Friday October 31st 2014

The cafeteria was a monument to Samhain's tapestry of midnight. While devils, vampires, werewolves, zombies, and movie icons dotted the tables, they were isolated islands in a sea of older, truer legends. The Umbrae Lunae had their own myths, tales of darkness passed down through thousands of years of savage history. Abominations and horrors of unholy power, goddesses that commanded nations and ruled lands with names no human could speak. Dead gods and terrors swallowing worlds and genocide gleefully played across dimensions.

Few and far between were the voids of sorrow. Students in black, pendants of the dead marking their throats. This was the time of the corpse, the one day when the veil thinned enough for the lost to visit their kin. Love or hate, either could drive the dead into the world of flesh. Spirits pushed from the realms of the dead, reaching for the blood they had lost, the family denied them by death's hand.

The dedicated devoted today to the lost, talking to them in whispers, telling tales of the year and how much they love them, drowning themselves in memories of the ones that had passed on. Seats were left open with plates set aside for the dead, pictures laid down as place settings. Conversations swirled around the kids in black. Uncaring, the sorrowed were lost to their friends. Consumed by a realm where life was only a phase and blood a bond that disappeared into misty times ruled by gods.

Laughing with the harem and her boyfriend, Anastasia shone. She’d gone into the realm where only the rich walk. The dress was an iridescent shimmering blue, sapphire bright in the light that graced its threads. Silver brocade flowed down shoulders and along the sides, patterns of flame that glittered and danced with every move she made. Running up to her neck, the heavy fabric hid her curves.

For once the world could see how beautiful she was without being lost in flesh. A singular tongue of flame, her hair waterfalled down one shoulder, burning against a field of blue. Thicker than his arm, outshining the dress, it danced with the cruelty of a world on fire. Now everyone could see what Cesare had always known—that she wasn’t just sexy, but a beautifully elegant woman.

The cafeteria went still on catching sight of the group of girls that pushed their way into the room. Their short skirts rode high on the thigh, showing off artfully torn stockings. Scarlet corsets cinched tight, revealed vast expanses of pale flesh. Bleached blonde hair flowed down their backs while fake fangs dropped from scarlet lips. But it was what hung between their breasts that drew the eye. Crosses, complete with a Jesus dipped in fake blood, trails of red spider webbing across pale cleavage.

They sneered as they passed in front of Cesare’s table, identical green eyes glaring at him with a personal kind of hate. Claiming the table he'd always thought of as Alexandra's, they were swarmed by students. Mostly guys hoping to get lucky, but a fair number of girls looking for the latest gossip. The exile was over. With this public break from Alexandra and all she stood for, they’d buy back the acceptance of the students.

Cesare waited in class as the others filed in. The group of slut vampires took their normal seats, trading satisfied smirks when Alexandra failed to show.

When the bell rang at the end of class, Cesare was already cramming books into his bag. He was finished and ready to leave before the others had started to stand. Stalking up to Elizabeth’s desk, his duffel bag settled across his back.

“Where's Alexandra?” The question silenced the class behind him, freezing them in place.

“She called out sick.” Her voice was professional, but her eyes showed concern ... for him, not Alexandra.

“I'm feeling sick. Can I be excused for the rest of the day?” Cesare asked.

Elizabeth's eyes widened slightly. “I’ll notify your other teachers.”

He pushed a small box silently across the desk, easily hidden by the books and paper. “Happy Samhain, my raven,”

Elizabeth’s eyes darkened with things she’d never say. Words were dangerous, the ones you said far more than the ones you kept in your heart. With only the briefest of touches, nothing more than a gentle caress, she took the small box. It had taken him over a week to get the raven right. It wasn’t like the other one he’d given her. This one was in flight, the feathers made from delicate folds of paper, the beak sharpened to a needle point. It was the finest thing he’d ever made. Five different shades of black melded and blended into its body of shadows.

