Sunday March 15th 2015

Carefully he looked over his wounds, the special stillness of the empty infecting the bathroom. The cut along his arm had taken dozens of crooked stitches but was healing nicely. Taking the stitches out was a nightmare for another day. The other cuts on his back and thigh were keeping up with the one on his arm, which was about all he could hope for.

The arrows were another matter. Barbed with small hooks that sprung out when they connected, he'd been forced to cut the fuckers out. The cutting had left a cavity in his chest about the size of a shot glass and a few centimeters deep. His hip was a mirror image of the divot on his chest, gouged out holes of meat, raw and bleeding. He'd never been pretty, but this sure hadn't helped any.

The three girls were still in the infirmary and they didn’t look like they’d be out soon. Reverberations from the fight were still rippling across campus, shifting alliances shaken by the midnight hunt. No one knew the truth, but everyone knew Cesare had taken a pound of flesh from their hides for their sins.

The rest of the Scythians were running scared in the aftermath of the hunt. It had finally hit them what was at stake. Not just the animosity of the Furies, but the wholesale expulsion of the group but that paled on the possibility of rousing Lady Kali’s fury or finding themselves on the facing Elizabeth’s wrath. A meeting was scheduled for tonight to decide on the reapers due.

Taking up his school clothes, he looked them over with a critical eye. Alexandra hadn’t given him a dress code, but he knew how much today meant to her, and the best he had was his school uniform. Getting dressed, he grinned at his shiny boots, they gleamed in the harsh light of the bathroom from the work he'd put into them. His jacket went over the dress shirt, the heavy weight settling with cold comfort around his shoulders.

He’d be leaving his bag in the room with his standard traps. That didn’t mean he wasn’t packing an arsenal. Cesare’s hands danced from weapon to weapon under his jacket, checking over the surprises he’d stored there.

He hadn’t used them against the Scythians for tactical reasons. A bomb would have alerted the hunting gang to where he was fighting. That had narrowed his options, and none of them had fit the situation. He might have ended the fight with fewer scars, but he’d won and kept his secrets.

Leaping down the stairs, the stygian jacket billowed out behind him in a cloud of sable. Today he was on a strict schedule, and it wasn’t just him who'd be hurt by his being late.

The Serpens Lacum doors swung open on silent hinges when he hit them. Alexandra waited at the top of the stairs; body held still in the way of the stressed. A low sigh ran through her when he showed, without a word, she headed down the stairs.

Today was her day. Usually he spent the weekends with Elizabeth, but when Alexandra had asked him to help her greet a man from the Order of the Dragon, he hadn’t thought twice about saying yes.

Elizabeth had understood why he'd canceled. She was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. She might hate that he was canceling on her, but she could see the benefit of the Furies strengthening their ties with the Order of the Dragon. It wasn’t only Alexandra and Anastasia that had a lot to gain by the Furies rise to power.

Alexandra held silent until they were on the trail to the gates. “I told you that the altar in the clearing is important to my people.” It was more statement than question. “We obey the word of God and raise no graven image, but the altar’s important because of its history. That altar hails from a time when only a handful of vampire’s worshiped the true God.”

Her eyes burned with a zealous light. “We fought for thousands of years, dying by the hundreds in wars fought on every continent. We killed, maimed, and slaughtered, putting the false faiths and their worshippers to the torch. We proved the rightness of our beliefs on the bodies of our foes.”

Wetting her lips, she continued, “That’s what the altar means to us. The greatest knights to walk Gods path have knelt before its simple majesty. It’s more than two stones slapped together, it’s the starting point of the Orders mission. To serve God and see his light spread over the world, banishing the darkness of the false faiths.”

Cesare nodded slowly, not in agreement, but in recognition of her devotion. People say they live for God, but few do. The true go out into the forsaken landscape to minister to those that have no water, toilets, police, or food, they work to bring the light of their faith to the forgotten. They dedicate their whole beings to something bigger than themselves, better than the simple, petty lives of fleshy creatures.

In its own way that was what Alexandra did. The Crusading orders were monks that had given up the earthly world to fight for god. They’d started out wanting to care for the homeless and sick, but ended up defending the faith with their bodies. Willingly throwing their lives away to secure the earthly kingdom of God.

“I told you that pilgrims sometimes come to pray at the altar.” Her words carried a strange hesitance. “Because of its history, there's great meaning in making a pilgrimage to the stones.” Her eyes turned away from him. “There's a holiness to the stones, a feeling that while God's everywhere, he might just turn his eyes a little more frequently to that spot. I … have never felt more at home than when I'm praying before the altar.”

The trees were closer than he remembered from his last trip, long branches creating black shadows in the last hours of night. Cesare liked the darkness, every animal that had ever been hunted knew darkness was safe. It spread its blessings indiscriminately, uncaring if you were hunter or hunted. But for the hunted, it gave a slight edge just as the harsh light of day favored the predator.

They walked in the time between the night hunters and day killers when the world was silently grappling with the carnage of the night. Humans forgot that life and death surrounded them, that they moved through wars old when humanity first opened its eyes. Beasts have fought, killed, and crippled each other since time was young. They were here long before man, and would be here long after the two legs died out.

“The Bishop's come to pray before the stones,” Alexandra said, filling the silence. “He's the Churches highest authority in the Order. My father leads the knights to honor, but the Bishop leads us to God.”

