The sun wasn't even a dream in the night sky as he walked across the night dead campus. Even the things that prowled the avenues of shadow had taken to their dens. The darkness was an ocean without end, safe from the sun and its searingly honest light. Here, lies had teeth and bodies of smoke. In this sable night, he could be anything.
Elizabeth's cottage was dark and empty. Cold seeped into his bones as he turned on the lights and stoked the pellet stove. He didn't belong here without the sanctuary's mistress. He wasn't quite trespassing, but he wasn't welcome either. The small creature of wood and time announced that fact in every sullen creak and whispered word of disappointment. Like so much in Cesare's life, it was enough that it tolerated him.
He wondered when that had become enough. When he stopped looking for a place to belong and settled for a place that simply didn't hurt. Somewhere along the way, he'd lost the hope of finding a place that accepted him. The world had taught him there was no place for him. Hope had long been flensed from him like muscle from bone, leaving only bits of raw meat behind.
He stacked the cleaning supplies next to the stone table. It wasn't his; it could never be his. Things as old as the table had a life of their own, the petty needs of meat nothing to the sentinels of times dark void. The blackened stone had seen hundreds of caretakers, had given its strength in bringing thousands of dreams to life. In the end, the table continued while ego driven things of flesh rotted in the ground. Their dreams were the only legacy they left to the world, unholy or sacrosanct, the stone didn't care, the tides of the world nothing to the bones of the earth. Elder to animals, monster, and man, stone had the beauty of time. The stately grace of something that knew it existed with a purpose transcending the desperation of the little things that humorously claimed it.
It was more than just a block of stone to Cesare. Every time his fingers ran over the smooth table, he remembered that before everything, it was a monument to Elizabeth's faith in him. A testament that no matter the dark thoughts that plagued him, he had people beside him.
Yesterday was a message. If you hunted his, Cesare would come for his pound of flesh. Greg and Dan had never been more than cat paws. They were children used to keep Abraxas claws clean. The lesson he'd taught would make others shy away from helping the snake, but wouldn't stop Abraxas. The dragon was everything Cesare wasn't, powerful, smart, connected, and rich, while Cesare was at best an unknown. His message wouldn't slow the dragon.
Taking out a bowl, he got the cold bath ready. This project wasn't a hard one, but when dealing with explosives you wanted everything in place before you needed it. The ability to move easily from one process to the next without having to shuffle around in the middle was key to preventing lethal accidents. Preparation was the line between the good and the lucky.
To get the yield he wanted, he'd have to use several cold baths, filtering it between them to purify the product. He wouldn't need to distil anything today, but that didn't make this easy. PETN was a high energy explosive, stable and with a high yield of kinetic force, it was murderously unforgiving by its simple existence.
Hours later, Cesare was working when Elizabeth opened the door behind him. He could tell it was her by the way the door stayed open as she watched him from the threshold. Hands moving smoothly over the beakers, he kept his eyes on the work. Already a small amount of PETN stood silently at his side.
"I heard about the books." The quiet words filled the room. "I also heard that Greg and Dan are in the infirmary. The word is, they'll address the school on Monday and tell everyone how they made them. The teachers are already talking about punishment."
A tight smile cut across Cesare's face. "There's a price paid when you hurt what's mine."
Coming up behind him, her shoulder brushed lightly against his. Her words were as soft as a lover's caress. "I know. I remember." Despite their best intentions, neither knew how to heal the wounds they'd carved into their relationship. It sat there crying in mewling agony as it bled out between them, it's whimpering grating against their nerves as they walked around it, desperately avoiding the disfigured child they'd birthed. But those simple words infused with raw love did a lot to sooth his side of it.
"Thanks." It came out as only a whisper swallowed up in the rooms silence. But it shifted something, realigning a broken piece of the puzzle.
Elizabeth smile was a small thing in the grand scheme of the world. But it was true and special, and all his. They might have hurt each other and fucked it all up, but they were still here, fighting for each other. That meant everything.
When your friend's fingers pry open lacerated, violated skin, when you spit out broken teeth from brutal punches and still want them, that's when you know you love them. It wasn't flowers and rainbows. It was scars and cries, hate and passion, rage and need, marinated in pain. That was love. A battle you fought every day and wanted every second. With Elizabeth, he'd be fighting to be with her until the last drop of blood dripped from his eyes.
"If you already got Greg and Dan, what's this?" Elizabeth asked, taking in the beakers, filters, cold baths, and white crystals.
"Greg and Dan were tools, nothing more than bit players. The person who put them up to it was Abraxas." Cesare felt Elizabeth absorb the words. Tensing and turning, her face shuttered closed as terror raced through her.
"You can't beat him, Cesare." Low, the words strained under the intensity weighing them down.
Shrugging, Cesare kept working on the solution. "I don't need to beat him. I just need to frame the discussion." Pausing, he picked his words carefully, "He's strong, more powerful than anyone I've faced. I'm not picking a fight with him."
