The cold stayed with him as he got up, its roots sunk deep into flesh after hours of sitting on cold concrete. A wash of heat rolled over him as he entered the office, bringing a blush of heat to his cheeks. She was already down the hall and well on her way to the office. "Lock the door, kid. You're the last one today."
Locking the door, Cesare smiled to himself. She feared the wolf, that's why she didn't wait to lock up herself. While she was extending him an olive branch by inviting him into her office after dark, she wasn't stupid. He'd lay good odds on her having a gun on her and a solid back-up plan.
Walking behind the crypt silent wolf, its laughter bubbled through the bond. There was no way a gun would stop it, not a creature that's presence twisted reality. The hallway was too small for the wolf, and yet it stalked down it without rubbing against walls, slipping through the door to her office with room to spare. The wolf didn't shrink, and the world didn't expand, instead the rules that governed existence flowed around the wolf like quicksilver, refusing to touch its obsidian grace.
Bookshelves ran along the walls, done in neon yellow with cosmic blue flowers painted on them. Thick brown spines marched in unbroken ranks at slanted angles, no level piece of wood to be found in the crazed construction. Artwork hung in random places, black frames set in focus points, they drew the eye from anywhere in the room. Simple human figures saturated with color, compositions of biting, raw truth. A wooden man with a tree of fire burning in its heart, a sad human looking into the void of eternity with only a crooked staff standing as silent witness to his despair.
Sitting down behind her desk, one of her hands stayed hidden as she kept her eyes on the wolf. Looking around with disinterest, the wolf sat down next to the chair in front of her desk. It was far from the lounging the wolf had done earlier. It knew how important this meeting was to Cesare. The woman ducked her head in unconscious submission under its demanding golden eyes. She might be human, and have a gun under the desk, but she was nothing compared to its primal essence. A rabbit knows it's a rabbit when it comes under the eyes of a killer. Cesare smiled at the scene as he slipped into the chair.
Avoiding the terrifying eyes of the wolf, the woman focused on Cesare with almost craven relief. "I didn't introduce myself earlier. My name is Shannon Rosette."
"Cesare Nietzsche," he said, eyes locking on the money laid out between them.
Tracking his eyes, she smiled. "Your parents had a sick sense of humor or were outrageously ambitious. What can I do for you, Mr. Nietzsche?"
"Emancipation." The word held in the air for a timeless second, a thousand dreams and a world of hope contained in its few syllables.
The smile fell off Shannon's face as she pulled out a notepad and an electric purple glitter pen. "I see. I'm guessing you're homeless? Do you have a foster home? Do you know your biological parents? Criminal record?"
This was the part where he had to trust her. She couldn't help him if he didn't give her truth. Without trust, this exercise was a colossal waste of time. "I've been on the streets for as long as I remember. I don't have any memories of my parents. I've had a few run-ins with the law, but I don't have a record." Taking out a faded blue card, he pushed it across the table. "I have my Social Security Card; it was the only way I knew the name I had was legal." Writing in shorthand, she looked up as he talked. The worn blue card was the only headstone to mark his existence.
Shannon set her arms on the table, leaning forward. "Let me outline the process, so we're on the same page. We have two possibilities. One is that you're still, at least on paper, under your parent's care. Two, that you're under the State's care. There's no third option, no gray area." Tapping her pen on the paper, she continued, "We'll have to find out which it is before we file any case for Emancipation. Both options bring their own difficulties. If you're still under your parents, they can fight your emancipation."
"Why would they? I've never seen them," Cesare asked.
"Kid, people do crazy shit. Don't try to understand dysfunction, just run quick and hard. They may have found Jesus or just want to fuck you over one last time. The States a different ball of trouble. If you fall under them, you exist somewhere in their system, and they'll want to place you in foster care. No one gets out of there claws without paying in pain." Shaking the dark thoughts away, she continued, "Either way, we're talking money."
