countenanceofchrist | Even The Devil Appreciates Art...

Even The Devil Appreciates Art...

The changing ages brought many new things - industrial advancements, sanitation, textile, governmental...

But some things never changed. Chief among them was humankind's passion to create art, the need to express itself visually and beautifully. Mostly beautifully. Art to shock and horrify had gained a great deal of momentum in recent decades. Nothing was taboo, nothing was sacred, nothing was held untouchable or unquestionable.

Cesare both loved and reviled it. He liked to consider himself a man of a torn nature, but he supposed it was simply part of the Borgia blood. They had always been a pack of hypocrites, aspiring to sainthood while living as sinners. But hadn't man always been obsessed with sin? The doing of it, the judging of it, the admonishing of it and the rising high above it? God or no, that was the eternal struggle. Morality against nature.

Even today, in the art produced in this modern world where video had killed not only the radio star but God Himself, man had not shaken the shackles of sin. The old tablaus were revisited and retreaded again and again. Here the hint of an angel, there the leering face of a devil. Though the subject matter of the paintings Cesare was currently eyeing were entirely modern - and all sharp lines and harsh, geometric angles - the impressions were ancient.

He had only even bothered attending this particular show because the local Diocese spoke out against it's lewdness and blasphemy. He couldn't quite remember when something as natural and unremarkable as nakedness and death had become lewd and blasphemous, but he had left the church in the late 1490s and had little to do with it after the death of his father. Catholics were greater hypocrites than Borgia.

"I could shit more lewdness than this," he muttered, shaking his head and turning to take a glass of wine from a passing server. The art was beginning to bore him. Perhaps the art appreciators would hold more inspiring and engaging views.

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Samantha stood out in this crowd. Not because of her blue hair or the fact that she was wearing a ripped tee shirt with a picture of Animal from The Muppets that said 'Wild Thing' across the bust. Artsy people would forgive that sort of thing. It was simply a matter of her perceived youth.

Oh, Sam was young. Her body had only lived seventeen years. Another three since then. Still, that didn't mean the only thing she had to contribute to dialogue was how much she 'hearted' things and how much she wanted to 'can haz cheeseburger' or whatever.

It was an argument she'd gotten tired of having though, so she'd resigned herself to sulky silence for the most part.

As for the art itself? A little too avant-garde for her tastes, really.

Which meant that she couldn't hold back an explosive snicker when she overheard the stray comment. Yeah. It was true. "My grandmother could shit more lewdness."

"It amazes me," he went on, smoothly, when he realized he'd been heard, "that an artist can so very clearly try so hard but somehow surpass trying too hard and land squarely in the center of mediocrity. He does not shock, he does not titillate, he does awe or offend. And while his technical talent is clear, his creativity is sorely lacking."

And so he was engaged in conversation. With a most intriguing partner.

Most certainly a student or lover of the arts, Cesare could make that assumption simply by looking at the girl. And 'girl' she very much appeared to be. Women had ways, in this day and age, of masking the truth of their age on their face, but not like that. She looked hardly older than Charlotte had been, when he'd married her. Sixteen or so. Not the usual crowd at these sorts of things. Perhaps a prodigy.

Either way, she would likely prove interesting.

"Shock, titillate, awe, offend, or anything else," Samantha agreed, turning around to face the gentleman who was, apparently, going to be a fellow troublemaker. "He doesn't evoke any kind of feeling. Which means this crap really isn't art."

Or, at least to her mind, it missed the point of art entirely.

The stranger had an interesting face. That was her first assessment. He reminded her of a Botticelli sculpture.

He also didn't have a predator's taint, which relaxed her by miles. Sam had taught herself to always be on her guard around other Kindred. Which resulted in shoulders that were chronically tense and a jaw that was always clenched.

Nice to get out of that, from time to time.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a conversation that had actually been interesting.

"Michelangelo once said 'to be noticed, one must be outrageous'." Whether this was a remembered quote or not, Cesare didn't care. He hadn't even known who the man was when he'd said it, that strange and drunken night in Florence. But he'd never forgotten.

And it was Michelangelo that had stolen Cesare's face for sculptures. At least the one. He wondered whatever had happened to it, if it had been lost to some war or if it collected dust in some museum basement or collector's showroom.

