The Sainted Confessor, part 9

[tinhuvielartanis]

Two nights later, Faust began to feel the hunger, the marrow-deep thirst that defined his Vampiric nature. It took longer this time, perhaps because of the quality of Blood he’d been fed. The thought of his cannibalism sickened Faust, yet it didn’t stop him from salivating at the thought of taking libation from the chalice again. Now. He wanted it now. He needed it. Faust found himself wishing Cadmus were there. Then he cast his eyes to the knives that rested beside him, waiting for their chance at his flesh. Only a little did the thought of their piercing his person sway Faust’s desire to have Cadmus lift the chalice to his chapped and peeling lips again.

“Cadmus, where are you?” Faust croaked, using his voice for the first time since the night Son of Sam last struck. “I need you. Oh, Christ…. What am I saying?”

Faust shook his head and licked his lips while he still had some moisture left in his mouth. He was so hot. This Summer was interminable. Despite what humans may believe about Vampires, if they believed at all, Darklings could feel heat and cold. The sway of the seasons could be just as uncomfortable on a Vampire as a human and, the more poorly-fed a Vampire was, the more he suffered the effects of the weather. Right now, Faust was wholly subject to the heatwave that held New York City in a vice grip of extreme discomfort. A drop of sweat dangled from a wet lock of hair right over his right eye, then plopped in before Faust even had a chance to blink. The salt burned and brought tears to both his eyes.

“Ow…” he muttered, resigned. With nothing else to do, he resumed what he’d named Gideon’s Litany. He wanted it just right for whenever Cadmus returned. Surely the flawless account of Gideon’s words would soften the elder’s stance on Faust’s freedom. And it would be flawless. If Cadmus had ever met Gideon, he’d think he was in the room with the mad man.

“Okay, here we go here we go… Gideon, what all did you say to me? Talk to me, tell me. Inhabit me.”

Faust summoned the memories and spoke in tongues for hours. He used to do things like this for his own amusement. Now he did it for his very survival. He chanted and sang until dawn, then watched the sun rise, and hoped that sleep may take him. It did not.

He sweltered the entire day, feeling his hunger grow more persistent. Despite his knowing it wouldn’t work, Faust pulled against his restraints as hard as could. He could feel his joints coming loose from the attempt, but he still fought. Hunger compelled him to try in spite of it being an fruitless endeavour. The exhaustion that came with prolonged hunger overcame Faust and he lay on the bed, drenched in sweat and staring and the lengthening shadows on the ceiling.

“Well….shit.”

Two more days.

Faust was out of his mind with hunger. All he could think of was the Blood in the chalice, that sweet sweet ambrosia touching his lips and sliding down his throat like a liquid snake of joy. He wanted it, he wanted it now, he needed it.

His mouth opened and closed in a silent act of biting and feeding. Pleasepleasepleasefoodfoodplease, were his only thoughts. He felt the blood coma coming on and welcomed it with both literal and figurative open arms. Blessed unconsciousness would let him die in peace since Cadmus had obviously forsaken him.

Faust’s eyelids were crusted and chapped. He could hear the sandpaper sound of his eyes against them as he began to close them, hopefully for the last time. But then something caught his eye. It was that odd swirl from a few days ago, the rainbow of mist that hovered close to the ceiling. It was descending.

The closer it got to him, the more corporeal it seemed to become. Faust thought he saw eyes, large and beautiful, exhibiting a myriad of otherworldly colours, one after the other. The mist rested upon his bare chest, but Faust felt nothing. His eyes locked with the eyes within this….spirit?

And then it spoke in his head. Although the Redemptors fail to understand the full gravity of their acts, it is often true that true redemption can only be achieved via true suffering. Remember, young Faust, you of the accursed clans…. Remember your greatest wish at the moment of your most intense suffering. When you want to scream, scream that out instead. We are listening to you now. Speak to us, for you are heard.

And the spirit dispersed, seeming to sink down into him. Faust felt nothing but the hunger for Blood, but he was strangely heartened by this hallucination for, surely, that’s what it had been. He was crazed with hunger, of course he was going to see and hear things that weren’t there. Faust began to move his fingers in that nervous way of his, as though he were playing a piano or weaving a shroud.

His fingers began to take on a rhythm in their movement as Faust waited for the blood coma to take him. He thought he heard music, a slow and ponderous melody weaving in and out of the very atoms in the air. And there was a voice much like the one just in his head, sonorous and female in nature, that sang along to the music all around him. He looked upward, ignoring the scratching on his eyes. He could almost see the music floating there and it was beautiful.

And the blood coma came.

It only seemed like a second later when the blessed chalice rested upon Faust’s lips. At first he couldn’t drink at all. Cadmus fed him in increments, allowing slow trickles of Blood to coat the starving Vampire’s mouth and work its way down, fortifying as it went.

After about an hour of slow rejuvenation, Faust was fully awake and clamouring for as much Blood as Cadmus could provide. And Cadmus provided quite a bit. In addition to bringing a full cup, he also brought an unconscious human woman with him.

“Who is that?” whispered Faust.

Cadmus lifted his eyebrows in mock innocence. “Oh her? I saved her from this town’s current infamous killer, the….ah….Son of Sam? Is that right? Yes, just whisked her right up and out of his strangling arms. She was grateful at first until I showed her my fangs. Then she passed out and hasn’t woken up since. She’s your next meal.”

Faust looked guilty. “I can’t very well traumatize someone who’s already been so frightened in one night. Besides, my feedings are acts of pleasure for myself and my host. That’s just the way I work.”

“Oh no, boy, you don’t understand. You can’t have human blood. For the work ahead of us, you need to be fortified as much as possible, and that means only the Blood of your own kind from now on.” Cadmus cocked his head, blinking his enormous beautiful black eyes at Faust. “This one will be fed to the chalice. Once her blood is transformed, then you’ll drink.”

