Memories of a Fire Ritual

Curled up in her haven the following dawn, she remembers.

Kytha gets out of the limousine behind Arkady, Kestrel, and Ivan, grinning a little with anticipation and excitement. Arkady said something about a fire ritual. Fire? That’s nothing, she tells herself. Kytha knows the burns fire leaves. The ankh branded on the back of her neck and the scars on her back are visible testimony to her commitment to the Sabbat, to twisting herself into the strongest, most deadly vampire she can be; they are proof of her courage and zeal. But a little voice that she can’t quite put aside tells her that this could be different. This time, she won’t be forced to taste the flame. She’ll have to do it willingly.

Arkady directs the group to haul the wood for the bonfire into a clearing deep in the wooded park. When the structure is complete, he orders them to strip. Kytha does so, without a thought or care for human modesty and bashfulness; her body is that of a predator and a monster, not something that she needs to hide. Her bones stick out under her grave-pale skin and her back, buttocks, and legs are covered with burn scars and knotted by the lash. Kytha ties up her long, greasy hair in a bun, revealing her Sabbat brand and safeguarding it from the flame.

Arkady paints symbols with mud on the bodies of the Sabbat, then gathers them around himself: Kytha, Kestrel, Ivan, Tati, Vincent, and the new one, the Persian. He lights the bonfire and begins to proselytize to them, telling them of the greatness of their ancestor, Cain, and of their duty to overthrow the Camarilla. Kytha is nodding, vocally agreeing with him, and even begins to call back to him: Cain is the Father! And we are his eaten children! Sword of Cain, Sword of Cain the circle chants. They pace around the roaring fire, then run, then dance, screaming out their chant. Arkady shouts over the hot blaze, issuing a challenge or a command that Kytha barely hears over the chanting, the howling, and the snap of the flame. But she understands.

Kytha does not hesitate. She will be the first to prove herself in the fire; she will be the strongest, the bravest, the fastest, and the most willing of the group. With an inhuman, ululating cry, Kytha plunges toward the inferno, spins, and leaps over it, as quick and powerful as a lioness leaping down on a gazelle. She snarls in defiance of the flame. “Sword of Cain!” she screams out with the rest, but does not move away from the fire. Kytha stands there, momentarily entranced by it and by the power and energy coursing through her from the ritual. She thrusts her hand into the blaze, screaming in agony as she scoops up a red-hot coal. Her dead flesh twists and smokes, but she grips the ember even more tightly, pounding it to her breast over her heart. “Sword of Cain!” she howls, in pain and in rapture. “Fearless ones! We are eaten! We will eat the world!” When Kytha thinks that she can endure the pain no longer, she grips the fire more tightly and grinds the heat into her chest, screaming in agony, reveling in the pain and the strength that she is learning. Finally, when the nerves are completely deadened, she lets the coals fall to the ground to be crushed by the stomping feet of her comrades.

Kytha leaps the fire again and again, dancing and spinning, howling for her cause and her kills, a monster among monsters in the night. The pain, the fire, and the thought of how proud her sire would be if he could see her now light her dead soul with infernal glee. Tonight we will make a killing, she swears, screaming aloud. Tonight, the Sabbat will reign.

Ivan
It is pretty amusing, this little ritual that Arkady is performing, regardless of its true usefulness. For I have learned from the past the ability to enact the power of the blood to channel Caine to fill my mind with will of diamond, and with Caine's help, I can put the beast completely under my own control. One shall master their own emotion, rather than to be master by it. Yet this little performance of his seeks encourage one's dependency on emotion, gaining courage through something that channels the emotion rather than controlling it. My mind was calmed, and I observed all. This appears to be some sort of hypnosis, a method of sending kindred to a trance. How can one be cool minded and learn under this type of emotional burden. I watched as someone foolish enough to self mutilate, burning her own flesh with coals under the influence of this ritual. Do they gain courage through sacrificing instinct and control? For one shall never unnecessary hurt himself unless it advance his knowledge about himself, be it to test the limit or to test certain discipline.
I will entertain them and see if I feel any different. Though for I am the one who truly know, that I do this under my own control, and no emotion shall direct me.