Sunday December 21st 2014

The lambent eyes glared out of the blackened forest, pin points of light in a stygian ocean. Cesare rose onto the balls of his feet, one hand tightening around his gun while the other plucked at the strap of his duffel bag. When Blaez charged, he’d toss the bag at him and run.

With a snort of amusement, the wolf pushed through the forest. Coming into silvered light, Cesare faced the glowing eyes of Tamlin’s wolf. Sitting on its haunches, the wolf was only a few inches taller than Cesare. Instinct screamed, ripping a single step back from him. It was a lot more intimidating in the wild.

The raw force of its presence rushed through Cesare, washing everything else away. It was a live thing stalking through the faded watercolors of the world. Shades of the real, maimed fragments, the world was a stained thing of the fake next to its lush reality. Humans and Umbrae Lunae fell into threadbare concepts.

“What do you mean, you want to come with me?” he asked as he eyed the wolf doubtfully.

“No, I’m not saying you wouldn’t be good company, but … hey, the streets are no place for a wolf the size of a grizzly,” Cesare said. He couldn’t take the wolf with him. No one was going to let him walk the streets with a fucking wolf, they’d call the cops before he'd taken five steps.

“Yea, you’re prettier than a grizzly, but that’s not the issue. I don’t even know if I'll be able to feed myself, let alone something like you.” It stalked into the moonlight, black fur glistening like old sin on a blood-drenched night. It pulled at him, compelling him to thread his fingers through its shadowed fur. Even while its savage presence sent his humanity recoiling in horror. Caught between the two, his soul quivered in indecision.

“No, I don’t think your fat ….” Sleek and muscled, it was power born to grace. A hunter and a killer, born to destroy and devour, it captured him in its beauty.

“If you say so, but don’t you think you should ask Tamlin if it’s okay?” It was his last try. He didn’t know what was between the two, only that he’d never seen the wolf outside Tamlin’s presence.

“Fine, come along, but just so you know, I don’t think we’re going to get many rides with you walking beside me.” That was an understatement. No one was going to stop and pick up a guy with a black wolf stepping free at his side.

He didn’t think on it until they were walking the darkened trail together. It had been done with such a deft touch he’d never even questioned it. The wolf sat at the edge of his mind, watching his consciousness with predatory patience. It was a hunter’s skill, to watch for hours the movements of its prey, until the moment ripened. A steady thrum of incomprehensible feelings flowed from the wolf’s presence. Emotions too wild and true for Cesare to identify. It was comforting, oddly like the low purr of a contented cat nestled next to the ear.

Walking beside something the size of the wolf should have been terroizingly terrible. But it fell into step with casual grace, keeping a constant bare foot between them. Its back came up to his shoulder, a grace beyond the rotting world of flesh possessing every liquid step.

Cesare couldn’t keep his eyes off the enigma. He’d only had a few encounters with the wolf, and he wasn’t even sure if it was male or female. He’d lost track of the hours he’d spent trying to figure out the feelings the wolf pulled out of him. Now the thing of his dreams stalked with lethal power barely a foot away.

It didn’t move like a wolf, owning a boneless quality reminiscent of cats. But it didn’t slink like a cat either. It lacked any of the ambling he’d seen in grizzly bears, the only things he'd known close to its size.

It was a kind of butter smooth stalk, equal parts power, domination, and willingness to kill. The strut of a predator without equal. So confident in its mastery that any challenge brought only amusement. The wolf shared its feelings with a delicate touch, an ocean of blood lust with an iridescent skim of contentment. No thought to the future or the past, for the wolf, only the now mattered.

They made the road a little after midnight with Cesare making for the general direction of Portland. The city was the closet place he knew well enough to set himself up in for a few weeks. They might make it in hours or days, it all depended on how many rides they got.

