Anastasia stepped away, leveling a hot glare at him. United in their anger, the group formed a furious front. Stepping away from them, he walked back to the table. “I have a plan.”

Kali gave a bark of bitter laughter behind him. “You have a plan to fight against a creature that kills by its very presence? What plan is that? Because if you're thinking explosives, you should think again, they know their weaknesses as well as anyone. Since birth, the Onibi trained to be as slippery as an eel.”

Shrugging on his duffel, he faced their worried faces, Kali's eyes steady on his. “They're almost immune to energy, Cesare. What they aren’t immune too, there trained to dodge and escape. I’ve fought the Death Walkers. It was a battle that lasted for hours as I skirted the edge of its aura and he ducked my flame.” She stopped, carefully choosing her next words. “You're stronger than ever, but you’re not a long range fighter.”

He’d gone over the file until it was seared the lobe of his brain. The Onibi was the worst match up he could have gotten. Even getting within fifty feet of the thing would put him in its aura of un-life. That aura would flay his body, stripping it of life until he was nothing more than a wasted corpse. Inverting the aura, its touch became lethal at the briefest touch.

It was a nightmare for a long range fighter, but an impossible opponent for someone like Cesare. Trained by the elders of its race in the arts of killing, it would be a nightmare to trap in an explosion at the best of times. In an open field, the chances of catching it with a wide attack was a chumps bet. Projectiles might work, if he had years to get good enough to overcome training that started at birth.

That wasn’t what kept him up at night. This was his first fight, he got one chance to make an impression. It didn't matter if he won, if he didn't do it with style, this was as much about marketing as it was winning. He knew it and so did the women. They were worried he'd lose, no, they knew he'd lose. He was their little dog, and they wanted to protect him from the big bad world.

Titans of heinous power, each was a force of nature, equaled only by the few that had achieved their heights of monstrous strength. Revered as a living goddess, living embodiment of elder powers, a prodigy that went toe to toe with a legend and held him, and a myth in the making, they were beyond extraordinary. But not a one of them mattered. The only person who could protect Cesare was Cesare, the only one that wanted the best for him was himself. Wedded to their agenda’s, ambitions riding their souls, they’d cut him loose if it left them ahead.

“It’s my fight.” The simple words set the women onto their back feet in anger. “I know you want to help, but I don’t need it.”

There was a part of him that didn’t want help from anyone, for anything. He’d rather fail than owe his success to someone. It was a torturous contradiction, wanting help, needing people, and unable to open gates locked in blood and hate. He couldn’t let them in, not totally. The closer people got, the more you depended on them, the deeper the wound when they left. The lesson was carved in scars across his body, lesions bleeding spite along the landscape of his soul.

They left Raven's Rest wrapped in private thoughts. Tomorrow they'd prove the Furies were strong enough to slaughter trained killers, a force with flesh to back up words, lethal creatures to fear, or they’d die in the shit stained sewer of failure. They were betting their dreams on one toss of the dice. Failure meant being alone again, the people that walked by him today would scatter to the wind. They had time for mangy dog as long as he brought glory. No one had time for failures.

Kali snagged Cesare’s jacket as they reached the campus. “Will you escort me tonight?”

Primrose would host the Hyakki Yagyo and their elite team the Hitokiri at a ball tonight. They'd agreed they needed to network with the powers that would show up. Anastasia would lead the effort, but the rest had to be there to show they were one.

“I don’t have anything better than school clothes and the jacket you gave me.” He wouldn’t fit in at the party and everyone knew it. The jacket was a fantastical piece, a thing of magical wonder. But wrapping shit in tinsel didn't turn it into a present.

Kali smiled. “I think we’ve had this discussion before.” Remembering the first time he'd escorted her; he gave a nod of acceptance. “I’ll meet you at the willow tree,” she said, gathering her harem with a curt gesture.

