Walking into the room, Cesare met Elizabeth's eyes as she looked up. Hands gripped the sides of the desk, knuckles whitening under the pressure of keeping herself in place. Coming up on her, Cesare's hand traced across her shoulder blades, the brittle tension that kept her locked in place felt in every whip cord drawn muscle.
"I made it." Cesare said quietly.
With a small whine, the hold she had on herself shattered. Jerking to her feet, she fell into his arms with a pained cry. Silky smooth her hair flowed across his face like liquid night. The rough brocade of her corset scraping against his calloused hands. Cesare buried his face in her neck as her hair enveloped him until all he could feel was her and all he could smell was her scent.
Soft and warm, she held him as much as he held her. She welcomed him with her whole body, the warm press of her belly, the arms that twined around him, the press of breasts. Running hands down her back, they settled on wide, ample hips, fingers stretching out to feel the edge of that wonderfully wide ass of hers. Elizabeth was soft and luxurious, being in her arms was like coming home, warm, safe, and loved.
Pulling back, fine lines radiated off her eyes and mouth. A night's sleep meant more when your older than when your spitting distance of being a child. Tracing his face with wondering fingers, her voice was soft as a child's sigh. "You came back." It was the thankfulness of a prayer answered when you'd given up.
Squeezing her hips, Cesare smiled. "You think I'd leave you?"
A knowing twinkle danced through her eyes at his pushing the boundaries of what she'd allow him to touch. "I think the Hounds might be able to stop you, no matter how enamored of my ass you are," Elizabeth said as she stepped out of his arms, the girls snickering behind him.
Cesare gave her a long, appreciative look, eyes settling on wide, luxurious hips. "Nope, don't think they could." He smiled into her blushing face.
"Cesare was just about to tell us how he escaped from the Hounds," Alexandra cut in.
Tipping his head to the door, Cesare gave Elizabeth a look. Taking the cue, Elizabeth gestured, and like an obedient hound, the rune inscribed door closed. "The room's sealed. It would take the Mistress herself to break my wards."
Cesare leaned against Elizabeth's desk, a grin playing across his lips. "I didn't escape. I was let go." He waited out the gasps of surprise. "The operation was a trap. How they knew I'd be called in to help is a question for another time, and the reason I don't want anyone to hear what we say here. I trust you three, but no one else." He looked at Anastasia, words quiet and sure. "You can tell Kali but only her."
"Once Viktor left, I knew I was on my own. My only chance was escape, but the odds were vanishingly small. I blinded one with bleach and Cheyenne pepper, sent another into a pool of her own blood with a flying claymore, and was able to put down a third in hand to hand." As he rattled off the fight, the women's eyes widened until only Alexandra wasn't looking like a landed fish.
It wasn't that they didn't respect him, no, it was that they knew him to well. We never appreciate the greatness of those around us. Instead of being proud, we take them for granted, treating gold like common stone. Even now, he could see the doubt shading their faces. How did a nothing damnati put down trained killers with tricks he cooked up in a shed?
"You put one down in hand to hand?" Alexandra asked. She was the only one without doubt in her eyes, but she had good reason. They'd fought, pushed each other until lies died and truth was all you had to hold onto. She knew how deadly he could be when he was cornered. He was very much the wolf he called himself. An apex predator that specialized in tactics, wolves were the kings of any place they called home for a reason.
"Viktor had worn her done by the time she got to me," Cesare said simply.
A vicious grin spread across Alexandra's face, shaping it into something aquiline and fierce. "You used an advantage to take down large prey. There's no dishonor in that. You brought honor to your name my Lord, and honor to mine for being sworn to you." She said, dipping her head in respect.
The others frowned as they watched the interplay, neither grasping the strange part Cesare played in the vampire's life. "You beat four of them? You mean you hurt them, and they overwhelmed you?" Elizabeth asked, tone twisting dubiously at the end.
