Old Shit: Wolf, Legacy of a Werewolf

Author's Note: This is reposted verbatim, with no editing. This includes the rather obvious misappropriation of the senses at the end of the first part. Enjoy.


Wolf
Legacy of a Werewolf
--Zack Gilpin
Originally posted: August 11th, 2004

Part 1- Wolve’s Bane
[-HUNT-]

The night was full, the rain heavy. Thunder shook the earth with a deafening boom. Light emanated from the various homes along the streets, lamps mostly burnt out. The towering structures called skyscrapers loomed in the distance, contrasting the clouds with their ever luminescent high lights. Power was out in half the city, my half. This world is a strange one for me, but I live here anyway, defending those who are weak. I have my reasons. I came to this place to find a cure for my disease, and I received something else, something far better and far worse in equally as many ways. A reason. My disease is one that will only kill if you let it control you, if you let it go too far. I came here to end my lineage and erase its horrible deeds from the history of the world so I could go back to my home in the middle of the forest and live my life they way I had for nearly sixty years preceding; alone. I came here reluctantly, hoping the rumor was true. I meant to enter this city and leave within the sake of two, maybe three days. I planned on getting the cure and getting out, never looking back afterwards. Ironically, that was over one hundred years ago. I came here for my own sake, but I immediately saw the chaos and disorder of the world around me. Death was the name of so many, and those who were not plagued or poor were rich beyond imagination. To put it frankly, you were either rich or dead. Crime was rampant. The point is, I came here to end my disease, to end the most horrible chapter of my life.

When I came here, I called it a disease. Now, I call it a gift. I’ve been with this city through all its best and worst times. Had I not been here to protect it, this place would’ve fallen long ago. I am one that watches over this city like an angel, ending that which should never have started. At least, that is what many would say about me, if I allowed myself to be seen by innocent eyes. I came here bearing the weight of terrible sin, young though I was. I came to this city and saw its need for a savior, and I took up the mantle. It began because of one man who died because of me, one who trusted me. I protect this city now and forever because too many lives have fallen before my eyes, too many souls sent to heaven because of my search for the cure. Because when I came here, I started a chain of events that caused the city to be sent into this hell. I do this because of the simple rule of honor; finish what you start.

The night was full, the rain heavy. Thunder shook the earth with a deafening boom. Light emanated from the heart of New York City like a candle at the pit of the earth. The sound of glass shattering followed by the loud buzzing of a store alarm rang through the air from miles away so subtly that only my eyes could hear it. I stood from my perch on a four story building and unsheathed my sword, a katana, taking in a deep breath of the damp air. My sword glinted in the light of the city, reflecting that which is essentially the heart of the metropolis. Three words written in Japanese kanji shown eve brighter from their place near the hilt of the blade.

Fight.
Kill.
Repent.

I jumped from my perch and moved in for the kill, like a wolf on the hunt.

[-ORIGIN-]

My name is Jacob Wulfinger. My disease, my curse, my gift, my advantage, is something very simple and something so very complicated. Quite simply, I am a werewolf, a man who turns into a sort of man-wolf cross over by the light of the full moon, only there’s more to it than that. So much more.

First, there is more than one way to become a werewolf. Three ways, in fact. The lowest, easiest and least respected form of lycanthropy is no-blood. A man who kills a wolf, skins it, wears the fur as a coat. He takes many rare (and often deadly in the wrong dosage) herbs and makes them into a strange substance that he rubs all over his skin, then he makes a fire and dances around it, uttering a demonic chant. When this has gone on for two or three hours, he stops and offers up his soul to Satan in exchange for the gift of lycanthropy. As time goes on, the transformation becomes less and less complete. Eventually, the lycanthropy completely fades into a state of subtle insanity. The second way is half-blood. Basically, when one is bitten by another werewolf. This form is not only the most common, but the most hard to explain. Half-blood transformations rely on other werewolves, so the question is...who was the first? Many people believe that it was a full-blood that created the first half-blood, but the strange part is, the halves predate the fulls. As you’ve probably figured by now, the third is that of full-blood. These are the most rare, for they are werewolves born as werewolves. Born into a lineage of other full-bloods. If two halves have a child, the child is born a half. A full is created by only an insane man whose life is about to end. He pledges his soul to the devil for eternal life and becomes a sort of no-blood, except that it never fades and he never goes insane because he already is insane. His children, though, are granted full-blood lycanthropy and a very strange gift that is very hard to ignore; immortality. There are only three known families of full-blood werewolves, and two of them have been wiped out.

