The Sainted Confessor, part 1
Sep. 24th, 2009 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tinhuvielartanisTHE SAINTED CONFESSOR
I am in love with nothing less. Tear drops of joy run off my face. I will rise for someone that’s afraid to love. If you know what I feel, then you couldn’t be so sure. I’ll be right here, lying in the hands of God. ~ Dave Matthews Band “Lying in the Hands of God”
His vast eyes opened to the silver grace of the rising crescent moon. They were black, those eyes, infinite in depth and profundity. A soul could fall into those eyes and find itself forever tumbling in their endlessness. And many souls had done just that. He could feel them even now, plunging into the eternal abyss that captured and held them enthralled. The eyes caught the moonlight, but failed to reflect it, instead absorbing the light.
He had positioned the window shutters in the perfect position to allow a hint of starlight and the effervescent light of the moon to filter down upon him as he pondered the discomfort of the airplane's passenger's seat. In some strange way the moonlight always had a calming, almost harmonic effect on Cadmus Pariah. Given his travelling partner, this was something he very much needed at the moment.
Cadmus did not worship the Earth Goddess so well known across Earth in Her many guises. His vague fascination with the moon wasn’t religious in the least, given his general disdain for the myths of humans and the dead cults of his Elven progenitors. Rather, Cadmus found himself comforted by the cycles of the moon, how her waxing and waning affected every aspect of life on Earth, both natural and unnatural, even him. Cadmus’ hunger revolved around the moon, it seemed. As she waxed, his thirst for Blood was not so keen. But, when the moon shrank in the sky, Cadmus’ hunger felt immense. Not only that, but the chalice resonated with him, they were so intimately connected. If no Vampires presented themselves for feasting, Cadmus found himself milking his pets into the chalice nightly as the moon moved to darkness. It wasn’t something he could explain; therefore, this curiosity was something on which he found himself dwelling often. The light of the moon was necessary and it reminded Cadmus that, despite his discomfort with the fact, he was subject to powers that were sometimes --outside his control.
Instead of hunger with the waxing moon, Cadmus’ boundless memories took hold of him. As the crescent grew ever larger, the memories that comprised the Abomination became prevalent in his mind, more intense. Some memories, such as the ones of his childhood with Nissius, brought Cadmus nothing but a strange emptiness, reinforcing his emotional incapability. But others inspired certain philosophical apices that made Cadmus’ spirit vibrate. These were the memories he tried to cultivate, the ones of special merit that most usually involved the demise and consumption of a powerful Darkling.
Like Faust. Faust, child of Rebekah, who is a child of Kelat and a dhampir child of Thiyennen. It was Rebekah who, with her mate Mephistopheles, later created the hateful Orphaeus Cygnus, but that was a memory for another time. On this embryonic evening, it was Faust who filled Cadmus’ mind as he allowed the moonlight to bathe his alabaster Elfin face in his repose.
Even though Faust was still relatively young by Vampiric standards, a hair over fifty years old in Darkling years, his power was unprecedented. No doubt it was in his Blood, being the child of a princess within the Hive. He was immune to the sun and to religious relics, and he had the gift of Compulsion. Such a gift of Compulsion that it was simply a natural part of him. He never worked to impose Compulsion on anyone. The Compulsion to be near Faust was ever-present and affected both humans and Vampires alike. Only one other Vampire on Earth was like that, and that was Cadmus Pariah.
But Faust hadn’t walked the Night long enough to be wily in the ways of the Vampire, and he lived now in a time of incredible freedom and hedonism. The late Twentieth Century, the 70s, were an age of wonder and quite possibly the greatest time for Vampiric existence. Humanity of the West was open to any experience, but had sloughed off their superstitions, no longer believing in the old monsters of an old world. They were ripe for the taking and forgiving of the monster amongst them. Faust held no concerns and openly admitted his Vampirism to any and everyone, enjoying their acceptance and celebration of his persona. He was a fixture at Studio 54, wallowing in the blood and sex of Humanity as well as engaging in Blood orgies with his fellow kin who accompanied him to the legendary disco. In some ways this bath of hedonism was a form of his art, for Faust was indeed an artist. He was a performance artist, a writer and poet, a philosopher in the making, an actor, a singer, a dancer, an embracer of the Art of Life, this creature of dead flesh and monstrous reality.
It was at Studio 54 where Cadmus ensnared the lovely and naïve Faust, allowing him to lead Cadmus to his apartment wherein the Pariah vivisected and eviscerated Faust for the first of many times over the course of that delightful Summer of 1977.
Cadmus turned his pale blue head to face the red-haired Orphaeus who sat in his own repose, probably attempting to sleep when Vampires such as himself never needed to waste time in such a manner. "Cygnus...." Cadmus hissed, waiting for Orphaeus dark brown eyes to open in response. When they didn't, Cadmus said his name a little louder and poked him in the arm with one spidery finger. Immediately Orphaeus was awake, alarmed to be in the presence of the one who comprised every nightmare he'd ever had.
"What do you want, Pariah?"
"Did I....ever tell you....how I came about the knowledge of the Blood Crown?"
"No," Orphaeus groused. "Does it matter?"
"Oh yes. The manner in which I procured this knowledge allowed me to gain the Knowing of many things, many things indeed. Let me tell you about Faust, the Bohemian Chylde of Rebekah and Mephistopheles. Yes! Your Blood Brother, dear Swan. "
"You take some sort of sick joy out of taunting me, don't you, Pariah?"
Cadmus studied Orphaeus' face for a moment. Its porcelain perfection graced with the frame of crimson curls much like the scalp hanging from a pole on Cadmus' altar, exhibited a mixed expression of pain and frustration. Cadmus remembered seeing these on the faces of some of his flock back in the West Country before he collected their souls.
"I take no joy from your weakness," Cadmus replied, his voice as neutral as he felt. "I simply state fact that you and the youngling I met in New York are of the same Blood.”
Cadmus looked at Orphaeus with a simple expression of expectancy, an expression to which Orphaeus was getting accustomed. It bespoke of bland despondency over Orphaeus’ disappointing emotional reaction to Cadmus’ hints of horror to come. But Orphaeus had no idea of the true horror he was about to hear when he engaged Cadmus in the story to come.
Sighing heavily, Orphaeus said, “Tell me then, Pariah. What of this Blood Brother of mine and the secret of the crown?”
Cadmus Pariah smiled at Orphaeus, a quick flash of teeth, but no merriment around his dark and quiet eyes. “Of course, I’d heard of him long before I met him. It was he who drew me to the dingy, yet visually extravagant, city of New York. It was late Spring, on the cusp of a sacred Summer there in the muck and magnificence of it all. I remember arriving at sunrise and seeking shelter from the unusually hot sun. The city seemed oppressive with the strange heat wave combined with the underlying fright everyone felt, thanks to a rising star of a serial killer running wild in the streets, or so it seemed to the throng.
“I was there to attend a party. I was there to walk through the doors of Studio 54, where it was always a party. I was there to meet Faust the Confessor."
