by Mark Tufo
CHAPTER 17 - Mike Journal Entry Eleven
“Where you been?” Azile asked.
“Huh?” was my informed response.
“Haven’t heard so much as a peep out of you, and I know I’m not powerful enough to keep you quiet for that extent of time,” she said, a look between a smile and concern on her face. I’ve got to admit, it was somewhat alluring.
“Different time,” I told her, trying to shake the cobwebs of old thoughts from my mind. The crowd around the fire had thinned considerably. The major players were still in play.
“My name is Amy,” the woman I only knew as Inuktuk explained when she discovered we were the only ones remaining. “Amy McNea, as a matter of fact. I took the name Inuktuk after I became their leader. Read it in an old book, most of it was falling apart in my hands, not sure if the person was male, female, good or bad. Could have been a dog for all I know,” she said with a smile. “But it sounded powerful, like a name that should be leading the last of the free peoples”
I agreed silently with her, there were names that inspired people to follow: Stonewall Jackson, Hannibal, Caesar, MacArthur, Jesus. How far would Fred have gotten? Fred the Mighty! I thought. It brought a smile to my face. What can I say? I’m easily distracted.
“We have kept an eye on the Lycan as they have moved further east. Their numbers remain relatively low,” she said. “Certainly not enough to threaten man.”
“Normally I would agree with you, Inu—”
“Amy, please. Inuktuk is such a mouthful, and it’s nice to hear my given name from time to time.”
“Amy,” Azile corrected. “Something has shifted in the mindset of the Lycan. No longer are they content to stay in their corner of the world. Their new leader has decided that he does not want to lurk in the shadows. He wants for power, for absolute power…and is turning man against his own kind.”
“Looks like you’ll get your ‘cleansing’ after all,” I said bitterly.
I think Amy wanted to pull her black knife out and ram it down my throat. Funny how pissed off people get when you talk about the destruction of the folks they love.
“Really, Michael that is the best diplomacy you can muster?” Azile asked.
“I’m the muscle,” I told her, getting up and walking away from the proceedings. I swear I could feel her gaze boring into the back of my head.
Want some company? Tommy asked telepathically.
I was thankful for the request but told him ‘no’. Keep an eye on Oggie, I told him I was going for a walk.
I walked out of the large tent structure. The village had settled down for the night. It, however, was far from unaware. Sentries hidden in shadows and camouflaged to match their surroundings were everywhere. I wondered who could possibly be resting with so many of them watching for danger. I just wanted out, out of the village and out of the predicament I had found myself in. I was pissed at everyone.
If Azile had just left me alone, I was fairly confident I could have ridden the whole damn war out untroubled. What the hell does a Lycan want with an Old One? Now I had given them reason to hunt me down. I wanted to rip this settlement from its moorings. I could destroy dozens of them before they would even know what hit them, before even Azile could manage a defense.
At that point, she’d be forced to either put me down like a rabid dog or let me go on my own. I could sense the beat of a heart from a man more than twenty feet away. His eyes shone dully in the night as he watched me come towards him, his pulse quickening as he gripped his weapon tighter. I heard as his wet palm squeaked on the wood of the spear. I was a predator and I had found my prey.
“Time to die,” I said as I walked directly towards him.
I had made up my mind. I would drain him dry, leave his empty shell where it was, grab Oggie, and be gone. They’d find the body come daylight. I’d be long gone and free from this burden I did not wish to bear. The spear was coming up, my intentions damn near telegraphing my movements. A gazelle knows the difference between a resting and stalking lion and so did this unfortunate blood sack. A glint of light caught the sharp obsidian point of the spear, but unless I impaled myself on it, the spear was going to be fairly useless. My prey seemed frozen; fear dominated every feature on him, and yet he did not move. I grabbed the haft of the spear and snapped it in two, the thick wood making a resoundingly loud noise in the still night. I reached out and grabbed his neck, tilting his head to the side, I moved in, jets of saliva running from my mouth as I sought to puncture his neck.
