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To Bite the Hand That Feeds
There stood on the prominent edge of the lower gardens a silhouette of deep shadow that could not be highlighted by means of the red tinted moon above, and it sighed with resignation, its great shoulders sagging briefly before retaining their former pose of stagnant erection. Its eyes, of ice blue and flecks of silver, ever changing pools of depth and mystery, they were hunter’s eyes, cold, reflective, mirror-like. They scanned the landscape that fell away from it on the mountainside, the trees cascading down the rippled slopes, the jagged cliffs behind their protective cloak of blackened green just another reminder to it what dangers lay outside, waiting for it, haunting it, that precipice of knowledge as dangerous as the representation the sheer drop off posed to him.
Everything it had known was that abyss of darkness lying beyond the solid ground of reality, which could be lit to its core by the light of day, when it was dwelling in the core of the earth and would not look upon it. Oh horrid agony, that it should not know what haunted it until the sun came up, when it slumbered, and these things would ever be present in the dark recesses of its nocturnal mind. The night around it gave another gentle sigh in return as the creature of heightened stature turned its back on the silver red disc ascending the sky, the light breeze rustling through the willow standing a silent and solemn guard over that reticent body that stalked its shadow, the garden shadows, every shadow of the earth it could fall away in and become evanescent from the sight of those who hunted it, those who would have it bow before them as a brutal and savage creature. That creature which it possibly and very truly was, to bow before their race and bend to their wills, to give them what only men could want; escape is what they seeked, from their own follies.
The creature, powerful and lean and infallible, perfected by the age of instinct and strength, stalked from the willow and the worshiping flowers that surrounded its trunk, sauntered back towards the alcove entrance to its lair, the hair on the back of its neck laying flat again as it left the whispers of fate that the evening spoke to it through the many voices of the living in the world, speaking through their souls to its trained ears. It would prepare, ready itself for the hour, that in a week when the moon rose red and tainted in the blood of history's course, it should once more stalk from its lair in the mountainside as a new creature, a masked fiend of startling beauty that would belie the eye of man and draw them into its jaws, to fade away into darkness as it had moons ago. The shadow darker than the night vaporized into the still landscape, surpassing the boundaries of its mortal home, retreating to its mawing plans, and then slumber.

Of Marius and the Red Sun
Of mass amounts of cover and warmth and utter pleasure, the lump within the bed linens sought to escape and flee the world of his sleep, to be rid of the blankets that struggled to hold him down, to rid himself of that which gritted his eyes still and walk among the living flesh of those awake, within the boundaries of his own limited body and not those of his imagination.
Stretching his limbs, from one arm to the opposite leg, the young man Marius, who appeared to be around twenty years of age, clambered out of bed; the first thoughts in his mind were of a certain enigmatic man who roamed the corridors in the wee hours of the morning and the latest hours of the night, such as he would now. It was six of the clock, a full three and a half hours before supper, yet they were expecting guests even before then. Leaping from the canopied four poster bed, the mattress springing at his touch and rebounding, Marius headed over to his armoire and pulled from his selection of clothing, to wear some of his finest when he greeted the oncoming wave of diverse travelers as excited about the upcoming Trist Ahn Nefaritus as he was. It practically coursed through his veins with such a speed as though it were fueled by adrenaline and he were nothing more but a charged vessel. The name itself was like a neology, a new phrase that would catch on the tips of everyone's tongues even as it rolled beautifully off, making those who spoke it instantly exotic. That was the way of the olde world; it all had its mysteries, and everything had its beauty and atrocities. Like a double headed serpent, one that held all in captivity and awe, yet whose bite was as deadly as that of any creature twice its size and ferocity.
Ripping his fingers through his hair as he glanced briefly upon his appearance in the full length mirror, he smiled sheepishly as though he could not help how good he looked, though he didn't think very much of himself, and he energetically pranced from the room, passing his hands through the wash bowl and over his face on his way out.
Though Marius appeared twenty, he was actually a bit older and tended to prove this through his brief and sparse moments, far and few at times, pragmatic at others. Even so, he was still young compared to the one who had taken him in. No, that being was far older than any he had come across, all but one, but he roughly pushed this thought away and paid heed only to the vision of red behind his eyes. And the one now standing before him, a little ways down the hall, examining the pieces on the wall, most likely deciding which to take down and replace with newer, fresher works. But Marius knew it was not out of pride that this man changed the decor of his home to exhibit his art, but simply because the images that hung were painful for him to recollect. Marius desperately wanted to understand this, but this man, this creature, was a black hole that sucked everything from his being when Marius tried to get something out of him. Marius had slowly become this man's marionette, to do with as he pleased. Why? Because Marius felt every deep down gratitude for this creature of red, every love that a man ought to give his fatherly figure, every wish to the man whom he loved as more than a lover might. But he was no lover of this creature.
Marius' breath caught as he looked upon the red fledged one down the corridor. His head pounded as his inexplicably slow heart rate slugged along even more so. Could beings like him get dizzy? Could people like him pass out simply from seeing an awe inspiring moment such as he saw every morning?
Tentatively, Marius approached the master of the manor, passing without thought towards the lavishly trimmed walls, their molding dark and in contrast to their simple and plain neutral colours. His eyes were solely on the being before him, such a creature of stark beauty, such a creature of dark depravity in bright colour. Nothing more than a mask to be displayed, and yet, Marius knew this not to be true, for it was the mask that betrayed its master in the shadows, the mask that turned and poisoned he who had wrought it.
His footsteps were hardly audible, but still this creature of hunting skill and viciousness heard his approach, his breathe once more trapped within his pliant chest, his skin warming with the touch of blooming blush that spread throughout him. How could the corridors have heated so quickly? Perhaps the venting system was not evenly distributing the air?
“Master Satoma, how much it is a pleasure to find you on the fourth floor. I had not expected such a visit.” Marius smiled, flashing those white and perfect teeth of his partially. Truly even he, who was not so easily startled, was surprised by the appearance of Satoma here in his corridor, where he seldom came, even to change the walls. Particularly at this time of the evening. Where were the hours he would waste in his third floor study being put, but into this chance meeting?
“You flatter yourself Marius,” Satoma answered stiffly, his voice neutral and smooth, giving nothing away, hinting at no emotion what so ever but his distaste at such a suggestion. “It is not you I come for, so don't let it get to your head. I am here to replenish the freshness of the halls and you very well know it.”
With this, one last glance of blue orbs in hollow sockets, Satoma turned away and paced a bit down the hall, ignoring the heated embarrassment that Marius felt climbing into his face again. How foolish he who dared to suggest something of the sort to Satoma! How foolish and blundering he became in Satoma's presence, and how utterly miserable he felt when he was both within it and with out. Oh sweet misery! Deliver from such a nuisance as he was to Satoma.
When would the red sun rise for him that morning when it should shine upon him in the basking glory of its aureole than to shun him to cloudy skies and hollow shadows such as he walked now! His red sun, his only true reason in living, his only love in the joys of the world, was walking away slowly now, and all Marius could do was watch in dampened spirits as that which warmed him padded gracefully around the corner. He could do nothing but hang his head low in shame and submission.
Ah! But what was this? A final glance of reprieve from Satoma as his sculptured face of marble vanished behind the wall that barricaded itself between him and his vision? Surely Satoma had not thought him vain if he had taken the chance to cast one glance back on this belittled soul that walked the earth in half a state of trance and half of dim awareness of what went on beyond these walls?
Marius let his breath go, a small smile creeping over his darkened features, lighting them once more as this red sun would have if only he'd open up to the shadows who called on his warmth and brilliance. Satoma had not thought him vain enough. He had never been vain enough, as he stood in these halls; as he walked within the home and under the wing of Satoma even now.

