Today we have an unusual guest, the character Gary Logan from the “Immortal Relations” series. Gary, please tell us a little about yourself.
Thanks Cindy, it is a pleasure to be with you and the readers of your blog today. Where to begin? I guess I will start with my human background. I’d picked up a pair of Master’s Degrees, one while still in the U.S. Air Force and stationed in The Netherlands (Holland) and the second shortly after my retirement from the Air Force. I taught undergraduate counseling, psychology and sociology at a couple of colleges and universities as well as having my own private practice helping children, adolescents and adults with Attention Deficit. Later, I tool a position with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, their prison system, and retired as a psychologist when my father passed away and my invalid mother needed my care.
Shortly after her passing I started going through all the filing cabinets where I found the photograph of my father taken in Prague, Czechoslovakia right after WW-II. He had been sent, along with a team, to try and help the Czechs develop a new government along the lines of a Constitutional Republic. When I found out about that I thought it was a “fool’s errand” as Eastern Europe was under the boot of the Soviet Army and they certainly weren’t going to allow such a free government to be formed. Sure enough, the team of Americans was eventually told to leave, but not before my late father had developed a “relationship” with their young Czech interpreter, whose handwriting I found on the back of the photo saying, “I’ll always be waiting here.”
Seeing her words caused me to remember things my late mother had said when I was very young, “He is over there with that woman” and “He has had a child with that woman.” My mother had even asked me what I would do if she divorced my father! I wasn’t more than six or seven years old so really didn’t understand all of that, but the distress in her voice probably caused me to remember this even though there never was a divorce; back in the 1940s and 50s it was common for married folks to stay together “for sake of the children.” Perhaps that’s what happened even if I was an only child.
Having found that photograph, a copy of which is on pg. two of “Immortal Relations” the first book in the series, I determined to go to Prague and see if I could find the location where the photograph was taken. It took a few weeks to get the passport and other documents as well as make my travel arrangements and it wasn’t fun going through all the hassle of the security scans and inspections. I finally arrived in Prague and very soon thereafter found the spot where the photograph had been taken, it was a very famous building, “The Old Town Hall” that had a very large clock-face on the side of the building (as seen in the photograph).
So, after you’d found the building what happened?
I guess this is where EVERYTHING really started! It was very early Sunday Morning and there were no pedestrians and very sparse traffic, when all of a sudden I saw someone’s reflection in a window glass, where there hadn’t been anyone before. She was dressed like a super-model, but no sooner had I seen her, she disappeared. I turned to see if I could find where she had gone and I she was right behind me…it shocked me so much I almost fell over backwards. As I later told her, when she grabbed my arm to keep me upright I think she grabbed my heart at the same time.
Her name was Magdalena Dvora’k and she took one look at the picture I carried and without skipping a beat, said my father’s name! I came very close to falling, but again she grabbed my arm to steady me. We sat and talked for a long time and finally when jet-lag was getting the best of me she walked with me back to my hotel and made sure I got into my room to rest saying she would return the next day. I’d slept for over twelve hours and had just started taking a shower when she returned. I’d told the hotel manager to let her have the key when she returned so she was able to come in and after showering we headed out to see the city. She was a fantastic guide and so very knowledgeable about the city and all that went on there…I felt I was falling in love but knew she was so much younger that my feelings were out of place.
She returned me to my hotel saying she would try to see me again tomorrow evening. After I awoke and took my shower, I went to the café we had previously visited. On my way back to the hotel I despaired of seeing her again and felt like I’d die if she didn’t return because I had no way of contacting her. Fortunately she suddenly appeared walking next to me and I couldn’t help but tell her of my fear I wouldn’t see her again. She was so caring and understanding, being with her made my heart sing! That evening we toured some of the areas we hadn’t seen the night before and when she took me up on top of one of the oldest buildings from which we could see the lights of the city, I couldn’t refrain from professing my love, admitting that I knew our age difference was probably too much. When she said she had similar feelings for me I thought my heart would explode with joy; however, she warned that there was a problem as far as doing anything. That is when I told her that all she had to do to correct the problem was to change me. I caught her off-guard with the fact that I’d already figured out that she was a vampire…that in fact she had been the paramour of my late father.
Wow, talk about a revelation, what did she say to all that?
She just smiled and said I was right but that turning me would require approval from the head of her coven. About that time her daughter, Eviana, came up onto the roof where we were and told me how happy she was that her mother had found love. Then I was taken back to a control room where Eviana had a shift monitoring the city to keep humans safe from vampires who didn’t follow the rules about not harming humans, as well as identifying criminal threats.
Not harming humans, then how did they get the blood they needed?
The guardian vampires have a number of corporations, one of which owns many funeral homes. Blood from those who die of illness, old age, accidents, etc. must be replaced with a preservative before processing and that blood, rather than being flushed, is mixed with an anti-coagulant and quick frozen for later use by the guardians. To me it seemed like the perfect symbiotic relationship as they not only safeguard against other types of vampires, but human criminals and evil politicians.
Then what happened?
Well, Magdalena expressed the belief that all vampires were doomed to Hell to which I responded with the argument that since I’d been told that most of the guardian vampires had originally been the victims of the evil type of vampires, it wouldn’t make sense to damn the victims of these attacks and we discussed salvation being available to all. Shortly after that a vehicle from the Residency Coven picked us up and took me to meet with the leader of the group known as Grandmother. She and her assistants were all mind-readers and my thoughts, being more than a little chaotic provided some amusement for them; however, Grandmother was very gracious and allowed that I could become one of them.
So how did the “change” take place?
