xvi: slavering wolves

giles took me to the warehouse where the timberwolves were keeping eric and henry. there were only two other timberwolves there, and i recognized both of them: melanie hector and rainer kavinsky. they were each sitting on chairs in opposite corners. there were two men, presumably henry and eric, tied up in chairs at the center of the room.

 

melanie stood when she saw the two of us. "giles," she said, "who might this be?"

"oh, just a friend of mine." he took out a knife and advanced forward.

her eyes narrowed. "well, rainer, it seems we've finally gotten the chance for a proper fight."

 

rainer stood up and threw a punch at giles. he sidestepped and stabbed the knife into rainer's shoulder. giles drew the knife out, and rainer stumbled back and pressed up against the wall.

 

"so," melanie said to me, a knife in her hand, "you are asher lyall."

"what gave you that impression?" i asked, circling her with a knife of my own.

"call it an educated guess."

 

she extended a leg and tried to sweep mine out from under me, but i dodged backwards and threw the knife at her. it landed in her leg. i'd been aiming for her chest, but the leg was fine too.

 

i heard laughter from behind and felt something like a punch hit me in the back. it was only when i felt blood trickle down my spine that i realized i'd been stabbed.

 

"i suppose you must find it less than agreeable to be on the other end of deception," melanie's voice said from behind me. she placed what must have been her boot on my back and shoved, sending me sprawling forward onto the floor.

 

and in an instant she was standing in front of me once again. i looked to see how giles was doing. he was bleeding from the nose and exchanging blows with rainer.

 

i tried to get up and help giles, but melanie placed her boot firmly on the back of my head.

 

"not this time, little fox," she said. "this is the traitor's fight, not yours."

 

i heard ropes snapping. melanie's boot lifted from my head, and as i looked up at her, i saw that she was running towards the center of the room. while melanie had been taunting me, giles had gotten rainer on the floor long enough to cut henry's ropes.

 

giles handed the knife to henry. as henry cut eric's ropes, giles turned to melanie and punched her square in the nose.

 

melanie wiped the blood from her face with the sleeve of her jacket and backed up next to rainer, who had stood up again.

 

henry and eric fought with melanie and rainer, but i wasn't paying a lot of attention. i was too busy watching giles run to my side and outstretch his hand, lifting me to my feet. i tried to run to melanie and try to stab her, but my back wound was bleeding out, and i was starting to get lightheaded.

 

"you got any bandages?" i asked giles as i sat down in one of the chairs in the middle of the room.

 

he knelt down in front of me and cut away several pieces of my shirt with his knife, removing enough to give him access to my wound and using another piece of fabric as a makeshift bandage to keep it from bleeding out once he'd cleaned it with some water he'd had in a canteen specifically for this purpose (boy scout).

 

i didn't see much of what happened to melanie and rainer after that. i was too busy focusing on not falling unconscious. i caught snatches, though- rainer punching henry, eric punching rainer, melanie starting to walk towards giles and me with a knife in her hand before eric threw her to the ground.

 

from what i did see, henry and eric fought well. eric, as noted, restrained melanie, and that left henry to dodge rainer's punches and keep his attention on himself while giles treated me. after that, we rejoined the fray.

 

as you can probably tell from the fact that i'm still alive, we won in the end. we didn't kill rainer or melanie- henry was very insistent on that point- but we did tie them up the same way they'd tied up henry and eric. just as a little bit of poetry, i suppose, before the timberwolves inevitably find them and realize what happened.

 

i don't know what will happen now. all i know is that giles and i are finally together again, and for now, at least, we're okay.

xv: falling again

i couldn't sleep very well last night.

i tried. i tried to sleep. but it just didn't happen.

when light started to pour through the window of my apartment, i knew it was no use anymore. i got dressed and headed to north river park.

there was an oak tree there, huge and ancient. it had been old even when giles and i were younger, even when we'd first chosen it as our meeting place. i pass it every day on my way to the mountebank club. every time, it makes me think of giles. every time, it makes my heart hurt.

it's huge, like i said, huge and old. it's gnarled and knotted and the branches go everywhere but it's so beautiful and so strong.

giles told me when we were younger that it's a bur oak, that they can be from 200 to 400 years old. he said with an arm around my shoulder and a sparkle in his eye that he hoped they didn't cut it down to see for sure.

i patted that old oak tree on its knot before sitting down on the ground, taking out the sandwich i'd brought for breakfast, and waiting for giles.

i was terrified, if i'm being honest.

