Deliver us from evil / prp

[Cassus]

(( I'm too lazy to look up the actual guy who found toast jesus so creative liberty whatever eat my shorts))

There is a small town nestled in the boondocks of Connecticut. It's further west then the voidic entity will likely ever go. She holds much more of a preference for Europe and it's zest - it's history - then she does for this side of the world. Far before the conception of America there had been wars and conspiracies and flat ends of the earth where people throttled off.

But here, in the states, it is new territory and although pale in comparison; like a plum to a apple. It's ripe and succulent.

The only supernaturals here are lurking in the south. They drink on bourbon street and blend into bars and whore-houses. She has kept her ear to the grape-vine and oh the things the arm's have reached out to touch her with. If she does not like it (she takes pleasure in working for her energy as much as a nagged husband does a late friday evening at work) she knows certainly her bonded would. A vampire of only five hundred might startle visibly at the sights and decadence where she was more inclined to see through a glass eye and stick to shadow.

But this is not Louisiana and it's recovering city. This is not Chicago and it's busy body businessman and this is not New york and it's delicate hierarchy. This is a small forgotten town in Connecticut where a man years ago had flown to Europe and made a deal with her for fame. Unfortunately he hadn't specified so ''fame'' had been redefined as a moment in the spotlight when he'd found a piece of toast that had Jesus's face on it.

But a year later he's forgotten besides second hand comedy shows and half wit references. So old and withered with the ridicule he's began to pray in poverty. He's found Jesus in hope (.. and toast).But there is no prayer that could keep her at bay.

But for all intent and purposes she's another repenting civilian. A passerbyer woman who's pretty enough that her sudden appearance is overlooked. But exotic enough she's not forgotten entirely. With long back hair and prominent cheek-bones she looks a lot more Egyptian then she ever could American.

The fact she's got her heels up tight on the edge of a pew and she's leaning back with her elbows at the backboard and fingers intertwined doesn't exactly come across as ''praise the lord'' anymore then it does ''I'm here to convert. I've accepted Jesus Christ the savior into my heart and soul.'' So needless to say she isnt completely overlooked by the devout Christians. Nor the Pastor who's eyes are running up the curve of her thigh lustfully.

But besides that and a couple of other sinners nobody seems to take notice. It's those people she sticks away from, and it's those people the reasons she's waiting patiently instead of cashing in and getting on her merry way back to mid Europe and it's never ending entertainment.

But ten minutes into his unheard prayers he see's the eyes on him, and after hesitating and fidgeting decides it's best to go to her. And that he does. Hiking up his big boy shorts and approaching the woman whose face he just cant place..

"Who are you?" He says, too creeped out to beat around the bush. "What do you want? An autograph? A newspaper article? What?" There is a bitterness about the way his hard eyes lands on her. But she's still got a tilt to her chin and a crooked smile at her lips. He's further disturbed by the fact his confrontational mood has her unabashed and smiling. In his mind's eye he see's a pattern of crudely shaped teeth just behind the skin of her full lips.

Not that that arrow is too far from it's mark.

"You're godawful rude for a man of the church." She says easily. Leans her chin back to observe him through eyelash and half lidded eyes, ungodly graceful enough to make him shift and the Pastor far off makes a sound of appreciation.

He doesnt say anything for a while. Trying to make her squirm of fidget with a heated unwelcome stare. But when she makes no move to change expression, he realizes a mexican standoff isnt going anywhere and cuts the silence with what he thinks is sharp words. "I dont have time for your silly little games you harpy woman, what do you want?" And his voice is a octave lower with the promise of menace and Cassus wants to say - ah - there is the man that beat his son into the far end of the world.

"Oh -" She laughs. "It's smart to be patient , but it's stupid to loose your temper. Proverbs 14 :29. Incase you werent paying attention to the sermon."

He's fuming now, but unwilling to make a scene with so many saintly around. So instead he sinks into the seat beside her, he bows his head as the Pastor goes on speaking. He quiets for a moment of prayer and there is understanding when he says ''Amen.''

"You're here for me." He says suddenly. Looking horrified with the realization of the things he'd said, of the little time he'd have left. But Cassus is still smiling at him when she says quietly. "Yes, well, you're the main reason I'm here but I'm bored and you're predictable. You like fame dont you? You lust for recognition -" And there is nothing good about the way she leans in and says casually. ''You caught me in a good mood. I havent been to the state's since the mid forties, so I'm feeling adventurous. I'm feeling generous, and I'm going to help you."

"How?"