Second, werewolves aren’t the emotionally tormented wrecks you see in the movies. There are plenty of things to get emotional about, and there is one or two truths to the movie werewolves. Yes, we do become wolf-men at the light of the full moon, but there’s an extrapolation on that; there are three full moons in a month. The night labeled ‘full moon’ on the calender is actually the second night in three night cycle. The night before the full moon is the night of the rising moon, the next is the night of the reigning moon, the following night the falling moon. Yes, life as a werewolf can be hell, but it can also become far more exciting than any mortal life ever could. As you grow older, you grow stronger, faster, much like vampires (and they, too, are as real as the sky is blue). From the moment you ‘become’, you already have enhanced strength, speed, sight, smell, taste. All the senses are heightened greatly.

Probably the most important detail is this: when we become wolven, we have no control over ourselves. It’s like a dream, we remember it all very vaguely, but we never forget it.

[-ORIGIN, PART 2-]

I was born on April 9th, 1908. I was born into the name ‘Wulfinger’, my parents had named me Jacob after my father’s great grand father, one who had fought in the Civil War. I was raised in a mansion of twenty three rooms, bathrooms, dining rooms, and various storage closets not included. The house was huge, as you can imagine, and looked as though any person would imagine a Victorian mansion from that day and age. I still, to this very day, so not know where the mansion was. I know it was deep in a forest, hidden from all humanity. I’m sure by now its been discovered, but that has no bearing on the current tale.
Like I said before, the mansion was hidden deep within a forest. This was because my father had something he wanted to keep secret. I never suspected anything like it. To me, the house, my parents and the various servants were the entire universe, nothing beyond the forest but plague, famine, and poverty. Though we were, by the standards of the day, very rich, money had no bearing on my life. The servants were not slaves, but people who also wanted to escape from humanity. My father provided them rooms in the mansion, gave them food for dinner, did everything that was necessary to keep them around. Not much was required of course. With the simple lie that my father had killed the former owners of the building, the servants believed that we were dirt poor, so they accepted a very small pay. Perhaps by luck of the draw, perhaps by divine intervention, all the servants were nice, thoughtful people, each willing to do his or her own share of work. Yes, there were women servants, too. Unlike the sexist, racist, war-mongering world outside, our home was a pace of acceptance. I don’t think either of my parents liked it, too many of the other sex that one could ‘play’ with, but I believe they did this to set a good example for me. To keep me from becoming like the normal people outside, to help me stand out and make something of myself if I ever wanted to leave.
And they knew I would want to see the outside world eventually. It was inevitable, so instead of filling me full of stories about how horrid the outside world was, they told me of the immense wonders nature had to offer. This always excited me, hearing of these amazing wonders. When I first heard of the ocean as a young boy, I almost died laughing!
“An endless mass of water!” I would shout, “Madness! If there’s so much water out there then why are we out of water here? Couldn’t you just take it bucket full by bucket full, if it truly is endless?”
And to this, my mother would reply, “Because, the water is filled with salt. You wouldn’t want to drink salty water all the time, would you?”
“Salty? Someone must have been massively bored to put that much salt into the ocean!”