Magdalena, Eviana and I went to their apartment inside the castle, and yes it really was a castle. I had to change into a European “Thong” bathing suit…talk about something that made me feel as horrible as I must have looked! Then I was secured to a long cart that had been rolled into their apartment for me to be secured on top of. I’d asked for a gag over my mouth as I’d been told there would be a great deal of pain and I didn’t want any screams to bring unwanted attention down on the proceedings. I’d elected to have both Magdalena and Eviana to bite me to speed up the change even if it meant greater pain.
Was the change terribly painful?
Indeed, it was as if fire was racing through my veins, skin and bones, as well as my muscles. But to have the prospect of being forever with the ones I loved it was a small price to pay.
But what about being condemned to Hell?
As I’d told both Magdalena and Eviana, I considered that just a cop-out designed by those vampires who have no desire to live peacefully alongside of humans, but rather they say, “I might as well kill everyone because I’m doomed anyway.” It is like saying God doesn’t have the power to provide salvation to these good vampires who don’t attack but rather safeguard the humans.
Speaking of safeguarding, I’ve read the first book and most of the second, “Immortal Relations, Love and War” and it certainly seems that you and the others kept a lot of bad things from happening. Care to elaborate?
The guardians routinely prevent rapes and robberies among other human crimes and when we were attacked by the vampire gang, we dealt them and when they tried to attack us by turning Czech military forces we convinced the Czech’s to help us defeat a band of “terrorists.” Then the vampire gang survivors went to England to try to obtain nuclear weapons, we, with the help of the British Army and Royal Marines were able to stymie their efforts. Then they tried to steal chemical and biological weapon that had been stockpiled from the old days of the Soviet Union. We were able to enlist the help of the senior Russian General Vladimir Kolukov to finish off the vampire gang (of course we had told them these were just some very well trained terrorists). In the second book I’m sure you read of our intervention when the Communist Chinese invaded Siberia; we helped defeat the invaders before the war resulted in a nuclear exchange. It became clear when we stopped the Chinese invasion that the Marxist regime in Washington D.C. was in on the deal, having been promised a reduction in the debt owed to the Chinese due to the overspending by the U.S. Government. Shortly thereafter we helped restore Russian oil production so vital to Western Europe after greedy OPEC Ministers had a terrorist set off a suitcase nuke to destroy the pumping station and irradiate the oil fields. We also kept the 25 year old cap over the Chernobyl reactor from failing by constructing a new cap as well as moving the leaning reactor building damaged by the tsunami which hit Fukushima, Japan.
Tell us a little of your unusual genetic makeup and what a difference it made after you were changed.
Well after I was changed my heart continued to beat and I was able to sire children, both of which were relatively unheard of in the vampire world. Further my son Adam continued to have a beating heart as did his own daughter, a hybrid half-vampire, half-human. What was most interesting was that Glenda, Adam’s hybrid daughter could live on blood as well as on human food…she seemingly had none of the problems associated with vampirism, yet had all the strengths. My family of vampire children has continued to grow and I’ve been jokingly accused of trying to start my own coven, especially now that we have started a coven in Southern Canada to monitor what the Marxist regime in Washington D.C. is doing to destroy the U.S. Constitution and it’s Bill of Rights.
How did you come to write the three books in the series and will there be others?
I had been busy writing a journal about my becoming a vampire and when were faced with a news organization ready to release information that had come to their attention about REAL VAMPIRES being behind the defeat of the Chinese I was asked to produce two books that would be backdated to well before the events in question to make it look as if the news organization had plagiarized those stories as real facts. This action caused the news organization to put their story on hold…at least until the missile attack upon our Canadian facility by the Marxists in Washington D.C. and their later effort to destroy our mission to safeguard Earth from Ceres the 600 mile wide rogue asteroid that was headed for a possible impact in just weeks. That is when it became common knowledge that we guardian vampires were behind all of those actions. That is why all three “novels” were released. As for future novels, yes I have another in the works that will contain some recent “situations” that have arisen and been dealt with. The title will be, “Immortal Relations – Revenge.” It deals with some left-overs from the evil vampire gang as well as more destructive actions by the Marxists in Washington. I hope to have it out in the Spring of 2015 and I already have the covers for two further books in the series. My prayer is that the American people wake up and return the United States to a Constitutional Republic by kicking out he Marxists and their media running-dogs.
Do you have any final words for my readers?
Yes, many books and films portray all vampires as evil monsters trying to draining the life blood from men, women and children coming near them. My stories are to show that not all those who might be seen to be “enemies” at first glance really are. It is the reverse of what politicians seem to get away with in the U.S., don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do (and watch very closely)! For vampires and others you might label as enemies out of hand, you should watch how they behave before branding us all as enemies. And, of course, I’d love for your readers to check out my books: http://amzn.com/B006ZCBT6G http://amzn.com/B00A4IEHL6 & http://amzn.com/B00G5BQS18
BIO
Guy Ogan is a retired Air Force Major with a pair of graduate degrees, unfortunately not in English or Literature. I’m also retired from a second “calling” as a psychologist with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice where I evaluated inmates and wrote treatment programs. In my youth I wrote articles on various long distance running events I participated in. Then, in the military, I did a great deal of technical writing and wrote many articles and sent pictures on car shows I attended. My wife and I live in West Texas with three fun loving Pomeranians.
Thanks so much for your masterful rewrite of what Gary and I sent. It is clear that you are the best when it comes to the written word! One last thing, all three books in my “Immortal Relations” series are on SUPER SALE from today, 7 December until Noon (PST) on the 14th (each is $.99 a savings of at least $2 for each of the novels). I hope some of your readers might like to try one or more of my Paranormal-Romance books and if they have a “significant other” who thinks all “ROMANCE” novels are just “fluff” have them read the second book and it’ll change their mind! (-: