"It's time," Cesare said, meeting Alexandra at the gate to the stairs.
Laying his hands on her shoulders, he locked eyes with her. "You will win. You will come back to me." Running his thumb along her cheek, his words were a whisper. "My finest blade, send him screaming back to his country terrorized by your glory."
Even as color bloomed on her cheeks, she refused to take her eyes of him. "As my Lord commands."
The spears shone in her hands as she walked onto the field, outdone only by the river of gold that ran down her back. She was going out there with nothing but his best guess, if he was wrong, the Raiju would cook her from the inside out.
"Can she do it?" Elizabeth's quiet voice settled something in him, a determination firming under her gentle curiosity.
"If I asked you to save her, would you?" Cesare asked without taking his eyes off the brilliant image of the sun kissed vampire.
"You'd lose everything. You'd mark yourself as a craven coward without honor. They would never allow you to keep the Furies in place," Elizabeth said.
"But she'd be alive." Turning, he raised an eyebrow. "I'd rather see the end of this dream then her dead."
Elizabeth nodded. "I'll save your vampire." It was said with such fondness that Cesare had to turn away. He should never have had to ask, but he'd needed her reassurance. He wouldn't see the people he cared about taken from him today, no matter the cost.
As he took his seat, Kali slipped her hand through his. "It's a hard thing to see those you care for go into battle on your word. You know there's no where she'd rather be than out there fighting for you." Kali looked over at him sadly. "People will die for you someday, the least you can do is make it worth something. Make sure when you give up their lives, the cause is worth it, not just for you, but to them."
Cesare made a note to remember if he ever had anyone mad enough to follow him. People used others, that was life. Burnt them up to make few dollars, sold them for sex, played with for fun, humiliated and degraded for a few minutes of ego stroking. Using people was more common as breathing, and as unmarked, just part of the game of humans. Sometimes they gave lip service the greater good, but mostly they gave nothing more than faded thanks. Leaders did it on a grand scale. They used hundreds, thousands, for private hungers, needy grasping hands seeking power at any price. People died because they believed not in the cause, but the face of that cause. The least Cesare could do was make sure it was something they thought worth dying for.
Alexandra fought for him, he never forgot that, but that wasn't the only thing she was fighting for. If she wanted to Christianize the Umbrae Lunae, she needed to show them strength and mercy. She had to make herself into a legend, something people wanted to follow.
The spears danced with brilliance, each a rod of pure sunlight. She'd die before admitting defeat, a killer of few equals. A calm, lethal competence, radiated from her, the arrogance of an apex predator draped over her like the robes of a monarch.
Whispers raced around the stadium, building with each step she took across the field. None of them had seen the vampire fight, only rumors spoke of how deadly she was, and now they'd see it firsthand. Not in some nothing of a fight, but against a fabled Raiju.
"Now for the start of the Main Event!" Greg said, the sound beating a base note to the skittering sound of the Bacchante. "You've seen them in the hallways. Watched them pass you as liquid shadows. Gossiped behind their backs and feared their wrath. The singularly known Furies have done what no one has. Today we'll see the truth of the rumors! Today, we see if they're more than fancy words!"
The crowd rose to its feet as Seijuro walked onto the field. Hungry, anger masquerading as anticipation tore free from its chains, a roaring demand from thousands of throats tainting the day. Black hair with electric blue tips drifted in the wind, dancing like sparks. Between steps, the white uniform burnt away in a burst of blue lightning.
Neither wolf nor weasel, it was an unholy fluid melding of both. Long, supple body ending in a lashing tail, spitting tendrils of electricity snapping from it. Baring its long muzzle, needle teeth of shining white lightning shone from an incandescent mouth. White suns of furious power glared at the world with the insatiable hunger of a bolt of lightning looking for the earth. It wasn't colored or sheathed in blue lightning, it was a bolt of lightning caged into physical form by ruthless will.
Ghosting across the ground, blackened steps marked its wake. The merest brush of its body scarring the earth with its fury. Of all the elements man had tamed, electricity was the wildest, its volatile temper knowing no chain. Fire could be run from, water avoided, but electricity struck with deadly speed, its hunger could only be appeased with flesh.