There was a small pond by our house, inside a natural clearing of trees. The pond, only twenty to thirty feet all around, was massive to me. Sometimes I would swim in this small pond, thinking that there was more water in that pond than in anything else. Naturally, when I first learned of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, I did not believe it. The largest body of water I’d ever seen in life was the pond, so the thought of a lake (and I was ignorant of the terms at the time, calling it a lake and not the ocean) so large, you couldn’t see land on the other side... Impossible! But inside, I knew it to be true, and dreamed of seeing both the oceans at least once before I died.
My parents also told me of the Indians, savage people who lived off the land and practiced a polytheistic religion. They told me of the Grand Canyon west of us, the Mississippi river east. It amazed me that these could exist, and that someday, I would get to see them.
I was told these things so that I would want to go into the outside world, but I was also given many warnings. I was told of how vicious people outside could be, killing you for your mere money, murdering you for fun. This was more than enough to keep me from running away on my own. Like I always had before, I patiently waited, knowing that, someday soon, I would move into the outside world and see these natural wonders. I would see them and love them more than anyone else could, because I was the only one who knew and truly understood their significance. It showed that nature had a plan for us all, whether it be becoming the President of the U.S., exploring the south, or embarking on the journey I was about to take. No matter how hard we tried to keep hold of the reigns, nature would always jerk them from our hands until we either gave up, or grabbed hold again, stronger for what you’d endured.

It was then on the week before my fifteenth birthday that I stumbled upon something. For a birthday gift, m parents and a few of the servants were going to go to the Pacific ocean, no matter what it took. This excited me more and more as I thought about it, and I suddenly found myself on the eve of my birthday, waiting ever so intently for my father to give me the news. It was the greatest day of my life. An irony, it seems to me now, that my last night of mortality would be the best. I don’t know why, but it almost makes me laugh whenever I think about it.

Because that would be the night when al my dreams were shattered, and a destiny beyond my comprehension was written. It was the night I ceased to be Jacob Wulfinger. From the night forward, for the rest of my life, I would be known simply as ‘Wolf’.


This was a story I worked very hard on, and unlike a lot of the things I'll probably end up posting, I remember most of the details.

The basic beginning to the story was not dissimilar to that of The Wolf, with Jacob Wulfinger being raised in a house in the middle of nowhere, isolated from the world, until he comes of age and painfully becomes a werewolf.

(It's worth noting that Adrian Quist was named Jacob in the original draft of The Wolf)

However, unlike The Wolf, here Jacob is found by his father, who subsequently tried to kill him. Jacob ended up shifting and killing everyone there -one of many holes in the story- and running off to live in the wilderness. He does this for upwards of sixty years, until he goes to a place to get supplies and is told, serendipitously and nonsensically, that there is someone in New York City who has a cure for lycanthropy. He goes, and finds the person who has the cure. He also makes a human friend, who he eventually is forced to kill for the cure. The friend becomes a werewolf and subsequently the main villain for the rest of the series. At the end of this first book, Jacob destroys the cure rather than taking it, so no one can ever use it against him.

The rest of the story is a blur to me, because it was very long, very epic, and little of it was ever actually written (something which is endemic to my writing history). Basically, Jacob went on to save NYC for years and years, fighting off his old friend. At one point he goes to Mexico and befriends a vampire, who he is subsequently forced to kill when he kills all the vampires (see a trend?). He then meets the last full-blood family of werewolves, and kills them too (or at least is the reason they are killed. Same guilt trip either way). At some point there is also a prophecy thrown about which says that Jacob will cause the end of the world, and part of the motivation for his travels is to prevent that from happening. He ends up, of course, causing it directly. The second half of the story occurs after the end of the world, dealing with... a lot of really ridiculous things, very little of which make sense.

There are shades of this story existing in a lot of my current works. I still gravitate towards the concept of the three day full moon, although I have omitted it in some cases as it adds unnecessary complexity to a relatively simple concept. I've obviously recycled the basic concept, although in its current form it is a character drama rather than an Underworld ripoff. This story is an excellent demonstration of my state of mind at the time: no matter how hard you try, no matter what you do, you will always hurt or disappoint the ones you love, and even if you devote your life to preventing the one thing you don't want to happen, in the end you will probably just end up causing it.

