Talking About Committed

Rawesome4815 - http://www.youtube.com/user/Rawesome4815
RawesomeGaming - http://www.youtube.com/user/RawesomeGaming

Committed Chapter 1

Part I: Altera Vitae

“All myths that are something more than fancies gain rather than lose in value with time, by reason of the accretions of human experience.”

– Richard Le Gallienne 

Chapter 1

“Are you still with us, Ariadne?”

            Ariadne blinked and sadly found herself plummeting back to reality.  Reality involved sitting at a desk intended for someone a foot shorter than her, gazing at a whiteboard covered in names and dates she hadn’t been paying attention to, and realizing that her twelfth grade history teacher still had fifteen minutes before the bell to berate her for her lack of attention.
            “Is there something about Dido and Aeneas that you don’t find interesting enough to warrant your attention?”  Mrs. Nowak asked, crossing her arms over her voluptuous breasts.
            Ariadne wanted to say: It’s not that I’m not interested in Dido and Aeneas, Mrs. Nowak.  It’s just that you aren’t getting the same stares of rapt attention from me that you’re getting from all the boys in this class because I’m not starring at the watermelons you tried to squeeze into that blouse today and wondering how much pressure it can sustain before buttons start popping off.  Also, I’m not interested in Dido and Aeneas.
            What she actually said was “I’m sorry Mrs. Nowak.  I must have drifted off somewhere along the line.”
            Mrs. Nowak gave a sniff of disapproval and adjusted the bun on coal black hair on her head before marching between the rows of desks towards Ariadne.
            Ariadne watched the entire front row turn and watch her pass.  All of them were boys, and when they realized that the view from the back was only partially as good as the view from the front their dumb grins subsided a little bit.
            Mrs. Nowak stopped at the side of Ariadne’s desk and leaned down.  For a brief moment, Ariadne was certain there was no way that blouse could keep back the twin mountains of flesh stuffed beneath.  But, as if by a miracle of God, they managed to stay put.
            “Where along the line do you think you drifted off?”
            “Um…” Ariadne said, knowing that glancing at the board for assistance was not the way out of this scenario.  Keeping her eyes locked on the history teacher’s, she willed her mind to conjure up the dates and names she’d seen on the board.
            The truth was, she’d drifted off into a world of daydreams almost immediately upon sitting down.  History was the class by which all states of boredom could be measured and as such she tuned out as early into the class as possible.
            The trick at this point was to choose a name, time, or event that showed she hadn’t been daydreaming for the entire class.  If she could name something that Mrs. Nowak had said in the last fifteen minutes she would be off the hook.
            Realizing she was quickly running out of time, Ariadne took a shot in the dark.  "Well, I got all that stuff about King Iarbas.”
            “What part specifically?”
            Cornered now, Ariadne forced herself to remember what she had seen on the board in her brief glimpse.  She ignored the looks of glee on the faces of her classmates just behind Mrs. Nowak.
            Something about one of the Gods, Ariadne thought.  He’s named after a planet.  Venus?  No.  Mars maybe?  It definitely started with an M…Mars or Mercury?
            “The part where he asked Mercury for help,” Ariadne replied.
            “You mean when he asked his father for help and in response Jupiter sent Mercury to send Aeneas on his way,” Mrs. Nowak corrected, straightening and returning to the front of the class.
            Ariadne breathed a sigh of relief.  She had won that round.  She glanced at the clock and saw that there were still another ten minutes left in class.
            “Try not to dose for the remainder of class, Miss Helen, despite your quick thinking you haven’t taken any notes for today’s class and you will sorely regret that come mid-terms.”
            Ariadne winced.  So much for a victory there.  Resigning herself to ten minutes of boredom, Ariadne picked up a pencil and tried to remain attentive as Mrs. Nowak continued her droning speech.
            As if in response to her distress, there was a quick knock at the door.  Frowning disapprovingly, Mrs. Nowak crossed the room to the door in three quick strides and opened the door.
            From Ariadne’s seat she couldn’t see who was standing outside the door but someone handed Mrs. Nowak a piece of paper which the history teacher scanned quickly before nodding.
            “Class is nearly finished, Mister…”
            “It’s pronounced Menelaus,” was the reply as a boy stepped into the classroom.