"Art it is, simply not good art. Boredom and dissatisfaction, though not the aim, are still feelings. Mild and unremarkable feelings, but we cannot deny that the artist has evoked something in us." He lifted his glass in a sort of mock salute.

"I can't imagine the rest of what's on display is much better. I'm beginning to think this evening was almost a waste of time." His pointed look when he spoke the word 'almost' was clear. While he had no intention of flirting or pursuing - he didn't remember when ages of consent came into play, either, but he took no chances. To draw the eyes of the law would be nearly as bad as drawing the eyes of Mother Church.

Or historians.

But he liked this girl's spirit. She said what she thought, and the way she presented herself - striking, eye catching - spoke volumes of her. She, too, was outrageous he would wager.

Sam considered it a moment, frowning thoughtfully. "Never really thought of boredom as an emotion," she finally admitted. "More like the complete absence of emotions."

A phrase that had been popping up with alarming frequency in her nighttime activity, as of late.

She didn't have a glass to tilt toward him. Of course the caterers in their crisp button-downs wouldn't serve her. Not that she could pitch too much of a fit over it. Even if she wasn't seventeen, she still wasn't twenty one. But that meant all she could really do was touch two fingers to her temple and give him a salute in return.

"Boredom is one of the worst emotions. Ennui is the gateway to apathy, and apathy is one of the cardinal sins." Cesare's eyes were glittering as he spoke, filled with amusement and good humor.

"That is the true essence of sloth, you see. Indifference. To lose all care and be unmoved to anything or by anything. It's a miserable state to be in - to have life but no passion for it or anything it contains." He had had those stretches of sloth. But he no longer believed in hell or a God who had made it, so he cared little for the sinfulness of such a state. Simply the wastefulness of it.

"I think I'm going to get some air. Would you care to continue our discussion outside? I'm Cézar Fara, to alleviate any misgivings about leaving a public place with a strange man." The Spanish variant of his birth name, and Fara for Farnesse. It had been too long since he paid any homage to Alessandro, after all.

He changed it every handful of decades, when he moved on to a new place.

She always bristled a little when people started to talk about sin. Nothing personal, but it just brought up bad memories. Witnesses and Mormons proselytizing to her parents, explaining that they only wanted them to see the error of their ways. Jews weren't innately evil. They just were behind the times.

Add another layer to the onion, now Sam was always watching out for the members of the Lancae Sanctum, preaching about how it was the responsibility of all Kindred to be monsters. God created them to be what the pious feared, in order to drive the pious back to Heaven.

She hated it.

Hated it, hated it, hated it.

But he didn't have a taint, she reminded herself. And they were talking about art more than sin. Maybe he was just waxing poetic. Wasn't that what Europeans were famous for?

What the hell? It wasn't like he could actually hurt her.

"Sam," she said, offering him a hand. She wore a leather glove with the fingers cut off. Her nails were black, but the polish was chipping. "Sam Moon." Her street name. She tagged all of her art with a crescent moon.

Anglican.

Cesare wasn't certain why he always did that, even now. As though alliances of country meant anything, or meant anything to him.

He took her hand and shook it, as all hands were shaken. The roles of men and women had visibly changed, though he rather felt things were much as they had been. Perhaps women had lacked political power, but social power? That had always been shared equally among the sexes. Behind closed doors.

"Are you a great lover of art? I have something of a passion for the works of the Renaissance age, myself." He spoke as he walked, enjoying the company. He was always happy, as long as he had someone to talk to.

Or at.

"Michelangelo is a particular favorite."

"Studying art history at USC," she lied. She'd gotten so used to telling the lie she almost believed it herself. Never mind the fact that she'd never once set foot on the USC campus. Nor had she ever taken an art history class. She was more of a fan of practical application.

Which wasn't to say she didn't know that Michelangelo was more than a Ninja Turtle.

She could read.

"I like the ancient stuff," she admitted. "Greek friezes and red figure." The stuff artists used to make when they didn't care about getting credit for their work.

"Ah yes, the so-called archaic period of Grecian art. I find myself more drawn to the classical era - Antenor was a genius of the human form. And the first to begin replicating it, as true to life. Or at least the first Greek given credit for it. So much of history is lost, never to be reclaimed by future generations."

Unless one had been cursed three times and spilled innocent blood in the sanctum of the Vatican. Then one was free to live and live and remember it all - for better or worse. Mostly Cesare simply found it frustrating, the way history had trickled down in books and records. Somehow, his greatest triumphs had all been lost but his perversions had been well preserved.

