Monday September 1st 2014

The dirt trail wasn't much to bet his life on. But last chances were always ugly bitches with lying eyes.

He ran his hand over the gritty rust that crept cancerously over the iron gate. Decay etched out the name 'Primrose,' a butcher's yard where kids were flensed of innocence. A waist-high wall of stone bracketed the gate, slickly black with old rain, it ran unbroken in both directions, a cage for the wounded.

Hesitating on the final step, he shook his head. The time to back out was gone, lost in the maybes of the past. He set his foot down on the hard-packed trail with only the ancient trees and their shorter-lived kin marking the moment. Dripping with the remains of an early morning rain, the twisted wood kept its silent vigil draped in moss.

He tightened the military duffel that rode his back. In its prime it had travelled the world and served in two wars, decades before he stole it from the Goodwill. Faded from years of abuse, the old soul was threadbare from uncaring hands. A spider's web of duct tape kept its wounds from bleeding the only things he owned onto the dirt.

Sneakers, more gray tape and hope than sole, scuffed along the hard ground. He was used to city streets and carefully manicured parks, the lost places tread by the forgotten. This forest of elder trees and thick roots that tore the trail into hills and valleys was too wild for a soul calloused by the treachery of the streets.

Sweat slicked his hair as he walked, curses spilling from his lips at the dirt road. Cesare gave a grunt of relief when he spotted the wooden bench slick with moss, the girl on it getting a searching look. Under the cover of the duffel, his hand slipped into his hoodie and wrapped around the cool handle of his gun.

Women are dangerous. The first time, it was a girl waiting for him after school. He'd gotten lost trying to impress her and hadn't seen the guys coming up behind him. It was an hour before he'd been able to pick himself up from the ground after they'd taken what they wanted. There'd been others, women who wanted something from him—food, drink, a blanket—always wanting something, but never wanting him.

He slumped onto the bench with a groan, uncaring of the water soaking his pants or the dirt that coated his hoodie. The dirt would blend in, hiding itself among its kin. The hoodie was birthed black and beautiful, but time had worn it down to a faded, ugly grey.

As sweat cooled across his body, he gave the girl a closer look, hand steady on his gun. Her tailored black dress hugged a massive set of muscled shoulders. Ebony folds sheathed arms that bulged with hardened hills of potential violence, a modest neckline hinting at cleavage. Stripped of softness, her face was a monument to life's brutal lessons and a strength that endures. It missed being beautiful—too hard for anything so easy. Blond hair chained into an intricate weaving of braided gold ran down her back in a cable of sun kissed grace. Shining like silver, a steel claymore shaped into a Christian Cross nestled between her breasts. This was a woman who matched her strength against the world and found the world wanting.

She kept her head down over her iPad, uncaring of the boy that had sat next to her. "Any signal?"

"Why don't you check for yourself?" she said without looking up from her electronic god.

Relaxing back in slacker fashion, a smile flitted across his face. She'd answered, he might just have a chance.

"Never had a cell phone." Curiosity sharpened under his words; her dark green eyes moving over him from the tips of his duct taped shoes to his bowl cut brown hair.

"Oh." The simple word condemned with casual power. Being poor wasn't like having a disease, people forgave being sick. The one sin the world never forgave was weakness. Losing your legs didn't make you half a man. But eating out of garbage's, turned you into a mistake worth only disgust.

"This your first year?" Cesare asked. She'd gone back to her tablet, the brief flare of curiosity he'd cultivated burning out as quickly as innocence in a meth house.

"Yes," she said into the screen of her iPad.

"I looked on the net and didn't find much about the school." She kept her head down, rereading the same paragraph. "Are the classes hard?" She closed the case on the iPad with a disgusted sigh.

"I'm sure they'll have an orientation for new students." She smoothed out her dress as she stood. A faint hum came from her luggage as its motor powered its two off road wheels. Cesare watched the girl walk away without a word. Sometimes he could hook a person, but mostly they walked.

Sighing, he got to his feet as she disappeared behind a bend in the trail. He slung the duffel bag across his back and started walking, he'd take his time so he didn't overtake her. No reason to tempt fate and make enemies before he'd started school.