            Ariadne’s first impression was that this was one of the handsomest boys she’d ever seen.  His hair was jet black and swept back along either sides of his head.  His skin had a light tan, just enough to avoid being pale, and natural looking.  He wore a sports jacket, obviously tailored to his lithe frame, as well as a white button up shirt and expensive True Religion jeans.  There was a glint off of his left hand were a gold ring reflected the light.  His face was soft and symmetrical with deep brown eyes glimmering as they scanned the room.  For a brief moment, they settled on Ariadne and seemed to drink her in.  She felt a rush of blood to her face, but fought it.
            “Mr. Menelaus,” Mrs. Nowak nodded, closing the door and marching back to her position at the front of the glass.  “Well, find yourself a seat if you can.”
            “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
            Mrs. Nowak started and turned to the boy with some surprise on her face.  “Well, I suppose so.  Class, this is Janus Menelaus.  He’s a new student just transferred from…Troy, Ontario.”
            This last part Mrs. Nowak had read off of the card and she glanced at the new kid with some interest.  “Interesting.  Today’s topic involves a hero from the city for which your old home was named.”
            “Oh, yes,” Janus chuckled.  “I’m familiar with Troy.”
            “You are, are you?” Mrs. Nowak asked.  “What can you say about it?”
            “Well, that depends upon which event surrounding Troy we are dealing with.  Are we talking about the Trojan War?”
            There was something about his voice, its soft cadence, which made him sound charming and almost chivalric.  Ariadne found her frown deepening as she thought this.  Where did that thought come from?
            “No, I’m afraid I consider there to be insufficient evidence surrounding that conflict to teach it as fact in class.”
            “Oh, it happened,” Janus chuckled.  “May I take my seat now?”
            “Yes, of course,” Mrs. Nowak said, frowning slightly.
            Janus nodded and proceeded to the only unoccupied desk in the classroom, the one directly beside Ariadne’s.
            Janus sat down and leaned himself back in his chair, twisting the ring on his left hand with the adjacent fingers.  Ariadne found her eyes wandering to it.  It looked like a wedding band, golden and perfectly smooth.  She watched Janus rotate it twice, a symbol visible on the surface of it like a crest.  She glanced up and noticed him watching her, a simple smile on his face.
            Ariadne quickly darted her eyes back to the blackboard.  Mrs. Nowak had already started talking and Ariadne forced herself to focus on what was being said.
            She felt Janus’ eyes continue to bore into the side of her face, but she ignored them.
            “Good luck bud,” she heard one of her male classmates, Marcus, whisper to Janus from his other side.  “That’s Ariadne Helen.  The Stone-Wall.  It’s her nickname from volleyball but it applies pretty much all the time where boys are concerned.”
            Ariadne pretended not to hear.  The fact of the matter was, she might not have breasts the size of small planetoids like Mrs. Nowak, but Ariadne knew she was attractive.  She had straight, shoulder length, café mocha coloured hair held up in a ponytail with thin wisps cascading down around her ears.  Thanks to a small adrenaline addiction, she had a tight, athletic frame that she knew had earned her dagger eyes from at least half her female classmates.  Her eyes were a deep emerald, just like her father’s, and her skin was smooth and blemish free.  She never wore make-up and would never claim that she didn’t have the occasional ‘bad hair day’, but in general she didn’t feel the need to smother her facial features in product.
            “The Stone-Wall you say?” Janus whispered back.  “You’re telling me no one has managed to crack the wall.”
            Ariadne could just tell from the way he was talking that the new kid knew she could hear him.
            “Hey, it’s not for lack of trying man,” Marcus assured him.  “I mean, you’ve obviously noticed her unique charms.  Except for being taller than most of the guys who go here, what’s not to like.  She just doesn’t go for it.”
            “So, you all think she’s hot.  What about her spirit?”
            “Her spirit?”
            “Of course,” Janus said, as though he was passing on an important life lesson to an ignorant child.  “What is a woman’s beauty without a spirit to match?”
            “Well, I guess as far as her spirits like…well, she…she plays sports a lot.”
            “I think this is where our travels together come to an end, my friend,” Janus sighed.
            As if on cue, the bell rang.  Ariadne resolutely refused to look in Janus direction as she packed her untouched notebook into her backpack and swung it onto her back.
            However, when she turned to leave she found him standing in her way, hands in his pockets, smiling that same simple smile.
