Copia grabbed Milagro by the arm, halting her from walking away from him again, the beast in him snapping at the bars of his heart cage, defenses bolstering.

“Now just a minute!” He spat, “Since yesterday you have been acting like, like a petulant child! Bratting around and being contrary! I don't know if you are pissed with me or something that happened ‘back home’, but I certainly don't deserve to be-”

*Ignored, he meant to say*

“Treated like a pretty little prize to be won and not earned?! Don't bother!” Milagro interrupted, snapping her arm down, breaking Copia's hold, "It's not like I get to be anything with you, anyway! And of everyone's whispering and watching, the least I can get is any attention in public from you, it's like I'm not even somone you care to consider to locking in a trophy case!"

*(Ah yes... all those times she had found him, gazing in expressions from hypnotized to hatred, at the Golden Saxaphone displayed in the clergy offices, clutching his grucifix like a man both bewitched and possessed by a desire beyond what she could comprehend... The Cardinal had been avoiding her, obsessing with his career doing so, carrying his duty like a chain, an inward despisement that clung to him like the clergical collar at his throat.)*

Copia, momentarily stunned by the fight in Milagro's words, didn't reach for her again, instead let her walk away, which somehow stung even more. Like the loss of touch had pulled out something from his hurt and guilt, and left it vulnerable and open... something he didn't like...

Milagro's silhouette glided towards the corner of the cabin, where she yanked off her shirt and started undressing while maintaining eye contact, “Yeah, you're right!” She laughed dryly, “I don't deserve that!”

*There was a beat of tension between them. But taking the cue as them about to go to bed, cross with one another again, Copia followed her lead, a reluctant dancer into the fray of an argument he knew would not end tonight, and would carry once more into the next day of their oh so precious, oh so limited time alone together on this vacation*

Copia sputtered and grumbled, pulling at his own shirt, fumbling over the buttons of his more sporty tailored cassock. Then in his frustration yanked the clergyman's collar from his neck and cast it aside like he was tossing a gauntlet into the fight, all the while his eyes not leaving Milagro's form, following the curves and lines that he lusted for, despite the growing anger he was feeling.

As if running hot in his temper was also gushing blood into his core, the heat intensifying, something preying excited itself at the hum of malcontent... and it licked its lips in anticipation, urging, for more, more...

“You are so damn difficult when you don't have to be!” Copia at last said, rather snidely, “I deserve some respect about this! If it weren't for my dedications, I wouldn't have got you your job! I take care of you, I clothe and feed you, spoil you with the pretty things you want and bring you out here to have a little vacation, with me all to yourself, and this is the thanking I get?! Speaking to me like I'm some piece of shit boyfriend who doesn't care like the other bastards you were dating back home?!”

The moment he said those thing he knew he fucked up. The words that had flown so carelessly from his painted mouth, sounded Exactly like his mother's...

Milagro slapped the wardrobe closed, naked and every inch her petite stature managing to still tower over him with her words, “Jesus you're such a prick! YOU didn’t bring me here for a romantic getaway for ME, you brought me here to your fuck ass cabin in these weired as fuck woods, for YOU!”

“I brought you here so we could spend time together, to bond and focus on us!”

“No, you are literally making this whole thing about YOU! How I owe you, how I need you, how you provide basic necessities as if it were an added gratuity to your magnanimous courtesy, that's not caring for me, that's buying me- and I'm not for fucking sale!”

“Satanas, you are taking this so way out of context-line!”

“Face it Cardi, you didn't bring me here for my benefit. You brought me here for yours, so you can have ME all to YOURSELF, without Imperator, ghouls, and the Siblings of Sin prying into your business. You barely even acknowledge me walking in the halls when it's even just you and me at the opposite ends, hell, you even avoid me unless you want to drag me into a closet to get slutty for some high fevered fuck! Like I don't have a life, and my own feelings, like you're hiding me, from yours!”