The road snaked and coiled around the trees, each turn leading to another with no end in sight. The voices came to him on a stray breeze, just sound without words, nothing but anger given malformed life. He went down to one knee as his hand found the handle of his gun. Voices in the middle of nowhere were always bad. People didn't come to the dark places of the world to do happy things.

He couldn't make out the words, just the malice twisting them into snakes. Creeping through the woods, he slipped through the thick underbrush, water soaking his hoodie, dirt coating his hands. Parting the leaves of a fern, he eyed the next stretch of trail. Three boys surrounded the girl. Jackets bound massive shoulders, fabric threatening to tear leashed under kinetic force. Their thighs strained the seams of dark blue school uniforms. As big as they were, they weren't in the girls class. She was wider of shoulder, harder of form, and stronger in every measure, he'd give her the win by a wide margin … against one of them.

"... we waited." It was the biggest of the group at over six feet of muscled stupid.

"You're insane if you think I won't tear you apart." She stood in front of her luggage, seemingly at ease with being surrounded by the three.

Threading a hand through his hair, the leader grinned, his pink tongue sliding wetly over his lips. "Big words from a bitch whose daddy doesn't want her." The boys' eyes ticked over her tits, ass, and legs with needy sadism. She was flesh, her words nothing more than foreplay. "We're going to split you open and fuck you bloody. After we've torn every sweet scream from your meat, we'll carve you up for food."

Body shifting, she flowed into a fighting stance. Cool economy of movement, indefinably beautiful, she was grace wedded to lethal intent. Canines lengthened and thickened, sharpening into needle points as they descended from her mouth. Flesh receded from her face, life eroding under a truth greater than humanity. Death's rotting grace blessed her face, bones high on parchment thin skin, hollowed sockets shadowing gleaming green eyes.

The three laughed as lumps twisted under clothes, school uniforms bursting under the kinetic apocalypse. Strips of cloth fell into ragged kilts. Muscles mounded up their backs and arms, necks disappearing under the explosion of meat. Skin darkened from pink to gray, shading into stale, vomit green. Ropy scars rose from their skin, writhing with a life of their own. Cut savagely into their bodies, the deep trenches traced across biceps, chest, shoulders, and abs with sharply bladed lines.

They grinned with black pointed teeth, anticipation dripping from thin, bloody lips. "You can come easy. After we finish ripping your ass open, you won't want to go back." Deep and guttural, the words ground against each other as the others grunted in laughter.

Darting close, the girl struck out with a low leg kick. Taking the blow on an engorged thigh, the creature barked out a laugh. Hissing in anger, body twisting with core born power, she sunk her fist into the creature's stomach and followed it up with a hammering strike to the orc's ribs. Barely a ripple ran across the orc's chest.

"You hit like a human whore!" The orc backhanded her, knocking her back and down to one knee. A soccer kick slammed into her side from behind. Tumbling along the ground, she flowed to her feet. The orcs shared eager grins as they surrounded her.

Wiping the blood from her lips with a grin, she hissed, "You're scum. You'll always be scum."

"And you're just a piece of ass." Swaggering forward, he reached for her. She collapsed down, delivering a hand strike to his knee that turned muscle to water. Surging up, her fist hammered into his balls with an upper cut powered by her massive thighs. Squealing, the orc went down on its side, hands cupping its ruptured balls, blood soaking through the ragged kilt.

The others swiftly closed around her, killing the victory stillborn. Punishing blows to her ribs and stomach sent her shuffling back. Hissing and snarling at the orcs, she was like a cat cornered by Dobermans, getting beat but unwilling to go down without taking its pound of flesh.

The leader threw big, looping punches, each a sledgehammer of meat she couldn't ignore. The others flanked her, keeping her off balance with punches and kicks to her ribs and kidneys. Body caving in, she buckled under the punishment.

They rushed forward when her knees hit the ground. Curling into a fetal position, she protected her head. Cesare was moving before thought formed. He had surprise going for him, but that was it.

Their eyes found him just as his gun came up shooting. Screaming in pain, they covered wet faces as they stumbled back. The 'Little Red Gun That Could' had struck again. Slipping around the rapists, Cesare snatched the girl up. With his arm coming up under hers, he dragged the vampire into the dubious safety of the forest.