Cesare swept his eyes around the room, letting Shannon's words settle. Silently watching, she left him alone as he decided on whether to hire her or walk and find someone else. He liked her, she was different, with a hard edge she wore for the world to see. And she hadn't flinched at him being homeless and less than fresh smelling. Her only issue had been the money; but then, she was a mercenary for hire, not the Red Cross.
"You're hired." She didn't smile, just reached out and collected the money. She hadn't wanted the job, no one wanted Cesare. He got that, even appreciated it. But she was a gun for hire and they killed for money, not the feels.
"This is a nice deposit, but it's going to cost more than this to get it done. And I don't work with payment plans. I'll have to make a lot of inquiries to track down your birth certificate and any leads on your birth parents. I'll need to hire someone to get background on them, money, connections, any records I can beg, borrow or steal. And I still have the state to deal with. We're not talking small change here." She paused, tapping the money against the table. "You can't be too far away from eighteen, why not wait? You could keep the money and set aside a nest egg for yourself."
How much to tell her? It was the constant question of his life. Never all of it, just enough to let her know why this was important. She may be a mercenary, but even those that kill for money have their own codes. Would showing her pull her to his side or push her to betray him?
Standing, he held her eyes as he slipped his threadbare hoodie off his shoulders. Taking hold of his undershirt he pulled it over his head, the tremble in his fingers noticeable only to himself.
It was what Robert had found. The reason Cesare always kept his shirt on. The reason he didn't like people touching him and birthing scars of his nightmares. Shannon sucked in a tight breath with a whistle of surprised disgust. The wolf burst with savage fury through the bond, a blood-soaked rage beyond the minds of humanity, brutality unchained by the civilized mind.
His body was a web of scars, flesh marked by the diseased desires of the men who'd been faster, stronger, and bigger than him. Thin silver lines incised with razor blades, ripping tears from broken glass, the ragged cuts of serrated steak knives. His chest was blessed with puckered scars from the bullets that had burrowed through him. Round scars from cigarettes stabbed out in flesh dotted his forearms. A mass of valleys and mountains were hot oil had hit him flowed from his shoulder. He kept his back from her, there was no reason for her to lose her lunch this late at night.
"I didn't always have the skill to live on the street. When I was younger, I thought finding an adult was the way to go. But desperation only attracts vultures." His hand ran over the cigarette burns. "A man who liked to smoke, nice when he wasn't drunk. But get a few in him, and he liked to hear me scream. He graduated to putting cigarettes out in my arms, when he started heating metal, I ran." Touching the puckered holes in his side, his voice dropped. "A nice couple, they liked to keep me in the backyard in the doghouse. When I ran one night, the shots got me. Someone found me and took me to a back-yard veterinary. He fixed me up, even gave me a few hundred." Cesare pulled his shirt back on, avoiding the pity that swam in Shannon's wet eyes.
"Every day I go without emancipation, is one more someone can take my freedom from me. Without that paper, I'm not a person, just a pet. They can send me anywhere and do anything. My say doesn't matter until I'm emancipated," Cesare said.
Shannon settled back into her chair, looking him over with fresh eyes. She'd learned long ago to size a client up, innocence or lack of it didn't matter to her. Only if they would jackrabbit on what they owed. She didn't like Cesare, there was something about the kid that made him unlikable, a primal, skittering feel that made her shy away from him on a basic level.
She didn't need to like her clients, only do the best she could while they paid her. But this kid … there was something dangerous about him. Something that spoke of blood and death, agony and unrelenting terror. She'd been around people that scared her before, but she'd never felt like she was facing something inhuman, birthed in malice.
The scars were bad, as bad as she'd ever seen. Coming from a group home run by the State, she'd seen her fair share. But no kid she'd ever met had that look in his eye. It kept her hand on the gun under the table. Usually it made her feel safe but it wasn't working tonight. He'd walk through bullets, bleeding buckets and dying as he used his last minutes to pull your lungs out through your mouth. It all added up to one thing, this kid wasn't someone she wanted to cross.