Standing next to him, she silently watched him work. He knew she wanted to tell him to be safe or better yet, to let it go. That he was pulling on superman's cape with only an outline of a plan had to twist her guts into knots. That Anastasia was the one that had watched as he was gutted like a pig and left as meat, that he was doing it for her, had to grate on Elizabeth's tender bits. Still, she kept her peace, no matter how much she wanted to tell him to drop it. Understanding that he couldn't let it go and stay true to himself.
"We don't have much to get done today. Why don't we take a lazy day and stay in? I have some things I can work on, and we can do lunch in the cabin. How does that sound?" Despite the ease of the question, there was a painfully fragile shyness about the words.
It would be the first time they'd spent time together without having work as an excuse. They'd met because he wanted a job and hadn't only found a job but the love of his life. Since then they'd spent a lot of time together, but it was always for work or school. She was offering something more. For the first time it would be two people together because they enjoyed each other.
His smile transformed from a vengeance laden thing of ugliness into a shy, hurt one. "I ..." Cesare swallowed, smoothing out the rasp. "I'd like that."
Elizabeth's shoulders rounded in relief. Stepping away, her words reached him from across the room. "What really happened with Greg and Dan? Jerold said something about a training accident but no one, including him, believed it."
She moved around the room, working on projects she'd put off for a rainy day. The sounds washed over Cesare, a soothing back drop unwinding the tension that rode his shoulders. There was no question about telling her the truth, if she hadn't earned his trust, no one had. "Greg was the one selling the books. When we confronted him, the gladiators insisted I take him." He carefully filtered the next batch of explosive as he talked. "The girls were against it, but there was sense in what the gladiators wanted."
Elizabeth's voice cut through his. "You decided to fight a gladiator, a trained killer, on his own training field." The dryness of her words masked the fear that birthed it.
"They're not really killers," Cesare said, skirting his lack of self-preservation. "They're trained to fight and kill on command. You put a wolf in a fight, and it goes for the kill. It's an instinctive thing, they're unable to hold back. That's a killer."
"You must have won if you're standing here and they're in the infirmary," she said from behind him, a cupboard slamming shut with a bang.
"I could see their point, we were in their territory, and they wanted us to play by their rules," Cesare said, eyes steady on the cooling mixture.
"That didn't mean you had to do it. For the Goddess's sake, you had Anastasia and Alexandra with you! You could have taken them, no matter what they wanted. What if you'd lost?" Elizabeth asked in frustration.
"I wouldn't have done it if I thought I'd lose. Gladiators are trained to fight with weapons. A swordsman is different from a bare-knuckle fighter. They have a different mindset, a civilized set of instincts. It was enough of an edge for me," Cesare said.
Elizabeth's hand fell gently on his shoulder, feather light and ephemeral. It was as precious as the smile she'd gifted him with earlier. "Cesare, they're trained in hand to hand. Not as extensively as they are with weapons, but it's there."
"Well, I think they need a refresher course." Only part of his mind was on the words, more than anything he wanted to nuzzle into her hand. To soak in her loving touch, to know without question she wanted to touch him. But if he acknowledged the intimacy, as small as it was, she'd pull back.
"When you came here, you couldn't defend against a gang of rich kids who'd never thrown a punch. Now, you're fighting gladiators one on one, and winning. No one gets that good that fast, Cesare." Her hand rested more firmly on his shoulder as she realized he wouldn't draw attention to it.
"I have a good teacher, and I've been working my ass off for hours every day," Cesare said absently as he worked on powdering the crystals. It wasn't that he didn't get her point, it just didn't matter. He knew he was better than he should be by leaps and bounds. But he didn't care why.
Sighing, her hand tightened. "I'm sure you're working hard, but no matter how hard you work, we're talking about simple linear progression. You went from crawling, to outrunning cheetahs, with nothing in between. Gladiators train every day for years, after school, weekends, holidays, the best teachers money can buy, and they don't see your results." Her words were quiet, savage truths compressed by emotions she refused to see. "It's as if you were born for slaughter."
She stood beside him silently, hand heavy on his shoulder, with a waiting quality as she chose her words carefully. "Then there's your teacher. A man most of us have only seen once. He showed up just before the start of term, talked to the Mistress privately for only a few minutes before being given the classroom and a blank check for any remodeling. He only teaches one student, you. Doesn't attend faculty meetings. Doesn't submit evaluations. And as far I've been able to find out, never leaves his classroom."
"Not that you've been looking," Cesare said, laughing softly as she sniffed in anger.
"I was worried, none of this is normal. I even talked to Viktor, to get his opinion." Cesare tensed under her hand at the thought of Viktor sniffing around Elizabeth.
"And what did Viktor have to say?" Cesare asked with only the barest current of anger in his voice.
"He doesn't know what to make of it either," Elizabeth said.
"I'm surprised he noticed."
"You're being noticed. Our own students are too close to see it, but the other schools have noticed what you've done for Anastasia. They're calling you Master of Arms, saying you're her secret weapon. Some believe you're a plant from Lady Kali to make sure her daughter never loses. Each of the faculty is keeping track of you for one reason or another." She smoothed his hair back with a soft caress.