Underbrush shredded around them, leaving a trail a child could follow. But they needed distance, once they had that, he could worry about being tracked. He found a hoof trail used by animals with more sense than to go fucking with nightmares for pretty girls that weren't their business.

Collapsing onto his hands and knees, sweat dripped down his face and onto the ground as he gasped for air. She may be pretty, but she wasn't light.

"Really, a squirt gun?" No trace of sweat marred her face, the corpse head mask of starvation unmarked even after taking a beating.

Once, he'd gotten close enough to come face to face with a tiger, only a thin sheet of glass between them. There's something primal in you that whispers when you're that close to a predator. A warning that slides below your consciousness. It's the old wisdom of blood, the first ways of your ancestors. Humans are food, goofy, clumsy things, prey for those with claws and hunger. Staring into her eyes, he heard that cold whispered lesson echoing across his lizard brain.

Tightening his hand on the gun, he eased back from the creature. "Bleach soaked with Cheyenne pepper. I call it my boom gun." Her eyes widened, a smile twitching at the edges of her lips.

"Still, once they know you have it, you're screwed." The flat words didn't bother him. It wasn't his only weapon. Weapons were tools, each good for a certain kind of killing and useless for anything else.

"That's why I make the shot count. Can they track by scent?" Cesare asked, moving onto what mattered, breath settling from the panicked gasping of a hunted rabbit.

The vampire scowled down their back trail. "Yes, they can. And the one I maimed should be up by now."

"Aren't you vampires supposed to be badass motherfuckers? Why are they punking you out there?" Eye's sharpening, she moved onto the balls of her feet, inches from going for his throat. The green bastards might be trouble, but a starving boy wasn't. Taking a grip on his gun, he prepared to jump clear.

"I'm on a Blood Fast. I won't be tainted by the hunger when I go before the Altar." She relaxed back on her heels.

Slipping the gun into his hoodie, he extended his arm to her. "Take mine."

"The blood of the Umbrae Lunae is a pale thing without the glories of God's chosen. Your blood's no better than an animals," she said, eyes never leaving their trail. The sounds of something big and stupid were getting closer.

"I'm human." She stilled at his words. It was more than the stillness of body. It was the dead void of a corpse. Stripped of life, no breath stirred its breast, no heartbeat pushed blood. It was a thing of nightmares and shadowed places where only ghosts walked. Slowly swiveling with perfect balance, her eyes settled on him with murderous weight.

"What?" Before he could answer, she continued, "You can't ... the school is only for …"

"Fuck it. Take the goddamn blood." The sounds were close, only feet between them and the hiding place.

"You don't understand, it's more complicated than that." Fuck complicated. Complicated could wait. Complicated meant alive. He'd take complicated over dead any day. Leaping forward, he jammed his arm into her mouth as he glared into shocked eyes. Whether from hunger or instinct, her fangs sank into his arm.

Hot pokers of cold, burning spite, her fangs speared his flesh. Cesare screamed as death tore him apart by inches, pulling at his soul. Life was ripped from his veins in a torrent of agony, the essence of who he was clawed from his being. Dying didn't birth fear, pain was the true womb of that diseased fruit. Arctic fire hunted his core, moving from his fingers and toes, spreading with vicious glee. Even his screams faded as icy fire stole his air.

Whimpering, he tried to pull away, the dumb meat of his body giving one last surge of strength as death corrupted flesh. His weakness birthed her strength. Clamping a hand on his shoulder, she anchored him in place as a maelstrom of power gathered around the vampire. Electric tingles skittered across his skin, drawing the hairs on his arms up. Brilliant green eyes locked onto his as darkness closed over his head, the world slipping as consciousness fled, "Fuck ..."

The world came back in bits. Sprawled on the ground, only his eyes moved as they darted around. Locking on the waiting creature, he ticked off the points of her body, knees bent, feet arched, she crouched like a gargoyle waiting for rain. The black dress was still beautiful, folds flowing over her body with tailored grace. Her blond hair hung over her shoulder without a hair out of place. But this was a changed thing. A palatable confidence radiated from her, blessing the air with violence.