The others peeled off, each quick stepping it to get in the hours needed to get ready. Cesare didn't have any clothes to set out, perfume to put on, or make up to agonize over. He'd set aside a uniform that was clean and ironed, but that was all he had.

Taking the Serpens Lacum steps at a leisurely pace, he noted the eyes that tracked him. Tomorrow he'd fight a monster born into power, trained to kill, given every tool to make it the best it could be. The kids knew he'd be dead by this time tomorrow. There was no way a loser could win against a burning star in the firmament in the void blackness of the Umbrae Lunae.

They didn’t know Cesare was birthed by slaughters fertile womb. Killers weren't born from luxury, indulgence, and ease. Gurkha, Spartans, Samurai, and Zulu were birthed in pain, blood, and bone aching misery. Fashioned through cruelty, created from hate, butchered into grotesque abominations of twisted instincts. Only a person who'd survived a cauldron of agony could look at killing as a way of life. Civilized men believed in right and wrong, killers knew there were only victims and the strong who fed on them.

A killer was used to fighting for every scrap. You had to have that familiarity with violence, an intimacy born of living with it every day. When you bleed just to live, you learned anyone could be beaten. Enduring strength's born out of agony; it's forged in the fires of torment.

The kids parted as he walked the hallway to his room. A solemn silence held them, an undercurrent of gleefulness, barbed, vicious satisfaction that he’d finally get what he deserved. A few watched mournfully, but they were tucked away in little corners and out of the way shadows.

Taking up his clothes, he headed into the bathroom, yells, arguments, and half real fights falling still at his approach. Ducking their heads, the kids finished quickly, leaving him alone in the room. Under the showers spray, he threaded his fingers through shoulder length hair. Darker than brown but not black, threaded with scarlet only ever seen in shadows, it was a statement of his change. In a normal time and place, the sudden change in color would be worth thinking about. But when you shared your soul with letters born before time, and a blade designed to kill your best friends, hair color didn’t amount too much.

The night reclaimed the campus in a rush of bitter cold. Leaning against the willow tree, he couldn't pull his eyes off the stars, silent and frozen in their eternal darkness. Every star a testament to the loneliness of existence, fading lights from suns long since burned out in forgotten parts of the universe. If we’re lucky, we leave a flickering light, a mere shade of ourselves for future generations to see by. More often, the darkness closes around us, extinguishing our petty lives, leaving no trace of our dreams, or struggles. There was a hateful comfort in that, a melancholy lesson that many a failure had found waiting for them on dark nights.

The slow dragging of fabric heralded her arrival. Materializing out of the dark, the harem were shades, mere ghosts with grim faces. She slid out of the night as if born from it, stygian blackness holding to her. He'd gotten used to her in faded jeans and snarky tee-shirts, clothes molded to her petite body. In their time together, Cesare had never seen her in anything like this.

Swathed in the skin of midnight, she walked under the stars. If a word had to be put to its magnificence, only kimono would fit. Created out of sumptuous fabrics layered over each other, she was the night sky when it was black as hearts despair, the shade of triumphant darkness over the diseased light of day. Long sleeves swept down in raven’s wings hiding her hands in abyssal folds. Only her face could be seen, pale and doll like in its perfection, hair flowing down her back in a shining river of sable beauty.

Smiling, her eyes lit with dark amusement at his stunned expression. “I have a relationship with the Hyakki Yagyo, certain customs must be observed,” she said by way of explanation.

Bowing low, he offered her his arm. With an enigmatic smile, she laid her deathly pale hand on his arm. “Anything I should know?”

There was a slow shuffle to her walk that turned an ordinary stroll into a dignified procession. Shadows gathered in the folds of her kimono, the twelve layers of darkness shifting with every small step. “No one of my station will be there, so they won’t address me directly. As my escort, you'll need to speak for me. Play along as best you can, they won't dare question my escort.”

