Rizardo Palladio - snapshot

[mccabethemerciless]

The rain violently lashed against the crumbling ruin of a house, tearing chunks of ancient plaster from the walls, exposing the slowly disintigrating brickwork beneath.

Within the house that the locals euphemistically referred to as Casa Del Fantasma, a single room was richly lit, casting a warm, inviting yellow glow over the canal in front of it, a solemn chanting could be heard within.

Rizardo cursed darkly under his breath as the corpse spasmed once and fell back to the altar. He was certain he had performed the ritual correctly. The area around the altar was consecrated to God and Caine, its boundary marked with salt and powdered bones both to keep the necromantic energy inside the area and prevent wraithly interference. The symbols embroidered into the woman's flesh were correct, if crude, the Ankh-like symbol of the dark father culminated in a chi-rho at it's apex, a sympathetic device drawing upon the authority and power of the Caine and the Christ in order to command the dead flesh to rise. Indeed even the manner of the woman's death had gone without error, her gullet stuffed with earth from a freshly dug grave mixed with his own vitae while she yet tried to draw breath, that had traumatised poor Cosimo who was visibly shaken from the incident. There might possibly have been a flaw in the chant, possibly. Perhaps Greogrian chant lacked the gravity of the old Latin chants which the elders preferred. Maybe maybe maybe.

Still the bitch stayed dead.

Rizardo snarled and booted a nearby skull at Lorenzo. The dour faced buffon had been stood like a statue throughout the ritual. It didn't matter in that moment, the fact that Rizardo had told him to do just that. The skull shattered into fragments just by Lorenzo's head, pelting the ghoul with razor shards of bone. Still Lorenzo didn't move. He knew all to well the price for disobedience.

"Cesare, go and put this specimen with others I wish the altar to be cleared. Cosimo, go and get my chalk, and you Lorenzo... go find another skull to replace the one smashes beside your head." Rizardo turned back to his altar, deep in thought.

"Next time." Rizardo mused to himself. "I will have to be more in depth, a memento mori, or fetter, perhaps I can use the essence of the subject's wraith as fuel for the ritual, but how to do that without leaving the door open for a more traditional possession?."

Rizardo shook his head and stalked off into the night. His works had left him hungry and the neighbours had heard enough screaming and chanting for one night.

[mccabethemerciless]

Rizardo pulled his hood back, enjoying the feeling of the deluge upon his roughly shaved tonsure. There was majesty in tonight's storm, the wrath of God manifest, raging at sinners and saints alike for their failings. Every torrent of rain was bile, every crack of thunder a lash scourging the heavens, even the roiling clouds, at least what could be seen of them in the night, seemed to bare down on the world with the weight of hateful judgement. Somewhere deep down, Rizardo knew that the Almighty was watching the Giovanni Clan and it was furious. He laughed at the sky, one day he would rule the skinlands and shadowlands alike, yea even the heavens would fall under his dominion. God would have to choke on it's increasingly impotant rage. It was a fount from which to drink, a nexus of power and nothing more. At least, it would be when the shroud was finally torn down.

Rizardo stifled the thought, increasingly aware of the increasing weight of his rapidly soaking habit. he pulled his sodden hood up and over his face as he stalked through the dark streets, every now and then he would call upon his sight, to see the spirits of the dead as they cavorted and sported, but nothing, at least nothing nearby. The Feast had decimated the wraith population and it would be centuries before it returned to it's pre-feast levels. At least without a concerted effort to make more wraiths, but that too was a work of decades. At least if the native venetian population was to be left in tact. He thought of barbarians strutting through Venice as though they had a right to be there and he shuddered.

Peering in through windows as he went, there was seldom anyone awake at this time of night. Many of his peers lamented the lack of activity in the night, at least they did in their early years. Rizardo had never felt that way, there was a tranquility to the night, a peace and a certainty if not finality. Once he might have missed aspects of his mortal days, fucking and drinking primarily, but now? What could compare to eternal lordship and such a feeling of peace?

He looked into the sky, in between the flashes of lightning it didn't merely look black, it looked endless, a great infinite void that herladed nothing and everything, Oblivion in the sky, the nothing that promised The Great Nothing that promised the possibility of everything. Paradise was not the kingdom of God, it was the end of everything, an End that Rizardo intended to not only exist beyond but control. He had in his time dealt with spectres as the denizens of the shadowlands called them, most were maniacal things fit only to harry his enemies. But some seemed to have a spark of wisdom. Donata had warned him away from dealing with spectres too intimately. Rizardo scoffed at the notion, her stance was born of her insecurities, she had always felt her name (though she was born Giovanni) made her a second class member of the clan, it held her back, made her too timid. Rizardo had no such qualms. Perhaps one day he would sit at the head of Clan Palladio? Perhaps one day HE would be the Clan Founder sitting on a throne of souls over the roiling potential of the next world, it's eternal God-king?

He was disrupted from his reverie by movement in the corner of his eye, a mortal was awake and seemingly intent on evading his presence. Rizardo's face lit up with a feral grin that split his face nearly in two, fangs bared he gave chase, stalking the mortal from shadow to shadow as they fled down streets and alleys. It was no matter. They were not being quiet in their flight and at this hour he could hear them from a long way away, not that he needed to. His supernatural strength was such that if he sprinted there were few men who could outpace him. With the inevitability of death he closed the distance with his quarry.
For half an hour he stalked them, always following the panicked sound of their flight as they sped away, they could only go so far without a gondala however, and nearly all of the gonaleers would be sleeping now, and the footsteps were beginning to slow down as his prey tired out.
He came upon them, a young man in his early 20's, doubled over and gasping for breath. Rizardo smiled serenely and stepped slowly but inexorably towards the man arms outstretched in a gesture that offered succour. His prey's eyes widened in terror.

"You're no monk." The boy spat, fear and hate playing on his face, even as he shivered from cold and the rain. Fear might spoil meat, but it spiced the vitae with a delicious rush of panic and vitality. The only thing that beat fear in the blood was fear mixed with lust and pain. There was not time for theat however."I have seen you, I have seen what you do. You killed my sister."

The smile faded from Rizardo's face, though mirth still glittered behind his eyes. He stepped forward drawing a dagger from his sleeve. He locked eyes with the trembling young man, allowing his fangs to show.

"Don't move and Don't make a sound." Rizardo commanded and the youth obeyed. Rizardo closed the distance. "Submit to me"

He took the young man's arm and opened the wrist with his dagger, in just the right place in just the right depth to get a decent flow of blood that wouldn't soak his surroundings. His beast howled at the sight and smell and he spasmed, his body rocked by the force of the beasts hunger, thoughts of violence and violation forced their way into his mind, of ripping the youth to piece and lapping up the blood and gore like a dog at a puddle. Of violent ravishing and subjugation. He fought down the urges and banished the thoughts with a moment's concentration before pulling the boy to his feet, his mouth clamping down on the wound.

Greedily he gulped down the vitae, feeling himself flush and the crimson tears spilling down his cheeks as he gorged, stopping just shy of killing the boy he ripped his head away, and in one deft movement tore strips off the youths shirt, crudely fashioning bandages that might help keep the mortal alive during the journey back to his haven. He once more locked eyes with youth and spoke one single word.

"Follow." and so the mortal did. In future days Rizardo would look back at this fortuitous happenstance and smile, though the ritual was still, ultimately unsuccessful, making the boy watch the mutilated corpse of his siter be violated by Rizardo's men had certainly encouraged him to become a wraith. If only the little bastard hadn't managed to escape!