“Im not avoiding you, because there's nothing I'm avoiding you to shame, er- to be ashamed of!” Copia cried out exasperatedly, pulling his pants down and stepping out of them, throwing himself onto the bed corner removing the rest of his clothes angrily, “What, you think you know everything going on with me and my life, I'm balancing on knives and walking on shell-eggs because I have urgent and important things that I can't have you involved in for your own good!”

“Oh please!” Milagro said, throwing up her hands as she knelt down and threw open her suitcase, tossing clothes as she dug for what she wanted, turning her back to Copia, “You do what you do to get your rocks off, and leave me, like I'm some sordid affair-”

“You are not an affair!” Copia stamped, suddenly at Milagro's side, digging with her into the suitcase, elbows deep into autopsying the chaos contained inside, and immediately locating her pale white nightgown, holding it out to her, which she promptly attempted to snatch up.

“Stubbornly enough, I actually do care," Copia said, gloved hand fisted into the silk, like they were both in a tug of war, and yet still side by side "And I've never treated you like you were some secret slut!”

“I never said that-” Milagro almost yelled. But she halted her rage and covered her face in her free hand a moment, trying to compose herself in deep breaths between her tense fingers.

Copia, still running hot, felt the urge to hold the line, “-and being a slut is not a thing to be shamed of around here- The Ministry even welcomes it- so if you're angry at me over feeling shame for your actions, that's not my wrongdoing- that's yours- you hold guilt in you and that has nothing to do with how I treat you, how I care, how I brought you here to try and mend US.”

“You aren't doing all this because you care, you're doing all this because you are hiding something. You always have been, and you've been lying to me somehow-”

The Cardinal's mouth opened and shut. No silver toungued song could backtrack what had been said and done. His hand slacked.

Milagro stood as she took the silk clothing from Copia's gloved hands, at once disliking the way they looked compared to her own bare fingers.

It was only then she noticed how strange it all was. Crouched down, Copia really was wearing nothing but his socks and gloves. And somehow, despite his tall stature and dancer's muscles proud beneath, a thickness half cocked hanging below his waist, and his eyes, gleaming with imposition and determined adversary, he somehow looked less like the glowering steeple of the satanic, and instead seemed so defeated....so, small... a something that seemed buried as if forgotten, and to the pious, mattered not a thing more...

While Milagro stood there beside him, naked as she came into this world… his world… a world she had slowly been feeling the weight of ‘otherness' pressing down on her, and how despite the claims of welcome and the promise of fulfillment as a Sister of Sin in the Ministry, having discarded her old life, at least probationarily, she felt deeply the sense that she did not belong…

That She was a stranger here, walking the gilded halls, finding nothing but mystery after mystery, secrets unexplained, with powerful people and hidden places she didn't trust, and the person she had put her faith in, wasn't so un-entrenched with them, as she had been led to believe*

Milagro stared down at the man who had somehow taken so much from her without even knowing, and spoke her truth,

“You didn’t bring me to the valley to take care of me- and you brought me to this cabin to fuck in peace. And in a couple days you'll fuck off like you always do and act like I'm just a person in the room to be polite to… you won't let me in. And I think you know that. And I think you have been avoiding allot of things, or some big thing, and I'm your outlet, I'm your distraction. So why are you even bothering to be mad at me, for being mad at you for it, at all?”

The room was still. Copia’s mouth hung open like a dead fish, and he blinked up at her in shock.

Now, Milagro wouldn't look at him. She put on the soft nightgown without even raising her head. The tears she was trying to hide from him, forcing themselves out of her eyes and down her cheeks, were like daggers to The Cardinal's darkened heart. A mark of innocence so sincere it was painful. And he felt like a coward...

*Copia hated to see Milagro cry. He hated himself for being the reason she was crying, thinking and saying all these things…. Realizing that there was a ring of truth to her words… had he really been so blind? Had she really been suffering so much and so quietly while he had been looking the other way?*

Copia watched her as she quietly dressed. Her skin as soft and pale as the silk against it. Blonde hair shimmering, casting a halo of glowing sadness about her. The heat in him had cooled, leaving him feeling hollow, and empty.

