2.
The vampire still had the gore of late-night activities stuck to his clothes. He appeared like that, without a care for ceremony at the Crypt on the crossroads in Saint Louis Cemetery.
'Brigitte' his voice called out and soon enough the Lady answered.
In other instances, he would have teased her about being eager to answer his summons, but she knew to make him feel small, and worthless. The oracle appeared drenched in red, bathed in blood, just to remind him that where he was a scavenger, she was a mistress. He recognized the offering sticking to her clothes and skin. Brigitte had been where he could never go back to.
'Do you know where I just came from, Linda?' She had not called him by his name since the day they first met. 'The other side of the world, the crossroads connect to all venues above, below and in between.'
'Don't' the vampire begged her.
The smell of the blood that painted her checkered black and white garments red was poison to him. She had been to the other side; the river below the river.
South Africa had been his homeland, the place where he was born a man, made a god and then sentenced to an eternity of blood and madness. He had seen the light of day on the delta of the Ncome and the day he crossed the lines set by the greater deities, he was drowned in those waters and made prisoner in a world of glass, where reality filtered through a thousand mirrors and the blood of his victims ran eternal, calling out for vengeance.
'Why, Brigitte?' he asked in earnest.
'Why? Because I can see the future of those who serve me ... It is up to me to know the extension of their days ... Because, as much as it makes me weak to say it, you are important to me.'
She confessed more than any woman should, and just to fix it, it was decided she'd kiss him. Softly at first, knowing that her kiss would hurt, burn his skin with the blood of ancestors killed by his own hand. His mouth parted and he took her punishment until they both frenzied. He had never pierced her skin, but she promised to heal as much as she had damaged.
She tasted of bad blood and bitter coffee.
'I know what you want of me. You want to intimidate me into staying. I came here to show a letter you have already read.'
'What did you expect?' The Oracle replied. 'It was penned on behalf of the undead; of course, it was my business.'
She had made herself vulnerable once. If he expected an apology, he had another think coming.
'I must go, Brigitte. My prince commands. He freed me from the mirror centuries before you found me, and I abandoned him without much as a say.'
'He didn't free you; he gave you the body of a French nobleman and kept you as part of a menagerie of freaks. He hid you inside a white man's flesh. You, a god of blood serving one that would have never been your equal, had and have total control over your powers.'
As she spoke, lightning split the night sky and thunder boomed. Lindsey's eyes flashed the purest blue.
'You have only heard of me, my Lady. Pray you won't see me, ever. As much as I love and owe you, the Impundulu fear no one. Not gods above or their avatars below, nor hellish prisons, because nothing can contain us forever. If we serve, we serve, but blood is our only master. And still, I believe I owe this prince ... you are no one to tell me anything different.'
He had openly defied her, reminding her that she was but a pale shadow of the powers that shaped him.
'Tsk, tsk!' Brigitte savored her every word as she flicked her tongue. 'You are telling me, that you will leave me because love bounds you to a prince. Don't lie to me. Death is the ultimate revealer of truth. A lust for power, intense desire to know what has been of all of them, that's closer to it, isn't it? The prince might have been interesting, but your companions under his reign ... those are the ones you'd rather see. I went into your past; I soaked in the blood of your victims, as they wait upon your return. I saw them through their eyes. What a fascinating group of misfits ... The raptured artist, the warrior of sands, the undead living in the shadow of a legend, an immortal forever hurt, the queen of the southern wild, the red headed, blood thirsty Jezebel that awaits to take you under her roof ... just to mention a few.'
'I must, Brigitte.'
He was pushing his luck, calling her by her name, as much as he had gloated before, the Lady of the Cemetery had hold of him. He had not been truly forgiven by the gods, nor would he be, until he'd show himself worthy. He was hers to let go.
'What if I don't want to?' She spat on the floor and drilled an accusing finger into his chest.
'Ah, but you will.'
A third had joined their conversation, or at least decided to partake at last. There was no stopping Wedo. Life got everywhere.
'No one gave you a candle in this vigil, brother!'
Brigitte held the snake, now wearing the visage a boy no older than thirteen, by the scruff of his neck. Wedo was unfazed. A simple gesture of his hand left her incapable of uttering a word.
'Go and do what you must,' he told the vampire. 'Think of thisss only. If you were to engage in a deed terrible enough to grant you going back to the glasss hell that held you prisoner, a woman ssscorned holds the key. I don't know the Lady Ossshun, but I know my sissster. She doesn't forgive. You will be erasssed from this city's memory and Brigitte herself won't confesss to have ever known you.'
This, I will risk.' His answer was definite and both Life and Death took flight, leaving him to his own devices.
And so it was, that the vampire who had left a world of reckless blood trails on his path through Europe two centuries before, booked a ship to Spain and set the wheels turning once more.
Before leaving the city, he took two victims, one for Light and one for Shadows, because it was uncertain what the future would bring, and he needed both to sustain him. The blood of a suckling child and his whore of a mother were still fresh on his lips as he boarded.
Reach your destination in good health, Monsieur Valois.'
A concierge trained not to make inquiries handed him a silk handkerchief and a small travel bag. Inside his private quarters the vampire opened the suitcase. There were several objects, meant to make sense in time: cayenne spice, a silver key, a spell that could bind a muse, a shade of blue not known to man, a bag of gris-gris and a pound of chicory coffee, among many other trinkets.
Lindsey couldn't tell if the gifts bequeathed came from Life or Death, but he placed them in his travel trunk and smiled. These were peace offerings at best. At worse, a bitter-sweet goodbye gift from a city he wouldn't see again.
When a destination was reached and, in the time, since ... what exactly occurred could be the key ...