Of Gabriel in Red
“Gabriel,” murmured a soft and delicious voice, warm, enveloping him in its velvet richness. But at the same moment, it was also strangely repulsive to the young man whose head rested upon leafs of pages of work before him, quill held at a loose angle from when he had fallen into sleep the night before. The delicate scrawl across the page, though rushed in his mad hurry to get as many notes down as he could, was still intricately beautiful, saturating the parchment with an awe inspiring simplicity.
Dark tresses fell into his face as he rested where he had been unable to go on, but his repose was still soft and conformed to one of a university student. His lavender and white cotton shirt was still tucked in, the ribbon around his collar still intact, as well as the one that loosely bound his hair; his black slacks were still pressed of most wrinkles and he wore soft flat heeled leather boots still, as though he had come home straight from studies only to continue more on in his dormitory.
“Gabriel!” This sharper tone struck him out of his rest, his back snapping into erected poise as he looked wildly around, childishly rubbing the grit from his violet eyes as he struggled to locate the speaker who owned the disembodied voice. With slight dismay, his eyes fell on the young woman standing just behind his chair, dressed in a simple blue satin dress with matching ribbons threaded through her strawberry blond curls, her bright eyes flashing with innocent beauty.
“Ah, Lady Delouvé, you startled me. How may I be of service to you?” Absent-mindedly he looked around, scanning his room for a clock, any tell tale form of time that could realign his senses with the present and not the transcending of his own dreams, which again were dull. But this wasn't his room. It wasn't even his apartment. He had fallen asleep in the library again! The youngest student of Jiinshiku University groaned inwardly.
He sighed, waiting for her response in that semi-darkened chamber, dismally recollecting his dreams as of late. The images were always bland and slurred, presenting him with no real joy through the imagination of his sleeping mind, and anything about auditory sounds or scents or tastes in his dream seemed not to exist at all, as though it were a world only of sights that were not very conclusive. Compared to his regular dreaming patterns, these were like sputtered flames, and he worried about this.
Placing his fingers at his temples with one hand, Gabriel took a handkerchief from his breast pocket in the other and wiped his face, trying to waken his skin, refresh it in some sense as the young Delouvé stood there smiling prettily at him.
“You've fallen asleep again, Gabriel.” Her voice was stern, reprimanding, but in a playful manner. “But I hope you do not forget things when you sleep as such.” Again she smiled that pretty and dainty smile. Logic told him not to ask, but reason told him it would have been polite, and in such matters of etiquette, reason always won out over logic.
“What is it you speak of Lady Delouvé, for surely I have not forgotten that lovely face of yours and your name rests within my memory as well? What else may there be?” He knew it to be a fruitless escape, knew it well only because he had a suspicion she had already had an answer waiting for him before he had thought of the phrase to his question.
“Why won’t you call me by Isabella? No, never mind. My birthday is next week, Sir Gabriel. Are you going to get me anything?” Again that smile, and Gabriel only wanted to hide, the animation of this girl more than several years younger plaguing him with feelings of uncomfortable embarrassment.
“No,” he replied solemnly. “I suppose I do not know what I'm going to get you. I could get you another book, perhaps? Larger than the last so that you may have more to spend your time with instead of worrying yourself over someone like myself?” Gabriel spoke sincerely, with no hint of sarcasm, and no intent there of. He simply could not believe that she had wanted to spend so much time around him as it was, and this too worried him. As her eyes brightened, both with excitement and dismay, her lips parting to answer him, he was slipping his books into his bag with easy speed. How to escape that next proposition? Standing, carefully keeping his bag from her view as he cradled it over his shoulder, he walked to one of the many book cases that adorned the walls from the ceiling to the floor.
“No, no Gabriel. It is not a book I want. It is you. When will you-” She was cut off short as Gabriel handed a book to her.
“Here,” he said with hurry, hoping he could distract her for only a moment enough. “Try this one. If you like it, I will find you your own copy, and then another in similarity. Oh, good day Master Delouvé.”
Lady Delouvé looked crest fallen at the book, as though it were something disgusting compared to his countenance, but then jumped at the mention of her father. Only, he wasn’t standing there behind her. And when she turned back to Gabriel with a scowl of disapproval for his trickery, the young man was gone. She sighed and stamped her foot. Its sound echoed lightly in the quiet stead of the library halls.