"Do you have dreams to create art yourself, or simply delve into its metaphorical depths?"

For someone without a taint, he certainly talked like an Elder Kindred. Which was to say...a lot. Prose oozing with metaphor and grandeur and impressiveness.

Well. She had heard that there were some vampires capable of masking their taint. Maybe he was one of them. It would explain why he had any interest in her, she supposed.

Apart from her hair, which was just awesome.

Her guard was back up, if only a little bit.

"I paint," she admitted.

"Do you? Are you on display anywhere? I've little artistic talent myself - I suppose that's why I enjoy it as deeply as I do. It's something that escapes me no matter how I try and grasp it." His manner of speech hand never changed, though the languages did. Even now his accent was some mild but impossible to place blend of Italian, French, and Spanish.

He had no suspisions his current conversation partner was anything beyond what she claimed to be. The young were never really as young as the old believed them to be. Perhaps 'dying' young had allowed him to remember that.

"My father always said to be thankful for what God gave me. For which I am - though I hope not to offend, I'm a recovering Catholic and have no belief in any god - but I think it's the nature of man to strive for what we cannot do."

And he certainly knew how to pack a lot into a few sentences. Sam wasn't sure how to respond to all of it, but she knew that she was going to toss out her deal-breaker right off.

If he had a problem with that, she'd be saving them both a lot of time.

"I'm an agnostic Jew so...not offended?"

His play.

"Good. Some people, even in this day and age, are very particular about matters of religion. I don't care who believes in an Almighty, as long as they don't care that I don't."

A Jewish girl would hardly lecture him about faith, and an agnostic one even less.

"But I've always believed in thinking and doing as I please."

Okay. He passed that test. But the commentary about 'this day in age' didn't do wonders for her suspicious nature.

Avery would be so proud.

"I don't care about a lotta stuff," she said, running her fingertips along the knuckles of her glove. "But you sound like you're getting sentimental for a time before you were born."

"Art and literature make us feel closer to times long gone."

Nostalgia for that age? Perhaps. So distant, he could give his memories a rose tinged glow. But it had been a violent age torn apart by superstition and religion. Even then, he had longed for the days of his namesake, when the Roman Empire stretched across Europe and a man stood a chance to rule all.

"Maybe I'm an old soul. History fascinates me. The patterns, the people, the way seemingly insignificant events shape centuries... it's empowering and humbling all at once."

"So what's a history buff doing at an avant-garde art opening?" she asked, figuring she would save them a little time and cut to the point.

It was taking everything in her power not to just blurt out, So, are you a Ventrue or a Daeva?

He had to be, didn't he? No one else actually talked like that.

No one human.

"I was curious. Modern art is influenced by the old, after all, and there was such an outrage over the immorality and depravity of the show. I came seeking the sacrilegious, I suppose."

Cesare shrugged. He was human, simply a very long lived one. A cursed one, but he liked to look at his curse as a blessing. As long as man drew breath he could dream, and as long as he dreamed he could chase and perchance catch them.

"And as I so often am, I was disappointed. When musicians are masturbating on church lawns in broad daylight, the bar has been raised particularly high."

Okay that made her laugh. She had no idea if he was referencing something or if that was some old/new figure of speech she hadn't heard. Either way, it was quite the visual. Waaaaaaaay too avant-garde for her tastes. But that seemed to be the way modern art was going, she had to admit.

"Yeah," she said, ducking her head slightly, "yeah, that is a high bar."

"Maybe I'm just bored with art." He caught her eyes and shrugged again, though now there was humor in his voice. Her laughter had helped.

"Or sacrilege. Though I can't imagine ever being bored with that. Vice, rather than variety, is the spice of life. What are you doing with the rest of your night?"

A sudden change in topics, but he was curious. And he'd always enjoyed spending his time with artists.

She nearly got whiplash from the change of topics. She'd been about to point out, in fact, that for someone who was a 'recovering Catholic,' he sure seemed to obsess over religion. Almost every other sentence, it seemed.

But he caught her off guard.

"Uh..."

The reality was that she'd offered to do some research for Avery. He was convinced that there was some kind of conspiracy, linking the plastic ends of shoelaces--apparently called aiglets--were somehow connected to a missing recording from the Watergate scandal that proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Kindred were involved. Sam was convinced he was nuts.