            “Excuse me,” Ariadne said, moving as if to squeeze past him, but he made no move to get out of her way.
            “Aren’t you going to welcome me to your school?” Janus asked.
            Ariadne noticed for the first time, now that she was standing in front of him, that Janus was barely an inch taller than her.  It wasn’t completely unusual to discover a guy who was taller than her.  Having gained both her eyes and her five foot eleven and a half inch height from her father, meeting guys who had managed to make it to that six foot mark were not a regular occurrence.
            Janus was still waiting expectantly for her to reply so Ariadne took a slow breath and put a smile on her face.  “Welcome to New Carthage High School.  You should listen to what Marcus said,” she leaned in a little closer to him, ignoring the faint smell of his expensive cologne, “I’m kind of what they call a prude.”
            In response, Janus leaned in a little closer and whispered back, “I was just asking you to say hello.”
            The simple smile on his face had grown a hairs breadth bigger as he leaned back.  Ariadne felt like somehow the exchange of words had been some sort of opening move and she had lost.  Janus stepped to the side, extending his arm as a motion or her to pass. 
            Frowning, Ariadne stepped passed and headed out into the hallway.  Immediately outside the door, three of Ariadne’s female classmates were attempting to be inconspicuous as they leaned against the green lockers flanking the door.  Ariadne felt it made their motives rather obvious when they all glared at her as she walked past.  A moment later she heard Janus step out of the classroom into the hailstorm of their fake and flattering voices.  Ariadne felt a small smile creep across her face and couldn’t help turning around to see the result.
            To her surprise, Janus was already leaning back against the green lockers surrounded by the three girls.  He was casually telling one of the three girls something that instantly broke out a chorus of twittering laughter from all three of them.
            As if sensing her watching, Janus turned his brown eyes on her and winked.  Ariadne only smirked, waiting for the second stage of the trio’s assault.  When one of the girls planted her hand against Janus’ chest, the smile on his face drooped slightly in surprise as he turned back to face the hand’s owner.  Ariadne’s smile grew bigger as she turned and walked away.
            While part of Ariadne understood her classmates resentment towards her looks she couldn’t help marvelling at the amount of time they spent doing it.  In her entire three years at New Carthage High School she had not once had a boyfriend or gone on a date.  She’d been asked out by almost every straight boy in their year and not once had she said yes to any of their advances.  So, it wasn’t like she was stealing all the men from the other girls in her grade.  Not to mention, the boys always gave up for the more eager prospects once they realized she had no interest in them, as she suspected Janus was at that moment.
            Twice her fellow classmates had tried to spread rumours that she was a lesbian around the school.  Somehow, the rumour hadn’t stuck.  Ariadne didn’t care one way or the other what her classmates thought about her sexuality.  She was straight, and when she saw a boy like Janus she could appreciate how handsome he looked, but it never went beyond appreciation for her.
            She was in high school.  The cesspool of hormones was no place to look for a real emotional connection.  Between boys who had watched one to many porn videos on their family computers late at night and girls more than willing to explore the full effects of their bodies on those boys, Ariadne was more than willing to stay out of the game.
            It also wasn’t wise to navigate the minefield of high school relationships when you were the daughter of Arthur Helen, the CEO of Hellenistic Inc. and a member of the Fortune 500 Club.
            “Are all the girls at this school as shameless as those three?  Is virtue a dead concept?”
            Ariadne started with surprise when Janus’ voice broke into her thoughts.  He was walking casually beside her, hands in his pocket, smiling.
            “How did you…” Ariadne glanced over her shoulder in time to see three sets of raging eyes watching the two of them recede.
            “How did I get away?” Janus asked, turning to walk backwards without breaking stride.  “The trick is to pick a target and not allow yourself to be distracted from the hunt.”
            “So, what you’re saying is that I’m a deer,” Ariadne replied.  “You’re a real flatterer Janus.  But I think this is where our travels together come to an end, my friend.”
            And, without stopping to see what his expression was, Ariadne pushed through the door into the girl’s change room without a backward glance.