Seijuro stopped well short of the slaughter line. Hand to hand wasn't its game, which didn't mean it couldn't play. The file had given Cesare an idea of the Raiju's preferred tactics, but things changed quickly in combat. A knot of tension eased out of his shoulders as Cesare watched the creature keep its distance from Alexandra.
Standing with her toes on the slaughter line, Alexandra gripped a spear with both hands, the others thrust into the ground beside her. Before Greg could get a word out, Seijuro flashed, only an imprint of blue across the air.
High pitched, the screaming pierced the air, driving into the skull with relentless force, stunning the crowd silent. Transfixed through the neck, Seijuro was pinned to the ground, sizzling bolts of lightning tearing from its body, devoured by the hungry earth. With a sizzling sound, the Raiju ripped free from the spear in a blast of power, traveling a hundred feet in less than a second.
Blackened copper dripped down the sides of the spear in rivulets of used metal. Tossing the smoking wreck aside, Alexandra pulled another spear out of the earth with casual disregard for the Raiju.
The vibrant crackling creature was a shadow of itself. Pale instead of the incandescently violent blue it had started as, its tail lashed from side to side in anger, missing the sparks from before. Dim and wan, the once furiously burning white eyes held an understanding, the knowledge failure. An old samurai once said, a swordsman knows at the first touch of steel, everything else is only playing out the pageant.
Electrical energy seethed under the ground, a dead circle radiating away from Alexandra in a ragged twenty-foot area. With her insulated boots, the vampire stood with the impunity of a conquering hero. Held ready, her second spear was alive with sunlight like the wrath of God come to smite a pagan idol.
There was a fatalistic air to their standoff. Both knew the end, and both knew Seijuro couldn't back out, no matter the cost. Honor and pride had pushed him down this path, it was the secret to his success in battle and school. It drove him, whipped and burned his soul with the need to excel, to prove he was the best, not to himself but to his family and Lord. They'd been his constant companions and until this moment, they'd been his greatest strength.
The Bacchante's sound stroked along the bloody edges of the mind. It ran through the heart, spilling pure, sadistic need into the core, a blood offering calling something atavistic from out of the abattoir of the soul, a primal need, the mutilated brother of lust. Building higher and higher, the song wrapped around the fighters, inflaming their wants, twisting them into needs that would not be denied.
Snarling, Seijuro blazed across the ground, this time Cesare could track the thing if only barely. The spear lanced down through the Raiju's shoulder with an explosion of screaming pain, pinning the monster to the ground. Thrashing in agony, a scream of tortured lightning ripped from it as the earth devoured its life.
With a pop of reality realigning, Seijuro became flesh and blood, spear materializing in meat and bone, stapling the boy to the ground. The boy that had threatened with easy grace last night, looked on the face of a being devoid of mercy or pity. A samurai's death is his final service to his lord, dying well brings glory to his name, family, clan, and more importantly, his lord. In many ways, how a samurai died was more important than how he lived. Seijuro faced the grim reaper in vampire fangs with stoic control.
Setting her foot on Seijuro's shoulder, she pinned him splayed out on the ground. Quicker than light, she disappeared in a lunge at the boy. Leaning ghoulishly over him, she drank in his screams with a sweet, beatific smile. High and keening, the boy screamed in terrorized agony unlike anything he'd ever felt before.
The students jerked back in surprise at the sudden screams before leaning eagerly forward, needing to know what the vampire had done in that frozen second. The answer ran through the crowd like wildfire as Seijuro tossed his head from side to side, hollow eye sockets bleeding tears. The torn open caverns were meaty, weeping holes of carnage.
Dangling from Alexandra's hands by optical fiber, the eyes were a grisly trophy. Without taking her eyes off the pinned and helpless boy, she popped the orbs into her mouth, swallowing them down with relish.
The crowd stilled in horrified awe, the Bacchante's song twanging and tangling. Retching people ran for the bathrooms, abandoning seats under the insults of their friends. Even for monsters, there were things beyond the pale.
Taking her foot off the Raiju she walked away, blackened and smoking spear pinning the would-be killer to the ground behind her. Her walk said it all, Seijuro had been nothing but a moments diversion, a bug to be stepped on and discarded as unworthy of further thought. She was lethality given form, and in that casual arrogance, the people fell in love with her. The screams of the boy were the blessings of heaven to Gods Butcher.