Unwise, Old One, came through my head as my fangs scraped off the top few layers of my victim’s skin.
I tossed the man to the side.
“You know, I’m really sick of that name!” I shouted. “And does somewhere on my head say ‘Always open?’”
Come to the river, the strange voice said once again in my head.
“Yeah, this seems like a great fucking idea,” I said as I traipsed out of the village and into the woods. Pitch black had nothing on what was going on out here. Clouds parted just enough to allow the slimmest of light to shimmer down on a figure huddled at the side of the streambed.
“Lycan,” I said, looking at the form. Not so much by appearance, but by smell. Whoever it was had donned human skin.
“Would you rather I took this form?” the beast said, changing seemingly from one step to the other.
“That’s close enough.” I put my hand up, looking around me for any of his brethren.
“I am alone. I am always alone, Old One,” the Lycan said, taking another approaching step.
“Listen, you guys aren’t the easiest thing to kill in the world, but I’m ready for round three.” I told him.
“I’m sure you are. My name is Lunos.” He stopped his forward progress.
“Great, you want a dog bone or something?”
He snarled but made no further move.
“I am Xavier’s brother,” he said almost triumphantly.
“Fine. I’ll give you two bones, why don’t you run home. Or are you here to deliver some portent message? About how he’s going to skin me alive, or maybe eviscerate me, or maybe just a plain old eating? What is it? You interrupted my feeding and I’m growing impatient. I wonder what your tough hide would taste like.”
He roared, nearby birds flew from their resting post. I heard all manner of small animals scurrying away. I braced for his charge. It never came.
“That ought to bring the natives coming,” I told him.
“You are a fool for an Old One.”
“I never made it to the academy, there was a problem with my student loans…couldn’t secure any government money, too much red tape.”
“I watched as you killed Timbre,” Lunos said.
“I’m sorry, did you lose money on a bet or something? Is that what this is about? I’m sure your brother will cover your losses.”
“My brother would kill me on sight,” Lunos said.
“Intriguing…go on, I’ll listen for now.”
“Lycan are born in litters much like our distant relatives the wolf, but only one can survive. It is our birth instinct to kill our siblings. It is an evolutionary safeguard to keep our numbers low so that the pack would not starve.
“Or bring attention to their existence,” I said. “Yet, if what you say is true, then how are you here?”
“As a newborn pup I realized I could not defeat Xavier even with the help of my siblings who would form an alliance until the greater threat was destroyed.”
“What a wonderful welcome to life,” I said. “A battle royale among family members, that shit is usually saved until many years later when a parent dies and all the little bastards fight over some useless possessions.”
“I snuck out of the den while they were killing each other.”
“Where was your bitch?” I asked, half meaning it as an insult veiled in an honest question.
“Her job was done with our birth.”
“I really thought mankind was the most screwed up species on
the planet, except for maybe the praying mantis that rips the head off her lover when she’s done. That’s some pretty sick shit.”
“Do you wish to discuss the mating habits of an insect, Old One?”
“Listen, asshole, if you’re that psychotic’s brother, then that means you’re not a whole lot younger than I am.”
“It is not a term of derogation.” Lunos said. “More like a term of respect. An honoring of the way the world used to be.”
“That was no great shakes…the world I mean.”
“I have never known a time that was worthy of being alive.”
“Why are you here, Lunos? Apparently not to fight. The Lycan I have met are more of the ‘kill first’ variety.”
“I have kept an eye on my kind as only an outsider can. I have watched as my brother took control of the clans and is now uniting them for a war. He has even gone so far as to forbid the gleaning.”
“Gleaning?”
“The destruction of litter-mates.”
“Oh. Makes sense, increases his numbers, gotta figure that has rubbed a few of his kind the wrong way, though.”
“There are many things he does now that goes against our very being.”
“Is the domination and elimination of man among them?”
“It is, but that is not at the top of his list of transgressions. Making the tainted ones and using them for his devices is. We are a proud species and he degrades us by having subservient beings do his bidding.”