Conquest - Prologue

James – Los Angeles

OF all the locations for his resurrection, the Serpent chose the one that best spoke to his forgotten heritage.

            The auditorium of the West Angeles Church of God In Christ, which on any given day could hold an excess of 22 000 people, was bathed in a preternatural darkness.  The usually vibrant colours of the mosaic at the back of the main stage were dulled by the deep gloom.  Under normal lighting, the stage would have appeared to be the colour of red clay with six steps raising the center of the stage above the level of the audience.  Just below the mosaic, bleachers wrapped around the center platform.  From them, the choir’s voice was amplified by the fervour of the audience and the acoustic design of the cathedral.

            However, tonight, the church held an audience which far exceeded the capacity envisioned by even the most ambitious of patrons.  Tonight, the cathedral would hold a service of an entirely different kind.  Certainly not what its most faithful parishioners would normally have attended within its hallowed halls.  And tonight, the only music would be swallowed up by the far reaching shadows looming over the main stage like the physical presence of He whom the musicians sought to please.

             The silence was shattered as the mighty doors to the great chamber were thrust open.  In marched four figures.  The lead figure was followed by two, dragging a fourth.  They navigated the near total darkness and ascended to the main stage.  Once there, the captive was propped up on his knees.  His shirt was stained with sweat, his face bruised, and a single cut had formed above his right eyebrow.  The man was named James.

            James didn’t know where he was.  Last he remembered, he had been in his apartment in Chicago when the three figures he was now with had burst in.  He had not even been able to shout out before the three had pounced on him.  With animal ferocity they had beat him until he had finally lost consciousness.

Now, finally able to take a good look at his captors, he found he was unable to distinguish anything about them.  They lacked any memorable or defining features, as though one’s eyes could find nothing of consequence about their appearance.  In fact, this effect was so powerful as to render James unable to determine the genders of any of them.  The only thing James was certain of was that each figure gave off a heady smell of sulphur, as though it were being secreted from their skin like sweat.

            “What do you want from me?” James demanded, looking between them.  When he turned to the third figure he saw that it was moving in a circle around him and the two restraining him.  Only when the figure had returned to its starting position in front of James did he notice that it was holding a knife to its wrist and bleeding onto the floor.

            “Who the hell are you people?”

            Suddenly, James felt his stomach clench.  He felt his muscles tighten and a shiver race up and down his spine.  The effect was the same as nails on a chalk board.  He didn’t hear anything – the three figures were unnaturally silent – but he felt as though someone had laughed at him.  He glanced around as best he could in his restrained position but he could see no one else in the massive auditorium.

            When James turned back – feeling it would be unwise to take his eyes off of his captors even for a moment – he barely caught a glint of metal before he felt a knife slash across his chest.

            James cried out, feeling the knife dig deep.  He attempted to break out of his captors’ grasp but he felt as though steel beams had been wrapped around his arms.  Grunting against the stinging pain, he felt the blood run down his chest.  The figure that had slashed him grabbed the front of his shirt and tugged.  The fabric tore easily, exposing the wound on James’ chest.

            James glanced down but his eyes shifted from his own wound to the blood the figure had spilled on the floor around him.  As though it possessed a life of its own, the blood was moving to form a circle with James at the center.

            Before he could demand another explanation, the knife-wielder slashed him again, slicing into the exact same groove formed by the blade the first time.

            He cried out again, feeling blood begin to flow freely.  Slumping forward, hissing against the searing pain, James watched the knife-wielder kneel before him and produce from a pocket a strange amulet.

            The stone at the center of the amulet was a deep black.  So deep that staring into it gave James an intense surge of vertigo, as though he could fall forward at any moment into its abyssal darkness. Beneath the surface was a constantly shifting tapestry of red smoke, light, and fire that mesmerized and terrified James all at once.  The stone was surrounded by a simple golden circle. He knew, before the figure even moved towards him, that the last thing he wanted was for his blood to touch that amulet.