Milagro crossed to the back cabin door, the gown floating around her legs, and stood in the open doorway facing the trees beyond, arms crossed, holding herself together as if she too, were cold. The night was too warm to goose pimple her skin and yet she shivered. She was vulnerable and beautiful, and in pain, and it was his own damn fault. The Cardinal knew it. And he knew she was also, right…*

Copia sighed heavily and quietly straightened out the mess of clothes in the suitcase, gloved hands deftly moving to fold, roll, and neatly tuck everything back in to place, with a gaping hole in the lineup of clothes where the Nightgown should be. Staring at it, eyes downcast he saw the irony of the situation. And he knew the chasm that had grown between them had come from a place he had projected from himself.

*He had to tell her. He had to come clean.*

She deserved the truth. She deserved what she had been asking for these many months. She deserved the better life he had promised her, all that time ago, before bringing her to the valley to see if she would even want to stay. She deserved to know what this place actually was, and what He really was… even if the danger was in the knowing, she deserved to know the truth*

Long minutes passed, and the moon had moved enough to change the direction of the streaming light through the door. Milagro was now leaning sideways in the frame, halfway down a joint she had kept handy on the nearby coat rack shelf. A nightly ritual before bed.

*Copia had arranged this old forgotten cabin to be renovated for this excursion- to have handy amenities and furniture for comfort and ease, to facilitate the mood to relax and kick-back, where he would have been at the door with her, romantically staring at the moon, sharing some Mary, before pulling her with him into the sheets, to share in passion and lovemaking... but despite the nesting he had done in anticipation of cozying up to his pretty bird, a fledgling to his world, she already had a foot out of the nest, and he knew, it was only a matter of time before she flew the coop, and like the others in his past, she would never, ever, come back...*

‘You can't love a free thing’ Copia muttered, quoting a movie he used to watch when he was younger and not so busy… not so distracted…

The words held a truth for him, having himself been kept at an arms length by his own family. In turn, he never fully embraced those around him. He cared, just not enough- not the way he should. He wasn't the only one in this current relationship with aspirations, dreams, desires, and fears. He knew that. And willfully he had been avoiding the responsibility of acknowledging it, and accepting it… of nurturing those thing, by taking Milagro under his wing*

*Hence the sudden passionate takings and love bombing of his affections… he could see it. The way he buried his pain with his vices. The way he would suddenly swoop in and take his woman in every position in every desperate corner of the Ministry, and never to the privileged comforts his own bed. He could see the way he had held his aloofness and work above her and his feelings for her. And he knew she cared. But what really scared him, was that he didn't actually know for himself, if she cared for him… if she loved him back… if she thought him worth staying for…*

“Millie-” Copia began, his shoulders drooped and his eyes still downcast, talking at the wall, “I… I haven't been totally honest with you-”

Milagro sighed and rolled her eyes, still looking out of the doorway to the black woods where the tall trees stood like church collumns in the night.

"And here I thought we agreed not to lie to one another." Milagro whispered...

*Like a slap in the face...*

Copia felt the disdain of the sting, but took a steadying breath. The little woman's fiery attitude sometimes came out when she knew she was right about something, but he held his tongue about it. What he was going to say was more important… and was earned it's due shaming... a pennance he must humbly accept...

“I did bring you here under some false pretenses... I, I brought you here, for you and Jim… but you are right, I did it mostly, for me…”

*because-...*?

But Copia couldn't bring himself to continue. The words of explanation died in his throat as his own thoughts about what he had done and what he wanted to do, choked him up.

After a quiet beat Milagro spoke softly,

“I know… And I know the Real Reason, why…”

Copia's eyes shot wide and he froze, like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming semi truck about to slam him into oblivion.