Good Morning Magpie, Part 1: The Dove and the Magpie, 2

9.
They traveled a far more considerable distance now that they had taken to the air, and after their first cautious flight they had come to understand one thing.
They were alone in the sky.
Though they could see flocks of living birds dotting the farthest edge of the horizon, they could see nothing else for miles. For whatever reason, even the creatures who had once been possessed of flight were now incapable of it. But they still had to rest, more frequently now, and because they were traveling Eastward they grew more and more wary of the creatures. They had to search for the abandoned homes of other animals, for it seemed the creatures had no interest in nesting. They pushed Eastward, following in the path of the animals. They were, it seemed, the messengers of the coming end, spreading its influence and speeding its progress.
After several stops, they decided to stay for the night in a knot in a tree that had been hollowed out years before.
They landed on the nearest branch and Swan removed herself from the harness.
“It's actually rather obvious,” Crow said. “We've been hiding in dens and foxholes, but we've yet to hold up in a tree. I'm not so sure we make very accomplished birds.”
Swan continued past him through the knot, and gave an awestruck sigh.
“Crow, come look at this.”
He stepped up beside her and poked his head inside.
The hole did not go back just a few feet, as they had expected. Instead they were met with a great chamber with carved walls and stairs spiraling in both directions, tiny holes in the side of the tree to let streams of light in.
“We have stumbled upon quit the mansion, haven't we?”
Crow walked into the tree and looked around. Carvings ran across all the walls, and Swan examined the pictographs with interest.
“Whoever lived here was very important,” she said. “There are stories here older than the both of us.”
Crow shrugged. “I'm going to see if they left any food.”
He wandered downwards, following the slope and hoping for the best. As he searched, Swan read the stories on the walls.
And as she came to the end of them, where it seemed they all converged, she found a symbol that made her gasp.
“Crow!” she shouted. “Whoever lived here was a Watcher!”
He spun around and called back, “What?!”
There came a deep roaring sound which shook the whole tree, and from above them the sound formed into words.
“Who goes there!” it shouted.
Crow met back up with Swan, and the two looked up timidly.
Swan made to sneak out of the tree, but Crow said, “Just a pair of small birds,” and Swan swapped him across the head.
There came no reply at first, but then, in a softer voice, “Come upstairs and let me see you.”
Swan gave Crow a vindictive look, then lead him up towards the source of the voice.
There they came across a bloated old owl. It sat next to a window that looked out above the forest.
Crow remarked silently to Swan, “I don't know how we didn't see that.”
She shushed him.
“I take it you two are seeking refuge from the end of the world,” he said.
Swan nodded. “Only for the night. We're fleeing East, with the rest of animalkind.”
The old owl looked between the two of them.
“If I may ask,” Swan said, “why are you still here?”
He eyed her. “These aged wings could no more carry me than a housefly.” Without moving his body, he turned his head towards the window. “A dove and a magpie. How is it that you came together?”
“I found Crow right after-” Swan began.
“We met the way meetings happen at the end of the world; fortuitous, accidental, and entirely without note.”
The owl stretched out its wing, blocking the light from the window, showing off the immensity of its wingspan. He examined the bones in this limb with an odd sense of nostalgia.
“Your wings are broken, magpie. Have you been carrying him all this way, little dove?”
“I help as much as I can,” Crow said.
Dove said, “We're going Eastward but the ground is overrun by creatures. May we stay here the night?”
“That is a question,” the owl said, “but not the one you want to ask.”
He looked straight at her and did not blink. She struggled to maintain eye contact.
“The symbol on the wall downstairs-”
“Yes?” the owl said expectantly.
“Are you a Watcher?” she asked.
He looked back at the window and folded up his wing.
“Tell me, so-called-Crow, why even here at the end of the world you would lie.”
Crow said, “What are you-”
“And to a complete stranger, no less.” He shook his head. “Some creatures are irredeemable.”
“You haven't answered my question,” Swan said.
The owl sighed. “The dove seeks to answer every question,” he said as though to himself, “the magpie seeks to hide every answer. It's quite the confusing couple, theirs. What then is an owl for, if questions are answers and answers are lies?”
Swan and Crow looked at each other.
“Perhaps we'll find another tree,” Crow said.
“There are no other trees,” the owl said, glancing back at them.
They looked out the window, seeing an entire forest of trees still surrounding them.
“It's a shame your caretaker left you here in your delirium, sir,” Crow said, “but we aren't hospice and we're having a hard enough time of keeping ourselves alive. Shall we leave, Swan?”
She ignored him. “What is an owl for, then?” she asked.
He said in a somber tone, “The owl is the thought behind the truth behind the lie behind the answer behind the question.”
“I think this old man is off his perch, Swan.”
“Shut up, Crow,” she said.
