baby girl. I would give up Heaven in a heartbeat. Even knowing that Hell means the loss of love, the loss of the memory of love, the poisoning of everything love was. For her I would sacrifice everything I am, even the very love of her, even the ability to cherish the remembrance of her face. I would fall into everlasting hate for her. Eat my organs? Pfff. Don't even waste my time. My wife had her organs eaten every day of our HG pregnancy, just to bring Sonya into this world. For the love of my daughter, if only one of us could go to Heaven, I would suffer the eternal loss of love. I love her like nothing I ever imagined before she came into our lives.

And I can't even tell you what she's done to make me love her so much. I think about it, sometimes. What if she gets older and asks me why I love her? What can I say? Because you're my daughter. Because you're my girl. Because you're my Sonya from God. It's not anything she's done, it's just—she's Sonya. How can I ever love her enough?

It's been a year now since that harrowing night when she came out of my beautiful screaming wife. She walks now, just a bit. She can say "kitten," and (I'm like 85% sure) "tree." She has a powerful personality, and I'm so excited to see the woman she'll become. She's going through a clingy phase right now, and it's exhausting that I can't put her down without her fussing; but the second she goes to bed and I'm free to move about the house, I miss her. She fills me up and past capacity in a way that redefines everything I ever understood about the concept of love. I love her so much it's impossible, yet there it is.

And here's what it feels like, most days. Ellie's pregnant again, which is wonderful, but also terrifying and crippling. I'm unemployed and still fucked up on anxiety since the car crash, and I spend my days trying to keep the house clean against this avalanche of entropy that constantly multiplies the amount of dishes and laundry that we own by ten and makes it all dirty, while trying to keep myself and Ellen and Sonya fed, and also trying to pursue a writing career, and also trying to sleep every now and again.

I'm no Gandalf. My Secret Fire is writing stories about other people going out and having adventures. I did that shit once. My time is over. That's okay. Getting Sonya's pants on while she kicks her feet like a pissed-off Michael Flatley is my adventure now. And grappling with my eel-like daughter while trying to wipe shit off every nearby surface and get her spurting diaper out the cat-door into the trash before she gets her flailing hands on it, is like stepping into the Octagon with a blood-doping Balrog as far as I'm concerned.

I would not have it otherwise. I would not miss one day with this girl. Nor with my wife, whom I wished I could marry the very same evening we met. But I cannot see one day ahead right now. Right now I'm clinging to the rock and offering my organs for the women I love. I'm a Prometheus with no Fire to offer.

But none of that matters. The Fire was never mine. God loves Sonya. He loves her better than I ever, ever could. If I can just be the conduit for His love, if I can just be instrumental, or even just involved, in her receiving love, then that's enough. I just want her to be loved.

KA-SMASH

We have cliches for a reason. Certain experiences are just endemic to the human condition; sooner or later, qua human, we all experience them. When ol’ Homes wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, he wasn’t the first person to point out that war sucks and it’s good to come home: those are things we’ve never not known. He just said it better than anyone else. Great literature doesn’t tell us new truths—it revivifies ancient ones.

Head-on collision the other day. Thank God Almighty, Sonya's fine. Totally fine. The other car came all the way across our lane—cops said we can't tell you much, but the other driver seems to have been high—and smashed into the right-hand side of us. Our little girl was buckled in the back behind the driver's seat, so apart from a momentary scare, she's already moved on. Ellie's got a broken sternum. I'm physically fine (my guardian angel seems to have a real talent for car crashes, I keep walking away from them), but I'm more shaken up than I'm thrilled to admit. Jumping at noises a lot; lots of knots in the belly. Not quite the action hero calmly walking away from explosions in slow motion. Not yet.

Anyway, the cliches. As soon as our poor totaled car stopped spinning, I was out the door and clawing at Sonya's door handle. I think I can unequivocally file that under "worst single moment of my life to date." She's so, so lively—never not moving, never not kicking, barely still even when she's asleep; the idea of her lying motionless still makes me want to curl up in a ball. But she was okay. Crying a bit, from the shock; but as soon as I took her out and snuggled her up, she calmed right down. Tiny little scratch on one cheek, already faded by now. I think, I hope, that I appreciated her before. But now? Dear Lord Jesus, I love her so much, so much, so much. I've talked already, I think, about how having our girl has excavated our souls and given us greater capacity for love: this car crash did the same, and I think we now love her even more. But God, it hurts, that excavating. There's no anaesthetic, I guess, when they're bulldozing down through the floor of your immortality. But yeah, the old saying's true: you almost lose what you've got, you suddenly treasure it again.

Advent's always been a momentous time for me and Ellie. We fell in love during Advent. Almost split up during Advent, when I couldn't find work. Got married in Advent. Went to New York during Advent to deal with our fertility issues. And last year, during Advent, we bought the house where Sonya was born, mere weeks before Sonya was born. This year we're shaking off a car crash and trying to take care of our girl. Thank God for our family and friends, who keep coming around to help us. I think we would have starved to death by now. And thank God for God, Who keeps on patiently bashing us over the head with reminders that He's here to take care of us, over and over again.