The harem surrounded him as soon as he left the classroom, pinning him in place. Anastasia straightened up from leaning against the wall. “You cutting class?” She asked playfully, eyes dancing with mischief. Cesare cleared the harem from his path with a glare. There had been a time when the plastic boys could stop him, but that time was dead.

“Nope.” He’d gotten out of it, fair and square.

“You coming to the party tonight?” Anastasia asked far too casually.

“No date. No prospects for one. No one to talk to. I’ll curl up with a good book.” They’d called off training for tonight. Cesare had known she’d want to go to the Samhain dance and one day of training wouldn't hurt her. It was a chance for her to be seen, and in her position, that was as important as being a badass.

“I would’ve given you a dance.”

“Your dog boy would have loved that. He'd go for my guts before we stepped out.”

“He wouldn't do that.” Her eyes still danced, but her tone had flat lined. “You have a truce. He says he'll even try to be nice to you.” The hopeful tone was killed by the hateful glares the harem levelled at him behind her back.

“Thanks, but I'm good. As long as he keeps to his side of the fence, I'm good on mine.” It wasn't true. He wasn't okay, not even close, but that wasn’t Anastasia's business. He was doing just fine ignoring that fact.

She sighed, her eyes losing some of their life. “You know he doesn't hate you.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Yeah, but I actually believe him on that one. He doesn't hate you. I think he's scared of you.”

That wasn’t news. The wolf was ready to kill him for how close he was to Anastasia. Even if there was no way anything was going to happen between Anastasia and Cesare. If Cesare was a nicer guy, he’d reassure the asshole, but he wasn't.

“You knew.” Anastasia’s flat words rolled off him.

“Of course.” Cesare laughed. “The closer we get, the more time we spend together, the more he fears.” Her eyebrow rose in question.

“Love and lust are birthed the same; you like the person's looks or personality. If a man’s not into your look, it doesn’t matter how long you spend with him. Women are different. They see beyond the physical, hunger for a deeper bond. As long as she hasn’t friend zoned you, then you might—just might—have a chance if you got the goods on the inside.” He kept his eyes on the hallway as they walked. “That's how an honest guy plays it. For some guys, it's all a game. They flatter and worm their way into a woman’s heart, pushing out the boyfriend an inch at a time. Your wolf knows that, because he's done it. So, he thinks I’m doing it.”

Anastasia shook her head. “Then why the hell do you hate him?” It came out more exasperated than he would’ve liked, but he wasn't the one caught between friends.

“Because he's wrong. I wouldn't do that. I'd never take another man’s girl. Not because I respect that piece of shit, because I don’t, but because I respect myself and you.” Taking a deep breath, he held her eyes with his. “Because you’re not just some girl, and I know you’d never do that. You respect yourself more than that. To throw away your honor for a guy ... no, that's not you and that dog fucker should know it.” The anger that rushed through him had nothing to do with what the dog thought of him. When you’re on the streets, the first thing you throw away is pride. He was angry because Anastasia deserved better.

The anger left her face in a rush, devoured by something he didn't understand. “By the Darkness, you make everything hard.”

Cesare looked at her sideways. “Really?”

She answered without a hint of humor. “Yes, really.” Her voice pulled back from the dark revelation. “Happy Samhain, Cesare.” She struggled with the smile she gave him.

He almost didn’t do it. In the end, it would only make it worse. This friendship could only end in blood, but like so many addicts, he couldn’t push her away. Some of the reasons were practical. Without his help, the fights would kill her, but those reasons were nothing but flickers of light off the scales of the demons that moved him. He handed over the small box from his pocket.

Their fingers touched as she took it from him. “It's not much, just something I made.”

Her breath caught as she opened the box and saw the bird nestled inside. Wings extended to the edges of the box, the fire bird was formed from scarlet shades. Bits of sparkling gold glittered from the ends of the tail feathers that ran twice the length of its body. “Really, really complicated,” she said with a resigned smile. “I would’ve danced with you.”

