The Tribulations of Sin...
((OOC: Post was emergency-inspired by a scene run by the lovely Ana concerning the Value of my Soul plot. The characters all witnessed the worst sins they ever committed of each of the seven deadly sins. And they witnessed them through the eyes of their victims. Intense and lovely. Thank you, Ana.))
Another night. Another roomful of kindred I only vaguely know. At least they're all on the path. At least I trust, perhaps foolishly, that they are all here for the same damn reason that I'm here. A vague hope that we might do some damn good in the world. A hope that things can change. Eddie is an interesting angel of damnation with a mouth dirtier than a gutter and a soul more clean than many mortals, I suspect. Sebastian looks like he's ready to go off to his freshman year of university, surrounded by street people with haunted eyes. It's a strange night already.
But then the mirror is there. And it's calling to me. I'd seen it before, taken note of it, but not really given it my eyes. Now, I cannot remove my eyes. It's screaming at me. Beckoning me closer. A reflection. I see a woman far closer to thirty than twenty in appearance. Lexie's right -- I am looking old. Tired, hopeful, world worn and doing my best to look professional. I see a cop. The set of my jaw. The distance in my eyes. Just the way I stand. I look like a cop. I see someone who was a mother, the softness in a few areas I simply can't ever shake. My waistline will never be the same. I see a woman. Hair longer than it's been in years, a bit of lipstick in attempts to be feminine. To pretend I might be attractive. Not enough to actually look like I care. It's been a long time since I really looked in a mirror. It's not a comfortable action.
And then there is more... so much more.
Gluttony... Newspaper articles hung everywhere, amid scraps of paper, maps, notes. On the white board, the wall, over the coffee pot. There wasn't a bare inch of space in the room. The face that kept appearing in them was Peter Black. Missing officer. Loved community servant. Vice detective. Promoted to homicide. Promoted to Lieutenant. Demoted for fraternization. Promoted again. He haunted the whole room, like it was a shrine to his missing existence. Obsessive. Insane. Nothing but Peter anywhere in her whole office.
The Captain had seen it growing over the weeks since his case was hung up. He wasn't coming back. Chances were he was dead in the ocean. LA had a lot of places to hide bodies. He stepped into the room, staring down at a woman who used to be one of his best officers. The woman who had also been demoted for fucking the said missing individual. The woman who was throwing her career away over a man who had pledged his life to service. He always meant to die in the line of duty. She just couldn't let him go. "Verona..." He growled at Kate, "This ends now, or your career ends now. You have a whole fucking city out there who needs you far more than Black does. He'll come back or he won't. You're failing every citizen you've ever pledged your service to by sitting in this madhouse. It all goes away, or you go. Now." Her hand trembled violently as she ripped the first wall of pages down...
Greed... The leather of the limo felt like buttercream. The wine was heady, strong and dry. This is what she had been missing. Expensive shoes. Custom tailored suits. Dresses. Summers on the lake. She was Crassus, and the daytime world was her's to own. She'd been debasing herself all these years, living on a cop's salary, pretending that she wasn't a heiress of the daylight. For a moment, she forgot it all, speaking into the air of the limo as it took her back to the Greenwich Estate. "Tell Victor to buy the whole damn company. In my name. Kate Black. Then finish the layoffs and fill the positions at half the cost. It's what Helena said to do. We need the money..." Because well payed workers didn't buy limos. It was just one company. No one would ever know.
Sloth...The fight had been bloody. Gang fights, true gang fights, usually are. A slaughter the newspaper would call this one. Six dead, three others in critical condition. The youngest of the boys was only 15. He lay on the ground, blood flowing too fast from his stomach. He wasn't dead yet, but he soon would be. Stomach wounds were the worst, agony to move, too much blood to often be saved, but not a quick death. "Mom... I'm so damn... sorry... tell my ma I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." He cried. He was fifteen. He never fit in but with the boys that wore the red. They protected him more than she ever could. Distantly, he heard the sound of a cop's sirens. Too far, they'd been too slow. No one would even hear his last words...
Lust...The woman in the hotel room trembled on the edge of the bed. She wasn't sure what she was waiting for. She didn't even speak the language. America, they told her. America, where it'd be safe, where she'd be rich, where she'd have a husband who loved her and bought her clean clothes and there would be food. Computers. Maybe even school. America. But all she'd found was a steady string of men who raped her at her owner's command. She couldn't even tell them she wanted to go home. They didn't care. There were supposed to be people in this country who helped. Cops, soldiers, good men and women to stop these things from happening, that's why she had come. But they never came. She tried to ignore the sounds of a couple one room over in the hotel, clearly enjoying their sex. Screaming, groaning, moaning. A shaking bed. That was pleasure. She hadn't ever known that sort of pleasure in her life. All there was now was pain.