"I'll make inquires. No matter which way this goes, there are things you'll have to get together if you want to be emancipated. You'll need to show you're mature and capable of taking care of yourself. A legitimate income, a place to live, decent grades, all of it. If you don't have those together, it won't matter what kind of legal gymnastics I go through." She rattled it off with the ease of long practice.
"I have a job, but I'll need to work on the paperwork to prove it. I go to a private school that offers boarding, that gives me a place to start at least. My grades aren't the best, but they're coming up." It would take some work, but he thought he could get Elizabeth to draft some official paperwork after summer vacation.
It was only an hour later when he left her office, heading back to Candy's. He'd given Shannon the address of the school if she needed to get ahold of him. In the short term, he'd need to make a bucket of money if he wanted to get this off the ground. When the money dried up, she'd stop no matter if they were a mile or a foot from the finish line.
The night was quiet in the way only a long December can be. Darkness clothed the land, turning the city into something done in shades of obsidian, glittering with the coarseness of humanity and its petty evils. Pools of ebony beauty shattered and distorted by the technicolor eyes of civilization.
The pure darkness was a thing of horror for humanity, it blinds and bewilders. Shadows are darkness contained and tamed, domesticated and declawed by our mastery of light. We don't fear them; we believe in the illusion of control. But shadows aren't less than the darkness, they're the children of its womb. Children that grow into ravening beasts and join their mother. Like a beloved puppy cast aside, they grow up to be wolves. The night is the fullness of every shadow.
The homeless had retreated from the islands of cancerous light. With the cold North Wind dogging Cesare's steps, they walked through deserted streets, climbing the hills of the city until they arrived at Candy's place a few minutes after ten.
The lights from the windows shone across the lawn, only weeds and moss braving the killing teeth of winter. Walking over cracked stones, Cesare took the wooden steps slowly, the squeak as ominous today as it was last night.
Opening the door, Cesare met Candy's eyes. Stretched out on the sofa, her boxers had ridden high on her body. Molded to narrow hips, they left an expanse of milky thigh exposed. A well-worn shirt couldn't hide hardened nipples from a room chilled by a cold December night. Pushed back blonde hair still damp from the shower left a smear of wetness on her shoulders.
"Wasn't sure you were coming back. I expected you to be waiting when I got home, not coming in hours after I'd pulled up." The words were light with humor, but no warmth glowed in her grim eyes.
"I talked to that attorney you recommended," Cesare said, already making for the hallway. "Can I use the shower?"
Her words hit his back. "Sure, I'll throw some food together."
The bathroom wasn't much more than a chipped sink and a tub stained yellow with age and neglect. Scratches ran along the plastic and porcelain, their crazed patterns edging into obsession from long hours of scrubbing. The caustic smell of bleach saturated the still air. Held tight behind the closed door, it lashed out at Cesare, burning the membranes of his eyes and nose, cutting his throat with caustic fingers. Stepping in behind him, the room bent around the midnight wolf. It was more a feeling than anything, its reality overriding the base code Cesare lived in. Snorting in disgust at the smell, the wolf gave him a long-suffering look before kicking the door shut behind it.
The sweats were faded, and the shirt stained with brown pits. Rips from hard days made them look their age, but they were clean and that was enough. Candy's back was to him as he walked into the kitchen. Busy working over a set of pans on the stove she didn't spare him a look. The chair gave an unstable wobble under Cesare as he sat down at the spindly table. Laying down behind him, the wolf created a crescent of sable, its bulk adding stability to the rickety chair.
Candy laid the steaming pot into the sink, a twist to her hand started water running over it as she turned and headed for the table with a plate in hand. "We can count meals as part of staying. You good with that?"
"Works for me," Cesare said as he took possession of a plate mounded with Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. Taking a bite, he watched the pixie whore. "Why do you work at the coffee shop?" Because the more he thought of it, the answer she'd given him this morning didn't pass the smell test.
Sipping her coffee, she rested dead, shark eyes on him. "It's not for money. You could work your ass off every week and never make a living wage. Used to be you worked and got paid enough to feed and house yourself, now you get paid enough to scrape by. Everyone is one bad step away from being homeless, there is no getting ahead anymore, only not falling behind."
