Title: For Many Are Called…

Author: Poodle

poodle75567@yahoo.com

Fandom: Forever Knight

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: LaCroix/Other

Summary: Set in the 13th century. A young priest aids a stricken stranger on the road. *Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from…ourselves.*

Notes: // represent memories.

Disclaimer: Never owned them. Never will.



For Many Are Called...
by Poodle

"*Apage Satanas!*"

A flash of fangs and a resounding hiss issued from the darkness.

The young priest trembled but held his ground, brandished a cross, shouted in Latin, "*Vade retro me, Satana!*"

"Fool!"

"You are the fool, *Señor diablo.* Be gone from this place."

"Such arrogance. You pursue me down here and demand that I be gone." A voice rumbled from the shadows. "Return to the sanctuary of your church, the solace of your rosary, the emptiness of your monotonous chants."

Father Ricardo Sanchez swallowed hard and struggled to reply. "There is solace to be found in that which satisfies the soul."

"Truly?" A chuckle issued from the dim. "Does not this god of yours, who knows all things, loath hypocrisy?"

"I speak the truth!"

"Your god, he brings you peace and contentment, yes?"

"*Sí...es verdad.*"

"His blessed peace abides within." The chuckle grew louder. "That is why loneliness consumes you, and night after night you awaken, trembling, in the throes of unconsummated passion, your body drenched in sweat, your--"

"*Silencio!* You have no right to torment me, thus."

"No right to speak the truth?" The voice challenged from the darkness. "Is your god so weak that the truth offends him?"

"Stop it!" The young man trembled, gripped the cross with both hands, held it before him. "Be gone, loathsome creature."

"Is it me you loathe, Ricardo, or the freedom I represent?" The voice dropped to a soothing whisper. "The passion I encompass. Eternal freedom to embrace, to *be,* all things. Is this not true salvation?"

"Only the cross brings salvation." In desperation he fell into Latin recitation, "A cruce salus..."

"Does this cross of yours provide solace in the emptiness of night?"

"Tempt me not, demon."

"You tempt yourself, Ricardo, you don't need me."

"You came to me as a friend, Peter!" The priest fought the trembling of his hands. Failed. "You betrayed me."

"Was it not Peter who denied your Christ?" A pale figure drifted from the shadows and stood before him.

"He is not simply my Christ, but the Christ of all creation."

"Myself included?" A smile whispered over the pale lips.

"He holds dominion over all things. Mercy and salvation, he grants--"

"To all?" The challenge echoed through the silence that fell in the blackness of the caverns. "Even me?"

Sanchez pulled in his breath, then the words ripped from his lips, "I thought you were my friend. I saved your life!"

"And so I grant you yours. Go!"

He stood frozen to the spot.

"Leave you fool!"

The priest fell into the infinite blue of the man's eyes. "I believed you were my friend," he rasped.

"Can you not sense the trembling beneath your feet? Get out of these caverns *now*!"

Too late, the vibrations reached him. A gasp escaped his lips as the walls around them began to crumble. "May God preserve us!"

An avalanche of dust and stone rained down upon them from above, consumed the waning light of dawn...

Sanchez surrendered his soul to darkness.

~*~*~*~*~*

// Silken lips caressed his fevered brow. Strong hands stroked his tired limbs. A rustle of linen strummed his senses as a presence melted into his embrace, beneath the wool blankets, into his awaiting arms. Passion consumed him...//

Pain.

It wracked his body, pulled him from the oblivion into the darkness of dust and stale air.

"Lazarus arises," A voice taunted from the shadows.

"Devil!" he spat and struggled to sit up. Failed. Fell back into the rubble.

"Foolish mortal, you deserve your fate. Now we're both trapped in this wretched place."

"God's vengeance has befallen you."

"If this is true, my friend, what of you? Are you not imprisoned, as well? Hath your god forsaken thee?"

"*Never.*" Ricardo squeezed his eyes shut against the impenetrable blackness and trembled. "Why do you not simply spirit yourself from this place?"

