(This vamperic tale is a quest to rid one family of a murderous curse)


In the year of our Lord 1099 my father disappeared during the capture of Jerusalem. In that year I, Tobias Del Torre, learned that Salvatore Vitalio was only one of my uncles. Vitalio blood ran through me by my mother, though I didn't know this until my fifteenth summer when the messenger from Uncle Benito arrived. Benito invited me to visit though my mother tearfully begged me not to. She had severed ties with seven of her eight brothers. I rebelled and ran off, finding the messenger waiting in a nearby village. It was a long passage through the mountains north of Rome before we eventually reached Benito's estate.

In the beginning I had a grand time with my newly found uncle, because he spoiled me like the son he never had. Of course, I thought it strange that Benito only met me at night. I was a foolish youngster who readily accepted the servant's excuses that Benito's business took him away from the villa during daylight hours. I eventually grew so enamored with Benito that I pledged my devotion by taking the mark of his house. The elixir he gave me deadened the brand that burnt the full moon between the blades of my shoulders.

At that time I was dumb to the power he held over me. My loyalty grew to the point where I would have killed for him. On a cold night when the summer slept below winter's snow it nearly came to that. That night Benito revealed his true nature, and his desire to remake me in his own image.

The first we knew of the intrusion came from Waldo's cry, Benito's butler. So strange, I thought, for him to carry a sword. When the doors thrust apart, Waldo lay partially obscured behind the entering figure. Waldo's sword hilt nestled in slack fingers speckled in red, and that's when I noticed that the life had escaped from him.

"I'm here for the boy,'� said the intruder. Dark robes revealed little. A few black strands of hair escaped from the thick hood that captured a jaw knifing downward underneath gray eyes. The sword in his right hand reflected red splashed over silver in the clustered candlelight. Clutched in his left hand against his chest was likewise the appearance of silver though in the form of a large cross.

'Salvatore. The defrocked priest returns at last from banishment,'� said Benito. 'The boy will soon be forever mine, but for your ill timing, brother.'�

'It is good that you have not enslaved him fully. The hope for his salvation is all the greater for it. And there remains hope still for you. Even hope as thin as a thread will become a rope if you'll allow it.'�

'A rope to stretch my neck no doubt.'�

'Rather a rope to draw you from the pit. Will you take hold of it?'�

'No, but I'll take hold of you, and you will become our nephew's first taste.'�

Benito's nimbleness amazed me, especially in one who carried a bit too much around the belly. The two handed sword fingered by pegs on the library wall came into his hands before I noticed it. He flew the length of the room landing amongst a sparking of steel on steel. Benito's strength I also underestimated, but that too he revealed in chopping strikes that fell from head height. The great sword beat down upon the cross pushing it toward the floor until it twisted, catching the blade between cross pieces. In utter shock I watched the sword snap, brittle, as would one of the frosted windowpanes if touched by sudden heat.

Uncle Benito screamed with a rage he had kept masked until that moment. The width of his scream revealed sharp teeth, also at last unsheathed. The scream ended with an abruption of silvery steel. At that moment my hatred of Salvatore could not have been greater. It so consumed me that sane thought fled while I rushed madly at my uncle. The pommel of the silver sword broke my nose. I woke to the cutting strands of rope binding me to the high oak chair that Benito formally graced. My uncle lay prostrate across the wide dining table, his clothes absorbing the lamp oil Salvatore anointed him with. At the time I was unable to accept the sorrow I witnessed in the gray eyes.

'A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones,'� Salvatore said before dropping the candle that ignited the estate. Only later did I understand the pain that his brother's death brought. The pain of eternal loss.

I remained with Salvatore for several years, my mother believing the truth that my rebellion would only be cured by Salvatore's tutorship. It pains me to admit that I strove so to embrace my hatred. It was a childish hate really, one I fanned with vain imaginations about Salvatore and my other uncles. They would save me I thought, which was why I agreed to accompany Salvatore on a search for them. He needed me actually, for I was somehow drawn to my uncles and all like them. I know now that it came from the branding, the mark I received for a boyish devotion to a power I knew nothing of.

We journeyed to an underworld unknown to an ignorant youth. It was a world that lay beneath the emperor's city, a lurid place to trap the unwary. The first sight of it below the streets was a treasure to the eye, for we had entered the flesh parlors. A young man in his prime knows the bodily temptations like no other. I was drawn to the smooth bodies like the night moths that dove through the open shutter of my lantern while we trod past women advertising themselves. The women seemed so, so'�I cannot express the unbridled desire that enslaved my mind and my will.

