A Bitter Aftertaste by Kadira Kerkhoff ? Up to now my life was quite, yes almost peaceful. It was possible to repress the past, to live in the present, to enjoy the today. But with your showing up yesterday night all this changed, all my carefully build up walls are in danger of falling apart like a house of cards. And I am afraid of it. I can not allow the pain to resurface. It is enough to endure, when they hunt me during my day sleep, but I couldn't bear to deal with them also while I am awake. This is also the reason that you only will find this letter tomorrow, because despite your request and my promise to fulfill it I cannot do it, I cannot dredge up this painful past in front of you. ? Your unexpected turn up yesterday took me not only by surprise, but straight back to moments, which I would prefer to see buried for good. But unmercifully they urged themselves into my mind, pressing all my other thoughts away. Immediately I recognized your self-confident and powerful appearance, as you leaned against the door of my little english cottage, my sanctuary. Your hair mussed up by the strong and wild British coast wind, arms crossed in front of your chest, while you studied me with a gaze who revealed nothing about your intention. It was like a journey back into Venice over 500 years ago, where we met on the Rialto bridge. You looked at me with the same blank eyes, as I tried to bring you back to your senses, as I tried to warn you about the threatening danger for your life, from my own coven, as I tried unsuccessfully to prevent the terrible events. ? To this time you didn't believe me, till it was too late, till nothing could help anymore, till not even I could prevent what has happened. ? But would you believe me now? You said you wished to clear things up with me, to come to terms with me, that you would like to understand me. But it is really me, with whom you want to come to terms, or is it that you want to see me breaking down, my own downfall, when I dredged up this, when I open myself to you? Maybe I would do it, if I could be sure, that you really mean what you say. But should it be the other way, I cannot do it, even if I could understand this also ... because it would kill me in more than one way. Why must you shown up here? Why now after all the time? Why couldn't you let the past let be past and continue like we have done it all the time ... living side by side in a pretending peace? You want to know why I have betrayed you so long ago, why I have turned my back to your offered companion, and attacked you in the end. You want to know why I took Amadeo as my pupil, why I made him to what he is now. But this isn't everything, right? You want also to know why I disappeared in the world after the damage was done. And why I helped Pandora and finally you after we thought that Armand was dead. And I will write all this down for you here. I think this I owe you, before I finally will vanish once more in the wild world, before I run away once more from these memories trying to forget. To allow this long repressed horror to surface again, and to try to find the right words for this painful, but very vivid images in my mind, is far more difficult than I have thought before. So please forgive me, Marius, if I may sound confusing ... but it's the first time, that I will open myself to anyone. And I don't do it to friends, which certainly would be much easier, if not less painful ... but I do it too for you, a man who should and certainly does despise me with all what he has. With this I will neither ask for your pity, nor for your forgiveness. I know that I will never get it. For this too much has happened between us. But maybe I can simply use this possibility to tell my point of view, to try to explain you, why I couldn't act different ... and this without getting judged before I can finish. But for now it should be enough of this nice and easy opening. Now I will start to bring on paper the horror and pain which overran both of us so long ago. I am sure you remember also our very first meeting in Geneva, only a short time before you moved to Italy, the mainplace of our drama. I was only a young vampire, who had not even reached his first century, but I was already caught in the clutches of the Children of Darkness. Living in the second wave of the plague, I have lost everything which was precious and loved by me. Bitter and tiered of life I was the perfect victim for a hungry vampire. Till now I cannot say why I survived not only his attack, but also got the dark gift. To the time as I regained my consciousness again, after this brutal and surprising attack, I was left alone. The one who took my life and gave me an other one has vanished without further words or instructions. I am not sure, how I could have survived this strange and frightening existence in the first days. An unknown and terrible hunger was burning in me, but it was not possible to satisfy by eating. As the first light of the day caused me an unimaginable pain, I sought -out of instinct- shelter in one of the now empty plague houses, where I hide myself for the next few nights and days in a dirty and uncomfortable cellar. I was terribly scared by what has happened to me, and even the world around me of course was still the same, everything seemed so different with my new senses. I was sure, that I was befallen by a curse, or worse possessed by some evil. I know, this must sound ridiculous in your ears, but for someone who has neither heard, nor been in touch with creatures like us, it can be a very terrifying experience. As I could finally not longer endure the gnawing hunger for blood in me, I left my refuge to kill the first man who crossed my path. Of