“Oh?” He said, trying to quell the shakiness in his voice, his throat dry.

He was caught. And he wasn't sure how deeply into the shit he was in…

“Yeah… I mean, its kinda obvious isn't it?” Milagro said, dragging out the last of her joint before tossing it out. She still didn't face him. Open hands now behind her back, she propped against the doorframe and wistfully kept her gaze occupied on nothing much at all.

But Copia's gaze stayed trained on her…

The way her jaw angled to curve along her pretty neck, the tops of her breasts exposed and then hidden by a little ribbon of lace swen into the neckline of the silken nightgown like an ethereal shroud, moving in a whisper as the summer breeze outside filtered in. The moonlight cast against her, making Milagro look both ghostly and angelic. And The Cardinal felt the weakening in his knees.

Copia knew she was his weakness. He was even more afraid, now, more than ever, to face her and the truth head on.

He kept his movements unhurried and neutral, the way a traumatized person does when sensing danger- instead of staying mostly naked for bed, he set about dressing himself once more, putting on a comfier set cassock robes, he often wore when he knew he would.not be able to sleep, donning the one with a hole in the front pocket that he always said was lucky for him. He needed all the luck he could get, and he needed the bravery of his cubby, for he felt both miserably perceived, and very small…

"Obvious?" The Cardinal hushed back.

“Yeah-” Milagro said. Her face turned to him now, and he felt her focus hone in. He looked away.

He busied himself to ease the tension.

Milagro knew it, knew that he felt perceived, that he was being avoidant because she knew it was so, and he knew that also. Still, she kept her eyes on him as he moved to re-dress himself, as if this whole mess of a night hadn't just rocked them both, perhaps all the way off the boat, in a way. Like he wasn't making himself small on purpose, painting himself into the background, being ‘normal’, pretending things were fine when they weren't. In a way she hated him for that too...

*Milagro felt guilty for that. But despite recognizing the signs of his unhealthy coping of some unknown traumas, she knew she needed to confront him about it, because it was hurting her too… though a little bit she felt satisfaction that the confrontation was punishing him- he kinda deserved it- for what he had put her through to now... for what she had given up to leave an old life behind and try starting a new one where she was so isolated in a sea of unfamiliar faces, with no bearings, no countryman, no family, and no other friends…*

“What do you want from me?” Copia said, fists clenching as he struggled to maintain his composure, jaw tightened and eyes shut tight… voices from all his life echoed in the whooshing pulse at his ears, despising whispers slithering along his veins, all too knowing...

*The pathway to hell is paved with good intentions*

“I… I want you to be honest with me,” Milagro said, a coldness in her voice that wasn't there before…

“Honest?” The Cardinal chuckled grimly, “My dear, there is no thing I can truly hide from you. Am I not allowed to keep some things private?”

“Am I not allowed to know the reality of the situation?”

“Reality is what you make of it,” Copia snapped back, an edge to his voice that made Milagro's skin grow cold and her hands shake.

“Then be real with me” she coaxed, “I know you want to be.”

"Careful, cara mia, what you wish is what you get. What if the knowing, breaks you, leads you astray, what if the knowledge you seek is a poisoning for your heart? What if these are just words I give you, what if what you want, is much much worse, than you thought?”

“Well…” Milagro asked, “what, if?...”

More than anything, she deserved to hear the truth that he had been hiding behind his cassock robes.

She deserved the choice.

She deserved to have the cards on the table for her to decide fairly, consciously, if she should stay, if his home, should be hers too…

*The way, soft under foot and gentle sloped,*

…In these marble halls and green filled gardens,

*kept by Death and all of his friends*

where the facade of a people pleasing professional hid behind his dark makeup and charming smiles,

*A road without sharp turns, paved with ‘good intentions’, and missed opportunities*

A dark Cardinal with a dark secret

*without milestones or sign posts,*

Thrust into a dance macabre, without the promise of being able to turn back

*the way unbarred to those who belonged there, the doors- open, glowing warm by the fires within,

It was time to call him out.