Salvatore saw it too and passed a hand in front of my eyes saying, 'See with true sight, boy.'� I saw it then, yet didn't want to. The desired flesh revealed scabs and pustules. Before that moment I had seen only what my intense yearning demanded. My craving drained against the reality of disease, transfusing me with a reason for self-control.

Two thick men dressed in dirty shirts and torn pants guarded Vicente's master bedroom. They lifted spiked clubs against us. One of those clubs shattered against the cross, its wielder dead on impact. The other guard tasted the same steel a moment later. I looked at them both, and somehow knew that those men had received what they had given others many times before. Salvatore booted the doors open to reveal uncle Vicente and the girl.

I remember her as appearing a little younger than my eighteen years at that time. Her unclothed form lay in an awkward pile upon the silky sheets in a room encircled in bright red tapestry. None of the finery in that room could mask the stink of sweat and blood. Much of the contour of her skin lay purpled and raked. Two vivid holes in her neck barely leaked. Above that sagged eyes void of life. Vicente saw our vision drawn to the girl and he waved us away from her, carefully pulling a red robe around his curtain of blonde hair.

'Don't trifle with her. She was so disappointing, so unsatisfying. But you, Salvatore, have resurrected my evening by bringing the boy. I'll finish where Benito failed.'�

'Vicente, one hope remains for you. Your false freedom licensed slavery. There's still time to submit to He who can offer true freedom.'�

'I am above the common prattle of your religion. I am my own god now and I please myself.'�

For some reason my eyes fixed on the girl's body when he said that, but it wasn't for long. For out of a shadowed corner came Bruno, called by name, a brutish giant stepping from a child's fairy tale. His balding head grazed the ceiling. My eyes fell down past shirtless scar covered muscle to ballooning black pants over shoeless feet. He advanced weaponless other than the furniture he effortlessly hurled toward Salvatore. The chairs and smaller end tables easily turned aside from sword and cross. It was the larger furnishings snatched randomly during Bruno's advance that took their toll. Salvatore barely avoided a large dresser, save one edge that tore a bloody weal against his upper left arm. Then the giant was upon him hammering down with clenched fists. The silver sword parried Bruno's left arm. The right arm came down upon the cross impaling the wrist. Bruno jerked his arms back pulling the cross with him. I saw then the mistake he made by reaching to withdraw the cross with his other hand. For it was then that the sword exacted its price. Bruno fell amongst the fragments of furniture.

I averted from my fixation to see Vicente edge away during the fight. His intent seemed to have shifted away from capturing me. Now he sought flight. Something in me ignited with the comparison of Vicente and the girl. Who had she been? What desserts did she warrant to fall under Vicente's tender attentions? Who was he to pay for his delights with fleshy coin? Something in me changed that night, not all at once, just another step of my transformation. I couldn't allow him to escape and murder again. My lantern oil sloshed past the wick sprinting flame across the tapestry. Vicente ignored the advancing blaze until turning from Salvatore's charge he tripped howling into the unfolding blossom. The flame dyed his beautiful robe a fiercer red, and I will never forget the way his long hair whipped around like the chains of a glowing flail. When we fled I took the girl with me for proper burial.

From that underworld Salvatore parted with the words, 'Everything is permissible for me but I will not be mastered by anything.'�

It took me years to realize that the catalyst of change in Vicente's brothel had been the eyes of the victim. Her potential life had been denied, and justice had seemed a poor substitute. What future victims were spared that night? I might never know this side of eternity. Still, those thoughts provided motivation, a motivation that opened me to Salvatore's tutorship. The tutoring advanced far beyond the academic reaching into realms both martial and spiritual. There came a time when I faced a choice, become Salvatore's apprentice and eventual successor or take another parallel that had never before entered my imaginations. That choice manifested the night we found Uncle Victor.

Of all feeding grounds he could have chosen, the brothers would be horrified to know of this one. Recall now the devastation at Saint Barnabas. So many of the brothers were ignorant of the spiritual plague infecting the ranks above them. Yet, did they not wonder that the villages surrounding that institute of spiritual education had such great needs? The old shepherds apprenticing the new had abandoned the very sheep meant to be cared for. This could most be seen in the abbot turned puppet, for none other than a brother Vitalio.

