tinhuvielartanis | Prologue to The Blood Crown

I couldn't resist incorporating a little bit of parallel irony into the narrative. Shoot me, sue me, or any other 's' you can think of. It was fun and therapeutic.

PROLOGUE

Sitting in the silent twilight, the purple half light of the twilight. Wrap the night around me, blanket of black on my back, I feel safe in the darkness. ~ Crustation “Purple”

Years passed and memories of the conflict at the cabin in the mountains grew dim in the minds of most of the Vampires present to behold the magick and Bloodshed that occurred there. Slowly, they sank back into the silence and secrecy of the Great Hive, confident that no mortals had seen them. But they didn’t completely fade away. The trends of mortals marked the passing of time, bringing souls together in a way never before dreamt or reckoned by either human or Darkling. The Internet shrank the Known World, allowing sentient creatures to peer in on each others’ lives without the fear of the Vampires being exposed and slaughtered or the humans being harmed, or devoured and killed. The anonymity of this virtual world held a certain comfort for Vampires never before afforded them.

It was in this virtual world Cadmus propagated his band Magnificat, pulling adoring fans to him via the medium of MySpace and other websites where he could linger under various aliases and talk to the mortal flies who might wander into his cybernetic webs without their ever knowing it was their hero to whom they spoke. Only those who seemed like good food for the chalice were made privy to the individual to whom they spoke, and arrangements were made for them to come to the West Countryside for a visit. Since the dissolution of the Order of the Crimson Cup, Cadmus’ beautiful pets had grown in importance over the years. When his hunting expeditions produced no Darkling on which to prey, he found comfort in the chalice and collared souls who fed it so that Cadmus may live.

He found his ability to put prospective pets at ease had improved since his last encounter with Kelat, his mother. Their telepathic link and the sharing of Blood within the Sacred Circle that had been cast to strike him down had opened a door for him, allowing him access to true emotion for the first time since early childhood. Slowly had Cadmus nurtured his philosophical apices, documenting and filing each one away in his memory palace to be used as needed. Now, Cadmus found himself drawing each apex out for further study, based on the emotional knowledge he now possessed. This introspection and development had allowed the Pariah to appear warmer to his prey, to play on their propensity to believe in another’s better nature, and to exhibit empathy or at least the appearance thereof.

The luxury of emotion also made it easier for Cadmus to lie. His dishonesty had increased along with his ability to feel, which made him believe unequivocally that Humanity’s proclivity for the art of lying lay in their emotional disability. Because of this conclusion, Cadmus had worked tirelessly to quell the unfortunate side effects of his newfound emotional skills. He was not human and decided that he could enjoy the fruits of human nature without falling victim to the traps laid around those fruits, just waiting to be sprung by the weak of mind and faint of heart.

But one area in which this dishonesty could be used to the Pariah’s advantage was the Internet. When reaching out to prospective pets on the World Wide Web, Cadmus found it easy to lie about who he was. And, when he revealed himself to the ones would be eventually become his slaves, he effortlessly lied about how much he cared about his band, his sadness over being romantically unfettered, and how he was nothing like the persona he assumed on stage and in the studio, that he truly, honestly, and innocently would not harm a fly.

He didn’t just lure new creatures for his herd, though. No, Cadmus had more important purposes for the Internet: he kept track of the Apostate’s latest misdeeds in preparation for returning to Rome to kill the old wraith. He also did as much research as he could on the holy relics of the Church, one of which overlapped with those relics the Upyr found holy to the degree anything related to the Great Hive was holy. It was assumed that all the known sacred items had found their way to the Vatican by way of the Crusades or Hitler’s mad quests for the last occult and arcane treasures of the world, and that assumption would be correct…mostly. One treasure was indeed at the Vatican, but it was far beneath the known catacombs, deeper than the memories of Popes long dead and interred in the holy vaults of Rome. It was this treasure, worn upon the brow of the unholiest of men, that Cadmus was keen on retrieving. But he would need the blessing of Kelat, in the form of knowledge about the Upyr’s origins, in order to have any hope whatsoever of success.