Wrath...The woman above him was terrifying. Female cops always were. They always had something to prove. But this one was worse. There was madness in her eyes tonight. "Who the fuck did you sell the drugs to? I need names, street corners, contacts... KIDS, you fuck! KIDS... do you know how many you've probably killed already?" I barely felt the punch as she slammed a fist into my jaw. Not just a fist. She had something in her hand. Something steel. I tasted blood and a loose tooth. I opened my mouth to speak, but she didn't even let me get out the words. "WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?" She demanded. She didn't let me breath. The world went white hot with pain as she slammed me into the metal table over, and over, and over again. Eventually, someone opened the door. I heard voices, "Captain Black, what the hell!?" He was shocked. Someone drug the crazy bitch off me. She was ready for more. "KATE! Fuck..." The man almost sounded worried for me. Almost like he cared. "Get... get back to your office. I'll clean this fuck up." Fucking cops.
Pride...The lash struck her again, and again... and again. Every strike a punishment. Every time it drew blood, the kindred licked it off her back. Bianca Crassus knelt naked and bloody on the marble floor of the most elegant torture chamber the Crassus could provide. "She thinks she's better than you, Bianca..." The man hissed, striking at her again, drawing open the wound just a bit more. "Leave the family. She's too good for us. Too good to be a ghoul. But you aren't. You're nothing." Then his finger came down, nail slowly parting the wound, leaving her in a ball of bloodied agony on the floor. "You take her punishment. You will learn better. YOU will be stronger. You will be twice the ghoul your sister could have ever been. You have to be... she left us. You have to take her place as well as yours." He ripped into her back, filling his palm with her blood. "You're all we have left. You will have to do."
Envy... The officers from CYFS tried to do their best to keep the kids calm, but it was never easy taking a child from their home. Much less two boys. Twins. Black as midnight, and fairly healthy looking, but the report was clear. The mother was stoned out of her mind more than she was ever sober. But the children didn't know that. They knew she was mama. They knew she managed to dress them, and gave them food. She put their hair in rows and called them the most handsome boys on the planet. And now they had to go away. Jameel screamed, clawing at the ripped, stained carpeting of the apartment he called home. He kicked at the officer and thrashed, "MAAAMMA! MAAAMAA!" He cried until his voice cracked, raw. He ripped at the officer's skin. They were taking him from his mama and his home. His world was ending.
I wake back up on the marble floor of the Eddie's cathedral. Most of the kindred in the room are down too. Apparently, I hadn't been the only one to see something. I don't speak. I don't move. I just lay there, listening to their confused and pained voices as I try to put myself back together. The tears on my cheek feel cold as they hit the marble floor. Marble. Just like the floor where they tortured my sister. Tears, and blood, and pain, all on my hands...
I'm no better than any of them.
Another night. Another roomful of kindred I only vaguely know. At least they're all on the path. At least I trust, perhaps foolishly, that they are all here for the same damn reason that I'm here. A vague hope that we might do some damn good in the world. A hope that things can change. Eddie is an interesting angel of damnation with a mouth dirtier than a gutter and a soul more clean than many mortals, I suspect. Sebastian looks like he's ready to go off to his freshman year of university, surrounded by street people with haunted eyes. It's a strange night already.
But then the mirror is there. And it's calling to me. I'd seen it before, taken note of it, but not really given it my eyes. Now, I cannot remove my eyes. It's screaming at me. Beckoning me closer. A reflection. I see a woman far closer to thirty than twenty in appearance. Lexie's right -- I am looking old. Tired, hopeful, world worn and doing my best to look professional. I see a cop. The set of my jaw. The distance in my eyes. Just the way I stand. I look like a cop. I see someone who was a mother, the softness in a few areas I simply can't ever shake. My waistline will never be the same. I see a woman. Hair longer than it's been in years, a bit of lipstick in attempts to be feminine. To pretend I might be attractive. Not enough to actually look like I care. It's been a long time since I really looked in a mirror. It's not a comfortable action.
And then there is more... so much more.
Gluttony... Newspaper articles hung everywhere, amid scraps of paper, maps, notes. On the white board, the wall, over the coffee pot. There wasn't a bare inch of space in the room. The face that kept appearing in them was Peter Black. Missing officer. Loved community servant. Vice detective. Promoted to homicide. Promoted to Lieutenant. Demoted for fraternization. Promoted again. He haunted the whole room, like it was a shrine to his missing existence. Obsessive. Insane. Nothing but Peter anywhere in her whole office.
The Captain had seen it growing over the weeks since his case was hung up. He wasn't coming back. Chances were he was dead in the ocean. LA had a lot of places to hide bodies. He stepped into the room, staring down at a woman who used to be one of his best officers. The woman who had also been demoted for fucking the said missing individual. The woman who was throwing her career away over a man who had pledged his life to service. He always meant to die in the line of duty. She just couldn't let him go. "Verona..." He growled at Kate, "This ends now, or your career ends now. You have a whole fucking city out there who needs you far more than Black does. He'll come back or he won't. You're failing every citizen you've ever pledged your service to by sitting in this madhouse. It all goes away, or you go. Now." Her hand trembled violently as she ripped the first wall of pages down...
