zg_shadows | Ten Minutes To Midnight

So this is a response to the little fic that

annwfyn wrote about her character Firinne and her Childe, Valdez whom she invited me to play and make my own. What follows is essentially the exact same scene but from Valdez's perspective. Even though I've only played him once and haven't got a lot of background for him yet, he's probably the character thats exciting me the most write now - even more than Nikki, who's background is a little on the epic side.

Hope you enjoy

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Ten Minutes To Midnight

Ten minutes to midnight.

Ten minutes till he was on.

Valdez could already feel in him the cool focus of the pre-show calm begin to wash over his spirit as he prepared to take the stage. He'd always been a very calm performer and resultantly he'd never really suffered from the rush of nerves most performers talked about before beginning a show. However, since his recent transformation as it were, the period of calm had turned almost into a state of meditation. One he which he was able to purge himself of anything that might be on his mind and become completely at one with his art.

Midnight Magic at the 654 Club was hardly the highlight of his career – in fact after “Valdez Cornelius: Magi” had run for two successful seasons on Channel 4 it was supposed to be quite a way beneath him – still, Valdez had his reasons for performing. On the surface, his main reason was image related – the concept of big named artists doing 'secret shows' in intimate venues for only a select few people was something that had become very trendy in the music world – why not adapt it to magic? More importantly though, this venue was small, intimate and perfect to try out some of his new material, and most importantly of all, she would be watching tonight.

It was nearly three years since he had first spotted her in his audience, long before he was discovered as it were. He was performing as part of a rather bad Caberet in The Magic Cavern in Baron's Court – he was on third in the running order, sandwiched between Sarah Sanderson and Jason Lake neither of whom had really been heard of since.

He'd walked out onto the small stage as Sarah had left, somehow in an even more revealing state of undress than she had entered in quarter of an hour earlier, then taken his customary bow before the sound man started up the CD and his act began. As usual he had gotten so caught up in his determination in performing he'd barely looked at his audience at all – just tried to use that sense every good performer has to feel the 'vibe' of the evening and gauge how they were reacting. And by god was the vibe strong that night, he knew its shouldn't be that good, there'd been a couple of drunks heckling all night and the audience in general hadn't been too excited by the previous performers – but there was something else there, as if there was someone watching so intently, so enraptured by his performance that their very presence was overpowering the rest of the audience.

And then he saw Firinne.

She was an attractive woman, Valdez was astute enough to be able to tell that instantly but that wasn't what was so fascinating about her. The way she was watching him, it was beyond any appreciation he'd seen in an audience member before, as if she had genuinely been transported to a world of magic by his art.

He'd finally done it. He'd finally managed to achieve what he'd been trying to all these years, turn magic from cheap entertainment into art.

Over the next few months he would see her at almost every gig he did, always watching with the same captivated sense of wonder. His silent muse. He laughed to himself thinking about it now - now that he knew Firinne, knew what she was and what she had become to him. Over those next two years he rise to fame had been nothing sort of meteoric, and he couldn't help but wonder just how much of a part Firinne and her various contacts will have played in that.

Now of course, Firinne had become so infinitely more important than just a woman who turned up in his shows and inspired him. Now she was his only muse. Now she was his benefactor and queen. His Helen of Troy and Mephistophales in one. Now she was his sire.

Sire!

What a fantastic concept that was! It was still not long since she had finally proposed her offer to Valdez. Her trade off. To live forever, with fabulous powers, but to do so always in darkness, and to be bonded to her for eternity. She must have known he was certain to say yes. He took his stage name from the two magicians in Christopher Marlowe's most famous tragedy, how could he possibly turn down such a Faustian pact.

And so here he was, no longer human. Immortal. A vampire.

Vampire! He was a vampire!

Valdez laughed in delight just thinking about it again, the whole idea was so wonderful. Everything he'd discovered since his embrace was wonderful. That was another one. Embrace! What a perfect word to describe such an extraordinary process. All of it marveled and inspired him, but above them all was this idea of The Masquerade. That one really was too much.

Vampires existed. Not only did they exist though, but they spent all their time covering up the fact they were vampires and pretending to be human! Just fascinating. Incredible in fact! It would take him a long time to get over his delight about that.

Still he no doubt had much more to learn, new things would soon doubtless capture his imagination and Firinne would no doubt be there - creating her fabulous art works and weaving her incredible tapestry around him – teaching him all these incredible things about this new world that had been so solid and normal until recently.