"Although it is possible that I could dig myself from the rubble that surrounds us, it is likely that I would compromise the integrity of these cavern walls." A sigh cut the darkness. "None the less, it is daylight in the world above, and for now this suits my purpose as well as any other shelter."

"Debauchery such as yours cannot face the light of day, yes?"

"Your piety is becoming tedious, Ricardo; why do you not simply die and be done with it? You're bleeding to death, you know." He chuckled softly. "Or did you know?"

Sanchez pulled a sharp intake of breath, felt the agony of his leg, trapped, buried beneath the rubble.

"Are you prepared to be embraced by the arms of death, young padre?"

"His will be done."

"Such devotion! Holy sentiments. Your god should be proud," the silken voice whispered. "Sanctimonious *caca.*"

The priest gasped.

"Far better to succumb to death's ecstasy in my embrace."

"Such filth!" The young man sputtered in outrage, "That you would suggest I might submit to such unnatural advances."

A burst of laughter resounded through the confines of their earthy tomb. "How simplistically mortal of you, to assume the alpha and the omega of your existence generates from the delights of your loins. What I propose far exceeds the mundane and ascends into the sublime."

"Sins of lechery and desires of the flesh."

"It is not the flesh I desire, Ricardo," the voice taunted softly. "Do you foolishly believe that your god does not know of the passion that burns within you, night after night, in the empty solace of your bed? How you awaken trembling with arousal."

The priest froze. Heat flushed his cheeks.

"Will you not seek to deny my accusations?"

He squeezed his eyes shut. "And compound the depth of my sin with deceit?"

"How infantile and simplistic are the desires of the mortal heart, how easily sated? Don't you realize you need only beckon and the maidens of your congregation would swoon in your embrace?"

"Be silent, Satan!" His heart raced in his chest. What greater indignity could God force him to bear than this; his sin revealed unto this loathsome creature?

"You suffer for naught, young mortal. Do you not realize that the celibacy you aspire to is an anathema, a perversion of the very nature your god created?"

The air thickened around him; he pulled it into his lungs. Coughed. The throbbing of his leg grew intense. His head began to swim. He fought to curse the demon, damn it with his tongue, but his thoughts grew dim, and the world began to fade.

Is this death?

~*~*~*~*~*

//"Tell me of the wonders you have known." The young priest sank to the floor at the bedside, his eyes enraptured.

"All that I have known?"

"All!"

A smile whisked across the pale lips. "You are so eager to learn. Is the vessel of your soul as empty as that?"

"Empty, until you choose to fill it."//

~*~*~*~*~*

Cool lips whispered across his brow, caressed the roughness of his cheek, nuzzled into the slope of his neck...

Ricardo moaned with passion.

"How sweetly doth your young blood beckon; the virile musk of its perfume permeates this wretched abyss."

His eyes flew open.

"Beata Virgo Maria, preserve me!" He scrambled free from the cool caress. The demon was stroking his flesh! "You seek to lie down with me, vile entity, to corrupt the virtue of my soul."

Laughter echoed against his ear then the presence vanished.

"Am I truly so vile?" The voice echoed from across the chamber. "Is it me you resist...or yourself?"

Ricardo pulled the stale air deeply into his lungs, tried to ignore the pain screaming from his trapped limb. "I freely confess to the sin of lust but never to the abomination you propose."

"You know nothing of what I propose, foolish one."

"I trusted you, Peter," the words tore from his lips. "I found you stricken on the roadway, delivered you to the sanctuary of my home and offered you my friendship!"

"Is charity not its own reward? Or is it compensation you seek?"

"Never."

"Is it my fault your loneliness is such that you perceived me to be your compadre?"

"You deceived me."

A chuckle floated through the blackness. "Hence, the true reason you seek my destruction. Would your god approve of such self-satisfying vengeance?"

"You're a demon!"

"Sorry to disillusion you, but there are no such entities. My true sin would appear to be that of disappointing you, and for this abomination you would destroy me."