*promising sanctuary from the cold*

It was time to know the truth.

*as above, so below…*

“I know you care about me,” Milagro paused, “but there's something else, isn't there, we both know it… you want more… you should at least have the decency to ask me for it.” She frowned, stepping back into the room from the doorway, the light behind her making her front faced form dim in the shadows.

“So what's it going to be Cardi…”

Copia methodically and carefully closed the suitcase and wardrobe, a neat click as the latches locked into place like the final snap of an electric chair's restraints…

“What do you want me to Do, Millie.” He asked, moving to the window she had first been at, gloved fingers gently matching the splay of her handprints there, gazing out like she and done, out to that world beyond the glass he was looking through, where he too felt like a total stranger.

“I want the truth… I want you… all of you. For what you are-”

*go on, say it* his heart pleaded, wanting the pain to be over already.

Unable to do it himself, he needed her to say it, to permit him to reveal the secret he had been keeping from her for so long…

*He depended on her too much, it’s why he was scared. He knew what he was capable of. He knew his own demons were hot on his heels about the deeper reason he had invited her to the valley to see if she wanted to stay*

“I told you,” she sighed,

*… to give up her old life for this one… because he needed her. She was a sustenance in his soul that he couldn't imagine living a life without… and the appetite he had acquired for her, was burning him from the inside out…*

Milagro's tone relented, “I know why you haven't been honest with me. I know why you are afraid. The way you act, how you disappear, how you need me, but can't allow yourself to Have me truly-”

Copia felt his heart breaking, and in its place the monstrous head of his fears was rearing up to consume them whole.

“So then you know-” Copia relented, finally giving in, watching his reflection in the glass grow murky as the clouds drifted before the moonlight, his eyes glowing red, his reflection daring, staring back at him. Like it wasn't his. Like it was smirking, while he was afraid.

“Yes. So why hide it anymore?” Milagro said gently. Almost tenderly. She moved from the dim light of the doorway, stepping into the dark shadows, her form a dim glow from where she had been before, and yet, still so present, and graceful, a ghost of what could still be, but wasn't.

“I want you to be Real with me,” she pleaded, a gentle hand circling around Copias waist, an eerie breath of cold air creeping into the warm room, contrasting the warmth of her body.

*Something was off. Something wasn't right. Something was off from one end of the room to the other. One could imagine a frost creeping in like a breath of ice, narrowing the color and warmth of thw room to two heartbeats. One red, bright, and beating. The other, dark, heavy, and barely alive*

The sensation, suffocating, but about the truth, the whole of it, both people here were about to prove themselves, wonderously, wildly, wrong…*

“So please,” Milagro whispered, turning Copia from the window to face her. But instead of looking into his face, his facade, to beg this of him, she was already at his breast, her head tucked under and against him, like a small creature seeking comfort in his closeness.

He swallowed dry, his own arms embracing her tightly. A gloved hand drifted, stroking through her hair at her head, before fisting tightly into the silken blonde, like every ounce of feeling portrayed in his every action, his fierce embrace, everything he could be, but wasn't.

“Please what?” He murmured, pressing his lips to her hair as he held her, his whole body against hers, begging to be one.

“Please. Just, show me…” she faltered, soft voice choking back hot tears that stung her face and pierced his heart,

“Please, just do it…”

Copia blinked.

*This was his invitation… this was it. That moment he both longed for and dreaded.*

“You… you really want me to?” He whispered, feeling his heart race and his breath quicken, his body suddenly teaming as the monster in him was feeling its collar being removed…

“Yes.” Milagro said, nuzzling deeper into his chest, her arms tightening around his body as if he might suddenly disappear, “I want you to…”

*the restraint, was gone. And like an animal suddenly realizing the cage doors were open, that they were free, Copia saw his opportunity. And Took it.*

At her words The Cardinal's eyes rolled back and closed, as if in relief, as if in, pleasure…

In the embrace she kept, Copia suddenly removed his gloves behind her back and his shapely hands found her throat, his thumbs lining along her pulse line, tipping her head back with his other hand.