"No. I mean I blinded one until he backed out of the fight. I blew one up, riddling her with flechettes and knocking her unconscious in a lake of her own blood. I danced with the third until her body gave out. A fourth was coated in bleach and Cheyenne pepper."
There was a new respect in the set of their eyes, they didn't believe him but what they bought was enough to shift things between them. They'd known he was growing by leaps and bounds, but not the lands he now walked. It was something to factor into their agenda.
"Impressive," Elizabeth said in the same way she'd give a student a top grade on a test.
"Very impressive," Anastasia said only a bare second behind the older woman.
"I made a run for it but Andras stopped me," Tension bound the woman in the way of a gun being pulled and cocked, not danger solid and lethal, but potential murder woven with sure and certain pain. "He offered to let me go if I'd give him a day to talk."
"Where was the rest of the pack?" Alexandra asked. "They usually travel in groups of twelve plus." She paused, eyes narrowing in thought. "Taking down four of Andras Two Souled Pack is exponential growth for you, but it's only a fraction of what they deploy to hunt."
"Now we get to the meat. This is coming from Andras so take it with a grain of salt, he says I'm not Umbrae Lunae." Elizabeth and Anastasia blinked in confusion, Alexandra stepping easily to his side, ready to put them down should the admission go sideways. "He says I'm not Umbrae Lunae, Angelic Host, or human. Andras said Lucifer thinks I'm something new, something that hasn't been seen before, made by unknown hands."
Pulling herself together Elizabeth walked to the windows overlooking the campus. "It explains so much." The quiet words filled the primeval room, vines rustled at the power contained in the whisper, ravens fluffing as fey currents caressed along feathers.
Turning, Elizabeth faced the three. "Your meteoric rise in power. I've known you were gifted but you've taken to fighting like an eagle to flight. People don't get that good, that fast, unless it's woven into DNA. You were meant to fight, the talent waiting like sawdust for the spark to set it into an inferno and the effect of your blood on the vampire." Alexandra started at the woman's knowledge, glaring across the room as affronted as if Elizabeth had told the world the color of her panties. "I know she's feeding from you. If you were Umbrae Lunae, she'd be sickened by your blood, even if you were human, she wouldn't be getting the jump she's gotten from you."
Alexandra blushed at Cesare's look. "I was going to tell you but there never seemed a good time. Your blood … has changed the Sanguinem Scientiam, a deeper connection, strength denied to all but those who'd walked its crimson road for centuries. What I can do now is the equal of knights who'd trained for decades."
"Then we have your ability to fed Anastasia without weakening. The way she feeds, I'd expect extreme fatigue, at least. No human would bounce back from repeated feedings like you have, they'd be left as husks after short time, mind and soul stripped of life. It would also explain the extreme affect you have on the Ebon Flame, making it denser and more lethal. There are cases of feeding's affecting the Ebon Flame, but nothing that dramatic." Elizabeth leveled a grim look at Anastasia as she finished.
"Finally, we have the evisceration. A human would never have gotten off that bed, even an Umbrae Lunae would be months in recovery." She stopped, eyes holding Cesare's, a silent understanding passing between them, remembering the Yule Sabbat.
Shrugging, Cesare held still, unwilling to squirm under their open calculation. "It doesn't change anything. Human, Umbrae Lunae, or Angel, I'm still who I am. It adds nothing, changes nothing." Unless the truth warped the bonds he'd forged with them.
"From what Andras told me, Lucifer wants me to choose a side, namely his. The Archangel seems to think my weight can tip the balance," Cesare said.
Alexandra's lips twisted in disgust. "He may just want to make sure you don't choose the Umbrae Lunae side. It's no secret that the humans and the Illuminati have been winning for centuries. They don't need you to help them, only for you to stand aside." The words had a raw truth that had the others paling. It was easy to pretend there wasn't a war being fought in the world. So much easier to focus on playing school then face the systemic slaughter of their race.
