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.