The others slowly came to them. Each of the girls had their own reasons for walking onto that lifeless wasteland. Elizabeth stepped onto the ash, life springing from every footfall, grass, lush and full, replacing the ash that coated the ground. The scars where the Ebon Flame had fallen in drops of malice devoured under unrestrained life. If Kali was Destruction, Daughter of Anarchy, then Elizabeth was Creation in all its cancerous beauty.

Tracking back and forth between her mother and Cesare, Anastasia eyes were maelstroms of emotion. Alexandra stalked over the new grass, watching the path Viktor had taken. A wise warrior knew the battles it could win, and those that were beyond it. Lady Kali was beyond the vampire and she knew it, but Viktor was only a thread stronger and a thread was easy to snap.

Kali moved easily away from Cesare, meeting the wary eyes of the women. Blackened spots that crusted and fell off her shirt, leaving pale skin open to the cold wind. The tops of her jeans were burnt brown from the heat she'd radiated.

“Was that your natural form?” Cesare asked as the others joined them.

Laughing, Kali slipped her arm around his waist, giving his ass a pat in passing as she pressed her feverish body against his side. A freeness to her body that hadn’t been there before, speaking of a long held burden laid down. “No, that was me embracing my power in the mendacium.”

She met the uneasy eyes of the women, even her daughters, with cool indifference. Kali knew she'd never be accepted, even by her daughter. She'd embraced her truth, growing her power to its fullest, despite of the worlds demands she lessen herself. She could either be who she was or a diseased thing trying to meet the expectations of the maggots that crawled and squirmed across the earth.

Skittish from the display of naked power, her harem formed only the loosest of cordons around the group as they headed toward Raven's Rest. Their eyes drifted to Lady Kali more frequently than the avenues of attack they should've been checking. It was one thing to hear stories, and another to see her bitch slap a fighter that made werewolves piss themselves.

The harem hung back when they reached the forest without a word about following them in. Lady Kali gave them a speculative look. “Trouble?” Cesare asked, holding the woman close.

Kali resolutely looked forward. “It’s rare that I unleash my full power and don’t lose members of my harem. It unsettles people.” Her voice lowered in thought. “It’s been years since I’ve loosened my grip on my nature. The last time it was against a conglomerate of damnati that thought they could take something of mine. I incinerated everything within a mile of their encampment. Men, women, children, animals, and bugs, I lost most of my harem after that.” It was said the way a person might talk about killing cockroaches that had infested their house.

“What's a damnati?” Cesare asked.

“It’s a title born in the wars,” Lady Kali said, eyes drifting to him. “Back then everyone was fighting, there were no sides. Christianity, Illuminati, Order of the Dragon, and a thousand other groups loosely called clans. Imperium’s and Sceptrum’s didn’t exist as we know them, they were there, but weaker and smaller, infants easily strangled with birthing cords. Back then, clan could mean race, family, or even a loose group of families.” Shaking her head, she looked around, eyes lost in past battles.

“The damnati rose out of that time. When your clan, no matter how you defined it, was killed off, you were called damnati. The defeated, cast offs of failed races.” She eyed him, hesitating over words. “They were picked up by other clans and used as food, slaves, or cannon fodder.”

Cesare looked away from the woman pressed into his side. None of the others seemed anxious to enter the conversation, each keeping their eyes off the pair. “And now?”

Sighing, Kali was visibly reluctant to continue and yet finding no one jumping forward to take the arrow. “It meant no one wanted them, they were garbage. Back then, the title meant you came from failures, creatures too weak to live, prey for the other races. Now the word is used for the dregs no one wants. The highest a damnati can rise is as a Venator or Ferrum Corsair, those with flexible honor and distasteful habits. The kinds of people the clans find useful, but never trust.

In the world of the Umbrae Lunae having a clan, whether family, race, or the full might of an Imperium, was a sign you were valued. It was like any caste system, you had those who glided through clouds, dancing with rainbows, born to love and support. And the sewer dwellers, ugly things of mud and shit, diseased by poverty and marbled with diseased weakness, the important and the disposable. It didn't surprise him that he fit into the disposable category, the only surprise was that he hadn't heard the name before.

“Yoshisune?” Cesare asked, looking over at Anastasia.

