NOTE: Yes, I know it’s Tuesday but this is so awesome it took me longer to write.
This is the latest and last installment of the “Places” posts.
There are other places in the Fangs & Halos series that are either real places or places I’ve designated for the imagined things.
Let me back up a second and explain methods. I find places with Google Maps and Google Earth. Things I can drive in Street View, looking for just the right type of place. I use it for directions to places, to figure out where something vital will happen.
Pub in Amsteg Switzerland–Stern und Post- Gasthaus.
In Chapter 8 of Vampire rEvolution, Marcus ends up meeting two people who had left cryptic notes for him. When I was looking for somewhere that Marcus Lancaster could have such a discussion with ghouls about their master’s break with the leader of the Vampire Council, Xun, I went to Switzerland. Picking Switzerland was a natural; it is a place famous for not taking sides. It really highlights the fact that the Council isn’t a Switzerland, it’s very fractioned.
That online drive took me to the little town of Amsteg. There’s a big historic hotel there, Stern und Post. The building was built in 1788-1799 on land where a previous way-station had been since 1357. It’s a big white 5-story building with wings for hotel rooms. The restaurant has many window and wood table/chairs. Marcus meets with David and Raul here during the evening supper. He also ends up talking with someone who was watching him from a corner table, the demon Gery.
This hotel is in the last traditional stop before the Gotthurd Pass. Tucked up in the Alps, the scenery around it is beautiful. I found both the hotel and a YouTube video that is an advertisement for the place, with fantastic shots of the country around it.
Stern und Post website
MTS Center, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
In Chapter 8 of Book 2, Marcus’s Vampire, this is the venue for the Juno Awards with k.d. Lang singing Hallelujah (written by Leonard Cohen). Sullivan is remembering a time when the angels were looking for a rogue vampire and they had tracked him to this concert. This memory will surface again in Book 5, Worlds Collide.
Fictional Places
Sometimes you don’t have a real place when writing so you have to make it up or modify somewhere to fit the need. I’ve done some of that, but I also put it somewhere real where we can see where it might be, with only a few exceptions due to the type of place.
The Vampire Castle
In Book 3, Vampire rEvolution, Marcus Lancaster has been summoned to the vampire castle. This is the place of government for the vampire population.
He complains about the 13 hour overseas flight from San Antonio to Zurich and the drive to Amsteg. I didn’t put him in the Stern und Post hotel on the way up, instead he stays for the daylight hours in at a two-star hotel where the Council keeps a room for travelers. Vampires must be up to the castle by dawn or wait until the next night at Amsteg.
After dark, he took his rental car up Bristenstrasse, the mountain switchback road going across the mountains. He got to the small farm that served as the parking and stables of the horses that people taking the hour-long horseback ride through the trees to the Schloss Feufeldunkheit, or in English, Castle Dark Demon. The stables are on the farm. owned by Lars Grisl who knows about the vampires. Their car is left on the farm. The trip up the mountain to the castle takes 1-2 hours, depending on conditions.
The castle is old, built at the end of the 14th century specifically for the Council. It has a center area, a great hall for dining, and the council room is in the bottom of the castle, just above the dark and dank cells of the castle’s dungeon.
St. Vigeous Monastery:
Located in Lom (Oppland) Norway in the Jotunheimen Mountains
St. Vigeous is the monastery where Sullivan is taken after his problem in New Orleans in Book 1, Lilly’s Angel. A big stone and wood compound with the center being the entry, chapel, scriptorium, kitchen and laundry. There are two wings where the monks sleep. Each cell is very sparse, just a bed, a desk, and a high window. The door of each cell is 8 inch thick wood.
I got the name for the monastery from partially from the Buffyverse of Buffy the Vampire Slayer From the Buffyverse website:
Saint Vigeous was an ancient medieval vampire who led a “crusade” through Edessa, Harran and other locations in the Middle East. Such was the destruction and carnage caused by Saint Vigeous and his minions that his massacres were commemorated by traditionalist vampires in the so-called Night of Saint Vigeous.
— “Saint Vigeous, you who murdered so many, we beseech you, cleanse us of our weaknesses: mercy, compassion and pity.”
Vampire Settlement
In Book 5, there is going to be a settlement around the area in Krasnaya Polyana near the Sochi National Park. This is in the southern area, near Georgia. Sochi is where the Russian Olympics were in 2016
That’s as much of a tease as I’m providing right now. Stay Tuned!
H.H.A.D
Heaven is made up of various things. There’s the human and animal area where people who gained their heavenly reward stay. In my universe humans don’t get wings, they just get to have a great afterlife. Then there’s the worship area where the Heavenly Choir and others do their thing.
Then there’s the Heavenly Host Assignment Department, or H.H.A.D. This is a very austere, business room. There are floating glass maps that has notations on it for every group of angels. They are the assignment boards. Mikhail’s office overlooks this area, glassed in with a door. In the ceiling there are aperture portals that open and close allowing for the coming and going angels. The H.H.A.D. complex is massive and it connects to the Throne of God..
Hell
Contrasting H.H.A.D., Hell has bright jewel tone colors, tapestries, mosaics, and looks slightly Middle Eastern. There are three wings, Vampire, Human, and Fallen. Hell is run by Lucifer, Mikhail’s twin. Vampire wing is run by Satan, who wants to be called “Stan” because Satan has bad connotations. Lucifer runs the Fallen wing along with all of Hell. Lillith is in charge of the Vampire wing.
The Throne room is very ornate, with a big golden throne. The heads of the wings have their own suites. There are two entrances known, the “back door” where the angels take those who are sentenced to Hell and the “Waiting Room” where Lucifer can meet with those who are doing things for her.
Ile Amsterdam
Il Amsterdam is a volcanic 21 square mile island in the Indian Ocean. The main volcano last erupted in 1792. Rocky with low vegetation, the island is mainly a breeding ground for seals.. In January 1871 an attempt to settle the island was made by a party led by Heurtin, a French resident of Réunion. After seven months, their attempts to raise cattle and grow crops were fruitless, and they returned to Réunion, abandoning the Heurtin cattle and feral cats that are still found on the island
In the Fangs & Halos series there is a scientific research group there, most are demons who guard the cave entrance to the front door of Hell.
Well, that’s the grand tour of the places in the first four books of the Fangs & Halos Series. I hope you have enjoyed your time in my world.
Please leave me a comment about what you thought and check back on Friday for more fun.