The Discarded

Alone Chapter 5 - 1

Tuesday February 10th 2015

In the hour of the wolf, the old Harley rumbled up to the gates of Primrose. They'd driven through darkness and over two states in the old Indian. Cesare could appreciate the history of the old bike, but it was a far cry from a car with heating and modern suspension.

Slightly ajar, the old gate creaked a whisper of welcome. It felt oddly like the place had left a light on for him. As if the land, steel, and stone had waited patiently for him, knowing in its eldritch way that he would return. What was that old line of Virgil's 'Wide the gates and easy the descent for hells gates stand open wide in welcome. But hard fought and treacherous is the ascent.'

Stepping off the bike, Cesare adjusted his duffel, using the movement to check his weapons. "A piece of advice kid," Andras said, eyes never straying from the gates. Cesare hadn't told him were to go, the man had known exactly were the school was. "If you have to choose between your heart and your honor, it's better to choose your honor. No matter what you do, every heart gets broken." Peeling out in a storm of gravel, Andras raced back the way he'd come.

Watching Andras leave, Cesare's hand came down on the wolf that had crept up beside him. Like some great beast of darkness surfacing from the stygian waters of midnight, it had slipped from the forest. Its feral, wild glory saturated his soul as the wolf welcomed him back.

He wasn't a good man, but according to the Andras he'd never been a man. What was honor to a wolf? Nothing but a word humans used to justify crooked truth and bloody sacrifice, enslaving others minds to cruel wills. A wolf knew its truth without having to be told, to chase prey across a darkened forest, the rush of scarlet from a new born's vein, tangled in sleep beneath the mother's moon with the pack, these things were pure.

Turning his back on the world, he started down the path to the school. The wolf stretched out beside him, matching him step for step. This was how it should be. The wolf by his side, the moon standing coldly beautiful above, her soft light turning the land into a mystery waiting to be told. Branches transformed into grasping hands, leaves became searching eyes, the darkness hid skittering things that mocked the light of day. Bewitchingly treacherous, the moon was the keeper of mysteries, weaver of illusion, and Cesare loved her for it.

They walked with the easy step of people who are where they want to be. They were alike, the world had taken everything from Cesare, butchering him with scalpels of degradation and cleavers of humiliation until he was less than human, leaving him more animal than man. Cesare had more in common with the inky stain that walked next to him than the kids he went to school with. A place to lay his head and food on the horizon, it was enough.

Stepping into the shadows of the forest, the wolf disappeared in their depths like a rock into a still ocean. Cesare knew it was there, taking up residence in his mind, a support that never wavered, blessedly devoid of morality. The feeling diminished with each step away from the forest.

A figure rose from the steps of the Serpens Lacum. With his black coat open, he was a study in shades of sable. A void in the beauty of the night, restrictive, controlled, a being of ruthless logic. No matter the darkness he flaunted, he lacked its wild majesty of unbound chaos.

"I gave even odds you'd make it back. Some call that strength, but I don't admire a cockroach for being hard to kill," Abraxas said evenly.

"We haven't moved against the Furies because we don't need to. A frontal assault while tempting, won't yield satisfactory results. You're the only thing holding the girls together. The weak link stitching their flesh to one. Usually I'd take the regular method." Taking in the campus with a languid look, the dragons eyes seemed deeper, darker than the night. "You'll never guess how many kids are buried on these grounds, it's a graveyard of the useless and unwanted."