It wasn't all wonderful of course, there were many disturbing elements to his new existence too, but even them fascinated him in a darker way. The Beast for example – this notion that inside him was a monster that, if he strayed too far from the path as it were, could consume him and turn him into a being of pure evil, and that could come out in 'frenzies' if he wasn't careful.

And then of course, there was the blood thing.

Valdez wasn't surprised about the fact he had to drink blood to sustain himself – he was a vampire what did he expect – and was pleased to discover that he didn't have to kill people to do this, nor make them vampires. As far as the blood thing was concerned, he was OK with it, in theory.

The problem was he just hadn't found a good way of doing it yet. Firinne had detailed to him four ways of doing it that she approved over and he'd thought about them all for a while trying to work out what suited him the best.

Firstly he could feed off hospital blood. That was no good, the blood in hospitals was there to save lives it was pretty selfish for him to take it for himself. Besides, it needed a lot of connections that Valdez simply didn't have and it did sort of take the fun out of the whole vampire thing if you didn't actually properly drink it when it was fresh.

Secondly he could feed off animals. That was no good either. He wasn't a vegetarian or an animal rights activist. He had leather clothes, and liked his steaks rare in fact. There was just something so feral about drinking animals blood though that he found a little off putting. Whats more he'd heard animals blood didn't work nearly as well as human blood anyway.

Thirdly was what Firinne referred to as the Cassanova method. Go to a club, seduce a pretty young thing and use the act of sex as a cover for your feeding. This was obviously better, though Valdez didn't care for it much himself – but was a much more efficient way of doing the deed. It did however present a big image problem for Valdez though. He wasn't a Cassanova, or a philanderer or anything of the sort, it just wasn't his thing, and most importantly he didn't want to be seen as one. One of the things that made him so successful, made his TV show so popular was the sheer amount of mystery that surrounded him, very few people new much about him – his private life was very secret, and the idea of a hundred and one groupies being able to claim they had managed to get laid by Valdez Cornelius frankly repulsed him. Still Firinne instructed him to do it, and so he had, but had still wanted another option.

The forth option she had presented him with was to feed from people as they slept. This was far the best of the four in his opinion. Not only was it subtle and allowed him to use his dexterous talents, but it felt more vampiric than any of the others. More like the kind of thing you saw Dracula doing in the movies. That was a point, if there were Vampires, was there really a Dracula? Had Bram Stoker met some vampire stalking the halls of Trinity College or something and borrowed a tale from there? That was something he had to find out. Whether or which Firinne had showed him the ins and out of how to feed from the sleeping and he'd learned it pretty well. It was though, as she said, risky and there was a bit about it that for him was just a little too deceitful in a way. The point of a magician wasn't to get away with something without anyone being there to witness it. It was to get away with it in front of a huge crowd and none of them being any the wiser

And so finally after a month of brainstorming, careful thought and a little sessioning he had invented a fifth option. A little something he called Soulkiss. And tonight would be it's debut outing.

The clock struck midnight – the hour Faustus was carried off to hell – as Valdez left the dressing room and walked to the backstage area. Lady Devon would be sitting out there already, with one of her extensive herd on her arm no doubt and tonight she would watch him feed. She, the toyboy, the entire audience would see him drain blood and feed himself off a volunteer from the audience, and not one person would realize he'd done anything but perform the most stunning piece of mentalism ever witnessed in such a club. It would satisfy his need for blood in a way that pleased and suited him perfectly, and would in no way break The Masquerade.

After the show Firinne would no doubt come into the dressing room, they would talk briefly then he would kiss her hand and hopefully she would leave without mention of the fact he had fed in front of her. The first thing the next night he would of course come straight up to her and explain his new feeding method (without revealing the secret of the magic trick element of it of course) – he was far too devoted to her to let any more time pass then that. But tonight he had to know it worked – and if it got passed Firinne he would know for certain he'd succeeded. If not... well, the consequences weren't worth considering.

The lights on stage went down and the first few bars of the opening track he performed to began to play. He took one last breath and before stepping out to begin the show said to himself a few lines from his favorite play.

“Come and dine with me, and after meat
we’ll canvass every quiddity thereof;
For ere I sleep I’ll try what I can do:
This night I’ll conjure though I die therefore.”

And with that Valdez strode out and began the show.