Friday February 27th 2015

He felt her along his skin, sensitive flesh of his inner thigh tightening, a wrathful power in the air. He finished putting his books into his bag with a grin. Students clogged the doorway in a mad rush for lunch. It was always like this, every kid out for his own skin, like a mass of rats rushing toward a decomposing corpse. The rats would scurry away if the Furies made for the door, they knew who the cats were.

Anticipation gripped his heart as the storm front drew close. Jerking back, kids scattered away from the door, guppies sighting a shark. They cleared the doorway in time for Lady Kali to walk in, eyes sweeping hungrily over the group before latching onto Cesare.

She wore designer jeans distressed to within an inch of their lives, hugging legs and hips like a second skin. A purple shirt molded to her small body, bold black letters marching across small breasts, ‘Fan Service is for people like me’.

Striding across the room in what some might call almost a run, she slipped into his open arms with a click of completeness. Ducking his head into her hair, Cesare breathed her scent in. For a timeless second they stood, alone and untouchable.

“Well, we know who your favorite is?” Anastasia said with a small laugh.

Kali arched an eyebrow at her daughter. “I'd remind you that I see you every weekend over Skype. Which you spend a good portion of bragging about your training.” Blushing, Anastasia shrugged at her mother’s point, never losing her smile or the delight that sparkled in her eyes. “While I make do with a letters.”

The last of the kids ducked out of the classroom while they were talking. Catching Elizabeth’s eye, Cesare nodded at the door. “You want to join us?”

Looking around the empty room, something shifted in her eyes. “Yes, I think I’d like that.” Surprise lit Alexandra and Anastasia’s faces. They were used to her being on the outside, only ever with them for tactical reasons.

Waiting just outside the door, the harem surrounded the party with practiced efficiency. Taking up their spots, tension radiated from the killers. Hate creased lines in faces, turning each movement into a declaration of war, eyes cutting to the source of their problems.

Elizabeth had slammed them into their place when they'd tangled. They'd been about as challenging as a baby mouse facing a feral cat. She'd shamed them in front of their goddess, showing Lady Kali that they could never protect her.

Alexandra was lethal. With a temper to equal Lady Kali’s and the skills of a killer, no one wanted her near those they loved. Psychotically unpredictable, she honed the fear that flashed in the harem’s eyes. If it were up to them neither women would have been allowed within a mile of their obsession.

One person had birthed the problems that rode their shoulders. Cesare was the reason Elizabeth had punked them, Cesare was the architect behind the threats to Lady Kali. He’d seen the savage glee when they'd surrounded him. He was the one to blame for every change that had taken place. From Lady Kali’s infatuation, to her allowance of his casual use of her name. They were waiting for the day when Lady Kali went hunting a new cock, then they'd hunt the scrawny rabbit and feast on his stringy flesh.

It was designed by Lady Kali, for Lady Kali. The harem's hate put the edge to their devotion. She knew they'd flay the skin from Cesare's bones for the asking. That guarantee was worth more than gold, Cesare would never subvert the harem. They'd never follow Cesare, meaning he could never challenge her control, no matter how close he got to her.

Their hate was nothing to him, and Kali’s encouragement even less. She needed control, he could understand that, knew the sacrifices it demanded on its blood soaked alter. He wasn’t looking for friends, didn’t have a fuck left to spend on them. The harem were weapons, only important if they were pointed at him.

He’d spaced out on the conversation Kali and Anastasia were having. Kali had snugged herself into his side with Cesare's arm naturally coming around her shoulders. Her own arm snaked into his jacket and around his waist, fitting her hand neatly into his back pocket for a cheap feel of his ass. Grinning up at him, she was unrepentant in her blatant groping.

The buzz of gossip cut off when they entered the cafeteria. Holding still, Lady Kali took in the stained glass window. Appreciating the work of art in pieces as if the whole was something to be grasped only after homage had been paid to the craft. Done in shades of green, the snakes seemed to writhe with a life of their own as sunlight caressed the glass. Fine scales flowed up Medusa's arms, sparkling with poisonous beauty, fading into the deadly pale of newborn vipers when they reached her face. Its beauty was overshadowed by the melancholy, betrayed look in the woman's eyes.

“She’s the saddest woman I’ve ever met.” The words sounded loud in the crypt like silence of the room.

“You knew her?” Cesare asked.

Nodding, Lady Kali pulled her eyes off the sad but beautiful woman displayed in the window. “Still do, as of a hundred years ago when we had drinks on the Nile.” Shades of old times and lost friends created graveyard eyes. “She’s an immortal. Which is a nice way of saying too mean to die.”

She pulled him toward the lunch line. “She was always serious, even when she was young. But she did turn her parents into statues, that would change anyone.”

