Wednesday January 7th 2015

Robert watched with shuttered eyes as Cesare stripped his dress shirt off. “You're moving like you’re ready for me to pull those stitches,” the doctor said as the under shirt followed. Running cool fingers along the trench gouged into his chest, the doctor's words were soft. “I see you’ve gone back to training.” A wry look crossed the man’s face as he traced the bruises marking Cesare’s body.

Sniping stitches, Robert pulled threads through healed holes, tiny dots of blood blooming as he talked. “I don’t see why I bother with you. I spent hours getting your guts back into your ungrateful body, only for you to throw yourself back into the same stupid that got you here. Half this school wants to kill someone, and the other half are desperate to survive until graduation. I don’t know how they keep it from flying apart.”

“There are only two things that are infinite, space and stupidity,” Cesare said, wincing as a stubborn stich was pulled through lacerated flesh. “What do the Umbrae Lunae do for medical care? With DNA scans and the rest, I'd think the secret would come out.”

“The mendacium is as simple as it is complete,” the doctor said, probing the new wounds with fat, icy fingers. “If I put your tissue in for a DNA scan, it would show what I expected to see. Even knowing your Umbrae Lunae, I would still see a human’s DNA. Some part of me would link what you look like now with the tissue sample.”

Leaning back, Robert snapped the gloves off his fingers and turned to wash up. “Even for me, the illusion holds. It’s different when you turn into your authentic form, that bypasses the protection of the mendacium. Then I can see you for what you truly are.”

Robert turned and faced Cesare, leaning against the sink as he dried his hands. “It’s a powerful protection and a hell of a curse. It protects us from the humans but stops us from providing all but the most basic care when the patient is in their true form.”

Getting dressed, Cesare's mind turned the information over. “But you can treat us in human form.”

“Mendacium,” Robert corrected sharply. “It’s not the human form, it’s the mendacium. If you go talking about us taking human form, you’re liable to get yourself gutted again. The mendacium makes us seem human and to some extent what works on humans works on us. Cut us open, and you’ll see the same guts, but the differences kill dozens every year. Operations that work on humans are fatal to some species of Umbrae Lunae. It’s even trickier when you work on something like the akatharton and vampires who retain a lot of their power even in the mendacium.”

“Sounds complicated,” Cesare said as the last button was done on his shirt.

Shrugging, the doctor opened the door for Cesare. “Medicine’s tricky, no matter what angle you look at it from. The Umbrae Lunae are centuries behind humans. Not only are you dealing with different species, but you're up against the sleight of hand of the mendacium. It’s hard to do research when tests change before your eyes.”

He’d have to put ointment on the holes the stitches had left in his chest, but other than that he was as good as new. Better than new. The incident with Blaez had been a blessing dressed in torn flesh and gleaming guts. His mind shied away from thinking about the changes the incident had caused between him and Anastasia. He didn’t know where they’d be if it hadn’t happened, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be where they were today.

Coming down the infirmary steps, he looked over at the beautiful akatharton as she fell into step beside him. He didn’t know where they’d been heading, only that it wasn’t where he’d wanted to go. He still didn’t know where they were going, but at least he was enjoying the ride. No, all things considered, the pain, humiliation, and degradation he’d endured had been worth it. You don’t get to choose the pain life brings, only hope to make something from the destruction.

Cesare curled his arm around Anastasia’s shoulder, pulling her into his side. He never reached for her, always waiting for her to come to him. But just now, he wanted to feel her next to him. Startlement turned to pleasure as she shared his smile, brushing his ass as her arm snaked around his waist. Pressing into his side, her feverish warmth washed over him, pushing the cold winter wind back. She was soft and right, and that was enough for now.

His eyes drifted to Alexandra. Where would they be today if he hadn’t been maimed? Would he trust her as he did if she hadn’t proven she didn’t break when the butcher came calling? He didn’t think so. She’d known, had been happy he was broken, so she didn’t have to wait to prove herself.

Moving closer, he closed the gap between them, playfully bumping shoulders with the lethal vampire. Smiling at him, the vampire’s eyes passed over Anastasia as if she wasn’t there. “What happened in there, he slip you some Oxy?”

Anastasia stared at him with the same wondering look as the vampire. “It’s stupid and fluffy bunny, but I was thinking about what happened with Blaez and what I got out of it.” Anastasia’s arm tightened around him, face clouding with shame. Alexandra's eyes sharpened, murderous hate saturating her being. “I’d do it again, no, more than that, I’d seek it out to have what I have now.”

