The House of Sheol

[Vadriel]

September 5th, 2014

He’d slept.

It was a rule broken, really, but never one he seemed to be punished for. Vadriel had chosen never to question the unexpected benevolence. That night, for four whole hours, he’d lain supine upon the library couch, his frock coat abandoned over its back, the stiffly-starched collar of his shirt yawning open and his hands naked.

It was a pleasure most would never understand, having ones hands uncovered. The smallest textures were denied him, coolness or warmth diminished under the fine fabrics of his gloves, and though he’d nought to fear alone, he still wore them as a precaution. The brass knocker did not often summon him to his front door where he might have to shake hands with guests or patients, but a little grey slip of a kitten made a regular habit of slithering beneath his palm for attention; cats were no less susceptible than people were.

Four hours was not enough to make up for weeks and months of wakefulness, but Vadriel felt the benefits of his slumber nonetheless, and had surprised Mesteno when he woke by suggesting they step outside. The young man had glanced up from the floor, belly down and elbow propped over the book he’d been reading to squint at him as if he’d misheard, yet here they were half an hour later, the September morning suffused with a murky, grey light which had not yet brightened enough to bother the doctor’s eyes.

It was still early, and the clock had not yet chimed the sixth hour.

The stone balustrade of the veranda was rough and cold under the tips of his fingers and the heels of his palms. The air licked coolly at his throat, and at the skin of his chest where the buttons had not been re-fastened. He’d a compelling urge to wander the green lawns and find everything that there was to touch, from bark to velvet petal, perhaps even to lie down in the grass and feel the dampness soak through his clothes until they clamped to his skin. There was even a pleasure to be found in the tickle of his own dark, curling hair as it skimmed across his broad shoulders and whispered about his neck.

For a man as wealthy as Vadriel, there was a great deal of deprivation, and the sensory aspect of it was truly one of the most crippling.

“They’re going to follow the owl, I think,” Mesteno told him, yawning broadly from where he was perched upon the railing. He’d wandered into the doctor’s residence not long after midnight, smelling like camphor oil and incense, scents of the Temple District.

“Then you will need to go with them,” Vadriel replied, “and make sure that you do her no harm.”

“That’s the problem. I’m supposed to find some way to see her without harmin’ her. I can’t find anything in the books that doesn’t pose a risk, and she’s connected to the Mother. Can you imagine the backlash if I do something wrong?”

Vadriel drew his gaze from the gardens and fixed it upon the necromancer, who was sat shivering as if they were in the deeps of winter, wrapped in one of his smoking jackets.

“You know if I were to give you the sight again, the temporary blindness might become permanent.”

Spitting a curse effusively, the necromancer gave a shake of his head. “I don’t want the sight Vadriel. I’m just scared of making another mistake like I did with Danica. I know I should’ve just let her die instead of meddlin’, but Evander was…” He made a futile gesture, fingers spread as if he struggled to convey something, but the tension ebbed out of him, fled on a sigh.

“Your intentions were noble,” Vadriel murmured, even if he could not approve of his methods, and never would.

Mesteno’s grunted response suggested acknowledgment but not necessarily agreement. In truth he’d not given any thought to the harm he might cause the dying woman, only to protecting his lover, and there was a selfish aspect to that he couldn’t ignore.

“You could always come lead them,” he suggested to Vadriel. “I’d be right there with you. Promise. No boltin’ off to screw in the woods or anything.”

“No.” The immediate response.

“S’not even worth me trying to persuade you, huh?” Slithering down off the balustrade, Mesteno settled into a mirroring lean beside the doctor, companionable rather than crowding, and asked, “Was it really so bad, coming to meet them all?”

The answer came only after a pause.

“It made me realise that I’ve sunk further than I thought I had,” Vadriel confessed, repentant, miserable to have to say it aloud. “There were times I thought I had mastery over my fear, only for me to recognise it had never really gone away when you returned. That I was relieved to have you near again. I have always been reclusive Mesteno, but never a coward. Never that.”

“You don’t have to be, either. C’mon, Vay. You were given one mortal lifetime to spend amongst the living. One. You wanted it so bad you struck up a deal with--,”

“Don’t say it,” Vadriel begged him, though quietly.

“All right, fine,” Mesteno conceded, though between his teeth, “but listen to me. You were given it despite what you did. You weren’t cast out, you were punished. The life is yours to live even if the duties of before remain, so you better f***in’ make the most of it for the sake of that poor bastard whose place you took.”

There were very few ways to inspire any heightened emotion in Vadriel, but reminding him of his first and only crime was sure-fire. He swept away from the balustrade, powerful frame abruptly absent of all its inherent grace, diminished to man-flesh, brute with muscle and rippling tension. Perhaps this was how the man the body had been meant for might have moved if he’d been born into it, vigorous and sweeping aside all else before it. But this was Vadriel, whose passions spiked and then plummeted, and he was only part way across the lawn before Mesteno saw the dejection in his shoulders, the hair parting over his nape with the dip of his head.

The necromancer prowled after him, loping to begin with until he’d drawn level and could seize him by one arm.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured lowly, “I shouldn’t have brought that up. Ain’t like you were the first one ever to get tempted.”

“How do I mend this?” Vadriel asked him abruptly, brushing aside the apology, his blood-shot, weary eyes intent upon the other man’s.

“Teach ‘em,” Mesteno replied. “You can still help them, guide them, but you gotta remind ‘em you’re not theirs. You’re not what they’re looking for in the long run. You’re not even a stopping point between. You got too fond of their company, when the company you should have is living. They’re not a substitute just because they don’t hurt you.”

Vadriel considered his words, the raw truth of the matter, and offered him a smile so joyless it hurt to offer it.

“He must hate it when his servants hear the wisdom they need upon the tongues of sinners,” he remarked, turning to move back towards the manse.

“A ’thank you’ would’ve sufficed,” Mesteno snorted, mock-offended, but he was grinning despite it, relieved as they turned their backs on the rising sun.