tampered | Log: Complete

Vincent had been gleefully playing with fire for days.
He had confided his deepest darkest secret to Walter Dornez. He had spent the earlier evening bartering and bandying for he knew not what with Rosiel. It was hard to tell with that angel. And of course Xuchilbara had warned him not to talk to Rosiel in the first place...

Vincent had been tentatively testing the ground, trying to form at least a friendship with Dornez's new mentor, the vampire Lacroix.
And even now, as he went to find out what Immacolata had meant by her post he was returning from a meeting with Silent Hill's one local-boy-made-good, the murderer, Walter Sullivan.

He was batting a good average thus far, if a lonely one.

Immacolata's words had intrigued him. As he'd said, "you had me from 'purity' and 'death'". and he'd meant it, in a sense.

He missed Xuchilbara's touch, even if more than once the god had killed him and painfully revived him in the same lovemaking act. And yet his attraction to the god had been both his worst act of damnation and a dire attempt to find salvation- Vincent knew nothing about the soul, or the state of his own, but he did know he wanted to make such a dire splash headlong into Paradise or Hell that he would never, ever ever be forgotten.

He slunk into the cemetery cautiously, looking around.Anyone else might be wary of going such a place at this hour of the night...

The shadows writhed and something began to coalesce out of the blackness, a phosphorescent glow that first danced like ghastly undead fireflies, then drew together, limning two forms that took mass and solidity from the shadows that birthed them.

Two women stepped into the murky illumination from the City's ambient light. Or at least, two female figures, one withered, wrinkled, an exaggeration of what an old woman might be. The other, a woman voluptuous to the point of parody, eyes seeking without seeing, breasts bare in the yellow light.

The older-seeming one waved a hand toward Vincent. Follow, that hand said. She turned away without looking to see if he followed.

The other... the other turned her head toward him as though scrutinizing him with something other than her eyes. Something moved behind her in the darkness and a faint mewling sound drifted on the breeze toward Vincent.

Well, that was interesting. It took him a moment or two to realize he had stopped breathing, and he quickly corrected this little problem.

So these then, were the sisters who would lead him, apparently. He laughed, a little nervously, and set out to follow.

The Hag passed out of the graveyard leading Vincent while her sister and something else followed behind.

It wasn't safe to be there at night, but not for Vincent and his escorts.

The Hag led him to an entrance to the City's ubiquitous underground. Another place that wasn't safe. Again, not for Vincent and his escorts, but for anyone or thing foolhardy enough to try to divert them from their destination.

The withered woman was vaguely luminescent as they moved into utter blackness, a beacon for the man to follow. If he was brave enough.

If he wasn't... the Magdalene and whatever folowed her awaited.

Vincent smiled when he saw that they were heading towards the Underground.
If only she knew...near enough to be neighbors.
Well...if Alessa's 'children' weren't so dangerous no one could come near the caverns that led to the mansion.

Death lived in a cave near here as well. What a small, small world, Vincent thought, and smiled.

If...when he finished with this night's excursion, he might well have to go visiting. Or chance the scenic route home...

Through the darkness, through the tunnels, down stairs that were carved for legs not human, the Hag led the man without speaking until the tunnel debouched into a wider torchlit tunnel.

In a city where the dead didn't stay dead, the question that might come to mind on first view was where did all the bones come from? (http://www.quovadimus.org/paris/cat/700/50-03-pillars.jpg)

The Hag didn't give Vincent time for sightseeing, moving quickly through past the bones to an open chamber. It had the ambient illumination one would expect from torches, lighting the stone, bone-lined room with a warm glow, but no actual light source.

Seated on a throne of bones with a commanding view of the entrance was a beautiful but oh so very cold woman. Her skin was flawless, but her eyebrows and several inches of her hair had been completely shaved, giving her an alien look. Her gold eyes settled on Vincent with as much emotion to them as an entomologist regarding a specimen she'd seen dozens of times before.

Vincent marvelled at the bone art on the way in.
He'd seen, as many folk had, pictures of such things before- the ossuary at Sedlec of course came to mind- but rarely had he gotten to see so many bones in one place at the same time.