course no one told me before, that it would be healthier to stop feeding, while the heart is still beating, and so I continued long after my victim was dead, until a terrible sickness came over me. I would certainly have died by this, if not for an other vampire, who pulled me up and took me with him. As I found out only a short time later, my savior was a member of the Children of Darkness. And with this my way was determined in advance. Finally I heard what I was, I was brainwashed and taught in the way of this religion, but much more important for me was, that I was not longer alone. After some months I was already so firm in my belief, that I was sent out into the world to convert other vampires to our coven, or if this should prove impossible to destroy them. In Geneva, which to this time was an already important city, but compared with today only a little town, my mission should start. But before I could receive any success I stumbled into you, the legendary Marius, who was supposed to guard TWMBK. Of course we have heard before about the real ancient ones, who are said to be really powerful and almost invulnerable, but till I met you, this was only a legend, nothing real. Once more I should find out in the hard way, that some legends can indeed be true, as you threw me down, and nearly drained me to the point of dead. But then you stopped and till now I ask myself why. Was it a vagaries of fortune, which would not allow to let me die for the third time? What made you stop? But you never answered my question about this, and after a time I didn't bother to asked you about this, too afraid I was, that you could change your opinion and finish what you have started. Even to this time I loved my life too much, as I could throw it away, and this has not changed till today. Despite all the horror for which I am responsible, and which I've been through I cling at my life ... but if I wouldn't be so scared of the final end, I would have finished it five centuries ago. Instead of killing me, you took me with you, till I regained my power again, till we could talk. And this we did, even if it was not a comfortable talk for me. I was still afraid of you and your power, which you once demonstrated to me by your surprising attack. But in the other way I was also fascinated and captured by your powerful charisma and your kindness, which was there, even after you must have read in my blood what I was. But only once you asked me about the Children of Darkness, you wanted to know what we did and what our plans were. After I told you what I knew, which was not much to this time, you offered me a way out of this, you offered me not only your friendship, but also your company, which I throw away in my foolish belief. Even today I can see your unbelieving and somehow sad look at me, as I did so. You could not understand, why I choose a coven full with crackpots for your offering. But the Children of Darkness were my life at this time, they have had there for me, as I was nearly dying, they cared for me and gave my life a new meaning, after I was left alone and desperate in my ignorance of this existence. No, I will not hope, that you can understand it now, if not even I can understand my past reaction ... but please, believe me in one point. If I would have known, what would have came over me, what horror I would cause in the name of this religion, I wouldn't have thought twice and taken your offer. But so I turned my back to it, and left you. Even today I have your last words in my ear, as if you had just spoken them yesterday evening and again it feel shivers through my body to remember them. In a soft, and nearly inaudible voice, you told me:" Then I only hope that we will never meet again, Santino. Because the next time I will have to kill you." After I left you in this night, I turned immediately back to Florence, where the main center of our coven was before it moved to Rome. After plagued with questions, because of my obvious distress, I told my coven master what has happened. Finishing my tale, he only looked at me for a long time, before he finally answered," You have made a good choice, Santino. you belong to us. Here is your home. And you will make your way here." And so, because of my seemingly loyalty to the Children of Darkness, my ascent in the coven begun. Later I should find out, that my rapid ascent within the Children of Darkness was not because of my showed loyalty how I thought first, even this may have been one reason too, but that it was in the main point to use me as a showpiece object, to demonstrate a successful experiment. I was supposed to be a piece in a game, from which I didn't even know, whether it existed, nor that I've become a part of it. A game which is certainly as old as since you can find living creatures on this earth, a game about power. My former coven master used me, to silence these ones, who were against the integration, the re-education of "outsiders", of vampires not born under the coven's rules#, like I was one. I was the perfect example for my coven master to prove these rebels, that even converts could be loyal and trustful, if they receive the right teaching, the right education ... or how I would call it now - a good brainwash. But to this time, I didn't recognize this, and to be honest, I wouldn't have cared much about this either ... certainly because I was too naive and too easy-minded to sway to recognize such a doing, but also because of the gladness that I had found a place to which I could belong, where I could stay together with others like me. Only a few months after my return to Florence my coven master took me aside, after one of our unholy messes, to initiate me, that I was chosen to