Greed... The leather of the limo felt like buttercream. The wine was heady, strong and dry. This is what she had been missing. Expensive shoes. Custom tailored suits. Dresses. Summers on the lake. She was Crassus, and the daytime world was her's to own. She'd been debasing herself all these years, living on a cop's salary, pretending that she wasn't a heiress of the daylight. For a moment, she forgot it all, speaking into the air of the limo as it took her back to the Greenwich Estate. "Tell Victor to buy the whole damn company. In my name. Kate Black. Then finish the layoffs and fill the positions at half the cost. It's what Helena said to do. We need the money..." Because well payed workers didn't buy limos. It was just one company. No one would ever know.
Sloth...The fight had been bloody. Gang fights, true gang fights, usually are. A slaughter the newspaper would call this one. Six dead, three others in critical condition. The youngest of the boys was only 15. He lay on the ground, blood flowing too fast from his stomach. He wasn't dead yet, but he soon would be. Stomach wounds were the worst, agony to move, too much blood to often be saved, but not a quick death. "Mom... I'm so damn... sorry... tell my ma I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." He cried. He was fifteen. He never fit in but with the boys that wore the red. They protected him more than she ever could. Distantly, he heard the sound of a cop's sirens. Too far, they'd been too slow. No one would even hear his last words...
Lust...The woman in the hotel room trembled on the edge of the bed. She wasn't sure what she was waiting for. She didn't even speak the language. America, they told her. America, where it'd be safe, where she'd be rich, where she'd have a husband who loved her and bought her clean clothes and there would be food. Computers. Maybe even school. America. But all she'd found was a steady string of men who raped her at her owner's command. She couldn't even tell them she wanted to go home. They didn't care. There were supposed to be people in this country who helped. Cops, soldiers, good men and women to stop these things from happening, that's why she had come. But they never came. She tried to ignore the sounds of a couple one room over in the hotel, clearly enjoying their sex. Screaming, groaning, moaning. A shaking bed. That was pleasure. She hadn't ever known that sort of pleasure in her life. All there was now was pain.
Wrath...The woman above him was terrifying. Female cops always were. They always had something to prove. But this one was worse. There was madness in her eyes tonight. "Who the fuck did you sell the drugs to? I need names, street corners, contacts... KIDS, you fuck! KIDS... do you know how many you've probably killed already?" I barely felt the punch as she slammed a fist into my jaw. Not just a fist. She had something in her hand. Something steel. I tasted blood and a loose tooth. I opened my mouth to speak, but she didn't even let me get out the words. "WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?" She demanded. She didn't let me breath. The world went white hot with pain as she slammed me into the metal table over, and over, and over again. Eventually, someone opened the door. I heard voices, "Captain Black, what the hell!?" He was shocked. Someone drug the crazy bitch off me. She was ready for more. "KATE! Fuck..." The man almost sounded worried for me. Almost like he cared. "Get... get back to your office. I'll clean this fuck up." Fucking cops.
Pride...The lash struck her again, and again... and again. Every strike a punishment. Every time it drew blood, the kindred licked it off her back. Bianca Crassus knelt naked and bloody on the marble floor of the most elegant torture chamber the Crassus could provide. "She thinks she's better than you, Bianca..." The man hissed, striking at her again, drawing open the wound just a bit more. "Leave the family. She's too good for us. Too good to be a ghoul. But you aren't. You're nothing." Then his finger came down, nail slowly parting the wound, leaving her in a ball of bloodied agony on the floor. "You take her punishment. You will learn better. YOU will be stronger. You will be twice the ghoul your sister could have ever been. You have to be... she left us. You have to take her place as well as yours." He ripped into her back, filling his palm with her blood. "You're all we have left. You will have to do."
Envy... The officers from CYFS tried to do their best to keep the kids calm, but it was never easy taking a child from their home. Much less two boys. Twins. Black as midnight, and fairly healthy looking, but the report was clear. The mother was stoned out of her mind more than she was ever sober. But the children didn't know that. They knew she was mama. They knew she managed to dress them, and gave them food. She put their hair in rows and called them the most handsome boys on the planet. And now they had to go away. Jameel screamed, clawing at the ripped, stained carpeting of the apartment he called home. He kicked at the officer and thrashed, "MAAAMMA! MAAAMAA!" He cried until his voice cracked, raw. He ripped at the officer's skin. They were taking him from his mama and his home. His world was ending.
I wake back up on the marble floor of the Eddie's cathedral. Most of the kindred in the room are down too. Apparently, I hadn't been the only one to see something. I don't speak. I don't move. I just lay there, listening to their confused and pained voices as I try to put myself back together. The tears on my cheek feel cold as they hit the marble floor. Marble. Just like the floor where they tortured my sister. Tears, and blood, and pain, all on my hands...
I'm no better than any of them.