He felt the slight aneurysm of his blood flow as he stepped out into the cold recede, felt the contraction of his arteries as though he could see them, imagine the veins in his arms tightening as the dilation left them, the heat left his body upon exiting the Great Library.
“It just won’t do to have a girl several years younger running me rampaged. It’s just shameful. I must be more firm with her,” He thought with feigned courage, but in the end he knew it was a hopeless expedition. Who was he kidding? He could not command a situation like that. Locks of raven hair fell into his face, obscuring his eyes from the cold sun as he passed with an armload of books and records, carefully balanced upon a precarious precipice of invisible gravity. These he dropped off on his way back to his apartment, into the first public records center he came across, thinking of the event that was to occur in a week and a half. He had been using them to study the locations of residencies thought to be haunted, or even inhabited by vampires over the years. This was where his interest lay, in the happenings of that immortal race. Though he sometimes doubted they existed, simply because no one else believed them to be true, and those who resided in the houses never stayed longer than a simple human life term. Thus, Gabriel simply thought it a rumor, and passed it off as nothing more than this. But Master Delouvé had mentioned a gathering of massive proportions for such creatures, a truce between their enigmatic kind and humans. Of course, this instantly peaked Gabriel’s interest.

Cool air rushed out to meet Gabriel's face as the door swung cleanly before him on well-oiled hinges and then once more clicked back into place behind his wake. Sighing, he snapped the leather bound book in his hand shut, shaking his head at his futile attempts to extract more from its pages than he had already discovered in the first numerous times he had read it, looking for answers that weren't there. The overall mystery of Them still perplexed his mind, even as he searched tirelessly for any clue to their complete existence, their history, and their dark and haunting lives.
Despite his rather large inheritance from businesses kept, and the insurance of his family members' deaths, Gabriel had settled on a small two bedroom house, leaving his old home to the care of a trusted family friend. Its corridors held too many tender memories for him to bear, and he knew that the only way he could move on was to get some fresh air, move closer to his school. And to say Gabriel kept his abode clean despite its small size was a vast understatement.
Rows and rows upon books lined shelving that encompassed his small rooms, from floor to ceiling full and rich in information and the knowledge and stories of others. Some held his own findings, a section lined off holding his own personal journals and record logs. Knick-knacks speckled the dark shelves, spotting them with odd colour and elegance.
Stooping to pick the mail up from the floor, sifting through it as he headed from the foyer past several rooms, he moved with comfortable ease and delicacy. His bag fell heavily into the rest of an armchair near the fire in his den and living room. The mail soon made its way onto Gabriel's nightstand as the young man paused to let a small white creature from its cage, allowing it with adoration to scurry up his arm to perch on his shoulder, its whiskers tenderly twitching at Gabriel's cheek.
“Hello Albert,” Gabriel grinned back at the small mouse affectionately with a small morsel of food between his fingers, his smile widening as his small companion's blue eyes widened. Gabriel carefully turned and let the mouse off on his nightstand with the mail. His friend climbed the mountain of books sitting there after sniffing at the mail, and began nibbling hungrily away at the cracker as Gabriel went about cleaning his room and then himself.
Stripped of two day old clothing, much to his distaste at having fallen asleep in the library, he climbed into the water and diligently set about washing his hair. It was awfully thick and many a time he had sworn to get it cut off, but he had never gone through with it. His mother and sisters had loved his long hair, and so he could not bear to have it removed. Sometime passed before Gabriel was redressed in what he thought was proper sleeping attire, and clumsily, heavy with sleep in his limbs, he flopped into his bed, only to have Albert squeak jealously and make a mad dash and jump to land on his chest, and he laughed gently before his eye was caught by the mail.
Putting off sleep for a few more minutes, Gabriel's hand searched out the closest corner of one envelope and dragged the pile towards him, his mind lagging lazily along with it, laden down with the prospect of dreams.
“Another letter from Sir Delouvé,” he mumbled to himself, and then spoke to Albert, as if asking his opinion. “Perhaps it is on that paper I wrote lat week?”
Slipping his finger nail under the edge of the leaf holding it shut, he broke the seal with a flick of his finger, skilled and experienced in opening such parcels from his many years' work at the university, he slid the contents out. What fell into his hand was a small folded paper, and Gabriel jumped at the touch of another, smaller envelope upon his stomach. This he reached for and read first the scrawl across the front. Red ink, carefully scripted, and magnificently appealing.
“Trist Ahn Nefaritus...” he read aloud, sitting up instantly with surprise and excitement. What was this doing here, in his hands, of all places? He itched to open it, his fingers tingling with the urge as if demanding he allow them to do as they please, but Gabriel's common sense told him to read the letter first, tearing his attention away to look at the familiar hand writing of his head master. Brushing his hair from his face, the youngest university student of Jiinshiku carefully read what words were given as Albert curled into a small white ball against the heat of Gabriel's chest as he lay back again, falling into quick sleep to the rhythm of its master's heart.

