After an eternity of thirteen stairs, he reached the red door at the entrance of the attic. It was closed. Gideon was going to force him to open it, to step over the threshold himself. He would not be carried as Gideon’s bride. He had been carried once, though. Carried and cradled…
* * *
Many, many, many years ago
The roar of the crowd was fading, not because their shouting was any less intense, but because the flesh of his body was failing. Madis’ execution was nearly complete. It had been happening for seven long days, beginning with a whipping. His back had been lashed until the skin failed and opened up to reveal cut flesh. Then honey and salt had been applied while he screamed and writhed in agony that was only the beginning. He was chained face down in the sand, and stinging ants were let loose upon him to feast. He cried until his tears ran dry, but no mercy was shown. Not even the simple and obvious mercy of death was granted to him.
His torturers knew how to keep body and soul together, even when the body was broken and weakened. They forced liquid into him when he refused to drink, adding salts and sugars to keep his broken body functioning. The pain seemed to go on for an eternity, every second stretching out into what felt like forever.
One day after the other, sunrise sliding into sunset, he suffered. He learned the deepest meaning of pain, all the shades and nuances of it. He felt the minor discomforts and the searing agonies. He felt brief reprieves when his consciousness failed him, only to be brought roughly back to the world of the living by the torturer’s smelling salts.
It was in the depths of night he was finally freed. Naked and broken, he hovered between life and death, distinct from both and unconcerned with either. The pain had ceased to be something happening to him. It had become something he embodied. It was him, and he was it. Pain had become the only thing in his consciousness, his friend, his ally, his constant companion.
“Poor boy.”
He opened his eyes to the night and saw not the moon, but a masculine creature twice as beautiful as that great glowing orb. It was not a human face. Madis had always known the devil would claim him one day. Now the time was upon him, he felt fascinatingly calm.
“Look what they have done to you. Such a pretty face. Such a beautiful body. All you wanted was love, and they have broken you for following your basest and most essential of instincts. Do not worry, sweet one. Tonight I will feed on them.”
It was not a man who spoke to him, though it knew the language of men. It was something more beautiful and perfectly formed than a man, something with a symmetrically handsome face of strength and enigmatic appeal. Sharp teeth emanated from top and bottom jaw, two sets of fangs set among gleaming white teeth. The creature had come to him naked, its body beautiful in the moonlight, muscular lines and ridges cast in silver glow. Madis felt himself throb. It hurt, but he did not mind hurting anymore.
It was for this desire he had been made to suffer, this unacceptable attraction to other men. The creature was different, though. It was male, but there was no mistaking it for a man. Dark hair flowed from the crown of his head, shrouding his face as he crouched down and touched Madis’ cheek with a gentle stroking motion.
“Let me take away your pain, sweet thing. Let me make you beautiful again.”
The voice was deep, resonant, and soothing. The words promised escape. Madis would have pledged anything to be free of his bindings and his disfigurement. He had been praying to any god that would hear him since his ordeal began for release. But this was no god that had heard his prayer. He knew he was in the presence of a more primal power, one of the creatures of origin.
“Please,” he whispered, barely able to form that single word.
It was all he needed to say.
The creature leaned down, and bit him ever so tenderly, loving lips touching his flesh moments before two sets of impossibly sharp teeth sank into his ravaged flesh and began to drain him of his essence. Madis knew pain intimately, but this was new agony, deeper pain than any of his tormentors had inflicted. The kind of pain that went through his marrow and found the parts of him that were supposed to be untouchable, the separate observer that felt nothing suddenly screaming in pain. He was being obliterated. To his very core. His soul was being destroyed, and something dark was taking its place.
* * *
Present day…
“Come in,”Gideon’s voice spoke to him again.“Show me your sins, my offspring.”
Maddox took a breath he did not strictly need and opened the door. Gideon was waiting, standing before the window so his form was silhouetted dramatically. His hair was long, his shoulders broad, his figure imposing. Maddox felt himself lighter and younger for being in his presence. Gideon’s particular quality of eternity always made Maddox feel ephemeral by comparison.
One never knew how Gideon would manifest. He was always strikingly handsome, and his features never truly changed, but the times themselves seemed to change him in tangible ways. Or perhaps he simply did not have as good a memory as he imagined. Maybe it was not Gideon who changed with time, but Maddox’s perceptions which became warped by the shifting sands.
Gideon turned to face him, and Maddox felt some internal hardness soften immediately. Gideon’s beauty was impossible to overstate. He was a creature of perfection and symmetry. The moderns would have made him a movie star, but his high cheekbones, olive skin, and noble features were suited to so much more than mere fame. They demanded worship and sacrifice.
“Look at you.” Gideon extended his arms as he spoke with true warmth and affection. Maddox was lured forward, commanded by the charisma of his maker. He found himself wrapped in arms of unimaginable strength and eternal power. Maddox had promised himself that he would fight Gideon on every level. He would hold himself apart, keep himself separate.
But there was no true separation to be had between progeny and maker. No matter how old Maddox got, Gideon still held a deeply intimate sway. If one were to peel Mad back to his core, it would be Gideon one found there.
He rested his head on Gideon’s shoulder and let his maker hold him for a moment. Maddox had not anticipated any soft feelings on seeing Gideon. The anticipation of seeing him had been all about fear. But when the creature embraced him and he felt their mutually held darkness flowing together, energies transmitted across vast amounts of time, he could not help but give into the feeling of coming home.
“Maddox. My youngest.” Gideon leaned back and properly greeted him with a broad, toothy smile that showed off both upper and lower sets of fangs. “How is my baby boy?”
“Gideon,” he said, trying to make himself sound like something other than a trembling fledgling. “It has been a long time.”
“It has not been that long. Why are the humans all talking to rocks now?”
“Since your last awakening, humans have become adept at making rocks think. The world has changed greatly.”