“You’ll let her go afterward though, right? She won’t know anything happened, right?”

Cadmus placed the empty chalice on the floor beside the unconscious girl, who lay on her stomach. He then returned to Faust’s bed and picked up a small knife, showing it to Faust as if it were the first time the young Vampire had seen it. Apparently that was some sort of ritual of fear enjoyed by the elder. That’s all Faust could figure. Cadmus then returned to the girl and lightly smacked her face until she came to.

“No, Cadmus. No, please,” Faust implored his captor.

When the girl was sufficiently awake, Cadmus placed a knee between her shoulder blades and pulled her back by her auburn hair. She squealed more than screamed, a loud keen of pain and fright emitting from her red bow of a mouth. And her eyes met with Faust’s, begging for him to help. Cadmus wrapped her hair around his left hand as the girl flailed and struggled to free herself. “Oh shut up, silly girl. I saved you from a senseless death. At least this one will carry a shred of meaning.”

And, with that, Cadmus sliced into the girl’s carotid artery. Blood splashed outward violently at first, decorating Faust’s bedroom floor with dark gouts of gore. The girl’s struggles immediately lost their power and Faust watched in horror as Cadmus drained her of her blood, letting it all pour impossibly into the magickal cup. Once he’d summoned the last drop from her body into the cup, Cadmus unceremoniously dropped the girl’s head to the floor. He then repositioned himself to straddle the girl, using her to sit upon while he waited for the chalice to do its work.

“You monster.”

“Abomination,” Cadmus corrected, his voice flat yet, somehow, deliciously musical. “That’s what others have called me and that is what I prefer. Abomination.”

Something in his words triggered a memory in Gideon’s Litany in Faust’s mind, and Faust wondered if Gideon had been talking about Cadmus at one point or another. His blood ran cold and his fingers began to move of their own accord out of nervousness and fright.

“You didn’t have to kill her.”

“I don’t have to cut you open either, but I do what I do because….it is what I do.”

“I…I have the information for you. All of it. Right here,” and Faust cut his eyes upward, trying to point to his head. He then scrunched his eyebrows together, thinking of how ridiculous that must have appeared, or would have appeared to anyone who could appreciate ridiculous actions.

“And you will give it to me, once you’re strong enough to give your all. For now, you need more Blood. It’s almost ready.”

“I’m not drinking that. I can’t drink that, knowing how you got it. That was murder, useless and mindless murder. I won’t be a part of it.”

“Oh, but you will, boy. The minute the Blood touches your lips, the hunger will remind you of how starved you’ve been and you’ll gladly drink. Are you willfully dense or do you carry with you a Redemptor’s misdirected high-mindedness?”

Cadmus’ mention brought back the vision of that odd rainbow mist that had spoken to Faust just before he succumbed to the blood coma. Had that been real? What had she said? To scream his heart’s desire at the greatest moment of his suffering? Would he even have the mind to do that? Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to suffer at all. Hopefully, after Gideon’s Litany, Cadmus would be satisfied and set Faust free. Faust chose not to reply to Cadmus. He just knitted his eyebrows in disapproval and stared at the elder Vampire while they waited for the chalice to finish the transformation.

After about ten minutes, Cadmus picked up the chalice and sipped from it, then nodded. He returned to Faust’s bedside, offering the chalice to his lips. Faust turned his head aside, closing his eyes, his brow still knitted in anger and protest. Cadmus noted that his fingers were flexing furiously.

“Drink it,” Cadmus commanded.

Faust didn’t budge. So Cadmus dipped his index and middle fingers into the Blood of the chalice, and smeared them on Faust’s tightly sealed lips, drawing a bloody smile across the young Vampire’s face. Faust would be unable to resist the smell of it and the feel of it on his mouth. Faust groaned, his brows knitting even more tightly. He was fighting the inevitable and Cadmus imagined he’d be amused at the show, had the capacity.

Cadmus felt no surprise when Faust’s tongue finally darted out to taste the blood marking his mouth. Now his mouth was open fully, his head off the pillow, his eyes closed in the rapture only another Vampire could understand. “Give it to me, Cadmus.”

And Cadmus did. He rested the rim of the chalice to Faust’s lips and Faust drank with abandon. He didn’t care anymore that it came from the drained girl lying on his bedroom floor. All he cared about at the moment was the cherished feeling of the Blood coursing through him, fulfilling him, exciting him. He felt the beginnings of an erection and even that caused him no humiliation, despite Cadmus watching every reaction the Blood was having on his body. Nothing mattered but the Blood in his mouth, trailing down his grateful throat, and swirling about in his gratified belly.

Cadmus pulled the Chalice away just before Faust could empty it, set it in the nightstand, and sliced open his own wrist with a different knife from the bed, letting the blood flow into the cup. Faust watched with a perverse raptness, knowing he would be getting a third course this fine night. Gideon’s Litany began to grow more sentient in his mind, as it eagerly imagined who heavenly the Blood would be on his lips and tongue. In spite of himself, Faust smiled, the bloody smile that Cadmus had drawn upon his hungry face growing even wider for it.

Once the cup was full again and Cadmus had closed up the gash on his wrist, he offered it to Faust, who gulped it down gratefully, sending up a mental prayer of thanks to God for the chance to live and see His face just once before Faust was to pass from this realm. Cadmus’ Blood was like the fire of Creation within Faust. It was beyond delicious and it filled Faust with a deep sense of well-being and invincibility.

That's all I have so far, but I'm writing furiously. I need to be shed of this chapter and Faust's suffering, because it's eating me up inside.