Nervousness ghosted through him, tendrils plucking at self-confidence with sharp bites. “You sure you want to trust me with something like this?” Cesare got the impression this meant more than she was saying, as if she was setting some greater plan in motion.

“I trust you with the life of my daughter, and I trust you as my escort,” she said without a trace of a smile, the words carrying a strange gravity to them. That she’d linked them in that way, as if they were equal, put the fact to his unease.

At the realization, his walk shifted, center of balance dropping low, a gliding prowl settling into his stride, the softly slow walk of a predator seeking prey. He didn’t care what people thought of him, but he cared what they thought of her. She’d stood by him when she had every reason to walk away, he’d never have trusted a man like him with a daughter like Anastasia. Kali rarely agreed with him, fighting him over the things he couldn't give her, willing to threaten to get what she wanted, it was never easy with her. But she was also a partner as bewitching as she was terrifying.

Dressed in black on black, the harem where slow moving shadows of lethality, moving from shade to light, they shared intent expressions. Something had been said, and Cesare had more than a few suspicions that the faces he was seeing would be changing soon. Kali wasn’t one to let sleeping dragons lie, more likely to call them on their shit then let them slink away. Right now, the harem were what she had, and it was worth their lives to perform a hair less than perfect.

The party was in full swing as they stopped in front of the great doors of the Cathedralis Luminis. The black wood swam with the depths of darkness, polished whirls of silver filigree distorting their faces and forms into capering caricatures of who they were. Rainbow light spilled into the hallway, greens, reds, and purple, beams shifting across the floor.

They were the shadows, cast off bits of darkness, voids in the scintillating light. There was no need for Kali to release her power, they’d waited, feared her coming, hungered for it. The room turned to them as one as the couple creased the threshold, a half moon with the revelers in their fanciful dress bowing to the immortal.

Lady Kali was a singular creature standing apart from these pale reflections of her glory. Suits of gray, blue, red, brown, and a hundred shades of everything between. Velvet, silk, cotton, cuts from a dozen different eras sprinkled through the crowd. Gowns, full and skin tight, brocade and hoop skirted, lavish fabrics used with abandon in long trains of glittering beauty. Hair done in coils of the fantastic or running down in understated waves. Jewels sparkled and twisted with light, rubies, diamonds, and sapphires, sliced the air with sharp edges, ringing necks and dripping from ears.

Cesare and Kali were the cold shadows to their finery, the canker in the rose. Death in simple, tattered shrouds, clothed in that most precious and alluring of qualities, power. The crowd bowed out of the harem’s way, paying homage to Kali’s overwhelming majesty. Black as night and twice as mean, she was elegant grace wedded to the power of an atomic bomb.

Alexandra cut through the crowd, neither bowing her head or body. She paid homage only to God and the Order. She’d chosen the long, scarlet gown she’d worn for the Winter Ball. Hugging her body in crimson folds, the gown left her wide shoulders and sculpted arms free, the easy play of muscles beneath the sheath of pale skin speaking of supreme strength and confidence. The slit on the side flashed images of flexing, milky calf and tantalizing shows of thigh as she prowled through the crowd.

The harem parted for her with only the briefest of hesitations. Not that Alexandra gave them any thought. Coming to his side, she looked him over with approval. “They brought Yoshisune.”

Frowning, Cesare swept the crowd for the kid. It didn’t surprise him. Primrose wanted to make Yoshisune their new beach head into Japan, and this was a perfect time to put pressure on the Hyakki Yagyo. If the Hitokiri didn't kill the boy. They'd take shit if they did, but that didn't mean they wouldn't do it.

Making her way through the crowd, Anastasia was stopped every other step by stately men and women. Wearing her Winter Ball gown, the sumptuous folds softened her curves into something understated instead of teasing. Sheathed in shimmering darkness like the Ebon Flame, she’d foregone the mask, leaving her tortured beauty for all to see. Lustful and grotesque, she drew looks of disgusted need, desire's diseased threads spreading from her, hooking into the souls of those that laid eyes on her. This was her jungle; here she was supreme. Everyone she passed caught in the web she spun, compelled and subverted by her aura.