"They're dead." Her eyes shifted to the side as if to lead Cesare's eyes that way. But you don't take your eyes off a predator. You watch them. Whatever she wanted him to see could wait. "You saved my life, so I'm going to save yours. Walk out of here. Go back to God's world."

Staying still as a cornered rabbit, Cesare confided, "It's this or nothing." He didn't have anywhere to go. No one to take him in or go back to. Nothing but the streets he'd lived, fought, and bled on. This was his one chance out of that.

She nodded, almost as if she understood. "Your choice. To keep your secret, I demand the right to feed from you as I wish."

No fucking way was he ever going through that patch of hell again. "How about my undying gratitude?"

Her lips widened into a full, luscious smile. "No thanks. I'll take my payment in claret."

Fear twisted his stomach at the thought of facing the apocalypse of icy fire again … but this wasn't a fight he'd win. He'd have to hope things changed enough for him to renegotiate later—or make sure they changed enough to renegotiate. Rapists were the shifting faces of the streets. She wasn't after his ass, but she still wanted what she had no right to.

"Deal." She was gone by the time the word died in the air. The world whined at the sudden tearing physics as she stretched the fabric of reality.

Pain rushed into his mind as adrenaline faded. His chest burned as if a live coal was charring his body from the inside. Pain rampaged along the road map of his life, every vein and artery burning like muscles shredded over days. His eyes fell on the vampire's handy work as he got his feet under him.

Feet, hands, arms, legs, and torn strips of dangling flesh dripped steady streams of blood onto the ground. The orcs had been jointed like chickens, torn limb from limb. Three heads leered at the world from the top of the pile, rotting black blood wept from gouged caves where eyes had been, tongueless gaping caverns for mouths.

Dusting himself off, Cesare spit into the creatures' faces for good measure. He already knew monsters existed. You can't live on the streets without seeing that, can't watch as kids are raped and mutilated for fun and not face realities depraved truth. But he'd never known vampires and orcs existed until today.

This was his last shot at a life where his ass wasn't the price of failure. There was no Plan B. It didn't matter if a vampire killed him or a John looking for some slap and tickle, dead was dead.

The sun was setting by the time he reached the end of the trail. The school spread out across the clearing in gothic splendor, extending beyond sight. Spires pierced the sky, spears of glossy black, formed of sharp stones with razored edges. Scalloped windows glared alien malice at the world from hundreds of multifaceted eyes, rainbow glass mutilated the last rays of sunlight, cutting and dissecting it in gleeful cruelty. Arches ran over the building, from great windows that collapsed into smaller and smaller arches, to entrances wide enough for dragons.

Stone gargoyles peered down from ledges. Black and wet from the rain, they were a race of unique grotesqueness, each a singular work of perverse minds. Spiked tails wrapped around emaciated creatures weathered gray from time's abuse, barbs tearing through shoulders, claws wrapped around stone eves. Another kind slunk up drainpipes, no bigger than cats, bones pressing against stone flesh, claws of obsidian digging into the wall as their stone bodies hid in shadows. Fat off the world's hate, another race of gargoyles towered from perches over doors. The size of fattened pigs, they owned big eyes glittering with gluttonous sin. Tainted with moss green, clusters held court on corners like gossipy wives, almost seeming to track the kids that spilled from gaping mouths of stone.

Sparkling with colors, a thousand stained glass windows stared at Cesare. It was easier to pick out the big ones than to take them all in at once. A fifteen-foot-tall fox creature, russet red with gold threaded through it, nine tails framing its svelte body, stared the world down in challenge. A snake creature with its green hood unfurled in warning flashed ivory fangs while arms sheathed in emerald scales crossed its chest. Nightmares watched the world from hundreds of windows, abominations given immortal life in glass drank in the sun with malicious relish.

Two bridges grew out from the school's sides. Towering hundreds of feet into the air, they extended out over the campus for acres. Supporting arches carved into great serpentine dragons extended up into the air, scales as black as the void glittered with edges more steel than stone. They connected the great mother to her malformed children. Smaller, with fewer gargoyles, they huddled close to their mother's shadow. They would have been remarkable alone, great gothic buildings of glory and awe, owning the beauty of midnight. But next to the beautiful abomination that birthed them, they were reduced to footnotes.