On the other hand, he was from Silent Hill where the walls could turn to living, rotting organisms, blood and rust at its own whim.

The bones fasinated him, but did not frighten him.

Finally, they came to the woman on the throne.
The shaved eyebrows didn't phase him either, as Sister Claudia had shaved hers as well, although of course any reminders of Sister Claudia gave him pause.

Still...beggars couldn't be choosers.

"So," he said, and coughed, looked around, took off his glasses and polished the lens on the corner of his shirt. "purity, you said? Of course, this had me intrigued..."

"He seeks..." the Hag hissed, taking a place behind Immacolata to her right.

Of course he seeks, was Immacolata's acerbic, but unspoken thought. These Cuckoos - once they had a taste of something better, something higher, they did nothing but seek. Or go mad. If they hadn't gone mad at the first taste.

"Tell me what you're seeking, Vincent," she commanded without answering his implied question. "My sister could tell me, but I want to hear it from you."

Let him think that she had to rely on the Hag for that information, when she could read it on is face, hear it in his breathing, could take it from his thoughts if she only cared to muddy her mind with touching his.

[ooc: And now I sleep. I'll pick up dangling pings in the morning.]

(())

He shook his head. "That's not a good way to start this," he said, "you already know what I want, or you'd not have accepted audience with me. I've 'tasted the divine' as you put it. Or to be more blunt, I had a god." he slunk a little closer,
"need we be ever more base about it? I was had BY a god. When things were good, he would rip me to ribbons and bathe in my blood and then painfully, slowly weave back together what he had torn apart, all the while gloriously, gloriously fucking me just short of out of my senses.
But never utterly, you see. Something to do with my humanity having some sort of goodness to it, in spite of all the parts I've had to have replaced by demonic substitutes. Something to do with my still having a soul, capable of, if not worthy of redemption.

I'm no fool. I can see that you're something other than human, and that I endanger myself by coming here. If I fail to amuse you, or even if you had already planned to do whatever it is you do to people, you'll do something to me. Something possibly not even I would find pleasant.

And yet now I've come anyway, and of my own free will. Freshly back, I might add, from interviews with vampires, seraphim and serial killers... do you think I fear much?

Well I do, actually; I'm terrified of damn near everything. I come from a town called Silent Hill that could change at will and whim of the gods to something akin to Hell. There's precious little that's atrocious and horrible and soul rending I haven't seen, bore witness to. What am I seeking? The same as any man.
Power. Love. Redemption. It's just I'm arrogant enough to feel that after all the atrocities I've been through I more than deserve it.
And so. What say you? Anything to offer me other than a slow and painful death...or are we both wasting our time here?"

The Hag drifted forward from behind the throne again, eyes alight with malice. Her sister, the Magdalene was drawn toward Vincent by his words, her face a picture of limitless, thoughtless wanting.

Immacolata regarded him coldly, her expression did not change, but her eyes did, shifting from golden to blank silver.

Ambition.... An ambitious man was always so much easier to use. Show him raptures, show him power, show him the menstruum and an ambitious man could not turn away. Put a rapture in his hand and he was lost.

The thing that had been following the Magdalene came out of the shadows at last. It bore a certain resemblance to its father (http://www.animegalleries.net/albums/userpics/39673/19%20%282%29.jpg) as run through the imagination of a man in the midst of a horrific fever dream.

"You want to be fucked." She said the word with absolute distaste. "The Magdalene can give you every aspect you ever loved and hated about the experience.

"You want power." Of course he wanted power. He was a Cuckoo who had none that wasn't from his association with something greater than him. "I can lay rapture in your hand."

She waved her own hand and the bones in the walls shifted together, their rubbing a sussurus that whispered, Immacolata... Mistress... Lady of Sighs... Black Madonna... Mercy Mistress... Immacolata....

Vin-cent

"Why should I give you any of this? Because you're a hungry coward? Don't tell me what I want or plan or think or I will have the menstruum flay every piece of flesh from your muscles, every piece of muscle from bone, every piece of sinew off of you until I can put you in the wall to wail at me when I allow it."

As she spoke, a silvery fluid began to leak from her eyes, her nose, her mouth. Her gown, tightly fitted around her torso and flowing from her waist began to billow.