After an hour of walking, it was a surprise to see headlights coming from behind them. Cesare held his finger out in the universal sign of a person begging for stupid. He didn’t hold out hope, not with a wolf fit to make the Grim Reaper change his mind walking next to him. But it was so much a part of tramping that he couldn’t let the opportunity pass without trying.

The car slowed at it glided past, stopping a few dozen feet ahead of the strange duo. Sharing an excited look with the wolf, Cesare ran for the truck. More than a few liked to peel off before a tramper reached the car, kicking dirt and gravel over the beggar hunting for a ride.

It was an old pickup truck, dented and rusting from hard use, at least a decade out of date with the world and proud of it. The years had worn away its red leaving only a world-weary rust color. An old canopy worn to an off white, pock marked with moss, covered the bed of the old man of steel.

Putting the truck into park, the man got out. The stranger had decided in the middle of the night to pick up a strange guy and a huge wolf. Which made him either as strange as them or a serial killer. A frog’s hair above five feet the man’s head was shaved down to rough stubble. With a wide spare tire of a belly, the man looked like a gnome in search of a garden.

“Need a ride?” the man asked, pulling the back of his camper open. His smile shone from a bush beard of angled brown.

“Yea, do you mind?” Cesare asked as the man lowered the tail gate. Inside was a well-used mattress with a hiker’s backpack stored nex to a fishing pole. In eerie silence, the wolf leapt up onto the metal tail gate. Slipping under the covered canopy, it turned around twice before laying down on the bed. It was impossible for it to fit, too massive for the canopy, yet there it was. The wolf hadn’t gotten smaller, it was as if reality flowed around it without ever touching its grace.

Starring with wide eyes, the man muttered in disbelief. “Wasn’t sure it would fit ….” Shaking his head, the man’s grin came back as he locked the tail gate. “Quiet, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, almost like a ghost.” Even with everything he knew, Cesare had expected to hear the scratching of its nails on the tail gate.

“He should be good back there. Where you going?” the man asked as they got into the cab. Heat blasted over Cesare, burning the bitter cold of the Oregon winter off his flesh.

“Portland, or as close as I can get,” Cesare said as he buckled up.

Getting the old truck into gear, the man pulled onto the deserted highway. “Lucky you, I’m going through Portland on my way to Tacoma. I should be able to take you the whole way.”

“That would be great.” Pausing, Cesare thought on it for a moment. He didn’t want to queer a good turn of luck but trusting others hadn’t ever worked for him. “I didn’t think anyone would stop.”

With a smile, the man handed over a bag of beef jerky. “Cautious, huh? Help yourself.” Taking the bag, Cesare watched the guy as the gnome settled into his seat. “I guess most wouldn’t, but I came off the trial this morning and I'm feeling lonely. After a while of being out in the woods, you start hungering for words that don’t come out of your own hole. That big animal of yours gave me pause. But I thought to myself, if you felt comfortable walking alongside it, then that was good enough for me.” Laughing, the man added, “Not saying I’d want it up here, but back there’s a different story.”

The cab wasn’t clean, but it wasn’t dirty either, holding to the land between comfortable and well used. A long CD case sat in pride of place beside the man, while Jimmy Hendrix's filtered through the cab from custom speakers.

“You said you were on the trail? Hiking?” Cesare had spent his life trying to get out of the rain, it seemed crazy to go looking for it. He liked the woods, but bugs made for itchy bedfellows and it got damn cold without walls around you.

Swallowing jerky, the gnomish man grinned. “I have a map of Oregon and Washington. Every weekend, I throw a dart and where it lands, that’s where I hike. This time it hit the Oregon Coast.” His smile turned wry. “Can’t say it was my best choice. Hiking on the Oregon Coast in winter ain’t fun.”

“I can imagine,” Cesare said.