“You may not stay the night. You have much to do in so short a time. I would fear for your safety, if I were you.”
Crow blinked. “Was that supposed to be a threat?”
“There is no threat in destiny, little magpie,” the owl said. “You will see that for yourself soon enough.”
Swan said, “But sir, we're very tired-”
“Be damned of our company then, geriatric old fool.”
“Don't be rude, Crow!”
“There's an entire forest of trees out there, Swan, and we're begging lodge with this codger?”
The owl said, “The forest is gone, magpie. As the rest of the world soon will be.”
Crow shouted, “Then you're blind as well as mad, and we're not taking another word of this manure.”
“I'd have have broken your legs for that, once,” the owl said. “You're lucky that age has cooled my temper.”
The two fell silent.
The owl composed himself and turned back towards them. “I am not blind, and I am not mad. Though many lived here with me before the end, I have been alone among them for a long time. But that is past, and we are here. And you have jobs to do.”
Crow sighed. “Is that so?”
Swan whacked him again, and he went silent.
“The darkness feeds on the strength of life. Soon it will reach the Northern lakes, and once it does it will spread more quickly in all directions. It will slow once it reaches the frozen lands past the lakes, but it will reach far past the Eastern glens before then.”
“How can you know this?” Swan asked.
“Because I was a Watcher when the plan was made. I am an old owl, little dove. Older than you could ever know. But we haven't time to reminisce.”
“You had plenty of time to wax paradoxical before,” Crow said.
Swan shushed him again. “If you were a Watcher, then you must know why all this is happening!”
“If you understand what the purpose of the Watchers is, then the why of the end should be readily apparent.”
Swan looked deflated. “Oh. I had just hoped-”
“You must travel to the East and warn the glen-dwellers of the approaching end,” he interrupted. “It matters little whether they come or stay; they simply must be presented with the choice. Then you must travel into the wastes, and find the home of the Watchers.”
“I'm sorry,” Crow said, “but we only met you five minutes ago. What incentive do we have to do anything you say?”
“Do you enjoy being alive?” the owl asked.
“Sometimes,” he said.
“Then perhaps you can convince the Watchers to turn this end around.”
Swan perked up. “Is that possible?”
“I haven't the faintest clue. But what better a pastime is there at the end of the world?” he said with a laugh.
The two looked at each other doubtfully.
Swan said, “I apologize, elder owl, but this is all very sudden and... rather miraculous. If you're a Watcher, shouldn't you want the end to come?”
He sighed. “I was a Watcher, dove. I left because I, unlike my kin, believe in the ability of life to do good things.”
“Why us?” Crow said. “We're hard the most effectual messengers.”
The owl turned towards them fully, extending his other wing to a small wooden charm hung on the wall in the shape of a circle.
“I was given that by a blind raven, many years ago. He told me that when the end came, I would be visited by two wayward souls, and that I would give them direction. And that my doing this would prove the difference between an end, and a new beginning.”
They were silent for a few moments.
Crow said, “And you haven't been visited by any other wayward birds then, yeah? We're not just the next in a long line of couples you've told this to out of -if you'll excuse the pun- blind coherence to prophecy?”
“I've told no one before now,” he said.
Crow nodded.
“Well then,” he said, “We'll accept the mission gratefully.”
“Very well,” said the owl. “Take as much food as you must, and be on your way.”
“Oh, we will,” Crow said. “Thank you very much for this chance, wise sir, we would have lost ourselves to the winds of helplessness had we not come across this place.
Swan eyed him curiously as they bid their farewell to the old bird and backed out of the chamber.
As they headed towards where the food was stored, Swan said, “That was easy of you.”
“Easy conversation is the quickest to quit,” he said.
She sighed. “So you weren't being serious, then?”
“Goodness, no. I don't think I've heard such tripe since my great grandfather fell from a tree and henceforth thought himself a woman.”
“And what's so hard to believe about what he said?” Swan asked. “The darkness is spreading, and if anyone should know why it would be a Watcher.”
“But he didn't know why,” Crow said.
“He never said that!”
“Not in so many words. His rounding about of your question showed plainly that he didn't.”
Swan said, “Even so, no one would lie about being a Watcher. No one would risk-”
“Swan,” Crow said, stopping them in their tracks, “you have been out in the same world as I, yes? It's the end of the world out there. What better a time to make fools of the naive than when death is a promise?”
“And what else do we have, Crow? As you said, the world is ending. If we have even the slightest chance of changing that, shouldn't we at least try?”
“In case you've forgotten,” he said, “I have very little in the way of faith, in myself or in people. I cannot see myself as changing what has happened, and even if I could I seriously doubt anyone else would care enough to give me a hand.”
Swan shook her head. “The depths of your pessimism astound me at every turn.”
“Look at it this way, Swan,” he said. “It's where were going anyway. East is East, yes? Who knows what could happen when we get there.”

