I’ve set this journal entry so it can only be read by Grace and Rose. Let’s see if it works…
MARCUS
The Ice Man’s mule is parked
Outside the bar
Where a man with missing fingers
Plays a strange guitar
And the German dwarf
Dances with the butcher’s son
And a little rain never hurt no one
And a little rain never hurt no one
They’re dancing on the roof
And the ceiling’s coming down
I sleep with my shovel and my leather gloves
A little trouble makes it worth the going
And a little rain never hurt no one
The world is round
And so I’ll go around
You must risk something that matters
My hands are strong
I’ll take any man here
If it’s worth the going
It’s worth the ride
She was 15 years old
And never seen the ocean
She climbed into a van
With a vagabond
And the last thing she said
Was, “I love you mom.”
And a little rain
Never hurt no one
And a little rain
Never hurt no one
– Tom Waits, A Little Rain
“Marcus” was born David Felderjohn in the year of our lord 1845. His father was a wealthy plantation owner and his mother a house slave. When the master’s wife discovered her husband was sleeping with one of the slaves, she sold Marcus’ mother and sent the child into the fields. He grew up and worked there until men in blue uniforms came and “liberated” the plantation. He watched the union soldiers kill and butcher the household family, then was sent to the northern states where he served in the 57th Massachusetts (the third black regiment to serve in the Civil War) until the end of the war.
During the war, he learned to read and write from the black soldiers from the north. In return, he taught them the spirituals he sang in the fields, and discovered he had a talent for telling stories. He spent all his spare time (what little he had) reading every book he saw. When the war was over, he found work laying railroad ties, working his way down to New Orleans, and he stayed there until 1872. He met Mary Agnes LeFarbrea, a beautiful Creole woman who introduced him to the voodoun religion. At first reticent to participate in non-Christian rituals, his love for Mary overcame his fears. For three years, he lived with Mary, using his musical talents to eke out a meager living in New Orleans.
On December 10, 1878, David and Mary attended a visiting carnival/circus. On the way home, they were assaulted by a Sabbat Pack looking for soldiers. David and Mary were embraced, thrown into a common grave with a dozen other people, and buried alive.
Hours went by. David slowly clawed his way out of the hole using strength he couldn’t believe. His training as a soldier and the horrors he saw in the war steeled his mind against the terror of tearing himself from the earth. When he pulled himself out of the ground, he saw another figure – a giant of a man – fighting the seven Sabbat with his hands, feet and teeth. David joined in the fray, overcoming the raging beast in his brain for just long enough to fight back. When the fight turned against the Sabbat, they fled, leaving behind three of their companions, all too wounded to retreat. David and the giant looked at each other, looked at the broken bodies around them… and acting out of pure instinct, they diablerized them all. Both fell into an exhausted collapse of an embrace.
Then, David remembered Mary, still buried in the grave. He rushed to the loose earth, hoping to pull his love out of the ground, but by then, the sun was rising. He begged the giant to help him, but it required little convincing. It their combined might to pull Mary from the grave, but the creature there was only an animated shell of the woman he loved; the madness in her mind was too strong. The sun was rising, but David refused to let go of her. As his skin began to blister, the giant urged David to find a refuge. David clung to her burning body, crying and singing softly into her ear, praying his voice could bring her back to him. The pain overwhelmed him, and the giant grabbed his burning body, dragging him into a nearby cave while David watched his first and only love destroyed by the dawn.
That night, his body still burned by the sunlight, David learned his new companion’s identity… a man named Dimitri. This giant was a Russian performer with the visiting circus. Obviously, the Sabbat wanted Dimitri because of his size and strength. Together, the two of them set out to find and kill the remaining vampires. It took time, but over the course of a year, they destroyed each of them, but not before learning their secrets and their nature. They learned of the war between the Sabbat and the Camarilla and set out to join the enemy of those who created them. Through their travels, David’s skills continued to develop. Stripped of his natural beauty, he developed the only beauty he had left: his voice. His voice and his body grew with supernatural strength as he learned the ins and outs of Camarilla politics. For three decades, Dimitri and David traveled together, learning all they could about their new natures and the creatures they’d become. Of course, it would take a woman to divide them.