“Werewolves,” I said more to myself for clarification.
“There is a reason your history has so few of them. They are creatures that should never exist. Man is not worthy to have Lycan blood flow through their veins.”
“Looks like we agree in principle to what you’re saying, maybe not the exact words I would use.”
“He has entire old world prisons stuffed full of them and each moon he creates more. He is getting to a tipping point where your kind will not survive.”
“Lunos, you’re talking a lot without really giving me any new information. Have you come to throw your lot in with our side?”
“Never!” he said, full of pride.
“Well, that was pretty definitive. I’m not sure why we are having this clandestine meeting then.”
“Xavier threatens more than just man. His ambition will also bring an end to the Lycan.”
“Talk about killing two birds with one stone. And why should I care? Seems to me that, that would solve all of my particular problems.”
“You talk as if your heart is stone, but your actions prove otherwise. I saw you kiss the Red Witch.”
“You saw that?”
“I’ve watched your interactions with Bailey and even the dog Oggie. You were a man once…have you already forgotten?”
“Last thing I need is a lesson in semantics from a flea-infested Lycan.”
He growled again, this one lower and somehow more menacing. I think I had finally provoked him enough for an attack. He looked over my shoulder the way I had come.
“My time here grows short. I will not defy my kind, but whatever internal battle you are fighting, you need to lay to rest. You must stop my brother at all costs. He will kill all those you say you care nothing for and not once will he have any doubts or regrets about his actions. Those are human detriments…not Lycan.”
“Seems you’re walking a mighty fine line, Lunos. You give me just enough to be concerned, but nothing I can really use. Where will he be attacking next?”
Lunos looked long and hard at me. “It will not be the place you call Talboton, other than that I don’t know.”
“Cagey,” I told him. He looked over my shoulder once again; this time bounding off after looking at me for another second.
Azile and about a dozen warriors were at my back in a moment.
Azile looked around. “You alright? We heard a Lycan war cry.”
“Oh, that’s what that was,” I told her, looking to the spot Lunos had just vacated. “We need to talk.” I grabbed her arm and headed back up into the encampment.
I huddled in our small tent with our group and I related everything Lunos had said to me. Bailey’s head was shaking from side to side the entire time.
“It’s a trap,” she said before my last word stopped pushing airwaves.
“Trap?” I asked. “How? We haven’t done anything.”
“But you will…or Azile. She’ll want us to send guns and people to shoot them, to other villages. And when we are at our weakest, he will strike exactly where he said he wasn’t,” she clarified.
“He seemed pretty sincere in his words, but I’d be lying if I said I understood all Lycan gestures. The most I’ve ever seen were grimaces as they tried to kill me. What of it, Azile, are Lycan deceptive?”
“By their very nature,” she said, her gaze off in the distance, which was impressive considering we were in a tent no bigger than six feet across. “He said he was a litter-mate of Xavier?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Was there any family resemblance?”
“You’re kidding, right? They all look the same. That’d be like me being able to tell if two squirrels were related.”
“There’s ways to tell if you know what to look for,” she said, almost castigating me.
“I’ll make sure to take a Lycan profiling class when we get to our next town,” I told her. Tommy thought long and hard about letting out a laugh. Azile’s glare shut that down.
“I’ve never heard of Lycan surviving the Gleaning, some have crawled out of their dens only to be tossed back in until completion,” Azile said.
“Welcome to life, now go kill something,” I quipped. Bailey nodded.
“I do not know what circumstances would have arisen that the mouth of the cavern wasn’t guarded. Lycan litters are important if only for their rarity. It is hard to believe that this Lunos could have survived on his own,” Azile said.
“You said Lunos told you that their mothers are done with them when they are born. Does that mean they are not even weaned on milk?” Tommy asked.
“You don’t know?” I asked him.
“We don’t mingle much,” he told me seriously.
I shrugged my shoulders, seemed a valid enough point.