            “Don’t touch me with that!” James hissed, glaring at the non-descript face of the figure before him.

            James felt he saw something shift in that indefinable face, a curving of forgettable lips, and a black twinkle in unremarkable eyes.  The figure then moved its hand towards James’ chest, pressing the amulet stone into the center of the slash.  Blood pumped out, surging over and around the stone as though it was drawing the blood into itself.

            “No!” James roared.  His skin was crawling as though he was being violated to his very core.  His fists clenched to the point that he felt his nails dig into his palm and draw more blood from his body.  He felt as though the amulet was draining him.

            “NO!”

            Suddenly, James felt the grip on his arms vanish.  His arms fell to his side, gravity now free to do its work.  He heard crashes to either side of him, but he didn’t glance in either direction.  With his new found freedom he lashed out at the figure holding the amulet to his chest.  He grabbed the front of the figure’s shirt and shoved it away from him.

            The instant the amulet broke contact with his skin the feeling of revulsion dissipated.  James was about to turn and flee when he saw that he had done more than shove the knife-wielder away from him.  The figure had been flung across the stage, impacting the mosaic at the back with such force as to crack the wall.  The figure then plummeted to the bleachers and rolled down to the ground with an audible snap.

            But, as though the entire ordeal had no effect on it, the figure rose to its feet and launched itself towards James, uttering an unnatural roar as it closed the distance in a single leap.

            James reacted instantly, striking out at the figure.  His fist connected with the figure’s chin and James watched with shock as the figure was launched into the stands of the auditorium.

            James spun around, searching for the other two attackers, and saw them scrambling out of the seats further back in the auditorium.

            How had they gotten there?

            James searched for an exit, hoping to spot the warm red glow of an EXIT sign.  Instead, as his body moved, he noticed his center of gravity was off.  Stumbling, he glanced over his shoulder.  He cried out in shock at what he beheld.

            Wings.  Black wings, coming out of his back, faintly reflecting light off of each feather as though they were made of metal.  But there was no light in the auditorium, the shimmer had no source.

            Before his brain had time to process what he saw, he felt that same feeling of revulsion magnified a thousand fold.  He was practically paralyzed with the pure, soundless, rage that washed over him.  He glanced around for the source but he could find nothing.

James’ distraction had given his kidnappers time to cross the auditorium and leap on him.  They shoved him to the ground, the effect of the untraceable roar weakening him.  With animal savagery, they pinned his arms to the stage.  James struggled, not understanding, but knowing, that he was stronger than his attackers. He knew that the roar was diminishing that strength but that his life hung in the balance.

            He had thrown one of the attackers off of him and was reaching for the other when the third figure, the knife-wielder, leapt back into his peripheral vision.  Before James could do anything in his own defense – his arms caught up in fighting off the second attacker – the third figure thrust the amulet against his chest.

            James could feel the urgency of the draining now.  He could feel the exodus of the blood from his body.  With each second he felt weaker until the grip of the second attacker on his arms was a steel grip once again.

            A minute later, James felt something else begin to be drawn from his body.  Something essential, eternal, something that was quintessentially James, was being drained from him now.  He was powerless to stop it.

            An eternity passed, thought it was probably no longer than a few seconds, and then James felt himself die.

            The first figure returned to the stage, snapping its dislocated shoulder back into place without so much as a grunt.  The figure with the amulet rose, holding it before him expectantly.  Nothing happened.

            “It did not work,” the second figure said, its voice as non-descript as its features.

            “Not just anyone’s blood will do,” the knife-wielder stated.

            “What now?” the first asked.

            The first wasn’t addressing either of the other two figures.  He spoke to the amulet.

            The red arras of the amulet surged up, as though something within it fought to get out.  The swell of light, smoke, and fire pressed itself against the interior walls of the amulet.  The fluid-like substance bucked, as though it were a thing alive, and the three figures understood.

            “Only he can open it,” the knife-wielder stated.

            “We must find him,” the second confirmed.

            “Micah,” nodded the first.