She called herself “Celedoine,” a beautiful woman with a stunning voice. Almost hypnotized by her beauty, David learned she was from a rare bloodline of kindred calling themselves “the Daughters of Cacophony.” David heard her voice and hoped to learn her secrets. Despite his brother’s warnings, David approached her, hoping his own voice would show her he was worthy of her gifts. All David proved was his own ignorance.
Celedoine heard his voice and smiled. She approached him, put her hands on his face, and began to sing. Pain flooded into his mind, into his body. Her lips came closer to his ear, her whispers pounding in his skull, shattering the bone, blasting the flesh inside. When the song was done, David was a broken man. Half-mad, he fled into the night, leaving his brother behind. David and Dimitri would not see each other for another century.
* * *
For one hundred years, David wandered the world. He sought death wherever he could find it, but where his heart demanded oblivion, his instincts demanded existence. He threw himself in front of danger at every turn, only to find himself at the other end, beaten and broken, but alive. Every pain he suffered further dulled his sorrow. Every pain he survived strengthened his convictions. Every defeat he endured taught him how to avoid further defeats. Finally, David came to a conclusion: pain is a lesson only those strong enough to survive can learn from.
This belief was fueled by a chance encounter with a renegade Tzimisce. Cast out from the Sabbat for her heretical beliefs, the Fiend introduced David to the faith of Lilith. Fascinated with the heretical faith, David followed the Tzimisce for nearly twenty years, studying the discipline of turning pain into strength. And for those twenty years, his spiral downward away from humanity led him to acts of depravity and despair. It wasn’t until he met the women who would become his “daughters” that his life would change once again.
* * *
After nearly a century of living with the Fiend, David’s morality had dropped as low as it could go without dipping into madness. The Tzimisce’s transformations of personality kept turning darker. Pain turned to torture, torture turned to mutilation, and mutilation turned to murder. The Fiend’s descent into darkness finally ended when she kidnapped two young girls. The Tzimisce had plans for them… and prepared them with terrible knowledge and pain. She told the girls secrets few vampires ever discover, just to drive their minds to the edge of ruin. She tortured their bodies to the point of breaking, then healed them with blood. David saw them, looked into their terrified eyes, and something inside him snapped. Memories of his mortal love flooded into his vision, memories of his humanity collided in his heart.
He broke their chains and told them to run. Not in time. The Tzimisce returned (alerted by its ghouls) and confronted David, transforming itself into a mass of muscle, blackened skin, and claws. The standoff lasted only a moment longer… and blood was drawn.
The fight lasted all night, both creatures fighting for the lives and souls of the little girls. For a moment, David was knocked senseless, and in that moment, the Fiend slashed the girls’ throats and drank their blood, preparing them for Embrace. David recovered, saw the Fiend’s blood on the girls’ lips and lost all control. He tore into the Fiend, smashing them both through the wall into the crimson light of early dawn.
The Tzimisce struggled to get back to shelter, but David would not let go.
Their bodies began to smoke, burning in the sunlight, but David would not let go.
The Tzimisce screamed, tore, bit, and did everything it could to break free, but David would not let her go.
The Fiend exploded, it’s blood and flesh sending black smoke into the early dawn. David fell back into the green grass, the wet dew sizzling as he hit the ground.
Another moment, he thought. Another moment, and it will all be over.
And at that moment, facing his own death without fear, remorse, or regret, he was free.
But then his face was covered, and his body drug back into the shelter of the building. When he opened his eyes, he saw the two girls, their eyes bleeding with tears.
* * *
Now, many years later, he and the girls have recovered from their wounds. David learned much from the Tzimisce, including the need to “re-invent” one’s self every once in a while. Calling himself “Marcus,” he presents himself as a scarred monstrosity. His daughters hide their faces, further creating an aura of mystique; another skill he learned from the Tzimisce. “It is all in the appearance,” she used to say to him. “Marcus” took those words to heart. Both he and his daughters maintain their image – employing it for effect and advantage.
Marcus always treads a delicate line between who he was, who he is, and who he may become. His time with the Tzimisce taught him the power of summoning the Beast, but his daughters keep him close to the man he used to be. He loves them very much, and will do anything to protect them. They saved his life – and his soul. Something he doesn’t perceive as “a debt,” but as a deed that he can never repay.
The Song