The woman exchanged looks between themselves, the question hanging in the air. With a soldier quiet honesty, it was Alexandra that asked. "My Lord, what side will you chose?"
The silence tightened for a long moment as he met her eyes. "Your side." His eyes found Elizabeth. "And yours." Finally, he faced Anastasia. "And yours." Taking a deep breath, Cesare let it out slowly, picking his words carefully. "It was never a question, and it will never be a question. I stand with you, not the Umbrae Lunae, or the Illuminati."
It was so uniquely him that the women smiled. Cesare had no side but his own. That was the first rule of dealing with the clever wolf. His side always included his friends with the world written off as nothing more than enemies waiting to be found. He counted no one as his people, gave no group his allegiance, accepted no creature as his superior.
"Andras did leave me with something." The switchblade fell into his hand with the familiarity of an old friend. The women sucked in whistling breaths when it hit the light, the golden forms cut across the bone white handle, golden light seething malevolently as it fought the elder ways that saturated the room. Opening with a click, the blade was little more than a mockery of its previous austere beauty. Golden sigils swam over the steel, power pulsing thick and lethal across the wavy steel.
Alexandra gave a low whistle. "An Enochian Blade. You impressed the hell out of him. The Illuminati have lost a handful over the centuries, but I've never known anyone that's seen them. It's rumored they fall apart when they're taken from their bond mates." Carefully laying a finger along the blade, she gave a low hiss of pain, sigils sizzling like cooking grease. A small burn on the tip of her finger marked where the blade had taken its vengeance on the vampire. "Authentic too. Enochian's anathema to the Umbrae Lunae. No one's ever held a charged Enochian Blade. The sigils die with the wielder."
Cesare ran his finger along the blade. The Enochian power swept up and over his finger, tingling along nerves, caressing his soul with violently brutal insight. It was uncomfortably, like stepping into noon day sun after being in a dark room.
"Well, the proofs in the pudding as they say," Elizabeth said, having come to his side to get a closer look. "Any of us would have a burned and blackened hand if we held the blade." Her eyes traced the blade with distaste. "Not just any Nephilim put that blessing on your blade. I guess the rumors of Andras Two Souled being the son of Lucifer are true. I doubt any but an Archangel could equal that blessing."
A tendril of warmth ran from the blade, questing along his nadis, in search of his core. The Kundalini raised its head as the golden energy entered Cesare's core, tongue darting out in cold curiosity. Quivering filaments of golden energy wound through his core, drinking deeply of his prana, the muted gold brightening as it gorged itself on his volatile essence. Firming the quicksilver material coated his core, encasing it in shining gold.
Flickering out, the Kundalini's black tongue tasted the energy in the air. Satisfied it meant no harm, the serpent gave an irritated hiss before laying down in a bed of coils.
Prana poured into the blade, saturating sigils, golden light shining harshly over his hand, stabbing into eyes, the very air searing, heat waves of the tortured rising from steel. Twisting and writhing under the onslaught, sigils contorted into new glyphs, carved themselves into the blade and handle in an orgy of creation. The golden light grew, shifting as it intensified, sigils glowing incandescent white, the shining brother to a moon beams gentle touch.
Steel, iron, and fake pearl, flowed together, warping under the sigil's direction. Demanding and directing, the Enochian letters pulled a torrent of prana from his core, the world screeching as reality bent, transfiguring under their unrelenting command. Whimpering its submission, reality gave before the nova like white star birthing itself in his hand. Light dimmed, revealing the blade the sigils had birthed. The Enochian sigils had butchered his past to create a future.
Six inches of handle fit his hand as if molded to it, every line and fold finding its place. Quicksilver bright Enochian sigils covered every inch of the handle. Instead of sunshine's acidic gold, they gave off a pure white that shone through his fingers, wreathing his hand in a heavy light that clung to his flesh, a puppy reluctant to leave its mother.
Enochian sigils spilled onto a blade unlike anything he'd seen before. A triangle of three edges stretched over 6 inches, each edge shining with a razors smile. That strange, covetous white light, swam in streaks, caressing along the blade.