Using the seminary's robes, we passed far and those who did not accept our ruse responded well to Salvatore's command. The apathy and inactivity created by slow spiritual rot made it all too easy. The brothers posed no obstacle because they craved the very thing that Salvatore exuded.

When we entered the abbot's living quarters, the traditional domicile of simplicity and utility had been transformed into dirty luxury. The abbot himself wasn't to be seen, not then or ever again. A fat feather bed dominated a windowless room covered in thick dust. It smelled abandoned. Very little was disturbed except that which our own feet displaced. The sole occupant appeared as a snowy ghost in the midst of that bed, albino beyond measure from pasty skin to entangled hair. He barely opened his eyes when our intrusion reached the bedside.

'Salvatore,'� said a voice as if muffled by webbing. 'You've come to witness my everlasting sleep.'�

'Victor, I've come to wake you to a newness of life. Will you accept it?'�

'Yes.'� The answer surprised me. I watched uncle Victor strain upwards, first on creaking elbows and then sitting propped by many pillows.

Salvatore's left hand stretched the cross toward Victor. 'Take hold,'� he said 'and pledge your turn away from your victims toward an everlasting flesh and blood.'�

Victor placed both withered hands upon the crosspiece crying out not in sorrowful joy, but agonizing revelation. The flesh of his palms burned fast to the cross, revealing false piety. At that moment the great quake struck shaking me to my knees while Salvatore remained upright, both brothers still attached to the cross. The tremble continued until the crack appeared, first small and then great enough to allow entrance to morning's light. A solitary beam penetrated that room, an arrow meant only for Victor. His burning seemed worse than that undertaken by his two brothers.

We gathered the survivors, and I remember the brothers in the courtyard assisting with the injured. The verses Salvatore spoke as he passed amongst the brothers came to be often quoted after the initiation of our Order.

'The hour has come to wake up from your slumber. The night is over, the day is here. Put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.'�

That day I made my decision amongst the rubble of Saint Barnabas. I entered my calling.

I left Salvatore for a time of new learning and friendship with the brothers that would span a lifetime. Those were good years at the seminary, foundational years worth cherishing. My only regret was my deception following graduation. I didn't go to shepherd that small rural flock. Salvatore found me again to search for his twin brothers Antonio and Amadeo.

During my years in seminary Salvatore searched for signs of his four remaining brothers. The twins were two of the more elusive, but finally he filtered the rumor mill enough to find them in their mountain hole. Gold and other precious metals have a way of self-promotion that not even the secretive twins could long keep hidden. Exactly where in those mountains remained my task. Though my decision firm and the course of my life charted in contrast, still the geographical sensation of the evil ones remained. Initially, this caused me much consternation until I realized that it was nothing less than a divine gift intended to save the innocent. I received a sign of this truth on the day that Salvatore commented about the heart tattooed between my shoulder blades. The mark of the beast was gone! How I wish I could've witnessed that miraculous transformation.

We found Amadeo first, in a torch-brightened village from which the core of Antonio's labor force drained. Amadeo's corpulent form spread over a wooden litter manned by hollowed eyed servants who lacked focus. The absence of armed guards surprised me as much as my uncle's obesity. At bare minimum he sustained four hundred pounds, but could easily have six or seven if more unfolded behind than we could see in front. Every bit of exposed skin expanded beyond the strains of credibility. None of that oddity could compare with the arm that Amadeo's incisors knifed. It actually took me a moment to recognize it as an arm, and the pile of rags below the litter as the remains of a villager.

'Join me?'� said the voracious mouth, smiling red.

'Man does not live by bread alone, but--'�

'Yes, yes,'� said Amadeo. 'But on every word that comes from the mouth of God. You are so tiresome, Salvatore. Always the preacher, even as a child. Besides, you take the meaning all wrong. It's not important what man lives on, but what lives on man.'� He laughed for his own part discharging inflated ripples, a turgid fleshy sea. He continued once the storm settled. 'And if the creation story be true then God spoke a word bringing humanity into existence and therefore created the first menu.'�

As always, Salvatore didn't seem the least humored. 'Would you fast from evil to consume the bread of life?'�

'Actually, I've been rather neglectful of my pets.'� His whistle brought the wolves.