“He would’ve killed me,” Cesare said as he took the steps two at a time.

There was only one place Alexandra would go. After a quick stop at the Serpens Lacum, he made his way across campus to the forest behind the Vulpes. The path was nothing more than a jumped-up game trail, hidden by underbrush, it revealed itself only if you were looking for it.

After an hour on the trail, the forest blurred around him, colors bleeding into each other as the trees rearranged themselves. The path divided and divided again, each division causing the forest to transform. When the world settled, Cesare found himself in the center of a wheel with paths leading in every direction.

There was no sign of his footprints or the broken brush to mark where he’d come in. Each path looked as good as the next, with nothing to tell illusion from reality. Cesare crouched down on one knee, his breath slowing into a deep, steady flow.

This was protection for the altar. The faculty knew an altar to the Christian god was begging for trouble. They’d set it in the one place beyond the reach of the students. In Elizabeth’s forest, she was the one true goddess, it danced to the beat of her heart, killed at her whim, and shielded what she loved. This was her place of power, it ran with her blood.

It didn’t matter which path he chose. None of them would take him to where he wanted to go. Elizabeth didn’t work that way. She’d set up a maze that would send intruders wandering blindly through the forest, until starvation or her mercy saved them. It wasn’t a wall that could be broken or a puzzle to be answered. It was deceit, stripped of truth.

The click of his switchblade was loud in the still air. The edge opened the palm of his hand with cold ease. Cesare clenched his fist, drops of blood impacted with explosive force across the etheric world as they hit the earth.

Wards of my Raven, hear my plea

Allow me entry to your Protectorate

Turn your power from me

Raise your heavy hand from my neck

By my blood

I swear I shall leave this place without harm

Fey power rushed over him in a blanket of malicious force, questing tentacles probed along his body, seeking the lie. His blood sacrifice tore away the chains of the pack it had made with Elizabeth, opening him to its alien thoughts. He’d invited it with his blood, laid himself bare before its power.

Its attention pressed down on his fractured soul, smoking cracks ground against each other under the cruel eye of an evil older than names. Fingers of thought traced the jagged edges of his crystalline soul, pushing and prying with insane curiosity. Vast beyond size, it existed as a fleshy mass that had never lived and yet couldn’t die.

The undying left him as suddenly as it had come, taking the blood that had stained the ground with them. The nameless things that dwelled between reality and madness had accepted the sacrifice. The world blurred with the forest’s shift, realigning with reality as the wards opened the way for Cesare.

The clearing was surrounded by elder oak trees, knotted and gnarled with age, hoary with time and the glory of survival won a day at a time. Flavored with the coming of fall, they were blessed with leaves of gold and orange, flickers of flame marking their dying lives. Vines wound up the oak trees, small white flowers blooming along their stems. Delicate violet flowers sprouted in open defiance of the cold across the plush green grass of the meadow. It was more fey than real, Elizabeth's deft touch in every flower and vine, her art turning the clearing into a living work of art.

Two white stones held court in the middle of the clearing, worn smooth with age, they were discolored by an unforgiving world. One stone made the base, the other the tabletop. The altar was old, the kind of old that made flesh a dream. It had seen thousands of desert summers, endured the deadliest of winters, lived through the horrors of genocide and drank the blood of sacrifice. It possessed the simple, exquisite grace of a snow-capped mountain.

Alexandra sat in front of the alter with her back to the trail. Dressed in a princess outfit, all pink frills and sparkles, she stood out against the searing green of the grass. It was the kind of dress little girls dressed up in, only sized for an adult. “Cesare,” she said, coldly distant.

He stopped to take in the lay of the land before he committed. “How’d you know it was me?” Alexandra hadn’t stirred from staring at the altar.

She let out a burst of bitter laughter. “No one else would’ve come.”

Taking a seat beside her, he fished out one of the sandwiches he’d made back at the Serpens Lacum. “Hungry? It's just peanut butter and jelly but you weren't there for breakfast.” She accepted the sandwich listlessly while Cesare set a bottle of water down between them.