“A different case from the damnati. He's the heir to a clan which means he can rebuild with his children. Being the heir, he has access to everything the clan possessed. Alliances, supporters, money, lands, all of it rests in his hands. He’s a clan of one,” she said, without meeting his eyes.

It explained Viktor’s behavior far better than any of his excuses. In their society, Cesare was the trash no one wanted. The man’s choice had been between a piece of shit and a nugget of gold. Cesare was damnati, his death meant nothing to anyone. His friends would miss him, but that was different from family, and Cesare knew it.

Family would always be part of you, it was more than blood. It was the same nose as your father, your mothers laugh, the way you loved, a thousand threads woven through flesh. Memories bound you together, a history written in laughter, no matter where you went your family clung to you like cheap cologne. Deep as bone, beyond the scalpel, the roots of family twisted through your psyche and soul until there was no way to see where it left and you began.

Friends were nothing compared to that. They came and went like flash fires, all-consuming for a time, setting the world on fire before disappearing as quickly as they'd came. Friends are temporary little ports, islands of salvation in a sea of loneliness, but all islands are consumed by the ocean.

His friends thought he was important, but their friendship would fade with time, while the bonds of family endured in blood and mind forever. It didn’t matter if you liked or loved your family, you were bound to them as completely as a man with one horse crossing the desert. Only a person missing those bonds could understand how unbreakable they were.

They entered the corridor of thorns with Kali falling into place behind him. Gloomy and dark, gray needles glinted in fractured sunlight. The path brought home how deeply Elizabeth cared for him, and how out of his depth he was.

Coming into the faded sunlight, he made for the table. “I don’t have a problem with you seeing what we have planned for Anastasia, but Alexandra’s plan will stay with the Furies.” Kali opened her mouth, a protest waiting to be fired. Refusing to give her the space, Cesare ran over her. “Alexandra isn't your daughter; her plan belongs to her alone.”

She didn’t like it, but she knew no amount of bullying would change Cesare's mind. That his reasons were justified meant nothing, only that she couldn't force him to give way. Without trying, he'd showcased the fault lines in the group, while they could play nice, their only true loyalty was to Cesare.

Anastasia emptied her backpack, the heavy footballs thudding onto the table. Reaching out, Kali lifted a football. “You’re going up against an Enenra.” There was a note in her voice that spoke of intimate knowledge. “A race of assassins, almost impossible to injure, let alone kill. They're the reason I developed the Whisper in the Dark.”

Raising an eyebrow, Cesare looked at her in question. “Was that the attack you used against Viktor?”

Nodding, she hefted the football dubiously. “Yes. It’s a kinetic attack, compressed sonic waves that tear the air. I created it after a fight with one of the smoke assassins.” She laid the football on the table with a shake of her head. “He came at me in the night and no matter what I did, I couldn’t hurt him. No fire, acid, or lightning could stop the thing from chocking the life from me. In an orgy of need, I called on the Ebon Flame and it answered. Everything around me for a mile, including my harem and daughter, was turned to burning meat and ash.”

In the pregnant silence, Kali faced them without shame. She'd chosen her own life over the life of her daughter; she’d done it and she'd do it again. Nothing came before her, absolutely selfish, amoral in the way of shark, she was born from a time before civilized ideals.

“How's a sports ball going to save my daughter’s life?” Kali asked.

Turning to Anastasia, he nodded at the dummies. “You ready to show off princess?”

Smirking, she held his eyes as she reached for his hand. Cesare caught the startled, hurt expression that flashed across Kali’s face at the simple gesture. It struck him that Anastasia hadn’t hugged her mother. This was the first time it was driven home that she couldn’t touch others, not even her mother.

Oddly, profoundly, touched by the honor, Cesare took her hand. There were things in life too deep for words, syllables unable to contain the magnitude of their meaning. People had an unspeakable power to break your soul into bits and grind the glass into the ground, they were also the only ones that could save you. A person could survive alone, but it was nothing but slow suicide.

Walking with her hand in his, a jagged piece of his soul ground against its neighbor, the ragged, broken edges smoking as they melted, fusing together into a more complete whole. It was her. The power of her faith in him, the strength of her love.