It wasn't that she'd won. It was the deeper meaning that pierced the souls of the students. She'd destroyed him, taken his flesh for her own, disgraced him beyond his souls endurance. His eyes would never grow back, cast out of the Hitokiri for failure, his family would disown him for the dishonor he'd brought to their name. The dreams that Seijuro had lived and breathed, the source of his joy had been turned into a plague-ridden thing of corrupted flesh.
It started as a base rumble, the stomping of feat along bleachers. It built slowly, until the world vibrated with the force of thousands of feet slamming down in unison. Standing, Cesare yelled above the sound. "Mother of Lions! Mother of Lions! Mother of Lions!" The chant caught on like a spark in dry kindling flashing through the crowd. Standing, they chanted at the vampire they'd scorned minutes before.
Taking the stairs, Alexandra kept her eyes on him without once acknowledging her worshipful fans. She held his eyes while climbing the stairs until she stood before him with only the gate between them.
Cesare kissed her gently on the forehead. "Beautiful and savage, it was perfect, my precious blade." A low hum of pleasure radiated from her.
Strips of flesh tore free from her hands as she pulled the gloves off. Blackened flesh ran up into her jacket, fingers twisted into black claws of fried flesh, blood welling up from scarlet lines in charred skin. The sickly sweet smell of cooked meat filled the air.
Under his eyes, the charred flesh flaked from skin, turning to ash in mid fall. Pink skin flowed across hands, blood reabsorbing into arms, claw like hands filled out with new muscle. Flexing her hands, she sighed quietly.
"I'll need to feed soon," Alexandra said quietly.
Taking her newly healed hands in his, he met her anxious eyes. "My body will ever be your sanctuary, my blood to slack your thirst, my flesh your feast."
Running his hand up to Alexandra's shoulder, Cesare guided her through the open gate. The girls passed each other without a look, ignoring the other with the ease of long practice. Even when it was all on the line, the two refused to give a shit about the other.
Anastasia slipped into his arms, holding him tightly as she breathed his scent in. Running his hands down her back, he soothed the worry that bubbled and frothed in her soul. Threading his fingers through her hair, he reveled in the new growth. A ragged Paige boy cut, it brushed her ears, as magical as moonlight.
Crimson tendrils drifted up, caressing eagerly along his hands. Feeling it flow over his skin, a joyful warmth swelled in him. Kissing the top of her head, Cesare closed his eyes as her hair tickled his face and lips.
"You can do this," Cesare whispered into her hair.
"I know," Anastasia said, laying feather light kisses along his neck. "You'll be there if …."
"Always." Tightening his hold, Cesare molded her soft body to the hard planes of his tortured frame. "I'll never let you fall. I'll always be there to catch you."
Sighing against him, she snuggled into his chest. "I wish …" She stepped out of his arms with a strained smile. "I wish a lot of things, but I have to take what life's given me all the same."
Holding the gate open for her, Cesare watched her take the stairs to the field. Things were complicated, getting more so every day, insanity and blood on every side. Only the dead got simple. Life was a grueling, sweaty, misery, you were born in pain, with agony the only friend that never left. You stayed in the game because it was the only one in town, not because you enjoyed being flayed by inches.
Closing the gate, he took his seat next to Kali. Reaching out, she gripped his hand tightly, eyes never wavering from her daughter. It never got easier to see the people you love jump into crazy, but if there ever came a day when it did, he'd put a bullet in his head.
Anastasia's opponent walked out of the dark archway. He was a gray man, lank hair hanging in greasy, colorless locks. The uniform fit his trim body, but failed to change the carefully crafted image of featureless invisibility. Some people were born unremarkable and others fashioned themselves into it. Muscle bound men with swagger and model looks didn't make assassins, it was the cold ones that fit in anywhere.
The Enenra walked to the slaughter line with the slightest hesitation, seeing his team leader pinned to the ground and torn apart like a bug had shaken him. Even with all their information on the Furies, they hadn't been ready for the blood soaked reality.
That had been a mistake. Generals planned on what they knew, but when you're fighting someone like Cesare, who almost never used the same tactic twice, it left lethal weakness to exploit. Deception was the only weapon in war. Guns, explosives, tanks, and men, were just things, only lies won wars.