became in the nearest future a coven leader on my own. And with this the next level of my studies begun. I am sure you have read Amadeos' book, and also about the teaching methods. So that it shouldn't be necessary to write it down here again, because nothing of this has really changed in this time. Like I taught Armand so much later, I learned not only the rituals and the laws, but also how to became a master in mind reading and controlling, how to mask my own feelings, how to lead a coven and much more. Even today I cannot say why I swallowed and believed blindly all of this ridiculous and twisted logic, which I was taught. I really don't know, why I didn't look behind the system, why I never bothered to ask questions. Maybe I didn't do it, because I got offered something, which I have lost as a mortal, as my life broke apart by the plague ... ... a new meaning of life.Because if maybe nothing else, but this I have found by the Children of Darkness, even it may have been a ridiculous new meaning ... but I found something, which made my life, and me important and useful again. But certainly it was also because out of my scare, that I would be left alone again, if I would ask too many questions, or would express any doubts. And after I had finished my studies, after I was ready to take my position as the new coven master in Rome it was too late for me. All my thinking was fixed of the welfare and preservation of the coven and the way of our belief, till I met you again, till I was urged by my fellow coven members to give the order to attack you. But my awakening came far too late, how we both know. Please Marius, don't understand me wrong. I don't write this down in the attempt to excuse what I have done to you, because I know that this is and will never be pardonable. But maybe you can try to see it as what it should be. An explanation, why I couldn't act differently, why I couldn't turn my back to the Children of Darkness, why I couldn't do more to prevent the horror. But despite all the attention which I got, during and because of my studies, by the other coven members and specially by the coven master, I couldn't ever forget our first meeting. And more than once I asked myself, if I have made the right choice when I rejected your offer, when I chose the Children of Darkness over you. But whenever I lost myself in this dark and senseless brooding, I could be sure that our coven master was not far away, to bring my mind back to the important things, to forget about you, and about what has taken place. As the upcoming new coven master and as a normally eager student I have become far too important for them, as if they could take the risk of losing me by thinking too much about the "what if". Seldom it was allowed for me to be really alone, so much they were scared, that my thoughts could let me change my mind, and let me choose independence and freedom before my destiny as a coven master. But to this time it was already too late for this possibility. Whatever could have been between us was broken before it got any chance to start and without I could ever have known it to this time. Your contempt and your hate against me was already born and has taken the place of the kindness, with which you not only have spared my life in Geneva, but also welcomed me in your life. As I rejected your offer, and went back to Florence, I have not only turned my back to you, but also betrayed you for the first time, how I should find out later. Have you ever noticed , how easily long passed and dark memories can repress the happy ones, if they only get a chance to surface again? Since your turning up here tonight, as you confronted me with the horror of our shared past, all my thoughts revolved around only this. There is no escape from these vivid images, and the painful feelings, it doesn't matter how much I would like to see them buried again in the depths of my subconscious. But you have shattered my carefully built up wall in just a few moments, and now they have found not only a way to surface again, but also to become firmly fixed in my mind. And I am not sure, if I should be grateful for it, or not. It is painful to grapple with the upwelling remembrance of this events, but maybe the time for it has come, maybe I should have done it long before tonight ... When I close my eyes, I cannot only see the rough stone walls of my cell, but I also can smell the scent of the nearly burnt down pyre, the remnant of our last Sabbat, which ran through the normally musty air of our coven building, as our coven master entered my sanctuary, where I tried to find some peace alone. With an self-satisfying smile, he explained me, that - thanks to my information -, he could finally send some of his most loyal inferiors after you, to not only get hands on TWMBK, but also to destroy you. "You see, Santino, there is no way out. Either you are part of us and make your way within the coven, or you are against us, and you will be destroyed. Like your friend Marius. " Still in a kind of shock, by what he just told me, I only could stare at him, as he continued. "But you know this already, don't you? And I am sure, you will use your potential and what I've taught you and choose the right path, won't you?" he ended with a rhetorical menacing question, before he turned around and left me, taken aback, behind him. Staring into the space, the meaning of what I had heard sunk slowly into my mind. ... sent someone to destroy you, thanks to my information ... in my ignorance I've betrayed Marius, and maybe also caused his death ... The realization of the result of my betrayal in ignorance set free an incredible guilt, which pressed down of my mind. If I wouldn't have been taught