i've been with the mountebanks so long that i think i've forgotten what it feels like for other people to want me around. it can be hard to break out of the notion that you're replaceable, a cog in the machine that can be taken out and swapped in for someone else without issue. it makes it hard to think of yourself as wanted. it makes it feel like anyone who says they care about you is lying to protect your feelings.

you can imagine the reaction my darker part had when i heard from someone i'd pined after for so long that he loved me too, someone i hadn't known for three years for as much as i'd thought about him since then.

he's lying. he's trying to trick you into becoming vulnerable just so he can tear you down. the timberwolves are setting a trap and he is the willing bait.

but as i ate my sandwich beneath that old bur oak, it occurred to me that even that would be better than what i had with the mountebanks.

as giles approached, all of it faded away.

he outstretched his hand to me, and i took it. he pulled me up and into a hug. and for the first time in years, i was happy.

xiv: an old friend

we weren't busy yesterday. i was the only mountebank there except for alan roach. he was assigned to keep watch over me while the rest of the mountebanks had a meeting with the timberwolves.

he wasn't very good at it.

giles came in again.

he looked around, saw how empty it was. he walked up to me.

"you ever hear of aleister crowley?"
i think he saw something at the corner of my mouth, a twitch that started as a smile but changed quickly to a frown.

(the masks worn by mountebanks are only half-masks. doesn't necessarily keep with the whole "everything is a mask" thing, but it's useful for people to be able to see at least part of your expression when they're trying to cut a deal with you.)

i turned away.
"kaden," he said.
 i nodded.
"kaden crowley, what the hell are you doing here?"
 i turned back to him. "i needed money. i needed friends."
"i'm your friend," he said. he turned to look at alan, who was in the corner on his laptop, occasionally glancing up at me. "not him."
"that's what they want me to think too." i sighed and lowered my head. "i know you mean well, but..." i shook my head. "no," i said at last, "you're right."
giles nodded. "i'm sorry to bring this up so soon, but i have a favor to ask you."
i looked up at him. "anything."
giles raised an eyebrow.
"never mind," i said, feeling... a little embarrassed. "what is it?"
"well, you know henry hallack and eric zane, of course."
i nodded.
"right. well, we timberwolves... we..." he took a deep breath in. "we kidnapped them. i need your help saving them from the other timberwolves. there aren't as many of the timberwolves as there usually are. most of them are at a meeting."
"right. i'm well aware of the effects of my little white lie on our relationship with the timberwolves. so where are they keeping henry and eric?"
"where else? abandoned warehouse." he rolled his eyes at the thought. "meet me at the old spot tomorrow morning so we can talk without prying eyes and ears. 7 o'clock, sharp."
 i nodded. "7 am. i'll be there."

giles started to leave, but before he walked out the door, he turned back to me.

"i saw what you wrote about me."
i could feel my face grow hot under my mask.
he glanced over at alan- he was busy- and then back at me. i love you too, he mouthed.

he waited just a second to see the look on what little he could make out of my face before he left.

i love that bastard.

xiii: risen

giles came to the mountebank club today. he asked me if i'd ever had dreams about the lonely hunters. if i'd ever dreamed of the archangel.

 

i think he might know who i am. who i was, i mean, before the mountebanks. before jack.

 

see, before i joined the mountebanks, before I knew anything about any of this, i had a dream about the thing dressed in flesh. it had a porcelain mask, wings of light, and a crown of flames.

 

it addressed me by name. it told me to embrace it.

 

is that why giles joined the timberwolves? did he think that dream was a prophecy when i told him about it all those years ago?

 

i don't know. i just hope he knows the timberwolves aren't his friends.

 

but am i?

xii: final face

what was in that final face

you hid from me as you walked away,

as you left me forever,

sadness or anger?

i'll never be your friend

ever again.

i'd better find something

new to pretend,

like it was me who went away,

like i could've chosen to stay.

(yes, i write poetry.

what? it's good for venting.

i suppose my first post included a poem in it, so this shouldn't come as a surprise, really. i just feel a bit self-conscious about this one.

especially since it's, you know. based on personal experiences.)

xi: beholding

you ever feel like you're being watched?