10.
At Crow's insistence, they did not leave as the owl had instructed them. After they had packed away some food in the harness, they flew until they found another tree with suitable cover.
Immediately upon setting down there, the branch leaned and then cracked, and Swan only barely managed to carry Crow back to the ground, as he had already been half out of the harness when the limb began to fall.
So it was with all the trees, they found; as the darkness had rid the gulls of their solidity, so too had it stolen the rigidity of the trees. Finally it came that they were forced to sleep on the ground, with one keeping watch while the other rested. Though it seemed there were no creatures here, they had come too close already to risk it.
So, as Crow slept, Swan gazed across the fire and into the deepening eve.
She remembered sunsets on the sea, how every color reflected across the angles of the clouds. Here it seemed darkness only grew darker. It made her yearn for a brighter place, and brighter company.
The possibility offered them by the owl wouldn't leave her mind. Despite Crow's insistence that it was a fool's errand, she felt as though it were her destiny.
She thought about it for a long time, until the fire had died down for the third time. She gathered some twigs, fed it, and awoke Crow. They switched places, and Swan quickly fell into sleep.

11.
Groggy, they progressed slowly over the next few days. The farther outward they flew, the more wary they became of the creatures. Neither of them slept enough and, as they came across more examples of the horror being unleashed on the world, what little sleep they did get was fraught with nightmares.
They found many examples of creatures whose limbs had crumbled and were left limping -or wriggling, depending on their nature- Eastward. They should have been dead, but the darkness kept them alive. Though they had been on the front lines of the destruction, the absolute reality of what was happening only dawned on them as they witnessed the spread of the darkness like a plague across the land.
But as they quickened their pace, the horizon brightened. Color began to dawn on the world once more, and they grew hopeful once more.
The dreary veil of the darkness seemed to lift up as they passed over the last of the creatures. And soon they reached the edge of the forest, and the landscape became hilly and sparse.
Despite Crow's reluctance and his pain, Swan pushed them as hard as she could, the owl's words still ringing through her mind.

