Paying Respects for the fallen (Acheron)

[Ambrose Acheron]

The old, the new. There were differences. One couldn’t state they were immeasurable, everything can be quantified. Even letters can be converted into numbers in the form of binary. One could argue that the heart of a man was immeasurable, courage, soul. Even that had limits though and if there were limits, numbers could be attached. One thing is known. One is the loneliest number.

Still there were many. The new sought their own path believing in the rights of the individual over the whole. Tizoc had always been taught the gods came first, then the country then finally, oneself. The new had their gadgets and their electronics, they wanted to fit in. They loved their technology and some of them socialized. Tizoc wanted none of this. He was reclusive, not for any anxiety, but because he had little in common with the vampires of this age. The few he had met outside of his Brood have been so human. He could not find a way to relate.

The old had been to the Realm of Shadows before. He had been a denizen of the colorless void for two centuries. Two hundred years of the bleak grey on a grayer grey world. He could commiserate with the new, laid out before him in traditional Aztec garb. The body of the fallen Kitchi.

So it is, lonely, singular, that Tizoc stood within the chamber set aside for gatherings of his Brood and sacrifices on the set days of the calendar year, another neatly numbered invention due to the Mayans and Romans. The altar harbours no flesh to be split, no blood measured in pints or gallons to be spread over the area of the floor around the stone. It is at the moment serving a different purpose. A sort of temporary burial site.for the warrior who Tizoc had stood and fought with twice now. Both times the enemy falling beneath the savage attacks of the Acheron vampires, only this time there had been casualties. Kitchi rests surrounded by candles and oils, some of which already anoint his body's surface, they are light in color, scented very lightly and carefully applied by the expert fingers of the ancient blood priest at work.

His oil lathered fingers move over the flesh of his torpid grandchilde, inscribing mystical symbols believed by the ancient Aztecs to draw the attention of the deity of the night sky, illusions, darkness… Numbers were important here too. Three candles meant something different than four. Two splashes of oil where one would suffice brought unneeded risk to a ritualist at work and if you simply hadn’t the foresight to acquire enough of the accoutrements needed to sate the demi-fae being forced into slavery… well. Then there was a good chance, a high probability, of finding yourself in trouble. Tonight’s work summoned no creature from whatever plane of existence had spawned the Fae. Tonight’s work was even more important. Tonight’s work was to honor the fallen and guide his spirit back through the Fade to his body quickly, with his mind intact and whole.

As he worked he sent telepathic messages into the void to his wounded descendant. Praises of the warriors fighting spirit, letting him know his actions had given them the victory over the Disciples of Crow. He had helped to protect their way of life from those would would cover the world in darkness.

He was the old. He was anachronistic, hide-bound, set in his ways. The new knew nothing of the work being done under his calloused hands. They had their own ways before the altar. Tizoc’s hands moved without thought, the inscriptions flawless in their execution. The aged vampire had done this same ceremony more times than he cared to think of for consanguineous vampires and friends alike in the past. Some of the new would argue that the ways of the old made no difference, that the wraith returned to the body regardless on the preparation done for in on the mortal plane. Tizoc wouldn’t care to hear their views. They were mostly already well beyond saving with their beliefs of humans living side by side with vampires, their beliefs that Lamarckians posed a threat, their love of mysterious beings like Crow, their gunslinger ways. They were loud, crass, and a larger threat to vampires that any of their perceived enemies could hope to be.

Tonight was a simple cleansing of the flesh upon the altar and a prayer to the god of the midnight sky to provide safe return for this member of his lineage, the retention of Kitchi’s humanity. These were things that he himself had once fought for and still struggled internally to balance. Perhaps it was a fruitless gesture, a pointless endeavor, but Tizoc was a follower or the old and bloodthirsty gods of Mexico and a believer in the old ways of that country. Even if there was no immediately quantifiable effect, one did not discount the unseen.

And so it is, the one, ensconced in the act of cleansing, of begging largesse from a long dead god fails to notice the change in his surroundings, the entrance of another. Had the new arrival been an assassin with lethal intent, Tizoc would have fallen easy prey to their initial assault. Perhaps in another place the probability of the newcomer bearing ill-will toward him would be higher. Then again he would have diverted a higher percentage of his awareness to his surroundings perhaps shifting variables back in his favor. It was all numbers after all.

And now there were two and more. The new were joining the old in the near deserted bowels of the earth claimed as sacred space by the ancient ritualist to pay their respects for the sacrifice made in battle.