"Pretty amazing, huh?" Wearing a school uniform of dark blue, the kid stood at just under six feet.

"Yeah," Cesare said, taking in the wide shoulders and strong hands of the boy.

"Name's Greg," the boy said while looking at a paper in his hands. "You're Cesare Nietzsche?"

"Pronounced Che-zuh-ray." Nodding, Greg looked back at the paper.

"I'm supposed to be your guide. Let's get going. You're the last to arrive so we have some catching up to do," Greg led him toward one of the smaller buildings.

"How much do you know about Primrose?"

"Nothing," Cesare said with a shrug.

"Don't worry, we get a few damnati every year. Primrose is the oldest of its kind, going back to Roman times. The Mistress founded the school to train Umbrae Lunae children on how to kill humans. Now, it's more about blending in." Shrugging, Greg continued, "Being conquered will do that to a people."

Greg's instructions flowed around him while Cesare's eyes danced over the campus. Standing in a circle of violet flowers, a weeping willow cried eternally, its vines swaying in the wind. A winding path of grass lead through the delicate flowers to a stone bench shadowed by sweet sorrow.

Impossibly tall, a coastal redwood overlooked the campus as a monarch would observe its court. Dark red, its trunk was wider than a man. Its branches shadowing the land for dozens of feet around it, claiming the earth it sheltered as its own. The circular stone bench, worn smooth from hundreds of years of use, circled the elder.

A carefully arranged flower bed of purple and blue was painstakingly grown into a delicate labyrinth with another gray stone bench as its center. None of the features stood alone. Flowing from one to another, the primal truths they offered bled into each other. Nobility, peace, love—the campus was a living, breathing work of art. Stone dominated the eye, but the land was the true queen, ruling quietly, unchallenged in its majesty.

Greg stopped in front of one of the small buildings. "This is the boys' dormitory. We call it the Serpens Lacum while the girls' dorm is called the Vulpes. Anyway, come on up."

Taking the steps, Cesare ran his hand along the carved railing. Stone snakes coiled and weaved around each other, sleek vipers sharing space with muscled anacondas and fanged cobras. Four wide arches cascaded down to the door. Owning a hazy, cruel beauty, sylphs of wispy smoke and air danced along breezes, sharpened teeth showing from mouths of sensual pleasure. Twisted matings of serpents and dragons, Salamander's were creatures of barbed tails and spines, living monuments of malice. Scaled bodies of liquid grace, mermaids flowed over their arch with beauty born of water. They radiated a peace that captured the eye and drew attention away from delicate hands tipped with hollow claws of poison. Dwarves of hard angles and rock carved muscles glared down from their perch of stone, hate for the flesh that defiled their stone in every black eye. Bound in black iron, the door stood open for them, its size and weight dwarfing Cesare and Greg as they entered.

"The door closes at ten and won't open except for a teacher or morning," Greg said with a grimace.

The vast space pressed down on the crowd of boys, forcing whispers from even the excited. Dark stone rose into towering walls of grim darkness. Stones that had seen centuries weighed the air down with lost ages. Pregnant with the quiet of uncaring stone, it was a tomb of bones chained to the dominion of mortal needs. Serpents slithered along the vaulted ceilings and up the braces, forming arches with sinuous grace. Black eyes studied the small boys that whispered under their coils with alien hate.

"Twenty feet." Greg's words broke through his study of the carvings. "The ceiling is twenty feet while the hallways are another twenty across. Having the numbers tends to lessen the feeling." Greg led him up the stairs while keeping up a stream of do's and don'ts.

On the fifth floor, Cesare was led into his dormitory room. Beds sat along each of the far walls, dressers standing alone at the foot. A window stood between the two sides of the room, showing the campus and the forest beyond it.

"This is it. All the First Years get a Second Year mentor, and you're mine." Lying down, Greg's voice turned meditative. "Keep your nose out of trouble and I won't have to tune you up."

Setting his duffel down on the bed, Cesare didn't bother to look at Greg. It was the story of the world, as long as he didn't need help Greg wouldn't put him down. "Works for me."