“How did you get this?” Alexandra asked.

The lie was on the tip of his tongue, but Cesare settled for the truth. “Too many days without food. I keep a stash in my rooms, just in case I have to run.”

When she finished the sandwich, he handed her another while making his way through his own. She was quiet, eyes never wavering from the alter. He wasn’t sure if she’d want to talk, but he didn’t care either. He wasn’t here to find out who’d hurt her or how, he was here, so she knew someone cared.

“We were going to dress up as princesses. We wouldn't be doing the slutty costume thing or the gross out factor, just something to have fun with.” She was talking as she ate, both of them watching the lone flame that danced from a solitary votive on the alter. “I thought the worst was over. The others had broken under the pressure and insults. But the ones who’d stayed … that meant they were real friends, right?” She laughed quietly. “No, it only meant they were waiting for the time when they could hurt me the most.”

“They were all there, even the ones who’d stopped hanging out with me weeks ago. All dressed ...” Hesitantly, his arm settled across her shoulders. She hunched over, pressing into his side. For all her power, she was still a teenager who didn't fit.

With whispers, she continued, “Everything I shared with them, they used to hurt me. Every secret I told them, they used to …” She snuffled and cried quietly as he tightened his arm, as if by holding her tight he could somehow take the pain as his own.

“They left just like you said they would.” Her voice lowered, anger turning steel bright in the words. “I hate you a little for being right.”

“Better to hate me than yourself.”

Her body stilled against his. “Is that why you did it? So that I’d hate you for being right instead of wondering what I did wrong?” He knew they’d desert her, knew it because it happened to him over and over until the truth was seared into his bones. You didn’t hate them for leaving, you hated yourself for not being enough to keep them. Who would wish that on anyone? No, much better to provide a safe and expendable outlet.

“You didn't have to do that.” She watched him with sharp, penetrating eyes.

Yes, he did, not just for her, but for himself. He’d done it because he was never far from the kid that had cried in the dark, holding himself in a hug that bruised, the mantra of his life a blanket across bleeding thoughts ‘I’ll never leave you. I’ll always love you’. Because no one else would, no one else could. Why would he want that for her?

“You want to tell me about the votive?” Cesare asked.

“My sister.” Taking a deep breath, she released it along with the last of her strength as she curled into his side. She was larger than him, built of hardened muscle wedded to killing instinct, yet she fit easily against him. With one hand, Cesare pulled out the blanket he had stashed in his bag. Old and green, it was scratchy, with the cancerous smell of bleach saturating its fibers. She settled when the blanket wrapped around her, not because she was cold, but for the comfort the blanket gave.

“I loved her. I think she’s the only one I’ve ever loved besides myself. I was born a beast, less than human, stripped of that thing that makes a person more than an animal. My sister was more than human, where I was so much less. She would never be a fighter or part of the Order. She told my father when she was still little that she wasn’t ever going to kill. He grumbled and cursed, but secretly, I think he was happy to know at least one daughter wouldn't go to war. At least he’d always have her. She was everyone’s favorite, even mine.” She went quiet with a sigh, lost in the memories of her past. Darkness slowly took the clearing, claiming its due after the day had fled.

“You would have liked her. She was the good that made you feel like you were someone worth loving. I was the killer, and she was the princess. I had lessons in hand-to-hand, small team tactics, weapons, all the things to make me the perfect soldier. They’d already separated me from the other squires because of … my difference. She was the only one allowed to be with me. She’d badger me into attending tea parties with her dolls, God help me I loved those tea parties. It was the only time someone wasn’t looking at me … do you know what my people call me? God’s Butcher. I’m a mad dog to them, a weapon, a killing force stripped of God’s grace.” There was a bastard pride in her voice, she’d always been a monster because they’d never let her be anything else.