Gabriel was surrounded by a flood of sensations, colour smearing across his sight as if he walked through a painting of vibrant and live impression, everything violently striking his eyes with beauty and his mind with awe. The luminescence of lights danced across his skin as he spun to look first in one direction, and then another, trying to drag everything in hungrily, starving for more, yet it seemed he never knew completely of his surroundings. They were always changing, new details being discovered by his delighted heart. The people who floated gracefully before him were in attire far different from his own, elegant, ornate gowns and masks and tunics, embroidered silks, rich velvets, expensive satins. Feathers and beads and trinkets of various origins. His head spun with this intake, the magnificence, the extraordinary sight of it all.
And the sounds and tastes and scents, these too flooded over him like a tidal wave, adding to his awe and confusion. There was so much going on, he was lost, and the first stirrings of unfamiliarity and discomfort pounded in his heart. It was as though he had left his own world to transcend into another of the past, swallowed completely by his overwhelming dreams of fascination. He could taste the perfumes that hung in the air, the tobacco clouds lingering where the windows were absent, no agitation of wind present there.
And as Gabriel spun around, hungrily taking in everything around him, he felt himself spinning into the arms of another being. Lost in the sway of the music, and the rushing of bodies around him in time to the chords of classical orchestra, his eyes found their way to a woman's face, meticulously looking over the details of her presence. Her violet gown flurried around them as if he was caught in a storm of tiny sewn on pearls and silver trimming. This young woman wore no masque like most of the others, but her face was marbled in white powder, small speckled jewels dappling the corners of her eyes.
Gabriel squirmed inside, her eyes bearing down in to him, sharp, piercing, unrelenting in its searching sweep. Her lips, full and lush, ripe in color as red as apples, sent shivers down his back for some unknown reason to him, a signal in his mind going off, warning him. And then she shimmered before him, becoming nothing but a mirage, replaced smoothly and quickly by a young gentleman whose eyes were even more intense, catching Gabriel off guard as the stranger smirked at him. He was dressed in a navy blue multi-piece suit of navy blue, black, and dark violet, with more silver and black trimming. His mask was as dark as the night when the moon was new, his face, white as snow, opalescent, real marbled sculpture, shadowed by candle light that flickered and wavered across this man's face, making it unreal, and Gabriel unable to mark it in his memory with its evasive contours and mystery.
They danced in elegant circles, Gabriel and this strange young man his age or so behind the mask, the same nervous shudders running through his limbs as they had with the woman, the merriment in their gestures too welcoming to be of comfort, a nightmare masked in the masquerade of a beautiful dream. He tried to separate himself from that cold flesh, depart from its foreboding touch, step back from this man, but the stranger moved with him, his dark hair floating gracefully around them in a halo circle, encompassing them in their dizzying steps; holding his hands to Gabriel's, dark glove in white glove (when had that been put on?); waltzing in time with the music, becoming a part of the massive crowd that swayed as one together; their festivities a horrific welcome to Gabriel, as though their masked faces were the fear that dragged at him. And then the room, the ball room, began to grow brighter until Gabriel was squinting to see, tears forming at the corners of his eyes in protest to the light, heart pounding, and then there really were hands dragging on him.
So many hands, their touch pulling at Gabriel, stretching his mind, thinning his thoughts out, their grips vice like, seeming to squeeze his inner body parts as well, tightening their hold around his chest, his heart. He was descending in a sea of hands and faces, his surroundings bleak and dim, dull, surreal; the faces surrounding him, transfixed into permanent stares of horror, yet they laughed at him, screams in their expressions, masks crowding his sight. The faces of his brothers and sister revealed themselves in his eyes, but he found none in their own, empty, glazed, their mouths that same crimson red the other woman had been wearing, that horrible red paint that ran down their chins in tendrils of chilling streaks against their stark skin. They laughed and screamed in their own faces, silent words erupting from them, but Gabriel could not hear. The music was lost in their soundless voices.
And then his mother's face came closer, emerging from the sea of white and black and red, horror growing within the young man at the stench that reeked from her, overwhelming his senses like the light had done, and the young gentleman he had unwillingly danced with.
“Mother? Mother, what's wrong?” he whimpered as he had when younger, a child long ago, ages of timelessness. Yet no reply came from her lips either, pressing to his cheek, smearing that same horrible red paint across his pallid skin, over his lips, her fingers prying into his neck and his temples, trying to summon more crimson.