'Ready yourself, priest,'� said Salvatore, the first time he'd ever called me anything other than boy. The choir of howls should have forced me to cringe, for the only weapon I carried was a thick oaken staff. It was one of numerous weapons that Salvatore had familiarized me with, but I had recently taken a vow to shed no blood. I doubted the weapon's effectiveness against savage beasts, but my mind bent toward another task. I marched directly toward Amadeo.

A black wolf lunged, and I used the staff to vault it past me. Several more streaked toward me only to be intercepted by Salvatore. One final step put me within range. The decanter of blessed water splashed the flesh heap. Vapor rose like it would from a griddle, leaving a melting slag hole. Amadeo cried out, and something happened to those around him, both man and beast. The mindless servants seemed to once again take notice of life, pulling away from the wolves and dumping their portage. The wolves, taking immediate notice, saw the easier dish poured out before them and raced to devour uncle Amadeo. Salvatore torched the remains, and repeated a phrase that is well known. 'So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.'�

The sensation of the Dark Ones pulled me strongly towards the mines. We followed the muddy path trod day and night by dozens of villagers. It led easily enough to the dark hole in the mountain's side. The feeling told me that Antonio waited inside. I think now that his bodyguards would have eventually overwhelmed us, though Salvatore struck down many, and I broke my share against the hardened oak. Perhaps something in our effort inspired the miners, or more likely the Spirit instilled them with courage and hope in advance of our arrival.

We found him crouching in a corner, Antonio's escape blocked by dozens of sooty bodies making up for their emaciated conditions with avenging determination. Many of them lay fallen around my estranged uncle. His purple coat hung torn and splattered with the same fluid that dripped from his rapier. Sparkling finger rings and glitzy pendant chains failed to establish the regality of the hunter become hunted. Salvatore stopped the villagers from throwing themselves on his brother's blade.

'A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions,'� said Salvatore in the gathered silence.

'Quiet your tongue, fool brother,'� said Antonio with an echo of desperation that seemed to rally with hatred sparkling in the blue eyes beneath his spiked red hair. 'You never had the brains to understand true wealth or much of anything else for that matter. Now you hunt your own kin when you could have joined us.'�

'Are you willing to pass through the eye of faith's needle to gain a heavenly treasure that moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot steal?'� asked Salvatore.

Antonio shook his head, his only answer. His eyes revealed the abandonment of hope, and the refusal to deny his love of Mammon. Reaching toward a torch bracket, he removed the brand, and clutched it to his chest. Spiking flame ate at the purple cloak and bright vestments until the blazing spires stretched his full length. No one moved until his consumption ran complete.

'I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,'� said Salvatore.

We remained for a time with that mountain village until hunger and disease no longer held sway. During that time we cleansed the mines of the twins' presence, finding a clue that would lead us to our final Vitalio destination. The letter bore the imperial seal, and came from the minister of trade. Though it didn't name them, we were certain that it pertained to Marco and Giovanni. They had settled in the very midst of their cattle, as had Vicente, though they were protected by the reigns of power. Patron or no, we decided that the Vitalio curse must end.

But we dared not barge into a house of power. Instead, we spent our time in the capital city gleaning what coin could buy us. We learned that the Vitalio brothers remained behind the curtain directing the players through a choreography of life and death. I could tell that Salvatore grew impatient, but our day, or rather our night arrived at last.

We wormed our way into a private party, a masquerade that I participated in dressed as a literal shepherd, complete with wide brimmed hat and woolen coat. I missed my oaken staff, but the hooked crook fit the shepherd's role so much better. Salvatore, of all things, came in the colorful garb of a jester, complete with folly-bells hanging by little chains from his girdle. I cringed when another guest requested a tune from Salvatore's guitar. Surprisingly, Salvatore sung in tune despite the discord that accompanied him. The guest found it all very amusing. I was much too afraid of discovery to enjoy it.

A fair amount of mingling ocurred before the sensation led me to a small anteroom off of the main hall. Marco Vitalio, a lion, hobnobbed with a peacock, a ballerina, and several others both fowl and fair. I pointed to him, and Salvatore forged ahead. All conversation stalled until Marco broke the awkwardness.

'There's no need to play at what you already are, brother.'�

'The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.'�

'Only a true fool would try to harm me in the presence of the emperor's servant.'� Marco opened a hand toward the small man sprouting peacock feathers.

'God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise.'� Salvatore plunged his fist into the back of the guitar cracking the frame. The cross and sword came out of the broken shell. Uncle Marco broke and ran.