His heart was pounding, his passion earnest and more desperate than ever before, an aggressive snarl in his words awakened, as she let him, submitted to him, eyes closed and gasping, panting, he kissed her neck like she was the last meal he would ever have-

“Fuck, I've been waiting to hear you say this.”

He groaned, feeling a throbbing hardness ache below his waist. He had her tight against him like she was his and he would never let her go,

“I need you, I want you," he murmured panting heavily,

"I can't live, not without you”*

is what Milagro thought he said. But in reality, the Dark Cardinal had spoken his truth, so impending, so vile, so sincere,

“... I can't *starve*, I'll not live without you.”

And suddenly Milagro's eyes exploded open, letting out a cry in something between pleasure, and *pain*.

Copia was two fangs deep into her neck, blood drooling from his messy desperate latch, covering the white of Milagro's gown, staining the pretty lace, a first time blooding, while she felt him taking from her. More and more, like it wouldn't stop, couldn't stop, the press of his lips and the heat, wet and gripping, sliding down The Cardinal's throat. His little bird was caught, and the intensity drowned out any anguish. The venom roiled in Milagro's veins and she felt it burn with something like euphoric ecstasy, like a morphine drug suffocating her one heartbeat at a time, the burn...the burn... and she felt her body slip from herself, and into a cloud of release, slack and docile, soft sounds bleating while the growling gulps kept taking and Taking...

The heightened sensations overwhelming. The ultimate expression of the two lovers, biting into the fruit, of good and evil.

Never to un-know, what had happened here tonight.

It was like the clash of storms where lovers meet, the chasm between them slamming closed as they collided with one another where they were, As they were. But as Copia lowered his precious obsession to the floor, like a virgin to his bed, covering her and lost in the throws of the great expression of his deepest desires, he realized something…though the sweet iron flavor against his toungue was unlike any he had encountered before,

Milagro also tasted- strange…

Not how he expected from her scent, not after that first clinging bite...

It wasn't fear, he liked the tang of that- the little fear and little pain like notes tracing through the melody of a vino sanguine, no… this was something else… something indeed, wrong.

The Cardinal lifted his head from the smeared wound he'd been suckling from, thinking to gaze down at her and see the wonderment of her submission to him, that he thought he would see... but that was not what he was seeing below him at all.

Like an anti coagulant, His venom had circulated from the wound, changing the blood, and while it should have, that wound was not closing. It was bleeding out. And fast!

The Cardinal found beneath him the sight of Milagro looking up at him, mouth agape and wide eyed, betrayed, like he was an Iscarriot, and she, a lamb he was in the midst of him committing unto her as a sacraficial slaughter.

“No, no no no!” Copia yelled, scooping her up into his arms, his mouth pressing against the hemorrhaging at her neck, venom dripping from his toungue, lapping and pressing, trying to seal the wound.

*He never should have done it. He never should have gotten carried away! He knew better than to drain from a neck hole, because getting lost in the moment could mean draining someone to death- and while there were anecdotes in the tomes about accidents stemming from moments like this, he was witnessing it in real time, he was watching her, helplessly, as in his arms she was dying!*

*A living nightmare from a time too long ago he had forgotten to remember, when blood and bone had been taken from him, flashes of a life so full of worries and promises, cruelly ripped from his heart, oh the memories, awakened at the sight of *her* like this, screaming from his insides the words "What have I done, what have I done!" , voices of the dust, the lives so carelessly he had taken for granted, and lost, the ruin of him in a past lifetime*

"Do it" she had said...