“Mother!” Gabriel jerked from his sleep, instantly upright and covered in a cold sweat, thrashing to escape his bed covers. The letter and envelope fluttered, unnoticed, to the floor. Cradling his face in his hands, his legs hanging over the edge of the bed, Gabriel fought to catch what little breath he had, his chest heaving, perspiration glistening across his brow and flesh, taut muscles under his fair skin, his clothing sticking uncomfortably to him.
There was a draft in the room, chilling the weakened man, threatening to bring out a worse cough from his lungs than the one he lightly tried to stifle now. Seconds of attempting to regain control, he rose silently, shutting the window across the way, and veered off towards the bathroom, staggering against the walls for support when he felt dizzy.
Hot ripples of water riveted and cascaded down his limbs and back, the warmth clearing his chest of its tight bind, the constricting vice like grip of those he had momentarily ago dreamed of evaporating. Snatching up a towel, he precariously wrapped it around his torso, squeezing his hair in the shower stall, and rubbed the steam from his mirror, looking flabbergasted at his reflection.
The simple, silver crucifix he always wore was still strung around his neck with a leather cord, fingering it lightly as he stared at its shine in the light before letting his gaze rise to the circles under his eyes, dark and still haunted by his nightmare. He rubbed at them briefly, looking at them with a blank mind, all thoughts evading him before he shook his head and walked out.
His room was dark and still chilled, sending shivers skating across his bare flesh, the towel very little protection when his ravaging sickness had weakened him greatly against the cold not but a year ago, taking his family with its passing. He shuffled towards his ardoire, but stopped when the corner of the envelope on the floor caught his eye. He picked them up, fumbling with their edges, his hands shaking, and set them on his bed, remembering the words of the good professor. Albert still lay sleeping, unaware of his master's disquieting and restless sleep.
Tugging on the sleeves of a gray turtle neck sweater and similar slacks, he donned heavy set boots, rushing about his home to do things before he set off for the day. Gently lifting Albert from his pillow and replacing him in his cage, he left some food for the mouse and wondered where he had left his bag. He felt his body begin to shiver, the cold getting to his thin frame, the embers of the fire just dieing down from the previous night, before he recalled the location of his messenger bag, and ran out to get it. It still lay near the armchair in his living room, and he lifted the jacket that lay there as well onto his shoulders, comforted by the layers.
And then Gabriel was out the door into the crisp chilly air, letter and envelope in hand, and as he locked up, he slid it carefully into his bag between two books.

Their Drawing, Their Gather
Kotarou had stood outside the great doors of the manor for little more than a good five minutes, wondering how best to make his entrance, rubbing the back of his pink edged head with his bony hand, nearly disproportional with the leaned and toned figure he wore as a body, a badge. He couldn't help it; he looked good and he knew it. But it didn't matter in the entire world if he couldn't make it stand out.
Emute, tired from her travels, was wary of the estate approaching in the distance. It would be difficult enough to deal with those inside, the numerous guests she had come specifically to meet with and end their acquaintances, but she also worried that her week early arrival would also stress her out. To pass the time as she sat against the trunk of a fir tree, resting with her legs propped out, fiddling with a deck of cards. Oh if ever there was a trick a witch could perform, it was with this simple magic, so unlike her own magick. It was human, and it was fallible. She couldn't believe herself fallible when came the time, for letting a place for doubt to reside in her heart was dangerous, and therefore, she had to believe herself perfect. Quickly she hid the pentacle around her neck within the folds of her loose collared dress of navy blue satin, its ridges and valleys nearly the color of the sky now, deep, dark, foreboding. She would be lying through her teeth, and she knew that too, drawing her cloak tighter about her thin frame.
Satine, a long standing resident of the house, lay within the darkness that enveloped her room. Time would pass, she thought bitterly, and she would not be there to recognize it. Of all who would enter this manor, she would be the only one leaving on that fateful night. It was no longer her place here, and though she felt gratitude that someone like Satoma could open his home to one like her, she simply knew it was best she did not get involved with the masquerade that presented itself on the horizon of a week. And so, even as she lay in the quiet shadows of what was to be her soon emptied room, her belongings were already half concealed in boxes and transportation would be on the way in the morrow evening.

His Chestnut Haired Lover
Free of books, his arms swung with cheery lightness, nightmare forgotten, his bag bouncing at his hips as the strap slowly edged its way towards the slope of his shoulder, threatening to drop off if he didn't readjust it. And when he slowed to do this, carefully examining that it be placed where it would not easily slip again, his stomach rumbled angrily in distaste at him. He slapped himself in the face comically, groaning inside that he had forgotten to eat again, as he normally did when he spent so many hours in the library. He had been making a beeline for the university and Sir Delouvé, but knew that he would have to force himself to draw his attention elsewhere and get nourishment.
A little ways off to the left, a small café sat quaintly on the corner of Crosen Avenue and Desden Street. It was commonly known as Café Da Vinci, which Gabriel found to be amusing in its own little way. Checking the traffic patterns, he quickly crossed over and sat at a little table just inside the perimeter of their white picket fence, smiling as the waitress came forward and took his order, hot unsweetened tea and what they claimed was an apple turnover. He had a sudden and odd craving for apples just then.
As his turnover was set down on the table before him while he rummaged through his bag, hoping to reread the letter Master Delouvé had left him, he absent-mindedly reached out to pick up his tart to nibble on it, only to jerk back in surprise as he grabbed someone else's hand by mistake.
“Oh, I'm sorry!” He exclaimed, apologizing immediately before he turned his face up to look at the person he now addressed. He nearly choked on himself. “Christoph!”
Christoph, the rather tall man his age before him, striking features and chestnut colored hair, was now looking down at him, as though he didn't know what to make of Gabriel's refusal to believe it was truly him. Oh how those eyes haunted him even now, when he could no longer even bear to think of the name of this man who held his gaze firmly in his own, and that voice, which ever so gently caressed him, that had before hurt him even as it made him weep in pleasure.
“Gabriel,” drawled Christoph, his slightly tanned skin glistening in the morning sun of midwinter. “Gabriel. Talk to me Gabriel. You cannot shut me out forever.”
“No, you're right,” Gabriel replied almost with reluctant resignation. “But I don't see why you want to talk to me. I told you, Christoph, it is over. You and I are nothing, just as you have always exhibited.” His eyes stung in memory, of how Christoph had pranced about, using their relationship as a sort of flouting, portraying what feelings they had for each other as a joke. He did not want to go back to being the puppet of one who struts in pride.
Reaching for the tea that was placed shortly after Christoph's appearance, Gabriel hurriedly stood up, closing the flap on his bag, and made to walk off.
“Can't talk now though Christoph. I have to speak to my head master.” But a strong hand gripped his upper arm, d9ominating and strong in purpose.
“Hold up Gabe, I been heading that way too. We can walk together.” He said amiably, a sly smile crossing his features, his accent grating against Gabriel's nerves. God knew how he hated that accent.
“I suppose,” he responded through gritted teeth, knowing there was nothing he could do. He just wasn't strong enough, and he knew he never would be. He had seen too much to be strong now. He avoided Christoph's gaze as the other man pulled him in the direction of the campus. He would have tried to wrest his arm free, but that too would have been a fruitless attempt. And now, more so desperately than ever, he wished he could grow a back bone and fight back, scream out to the world that he didn't like it, didn't want to follow the commands of others' for the rest of his life. Why couldn't this man just leave him alone?
Instead, he was miserably dragged along with Christoph's arm slung around his thin set shoulders, chatting animatedly about this or that, smiling as the wind whipped through his dark hair. Gabriel simply sipped his tea, disgruntled and wishing he could just vanish. He hated that goddamn English accent.