Following behind, the others hung on the abomination’s words. Looking questions at Cesare before picking out her food, she filled her tray with his favorites. Behind the steel of the kitchen counter, the staff bowed as she passed their station. It didn’t matter that this was her second time, it was enough that she touched their lives.

“I met her when she was just a child. I don’t know how old she was; we didn’t keep track back then. A child was a child until she had her first blood, and then she was a woman.” Sitting next to him, she took a bite of her pizza. “She was like a lot of the immortals, unique. A singular creature born into the world without a touchstone to stand on. Birthed by the old gods, she was a race of one.” Cesare nodded slowly as she caught his eyes, she’d known all along what he was.

Weighing the others with a long look, Kali continued, “She wanted what most woman want.” Enthralled with the story, Anastasia and Alexandra were pulled into a time of legends and myths. “Family, kids, a good man to share it with. That disappeared when she shed the skin of humanity. She lost everything in one night, her family turned to stone, and all her dreams dead with them.”

Sipping milk, she cut into her Salisbury Steak. “She never gained control. The stories got it wrong. Anything that met her eyes, or the eyes of her serpents, was instantly turned to stone. Some of us, a bare handful, could resist, but the men that could survive her power were never the kind she wanted. She kept looking for someone that could make her dreams come true. You see, she never let go of that old dream, no matter that its bones had twisted over the centuries with defiling need, diseased flesh rotting and squirming with maggots, she still wanted that family and kids. Still needed what had been taken from her so long ago. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t have it, that her condition would destroy any baby she might birth, or that she had other dreams for the taking. All that mattered was what she wanted.” Popping a tater tot into her mouth, she laid her hand on Cesare’s.

“It’s a fool that doesn’t change when life taps you on the shoulder. You move to her current or she sweeps you into the depths and drowns you in sorrow. The last time I had drinks with Medusa she was bitter and angry, a pit of malice spewing hate on every man she looked on.” Lady Kali swept the women with a meaningful look before turning to Cesare. “Do you always eat here?”

Floundering at the subject change Cesare tightened his fingers around hers. “The table used to be just me and a few other kids.” He wondered where those misfits had gone too, if they’d found homes at other tables or if they had only changed who threw them out. “When things hit the fan, they found other places to be. I sometimes wonder what happened to them.”

“They deserted you when you needed them, why would you care?” Alexandra asked as she dug into her ham.

“They were weak, blaming them for that's like blaming the rabbit for feeding the wolf. Some of them could have been strong, but they weren’t.” He moved his mashed potatoes around on his tray. “The wolves would have burned through them if they’d stayed, Blaez would have killed them.” Shaking his head, he looked over the cafeteria, meeting the eyes of the curious.

“You miss them?” Elizabeth asked, taking a bite of her salad, eyes tracking his.

“No, I don’t think I do. I guess it catches me by surprise sometimes how much my life's changed.”

“Do you regret it?” Lady Kali asked curiously.

“I think resisting change or regretting who you’ve become doesn’t work. The world moves and like you said, you either move with it or get run over by it. The man I was wouldn’t like who I’ve become, but I don’t like who he was. Does a caterpillar want to be a butterfly, or does it secretly despise that it's only a step on the road?”

He let the conversation pass him by as Kali asked about the girl’s studies. If he’d known the changes that would be forced on him, would he have walked through those rusty gates? It’s easy to say from the top of the mountain that it was worth the climb, but that mocks the person that sweated and bleed to get you there.

He held the man he'd been in disgust, he was weak, pitiful, and worthless. There was no way that man could have helped the women next to him. He didn’t inspire fear or loyalty, only pity stirred the hearts of those that settled their eyes on him. That didn’t mean he liked himself now anymore. He was stronger, meaner, with a vicious edge that gave even Alexandra pause. It didn’t scare him, and it should. If the victim had met the wolf, what would the past have to say to the present? Could you call yourself the same person when you'd left everything you'd ever known behind? How did you keep the same name when you wore the skin of a stranger?

They’d noticed Beth's shaping of his flesh, but no one had asked. Beth had burned baby fat off his bones, refining his face and body, leaving him with a fey, brutal thing of angles and hard edges. Deeply sunken blue eyes glared out at the world with a savage, unforgiving light. His muddy brown hair had shifted a few shades to black, glints of scarlet peeking out when sun and shade mingled. Holding the traits of a boy, stained with threads of something too old to be called man.

He'd gotten startled looks from students. It wasn’t that great of a change, but condensed to one night, it drew whispers. While the girls hadn’t asked, they'd made their approval felt. He’d been ugly, an unappealing mutt that no one wanted. It was worse now, he was a living mirror of humanities midden heap of a soul, a face lined with black slaughter, tainted with depraved needs. He'd devoured the victim he'd been and grown strong off its flesh.

“I’m guessing you want to see the training?” Cesare asked, already getting to his feet with the boneless grace that was becoming his trademark. Watching him with knowing eyes, Kali rose with him.