Sitting at his desk, he ignored the stony glares of the girls beside him. He’d known they'd feel slighted by the gift, but it was a simple matter. He spent almost every day with them, training, learning, talking, and eating. They shared as much as it was possible for three people to share and through it all, Elizabeth was alone. She deserved something just for her.

They quickly got their assignments done and moved back to his remedial studies. The girls never complained about how long he took to get something, or how they had to go over the same topic over and over. It would be easy for them to fall into condescension as they taught him things they’d learned in elementary school, but they never did.

“Thank you.” The quiet words stopped Alexandra’s explanation on how Congress was supposed to work. Mustering his courage, Cesare shifted between the girls as they silently watched. If it was important enough to say, it’s important enough to meet the others eyes when you say it. “I’ve never had anyone willing to teach me, and I don’t know how to put into words how much it means to me.”

Taking a deep breath, his words softened. “I used to envy the kids that got to go to school. I wanted that kind of life. To be normal … I knew I wasn’t, but I still wanted to be like them.” Gesturing at the books, he continued, “I know I’ll never be like the others, but this is still a dream come true and I owe it to you. As much as you think I’m doing for you, this is … more than I ever thought I'd have.”

Anastasia traced his lips with a finger, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I’m glad I can give you something.” Stopping, she leaned forward, lips pressing into his in a brief kiss. “You’ve done so much for me Cesare, things I don’t have words for. You’re more to me than anyone has ever been. If I can give you a small part of what you’ve given me, I will.”

Cesare carefully pulled away the way a man slowly bleeding to death pulls out a knife. It hurt, gods it hurt, because he knew it wasn’t true. She believed it, he could see it in her eyes, she believed she was willing to be with him. But she wasn’t, she'd proven that with her actions and all the sweet words in the world didn't, couldn't, change that fact.

Turning, he met Alexandra’s serious eyes. “You’re my Lord. I support you, not only as my friend, but as my Lord.” The words dipped and wove with concepts that ached with age and formality. Each word rooted in a time when life was birthed in loyalty, honor, and slaughter. He couldn't understand her world, but he knew she was committed to him.

The doorway emptied as the Furies stood, students parting for the black tide of violence. Stepping outside, Cesare met the six eyes of the Brain Trust. The three girls stood out, identical little dolls, barely four feet, white skin shining with unnatural perfectness, straight shoulder length blonde hair. Crystal blue eyes looked at the world with glittering, alien detachment.

“I’d like a moment of your time,” said the Second Year student that formed the point of the spear, her sisters at her sides.

Cesare moved, taking control of their right flank as Anastasia slipped into the front position. It was done without a word spoken, a knowing allowing them to move with the elegance of dancers. The three girls followed the movement with identical looks of calculation.

Cesare had only seen them from a distance. Even the name Brain Trust came from overheard conversation. Up close, it was impossible to see them as girls, they were beyond human, beyond female. Their blue eyes picked up the light and shattered it, giving a glimpse of a bugs multifaceted orbs.

“Speak.” Brisk, almost rude in its bluntness, he’d never heard Anastasia talk to anyone like that. Yet the three things that faced them nodded as if she'd paid them a compliment.

“You have dealt with our kind before.”

“I was taught. What do you want?” Anastasia asked, a curt dismissal and a quick push back to the topic.

“I would like your protection from the Thagirion.” Those students streaming around them stumbled at the blunt words. A glare from Cesare and Alexandra hurried them along, leaving the space cleared in seconds.

Still as marble statues, the things waited for the last student to leave the hallway before continuing, “I have a long-standing agreement with the Thagirion. I do their homework, and in return, I'm free from harassment. The deal has been a favorable investment, freeing me from the politics of the school. Now that you've come onto the scene, I'd like to rid myself of the agreement.”

Cesare looked at the Brain Trust, mind turning over the strange way the girl talked. He wasn’t sure if she was asking for herself or for all of them. It was strangely like talking to a person with multiple personalities. Alexandra gave him a look, promising an explanation later.

“Our protection is for all students,” Anastasia said, eyes running over the girls. “There's no price, but I’d like to know the extent of the help you provided.”

The three cocked their heads to the side as one, blinking in sync at Anastasia. “That's satisfactory. However, I won't support you in your war.”

“That’s acceptable,” Anastasia said, sealing the deal.

“One of my kind has always provided assistance to the Thagirion. When I came to Primrose, it was understood I would continue the practice, to insure harmony of purpose. While the time spent doing their assignments did not allow for optimum time management, the time it saved me from molestation more than made up for it. The agreement was that any member of the Thagirion could come to me, and I would do their assignment for them. I would not tutor them. The time sink that something of that nature would require was too exhaustive.” Its eyes stared queerly at Anastasia, a focused expression devoid of any feelings that Cesare could define. No worry crinkled the small girl’s forehead, no jealousy lite her eyes, no anger put heat into her voice.

“Who used your services?” Anastasia pressed, eyes shining with an eager, vicious light.

“Of the current roster, Blaez and Pantagruel have used my service. Abraxas has never required my help.” The words were a wasteland of cold practicality. “You never partook of our services.”