"What do you have to offer, Cuckoo?"

What did he have to offer? Vincent thought. "I have," he said, "the power to move through dreams. Some of what I dream comes to pass. and once. I brought a thing back from so far in Xuchilbara's memory by moving it through the dream realm. And then of course..." Vincent closed his eyes. It would not be as easy without Xuchilbara there to tell him when to stop, but he had done this thing before once, briefly, without the god's help.
Vincent thought back to the Hill. Picturing it perfectly in his mind. The silent stones that lay near the ruins of the old orphanage in the Silent Hill woods, surrounded by candles, thrumming with power.
So few of those who came there realized where the power to turn the valves came from, but he knew now.

Vincent reached.

The Underground was already a gloomy enough place, so to shift it to the nightmare realm would not make that many tangible differences. The ground began to change from stone to rusted metal. The bones she had so dutifully collected from her followers began to whisper and shift, rotted flesh forming upon them, alive and throbbing with artificial power. The shadows shifted.

Vincent could only manage the change for a few, but it was, he hoped, enough. It had attracted some of Alessa's 'children' certainly. As he opened his eyes and let the power shift back into place he saw them at the edges of periferal, watching nervously from the shadows.

Vincent's little bit of magick was of their world, but other than that this area was not, claimed as it was by Immacolata. It was likely Alessa's children and the by-blows could in time come to a wary coexistence, but that would remain to be seen....

"I have power," Vincent said, "it isn't much, and it isn't polished by far. But I can access the Otherworld that took over my town. I know rituals that only those born to that region would remember, and in that I am the only one who does. I have," he faltered. had, more like. Xuchilbara had been noticably absent, and he had no way of knowing even IF the god returned if He'd take any interest in any new friendships Vincent might have cultivated in his absence, or if he'd be forgiven for wavering in his undying loyalty and wanting such alliances in the first place, "the claim of affection and the mark of bond with the god Xuchilbara. When he returns to this place if it pleases him, he might be a useful ally to you."

He paused, shifted. And that was about it, really. There were a few others who Vincent liked to associate with and who, perhaps, liked him back begrudgingly enough that his friends might also be their friends. But he himself? she was right. Most of what he had came from thoe he knew, not what he himself could do. He was like the moon, a reflector of others' majesty, not a bearer of any light of his own.

The menstruum that had drifted out of Immacolata's body reacted to Vincent's drawing of power, writhing like snakes that had been disturbed in their rest.

Silver tendrils crossed the space between her and the Cuckoo, dancing millimeters away from his skin, seeming to taste the air around him for the flavor of the taint he bore.

Death, decay, pain. These were things that Immacolata was drawn to. All while she remained pure. The Cuckoo bought her interest with his demonstration.

"Tell me then, Vincent. If we teach you, hurt you, give you a home and a purpose, is that what you want?"

"Teach me? That would be a most equitable venture.
Hurt me? Mmm. But I expect you might derive some sort of enjoyment out of it as much as I, so I can't say as that's necessarily so much a part of the agreement as a 'benefit'.
Friends with benefits. Isn't that what they call it these days?
That's what I'm looking for us to be, if it pleases you. and if I gain any power, obviously I would be indebted to you and so at your service to use when it came to that.

As for a home? Well. I have a home. I think. It's not that far from here, really. Which is why I should hope you shan't mind letting me return to it in one piece, when done is done and we call it a night.
As I said, though he is absent, I am Xuchilbara's priest.
I...don't know when...if...He shall return, but he wouldn't be pleased if I strayed too far for too long..."

"Divine whore," Immacolata observed, the silver tendrils now brushing Vincent's skin. In moments they might insinuate themselves under the skin, burning, tingling, manipulating nerves to feel a gamut of sensations from pleasure to pain.

Or Vincent's will might push them away for the moment.

"You want to cuckold your god and run back to him when he returns." Her lips twisted into a sneer. "You want me to be the other woman."

Vincent shuddered. This was all kinds of interesting, certainly.
"It sounds so crude when you put it like that." he said, "we have, I was given to understand, a sort of 'open relationship'. That is to say He certainly goes out of his way to take other lovers than me...is it so wrong for me to decide in His absence to expand my horizons, a little?