The people stopping her didn’t seem to mind, they weren't hoping to fuck. No, their hunger was the twin to hers, ambition, deals, alliances in the offing. The Furies had shaken the establishment, and chaos bred chance, the fickle goddess of riches. The ones stopping her were gamblers, the ones on the sidelines of power. Part of the pecking order but not at the top, a shakeup done right could be the chance of a lifetime for them. They were the low hanging fruit, but it wouldn't be long before the others succumbed to Anastasia's power. The only real proof against her dominant power was to never be near her. Anything less was a losing game.

Her power was pervasive, a thing that flowed from her, subtle when she wanted and a sledgehammer at her whim. Her smile twisted emotions, words traps that captured and enslaved. Those that dared to get close were caught in the birthright of the Harab Serapel, insidious charm that twisted the soul. Born to own the weak, her race enslaved so easily victims begged for the collar.

Cesare smiled at the sight. It was everything he'd wanted for her. She was forging the bonds with powers of the Umbrae Lunae, forming relationship's that would last centuries. It was something he couldn’t do, not for her, and not for the Furies. He was a lot of things, but diplomatic wasn’t one of them. She knew the players, which ones held power and those that were empty promises. She had the pedigree, looks, and power to make them take her seriously, not least because Kali and her Andhērē Rosa backed her.

Weaving between the crystalline monsters with their razor edges and incandescent light, Elizabeth was a vision of the ravens she loved. Her black velvet dress brocaded with ravens flashing red eyes. A corset of electric purple and black silk cinched her into a wasp waist. Shoulders and arms bare, white skin sallow and corpse pale in the unforgiving light. Her face was day old dead done well, eyes shaded into bruises with subtle hues of purple and blue. Hair of shining, stygian black, cascaded down her back with a beauty that caught his breath.

Raising her head, she caught his eyes as she made her way through the crowd. Lost in her beauty, he could only return her smile. It didn’t matter that they’d never have anything more between them, a woman liked to know she was beautiful.

The harem skittered out of her way as she walked into the circle. She’d proven to be far more than they'd thought and none of them were eager for a second lesson. “They brought Yoshisune.”

“I know,” Cesare said. Elizabeth eyes moved to Alexandra standing at his side and one step behind. “Who brought him?”

Elizabeth grimaced in distaste. “Jerold and the Thagirion. It’s a dog and pony show, they're trying to push the Hyakki Yagyo to bargain.”

Kali broke in, soft and sure. “Hachimon won't be pushed. He’s held power for hundreds of years and lived over a thousand. He's the god of the Hyakki Yagyo. Many pray to him over Buddha or their ancestors.” The quiet words stopped the conversation.

“Sounds like you know him,” Cesare said.

Her mouth turned into a wintry smile. “He was my student.” She looked up at Cesare. “And no, I wasn’t fucking him.”

His low laugh rumbled through the air. “I’m more concerned with who you're fucking now.”

His words transformed her cold smile into something hot with embarrassment. “Sorry, that was unwarranted.”

“Not completely,” Cesare said, he was damn touchy on who she fucked. “If the Hitokiri come across the boy will they kill him?”

Her lips twisted into a look of distaste. “Human Japan has modernized and broke from the caste system, but the Hyakki Yagyo are dedicated to the old way. Merchant, Artisan, Farmer and Samurai. No samurai would attack a defenseless man, it would shame to his name and family.” She paused, her words coming slowly. “But they'd be solving a problem that has been a thorn in Hachiman’s side for a long time, there's a kind of honor in doing the dishonorable for your Lord.”

The twisted logic was beyond Cesare, but Kali was the expert. Breaking the room into grids, he combed through it person by person. Following his example, the others scanned the crowd. Seeing a small shadow in the light, Cesare honed in on Yoshisune.