The man gave Cesare a long look before nodding. “It was cold as the devil’s balls, but it was also beautiful in a way summer never is. The cold put everything down for the season, dead or sleeping, its all the same. Walking along the coast with the waves pounding at the rocks, spray so cold it coats the stones in ice, that’s where you find the crazed bitch. She’s not nice like she is in spring. She’s hard and cold but oh so beautiful, stripped of the kindness of summer and the beauty of fall. You get to see her as she truly is. Wisdom and despair, it's then that she holds a beauty that shames her children.”

The strong smell of coffee filled the cab as he sipped from his mug. “Been hiking all my life. Michigan, Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. I’ve seen the old girl in ways few people have, and each time she surprises me with how gorgeous she is.” His words went quiet and still. “I’ve loved a lot of woman, okay not a lot, but none of them have ever hooked me deep in the guts like her. I’ve never been lucky with love, but maybe that’s because I was already in love.”

Leaning back, Cesare kept an eye on the guy. He seemed straight, but everyone who’d ever hurt him had seemed safe. The man let the conversation drop, happy enough to just have someone close to share the well-worn music with.

Watching the night go by, his thoughts turned to Aleph. It was the first, being the first meant it was also the last. No matter how many the void birthed wet and screaming from its darkness, Aleph was alone in its singular existence. What did that feel like? Surrounded by family, tortured because they’d never, could never, understand you. To be unique in a darkness that stretched past eternity.

Cesare understood the alienation and crippling need for kinship. The knowing that you'd give anything to change your truth. To be one among many, to cast aside the difference and be another face in the crowd, willing to buy acceptance at any cost.

“Do you ever wish you could be like everyone else?” The whispered words slipped out before he could pull them back.

“Not sure anyone really fits, some are just better at faking it.” His smile was old and weathered by time, the lines in his face deep from ancient rejection.

Birthed without expectation, Aleph had no one and nothing. Cesare knew how to live on the streets because others had been there. But Aleph had been alone in that darkness, forced to live without help or guiding hands.

Tamlin promised that Aleph could do the same for Cesare. It could birth him anew, as something better than cast-off garbage. A new start where the curses burned into his bones and the weakness written in scars across his flesh, wouldn’t rule his life. Even as the idea took root, it was tainted by truths diseased hand. Because it wouldn’t change what marked him as an outsider, unworthy of fading into a crowd. No, if, when, he contacted the letter and succeeded, it would only make him stranger. In body and soul, he'd be transformed into what Aleph demanded.

Lost in thought, Cesare was surprised when Portland came into sight. The man pulled off the freeway, taking a quick exit until he was alongside Waterfront Park. Getting out, the man popped the canopy and dropped the tail gate. Stepping back, his eyes went wide as the wolf leapt out. Shadow given form, murder under a moonless sky, it was as silent as deaths hand.

         “I don’t have much, but well, here.” The man held out a crumpled twenty, still sweaty from his pocket.

“You don’t have to .…” Cesare said even as he took the money.

The man gave a bark of laughter. “I know, but you look like you could use it. Besides, it’ll help me sleep better at night knowing I helped.” With only a nod of goodbye, the man got into his truck and pulled away.

Watching the red lights fade into the night, Cesare hoped the rest of Winter Break went as well. The man had been something special, a person who didn’t see Cesare as a homeless kid. He'd seen him as just a kid needing a hand.

It was a rare thing, worth a few minutes to savor. Most looked at Cesare and saw garbage, a stupid bit of meat too ignorant to make it in the world. Offering suggestions and advice on how to get out of the gutter, they thrilled at their strength and your weakness. But just because you're born on top of the mountain, doesn't mean you know how to climb.

Slinging his duffel along his back, he started walking, the wolf keeping step beside him. There were a few places he knew in the city, warm little nooks and out of the way places that would cut the wind. If worse came to worse, he’d walk the night to keep warm. He’d seen people who’d gone to sleep on cold concrete, too tired to walk, turn up as blue meat stripped of life by concretes sharp teeth.