Hate could sustain you when hunger wracked your body, it could warm you when cold burrowed into your bones, comfort you when you picked yourself up from a pool of your own blood, but it couldn’t heal. Cesare had steeped himself in hate until it was the air he breathed, slept with its scarlet heat filling his heart. Above all it was honest, it promised nothing but suffering, up front and unhidden. It would hurt you, but it would do it to your face while looking you in the eye. Love smiled as it twisted the knife in your back, bled you out as it lapped up your mewling cries. Only love could leave wounds that would never heal. Yet it was also the only thing that could heal a shattered soul and a broken heart.

Stopping in front of the bamboo men, Cesare handed over a football he’d prepped for the demonstration. Anastasia lifted the football with an open question in her eyes. “This is where you prove you’re ready.”

She didn’t blink at his words, turning her back to him and readying herself. His hands glided down her sides, over the soft swells of breasts, smoothing liquid fabric against muscles pulled tight as piano strings, filling his hands with her rounded hips. Sliding along her hip bones, his hands rode her inner thighs, inches from her core. Dipping his head, he breathed in her scent. Here, like this, she was his.

“You are the Ebon Flame.” His voice spoke of endless, unquenchable hunger. “You hunger. You hate. You devour.” Each word relaxed her into the abyss, her hate melding, becoming one with the Ebon Flame's. That was the secret, the key that opened the beasts cage. It wasn’t in controlling the uncontrollable, it was in surrender.

The Ebon Flame was both part of her and separate. If energy could have a soul, then the Ebon Flame did, a malignant, cancerous void, but a soul none the less. You could force it to do your bidding, but it was a spiteful thing that gave its help reluctantly. Or you could surrender to it, meld your hate and pain with its eternal malice. The unfathomable evil of the flame couldn't be controlled, it could only be directed from inside.

The danger was obvious, he didn’t need Kali to clue him in on it. When you surrendered to irredeemable evil, you were only a step from being claimed by it. If Anastasia became a puppet to the flame that burned inside her, it fall to Kali to hunt her down and kill the thing that her daughter became.

“Fall into the abyss of black fire, feel the heat of the flame and the bite of its spite. Let it fill you, its need a fire under your skin, hunger a taste on the tongue, a tearing need in your gut.” His whisper washed over ravaged skin and tortured nerves.

They’d learned early that she needed the speed of the Serpents Flame to both throw the football and hit it in the air. That forced her to use both Serpents Flame and Tendril of the Abyss together. It had radically changed his plans. She could get off one football, but the second one was a long way after that. It was crucial she hit hard on the first strike.

Heat washed off her body, warming the cold air as the Ebon Flame rose to the surface. Writhing against the prison of flesh, the devouring hunger struggled against Anastasia's threadbare will. This was the moment, she was a bomb aching to explode, a lightning bolt coalescing in the air, looking for a place to ground.

“Now.” The word sent the akatharton into motion, the football arching into the air in a perfect spiral. Her other hand shot forward with lethal intention. Snapping out in a Serpents Strike, the flame curved through the air, glittering with pure vindictiveness, it sought the ball with single-minded hunger.

The flame devoured the ball, electrical energy cooking leather, dancing along the metal filaments Cesare had woven into the skin, a rampaging current shooting into Semtex. The explosion rocked the air, shaking the ground, wooden men shuddering under the blast wave. Cesare’s jacket whipped back as the impact blew over them.

Lady Kali stepped up next to them. “You do like bombs.”

Shrugging, Cesare tightened his arms around Anastasia, pulling her ass into his growing hardness, arms forming a cage she cuddled into. “I don’t prefer a weapon. Weapons are tools, extensions of the will to survive. Explosives, guns, knives, swords, they're deadly if used at the right time and in the right circumstances. A person’s will is what makes a weapon lethal, without that will, a weapon is nothing but a conversation piece.”

Kali nodded. “You think this will do it?”

A warm, welcoming heat radiated off Anastasia as she ran her fingers over his hands. A tempting caress, thick with suggestion, tasting of possessive need. “No matter if it’s made of smoke or air, a sudden vacuum opening in the middle of its body is going to give it pause.” Cesare faced Lady Kali’s concerned look with a smile. “Yes, I think this will do it. I have two bombs ready, joined with Anastasia’s power, I think they'll stop the Enenra.”

Kali eyed their intimate embrace. “I notice you've skirted your own fight with the Onibi.”