"You twist my motives to suit your own purpose."

"Hardly, I seek only to elucidate them."

The young priest pulled his thoughts inward, searched the depths of his soul. Finally, he whispered into the darkness, "Your name, is it truly Peter?"

"Alas, another of your misconceptions. The letter of commenda you found upon me was the property of the hapless wretch whose essence unfortunately polluted my otherwise resilient constitution, leaving me sickened. These things sometimes happen; they are impossible to predict."

A frown furrowed the young man's brow. "I understand only half of what you said, demon...Peter, or whatever you are."

"Call me what you will."

"I thought to call you...friend." The words slipped from his lips before he could pull them back, but once the confession began it raced from his soul in a torrent of emotion. "These past few days, the things we spoke of, the rise and fall of empires, philosophy...the stars! I've never known a man of such breadth and depth of wonder as you. I thought..." He pulled the words back, hid them in the solace of his heart. "Creature from Hell!"

"I am no less the master of such wisdom today than yesterday, young Ricardo, no less the maestro whose acceptance you so eagerly sought as you sat in submission at my feet, absorbing these tales of wonder you now laud."

The priest dropped his face into his hands. Darkness consumed him.

"You thought to call me...friend?" The velvet tones wafted though the dim. "Few have dubbed me, thus. Still less, to count me teacher, counselor...father."

"What are you?" The words ripped from his soul as he sought the other's face though the pitch surrounding them, sought answers to the turmoil raging in his heart.

"I Am That I Am."

"Only God can make such a claim!"

Silence.

The race of his heart rose to fill the void; confusion raged, tentacles of doubt wove into the young man's soul, fought to pull him down...

"Your father died when you were six. Your step-father sold you to the church for a fist full of shillings--"

"How dare you use these things against me?" He gasped in horror. "Confidences revealed to you in intimacy."

"Men of the cloth, whom you trusted and sought to emulate, awakened your flesh to desires you were, then, forbidden to pursue..."

"Damn you to rotting Hell!"

"Would you expect any less than total betrayal from a vile demon?"

Sanchez pulled in his breath, fought the turmoil of emotion choking his chest. The stranger, Peter had appeared to him a beacon of light in the darkness of his seclusion. Now this. He squeezed his eyes shut and memories rose to claim him...

//Moonlight whispered through the window, drenched the pale silhouette of the stately man reclined upon the bed, lounged with ease against the pillows. Peter. His face serene, his eyes bespeaking wisdom of the ages, enlightenment the young priest's soul longed to share...

Ricardo sank to the floor, reposed at the man's side, listened, enthralled as the tales unfurled, wonders beyond the meager tenets of the Church, teachings that whispered solace to the tempest of doubt plagued within his soul. Suspicions brought to fruition beneath the Socratic refinement of questions posed by the master, but answered by the latent concepts lingering within his own questing heart...

Questions unanswered for far too long.

Pale hands gracefully folded upon the coverlet, alabaster white, aristocratic profile awash in moon-glow, the velvet seduction of words wafting through the room, drawing taunt the strings of his heart, compelling him near...

A whisper of lips brushed across his cheek down to the curve of his throat. An impassioned sigh. His. Enfolding into the firm embrace of arms drawing him near to rest upon a chest. His eyes closed in supplication.//

~*~*~*~*~*

//Drenched in sweat and denial, Ricardo awoke night after night, trembling with passion. Shame burned his cheeks. Disgrace and dishonor; he choked back a sob, curled tightly into himself, and sought the oblivion of sleep.//

~*~*~*~*~*

"Your young blood beckons; its aroma permeates our dungeon. Soon it will be of no use to you..." Implications lingered in the air. "*Mors tva, vita mea.*"

"Stay away from me, you fiend." Sanchez struggled to sit up. Failed. Pain no longer throbbed from his trapped leg, but instead a disturbing numbness rose to replace it. A sob caught in his throat.