Her hands cupped her coffee, warmth bleeding into chilled bones. "Health benefits are part of it. Without a job, the same coverage would cost me more than a grand a month and that's if I could get it. I need a legitimate income to put down if I want to rent a place. Theres a thousand other reasons I need a shit job to keep my life off the rails."
Taking a long drink, she pushed her chair back and stood. "When you live on the edge, you take responsibility for all the shit norms take for granted. The job covers me, it's my sheep's skin, letting me travel with the flock without them knowing I'm not one of them."
Gathering his plate and the pans she'd used, Cesare washed them before doing what he should have done weeks ago. With a few alterations, the living room would work for what he'd planned. It was only a few moments before he had the furniture stacked against the wall.
Taking the center of the room, Cesare settled into the beginning of his kata. There was a moment to everything. A time when something starts and when it ends. Love, friendship, life, and death, all these things and everything between, has a birth. When the moment flowed over him, Cesare started, moving from second to second, stillness found only in the mind.
Kicks and punches were swords and daggers slicing the air. Elbows and knees broke his opponents with effortless power, shattering bodies. His body danced with the killers that had come for him. Weaving through them, steps whispering over the carpet, light and easy, balanced and ready, it was a fight destined to be lost. You never win against yourself. He could never conquer the self-loathing shadowing his steps or the disgust winding through his thoughts. In life, you can only hope for a stalemate. Your demons always know you better than the fading angels of your nature.
Still and silent, the wolf watched with timeless eyes. With shocking ease, it moved through his mind, diving under his consciousness with the gentleness of a lover's kiss. Something changed, realigned inside his paradigm, thoughts rippling in response to a fundamental shift, something deep and basic rewritten at his core.
Stopping in the heart of the kata, Cesare sent a burst of emotion at the wolf. He wasn't scared at the change the wolf had induced, betrayal was anathema to animals. Beasts were honest in a way a reasoning creature could never be. There was no treachery in their souls, no lies in their eyes. It came down to a simple thing, the wolf might kill him, but it would never betray him.
Taking in his burst of emotion, its presence surged forward across his mind. Too shocked to do act, Cesare stood still as the suddenly god like wolf took his consciousness in its jaws and shot down into the sable ocean of Cesare's base self. He was surrounded by curved gleaming teeth, the beast holding him in its mouth as it dove into his mind. Vistas of consciousness, memories, thoughts, fears, and hopes, blurred around him in a kaleidoscope of cut scenes.
The blur resolved into a blackness stretching beyond sight or comprehension, a constellation of golden lines shone across pristine field darkness. Space warped, the wolf zooming in on a single line shining with crimson defiance. Pushing feelings into Cesare, the wolf showed what he'd while in the kata. The simple joy of moving and exercising, the primal euphoria of muscles stretching under scarred skin. A gold line appeared, running alongside the crimson one now incised in the lobes of his mind. So closely together were they, of what had been and what now was, that they almost completely overlapped.
Guiding him through the feelings the kata gave birth to, the wolf showed him the difference. The sexual high at the power his body held, dark satisfaction flowing like a river through his veins. Burning acid that pushed, seeking to break free. A hulking need overshadowed the transitory emotions, an obsessive need to get stronger, to carve his dominion into the bodies of anything that dared his mastery.
Pulling him back, the wolf overlaid what was with what could be. Crimson lines of intent joined the field of golden lines arrayed around them. Some overlapped, others contradicted the golden lines, there were many that were new.
They were the instincts that made him what he was, territory, surprise, a bestial need to live, savagery seared into bone, possessive and lethal beyond the civilized world, and every bleeding moment between. Some were born in DNA, the curses of humanity, others had come from a lifetime of bad choices and broken, blood-soaked moments. No one ever went into life with an idea of the person they'd be at the end, it was enough to survive.
Transformation. A cow does what's it's told, born to be docile, it fights when it's hurt and then only a token attempt. Were humans different? Stuck in their pens of dreams and illusions, caged by expectations and rules. Seeing only the path before them, they plodded along the well-worn trail to a forgotten slaughter. When that moment came, how many fought? A brief bay of anger before meekly bowing their heads to the butcher.