He shrugged self-consciously under their horrified expressions. “Bad shit happens all the time. People get beaten and killed for food, sex, hell, even fucking sneakers. They don’t get shit out of it but pain. I got a friend who stood by me when everyone else cut me loose, who killed on my word, and had my back all the way to the gates of hell.” Alexandra flushed, color climbing her cheeks under the honest words.

Anastasia face tightened. The fight with Blaez was an abomination, a super nova of destruction that traveled from the event, consuming her life. “Good or bad, the fight made us realize where we wanted to be.”

It had shattered what they were. After the fight, the only choice left was to create something new or walk away from each other. He’d thought she'd cut her loses and walk. Maybe if she hadn't been attacked, it would have played out that way. The week she’d stayed away had been the seed of their new relationship, giving them a taste of what life would be like without the other person in it. When the chance came for them to be together again, to build a friendship without the baggage of the past, they’d jumped at it because of that hellish week apart.

Cesare dipped his head, the words for her alone. “I wouldn’t change it for the world. Not if I had to sacrifice what we have now.” Her smile was like darkness swathing flesh flayed by fire, the cool blessings of night given life.

It didn’t mean he forgave her. He’d never forgive her for letting him get torn apart while she stood crying. There was no place in his life for that kind of friend, he’d had his fill of people who cried as he drowned in his own shit. He needed people who fucking stood up for him and threw down until blood stained the fucking streets. No, he’d never forgive her, no matter that he’d turned it into something good.

Just because you made a meal of a shit sandwich, didn’t mean you forgave the person for putting it on your plate. You might be happy with how things turned out, but that didn’t change the betrayal.

Even with the stop to get his stitches out, they were still early enough to catch the morning crowd. Taking their spots at the losers table, they worked on Cesare’s back log of work. Presidents, states, history, math, even how to write, without the knowing he was stripped of choice, condemned by ignorance to forever be an outsider. Unable to fill out an application or take a job flipping burgers. It was the gulf between a homeless kid and everyone else. Crippled from birth, they could only ever live on the streets, unable to survive in the world around them.

They took a break a little while in and headed for the line to collect breakfast. Seeing them coming, the few kids in line deserted the space, fear, anger, or common sense, driving them away from the controversial group. No one wanted a part of their troubles, no one wanted to get between them and the jackals snapping at their heels.

Coming back to the table, Anastasia gave a disgusted sigh before setting her coffee flavored cream on the table without taking a drink. “Really, every meal?”

In her world, Christians were baby killers that came in the night with fire and steel. An army who'd driven her people from their lands, hounded them through history, raping their children and impaling babes as sacrament to a cruel god. They’d faced the Order of the Dragon across centuries of slaughter as they fought over blood-soaked shadows. It grated to keep silent while Alexandra said grace.

After that one outburst, her lips thinned, eyes flattened with distaste. It wasn’t hard to make the choice between the two of them, not on this. It stripped Anastasia's nerves bare as stories and histories ate at her from the inside. Christians were an enemy that couldn’t be trusted, a corruption to be burned out with the earth salted over their bodies.

But it was Alexandra's life. She lived the Christian faith; it was the bedrock for everything she was. There was no part of her life that wasn’t ruled by faith. It didn’t mean a lot to her, it meant everything. To turn away from Christianity was to turn away from Alexandra’s soul. He knew it pissed Anastasia off, there'd never be a time when it didn’t rasp against her soft parts, but it was the price of having Alexandra as part of his life.

The vampire met his eyes with a knowing look. She knew what it cost him, knew the sacrifice he made to stand beside her day after day. There was nothing he valued more than their friendship, nothing he held more sacred than being with them both. Every day he walked the line between them, doing what he could to keep them in his life as they pulled at the seams of his soul.

He made this choice every day, and he’d be a liar if he said he did it because it was the right thing to do. No, he did it for that look in the vampire’s eyes. As if she was seeing him for the first time, that she saw something worthy where everyone else had seen only garbage. That he was precious in a way he’d always wanted to be. Every time she looked at him that way, he knew he was doing the right thing.

It might all be a lie, a trick of the light, and wishful thinking. But he’d learned lies were the grace that got you through the day, truth was only ever another lash along a back already stripped of flesh.