I'm only looking out for my best interests, everyone does it.And if in fact he truly cares for me and wishes for me to be happy, my best interests ARE His best interests too..."

The menstruum drew away from him and evaporated into the air.

"No." She waved a hand at him. "You insult me."

The Magdalene loomed directly behind him now, her presence a cold chill along his back, and a warm presence pushing at his mind. Lust. Sex. Heat. Primal wanting unmitigated by any morality.

"But... I may give you a gift before you go. And in return, you'll leave us a gift as well."

"Alright?" he said, unsure what had suddenly changed things. He waited, curious. Licked his dry lips. Blinked.

Cold arms wrapped around Vincent from behind, hands already questing down the front of his body toward a quite obvious destination.

Immacolata sat motionless on her throne. She found her sister's appetites repugnant, but no sign of that crossed her face.

The unspoken order to the Magdalene was not to break him. Or at least, no more than was necessary. She would bring him every thing he could imagine from the act of copulation and more, and in return, he would leave her with another child for their growing family. Of course, he'd alread intimated that his imagination had as many horrors as joys.

Or he could run, and they might even let him get away.

It did not even occur to Vincent to run.
Though the Magdalene was cold where Xuchilbara's touch was hot, it was an intimate touch all the same, and Vincent closed his eyes, leaning back into her touch, and acquiesced far too readily to what was happening.

Hot? She could bring him hot. She could bring him the memory of his beloved doing all the things that he'd described. The pain, the ecstasy, the transcendence of it all. How much was present and how much was the evocation of memory into the present was something only the sisters would ever know.

But when the time came to spill his seed, the present would be upon him again. The ghastly, ghostly, cold woman taking from him something so many cultures and religions had the right of when they held it powerful and even sacred.

And all the while, Immacolata would watch, only the silver of her eyes betraying that she felt anything but boredom at the scene.

Vincent may have known somewhere in the back of his mind this was but a skillful illusion, but he seemed neither to be aware of it or care. Before he had met Xuchilbara he had spent plenty of the church's money on the whores he could get at Heaven's Night.
How was this all that much different. Eyes closed, breathing heavy, he let himself be lost in the sensation and the images until the combination of them moved him towards climax.

He shuddered a bit when the moment of release actually happened and he saw what it was he was cumming into, but what was done was done.

Slowly his breathing returned to normal and he smiled, a wicked little smile. "You can't tell me that wasn't in some way good for you." he said.

He cleaned himself up a bit, readjusted his clothes, trying not to feel sullied and unusual. "Well," he said. These afterwards were always awkward. "When should I return, or...do you prefer I not?"

It didn't take him long to get that greedy little glitter back to his eye.
He still wanted whatever teachings she had to offer, after all.

The only thing about Vincent's performance that had impressed Immacolata in the least was his virtual equanimity in the face of what he'd fucked. Men she'd respected more than he had been reduced to broken shells after time in the Magdalene's tender embrace.

She didn't give his smartass comment the dignity of a response, although flaying the flesh from his bones had been a tempting one.

"Who says you'll be leaving us. Or at least, not the part that will actually be useful." She glanced at the Magdalene, whose belly was already starting to swell.

"If you want to return, bring me something useful. Some knowledge, some tool, something or don't waste my time."

Vincent glanced at the Magdalene, and began to understand what that had been all about.
Still, even this didn't seem to upset him, although perhaps if and when he saw the fruit of what he and she had wrought he might be a little more freaked.
For now it was, as many awful things were to Vincent, most fasinating.
He gave a slight bow.
"As you wish." he said, and headed back through the caves to Xuchilbara's mansion.

((thatta wrap?))

Greed's by-blow followed Vincent from the murk that filled the caves until he had left Immacolata's territory and then returned to see the birth of its new sibling.

Immacolata remained seated on her throne, thoughtfully considering what she'd learned from seeing the man in person and what her sister had whispered to her of his god.

[ooc: That's a wrap. Feel free to send child-support checks. ^.~ ]

((XD

Log: Complete

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject