She was a fragile thing, like most of those the youths chose for him: wrists he could ring his own small fingers around, skin almost transparent. He'd watched that pale membrane drain of what little color it had, holding her for her last corporeal moments. Watched the long lashes beat a butterfly tattoo on her cheeks, the childlike lips quiver in a final supplication. He let her flaccid form droop to the ground, noticing with vague regret the rent in the smooth, dark fabric of her robe. Restless, almost angry, he'd taken her with perhaps more violence than he should have. Not that it mattered to the dark circle around him: the patterns of the dance continued, the shrieks and wails somehow both repulsing and drawing him.
He ran his fingers through the woman's hair in what he hoped her spirit would recognize as apology, then sadly stood to allow the black robed youths to bear her away. She would be laid to rest as a goddess, this he knew, but the fact remained that she had died in his name. It disturbed him deeply, added to the already unbearable ache that swelled in what he liked to imagine was his soul.
Tears of blood formed unbidden in his eyes, and he dashed them away, knowing what the response from those who whirled about him would be. The movement caught them, and they began their chant again.
Child God. Bringer of life through death. Holy-blooded Child. Our Child. Ours. He who suffers, that we may be reborn. Child God. Our beautiful Child God.
Shrieking, he ran at the circle, hoping to break it somehow, to escape the enforced adulation that he despised so much. "Do you enjoy this?" he screamed at them, at himself, at that which could not be seen. "DO YOU ENJOY THIS?"
He crumbled then, falling to his knees in a gesture so utterly human that the dance almost stopped. Hesitation showed on their hooded faces, hope faltered in their burning eyes.
Curling into a ball, he began to sob. "Do you think I do?" he whispered, dark blood leaving trails on his colorless cheeks. "Do any of you truly believe that this is somehow for my good?" His shoulders tensed, and with dreadfully controlled hatred, he spoke again.
"Leave me."
The wild energy left the robed figures, leaving in its place confusion, tinged with fear. A few slowly began to turn towards the gate to the huge stone room, some writhing, trying to regain the comforting rhythym of the dance. The rest simply stood, waiting, seeming to him to be accusing him of some horrible deed. "LEAVE ME!" he shrieked, throwing his limbs outward again and again until he felt they should rip themselves from their sockets. Silently, the black-clad youths nodded and crept from the chamber, pausing only to offer their wrists to a statue: a young boy, obsidian fangs gleaming, knelt almost in an attitude of prayer, a dagger clasped in his smooth black hands.
Finally alone in the chamber, Phibrizzo began to weep softly once more. He withered into himself, his long hair matting in the small pool of blood his tears were forming. "Sick bastards," he mumbled, and fell into a fitful sleep.