Greg waited only until he realized Cesare wasn't going to unpack his duffel and leave it behind before leading him to the cafeteria. Scarred wooden tables dotted the room, grizzled soldiers tortured by the knives of students over hundreds of years. Old before he'd been born, they were made from planks cut from the hearts of trees. Thick and heavy, the tables hadn't moved in decades and showed no sign of changing that. Children weaned on cruelty had cut into the wood's flesh, driven by the need to leave a mark. Initials, curses, hate and humor flowed across the elder wood, leavings of insecure kids with uncaring malice.

Greens that dove from emerald to seaweed colored the room in sunlight maimed into the beautiful from the stained glass that formed the far wall. Medusa looked inward at the students, small scales of green patterning her body, light as peridot along her arms, dark as deep lakes along belly and thighs, blazing like sunlit emeralds across a face of lethal angles. Eyes of black bled the special sorrow of the lonely, dark with shadows of a life lived alone. Her famous hair of snakes snapped at the air, writhing in spitting hatred. Her body was a weapon, sharp and vicious, the tool of her torment as it carved bloody trenches of loneliness across her soul.

Greg looked around as they finished getting their food from the lunch line. "You can come in any time before they lock up and get food. It's closed for about an hour before meals while they switch the food," Greg said absentmindedly as he made his way through the tables with Cesare pulled into his wake.

Cesare had never had an open invitation to get food whenever he wanted. He was used to digging in dumpsters, looking for something that wasn't spoiled or fighting for a place in line at a food shelter.

It changed … everything. His life was dominated by the hunt for food. It was the one god that ruled him, a vengeful creature starving him until bone stood high and ugly along his body. Its never ending pain never truly left him, hollowness of stomach and jagged flashes of pain its sacraments. He didn't remember a time when he wasn't planning where his next meal was coming from, a never-ending search to live, civilization cannibalized by a singular need.

Taking a seat next to a willowy bleached blonde, Greg's arm settled naturally across her shoulders. Claiming Greg's other side was a black boy - bald, lean, and rangy, his hard eyes flicked over Cesare. Other kids filled in the empty seats. Muscled, with prowling walks, the guys were dangerous in a way no jock had ever been.

Cesare hovered over his food, arms setting a perimeter around the tray as he ate. "You know no one's going to steal your food, right?" The group laughed along with Greg. "How did your parents get the money to send you to Primrose? No offense, but you look like you just rolled off the street."

"Scholarship," Cesare said. He'd spent months online at the library looking for boarding schools. Not many schools were interested in homeless kids with spotty records. He'd never found a phone number for Primrose, but he'd sent a letter in with his grades on the off-chance they'd accept him.

"You must be a fucking genius to get in here?" Greg said, eyes turning cold with calculation.

Taking another bite, Cesare sifted through the answers he could give, carefully editing out those that would get the shit kicked out of him, "Nope. I put in for every scholarship I could. This was just a shot in the dark."

"So, you're homeless and stupid." The table went silent at the black guy's words. There were some lines you didn't cross … unless you were looking for a fight. "Come on, you're all thinking it. Hell, I can smell him from here. He's got more tape on him than clothes, and it looks like he hasn't taken a shower in weeks. You can't think he'll make it."

"It's not up to us. You know what the Mistress says ..."

"Yeah, a bunch of bullshit. Words don't change the world. You have the strong and the weak. Those who have money and those who don't." The others ducked their heads in silent agreement.

Dismissing Cesare, the boy gave Greg a pointed look. "Were you there when Alexandra showed?"

Greg smiled slyly at the question. "Yeah, and she's fucking hot. Stacked like a fucking body builder high on steroids but with tits and ass that won't quit. Wish looking after First Years was coed."

"She's dangerous. You know the rumors. She went off the fucking rails, killing vamp kids for fun. Daddy had to step in and check the bitch." Everyone's eyes went to a table across the way.

The vampire from the woods held court surrounded by girls. "They say she's killed over a thousand humans," Baldy snorted in derision. "Before she was ten." That silenced them. "Then she started on Umbrae Lunae."

"You think she'll be a Thagirion?" Baldy asked Greg, eyeing the girl's breasts.