so properly, never to show any feelings, I would certainly have broken out in tears. Partly for what I'd done to you, but to the other part also for me. In a few moments all my hopes, of ever having another life, of ever taking my back to the Children of Darkness and turn to your offer were destroyed, blown away like a leaf in a stormy wind. Because in this moment I realized, that even if you should survived this attack, you would hate me for what I had done to you. And you did, as I found out later in Venice, when I tried as much as I could do, without to compromise my position as the coven leader of Rome, or without to endanger my own life, to prevent the horrible event in Venice. But for now let me stay a bit longer in Florence. As we all know, you survived this attack in Geneva and moved to Venice, where you thought yourself safe, after you had killed everyone except one of your attackers, who managed to escape your revenge. As the survivor came back to our coven, more dead than alive, the failure of his mission obviously perceptible, and afraid of what the punishment for this might be, I only smiled by the certainty that you had not only survived this attack, but also that you had once more managed to vanish into the world of legends - out of the reach of my coven, and so also out of the danger zone. To this time I had not thought of seeing you ever again. You were past, a short glimmer of hope, about what I could have done with my life, if I wouldn't have chosen the Children of Darkness? about you, which was absorbed by the darkness around me. How could I have known, that our paths would cross again, only some years later and under a different situation? How could I have known, that then I would be the most dangerous threat to your life? For the next months nothing remarkable happened. I buried myself into my studies and was so fast ready to follow my destiny, to became a coven master. At first it was planned, that I should go to Germany, where I should succeed the old coven master in Duesseldorf, who had gone into the flames. But then everything changed. One of the unknown ancient vampires had found the refuge of my coven, and attacked us during one of our ritual Sabbats. He set us onto fire. I don't know how many of my fellow brothers died in this night a terrible death, I only know that I and a few other members of the Children of Darkness, under them my former coven master and Allessandra, who already was a member of our coven, could escape this inferno somehow, more or less unhurt. But with this event my life changed rapidly. It was no longer safe for us to stay in Florence, and so the main center of the Children of Darkness moved to the famous and glorious city of Rome, were we slowly and under great caution built up our coven again. New vampires were made and others converted, like I was so long ago. The hunt of the so-called blasphemers reached a new level after nearly our whole coven was destroyed in one night. My coven master didn't try anymore to convert them, he was too afraid that they would betray us even then, and so we were supposed to kill, to destroy them, to make sure that they couldn't be anymore a threat to us. But because of all what has happened he became mad. After a time he no longer bothered with the ancient ones, but also sensed a threat of everyone who surrounded him. I guess today you would say, he was a paranoid. Wherever he went, wherever he looked, he saw a traitor, who would endanger not only his position, but also our coven and our beliefs. After a time he was not longer tolerable as a leader for us and it was necessary to kill him, before he could become a real danger to us. And as his latest student, the other coven members demanded now that I should do it, that it was on me, to put everything again in order. And I did it for the sake of our coven ... for the first time in my life as a vampire I killed one of my own kind, and not a simple and weak fledging, but a powerful coven master. What I had done was fast around within our coven, and one day the leaders of the Children of Darkness from all around, the to this time known, world met together, to decide what to do now. Of course they had heard long before my action, the rumors about the insidious madness of our now dead coven master, and so no one blamed me for his death, I had done my duty as a loyal coven member, how they called it. But their trust in me was only limited, as I found out later. As my stand as the latest student of our coven master, who held the implicit trust of my fellow brothers and the almost new coven master of the Children of Darkness in Germany I was chosen to take his place, to became the leader of the new main coven center in Rome. But after I made my vows, like I let them make Amadeo so much later, they put another vampire at my side, an assistant and a helper, as I was told. Of course Michelle, a vampire from France, helped me, with my duties to get the chaos in order again and to maintain this discipline, but soon she showed also her true face as a fanatical believer. I couldn't do anything without being observed. Nothing which I did was possible to hide in front of her. I may have been the chosen coven master of Rome, but she was the one who gave the orders, who urged me to act, when she thought that it was necessary. And without hesitation, she made it clear to me, that she was sent by the other leaders of the Children of Darkness, who didn't trust me completely, and that she would kill me, if showed, that I would endanger our system. And for a long time I accepted her secret leadership, without even trying to do anything against it. Until it came to you, to Amadeo and the horrible events in Venice. -TBC-
