Author's Note: For my Without You readers -- I'm sorry, okay! I know I'm supposed to be finishing that story, but some things just come on me in a wave of inspiration. This was one of those things. I intend to make WY my priority, of course, and I'm so close to finishing it's insane. So I'll have that up shortly, I promise. ;)
This is my next project, for everybody's info. And I admit; I'm hyped. I think you will be too, if you're Carlisle fans. ;) But, I must warn you, I will NOT be updating this story as frequently as I've updated WY. *famous last words* I just want to prepare you guys, in case my updates come very far apart. Guess you'll just have to put me on your alert lists!
Enjoy, please leave feedback! I live off feedback as a vampire lives off...well...we all know what THAT is...
Song (yes, I have a song):
Tourniquet -- Evanescence
This is actually kind of THE song for this whole project. So, keep it in your minds as you read
1. A Priori
"Angele Dei,
qui custos es mei,
me, tibi commissum pietate superna,
illumina, custodi,
rege et gubérna.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." I finished crossing myself and glanced over at the doors leading to the vestry, where my father waited. Father scalded me with words for using Catholic prayers--and in Latin, which was God's language--when he was an Anglican priest. I could not resist the beauty of the Catholic rites, however. Latin held such sway over me, I spoke it whenever I could. Father told me only the priests and higher powers of the chuch were at liberty to speak it, but I used it , under my breath, out of his hearing.
Behind the vestry doors, my father awaited me, to give me my final instructions before I met with the others for our hunt.
Desite my best efforts, I couldn't stop my hands from shaking as I strung my crucifix firmly around my throat, crossed myself once more, kissed the altar, and knelt, offering one last earnest prayer. "Oh, Lord, thou art my shelter and my protector. Thou art my Shepherd and strength. Keep me in thy care, Lord," I whispered, scrambling in my head to remember the last sin I had committed. Had I confessed and been forgiven? I couldn't recall. "Lord, pardon me now for any sin I have executed against thee and thy holy covenants. Please, I beg of thee, guard me this night."
"Carlisle!" My father opened one of the vestry doors, his lined face lit by the candles near the doorway. "The night wears on!"
Our modest church had all the accoutrements of the larger London establishments, complete with a tower and a vestry. The soaring rafters and their accompanying wooden arches made me bow my head again as the feeling of insignificance swept over me. Slowly, I stood, clutching the cross dangling from the beaded string at my neck. "I come, Father," I said, screwing up my courage. I had prepared for this night for countless weeks, my careful observations and inquiries culminating in this hunt.
Now that the act was upon me, I was terrified. My father had taught me, over and over in my younger years, that it was God's work to seek out the children of Satan, and to punish them with death. For those we sought tonight, this demise would be their second death. I knew what must be done: find the coven, trap the members, destroy them with fire. And I knew how I would do it, for I had planned it for too many days. I'd had too long to contemplate this hunt, and now I was afraid to face the creatures we would pursue. Why had I been so diligent?
Because I could not disappoint my father, I reminded myself. Above all things, I cherished my father's approval. If the only way to win my father's love was through this act of violence, so be it. For a word of praise from him, I would have committed murder.
And yet, as I pushed open the vestry doors, my eyes turned back to the painted icon hanging over our altar. Who should I wish to please more? My earthly father, or my heavenly one? I shook aside the thought; of course my father was doing God's will. By obeying Father, a minister of the church, I obeyed Christ.
"You waste time," my father said, the ever-present frown he reserved especially for me on his face as soon as I walked into the vestry. "For half of the hour I've waited for you to finish your prayers."
"I had much to give to God, today," I answered, my eyes on the floor. The last thing I wanted was to argue with my father, when I was embarking on such a dangerous hunt.
"To which I have no complaint, son. But there is work to be done. You must not keep your hunters waiting."
"No, I musn't." I looked up, reading the tight expression on my father's face. "We shall return here at dawn, Father, to give you word of our findings."
"As I expected, of course."
"Of course." I looked down, striving in vain to swallow my fear. My father had never been hesitant to hunt the night creatures. I could not fathom my own reluctance. Was I the son of an advocate of God's judgment, or not?
"Here are your tools." A long, wicked-looking stake was shoved into my hand, along with a hammer, flint, and tinder. I started to protest, for I had learned in my obsvervation that stakes did nothing against our foes, but my father interrupted me.
"No matter what you may think, these weapons have been our companions in this war with evil for longer than you have lived. Take them, or be slaughtered by the fiends you chase."
I accepted them in dumb resignation. Nothing I ever said made any difference to my father. At first, when I had informed him of my discovery of the small coven lurking beneath our sliver of the town, he had questioned my sanity. Then, when I'd been foolish enough to tell him of my witness of their strength and hunger, he had me consecrated with holy water, worried that I might be possessed by a demon, to talk such nonsense.
"You did read the volume I gave you, on fighting this pestilence?"
"Yes, Father." I had read it, and had been astonished to find the book was useless. None of its notations had any relevance to the creatures I had been watching. That was what made me all the more anxious-- aside from my own eyes, I had no knowledge of the things I was hunting.
"Well." My father waved me away with his scholarly hands. "Be off, Carlisle. You must begin before midnight, or the monsters will be hidden in their holes." I knew better, for I had spent many nights on watch, and the devils only emerged after the clocks struck twelve.
Was I to have no farewell, then? I had known it would be so, but my father's briskness still cut at me. I went to the door, tucking the instruments under one arm, my hand on the fine brass handle. "Goodbye, Father," I said, praying for a response. None came, for doubtless my father was staring impatiently at me, waiting for me to depart. Ever since my father had been too aged to continue his work against Satan, he had been counting the days till I could fulfill my duty as son and take up his cause.
I had been eager, too, prying into the places no one else had gone, ceaseless in my attempts to satisfy Father. For three years I had gathered all the information I could on the things my father hated: witches, mediums, and their ilk, and darker things, more sinister things. I had already scoured our part of London of sorcery, sounding out true witches, one who were setting curses on those that treated them ill. My father had given me several pleased glances for that victory, but a week later, he had demanded I return to my hunts.
Now, I would give him a hunt worthy of our faith. For this hunt, perhaps my father would be canonized