"It bonded to you," Elizabeth whispered.
"Impossible," Alexandra said, tracking the blade with a hungry look. "The Holy Blades of the Hounds are prized by the Knights of the Order. We know as much about them as anyone outside the Hounds. No one's ever bonded to a blade outside the Hounds, not humans, angels, or even archangels."
Anastasia quirked an eyebrow at the vampire. "Looks pretty damn possible from here." Her tone warred for nonchalance in the glare of the intense white light that moved over the knife in shifting fields of power. Filaments of white light extended from the un-steel to play across Cesare's hand in a loving caress.
Alexandra moved closer, face hovering just above the blade, reading the sigils. "They've changed their shape. I can't read what they say, but they sure don't say what was intended."
"What is it?" Anastasia asked, eyeing the blade like a black adder that was impossibly docile.
"A phurba," Elizabeth said quietly. "They're used by the shamans of Tibet to pin evil spirits to the earth so they can be killed or banished. Dangerous, old magic, far older than humanity."
Cesare turned the blade in his hands, unsure how he felt about the changes Andras had wrought on his old friend. Even if its form was a caricature of what it had been, it was the same in his heart. That didn't change the sense of loss when he looked down on the brilliantly glowing phurba. The switchblade had been part of his past, tied completely to a world outside this place of nightmares that slunk in his beloved shadows. Now the blade belonged, was claimed, by this twisted reality.
"What are the others going to think?" Cesare asked, unwilling to pull his eyes away from the mesmerizing fields of white energy cascading up and down the blade. Joyfully ecstatic, the energy spoke a language for Cesare alone.
"Nothing good," Anastasia said grimly, pulling her eyes off the captivatingly poisonous beauty of the blade. "If you thought Cerberus didn't like you before, you can bet they'll be cancelling your Christmas card."
Alexandra forced herself away from the blade. "This changes everything. Once the others see you have a blade blessed by God ... it'll change everyone's calculation. No one but a Hound's ever bonded to a blade, and you're no Hound. You're too young and missing the Enochian scars." Shaking her head, Alexandra gave Cesare a grim look. "When my father hears, he's going to want to know everything he can about you. The Knights have wanted their own Holy Blades for centuries."
Anastasia leaned her hip against the desk. "That's a worry for another day. The day you pull that blade, you'll no longer be Cesare the student, you'll be Cesare the wielder of an Enochian Blade. Once they know it's only a matter of days before the Imperium's, Sceptrum's, and clans." Eyes darting to Alexandra, she continued, "She's right, after the first scare, people will understand that your no Hound. That leaves the question, how can you use a blade born to kill our kind, and can it be replicated. They'll come for you, first with offers to join, then with threats, anything to take you apart and find the secret.
Cesare tucked the blade up his arm, steel flowed like warm flesh, flattening out, coiling around his forearm like a pet cobra. The others watched without a hint of surprise, too many paradigm shifts having pushed them into a state of apathetic shock. A blade that turned into a quicksilver snake was just one more thing to tuck into the don't freak out box. "It's only a knife, I don't see the fuss."
Elizabeth shared a long look with the others. "You're using an Enochian Blade changes a fundamental truth. A fact that's been around since the Hounds were formed thousands of years ago. People will know you're different, and they'll wonder what else you can do. Once you use that blade, you're going to paint a very large target on your back."
"Do you think Andras Two Soul knew Cesare could bond with the blade?" Alexandra asked.
Anastasia gave a short laugh. "No, he's not stupid, and arming Cesare with an Enochian Blade is dirt dumb. It's more likely he wanted to make a statement."
Nestled along his arm, the blade was warm, steady, and pure in a way that almost nothing in life could be. With a look at the clock, Elizabeth gestured at the door, like everything in this primal pocket of eldritch power it moved to her will, opening in a smooth, quiet arc. "It's almost time for class."