 

me neither.

x: help help help

they know i lied. they know it's my fault we've allied ourselves with the archangel's mutts. they know it's my fault any enemies of the timberwolves are our enemies as well.

and they hate me for it.

ix: liar

adam weiss, bastard that he is, told nico rossi that i lied to him.

nico was angry, and adam was none too happy either. adam even had us officially ally with the timberwolves to placate them. it sounds excessive, but the timberwolves are scared of what might happen if henry and eric get more aggressive. and when wolves get scared, they get violent.

at least i don't think they realize that giles isn't exactly feeling a lot of team spirit when it comes to being a timberwolf. means he's less likely to end up in a lake, or however those guys do things.

bit morbid, sorry. i think if i went to a therapist, they'd say i use detachment as a coping mechanism. i think i'd have to agree.

viii: my terrible mistake

once again, i met nico rossi. he asked me if i'd seen henry hallack.

 

i lied.

 

i know that was a mistake. i know i cannot fix it. i simply have to wait for the wolves to smell the fear on me. that, or the foxes whose den i share will bring them my carcass.

vii: underworld

i met him. by sheer serendipity, by some miracle, i met giles again for the first time in the 6 years since i took off the mask of my former self and put on that of a mountebank.

he asked me for food, and i gave it to him, saying it was on me. he looked at me strangely. i suddenly realized that he didn't recognize my voice. i nearly took my mask off to show him it was me, that i was okay, but in my mind i could hear adam weiss berate me, and so the mask stayed on.

i was starting to get worried, though. giles kept looking over his shoulder. and i wasn't sure what reason he had to enter the mountebank club. he didn't seem to bear the marks of any lonely hunters or of their servants. was he one of their victims? it's not unheard of for people running from one lonely hunter or another to come to the mountebank club in the hopes of finding a supplier that wouldn't ask too many questions, and the paranoia he was exhibiting certainly fit the bill.

but then i heard that voice. the voice of nico rossi, the timberwolf i've seen twice in recent days. he was calling giles by his surname. giles took the food from me and started walking to nico, and i knew then what was happening.

i asked giles if he needed any weapons, trying to sound casual despite my growing panic. he told me the timberwolves didn't let their members carry any that weren't officially supplied. i tried to think of something to say that would signal to him that i was his old friend without arousing suspicion, but i heard adam weiss call my name before i could come up with anything.

by the time i turned back from the voice of adam weiss, giles' back was turned to me.

 

(i also aided a few runners in getting some supplies. henry and eric, their names were. probably henry hallack and eric zane. i guess they're running together now. they certainly match the descriptions i've heard- one is tall and skinny, with long brown hair and a beard, the other is muscular, with short black hair and stubble. both runners from the archangel.

i guess that's interesting too.

just figured i'd lighten the mood a bit.)

vi: ghosts

jack smith. adam weiss. president and vice president of the mountebank club.

they don't really let us live normal lives.

that probably sounds obvious. the members of a religion of an evil god who probably inspired accounts of faustian bargains aren't especially ordinary? what a shock that is.

what i mean is a little more complicated, though. a lot... well, let's call a spade a spade, a lot worse. i mean they don't let us see our old friends, or partners, or really anyone. they exercise total control over our lives.

adam is a bit more obvious about it. jack usually stays behind the scenes, content to be a figurehead whose publicity comes from his mystique.

or he's just a lazy bastard.

i sometimes wonder about giles. about his uncle markus. about whether giles felt the same way about me as i did about him.

but it doesn't matter anymore. even if i saw him again by some bizarre coincidence, adam wouldn't let me anywhere near him. not close enough to rebuild what we used to have, and certainly not close enough to build something new.

i don't know why my heart aches like this. i don't believe we're really any different than other animals, other objects. i mean, everything is just matter and energy, no matter what mask or facade or persona is hiding it. so why can't i convince myself of that long enough not to feel like this?

or is that the reason why? is it because i know how long infinity is, how crushingly bleak our reality looks when you see through its many disguises, that i feel so empty? or is because i am alone in this world, a husk of a person in the mask of a fox whose only companions are cultists? is it because i can't form the words in my mouth or write them on the page that say i am never returning to the mountebanks for fear of what they would do to someone who knows as much as i do if i tried to leave?

i couldn't say. maybe it's a little bit of everything.

v: hounded

more timberwolves today. nico rossi, rainer kavinsky, and melanie hector.

i asked melanie if she'd ever heard of melinoe, an underworld goddess from ancient greece.