Salvatore pushed through the circled animals knocking the peacock backwards. Through broken plumes the minister of trade shouted for the guards. We raced through interconnecting hallways passing rare works of art both canvas and sculpted that I would never see again. I could hear the steady tinkle of the folly-bells until they stopped abruptly, and I nearly slipped on the scattered balls in the hallway.

Marco gained a lead and ducked into a side room. I followed to find Salvatore furiously looking through a gallery of life sized portraits. I almost cringed at his look of frustration. The sensation of the evil ones took me before a floor to ceiling rendition of the emperor himself. I examined the backing, found the mechanism and opened the door. A crossbow bolt rewarded my impulsiveness, snatching the hat from my head. For the first time in my life I thanked God for being short.

Salvatore pushed me aside and thrust forward a torch he had removed from the wall. I caught a brief outline of the trap that I'd triggered. The sounds of the searching guards encouraged me to close the portrait behind us.

The passage continued winding, narrow and black. We eventually emerged into the kind of room that isn't mentioned much in civilized conversation. In the middle of the torture chamber Marco unhooked a disturbingly large axe from a weapon stand. Beside him stood Giovanni covered entirely in thick leather. He tossed the shaft of a branding iron into a brazier where it rattled next to several others soaking up the heat from red coals. Giovanni turned away from the poor thing whimpering on the rack and drew two swords from scabbards crossed on his back. Salvatore went toward Giovanni and I to Marco.

I spent the next several moments sidestepping downward chops that would have split me if given the opportunity. Instead, a table with surgical instruments caved inward. Marco followed that by cleaving the arm off of a chair mantled in vises. He even managed to knock askew the brazier, clattering the branding rods and scattering the burning coals amongst our feet. Though I didn't see it happen, I'm sure that one of those coals became the source of the fire. The lion swept the axe over my ducking body, the change in tactic nearly successful.

I often wonder how small steps prepare us for great leaps of faith. Had I been less diligent in my martial lessons would I have missed Salvatore's method of snatching advantage in the midst of vulnerability? Whatever the truth, the hours of sweat and bruises brought me the inspiration that guided my hand. From that crouched position, the axe whistling air above me, I reached out and hooked Marco's ankle with the crook. It took amazing agility for his last desperate chop to severe the top half of the crook while he was falling backwards. It was his undoing.

Despite his dark powers, the advantage was mine. I stepped forward, pinning the axe handle underfoot, and drove the splintered staff down into his chest. My vow against shedding blood lay forgotten. In its place the living Word came to mind, sharper than any weapon I could've used. At the time it was a mumble. Now I'll speak it clear. 'Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.'�

Salvatore did not fare as well as me. I'd missed the great majority of his battle. From the bloodletting, evident on both sides, it must have been quite intense. With the remains of my crook still impaled through Marco's heart, I looked around spying the spilt brazier and the nearest rod. That was the source of the burn now crossing my right palm. Despite my haste, I almost didn't reach them soon enough. Giovanni revealed himself as a dreadfully ambidextrous blade master, made even more so by his rage. I saw the rivalry they'd fostered since childhood, the sheer hatred of the one toward the other.

Salvatore could not break those blades no matter how he applied the cross, his brother always avoiding submission to its breaking power. Even before I could get there, Giovanni's whirling blades lopped off another tine from the flopping jester hat. The white paste on Salvatore's face diluted from the seepage of tiny nicks. I wondered how many of those cuts barely avoided Giovanni flaying Salvatore's face open. I know that Salvatore saw me charging from the side, and he renewed his exhausted effort. For a brief moment his attack became so intense that he no longer needed to block with the cross. I pressed the branding rod against the only available gap in Giovanni's armor, the neck. To my surprise I discovered that I'd marked him with the full moon. Uncle Giovanni had a toughness that I might have admired if our family had chosen another legacy. He barely flinched, just enough to lose his life. I reeled away from it, the brand clattering to the floor.

'Man's wrath does not bring the righteous life that God desires,'� said the bloody jester.

When Salvatore collapsed, I realized the severity of his wounds. The chain mail beneath the jester's puffy rainbow shirt contained multiple gashes. There was no time to bind them while the fire grew amongst the wooden torture structures around us. I laid hands on those wounds and prayed the most fervent healing prayer in all the many years of my ministry. Salvatore's injuries remained, but they all stopped bleeding. With the tortured wretch between us, we escaped the final punishment of the Vitalio curse.

-End-

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