Barely keeping herself to a brisk walk, the vampire was holding something back. “He means a lot to you?” Cesare asked.

Sighing, Alexandra struggled to find the words. “The Bishop runs the clergy for the Order of the Dragons. He insures we live the words of God; his kingdom is in the heart of ever knight, his priestly son’s shepherding us to his design. Despite his duties, he still holds Sunday Service. I asked him once why he still performed marriages and baptism’s, he said he's a priest first and a Bishop second. I’ve always felt honored that he’s been my shepherd.”

Faltering, her steps slowed. “Me and my sister used to go to him for Sunday School. He'd sit and tell us tales of heroic knights and the sacrifices they’d made. There was a warmth, an understanding, that touched me. I thought he loved me.” The last ghosted through the air, a bitter smile stretching across her face.

“It all changed when my sister died.” The words creaked under the force of sterilizing them. “He excluded me from Sunday School. The chapel was still open at all times, but he was always busy when I dropped by. You see, it wasn’t me he loved, it was my sister.” Watching the forest, her eyes shimmered with the hate of a child that doesn't understand why it's loathed.

He got it. She didn't love the man; she loved the memories of who she thought he was. It didn’t make that love any less real, the emotion didn’t care if the man was real or not. Some of the greatest loves a man will ever know are birthed in lies. We love people before we know them, we love parents before we understand how they’d failed us. And we love ourselves until we can’t meet our expectations. It was no different than any other love, dying in its time, scarring the soul it had burrowed into.

There wasn’t anything he could say to make that scar hurt any less. No amount of comforting makes the disgust easier to bear. Love was the most insidious poison, even after you thought you’d bled it from your body, it burned through the meat.

Moving to the side, his shoulder bumped hers, knocking her out of her smooth walk. Cesare smiled into her shocked face. He hated the people that made a simple touch so shocking for her. He wasn’t a man of God or a knight, hell, he wasn't even a good person, but he was still her friend and he still loved her. Tension slowly drained from her until she settled comfortably at his side.

The slow creaking of the gate was a counterpoint to the suns first cutting rays across the sky. Seen from this side, the gate was different, a membrane instead of a barrier, threadbare and alive.

Half open, the gate was an invitation and a threat. It was what you made it, the world was dangerous, beautiful, full of hope, and glittering with hate. It was the only game in town, and like all games, it divided into winners and losers. If you didn’t know which side you were on, then you sure weren’t a winner.

Cesare knew some would look at that gate and see opportunity. People like Alexandra, Anastasia, and even Elizabeth, would see how much they could change, grow, learn, and conquer. They’d see the good times they’d have. For someone like Cesare, a born loser, the warning rang out with every squeaking of corroded hinges, he’d grown up in blood and pain, and he’d live and die in agony. Life was a cruel bitch, but she was the only hooker working the street.

The black SUV came around the corner in a slow prowl. Tinted windows glared out at the world with shadowed eyes, outsized tires hugging the road. Weighed down with armor, the SUV approached with the low growl of a supercharged engine.

Coming to a stop, the SUV idled for a time before the passenger door opened. The man was big in the way of a professional soldier, not cut and ripped like a body builder, but something earned through doing. A farm boy doesn’t look stronger than a body builder, but dollars to donuts he is. Its power earned through long days doing hard work, an enduring strength that’s greater than lifting.

Walking around the vehicles front end, the man’s eyes skipped over Cesare and Alexandra, sweeping the area as the driver kept the vehicle in gear. Always measure the man before you measure his weapons. A weapon's only a tool, if the man's weak, the weapon's weak, a strong man is deadly no matter what weapons he carries. A spiked buzz cut coupled with wide, mean eyes, was enough to let the world know this was a bastard not to be fucked with. Light danced over his diamond cut silver necklace; the faceted ruby claymore shadowed as old blood. Shaped into a cross, it was identical to Alexandra’s, the difference only found in material.

His black wool trench coat swung open as he moved, showing a brief look at the weapons he kept strapped to his body. A bulge along one side marked a monster of a gun, the snub-nosed Raging Judge was good for taking down bears, but it might do for putting a crease in an Umbrae Lunae. Hugging his thigh was a jitte, a short baton used to catch and bind a blade, the thick handle might be because it was electrified but Cesare didn’t want to find out.

That wasn’t all he was carrying but Cesare had learned what he needed. Hand guns are defensive, if you knew you were throwing down, you brought a rifle. Even the most powerful of handguns wasn't good enough against monsters, their speed and strength demanded something serious. If the others were armed like this one, then the team wasn't only worried about monsters. The jitte was a defensive weapon meant to pin down an enemy’s blade, but it made a decent way to beat a man to death. Powered by the inhuman strength of a vampire, with the added help of electricity, it would make for a devastating weapon.

Once the man had secured the area, he turned his attention to the two of them. After a long minute, the man nodded to the driver. Leaving the car running, the driver stepped out. Taking his own long look around, the driver reluctantly opened the back door.

Hydraulics hissed, armor plates sliding smoothly against each other as the reinforced door opened. Only the white color broke up the grim spectre of the black clad priest. Younger than Cesare had thought he’d be, the man could pass for mid-thirties with short cut blond hair.

Winter sky eyes warmed as he took in the kids waiting for him. “I see my escort's arrived.”