"No way. They'd never allow a vampire in, even being here had to cost the Order deep. Although, they'll draft the akatharton. She came with her harem, already outfitted and pretty as a boy band."

"Kind of strange, a Harab Serapel and a Dracul both First Years. Those are big guns. I wonder how they're going to get along," the girl said, watching the vampire.

Greg sipped his drink slowly. "You don't grow up in those families without knowing you're the top of the food chain. They're insanely strong, and that's without the power of their Imperiums thrown in. Hope they don't decide to rip the school apart to prove whose queen bitch."

Greg got up as soon as Cesare's tray was cleaned, the rest of the kids drifting away at the unspoken dismissal. Taking him around the castle, Greg continued his lecture. Classes started at six and went until five— split into two five-hour blocks with an hour lunch in the middle. Cesare would have a home room teacher that would go through the core classes: Math, Science, Social Studies and English. The other five hours would be taken up with electives, allowing him to tailor his education to his needs.

"Any jobs around here?" Greg's eyes flickered over Cesare's clothes in understanding.

"They usually hire someone to help with the grounds on the weekends, but you'll miss going to town." At his questioning look, Greg explained, "Every weekend you can head down to Vagabond's Exile. As a First Year, you can go on the weekends. Second Years get to go anytime as long as we're back for lock-up."

It didn't matter what it cost him. If he wanted to stay, he'd need money to do it. "How do I apply?"

"Your homeroom teacher should be able to set you up." Pulling out his phone, Greg checked the time. "It's time for the entrance speech."

Streams of kids spilled into the hallways, voices ricocheting off the rock. Staircase after staircase took them deeper into the earth, opulent carvings giving way to rough worked stone. Electric lights surrendered to candles and the smell of beeswax. Shadows stretched from the walls, taking possession of the path between the islands of light. Students' eyes flashed yellow and red from the crowd as inhuman things glared out of the tattered mask of humanity.

Down this far, the stone was unworked with only the floor worn smooth. The silence of the desecrated dominated the underground, strangling words before they'd formed. Something prowled the stillness of night, a force of ancient times, a blood-soaked reverence birthed from sacrifices bled out on unhallowed ground. Double doors bound with black iron stretched to the ceiling, standing open in silent command. First Years stopped to stare at the doors while unimpressed older students pushed through. Four feet thick, bound and nailed together with rods of hardened black steel, they were formed to hold off an angry god.

Circular and domed, the room was a giant bubble formed in rock. Terraces cut into the stone delved deep into the earth. Benches carved from the dark stone marked the levels of the sacred womb. Older students sat on pillows or blankets while smirking as First Years muttered curses at the cold stone. A circular area at the bottom stood as the focal point for the room.

The womb of stone felt vast even with the school emptied into it. People drew together into groups, cliques ruthlessly enforcing their membership. Alexandra entered with eight other girls clinging to her shadow. Dominating her space, she moved with lethal grace; the world shrinking away from her blood-soaked aura of giggling slaughter. Walking down the steps, students flinched at her murderous eyes, even Third Year's stepping out of her way.

A hole in the world approached, its pull felt along the frayed edges of the soul. Hairs stood on the back of the neck, soft skin of the thigh drawing tight as dense power rushed into the room on a tidal wave of void birthed malice. The Mistress owned the room without a word, her every step speaking of unassailable strength.

Her black dress hugged a figure of streamlined elegance, each gliding step a monument to liquid grace. She wasn't a woman of curves as much as cutting edges. Long black hair cascaded down her back in shining tresses. She was a hurricane, unstoppable and elemental.

Coming to the center of the open area, her eyes were black holes of violation as they swept the crowd. "Some of you are returning to us. For others, this is your first year. I know what's said, that the Umbrae Lunae are the garbage of the human world. That our power is broken. You will decide to either bow to the humans and their power, or fight and reclaim your birthright. Slaves or masters, the choice is yours."

Four students joined her in the center. Reduced to shades next to her umbral glory, they were petty things of faded flesh eclipsed by the eternal. "This is the Thagirion, I have entrusted them to ensure your obedience." She let the moment ripen before dismissing everyone. The four kids turned back to their seats. Branded across the back of the jackets with naked threat stood a claymore done in gold and silver.