But forty five minutes later he cant remember what she'd said after that, he cant remember killing thirty three people, twelve children, five babies -- he cant remember hands that smell like death and he doesnt know why he feels too cold.

Doesnt notice when the fire catches to his foot and flails up eating him like a phoenix and he doesnt scream until it reaches eyes and hair and burns the eyelashes and eyebrows to crisp chars of smoke that arent really there.

Doesnt notice the woman leaning at the podium leaning over the slumped form of the Pastor speaking into the microphone, "For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen."

But for eternity, he might remember her laughing. He might remember the glint of satisfaction in her eye before he's gone.

But she always remains.

[Virtus]

As much as she is attracted to darkness he is attracted to light -- ever since his recent summons he has found himself drifting from church to church, from soup house to shelter home, soaking in the good will and when he finds it lacking, moving onto the next haunt to get his fix. Perhaps it is coincidence that he has found himself within the same vicinity as her, or that it has found it -- truly there are no genders between them, only the preferred sex. He is in the back of the church when he smells her enter -- his senses betray her presence and he moves out of the office and into the main area just in time to witness the event.

He flees.

He returns, later, to catch her speech and to witness the carnage and he looks stricken. The balance has been upset -- has she not learned throughout her time on earth that the balance cannot be upset? It is chaos she thrives from and he knows it but he wishes he could tame her -- wishes he could convert her, yet knows that the destruction of darkness would just as easily be the destruction of light. One does not exist without the other.

This is why he will never complete his summons' assignment.

He is sent to kill her but if he kills her he himself will cease to exist. Perhaps he would do it anyway -- there is not an ounce of selfishness in the physical body he has taken, and if the preacher who gave up his shell to the form that is light was pure before, he is heavenly now as Virtus uses his host for his own purposes.

He listens to her words, then moves forward.

"I was summoned to kill you." He speaks this without inflection as he looks up at her, a tall form with sweeping white hair that would make one think him old (which he is) were it not for such youthful features otherwise. And even as her eyes haunt with their lack of color so do his own -- hers pure white, his pure black. Yin and yang -- Cassus with that entity of darkness and the single core of light to balance herself out, encompassing Yin. While Virtus with his being of light and a single core of darkness to equal the overwhelming purity, becoming Yang.

"Why did you do it, old friend? What was the gain from this situation? What was the purpose? Mere chaos, or did you have an ulterior motive?"

And he waits for a reason, knowing there will be none that will satisfy him.

[Cassus]

Just as quickly as the feature had come to a end her laughing is abruptly cut short. There is a moment where like a dog with it's belly full - she simply rears backwards on her heels. Let's her dark hair fall around her shoulders and soaks in the energy.

Her deteriorating sanity had been a product of starvation perhaps. Because her eyes seem that much brighter, and her mood has blossomed considerably, as she turns her head to regard the light creature's appearance. She stabilizes upon his greet.

Cassus wonders if she'd kill him, might it be accomplishing a goal that had stranded her to this plane. It'd be the taste of victory in her mouth. It'd be a end to the world she had not foreseen or anticipated or wondered. But as much as he knows he is unable to kill her; she knows it is impossible to kill him. So instead she leans forward over the dais and eye wide Pastor. Licks a single bead of blood nestled in the corner of her mouth.

"I was summoned to kill you."

-- And though this is their first time seeing each other. Her first time seeing him in the flesh - white hair with black eyes - a human host that certainly does not disappoint. She makes a comfortable sound in her throat as if they have known each other a life-time. She does not startle visibly or show elsewise signs of aggression. And still she's got the cat-ate-the-canary grin about her lips.

"Why did you do it, old friend? What was the gain from this situation? What was the purpose? Mere chaos, or did you have an ulterior motive?"

There is a delicate thoughtful pause. Although she already knows the answer she waits to see if Virtus is cramped surrounded by bodies and the monster who'd put them there. She waits to see if he will tense or stiffen or shuffle side to side. But when he might think the silence will go on forever -- then she talks. Grasping the preachers wrist and making some meticulous hand notion with stiff bone. Cut and jerk flash.

"He was rude." She responds curtly. As if that is a proper excuse for killing a entire church segregation. Then just as suddenly she moves to Virtus. Set's a hand against the side of his cheek. There is always a comfort between them she will never like - a pull she has avoided since his summons. It chortles and solidifies between them now and she feels all of it.

The need to be near him, to touch him, the age-old aggression she holds that wants to devour him. Like Hades she'd gotten the short end of the stick with darkness. She'd gotten fear instead of admiration. She'd gotten bad instead of good. Yet she has known nothing else. Yet she does not feel envious or crude.