“Millie, Millie look at me!” Copia screamed, eyes bulging in panic as Milagro's were fast fluttering closed, glazing over as she kept bleeding out all over the floor, her gown, Copia's red cassock, and pouring over his bare hands; all were covered in blood. It was a horror to behold. And as something between them pulsated like a poison of NIMH, Copia realized in this moment, the great irony of misunderstanding…

“Do it…. *Tell me you love me*”

His thoughts raced, for the bite had already begun its work, despite her fading body, their connection was immediate. Those thoughts raced in her in that moment as he had taken her into his arms.

That's what she had been trying to say. But not what he had been hearing!

The dramatic irony being, that she had meant one thing, while he had understood another.

He thought she knew what he was, and that she was asking for him to… to…-

“Amore look at me, wake up!” He said, trying to shake her, her eyes fluttering weakly. Wordless lips moved and the sound of the blood was all he heard pounding in his ears.

Copia whimpered as he held Milagro in his arms, pressing his lips to her neck, his hands to her throat, trying to stem the bleeding, anything, anything!

“I love you please, I love you… don't leave me… don't leave me!…”

Three things flashed through his mind then;

One, he had to get her to safety.

Two, he had to get her there fast.

And Three, if she died, if he let her die, then he, and all he loved, even her, would be Damned…

In that instant of his realization, he was up and running with her through the black woods back to the Ministry, with inhuman haste. He crashed through the branches and cobwebs of the old trail, feet flying fast along the miles that trailed to the Emeritus Estate, where there was only one person he knew that could maybe, maybe, save her…

“MOTHER!!!”

Copia screamed as he slammed through the side doors with the Lady Milagro limp in his arms.

“What?! What happened, what happened!” Voices said, urgently, overlapping, and jumbled in Milagro's ears, echoing in the gilded corridors in the dead night. The moon casting spidery shaddows through the decals of stained glass panes- windows closing in by shaddowed branches like hands in the sky, trapping the chaos and voices, like the shrieks of helpless flies caught in a web, as the harbinger of death and doom closed in on crawling long legs...

Milagro's world was quickly fading into darkness, her slackened body seeming to want to float away as if never at all…

The world was spinning and turning black all over, and all the while she was hearing Copia wailing in the halls, that this was all his fault, all his fault, somone, somone help, mother, mother...

*The thing Copia had been keeping so secret, Milagro now realized, had not only been how he felt, but what he was…*

“On the table, NOW!” Imperator's voice commanded. Hands seemed to grasp and rip, clothing red with blood and an ichor poured from within as something else was peeling away from her clammy skin, de-gloving itself from her somehow in her swirling mind, Milagro felt as if she were being flayed, wet flesh exposed to reveal agonizing pain- it was a moment before she realized the screaming was comming from her own throat. Bright lights dimming, Milagro's numbing lips trembled, as a hot fiery sensation suddenly seemed to zip up her spine, a jolt of what felt like electricity burning her chest, gripping her like a ragdoll to shake…

She now knew why the Ministry was so strict, so secluded, so shut away from the world, that every secret and sound was burried in mystique and cloaked in the shaddows,

And perhaps why Copia, and Jim, really wanted her to stay… why so badly they wanted her for themselves, why their affections seemed so irascable and pained in desperate longings that lured her in with such desire and creeping flush, like coaxing the red ribbon of horrific fever from the throat of the sick and sinners alike, condeming the quick and the dead...

*The Emeritus Estate was no ordinary Ministry... Father Jim Defroque wasn't just the wayward son of a preacher man. Sister Imperator was not merely a discipled spinster supporting the local Satanic Papacy and her son, the Esteemed Cardinal Copia, was no ordinary man... and Milagro was no ordinary woman to him. She'd become his, a coveted thing, a sacrifice in the silence, a lamb lead so easily into the trap as a fool to the feast... she had gone so willingly, so blindly, bewitched, and now, marked for her loss of innocence, beguiled into unwitting temptation, and loosing this fight for her very soul... for Cardinal Copia was, indeed, had always ever been.... a devistatingly beautiful child of the night, fallen from grace, deliciously wicked, Vampire….*