As they neared the courtyard, Gabriel was startled out of his dismal thoughts by the sudden question Christoph threw at him, nearly choking on his tea and letting the thermal cup slip feebly through his fingers before his grip tightened on it again.
“Say, what think you about the two of us going down to the sea together next week? Charlie, good chap, he's agreed to lend me his flat out there for a couple of days. You need to get out more anyways, have a little adventure.” They passed the entrance gate into the main courtyard, the modern busy body life of the metropolitan city outside giving way to a landscape of greens and brightly colored flowers. Trees cast cool shadows over the pair of them walking along the brick path, but Gabriel didn't feel the need to shiver. He was fuming inside.
“What are you playing at?” He sputtered out, attempting to pull away again, his hands shaking, the tea sloshing dangerously close to the cup's rim, threatening to spill over and burn his hand.
“What do you mean? I'm inviting you to-” He was cut off short, his easy and relaxed tone, that streak of familiarity and seductive coaxing, coming to an abrupt halt as Gabriel discouraged the idea completely, trying to cast aside any attempt of his company's to seize him with a reaffirming shake of his head.
“We've been through this again and again Christoph. It's why we broke it off for God's sakes! You want to go in one direction, and I'm perfectly fine to stay where I am.”
Christoph retorted quietly, some sort of comforting smile spreading across his face, one that said Gabriel was being naïve, but that he was putting up with it lickity split. He turned to face the young man, stopping him where he walked, placing both hands on Gabriel's shoulders and looking down into his eyes.
“You can't just stay where you are Gabe. The world is gonna pass you by in that dusty old library of junk, reading till you go blind, hovering over your lessons until your back is as crippled as the next lunatic professor at his days' end. Live a little, do something fun.” He paused, his smile widening in memory. “Like we used to.”
Gabriel had seen that expression too many times to count, too many times to fall for it again.
“Fun?” He asked quietly, his voice stressed, his nerves wracked to their last cord as he fought to avoid bursting with fury. “Your fun was, and still is, a little too much for me. You-”
“If you're worried about last time, I forgive you for running off like that, in case you were wondering.” Christoph replied coolly, as if it made no difference what Gabriel had done in the past.
Gabriel glared at Christoph, this man before him who was so full of arrogance and conceitedness. “Forgive me? I ran because you scared me, Christoph...” he hissed back. He was beginning to feel this was a losing battle, one that he would walk away from bruised and tired, and one that Christoph would walk away from with a smug smile on his face, content that he got what he wanted, and would go in search of the next tenant who owed him rent. It made Gabriel jittery. He shoved the other man's grip off and stepped back, but Christoph steeped forward, keeping the distance between them minimal.
“Gabriel, you know you miss me.” He coaxed gently, stepping closer to embrace the young man. Gabriel couldn't move, knowing that what this man, whom he despised so deeply right now, spoke the truth; he did miss Christoph, his protective hold, the cool confidence he emitted.
But even as he felt these things, his reality crumbled around him, knocking the breath from his lungs as he also felt Christoph pressing into him, his chapped lips claiming his own, crushing him under their demand and free reigned urgency, and the cold came as he was forced to remember the littlest details. Why should this be happening? He felt himself melting into the warmth of his previous boyfriend, like he had melted in the embrace of his mother before she had died, along with the remainder of his family, of an afflicting illness. One that had almost claimed his own life. No, he had lived to recall these things of horror and all the much weaker for them.
Yet his fragility did not waver Christoph from having what he wanted, though God knew how Gabriel wanted to pull away. He was locked in the strong and comforting hold of this chestnut haired and blue eyed devil, this stunning replica of a god to him even before they had first pronounced each others names with affection.
Gabriel felt that familiar fear of dominance slip through his veins, icy and razor sharp, stinging him like nettles from the inside, sharp and painful and fresh. He took a step back, forcedly breaking their contact, once more felt his glare burning into Christoph's cool collected gaze of amusement, one that claimed to know who had won this argument. Gabriel tore away from Christoph, slipping beneath the man's arms, his hands shaking again with anger. His limbs felt heavy, his lips bruised and tender, his mind ripped to shreds like his heart had been ripped apart not long ago. He shook like a leaf on a tree, seething within.
“Stay away from me Christoph...” He snapped at the other man, his voice given that fear driven boost, anger, and a chance at hell on his part. “...I'm not falling for your phony act again.”
Turning promptly on his heel, Gabriel walked away from that charming smirk and gorgeous eyes, his mind racing with mixed emotions and thoughts, and worst of all, the memories.
'I need a vacation from people.'