“From what I understand, the survivor is given a liver from a fresh kill as its first meal,” Azile said.
“Oh shit, so it just gets worse after the Gleaning?” I asked.
“It is hard to believe this story,” Azile said. “But the lie would be too magnificent. If Xavier sent him to put doubt in us…then he succeeded.”
“Now what?” I asked.
“We must make haste to Talboton to elicit help for the nearby cities.”
“You are asking a great deal,” Bailey said.
“How long do you believe it will be before he sets his sights on your community?” Azile asked.
“It could be as soon as the next moon, Azile,” Bailey answered coolly. “And then there would be nothing that stood in his way.”
“I wish you had kept him longer so that I could have spoken to him,” Azile said.
“My bad, I forgot to bring my six-inch-thick barred cage with me.”
“What were you doing?” she asked.
As if in response we heard a large group heading our way.
“Shit, I had completely forgotten.” I lowered my head.
“Forgotten what?” Azile asked with concern.
“Old One!” came the authoritative voice of Chieftress Inuktuk – definitely not Amy McNea this time.
“Fudge.”
“What did you do?” Azile asked.
“I had gone out for a snack,” I told her.
“Fool!” she spat. “We need these people!”
“I didn’t get the chance, Lunos interrupted me.”
“I will not say it again, Old One!” Inuktuk shouted.
“I’m coming.”
Azile put her hand on my chest. “You will let me do
the talking. They will cut your head off after your first comment,” she seethed. I opened my mouth, Azile put her finger to it. “Just shut up, Mike, please.”
“Maybe just this one time,” I told her.
Azile went out the flap first, with me at her heels. The group surrounding us stiffened. Fuck, I had that effect on people.
“He must answer for his crimes.” Inuktuk pointed at me.
“Crimes?” Azile asked.
“He destroyed a weapon and attacked one of my guards. Both offenses punishable by death,” she said.
I thought it funny that they valued their weapons as highly as they did their lives. Made sense in this hostile world; without a weapon, your life was forfeit anyway.
“These are grievous crimes,” Azile stated. “And I do understand the need for justice to be served.”
“Not seeing where your defense is going here,” I said softly.
“But…” she started.
“Oh here it is,” I said.
“…there are many things Michael must accomplish before he can be tried for these crimes. I call for the Law of Forfeiture,” Azile said.
Inuktuk’s features narrowed. “He is not one of us. How do I know that he will come to serve out his sentence?” she asked.
“I will stand in his place if he does not,” Azile said. The people around us ranged in emotion from gasps to hostility to amazement.
I had no idea what she was saying, but it sure didn’t give me any warm fuzzies. The crowd dispersed almost as quickly as they had assembled.
“Any chance you could fill me in on what just happened?” I asked her.
“I plead guilty for your crimes and you will have to atone for them when you have fulfilled your obligations,” she said evenly.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I asked her. “I broke a stick and barely touched the man. Sure I had meant to drain him dry, but I didn’t. I’m not swinging for that.”
“Then I will,” she said, turning back towards the tent.
I followed her as I wasn’t quite done. “You know, I’m getting really sick of these weird customs and laws these people have. I was quite capable of getting out of this jam myself without having to forfeit my life to do so.”
“What would you have done, Michael?” she asked heatedly. “Fight and kill your way out? Because that’s what it would have taken. Are you worth so much that you’d feel justified in killing five, ten…maybe a dozen of them to garner your escape? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” I said, backing up a measure from her vehemence. “I’m still not sure the punishment fits the crime, Azile. Maybe the intent of my crime, but not what actually happened.”
“These are different times, Michael. Men were hung for stealing a horse once. During our time, you could steal a fleet of cars and get off on five years of probation. If any good has come from this, I have now bound you to our cause.”
“That’s one way to look at it I suppose. I could still walk away from this,” I told her.
“You could, but then I would stay here.”