“I didn’t know about them,” Anastasia said, anger entering her voice for the first time. The thing stared, unmoved and uncaring. The instincts that drove Cesare to fight, kill, and fuck had no meaning for this creature. “We’ll talk to the Thagirion.”

“Understood. Should this turn out not to be an optimal solution, we will discontinue our alliance with you.” The things pivoted as one, leaving in step with each other. Disjointed and subtly wrong, they moved with jerky, quick movements. Whatever lurked under that skin was put together in a way alien enough to make even the mendacium strain to hold it.

“What. The. Fuck,” Cesare said as the things left his sight.

“The Hive,” Alexandra said with distaste, already leaving Anastasia's side to take her spot next to Cesare. “They’re an imperium from East Asia with a strong presence in Russia. Soulless things, devoid of hearts, they should have been stamped out before they crawled from their diseased holes.” She spat out, glaring down the hallway.

Anastasia came up on his other side. “They’re not like us, but they do feel emotion, even if it’s not understandable to us.” Alexandra glared across at the girl. “Their outlook is centered on the Hive, each identifying only with the whole, their lives disposable things meant to serve the community. Individuality has no meaning for them, a flaw that proves the failure of flesh.” She shrugged at a loss for words, the facts standing starkly out without context.

“You seemed to know how to handle them,” Cesare said, walking to the cafeteria.

“My mother taught me. To them we’re bacteria ridden things better used as food for the grubs. It’s why they respect blunt speaking; it shortens their time around us.” Anastasia’s mouth twisted. “They’ve worked for thousands of years to sterilize the world. To them, the races are mistakes that never should have happened.”

Cesare frowned. “How powerful are they?”

“Very,” Alexandra said grimly from his other side. “They were one of the first groups to form into what would later become imperium's, and they wasted no time in starting their Purge. It was before my race had taken hold; we were birthed outside their influence. A good thing too as thousands of races fell before them.” She looked at him pointedly. “They’ve never stopped. Any Umbrae Lunae that enters their land is under a death sentence. They're voracious in their appetite for land, power, and food.”

It was one more nightmare inhabiting the world of moon shadows, another abomination in a world dominated by horrors. “What do you think of the request?”

Alexandra differed to Anastasia's superior knowledge. The Order of the Dragon killed unbelievers and monsters, they didn’t talk to them. Smiling in quiet triumph, Anastasia looked at Cesare. “The Brain Trust might look like three people, but they function as one. It exists to learn and inform the Hive. Every Umbrae Lunae school has a Brain Trust. It’s the way the Hive stays informed on the school, elite students, political movements, any changes in the world of shadows. They do the same for choice human colleges across the world.”

Shaking her head, Anastasia continued, “They’re devoted to their mission. The deal with the Thagirion's only a problem because they had to spend time on something besides learning. The morality of the deal doesn’t come into it, only what it gains them.”

For this to come up while they were looking for a way to discredit the Thagirion was a too perfect to be genuine. The only way to rise to power was over the bodies of the Thagirion, if not in reality, then standing on the rotting corpse of their reputation. They’d used what they had to paint the Thagirion as beasts leading the strong in devouring the weak. It was a shadow of the truth, they didn’t support it, they just didn’t stop it.

When they’d caught the boy selling homework they’d hinted that the Thagirion was part of it. The suspicion all they had at the time, but that was enough to push people into condemning without the need for proof. Now they had the proof, even if the Brain Trust would never testify.

Fixing grades was a juicy issue. It didn’t matter if you were strong or weak, popular or hated. No one liked a cheater; people hated the lucky few that find the short cuts through life. It was the petulant anger that someone had weaseled out of paying their dues while taking the kings share of the reward.

The issue would strike to the heart of the students, everyone was trying to get somewhere, and those grades were the only vehicle they had. It came down to how best to use it. If they sat on it too long, the other team would get ahead of them and spin it to their liking. Killers didn't hesitate at weakness, they strike and damned the consequences, weapons don't get better with age.

Silently the girls watched Cesare. Anastasia knew how to possess people, to command and rule over others, she engineered worship with the ease of a born manipulator. Her natural battlefield was poisoned words and lies, Cesare had seen her in action at the party. She was a barracuda, using her name, looks, and wanton aura, to twist and warp those around her. It was more than the gifts she'd been born with, Kali had trained her to compel others, to find weakness and exploit it, to leverage attraction into slavery. She didn’t convince you to do what she wanted, she made it seem like it was your idea all along.

Alexandra could kill anything that moved, a soldier and a killer without peer among them. A psychopathic murderess who got off on slaughter, she was a walking nightmare. Her mantle of terror sent monsters shying away with the merest brush of its tattered cloak.

But they didn’t have that instinctive feel that a wolf had for weakness. That was why they let him chart their course. They’d never had to live on wits alone. Devoid of good or evil, he possessed a ruthless practicality of what could be done, a commitment to winning that was absolute. Hookers used it as they sold their ass on the streets. Wet workers turned it on when they went to kill. The lizard brain turning the world into slabs of meat and angles of attack.