Gears of Aspiration Ch3 Original Version

Chapter 3

    Luigi Bassi sat in his dressing room after his latest performance of Don Giovanni. He nervously looked about the room. He knew he'd hear the strange nearly unintelligible voice again tonight. He didn't know how he knew, but ever since the final curtain drop a sense of growing anxiety began to fill him with impending dread. As it turned out, he wouldn't have long to wait.

    "Hello again Luigi," the voice said. It seemed as if the voice was coming from a mere six feet away.

    "Who are you?" Luigi asked, his voice trembling.

    "My name? I am Lucius Flavius, young Bassi," the voice answered.

    "Lucius Flavius?" Bassi repeated. "Sounds ancient Roman."

    "Perhaps it is, Luigi," Lucius replied.

    "What do you want from me?" Luigi asked.

    "Just to be near you," he responded.

    "Ok," Luigi said uncertainly as he looked down at his shoes.

    Lucius laughed uproariously then making Luigi cower in fear.

    "You have nothing to fear from me," he told the young baritone.

    "Why can't I see you?" Luigi asked, now shaking visibly.

    "Would you like to see me?" Lucius asked him. "You'd better be sure."

    "Yes, I would," he replied. "It would make this much easier for me."

    "Would it now?" Lucius queried before laughter overtook him again.

    To Bassi, it seemed the whole room shook as Lucius laughed.

    "Yes, it would," he replied.

    "Brace yourself, then," Lucius said.

    Luigi Bassi sat back in his chair then, hands on his knees in an attempt to calm their shaking. He looked toward the voice as a figure slowly began to materialize before him. First he saw a pair of sandled feet appear. They were scabbed and oozing a clear viscous liquid. Next he saw the tattered hem of what once may have been a white toga, now brown, torn and absolutely filthy.

    He began to see the rest of the toga, which turned out to look more like a medieval monks robes than an actual toga. He saw scabrous arms appear next, just as foul and filthy as the sandled feet were, and Bassi began to shake violently. Frightened as he was, Luigi could not look away. By the time Lucius' head became visible, Luigi's own head began to swim. The last thing Bassi noticed before passing out was the terrible laughter emanating from a cadaverous face with patches of rotting skin missing in places, particularly around the nose and mouth.

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    "Take heed, for I have seen hell," Edward warned them as they gathered around his sick bed. He sat cross legged in the center of the mattress, his hands busy as if he were brushing invisible specs of dust from his ankles, knees and elbows.

    "Hell is not a lake of fire filled with naught but physical pain," he continued. "Hell is, when you are at your weakest, seeing the choices you should have made."

    "No, it is more than that," Edward said as he grabbed his ankles and began to rock slowly in place. "It is seeing the choices you should have made and knowing what it was you chose to do instead."

    Elizabeth, her brother Tony, her sons Thomas and Richard Grey, Bill Hastings, Henry Stafford, and others gathered around their king. They looked down upon him as his mind slowly unraveled. He began to cry then, still rocking back and forth grasping at his ankles. It seemed to Edward that the entirety of his conscience had condensed from the size of his realm to a small area in the center of his brain in an instant. And, the weight of it was crushing.

    He was able to see and hear each of them easily enough. He was capable of understanding what they were saying to him as well as respond in kind. Edward was able to communicate his wishes to them, but all of his attention was focused on his state of mind. It was almost as if he were standing beside the bed with them, looking down at himself as his mind fell apart. He could see himself acting in this horrible manner, but was powerless to do anything about it. When Edward looked at them, everyone seemed as if they stood on the opposite side of some sense disorienting barrier. His vision was slightly skewed and everything looked odd to him. As if everything was just a little off.

    "I'll have no more of this petty squabbling," Edward admonished them all. "All of you have been at each others throats ever since I began to loose my mind, and I'll have no more of it!" he ordered them. 

    "Promise me, each of you, that you will love each other and turn not your hatreds upon each other." he demanded of them. "Do not let your petty slights, neither real nor imagined, deter you from this path of peace I now set you each upon."

    The heavy mahogany double doors swung open admitting Richard Duke.

    "Good day to you, Brother," Richard said as he arrived late upon the scene. "To you and our sovereign queen.

    "We have done deeds of charity this day Richard," Edward said through his tears. "We have made amity from enmity. Love from hate."

    "An honorable task, Brother" Richard said. "If anyone here, either by false intelligence or wrongful judgment, hold me as anything other than friend; If I, in my rage or unwittingly, have slighted any of you, know that I am committed to reconcile myself unto you."