(see, it's funny because the timberwolves worship a lonely hunter called the archangel that turns into dead people.

i mean, not like she seemed to agree.)

they wanted to know if i'd seen a man named henry hallack. apparently he's a runner from the archangel, the brother of a runner they killed called mason hallack.

i told them, honestly, that i hadn't seen him. they didn't seem to believe me.

can't say i blame them for not trusting my word. we mountebanks deal in deceit and misdirection.

but of course we try to keep our customers happy enough that they don't stop coming or, worse yet, pull a stunt like the children of the cold had. customers, of course, being all jack cares about.

i almost want to say i agree with him on that one, though.

lions prowling among men, wolves in sheep's clothing. those are the phrases. that's what they tell you, what they pound into your head, what they never let you forget until the day you die.

lions and people, wolves and sheep. predators and prey, eaters and meat. but lions and wolves? we need to eat.

iv: black and white

liminal spaces. spooky, aren't they, the places between two things? the witching hour. fast food places so late at night it might be morning but it's hard to tell. airports. highway rest stops. hospital waiting rooms, especially at night. empty parking lots at 4 in the morning. melancholy. times and places and feelings that you can't quite pin down one way or another.

we find them deeply strange and, in my experience, deeply uncomfortable as well.

i think it's because they're the points in our lives where the world of polar opposites we've constructed fades, where we're left to confront the reality that nothing is really any different than anything else, that there is no clear difference between a person and a sack of rocks at the subatomic level and we've only tricked ourselves into thinking that we are somehow different from the ants in our homes that we spray with poison because we've decided their lives somehow matter less than our own.

i'm sorry. i know i'm rambling. i just can't stop thinking about this kind of thing, even though it makes my head hurt and my heart hurt worse.

and i had a nightmare. i dreamed i was a fox being hunted by wolves for stealing their food. i could tell by the smell of the place that i was in a forest, but i couldn't see a thing. it was so unimaginably dark. there was no moon and there were no stars. i came to the edge of a cliff. i could hear wind howling all along the space before me, and i knew somehow that the drop was a long one.

i woke up before i found out what happened. but the fear i felt when i realized that i was trapped stuck with me.

iii: hopes and dreams and everything

you know, i wasn't always a mountebank. i used to have a normal life. i was a class clown in high school. made a lot of friends that way. most of them stopped caring about me once my jokes started getting stale, though. then i realized they weren't really my friends at all.

i ended up dropping out of high school my senior year. i didn't care enough to keep going, and my parents didn't care enough to make me.

there was only one person i actually liked at school. giles. we'd been friends since we were pretty young. unfortunately, that also made it... uncomfortable when i realized i was developing a crush on him.

sometimes i wonder if i stopped going to school to avoid having to pretend i didn't love him.

anyways, the point is that i was 18 years old, drinking like a fish at a bar that didn't ask for an id, when i met jack smith.

"what are you doing here?" he asked.
"i want friends. i need money. i just... need to get away from it all." 
"if you feel lonely, you only have to say the word."
"are you trying to be my friend?" i asked, eyeing him.
he laughed. "no. i am not your friend. but the mountebanks are always looking for new recruits."
"mountebanks?"

he gave me a card and a wide smile. i started to say something, but he just got up, patted me on the bank, and winked as he walked out.

i visited the place listed on the card the next day, once my hangover had subsided. i got some strange looks from the people there, but i had long since stopped caring what other people thought of me. someone in a devil mask came up to me and asked me who i was and what i was doing there. i showed him the card and said it had been given to me by a man i assumed was jack smith, judging from the name written on it. the man in the devil mask, whose name i later learned was alan roach, nodded.

i forget what happened after that exactly, but the point is, i became a mountebank. i joined the club.

i think jack considered that interaction of ours a deal. i sincerely hope not.

i don't know how much you know about the lonely hunters, but things like my boss don't really have our best interests at heart. each of them has their own way of doing things, and jack makes deals.

he's not the devil, exactly. i think he might be worse.

ii: snowfall

we were recently raided by some rivals of ours. a faction of the children of the cold, worshipers of a lonely hunter with powers over ice and snow.

we retaliated, and we destroyed them utterly.

some of them tried to surrender, but we had to send a message: we will not make others our enemies, but we will destroy those who make us theirs.

i: night market

hello. my name is asher lyall, and i am a proud member of a group called the mountebank club.

now, i could explain what we're all about. i think i'll give an example instead.

mountebank club vice president adam weiss led the meeting last night. he had given us a prompt to write about. just one word: "control."

this is what i wrote:
"if we had control
over our own minds,
we would shudder
at what we'd find."

they mocked the poem drunkenly. it had nothing to do with my artistry and everything to do with tradition.

(well. i hope so, anyways.)

this was after we closed shop, mind you. we were very productive when it came to providing goods to those who could pay. for example, i sold a timberwolf named nico rossi a rifle.

i wonder what he needed it for.

ah, well. none of my business, really.

yours falsely,

asher lyall