"Yours is a questing soul, Ricardo, despite the yoke of oppression impressed upon you by the ludicrous creeds of the institution that reared you. Wonderment calls to me through the elixir of your veins."

The young priest trembled and pulled his thoughts inward, away from the sensuality of the voice.

"...So many things I could have taught you. Mysteries untold..."

His thoughts began to waver and fade.

"Your raven-haired darkness would strike a fetching contrast to the golden glow of the young one I currently possess."

"What?" He blinked in confusion, fought to sit up. Moaned as a stab of pain replaced the numbness. "What was that?" he murmured.

"I was speaking of my youngest, reborn within the year; doubtless my absence will be a source of great confusion to him. My girl is independent, like myself, and not above surrendering to the temptation to take flight, heedless of the consequences of abandoning the youth to fend for himself. His feeding must be closely supervised at this point in his development."

"Children? What on earth are you talking about?" He fought the dizziness and loss of blood. "Family?"

"Indeed. Such is the essence of my existence."

His head began to swim. Surely he misunderstood the demon's words. Family? How long had he desired such a thing? To belong.

"To belong...to me," the voice caressed against his ear.

His eyelids fluttered. Closed. Cool lips brushed across his burning brow, aroused a moan from the young man's throat.

"I shall leave," the voice assured softly. "You have but to utter protest."

Ricardo struggled through the darkness, tightly grabbed his arm. His grip locked as the waves of eternity fought to pull him under; his soul beseeched, "Please, don't leave me. Anything you desire, take. I care not what becomes of my immortal soul. Lie with me, if you must; I grant you my flesh, but please don't abandon me."

"Abandonment? This is what you so greatly fear, young priest?" The voice was a mere suggestion wafting through the dim. "Fear not, you shall not die alone, but languished in the arms of eternal bliss. Embrace the passion too long denied during the brevity of your mortal existence..."

A smile touched the young man's lips as fate drew him near.

"Would you be mine?" The voice thickened with longing. "A vessel to be filled to the brim by my wisdom's elixir? Receptacle of all I am and ever shall be?"

"Yes." His heart joined in rapturous rhythm to the source of all existence. To belong! "Thy will be done."

Eternity whispered his name.

~*~*~*~*~*

Moonlight struck the golden glow of the head that appeared through the opening as the final cascade of rock tumbled to the cavern floor.

Poised upon a boulder, the master vampire casually glanced up when starlight from above washed over his form.

"Where've you been?" Desperation tainted the young one's voice as he scrambled through the opening, scurried to his master's side.

"Missed me, did you?"

"Missed?" A gasp escaped the youth's lips. "I've been alone for days."

"Alone?" The master's eyes caressed the disheveled form of his child, the golden hair, unkempt, the cherubic cheeks, sallow. "You were...frightened?"

The intense blue eyes flitted aside, avoided the truth. "You've been...down here?"

"Only for a day." Equally evasive, he rose to his feet, brushed the dust from his clothes. "I really must take you to the catacombs to refine your tracking skills."

"Who's the mortal?"

The question caught him off guard and he turned. His gaze passed gently over the sublime form of the young priest crumpled on the cavern floor, the questing light forever extinguished from the depths of his eyes. "Someone to whom you own a debt, mon enfant."

"I don't understand."

//Poised at the master's feet, dark eyes yearning for the wisdom only his words could impart. Centuries, an eternity, of such sublime devotion. If only...//

"He is but a young man fate chanced that I should meet a year too late, *mon protégé,*" he breathed. "`For many are called, but *one* chosen.'"

A frown creased the smooth brow. "What are you talking about?"

"Fate, my chosen one." He started for the exit. "It is time we depart."

Apprehension escaped the restraints of pride, and the youth tentatively grabbed his arm. "You won't disappear...again?"

"Abandonment? Is that what you fear, young knight?"

A sigh escaped Nicholas' lips and he softly confessed, "I...missed you"

"Fear not." Ice-blue eyes washed over his divine creation, softened with inner-light. "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."


The End