"We're used to students coming into their powers. The teenage years are when races blossom into their adult strength. I've seen hundreds of kids leap ahead of their classmates in destructive potential. You're not leaping Cesare, you're rocketing past them, eclipsing all but the strongest. That's something none of us have seen, and it scares more than a few people," Elizabeth said, voice quiet with concern. The attention of the Umbrae Lunae was a dangerous thing.
"Alexandra and Anastasia are magnitudes stronger than me. Hell, if Greg had transformed, he'd have taken me," Cesare said.
Sighing, her hand ghosted across the bare flesh of his neck. "But he didn't, even when you and Blaez fought, you finished in a tie." Sharpening, her tone cut off his excuse. "Don't, I know you used a weapon, no one cares Cesare. All anyone knows is that you locked with a werewolf and came out looking the winner. That's what people see, that's their reality. No one knows what you did, even if they found out, what do you think would happen? You'd be swamped with offers." Her words sent his mind pin wheeling off into strange, unseen directions. He knew the races fought, but he'd thought it was a cold war with the actual battles dim memories. If he'd been wrong … then the wars of the moon shadows were still going on.
"Alexandra and Anastasia are two of the strongest beings at this school, that includes the faculty. That you measure yourself against them proves my point. They have immense personal power, and you're catching up to them quicker than anyone can believe. A strong man's dangerous to everyone who gives him a reason to use it, a smart man's dangerous to everyone who doesn't share his goals. To have them both … people are watching, Cesare." Elizabeth finished, fingers winding across his neck in a caress neither would acknowledge.
She wouldn't have brought it up if she didn't want him to think on it. Day by day he was gathering strength to himself, the unlocking of the Root Chakra and his whoring himself out to Aleph added dimensions to his fighting that couldn't be underestimated. He'd shed his humanity like a snake's skin, leaving it in the sewer of his past to rot. He'd chosen to claw for any power he could make his own, to change as much and as quickly, no matter the cost.
It should have been obvious that others would see him gaining power and react. The powerful stayed in power by burning the path to the top behind them. His rise was a threat to the status quo that lined their pockets. While the losers he'd come from would claw at his back, wrapping fat fingers around his throat, desperate to pull him back into the filth he'd been birthed from. Everyone wanted above the shit, using people as stones to stand above the anal slurry was a price they'd pay gleefully.
"What do you think I should do?" Cesare asked, hands moving over the mixtures with casual precision.
"Keep rising," She said fiercely. "Get so strong they can't pull you down. Take what you want from the world and make it beg for mercy. I've lived in fear of my power for most of my life. Scared that others would hate me more if they knew what I could do. I never had a reason to take what I wanted, no one had anything I needed. I've never had anyone to protect, except myself. Don't be me, Cesare. Don't just sit on your power, use it."
"You protected me," Cesare said quietly, remembering the times she'd stepped between him and Jerold.
Taking her hand away with a last caress, she shook her head. "I never had a real friend, until now. I thought if I made myself seem small and weak it would buy me acceptance, I was wrong. Acceptance has to be taken; people only understand strength. Weakness breeds pity, never understanding."
By unspoken agreement, they talked of less volatile subjects. She spent hours complaining about the group assignment she'd set up for the class. Since Cesare wasn't part of it, she was free to tell him in intimate detail how frustrated she was with the dysfunction saturating the teams. From couples more concerned with making out, to those that had turned on each other. The one thing that rang through was the vibrant joy she took in being able to share her week with someone.
They brought their trays back to the warmth of the shed for lunch, leaving a spray of food along the grass for the ravens. Eating at the small table, they got lost in conversation and shared smiles. It didn't matter that they didn't talk about anything, wasting time on things no one but a friend would care about.
Finishing one of the best lunches of his life, he started work on the delivery system. Plastic was a wonder if you weren't a small sea creature. All you needed was heat and you could bend it into any shape you wanted, perfect for making homemade bombs.
Elizabeth opened a window to let out the caustic smell of melting plastic without a word. She didn't ask what he was doing, she didn't want to know. Better to let him work and pretend it wasn't something murderously lethal.
Hours later, Cesare gave a bone cracking stretch after setting the last one down. They didn't look like much, white cylinders about the width of his hand and twice as long, detonators snugly fitted into the milky plastic. Elizabeth watched quietly from across the room as he set the bombs into his bag.
"You have to go?" It was earlier than usual; usually they'd be starting their second game now.
"I'm sorry, but if this is going to work, I have a small window I have to be in. Anything outside that .…" Cesare trailed off, leaving the words unspoken.
She nodded in understanding tinged with regret. "Be careful." The whispered words were the only sign of her worry.
He hesitated a second at the threshold. "If you want to send one of your ravens to watch for it, I'll open my window to show it went the way I wanted. It's easier than watching the infirmary to see if I show up." Elizabeth flushed as he guessed her plan. His words were thrown back over his shoulder with a smirk. "It would be what I'd do."