“Damn you, Azile,” I told her as I left the tent. I thought for sure there’d be a small posse of armed men waiting for me and following my every move. Apparently, Azile’s oath was good enough for them. “Well, fuck, if I’m to die, I should have killed him, would have made it somewhat worth it.”
I stayed right outside the tent almost the entire night. I didn’t trust myself enough to go wandering off, and I knew Lunos was still out there. In the mood I was in, I figured I’d push him just enough until we got into one hell of a scrape. That seemed a much more fitting exit from the world than the one Azile had brokered for me. It was the low chanting that got me moving. A tent off to the corner seemed to be the source of the noise.
This one, instead of being the typical canvas-like material, appeared to be made from animal hide – though it was difficult to tell in the night. Paintings covered the entire structure; there were many differing colored hands of varying sizes, a few crosses. I may have seen a Jewish Star and I believe the symbol that was used in Muslim religions.
“Holy man,” I said outside the flap. My words drifted off in a breeze.
“I was wondering when you would come,” a voice said from within.
It seemed too soft to be meant for me, but I didn’t see anyone else standing out here, so I pulled the flap back. I could barely make out the figure seated in the middle. A thick bank of smoke separated us. I think if I tried hard enough, I could have drifted in on it.
“Diviner’s sage?” I asked, taking a sniff.
Paul and I had raced down to the local head shop the day we discovered there was such a thing as Salvia Divinorum or Diviner’s Sage used by Native Americans for centuries to produce visions. More like drug-induced hallucinations; but who was I to deny someone a good trip? We had experimented a few times with it before the Lord Overseers or the US Government deemed it a Class something narcotic and banned it. Just what I need…another mom. We’d had fun smoking it, more laughs than visions. I miss you, Paul, I thought.
“What is lost can be found,” the figure said. I was wondering if I had another mind intruder.
“Where were you when I lost my passport?” I asked. “Spent close to forty hours of my time looking for that thing. Blamed the moving crew that brought our new kitchen table. Know what, though? I found the stupid thing in my suit jacket pocket a couple of years later, probably should have sent Perry’s Furniture an apology. Too late now, I suppose.”
The man said nothing to my words – in fact, completely ignored them. So much so, I wondered if we had been married in a former existence.
“A man bereft of his soul is no longer a man,” he said.
“You take all night to come up with that line, holy man?”
“My name is Feather Hand.”
I took another step in, and the flap closed behind me. The smoke was beginning to affect me, I felt a slight pressure around my eyes while it swirled around my head. The figure huddled down by the heavily smoking flame was ancient. He looked like he could have been as old as me, but time had not been as kind.
“Sit,” he said, not motioning and I didn’t see anything even remotely resembling a recliner.
I thought about just parking my ass where I was, but instead moved to the far side of the small stone fire pit. I found a particularly comfortable flat stone to sit on. Being sarcastic here, this felt a lot like the one I had become intimate with during a close encounter in a cave with John the Tripper. There’s a man that would have definitely appreciated this.
My thoughts drifted all over the place; places I’d seen, worlds I’d known, and then others I had not. Images of Red Rocks, respite with large crocodile-like aliens, a young death suffered at the hands of an inexperienced driver, Tracy, Jandyln, BT, Dee; names I knew, and some I didn’t flitted across my synapses.
“You have many paths,” the man said. “Some traveled, some not,” he added, never looking over at me.
“What are you doing to me?” I asked in a panic. I watched as I battled men, as I battled aliens, as I battled demons. And finally, I danced with death. In every case, there was no escape.
“These are lives you have lived…or will live.”
“Please,” I pleaded as I watched countless ones that I loved – some I had no remembrance of – die. Some gruesome deaths, others after living long, fruitful existences; but always the end was the same.
The man finally moved. He swept his hand over the fire and the images were erased as neatly as if he had wiped a chalkboard with a sponge. I was breathing heavy from the exertion of the thoughts.
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked.
“I have done nothing, what you see is already within you.”