"Lady of Ruin! Lady of Ruin! Lady of Ruin!" It started low, gaining power the way the tide does, sweeping everything away, stripping the beach clear before its unstoppable majesty.
The Enenra went gray, clothes falling to the ground as misty smoke billowed into the air. Expanding into the open space, it gathered itself, darkening into a dense mass. Purpose propelled it forward at the speed of a man's run, tendrils of smoke drifted from it, stretching out in wisps of caustic malice before pulling back into the mass.
Anastasia was still, waiting for the Enenra to hit the sweet spot. Bursting into motion, she let fly the football. Spiraling through the air, arcing into the frothing smoke, it was a pathetic weapon. The thing parted for the ball, unsure what it was, unwilling to take any chances.
Snapping through the air, the flame was a smear of defilement, like shit across a baby's face. It was hate given form, cruelty distilled until it burned the world. The air recoiled in revulsion at the violating flame. But the Enenra was neither as pure nor as smart. For all its unholy glory, it looked like the stream would miss. Twisting at the last minute, the hateful thing consumed the leather ball in diseased flame.
Leather cooked in the embrace of the electrifying flame, rampaging currents racing along wires, burying themselves into plastic explosives. The shock wave shook the world, flinging students back into their chairs, pressure squeezing lungs, tearing screams from the fearful. Even the Bacchante went silent at the reverberating boom that resounded through the arena.
Violently birthed into the middle of the monster, the vacuum tore the cloud to shreds like a hyena pup chewing itself free from its dead mother. Trembling and writhing in the air, the cloud tried to knit itself back together, blood appearing and falling like rain onto the green grass. It couldn't speak but it didn't need to, its jerking, spastic movements told a tale of unequaled pain.
Anastasia waited patiently, the other football in hand. She'd readied herself for the next attack but looking at the Enenra weeping red rain across the field it didn't look needed.
Wisps of smoke gathered, condensing smaller and darker with every passing second, gray turning to black. Convulsing, the cloud twisted in on itself until a naked boy was born where a monster had been. Hair thin cuts covered its body, flesh flayed into strips, white fat and red muscle gleaming in the uncaring light, blood covered the thing like sweat in a skin of scarlet.
Leaping to their feet, the chant started from a hundred throats. Steps swaying in rhythm to that worshipful chant, Anastasia walked toward the skinned thing. Standing over the trembling boy, she took in the grotesque with an intimate smile, blood seeped from thousands of cuts, flesh torn from its muscles, flayed alive, its secrets parts open for the world to see. Dropping Anastasia straddled the boy, a whining scream lanced the air as her weight pressed across cuts and flayed flesh.
Leaning forward, her breasts dangled above the boy's face as he twisted and writhed under her, his screams filling the air as the boy struggled to throw her off. Anastasia rode his body with an ease born of being Harab Serapel. Throwing her head back, she crowed her ecstasy into the sky, rocking her hips to the base notes of the chanting students as they drowned her in worship. Her lips conquered his, blood smearing her mouth as she took his pain into her heart the way a woman takes a man's seed. She laid her hands along his head in a lover's caress, grinning down with blood tainted lips into his crazed, agony, riddled face.
Black flickers of hateful flame ran across her fingers, the boy bucking under her in terror soaked horror. His ears melted off his face in bubbling streams, tendrils of flame winding into him, violating his body, charring the inside of his ears. Never again would he hear the world; never again would the world speak to him. Jerking wire tight, the boy arched his back, a guttural scream tearing from his tortured frame before blessed darkness claimed him in its folds.
The crowd chanted, part of the act, the stomach to Anastasia's mouth, the two connected through membranes of need, twisting in a dance old before man walked. It was sick and depraved, raw animal lust filling the air with its musky smell. Boys and girls watched with open mouthed delight, aroused at the sight of Anastasia taking the man as his fluids smeared across her body.
Bonelessly fluid, she stood mantled in the claret of her victim. The crowd didn't chant her name, they screamed it in hoarse, broken voices strained with use and rough with need. It was the gasping of a man on the edge of orgasm, the sound of a woman that only needed that last thrust to send her into the abyss. The ravings of a mad killer sinking his blade into the helpless.