Her hands smoothed the blanket, petting its coarse skin to soothe herself. “She liked to sneak away and hide in the castle, she’d leave notes demanding I find her. It was our game, something she only played with me.”

She took a shaking breath. “Father was gone, and I was in lessons when it happened. By the time I got the note, it was past midnight and heading into morning. I found what was left of her in a tree on the edge of the castle's grounds. They’d skinned her alive and dismembered her body. A grotesque Christmas tree with pieces of her stabbed onto the branches, her skin used as tinsel. I lost it. Anything good I had died that day.”

“I didn't black out, or lose myself to my rage. I knew exactly what I was doing. I left her there in that tree. She was dead and the dead don't need the living. I got my gear as the others tore the story from me with a thousand questions. I remember them watching as I hit the front doors. I ... hate them for that. God forgive me, but I hate them. They watched as I walked away. I’d always known I wasn’t one of them, but I thought when blood hit the floor they’d have my back.”

“We knew the Illuminati had an outpost in the city. Father had standing orders to leave it alone believing its better the devil you know. The dominate clan in the city had cut a deal with the angels to turn a blind eye to the Hounds. Bought and paid for, they sent their thugs to stop me.” A cruel smile twisted her face. “Twenty armed monsters, they lasted less than a minute. Worthless curs from degenerate bloodlines.”

“Cops showed up as I put the last one down. I butchered them as the nothing’s they were. Someone had warned the church the Hounds were using as a base; the congregation had readied itself to face a demon sent by Satan himself. When I kicked the door open, the church was filled with women, men, and children, armed with knives, sticks, and a few guns. I could have stopped. I knew the Hounds had left and that the humans were only a distraction to buy time.” She paused, eyes locked on the votive as it guttered its last and died, plunging the clearing into darkness.

“I killed them, tore them apart, broke their bodies with my bare hands. No one escaped my rage, men, women, and children. I impaled the priest on his cross and mounded the bodies of his flock around him.” She took a long drink, hand shaking at the intensity of the memories.

“When it was over, the Order came for me. It's funny, they weren’t upset I’d killed. No, they were disappointed I hadn’t killed the Hounds. I’d disgraced the Order of the Dragon by killing God's Chosen, slaughtered my own kind, and for what? Nothing, I’d won nothing. I’d proven I was a dog that needed a leash, a mad thing without honor. I’d always been less than them, a living weapon trained for war but know I'd proven it. My father stripped me of what little freedoms he’d given me. I lost my father on the same night my sister died. It would be years before we traded more than a few words in passing.” Alexandra deflated against him. The act of telling it taking some of the burden from her as if by sharing she'd halved the weight of her sins.

“I was created to kill. It’s my only purpose, all that I am.” It was said with cold finality.

“You can be more.” The words brought her face up. “You’re more than just a weapon. You were more than a killer when you loved your sister, you can be that again.”

“That part of me died with my sister. Today proved that. This was supposed to be a new start, I thought I could be ... more than a failure of a person. I'm not worth friendship.” Cesare smiled at the flat, angry words.

“You’re wrong, I’m your friend.” As she opened her mouth, he went on softly. “What do you want to be, killer? You’ll always be a butcher. It’s in you, bred to blood and bone. But is that all you want to be?”

“I killed them, Cesare. And I enjoyed it.” Hate rose in the darkness of the night with its glittering smile and greedy eyes. Promising only pain, loving only itself, it shows you the ugliness of your soul. Proving your worthlessness with cotton candy sweet words, it leaves only the maimed after its caress. Had she ever talked to anyone about it? He could see it now, her father looking down on her and nodding, telling her that even mad dogs have their place.

“People kill people. Every killer thinks it's the right thing to do. I won’t pass judgment on your actions or the thrill you got from it.” His arm tightened around her. “Because I don't care.”

“I kill as easy as I breathe, Cesare. Whatever others have that makes them good—love, compassion, basic fucking empathy—I don’t have it. I can fake it, but I don’t feel it,” Alexandra insisted.