A part of him had never left the streets. Even while he’d been at Primrose with his friends, the streets had been there in his bones. He’d always known he'd be back. School was only a vacation, and like all vacations, he’d go home when the money ran out. It was a quiet horror threaded with fey comfort.

The familiar tension wound up his spine as he walked the cracked sidewalk. Part of him was glad to be back on the streets, where everything made sense. Only broken concrete and the cold-eyed survivors that walked it. Out here he was alone, if someone wanted something, whether his shoes or ass, all they had to do was take it. He understood this world. Here, Cesare fit in a way he’d never at Primrose or with the girls.

His eyes rested on the wolf that looked around with bored indifference. He wasn’t sure how the wolf fit into his plans. He wouldn’t be able to get into a shelter with the wolf on his heels. The soup kitchens wouldn't welcome him with open arms, not with a horse sized wolf in his shadow.

Sighing, he made his way across Willamette River and headed toward North Portland. It was the kind of place a kid like him could disappear into for a week or two. The few cars that passed him were on their way home. This late at night, wherever they’d been sure hadn’t been legal.

Every city had a place for people like him, homeless kids, whores, and the just plain crazy. Those dregs of society that no one wanted to see. The ones easier to forget then to help. The walls around the cages wouldn’t show up on any map but they were there all the same. Made of blood and blue, the blood of the street walkers and the blue of the cops. The lines kept the diseased contained, made sure the only people they preyed on were each other.

When he was younger, he hated the cops for that. Hated them for not coming into the slum and helping. Hated them with a burning rage that flared until it was a black monster snarling and biting at his soul. But the cops were nothing but people. They weren’t superhero’s trying to save the world. They were like everyone else, pulling a paycheck and wanting to go home to families. Some wanted to help, but life teaches you quick you can’t help everyone. Instead of jumping into the lava to save the lost, they’d make sure no one else fell in.

His thoughts were more on where he was going then where he was, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention. Rabbits always watched the sky, even as they bolted from hole to hole. When the pickup truck slowed as it passed him, he eyed it. Cesare narrowed his eyes when it stopped and reversed back toward him. Stepping to the side, his hand fell onto the butt of his gun.

A nasty part of him that still simmered with rage and anger, wanted this to be something. For someone to start some shit, any excuse to carve his anger into their face. Elizabeth’s cruel laughter echoed in his head; razor words as sharp as ever. Self-loathing fed the fury at breaking his promise to Anastasia. And at the center of that rage was the frozen image of Jerold. If not for that cold bastard’s petty manipulations, Cesare could have kept his promise.

Beaten to hell and dragged back by a color-blind necromancer with bad taste, the pickup wasn't much. Cancerous rust crawled over the vomit green paint, black smoke shooting out in billowing clouds from its tail pipe. The interesting thing wasn’t the rusting steel, but the cargo. Crammed together like sardine’s, men filled the cab.

They could have come from any city. Mops of tangled hair stained brown with dirt and sweat framed hard eyes. Their clothes were a mismatch of Goodwill hand-me-downs. Nothing was new and nothing matched, the true hallmark of a hobo.

Taking another step back from the weird truck, he rocked onto the balls of his feet, ready and willing to make a dash. Weird shit went down in the small hours of the night, and he was a magnet for the strange and hostile.

“Hey, you looking to make some money?” The voice was a cloud of pink cotton candy, razor blades hidden under spun sugar. Opening the driver’s door, a woman stepped into the cold night.

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Love you guy! This was a surprise, so no big out takes on this. David requested some pages to Patreon to get him through a tough week after agreeing to help me break out on Amazon. Since it was going up there. I decided to put it up here.

This is the day. I'm trying to break out of the sewers so people can see my book. If you can help, fuck, I'd appreciate it. It's 3 dollars for a story you've already read. I know it's a big ask, but it's the difference between being on page 100 in a search or page 1. Of being seen or being invisible. Of success or failure. I'll be posting next week on Tuesday no matter what you decide.

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