The Discarded

Alone Chapter 8 - 1

He'd spaced out on the conversation Kali and Anastasia were having. Kali had snugged herself into his side with Cesare's arm naturally coming around her shoulders. Her own arm snaked into his jacket and around his waist, fitting her hand neatly into his back pocket for a cheap feel of his ass. Grinning up at him, she was unrepentant in her blatant groping.

The buzz of gossip cut off when they entered the cafeteria. Holding still, Lady Kali took in the stained glass window. Appreciating the work of art in pieces as if the whole was something to be grasped only after homage had been paid to the craft. Done in shades of green, the snakes seemed to writhe with a life of their own as sunlight caressed the glass. Fine scales flowed up Medusa's arms, sparkling with poisonous beauty, fading into the deadly pale of newborn vipers when they reached her face. Its beauty was overshadowed by the melancholy, betrayed look in the woman's eyes.

"She's the saddest woman I've ever met." The words sounded loud in the crypt like silence of the room.

"You knew her?" Cesare asked.

Nodding, Lady Kali pulled her eyes off the sad but beautiful woman displayed in the window. "Still do, as of a hundred years ago when we had drinks on the Nile." Shades of old times and lost friends created graveyard eyes. "She's an immortal. Which is a nice way of saying too mean to die."

She pulled him toward the lunch line. "She was always serious, even when she was young. But she did turn her parents into statues, that would change anyone."

Following behind, the others hung on the abomination's words. Looking questions at Cesare before picking out her food, she filled her tray with his favorites. Behind the steel of the kitchen counter, the staff bowed as she passed their station. It didn't matter that this was her second time, it was enough that she touched their lives.

"I met her when she was just a child. I don't know how old she was; we didn't keep track back then. A child was a child until she had her first blood, and then she was a woman." Sitting next to him, she took a bite of her pizza. "She was like a lot of the immortals, unique. A singular creature born into the world without a touchstone to stand on. Birthed by the old gods, she was a race of one." Cesare nodded slowly as she caught his eyes, she'd known all along what he was.

Weighing the others with a long look, Kali continued, "She wanted what most woman want." Enthralled with the story, Anastasia and Alexandra were pulled into a time of legends and myths. "Family, kids, a good man to share it with. That disappeared when she shed the skin of humanity. She lost everything in one night, her family turned to stone, and all her dreams dead with them."

Sipping milk, she cut into her Salisbury Steak. "She never gained control. The stories got it wrong. Anything that met her eyes, or the eyes of her serpents, was instantly turned to stone. Some of us, a bare handful, could resist, but the men that could survive her power were never the kind she wanted. She kept looking for someone that could make her dreams come true. You see, she never let go of that old dream, no matter that its bones had twisted over the centuries with defiling need, diseased flesh rotting and squirming with maggots, she still wanted that family and kids. Still needed what had been taken from her so long ago. It didn't matter that she couldn't have it, that her condition would destroy any baby she might birth, or that she had other dreams for the taking. All that mattered was what she wanted." Popping a tater tot into her mouth, she laid her hand on Cesare's.

"It's a fool that doesn't change when life taps you on the shoulder. You move to her current or she sweeps you into the depths and drowns you in sorrow. The last time I had drinks with Medusa she was bitter and angry, a pit of malice spewing hate on every man she looked on." Lady Kali swept the women with a meaningful look before turning to Cesare. "Do you always eat here?"

Floundering at the subject change Cesare tightened his fingers around hers. "The table used to be just me and a few other kids." He wondered where those misfits had gone too, if they'd found homes at other tables or if they had only changed who threw them out. "When things hit the fan, they found other places to be. I sometimes wonder what happened to them."

"They deserted you when you needed them, why would you care?" Alexandra asked as she dug into her ham.

"They were weak, blaming them for that's like blaming the rabbit for feeding the wolf. Some of them could have been strong, but they weren't." He moved his mashed potatoes around on his tray. "The wolves would have burned through them if they'd stayed, Blaez would have killed them." Shaking his head, he looked over the cafeteria, meeting the eyes of the curious.

"You miss them?" Elizabeth asked, taking a bite of her salad, eyes tracking his.

"No, I don't think I do. I guess it catches me by surprise sometimes how much my life's changed."

"Do you regret it?" Lady Kali asked curiously.

"I think resisting change or regretting who you've become doesn't work. The world moves and like you said, you either move with it or get run over by it. The man I was wouldn't like who I've become, but I don't like who he was. Does a caterpillar want to be a butterfly, or does it secretly despise that it's only a step on the road?"

He let the conversation pass him by as Kali asked about the girl's studies. If he'd known the changes that would be forced on him, would he have walked through those rusty gates? It's easy to say from the top of the mountain that it was worth the climb, but that mocks the person that sweated and bleed to get you there.

He held the man he'd been in disgust, he was weak, pitiful, and worthless. There was no way that man could have helped the women next to him. He didn't inspire fear or loyalty, only pity stirred the hearts of those that settled their eyes on him. That didn't mean he liked himself now anymore. He was stronger, meaner, with a vicious edge that gave even Alexandra pause. It didn't scare him, and it should. If the victim had met the wolf, what would the past have to say to the present? Could you call yourself the same person when you'd left everything you'd ever known behind? How did you keep the same name when you wore the skin of a stranger?

They'd noticed Beth's shaping of his flesh, but no one had asked. Beth had burned baby fat off his bones, refining his face and body, leaving him with a fey, brutal thing of angles and hard edges. Deeply sunken blue eyes glared out at the world with a savage, unforgiving light. His muddy brown hair had shifted a few shades to black, glints of scarlet peeking out when sun and shade mingled. Holding the traits of a boy, stained with threads of something too old to be called man.

He'd gotten startled looks from students. It wasn't that great of a change, but condensed to one night, it drew whispers. While the girls hadn't asked, they'd made their approval felt. He'd been ugly, an unappealing mutt that no one wanted. It was worse now, he was a living mirror of humanities midden heap of a soul, a face lined with black slaughter, tainted with depraved needs. He'd devoured the victim he'd been and grown strong off its flesh.

"I'm guessing you want to see the training?" Cesare asked, already getting to his feet with the boneless grace that was becoming his trademark. Watching him with knowing eyes, Kali rose with him.