The First Night: Their Arrival

“Where Are You Headed Mr. Inquiste?”
“Sir, this is just too much.” Gabriel protested, waving the letter and envelope over his head as he walked in on Master Delouvé at his desk, an amused little grin across his face, expectancy in his eyes, and understanding as well. He knew Gabriel well enough to know these reactions, and he played one step ahead, having a response for everything the young man might argue or suggest.
“Nonsense, Gabriel.” He replied in a deep baritone, chuckling at Gabriel's uneasiness. Delouvé wore a fine wool suit today, appearing only in his forties, but his students knew better. His eye twinkled as he watched his pupil begin pacing his office floor.
“But sir, the invitation was sent to you, clearly marked as you can well see.” The young man threw the envelope with the slanted red script on the desk before the head master, resuming his circles of restlessness.
“I couldn't possibly go!” Such an honor was not one thrown carelessly upon an inexperienced young man such as himself.
Delouvé stood up, pressing his fingers together behind his back, a smile spreading across his face. He turned to the board behind him and lifted a writing utensil to begin scribbling notes across its surface for his next class, not more than half an hour away. “Come now,” he persuaded, “I'm getting much too old to attend such festivities. Think of it as a research assignment, if that helps sooth your conscience. It is history in the making after all.”
“B-but Head Master! From what I understand, it's been tradition for several centuries and more, according to everything I've read up on it.” Gabriel grew nervous again as Delouvé grinned at him. Inside he was groaning. His instructor already had an answer to that one too.
“You've done your homework. Of course, I would expect nothing less.” Delouvé turned and crossed his arms, leaning against his board with another amused expression on his face.
“It's been going on for more than a few centuries however, and tensions between the two races are running higher these days. Vampyres and hunters don't mix well either way, whether there is a truce or not.” The older man sighed, pressing his fingers to his temples, and then letting them drop with another smile. “Should anything occur, we'll need an unbiased account of the events.”
“Will it be d-d-dangerous, professor?! You and I both know I'm not the best person to be caught in the middle of something, especially when the war candidates have been holding grudges longer than time itself. I can't possibly be expect-”
“Nonsense lad. You of all people are the best choice. I know you won't take sides, and you'll be the cautious one. Do you really think I would send you if I didn't believe you were the right choice? Don't say such a thing.” Gabriel didn't know whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. “Now, I've arranged for your travels, but you'll have to leave in two hours tops to make it on time.”
Delouvé handed Gabriel another envelope with all the information needed, and returned the invitation, double checking that he had given his pupil the right papers from the several that lay on his desk. He then handed Gabriel another letter.
“Give this to the Master. It is your letter of introduction.” Delouvé chuckled.
“Today?! But the event isn't for another week or so?” Gabriel sputtered, fumbling with the letters in his hands and the flap of his bag, nearly dropping them to the floor in his haste to clear up what he thought was ludicrous.
“No day like today,” Delouvé replied cheerfully, plopping another parcel into Gabriel's just emptied hands. He watched with another amused smile crossing his face. Gabriel's face shadowed over in confusion, and he smiled as his pupil's countenance brightened with realization. What he had handed off the Gabriel was a journal of dark red leather bound with a cord, and in the corner, a small mouse imprint signified Gabriel's personal seal, the same doodle often sketched on his papers.
“You best get going, Mr. Inquiste.”

In less than two hours, Gabriel was speeding away from the inner courts of his university, bags packed, mind in a state of confusion, in his best traveling attire sitting in the back of a private car. He had calmed down a bit since his startling revelation, his nightmare was left submerged, and Albert lay curled up in his lap. He had attempted to make small conversation with the driver, but when he got fed up with short grunted replies, he gave up and pulled out the journal his head master had given him not long ago. He had tucked his papers into its binding, the invitation, the letter of introduction, and his traveling scripts, and unwinding the cord that sealed it shut, he opened it and leafed through the blank white pages. No lines, old fashioned, perfect for his sort of observations. Traditional sketching for traditional research. Gabriel pulled out a silver fountain pen, the very one his brother Raphael had given him years ago, carefully beginning his recording in practiced script, blowing lightly on it to dry the ink in lack of salt. He smiled at what he had written in the moving vehicle.

Trist Ahn Nefaritus
A personal Account & Record of the Blood Moon Masquerade
Through the Eyes and Written in the Hand of
Gabriel Damien Inquiste

Mystery Meat
Satoshi felt queasy as he prepared his lunch in the smaller of the two kitchens, his stomach turning as he looked at the bananas sitting on the counter. He was preparing the fruit salad before him for any guests that might arrive early for the masquerade, and of course, if any of them were vegetarians of a sort… The young teenager of seventeen wasn’t that kind of vegetarian. At least, he was raised to believe he wasn’t, by someone who definitely wasn’t holding back. That, too, was another ‘at least’. His caretaker wasn’t a vegetarian, or at least, he was forced not to be. The adolescent knew his mentor had no other choice, but it wasn’t his choice to make. It was nature, and that was that.
Satoshi sighed, feeling sorry for his teacher and friend. But hopefully, soon, he would be able to aid his friend with such inconveniences. His developmental project was coming along quite well, and it wouldn’t be long before he would be able to test it out and do something more than what he had been doing for the last sixteen years of his life. He didn’t want to be a burden anymore. Not to Satoma, never more. His master meant too much to him for that any longer.((Insert Emute's main introduction here.))