“You said what is lost can be found again. What are you referring to?” I asked with hope. I knew what I wanted the answer to be; it was the key to everything. I would gladly leave this plane of
existence if I had it back.
“It will reveal itself when the time is right. You have foregone the most special of gifts…that which differentiates us from all the beasts of the world. It cannot be so easily won back.”
“A test? More fucking tests? Have I not done enough? Have I not suffered enough?” A little more whining and I’d be bleating like a goat. “Is it not enough? It never is, is it? There’s always one more wall to scale, enemy to kill, child to save. That’s the hell of it. Within a fingers’ width, but always out of reach.”
“You must be strong, Michael Talbot.” He finally looked up from whatever realm he had been journeying in.
“I’ve lost my way,” I told him.
“We all do. You still must go on until the end. The final fight you will win. The paths intermingle, Michael. You must find a crossing point.”
I understood why, in each of those other realms, I was whole; I was a man undivided. Now the hard part was, how does someone find something when they have no idea what it looks like or did not even have a clue where to look.
The sun was coming up. I was leaning against my own tent, completely unsure as to how I got there or if I had even left. I stood up and looked over to where I swore I had talked to the Shaman; there was nothing there except a small circle of stones that had not seen flame in years. No tent, and certainly no old man, just a clearing and an old pit.
“Life’s not fucked up enough?” I asked the heavens, “You have to throw this curveball?”
There was no fanfare as we left in the morning. The man I had almost chowed on was the only one that saw us off. He was holding the broken parts of his spear in his hands. I don’t think that he was happy I had prolonged my fate. I gave him the finger. Maybe he knew what it meant as he tossed the pieces to the ground, turned and walked away.
“Lunos follows,” Azile said, although she didn’t look in any particular direction as an affirmation of her words.
“Probably to report back to his king to let him know we’ve been tricked by his words,” Bailey said sourly.
“That is a possibility.” Azile said, “But, the lie doesn’t ring true.”
I wrestled with the words trying to make sense of them. I made sure Oggie stayed close, he wasn’t thrilled that I wouldn’t let him go roaming around, but if Lycans killed humans without impunity, I had to figure dogs weren’t off limits.
“What do we do if they don’t believe us?” Tommy asked Azile. “We aren’t even sure.”
“We have less than three weeks to convince them,” she said sternly.
Again, and not for the first or last time, letting the Lycans wipe man from the planet solved all my problems. I owed them nothing. I had played my part the last time we were threatened. I had paid the price over and over, and what had it got me but another date with an executioner? Plus, I had created a mortal enemy with what I had previously thought was a mythical creature. I was dour and sour all wrapped in one neat little package. My head was splitting, and it was either a Diviner’s Sage hangover or a major embolism that I was suffering. My encounter last night seemed entirely too vivid to be made up.
“Are my eyes red?” I asked Tommy.
“Glowing like coals,” he said.
“One or both?”
“Both why?”
“Just trying to figure out what is going on.”
“You crying, Talbot?” Bailey asked.
“Just happy to see you,” I told her.
Azile came up beside me. “You reek of Salvia. That plant is not indigenous to these parts. Where did you get a hold of some?”
“I don’t even think I could tell you,” I told her honestly.
“Try.”
“I went into the Holy Man’s tent.”
“The Landians don’t have a Holy Man anymore, he left on a pilgrimage over twenty years ago and has not come back.”
“You asked me to tell you what happened and I am, have you ever known me to lie?”
She thought for a moment. “Well, yes, actually I have, but I don’t think that this time you are.”
“He showed me things,” I stated. “Nothing that will help our present situation, though,” I added when I realized she was looking at me.
I could still feel Azile scrutinizing me, but she said no more on the matter.
It took a couple of days to get back to my namesake town, but the time drifted in a haze for me. I was haunted by memories I had no remembrance of ever making. Drababan the giant Genogerian being among them. We were friends once, I could only ponder on how something like that could even happen. All I knew was that I’d be thrilled if we could hook up again, he looked like he could eat werewolves for lunch.