She shrugged. "Hadn't really thought that far ahead," she replied.

"Then we are two sailors of fortune, open to where the wind takes us! I haven't a thing planned myself." He was still new to this city, still feeling it and its people out. But he didn't want to go home yet, the evening was young by his standards. There was a whole city out there, teeming and pulsing with life.

"Why don't we walk the night, see what we find?"

Perhaps it was untoward for a grown man to be inviting a school aged girl to wander a dark city with him, but his intentions weren't predatory. And he passed himself off as a man of twenty three, still young enough to wish the company of youths.

She was supposed to tell him 'no.' Every year of grade school 'stranger danger' lessons had taught her that much. But then again, what was she afraid of, really? That he'd kill her? She was already dead. And if he was a Kindred...

...well...

She'd burn that bridge when she came to it.

At the very worst, she supposed, it was reckless. But at the very best? Maybe a little fun.

Researching aiglets...was not so fun.

"Lock and load," she grinned.

Cesare laughed and waved his hand, as though ushering her along. He liked her grin. He couldn't abide dour women. Or men, either, but there was something particularly unpleasant about a woman who never smiled.

"Lock and load indeed. All guns blazing into that good night - though I fear I'm mixing my metaphors. I'm surprised I haven't bored the wits out of you, with all my talk of sin and classic art and a veritable host of other dry subjects." While he was mostly teasing, the fact remained. This petit cher hadn't waved him away or scorned him as many a youth would. Simply the fact that she showed no fear at venturing out alone with what she had to consider an odd man she didn't know...

"What does a bright young thing like you see in me?"

Guns blazing indeed. As ever in situations classified as 'unknown,' Sam became acutely aware of the metal barrel of her heavy revolver, digging into the skin of her back. Her other insurance policy for if and when her disciplines failed her.

Not that she anticipated having to shoot this guy but...she pretty much always anticipated having to shoot someone, lately.

His question, however, was a fair one. "I see someone who doesn't buy that bullshit art," she replied easily enough. "And doesn't pretend to, just because everyone else is."

"I have never bought any manner of bullshit. To thine ownself be true, always and in all things. That is the meaning of life, the great mystery." And to be outrageous. But they were one and the same, for Cesare. Wasn't that why Michelangelo had adored him so?

"But something tells me that you already know much of this. I sense a kind of kindred spirit in you. You don't let anyone else tell you what you should be, do you?"

Her attitude matched her attire, she didn't style herself this way out of insecurity.

Sam touched her wig, grinning a little bit. "What gave me away?" she asked.

And here was where he departed from most of the Elders she knew. They often misjudged and wrote her off for the way she looked. Like the adults in her life, really. Young. Misguided. Purposeless.

She had purpose, though. Just because it wasn't obvious didn't mean it wasn't there.

"I have an eye for fine and minute detail." He gave her a wink. "And like calls to like, as they say. Souls that share affinity are often drawn to one another - if, of course, you believe in souls."

Cesare didn't know where he stood on that particular issue. He didn't believe in the god of the Catholic Church any longer - hadn't, since his father still lived - but he knew there were things beyond the knowledge of living man.

He was one of those things, in many ways.

She'd been raised by a North Shore suburban housewife. Sam didn't know if she believed in souls. But she definitely believed in guilt.

Which was about as religious as she tended to get.

"Where you from, anyway?" she asked her mysterious companion. "Can't place the accent."

"A great many places. Spain, originally, but I've lived in Italy, France, Greece, Argentina, Egypt..." Cesare gave another devil-may-care shrug. "I'm a restless man, I fear I haven't stayed in one place long enough to commit its cadences to my tongue."

Not entirely lies, but not entirely truth. His line was Spanish through his father but he'd been born in Italy. And 'reborn a son of France', or so Louis had always liked to say.

"My accent is that of the world. And you? Where do you call your home?"

Sam smirked. "Kresgie Hall." Actually, she wasn't entirely sure if there was a Kresgie Hall on the USC campus. She assumed there was, though. Every college campus seemed to have one. Even the one on Buffy the Vampire Slayer had one. And that was fictional.

She assumed.

Actually, Sam was doing a lot of assuming tonight. Which was probably reckless and would make Avery knit his brow at her. But she could live with a rapping on her knuckles.

Young people were supposed to be stupid, weren't they?

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Even The Devil Appreciates Art...

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