Death, My Mistress
I had never disagreed with any of the residents of the manor, nor the guests we had ever had visit or pass through. In all the centuries that I have lived in this manor, Tenkil a Ristiri Cireli, House of Black Silence, I have dealt in silence, and I have dealt in death. I have catered peace, and mended situations of tension, but in the end, it is always the same. Death follows my being, my very existence cursed. My brethren and I are a feigned existence of life and cherished moments. Lies, delusions, nothing is real but the crimson trail that streaks in our path. Love, hope, dreams, these are all but a façade. Death is my only mistress, and death is all that I deal. I am the tool She uses in her onslaught of Their kind. Human life is precious, infinitely fragile, because we make it so. When They cease to make their lives significant, then it once more returns to insignificance. Significance only comes about because They refuse to believe They are insignificant. Only then are They more, and only then are we called in, when life is most precious. We are the messengers of Mistress Death, and we send the telegram of last coming. Human life is pathetic in its every glory, and that is why we are held revered and most feared, because life for us has never begun. Lady Death is our cradle, and She holds us dear, and She takes Their fates from Their hands and puts them into ours. We are gods to Them, because we have the power to both create and destroy life.
My name, it is feared most of all, because I am the oldest of my Mistress Death’s spirits. I take the most fates into my hands, and I steal away more hopes and dreams than I care to recollect. My name is branded into the memories and histories of men for all time. I am Satoma Lithel Liander Kosuke.
It was precisely the year seventy-two B.C.E. when I came to this estate with my master, seven hundred and ninety-eight years after my first lover had died. I was exactly a millennium olde. My master had first taken me under his wing as his fledgling in the year ten seventy-two B.C.E. in the confederation of the Etruscan capital of Velzna, before the cultural development had begun to move at a faster rate. I was of an earlier Celtic division of people known as the Keltoi to the Greeks, meaning I was just another invader. My pagan people were seen as the enemy for our mass migration efforts to settle in new lands. Eventually, most of my people made territory in the British Isles. I was to go back to my birth place after I had seen Etruria. It was part of my tutorage. As I have said, I had met my master, Amarian le Delouvé Lithel, as he was known in more modern times, in the capital of Velzna, and I had been enraptured with him.
Back then, as I recollect such periods of civilization without the restrictions of the Christian god, love was love, and men could take men as women could take women. And, therefore, he was also enraptured by me, and we were to become lovers later. I was eighteen when we had first crossed paths, twenty-two when we confessed our desires for each other. It was not until my twenty-third year did I realize exactly who, and what, he was. Where before he was charming and mysterious, he was later seductive and completely mine, and I was his. I lost my life to him, ensnared in his trap as he was caught in by my web. I lost my hopes and dreams to him, and was reawakened to a world of darker ambitions and instincts. I developed a craving and lust for a sinful sustenance. I began to live from the blood of animated flesh, animated with warmth and a soul, unlike my own. I had become a vampyre.
I had been born both times in what was known as the Dark Age. Such a title amuses me, for what it is worth. It is the period in which the fewest vampyres were bred, yet it was also the deadliest for both races. We, as the night stalkers, were nearly annihilated. Roughly a century later, I lost Amarian to this era; lost and confused, even as I was a new fledgling (though by then I was strong and olde enough to move along on my own however difficult it might have been), I went back to my homeland finally, long after my kin had thought me dead. I was the last of my blood, and I am all that remains today, tainted as I am with this curse of a feigned existence in the service of Lady Death.
I wandered the lands of Angleland, through Sussex and Wessex, Kent and Essex, all along the coasts and the other sectors of that time. It was not until three hundred A.D. did I again meet Amarian, and having nowhere to go, I allowed him to lead me away from my aimless paths, despite my previous sense of betrayal. I loved him after all, this ageless immortal sculpture of immaculate beauty and perfection, poisoned in every miniscule way possible, yet luscious and irrepressible. He took me to shelter, giving me a place to stay, to call my own, to coddle and care for me in a way I had never been sustained before. It was as though our separated state had provoked in him the revelation of what life truly meant, that we were put here merely to indulge ourselves in every emotion capable of our beings. Lady Death, he would whisper to me in the dark hours of the morning after our love making, would want us to live a fruitful life, even if it meant taking those of others less deserving, which I had been known to find repulsive.
In nine hundred and nine B.C.E., I again lost Amarian, who mysteriously disappeared and I was lead to believe he was killed by a hunter, which had begun their first ranks of training in that century. The last words Amarian spoke to me were these,
“I love you, Satoma, but you will love another, and I shall pass into memory.”
I had not at first understood what he meant, yet somewhere in my heart I both knew it to be some unspoken truth and yet I wanted to deny it completely and utterly. Twenty-one years later I met the boy in birth that he had prophesized I would love, and thirty-nine years to the day of my master’s words, eighteen years of the boy’s life had passed and I again met him in person, and he became mine, utterly and completely as the truth I had wanted to shove away. We were drawn to each other as moths to a flame of attraction, and I undoubtedly ensnared him like the helpless butterfly I saw him as, weak and dependent, yet holding within great potential and beauty. His name was Zykeshta, and he became my fledgling like I had become Amarian’s, and I passed to him the last of my blood and the last of my master’s and his master’s before him, for we were all the last of our people, and in Zykeshta, I had made a new breed of vampyre, and I loved him dearly, more so than even my tutor and caretaker over the millennia. Yet he too left me, taken by an illness unknown to any in this world but those who have it. There are three bloodlines of vampire kind ever known to have existed with it, and I know nothing of the other two. I was the carrier of the third, and I infected the blood of my beloved. Since then, I have lived alone in this estate, picking up a few stragglers in time on the few trips I take to acquaintance myself with the changing world. We live a solemn and solitary life, quiet and serene in the mountains of today’s Britain, a small band of lost vampires who do not belong in the world outside. Until now, when the blood moon rises, and we are forced, by tradition and ritual, to hold a truce between our kind and the human race, and I must suppress my dislike for company to uphold the expectations of me, as master and host of the Blood Moon Masquerade, Trist Ahn Nefaritus.
Kosuke Satoma

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