She just feels lust.

Delicately she closes the distance between them. Meet's her lips to his in a union that is as passion filled as a whore's spread of leg.

But then she whirls away like a little girl, she laughs something that sounds innocent and fake. Disappears into somewhere in the back and comes back with a hand wrapped around a gasoline nozzle and after setting it down at the step to the stage she reaches smoothly into the Preacher's jacket pocket - groping around for something and looking delighted when she pulls out a lighter.

"He was a smoker." She explains. Flicking at the switch of the lighter to produce flame. "And a drinker, and a adulterer.. Honestly brother, I hardly know how you fed from this place. It's better in flames."

After dousing the majority of the place in gasoline. Twirling much more like a ballerina than a mass murderer. She tosses him the lighter with mirth and curiosity in her eyes. And moving bang from her face; leans on a hip and says sweetly. "For me?"

[Virtus]

He has not been on this earth long enough to lose his sanity as perhaps she has already and in any event it may be that he was of a healthier mindset than her to begin with. After all, he was not the one born – if that was even the word – into a life – again, perhaps not the right adjective – in which those around you fear and abhor your very presence and do their very damnedest – pardon the pun – to avoid you. He was in fact quite the opposite and even in his short span of time within this world he had learned a lot. He had learned the languages of those in every nation and he had learned the habits of humans, he had realized that Cassus would always have the upper hand because there was sin in everyone – and in some, there was nothing but. She would always have something to feed off of – there was never a lacking of pure and unadulterated wrong wherever one went, even within a church or parish – but he had also learned that he had the upper hand in yet another way. While so many were unwilling to allow a being of darkness to take over their body and inhabit their very shell of life, there were so many he could manipulate (do not mistake the virtues within him for an entirely wholesome, good being) into believing he was some holy entity, and then how easy was it to convince them he needed their body for some important, heavenly task?

Too easy.

He wasn’t Cassus and he didn’t thrive off of chaos but even he had his own agenda in the end of things. He thrived off of hope and love and all things good but that did not mean he was all things good – it was the light energy that fed him and simply because he survived off of it did not mean he necessarily was it – and yet at the same time he was, all the heavenly virtues into one being of light. He was as complicated as his counterpart and so he understood the yearnings within her for while he felt them he could not act on them as she could – his draw to her was as thick and permeable as hers to him, but while she lusted and was greedy for him, while her wrath was all in his direction and her pride kept her believing herself a level above him and her envy kept herself believing a level below him, it was his diligence to balance her out, his kindness toward her despite her acting out, his patience for those actions, his humility in the face of all that she was. And there was a bonus – she might lust, but he loved and felt incomplete without her.

He is too calm and too passive to be physically disturbed by what is around him even if it disturbs his very being. He watches her without emotion and he rolls his eyes at her childish excuse. “Of course he was,” Louis to Claudia – where was Lestat in this scene? He does not flinch when she moves toward him in a sudden burst of energy and speed and does not react when her lips lay upon his own, feels no stirrings of lust but those of love and longing for what they should be, as yin and yang, as polar opposites – best friends, mortal enemies, carnal lovers, soul-mates (not that either truly possessed a soul).

“There is sin within them all, it is your job to feed from it and fester it. My job to harvest the good within those that have even a seed of it, nurture that and grow it.”

And deftly catches the lighter, watches her from under heavy-lidded eyes. Love overwhelms and love encompasses.

“Only you would ask, my dear Cassus,” he says despondently and with a flick, the fire starts and with a catch, the fire spreads. And so he watches momentarily, eyes grim, before their black depths lift to meet her milky shallows.

“Shall we?”

[Cassus]

“Of course he was,”

If there is a lack of bitterness in his tone Cassus would be surprised. Because although she is lustful and greedy - and she wants everything he has to offer and everything that is his. There is a part of her that looks down on him with pity. A part of her that looks up to him jealously. Undoubtedly, there are two flips to the coin. There are pro's and con's and although he is worshiped and seen as divinity and pure and she is jagged and crude and lacks willing vessel's or church. There is a infinite amount of both in the construction of basic human nature. There is not a black and white but a gray. Although immoral behavior seemed more practiced then true grace. Christians might speak of the return of Christ but Cassus knows in reality that will be the day she has succeeded, at least in dreary thought - and turned the world against itself.

But that is a theory for topic later. It's eternal and confusing and complex and though she has thought on more times then able to track; she still is yet the liberty to bring it to proper light.

