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“Mad…” Will tried to talk, but Maddox was not interested in hearing him. Will’s impulsiveness was not resolving in the slightest. His temper always overrode his common sense. Mad had hoped that in due course Will would become less hotheaded, but if anything, his boy was escalating. It was the wolf side, it kept rearing its feral head at the worst times. A good stint in the wilds with pack master Henry was just what Will needed.
“Gideon is upstairs, I presume.”
“Yes,” Ray said. “And I assume the cage in your bedroom is where this goes?”
“It is as good as anywhere.”
“MAD!”
Will shouted after him. Maddox didn’t have time to deal with him in the moment. Gideon was the bigger problem.
Come to me, my progeny.
He heard Gideon in his mind, rich words lilting their way through his consciousness. He was being summoned. A firm pull at the very core of him demanded he ascend. He resisted for a moment.
Maddox was, well, nervous. Ever since he'd heard the name Gideon in Lorien’s panicked tone there had been a lump in the pit of his stomach. The imminent prospect of being in his maker’s presence again was chilling. He found himself hesitating at the task of climbing the stairs, while knowing he had no choice.
He’d not felt this way for seventy-seven years. Barely the blink of an eye, really, but long enough for him to forget what it felt like to fear again. New York had become his private kingdom, whether he was king or not. He had been the most powerful creature in the city. He had allowed himself to fall into the tempting illusion of dominance and sovereignty. He could have kept himself in check, but it was easier, and often preferential to forget where he had come from.
Mad found his own hesitancy humbling. Perhaps more than humbling. Maybe even completely embarrassing. Gideon was up those stairs, waiting for him, very aware of his presence and the turmoil in what remained of his soul. Gideon knew his hesitation, and his fear, for nothing could be hidden from his maker. The longer he dallied, the more amused and perhaps furious Gideon would be.
The room at the top of the house was not usually used for anything or anybody. It was a place of emptiness, and he liked it that way. But now it was occupied, and he could feel the fullness of it. Gideon’s power was quite different than that of the usual vampire. His presence had an aura. That aura was not contained to his immediate area but emanated through wood and stone out onto the street where it passed from person to person.
Maddox had felt the inklings of Gideon from the moment he stepped off the plane. He tainted the city’s air. The humans would feel it too. It was no doubt already putting them on edge, tipping them from peace to violence. He was certain Candy would report increased unrest the next time they met. Gideon was more than a monster. He was a whole mood. The kind of mood that set men to the act of killing as easily as breathing.
Every reluctant step brought Maddox a little closer to his source, to the unholy madness that occupied his home and his soul. He felt his inner self begin to surge, old impulses rising, dark needs, demonic desires. He thought briefly of Will and was swiftly horrified at his gut impulse. It was dark and brutal, and not at all loving. If he were to fall under Gideon’s sway, Will might not be safe with him.
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.
