At first, we grappled. Lucian tossed his mace far away, and gripped me so hard he clutched at my bones. I returned his favour, but I couldn't even crack his scales, for all my strength.

I couldn't feel anything, and if he did, he showed no sign of it.

Eventually, we gave up on trying to overpower the each other. With a grunt, Lucian lifted me over his head, then threw slammed me into the ground, up to my knees. I dug my way out, then grabbed him and slammed him down, up to his waist. He laughed, ripped his way out, and this time, he buried me up to my neck.

We kept at it until a strange sun rose in the sky, and set again. Lucian wasn't even breathing hard, though by now, we'd slammed our way down to where the centre of the Earth would have been, in the mundane world.

Singing, shrieking lava bubbled and thickened around us. My clothes were long gone, and Lucian's were in tatters, but the fact they still existed at all was a testament to the toughness of whatever they were made of.

Lucian leapt away from me, wings held close to his body, like a mantle, and summoned his mace. Shaped by his will, the terrain changed. The steaming, lava-filled pit was replaced with rocky, uneven ground. We were now surrounded by mountains.

I grinned. I hadn't fought-really fought-since the beginning of my unlife. To hell with Andrei, and Alex, and their bullshit. I felt alive, and, if my last moment was coming, I wanted to remember this.

It was only later that I realized my flesh had stopped withering.

Lucian whooped, then threw his mace even faster and harder than earlier, and this time, I didn't try to stop it. It crushed my ribs, dragging me through mountains that were turned to gravel by the impact of my body. I was laughing. Lucian heard that, and laughed joyfully in response. Then, he leapt after me.

We fought for what felt like days, until fatigue, for all of Lucian's strength, caught up with him. His muscles began twitching, his reflexes slowed, his eyes grew dull. His breathing sounded like a furnace.

Eventually, he lifted a clawed, scaled hand, and his mace returned to it. He put it on the ground, leaning on it like a cane, and grinned at me, flames shining behind his fangs.

'Better?'

I laughed breathlessly, saying nothing.

'I figured,' he rumbled, then pointed a long finger at my face. I lifted a hand to in bemusement, and, to my amazement, my flesh felt strong and taut again. Oh, the missing pieces, the gaps that had appeared earlier, had not healed, but the degradation had stopped.

It had stopped.

'Like I said. Mihai had the right idea, but he could never fight with you. He could never get your blood boiling. This...' he breathed out a cloud of smoke. 'Is what you needed.'

I snorted. 'What, are you a therapist now, too?'

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'You should see my van. It has "therapist" on it.'

'With a gap after the third letter, or what?'

We laughed, truly laughed, for probably the first time since I'd become a strigoi. I hadn't been able to muster some genuine joy in months, and Lucian, for all his bluster, tried to take people's feelings into consideration.

'What now?' I asked him. 'We spar every now and then, and hope something new and worse doesn't pop up?'

He shook his great head, moustache still frayed after I'd grabbed on it and tried to rip it out, to his outrage. 'Go to your father, and tell him I was right. Constantin should be pleased he won't have to put his plan into practice.' I didn't ask what it was. I just felt It would be better if I didn't. 'And tell him to prepare the money, so I can rub the others' faces in it.'

I gave him a dry look. 'Seriously? You bet on...what? Whether I'd survive or not? Who would save me? And pops bet, too? He isn't like that.'

'Of course not. But that doesn't stop him from overseeing it.'

And he flew away, as the country of zmei disappeared, and I was back in the forest. In fact, back in the clearing where Mihai had tried his percussive maintenance, as Bianca had called it. The others were gathered in a circle around me. Mihai was still reading the two books orbiting around him, though he'd found time to change to his sporty clothes. Bianca was in her human form, but her eyes were darkened by something I didn't like. I wouldn't ask if she had gone to meet her sisters. Not now.

Alex and Andrei stood together, looking at me with a mix of curiosity and...relief, upon seeing I did not look any worse than when we'd parted. I scoffed inwardly. A bit too late to care.

Lucian was there too, though he'd left his clothes and mace back in his palace, and was now wearing only a pair of oversized trousers, with a hole cut for his tail. He nodded at me.

And, finally, pops stood next to the Fourfold, reminding me of someone standing next to a nuke and hoping it won't explode. He smiled widely upon seeing my face, and came to embrace me. I hugged him back, hesitantly. Had he known? And if he had, did I have any right to think less of him due to that? He'd still raised me, still taught me to be a man. Still...accepted me, after I sinned, and came back as a monster in the eyes of God.

Other priests...other people would have...they would have...

I had not known, until then, that strigoi can weep. Nowadays, I like to think it is something God allows us to keep, in order to remember our former selves. And, above all, it is proof that we are still human.

Because true monsters do not, cannot, weep.

I clung to my father like a lost child, perhaps holding him tighter than I should have.

He did not say anything, did not push me away. He never had, and he never would.