    "I wish that all grievous strifes were so quickly forgot," Elizabeth said. "I ask you, Sovereign King, to take your brother George to your good graces."

    "Why have I sworn my love for this?" Richard asked. "So that it may be ridiculed in your royal presence? Who here does not know that poor George is dead?"

    The entire room started at the news. Edward came back to himself at that moment. He ceased his incessant rocking and looked up at his brother with eyes that looked more like those of a scorned pup.

    "You do him wrong to scorn his ashes," Richard continued.

    "Who knows not that George is dead?" the king asked. "Who knows that he is?"

    "What a world this is!" bemoaned the queen.

    "Is George dead?" the king demanded. "But I reversed the order!"

    "But George, by your first order was killed," Richard lied. "Charon does bear him across the river Styx even now. That is if poor George, from his cell, could afford to pay Charon his fair."

      "Sorrow fills my soul!" Edward wailed in mental anguish. "Have I the ability to doom mine own brother to death even as I pardon a slave? George was gentle and would kill no man. Thought only was his crime. Yet my judgement was for bitter death."

    "Which of you beseeched me for peace? Who, in the full force of my wrath, did kneel to me on his behalf? Who spoke of brotherhood? Of love?" Edward demanded.

    "Fate this day has cursed us all! Leave me now, all of you! Out!" Edward demanded pointing at the door.

    They all left their king then. The queen and her allies went into the meeting room outside the kings chambers and gathered to the right. Richard and his allies gathered on the left.

    "This is the harvest of haste," Richard said to those assembled with him. "Did you not notice how the queen and her guilty kindred looked pale when Edward was first told of poor George's fate? Fate itself will avenge him upon them. Come, will you go with me to comfort the king with our company?"

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    Monolake's Ghosts played loudly as clubbers on the dance floor gyrated to the songs rhythmic beat. Club Valois was packed yet again with the usual party goers. The whole place was dark except for the colored lights used for ambiance. Fog rolled about their knees as a spectacular light show of multicolored spotlights and strobes flashed down from the ceiling. Heavy clouds of smoke drifted just overhead as dancers shared blunts, marijuana joints rolled in tobacco, with each other. Still others were using extacy or any variation of different poppers to get into the groove.

      Among this throng of humanity, Angelica Pierce and her two German friends set about their business for the night. They had come to gather information about the clubs manager, Dante Salazar. The file she received from William Brandon had the vampires personal habits as well as his schedules and other bits of useful information. But, Angelica needed something more. She needed insight into his personal preferences. When did he like to feed, and upon whom? Did he prefer men or women? Did he feed from both? Where did he like to feed? These were questions they were going to have to answer if she were to take Mr. Salazar out easily.

    She had seen Dante several times over the course of the night. First he was spotted behind the bar giving instructions to the human bartenders on duty that night. Later he was seen milling about the dance floor. Later still Mr. Salazar was seen ducking into a doorway nestled behind the bar. But, try as she might, Angelica could garner no information about the elusive vampire.

    "This won't be easy," she told Victor as the night wore on. It was 1:15 am. already. Dallas ordinances stated that all clubs selling alcohol must close at 2:00. She had forty five minutes left and they had learned nothing they didn't already know. Unlike Sebastian Cole, Dante Salazar was smart and tight lipped. No one at the club could tell her anything about her prey.

    Even the dossier she had been provided was of little help to her. According to the file Dante was almost never seen outside of Club Valois. There were reports of a couple of sightings outside of the Belo mansion on Swiss Avenue, but that didn't help her much at all. If she were going to find out anything, she was going to have to speak with her prey personally, something she was loath to do without some sort of advantage over Mr. Salazar. At the moment she had nothing but her two German companions a silver tipped wooden steak and a revolver with six phosphorus rounds, both stowed in purse.

    "We'll have to come again tomorrow night," she told Karl as they made their way to the door then outside the the parking lot.

    "I have just finished a new toy that may work well in this situation," Karl told her as they reached the spot where her black Camaro was parked.

    "It is a type of ultraviolet hand grenade. Once triggered it emits a blinding flash of uv light perfectly harmless to humans," Karl continued.

    "But absolutely deadly to any vampire within the lights radius," Angelica added. "Why am I just now hearing about this? We could have used it tonight, Karl."

    "Because I have been unable to test it as of yet," Karl told her. "We never use anything unless we are 100% sure that it will work. Was that not one of the first things we taught you back in Berlin?"

    "It was," she agreed. "Well, you have all day tomorrow to test it. Tomorrow night will be Dante Salazar's last."

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