I don't seem to have any profound observation to make about the state of the world right now. Just wanted to take a moment to say merry Christmas from the Toners, and thanks for all your prayers. We love you guys, forever and ever and ever.

Valediction

So, friends. This is my final post. At least for awhile. Partly, I feel that I've said everything I have to say right now and am beginning to repeat myself. Partly, I'm running low on the energy and time that it takes to maintain a weekly blogging regimen. And partly, 50 posts just seems like a good strong number to end on.

It was Father's Day of last year when I learned that Sonya was coming. (Or little James, as we initially thought.) It is imbecilically inadequate to say that a great deal has happened since then. But, a great deal has happened since then.

Part of being a writer is learning the limits of language. There are things that words can't do. The next part, of course, is trying to do those things anyway; but you remain aware that no matter how many digits you add, you'll never reach a numerical infinite. I can see as many pictures of charging lions as you please, but it won't truly convey the experience. Labor and childbirth—somebody cloned Scar from hyena poop, and he's pissed.

Ellie and I discovered [were smashed over the skull with] depths to our relationship that we'd never suspected. We found out stuff about taking care of each other and trusting each other that simply hadn't been asked of us before. It often makes me think of the old saying that God asks of you what He thinks you can handle, and just how crucially wrong that saying is. He knows exactly what you can handle, and He absolutely always asks more of you. Partly to make you learn; partly to make you lean. As hard as pregnancy was, I know and love Ellie's pride and strength, and I would not have missed the chance to be the one she allowed herself to lean on.

Even Sonya, at an age you could still conveniently count in hours, was asked to do more than she could. Eating, pooping, sleeping—things it no longer occurs to us to consider enterprises—they were all Everest-scalingly difficult for her. Right now she's struggling to sit up, and it's taking every bit of power and determination she can muster. It's easy enough for a grownup to dismiss a child's struggles—oh gee, you have to learn the alphabet, your life is so hard—but watching my daughter grapple with gravity makes me glad adults don't have Seraphim dropping by to scoff at us. "Ooooh, someone fired a fifty-megaton thermonuclear warhead at your nation's capital, poor baby. Pfff, I could stop one of those with my theologically mysterious pinkie."

Okay, so—obvious follow-up—why don't you? Why allow Hiroshima, Nagasaki? Why do I have to give Sonya medicine she hates while she cries and wriggles and looks at me with hurt, betrayed eyes? Why can't I just carry her instead of forcing her to learn how to walk? And there's my answer, right in the question. Which, intellectually, one already knows, but it feels a lot more true now.

I wish I had more to say. Getting to the last post was a relief, but getting to the last paragraph is a little bit sad. I love you guys. Thank you for reading, and please pray for us. May God bless and keep you. May His Face shine upon you and be gracious to you. And when the war's over and we find our seats in the tavern at the end of the world, the first round is on me. So long for now, friends. Keep fighting.

On Roadtripping (or, To Whom Much Is Given)

So last week we took our first road trip with little Sonechka. Saw my folks, caught up with dear friends, went to a wedding. Had the best margaritas in the Western Hemisphere and did some almost halfway decent karaoke. Good times. But, also—yeesh—rough times.

She's four months old now, not counting time served in utero, and can often sleep through the night with only a few wake-ups for feeding and cooing; and so, we mostly drove at night. But on the way home, we got up early and tried to drive through the day in hopes of sleeping in our own bed before returning to work the next morning. Our beloved treasure did not assent to this undertaking.

A good marriage, of course, requires complementarity. My Ellabelle is a highly organized and motivated person, thank God, and part of her job is to poke me when I get scattered or lazy; and part of my job in turn is to soothe her when she gets a skosh or a soupçon too motivated. But a tolerable marriage also wants similarity, and she and I definitely share a rather sensitive temperament. So after listening to Sonya cry for approximately infinity, we were all three of us crying; and we ultimately got a hotel room two hours from home and drove the last stretch at 4 in the morning with Ellie in the back seat consoling our girl and me almost weaving across lanes for fatigue. In short, traveling was quite a bit easier before we became parents.

We love our cat. (Shut up, Dan.) It was awfully nice to come home and find him waiting for us. But it was also nice to stick a cat-door in the window, throw some food in a bowl, and leave him alone for ten days. It turns out you can't do that with an infant.

What manner of infant are you?

The soul-shaking, cosmos-changing gift of offspring comes with a hefty price tag. Which—technically, that's not exactly a gift, is it. I guess it's more like a sacred trust. Which—honestly, not any less intimidating.

Road trips are kind of a parental rite of passage because there's no buffer, no refuge, no veil: it's just you and the kid(s) stuffed together in a tiny space for as many hours at a time as it takes to burn a tank of gas. Then you stretch your legs, buy some Dr. Pepper, and cram right back into the car. Hopefully you all like each other!

Luckily, we like Sonya rather a lot. Much will be expected of us in the way of sacrifice and shared pain; but if she had come with a receipt and a refund policy, we wouldn't have kept them. When she's having an easy day, she's the sweetest thing I've ever seen, and it makes me love her all the more. When she's hard and frustrating, it makes me practice loving all the more. Everything she does deepens our capacity for love and keeps on filling us to capacity.

Mind you, all that being said—next trip, I think we're gonna fly.