“There is sin within them all, it is your job to feed from it and fester it. My job to harvest the good within those that have even a seed of it, nurture that and grow it.”

"Fighting till the end then." She coo's. Thoughtful and glazed as her eyes flash and she's jostles the gasoline in rollercoaster rise and descend.

and then -

“Only you would ask, my dear Cassus,” “Shall we?”

And that they do. Disappearing before energy needs to manifest in order to fix up severe burn and throat wounds. Energy that perhaps Cassus might be able to afford but given the circumstances Virtus might only succeed in crippling himself. And when they finally settle next, the wails of the fire department and thrill of the police nothing but sirens in their ears - buzzing wasp in a field. Both of them meet in the overhang of a old bell tower. Leaning just behind the clockwork with little room between.

She's got her feet nestled on his warm thigh, wiggling her toes obscenely as she stretches and applies pressure. Threatening to send him flailing off the side were he a less graceful monster.

"Do you mourn them?" She ask quietly. Tilting her head thoughtfully. The solemn look that had been his last had not escaped her notice. Neither had the sullen silence between. And cryptically, ever the one to end the private moment, Cassus scoffs. "They deserve to die and so do you if you take pity."

Rather it be experience or misinterpretation she had never felt bad for humans nor other supernatural. She'd only ever felt contempt.

[Virtus]

The magic of it all is that there truly is a lack of bitterness in his tone whenever he says those otherwise disparaging words – he truly is indulging Cassus and being as patient with her, allowing her the frivolities and indulgence of being childish and petty. It is not as if he could change her if he tried, though – nor could she change him even if she truly wanted to. He is a being of purity, but not a being of good – not necessarily and not any more than she is a being of evil. They are far too complicated to be just one or the other, and while perhaps is majority white and she majority black, the opposite-colored eyes that both possess are the core of the Yin and Yang and show them for what they truly are – a balance of both.

Her sugarplum voice runs through him and he sighs as he sets fire to the church, sighs as he manifests the energy to disappear and reappear. Feels woozy and light-headed upon touchdown and nearly falls out of the tower himself, no assistance required. Thankfully he is a creature of much higher grace and balance and regains himself, just in time for her to stretch out and push against him.

His head turns and he regards her solemnly, silently. “I mourn what they could have been,” he corrects quietly, reaches a hand down to thoughtfully rub thumb along her arch, play fingertips along the top of her foot in a lighthearted massage.

He continues to study her. “Do you feel no regret..?” Honestly curious, he probes and queries and quests for the answer to who she is. As much as he loves, he does not understand – there is perhaps a knowledge of one another between the two, the knowledge of who and what they are, but neither can understand the other when her thoughts are polar to his own, his feelings opposite of hers.

And that is the core reason to why he wishes for what she has – the wrath, the envy, the lust, and all the rest. He would feel it all if he could, despite how wrong he finds it, just to understand who she truly is.

[Cassus]

Where he might want to understand her, rather because of the blossoming love and admiration or just because of their vast differences in similarities -- she does not return the favor. Maybe if she'd been in his position; walked a mile in his shoes - it would not be so queer to her. It would not be so suspicious that he wants to know all of her. That he wishes to become one another.

She has always been jealous of what he possesses but she does not necessarily want to possess it. All she has known is darkness and it is likely all she will ever know. All she will ever understand.

Ironic, that beings of thousands of years, of pre-birth, of biblical era and false prophets. Beings that have seen the world at the brink of destruction more times then they could count on hand. Would understand the world around them yet not themselves, not one another.

“I mourn what they could have been,” “Do you feel no regret..?”

And although childish and biased, as moody and unpredictable as a spoiled child - as witty and cunning as a snake - she considers Virtus through half lidded eyes. Leans her back against the frame and scritches at the shoulder blade with the harsh board. A absent display, a attempt to distract as she gathers and groups her thoughts. Decides what is too much to reveal and what is too little.

In the end, he knows doesnt he? In some way.

"I only feel contempt." She settles with, pulls her feet away to rest her chin on her knee's. Crawling, after a long moment of shuffling, closer to Virtus to place her hands on his knee's and fall between. Back to his chest as if it's the most natural thing in the world. As if since the start of time she hadnt wanted to snuff him out - to extinguish his light.

There is a long pregnant pause before,

"Do you love me?" and then, with a tilt of her head to lean the back of it against him. Into the crook of his left shoulder so her lips are just below his cheek, arms tickling down knee cap to thigh and back again. "Tell me you love me so -- tell me you feel."

( Because --

-- because, I cannot.)