Miserere
After a fast and furious opening game, I was almost too wiped out to write this. But I managed. Just.--Maer
From Irina DiSanti’s journal
Monday, 01 Aug 2011
Devereaux-Shields House B&B
Natchez, MS
0415hrs, local time
Miserere mei, Deus ...
I got back to my room at the B&B and locked every window and door up tight. Not that wood and glass would stop a vampire bent on ripping my head off, no. But what the hell am I going to do? I saw a man tie a SIG Sauer into a knot. I saw the same man command two different people to drink his blood. One of those people was my own employer, Marcus Stone, and not two minutes later I was ordered to drink from Marcus’s wrist as a way to bind me to him … as some sort of initiation or oath of secrecy. And to put the cherry on that fucked up sundae, I actually did it.
It was that or die.
This wasn’t a basement full of Russian Mafiya thugs. The worst they could do to me was kill me. They were only human, after all. The people in the room tonight were not human. They were vampires. Honest to God vampires and I had a damned good idea what they’d do to me if I refused to comply. No matter what, I wasn’t going to lie down and die. I didn’t do it for the Russians. I wasn’t going to do it for these bloodsucking bastards, either. Even though it would have been all kinds of convenient for them if I’d had.
And yet—they have a code, some kind of ethics, even so. After all, I’d been given a choice. Submit or die. And when it comes from a party that could rip my head off as easy as plucking daisy petals, it’s not a choice to dismiss out of hand.
That was roughly nine in the evening. It’s now four-fifteen in the morning and in the time between, I’ve seen a spirit possess a charlatan and a friend, have seen a vampire hunter die in the blink of an eye, ran as a house was torched in a blatant act of arson, and rescued three children only to have them die. In a few short hours just about every principle I have has been bent or broken. I’ve been complicit in a list of offenses as long as my arm—B&E, evidence tampering, vandalism, conspiracy to commit murder, arson and kidnapping.
As a cop I would never have countenanced these things. As a ghoul of Marcus Stone’s, I had to. And that wasn’t the end of it. Tomorrow, the house fire will be all over the news and Sheriff Mayfield’s desk. It would not be long before the Sheriff would ask me what I’d discovered about the Franklin Agency and Marcus Stone and Ray Walker. What the Russians started three years ago in that icy New York basement, I’ve finished tonight in the steamy air of Natchez. I’m going to hell.
The only question is how quietly I’d go.
For those who might be interested in the Latin reference, go here.
For those who would like to read it in Latin, go here.
For those who want to hear it in Latin, go here.
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