My Lord God,

I come before you as I do every day,

We give thanks for the food we are about to partake,

May it nourish our bodies as your grace feeds our souls,

I give thanks not only for the food I am about to eat,

But for the blessing of a good and true friend,

Amen

Cesare gave a quiet ‘Amen’ as Anastasia took a loud slurp of her coffee. He gave the akatharton’s thigh a squeeze of thanks. No matter what it meant to the vampire, it was still a struggle for Anastasia to get through. He didn’t want her to think he didn’t appreciate her going along with it.

They worked as they ate, going over points in between bites. It was something that drove them, time. There was never enough of it. They had enemies stalking them, seeking to pull them down and butcher them in the darkness. Goals and ambitions filled their dreams, the kind that pushed you with a slave driver's prod in the small of your back. Learning was just another kind of training. If he didn’t get it, they'd tear from his friends at the end of the year.

Their heads raised when the Thagirion entered the cafeteria. A palpable tension winding between the three, bonds of blood, threads of slaughter, and dark need tightened, lacing through flesh and bone, binding them together as they focused on the hunters. They had their problems, but they were in this together, if one fell the others would follow.

They’d seen the individual members around, but this was the first time they’d seen them together with Jerold at their head. The group stopped inside the door, a ripple of silence expanding from them as they made their presence known. Like flowers answering the call of a black sun, the room turned to face the Thagirion as they stood in the fullness of their power.

The room stilled, the monsters sweeping their eyes across the kids, students ducking their heads in submission. Grim eyes settled on the trio at the loser's table. In tune with the akatharton next to him, Cesare rose in sync with her, Alexandra a bare beat behind him. To the rest of the school they were a unit, a single, deadly entity. Cesare bound them together, it was his soul that wound around the others, his pain and blood that had forged the bonds of carnage.

Anastasia moved to meet the coming Thagirion in the middle of the room. It was a race to kill the spin the Thagirion was trying to put on. They wanted to be seen as the dominant power. A bit of theater to show her as a supplicant, to tower over her clothed in the full might of their office.

There were two wars being fought, flesh and meat and the important one in the minds of the students. It didn’t matter how strong you were, it only mattered how strong they thought you were. They wanted to frame the break between Anastasia and the Thagirion as her being a failure, a weakness cut from the strong, the diseased arm sacrificed for the body. Cesare fell into step with the akatharton, Alexandra slipping into place on the girl’s other side. The vampire had his back, even if she didn’t care for the cause.

Seeing them coming, Jerold slowed his pace, stopping in an open area. If he couldn’t treat them like disorderly children, then he’d make them come as penitents. A brief frown flickered across Anastasia’s face as she came to the same conclusion, but the die was cast and they could only see it through.

Anastasia stopped a short distance away from the Thagirion, no more than five feet between them. Taking the lead, she was a bare step ahead of both Alexandra and Cesare. This was her fight, and while they’d support her, they wouldn’t fight it for her. It had been different when she’d been blind and helpless, but she wasn’t that broken girl anymore. She was the Lady of Ruin, daughter of Lady Kali, the Mother of Destruction, and she wouldn’t be treated like a child by an overgrown popsicle.

The man’s cold, blue eyes flickered over the three before resting for a time on Cesare. Jerold’s white blonde hair was parted just right, blue suit pressed into razor lines, dress shirt a blinding white. A chill wind radiated from the creature, a reminder that you faced a being birthed in ice and hate.

Standing to Jerold’s right, Blaez looked equal parts resigned and eager. They had pulled the shiny stitches from his face and skull, leaving pink tinged scars crisscrossing his head. A patchwork of a modern-day Frankenstein, the quilt of scars and flesh made it impossible to see anything in his face beyond raw aggression. Through the alchemy of pain and flame, Cesare had formed him into a grotesque mockery of who he’d been. Blaez had been a good-looking man with a killer smile and a smoky laugh, now he scared small children.

Pantagruel towered behind Jerold, looking down on the others with forced neutrality. The giant kept his face clear of emotion, but he was a Third Year and counting down the days to getting out from under the guillotine of Primrose. All he had to do was survive a few months, and he’d disappear into the real world, away from this pit of rabid dogs.

On Jerold’s left, Abraxas stood with studied nonchalance. The black serpent looked at the three of them with cool indifference, but Cesare saw how much Abraxas had invested in this fight. Right or wrong, all the problems plaguing this year would be laid at the snake’s belly. Abraxas needed this to be a complete and humiliating defeat for Anastasia.

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