Chapter Three #3
There was hardly any place for them to sit, let alone stand without bumping into something.
In one corner they saw an armchair and a couch that looked like they had never been used, the velvet and cushions intact, never feeling the warmth of a human’s touch.
The room resembled a time capsule, full of antiques and cherished possessions.
Things which Ingenuar must have collected over the centuries.
Candles were lit for their comfort while they examined the objects. Their trembling shadows danced on the walls as they walked back and forth, reverently looking and touching these treasures.
Emerick stopped to marvel at a statue, a marble one, likely Greek, some forgotten god whose name was lost. Half of its hand was missing, the naked form looked grotesque in the dim light, as it pointed in the distance with a crippled limb.
The face demanded silently, as the fingers of the other hand were clenched in a fist. Emerick’s frock brushed against the statue as he moved in closer, his eyes narrowed over the firm white torso.
He pressed his palm against the marble muscles and let his fingers slide down, the lace of his shirt caressing the stone flesh.
“Feels just like you,” he cocked his head and sniggered, now sliding his hand upwards towards the face of the statue.
Silvio looked over his shoulder. He had been studying Emerick through his reflection in a mirror he found crammed behind a drawer and a stack of old books.
There was something enchanting in following others by their glass doubles, looking at their movements and gestures reversed.
His hand had stopped in mid-air as he went to touch the smooth surface.
“Hardly,” Silvio acknowledged the comment, continuing to look at Emerick’s back.
His long hair was combed and tied in a black ribbon imitating the current fashion.
The mass of dark hair spread over the black velvet of his frock.
“Stop staring at that thing so intensely. I am not going to take it,” Silvio let out a tired sigh, his fingers finally slid down the glass… and caught on it as it cut him.
“Now, do not be jealous. Of course you feel more comfortable than this fellow,” Emerick laughed, still touching the marble biceps.
Silvio snarled and jerked his hand back. Again something scratched and clawed at the skin of his index and middle finger. A thin line of blood oozed down the glass before it melted right into the mirror.
“What gift will adorn our new home, your very own coven, my lord, the Marquis? Please, not another painting, we have too many of those already.”
Silvio’s eyes remained fixed on the mirror.
The scratch on his fingers had already healed, leaving nothing but the smooth intact flesh of his fingertips.
He ran the flat of his palm down the glass again, over the place the blood had disappeared but felt nothing.
No bumps, no cracks. Whatever had scratched at him was now gone.
The surface bore no blemishes, not a speck of blood.
As if it had evaporated into the air. The room is not warm enough for that.
“Sil?”
Emerick appeared behind him, his hands locked around Silvio’s waist as he leaned in closer, also staring at the mirror. He raised his eyebrows and nodded towards his lover’s extended hand, asking silently if anything was the matter.
“Nervous?” Silvio could feel the slight mockery at the edge of his voice, no matter the warm embrace. “Regent of Béziers. The Marquis,” Emerick whispered in his ear, shoving him against the drawer.
Emerick pushed against Silvio whose hands pressed flat over the glass, his mind pondering over this newfound mystery.
It could not have been that he hallucinated the whole thing, it was not possible.
But with Emerick’s breath in his neck and playful hands digging under his tucked shirt, Silvio could not concentrate.
A forced cough came from the door. They could not see the servant’s reflection in the mirror from this angle. He was still standing at the doorway, waiting, a stone expression on his face.
“I have been meaning to ask,” Emerick ignored the servant, his mouth against Silvio’s neck.
His lips brushed the skin as he talked. Silvio straightened his back, letting out a whimper.
“In the French court, the Comte is the closest companion and attendant to the king, but you are no king. You are a marquis. Why? Why have you chosen this title? The other Regents have titles that reflect their origin, and ours do not. We have lived among the French for far too long, but they are not our people. Why didn’t you choose something Roman? ”
Silvio laughed. Sometimes he liked to recall his mortal years.
The face of his father a distant blur, the features had melted in his memory far too soon.
But he still pieced together fragments of his childhood in Naples.
Remembering made things easier, it helped him preserve their sanities.
That they had not been born like this—they had been made.
“Augustus sounds better. Or Caesar?”
“And what were you going to be—Pontifex Maximus?”
Emerick let out a gasp, mischief dancing across his face.
“Who else but me can preach to others how to worship and obey you? I can be the High Priest at the altar of your flesh. I will serve them the body of a worthier Christus, an eucharist of blood.”
“…worship in Béziers,” Silvio mouthed to himself, pushing Emerick away, finally setting some distance between himself and the mirror.
An idea had started to take shape in his mind of how his coven would look.
He had to send word to Paris, arrange for a lawyer and secure a structure suitable for his designs.
A chamber in the centre of the building, so that their presence could ooze and cover every nook and cranny.
A private bathhouse where they could cleanse and wash away their sins and past lives, and start anew.
The French Coven would be gilded and covered in gold rays and painted saints and martyrs.
He was going to hire men to build winding staircases and carve the wooden railings into vines, leaves and branches.
But this coven would have the one thing Silvio had never possessed as a husband—a marriage bed.
I will build us a shrine, Silvio thought and reluctantly freed himself from the embrace.
Our mortal gods have failed us, so we will have to become better than the gods at our feet.
We will never long for anything, for I will feed this hunger with want.
I will drench myself in this thirst. I will have you sated.
He looked about, unable to appreciate the beauty or value of the things around him.
He did not understand Ingenuar, so he could not see the sentiment behind this collection.
The paintings and trinkets might mean the world for the oldest vampire, or they were trophies he had been gathering along his way, like a crow drawn to the shine of broken glass.
“So,” Emerick reached for a pocket watch next to a laurel crown made of gold, and flipped the lid. The arms of the clock had stopped, forever at a quarter past midnight. “Have you chosen a gift?”
“Yes,” Silvio nodded towards the mirror, noting their reflection, how the velvet and silk of their clothes was crushed.
“Where are we going to put this massive thing?”
“Wherever we want.”
His lover stared at the mirror, eying it up and down, the two of them stood in the middle of this treasure trove, two relics among countless others.
It was comforting to know that there were things older than them; and that all these things, knick-knacks and baubles had withstood the test of time.
Unearthed from rocks and sand or taken from an artist’s attic, here they stood in this private collection, unappreciated by the eyes of the dead.
Casting a sweeping glance around the room, Silvio turned towards the servant and nodded. The man returned the nod, keeping his eyes down a heartbeat longer. The mirror was to be packed and travel back with them.
The thought of the journey homeward exhausted Silvio, not because of the distance.
The miles would melt quickly as they dozed in the crammed space during the day.
It was the nights spent in close company with Dulior that irked him.
She had yet to confront him for the insult, this blight he had laid on her reputation among the other vampires.
A part of him wondered if she was going to surprise him and stay here, left behind to mingle with the rest of her kind, dismissing Silvio and Emerick as they no longer served to entertain her.
“Arrange for my carriage to be ready. We leave at dawn,” he instructed the servant.
The man acknowledged it with another sombre nod, and stepped aside to let them through.
“Marquis!” Emerick made an exaggerated bow and kissed Silvio’s hand. Mimicking the mortal, he also stepped aside to allow the Regent to pass before him. “I suppose now we have to study German as well,” the Comte added flatly, playing with the lace around his cuffs, as they walked down the corridor.
Silvio laughed, the mirth bubbling out of his mouth, drunk from all the opportunities his reign promised.
DULIOR, 1790
The two of them had debased her in front of the Coven. She stood there, head lowered, her face red and chest heaving, while that whore of a man was allowed to drink the All Father’s blood.