Rising from his mind, he became aware of his sweat soaked body still flowing through the kata. His life was dominated by one need, a howling hunger that tore through the rotting desires of the privileged who didn't live and die by its glory, strength. To make his own way in the world, a man who could hold what he had. To own the power to stop violations of flesh and soul. Feared, instead of being ridden by fear. In these past months, he'd shaped his body into a weapon. It wasn't perfect, still in its infancy, but he was stronger than he'd ever been.
The wolf was offering to shape his instincts in the way Cesare had sculpted his body. It would change him at a basic level, instincts permeating his being, shifting him from one being into another. If he took its offer, he would never have a place with his own kind. The world would turn its back on a freak with the body of a man and the instincts of a wolf. They would sense his intrinsic difference, the way a man felt the feyness between a dog and a wolf.
With perfect stillness, the wolf waited with a predator's patience, leaving Cesare to wonder at its motives. Why help him? He had nothing to offer. It was free in a way beyond all forms of bribery, its loyalty wasn't for sale, no food could purchase its time or protection. It was free, and like all free things, it knew the one truth of life. Everything could be bought, except freedom. It offered its help, not for repayment but for its own unfathomable reasons.
He'd made the choice over a month ago, agreed to shed his humanity to become more and less than he was. This wasn't the way he'd expected it to happen, but it didn't change the choice. You don't turn away a weapon in a war, even if it's not the gun you thought you'd get.
Condensing that into a mass of volatile feeling, he pushed it at the quiet presence in his mind. A deep rumbling filled the room as the wolf thrummed with pleasure and pride. A wash of feral feelings cascaded down the bond, currents too eldritch and strange, their depth and realness shamed his own mercurial human emotions. But one thing came through the maelstrom, the wolf was possessively thrilled with his choice.
Hours passed as he practiced his kata with the wolf dipping into his sub-consciousness to make the changes. It wouldn't be done tonight or even in the next years. You didn't change fifteen years of living in a few hours. But little by little, he'd be reshaped into something cows feared.
Walking into the shower for the second time that night, Cesare tried to ignore the wolfs disgusted look. If it was bad for Cesare, he could only imagine how much worse it was for the wolf. The bathroom at school was always open, but Cesare never had the time to use it except at night. He went from working with Viktor, to fighting with Tamlin, finishing with Anastasia's training. By the end of the year, he was all but running from place to place.
That was part of why he smelled. He didn't have time to take a shower after he worked out. Between Viktor, Tamlin, and Anastasia, he was always coated in a skim of sweat, his stink ruling the air around him. But it wasn't because he wanted to smell, something had to give, and a shower was easier to cut than learning to kill.
Sitting down on the sofa, hair still wet from the shower, he fished out pen and paper from his bag and started on a long overdue letter.
Kali,
I owe you an apology. You only wanted to get to know me, and I never gave you the chance. This is me hoping the offer's still open. I'm not used to writing, never needed to get good until I started school regular. But I should have made the time to offer you something after the times you've been there for me.
I knew you and Anastasia would offer me a place to spend Winter Break. If you'd ganged up on me, I would have caved. I don't think there is much I wouldn't give if you asked. That's why I left while you were hugging Anastasia, I couldn't let you offer, not knowing what it would do to us.
I found a person to stay with, she's not much older than me and I'm helping with some work she needs done. She's not the kind to take to a charity case, but she's working an angle and there's money in it for her. I guess I got lucky, even if it came about in a strange way. But everything has gone sidewise since I started school. Nothing stayed the same after I started down that trail, not for me or the world.
Thank you for letting me take care of Anastasia. I know you didn't have to, and I can't know the fear of leaving her in the place that maimed her. But taking care of her was one of the best things that's ever happened to me.
It's night where I am and I'm sitting in a cold house about to curl up on the sofa. I hope this finds you and Anastasia happy and warm.
All the best
Cesare