“You loved your sister. You just don't care about anyone else. I don’t care who you killed or how you killed them. I'm sure that makes me a monster but you’re my friend, and I don't turn my back on my friends.”

Cesare laid back, taking his portion of the blanket with him. He’d spent more time sleeping outdoors than he had in a bed. But he’d never felt the welcoming softness of grass grown by Elizabeth’s loving hand. Plush with life, it cradled his starved frame. Alexandra laid next to him, staring at him for a minute before scooting into his side. She laid her head on his shoulder and snuggled up against him. Alexandra was dense muscle and angles, a hunting cat curled into his side, able to kill him with a snap of her fingers.

“Do you mind?” Her whisper was a breath against his neck.

“It’s a cold world. Sometimes on the streets you go months, even years, without touching another person. Unworthy, beyond the reach of a hug or a handshake, lower than a mange ridden dog. It gnaws at your soul, day by day you die a little more. Until you’ll do anything to be touched, just to feel another person next to you. Tomorrow this’ll be a sweet memory for me and a moment of regret for you. No, of course I don’t mind,” Cesare whispered back.

Laying out under the stars with the night above them was too beautiful to ruin by scrambling back to their dorms. Memories of other nights came up around him, pulling him into an ocean of the past. Sad things, hard-edged with pain and all too brief flares of hope, the memories wrapped around his heart. Still, when it’s all you have, you learn to treasure even the painful memories. When it’s all you have, you love even the horrors of your past because it’s better than being alone.

“You really don't care?” Alexandra’s voice was thready.

“Nope.”

“That simple?” Alexandra asked.

“I don't care if you’re a horror bent on genocide, a baby killer with a mouth of razored malice hunting the young. The only thing I care about is how you treat me and those I care about.” Maybe it was too simple, but there are worse things than being simple.

“I've been a terrible friend to you.” She’d thrown him away to keep the plastic bitches, watched as he was savaged by others.

“You can’t take back what you’ve done, and I won’t forgive you for deserting me, but where we go from here’s up to you. Who you are from this point on is your choice.” Cesare tightened his arm, tucking her into his side. Alexandra gave a deep sigh of satisfaction as she wound around him.

“I liked who I was before she died.” She stopped, as if just facing the stark truth of that statement. “I want to be that person again, but I think she died with my sister. Have you ever had to ...?”

“So many times, I’ve forgotten who I was to start with. As life breaks you over and over, shatters you against the wall of reality, you pick up the pieces only to find they don't fit anymore. You keep trying to make them fit. Keep trying to get back to something—to someone—who you like, try to be someone you can respect again. But that person’s dead and you’re in their place. You hate yourself for being something you never wanted to be, but you can't go back. Can't unlearn the lessons, so you hate life for birthing the grotesque thing you’ve become. For breaking who you were and leaving only a caricature in its place.” His hand ran through her hair, delicate strands soft as kitten fur. It was the only soft part about her.

“But none of that’s really who you are, just who you thought you were. Down deep … the thing that never breaks, that never bends, that's who you are. We think we’re nice, smart, kind, brave, strong … all things that can be torn from you. Who you really are can’t be taken. It's so deep that most never touch it. A hard, unbreakable core. That's what's real. And that's why you can be anything you want: smart, brave, nice … you can be anything. They’re only the clothes you wear over that truth.”

“You're saying I don't know myself?”

“I'm saying who you are can never be taken from you. You’re still who you were back then. Deep down, all you lost was what you thought you were. But that doesn’t change the pain. Sometimes the things we love the most are the lies we tell ourselves.”

A total blackness came over the woods when all light is eclipsed by the gentle touch of the night. It hid the weak and forgotten, the forest’s sounds a lullaby of safety.

This was nice, like the times in the park when he was on his own, a full belly and the stars at night with a blanket to keep him warm. For a few hours, you could pretend tomorrow would be better, that things would work out.