I left my warm happy room, carrying my finest weapons, and went with them as I had promised.
The catacomb was so small and tight, I could scarce stand up in it. And I knew it at once to be the burial place of mortal Christians and a place where they had sometimes gathered in the very first years of the sect.
We traveled through it some eighty or ninety feet before we came into an underground place, and there found the old Egyptian blood drinker on his bier, glaring at us, his youthful attendants horrified to find their abode empty and full of ashes of their dead.
The old creature had suffered much. Bald, and thin, black from the Great Fire, he had given himself up utterly to the making of his Satanic children, and so never healed as another blood drinker might. And now he knew himself to be tricked. Those he had sent on to Rome were gone forever, and we stood before him, looking down upon him in judgment, blood drinkers of unthinkable power who felt no pity for him and his cause.
Avicus was the first to raise his sword, but he was stopped as the old creature cried out,
"Do we not serve God?"
"You'll know sooner than I will," Avicus answered him, and with the blade, cut off his head.
The remaining band refused to run away from us. They fell on their knees and met our heavy blows in silence.
And so too it was with the fire that engulfed them all.
The next night and the night after that we went back, the three of us, to gather the remains and burn them over again, until it was finished and we thought that had put an end to the Satanic worshipers once and for all.
Would that it had been so.
I can't say that this awful chapter of our lives brought me together with Avicus and Mael. It was too dreadful, too against my nature, and too bitter for me.
I went back to my house, and gladly resumed my painting.
I rather enjoyed it that none of my guests ever wondered as to my true age, or why I didn't grow old or die. I think the answer lay in the fact that I had so very much company that no one couH pay attention to any one thing for very long.
Whatever it was, after the slaughter of the Satanic children, I wanted more music than before, and I painted more relentlessly and with greater invention and design.
Meantime the state of the Empire was dreadful. It was now quite totally divided between East and West. In the West, which included Rome, of course, Latin was the language; while in the East the common language was Greek. The Christians too felt this sharp division and continued to quarrel over their beliefs.
Finally the situation of my beloved city became intolerable. The Visigoth Ruler Alaric had taken the nearby port of Ostia, and was threatening Rome itself. The Senate seemed powerless to do anything about the impending invasion, and there was talk throughout the city that the slaves would side with the invaders, thereby bringing ruin on us all.
At last, at midnight, the Salarian gate of the city was opened. There was heard the horrifying sound of a Gothic trumpet. And in came the rapacious hordes of Goths and Scythians to sack Rome herself. I rushed out into the streets to see the carnage all around rne. Avicus was immediately at my side.
Hurrying across the roofs, we saw everywhere that slaves had risen against their masters, houses were forced open, jewels and gold were offered up by frantic victims, who were nevertheless murdered, rich statues were heaped upon wagons in those streets large enough to allow such, and bodies soon lay everywhere as the blood ran in the gutters and as the inevitable flames began to consume all that they could. The young and the healthy were rounded up to be sold into slavery, but the carnage was often random, and I soon realized I could do nothing to help any mortal whom I saw.
Returning to my house, I discovered with horror that it was already in flames. My guests had either been taken prisoner or had fled. My books were burning! All my copies of Virgil, Petronius, Apuleius, Cicero, Lucretius, Homer, Pliny were lying helpless amid the flames. My paintings were blackening and disintegrating. Foul smoke choked my lungs.
I had scarce time to grab a few important scrolls. Desperately I sought for Ovid, whom Pandora had so loved, and for the great tragedians of Greece. Avicus reached out his arms to help me. I took more, seeking to save my own diaries, but in that fatal instant Goth soldiers poured into my garden with loud shouts, their weapons raised.
At once I pulled my sword and began with fierce speed to decapitate them, shouting as they shouted, allowing my preternatural voice to deafen them and confuse them, as I hacked off random limbs.
Avicus proved even more fierce than I was, perhaps being more accustomed to this kind of battle, and soon the band lay dead at our feet.
But by now my house was completely engulfed in flames. The few scrolls we'd sought to save were burning. There was nothing more to be done. I could only pray that my slaves had sought some refuge, for if they hadn't they would soon be taken for loot.
"To the chapel of Those Who Must Be Kept," I said. "Where else is there to go?"
Quickly, we made to the roofs again, darting in and out of the blazes which everywhere lighted up the night sky. Rome was weeping; Rome was crying out for pity; Rome was dying. Rome was no more.
We reached the shrine in safety, though Alaric's troops were pillaging the countryside as well.
Going down into the cool confines of the chapel, I lighted the lamps quickly and then I fell down on my knees before Akasha, uncaring of what Avicus might think of such a gesture, and I poured out for her in whispered words the nature of this tragedy which had struck my mortal home.
"You saw the death of Egypt," I said reverently. "You saw it become a Roman province. Well, now Rome dies in its turn. Rome has lasted for eleven hundred years and now it's no more. How will the world survive? Who will tend the thousands of roads and bridges that everywhere bring men and women together? Who will maintain the fabulous cities in which men and women thrive in safe houses, educating their youth to read and write and worship their gods and goddesses with ceremony? Who will drive back these accursed creatures who cannot farm the land which they have burnt and who live only to destroy!"
Of course there was no response from the Blessed Parents.
But I fell forward and my hand wrent out to touch Akasha's foot. I breathed a deep sigh.
And finally, forgetting all formality, I crept into the corner and sat rather like an exhausted boy. Avicus came to sit beside me. He clasped my hand.
"And what of Mael?" I asked softly.
"Mael is clever," said Avicus. "Mael loves to fight. He has destroyed many a blood drinker. Mael will never allow himself to be wounded as he was on that long ago night. And Mael knows how to hide when all is lost."
For six nights we remained in the chapel.
We could hear the shouts, the crying, as the looting and pillaging went on. But then Alaric marched out of Rome to wreak havoc on the countryside to the South.
Finally the need for blood caused both of us to go back to the world above.
Avicus bid me farewell and went in search of Mael, while I found myself in the street near my house, coming upon a soldier who was dying with a spear through his chest. He was no longer conscious. I removed the spear, which caused him to moan in his sleep, and then lifting him I opened my mouth over the gushing wound.
The blood was full of scenes of the battle, and quite soon I had enough. I laid him aside, composing his limbs artfully. And then I discovered I was hungry for more.
This time a dying man would not do. I walked on, stepping over rotted and stinking bodies, and passing the gutted ruins of houses, until I found an isolated soldier with a sack of loot over his back. He made to draw his sword, but quickly I overcame him, and bit into his throat. He died too soon for me. But I was satisfied. I let him fall at my feet.