12.
They had long since left the darkness behind them, and soon they came across other animals. It was some time before they really comprehended active life again. It wasn't until a blue jay flew next to them and gave them a cockeyed, disapproving glance before diving back to the ground that they knew they had reached civilization.
“Something about this seems wrong,” Swan said.
“What, that not an animal in sight is fleeing for their lives from the brink of existence' collapse?”
She was silent for a few moments before saying, “Exactly.”
Crow blinked. “I'm sorry?”
“They're staying put. What reason could they possibly have to think that they're safe?”
Crow sighed. “Maybe they've just stopped for the night. Or perhaps they appreciate the karmic balance here better than their previous residence. Lord knows I wouldn't mind a decent rest and a quick spiritual cleansing after our endeavors. My wings feel as splinters.”
“That's because they are,” Swan said. She moved on. “I don't understand. Don't they realize the darkness is still coming?”
Crow didn't answer. He found little in the conversation of interest.
They alighted to the ground and worked their way through the crowds of animals, asking why they had stopped moving. The answers given were not heartening.
It seemed that some animals stopped, because some other animals stopped. And when a majority had stopped, rumors spread that the end had stopped as well. The mass had become something of a hive mind, and after lifetimes of security, they jumped very quickly to unsafe conclusions.
But it also seemed there was something of a beginning to the encampment, as a wounded field mouse explained to them that a rodent called Adam had stepped up as a leader among the animals, and spread the idea of staying. When they asked where to find him, the mouse only shrugged.
As they trekked through the fields of makeshift dens and nests, they became more and more certain that Adam was a myth. Each animal seemed to believe that he was a member of their race, that he had ascended or descended from the very bosom of the sky or core of the earth to unite all creatures in the post-apocalypse utopia. Some said he planned on taking them back West once he had visited every animal personally; others said he was going to magically grant them greater resilience to the cold and take them North to live among the penguins. Many held variously worded contentions that he was the second coming of Asthur, that he would lead them to the golden halls of Asthuria once they had all been tested. It seemed no two stories were exactly alike, and were it not for the name of their glorious leader they couldn't compare the stories from one species to another and find two similar elements.
They hadn't quite known the damage done by the sphere of darkness. They had expected animals numbering in the hundreds, but it seemed as though the entire West had fled. Thousands upon thousands of animals were together, in a trainwreck of an ecosystem where naturally occurring extra-species tensions grew even more intense. The tales of Adam the saviour, it seemed, were what everyone had latched onto in lieu of actual resolve.
When Crow brought up that no one had any really concrete reason to believe that the end had ended, he was greeted with spite so pure it turned to physical violence. None of these animals seemed willing to believe that they had stopped for nothing, that it was anything more than group delirium brought on by group hysteria.
When they set down in a relatively secluded area, Crow voiced his confusion. “I don't understand this. So many animals all talking about Adam. How could anyone have pulled something like that off in just five days?”
Swan couldn't give an answer, and the two rested, mounted, and took back off.
So the two birds made their way forwards, asking for Adam and finding little in the way of answers, until they came across a lone, rather nervous falcon sitting atop a tree trunk.
He saw them coming and turned away, but as they continued he started cleaning his wings -an unspoken signal that he wasn't interested in communication.
Crow said, “Are you about this Adamic dogma as well?”
The falcon looked at them, confused. “What?”
“Everyone around here seems to have a different theory on Adam except that he's an absolute blueberry of a leader. You look to be about the most intelligent animal we've come across in a while, what's your say on the matter?”
He looked from side to side nervously. “I don't really have an opinion.”
Swan said, “Why is that?”
He shrugged. “I met him.”
Crow and Swan both became far more interested. “Oh?” said Crow, “and what was he?”
“A hawk,” he said. “A hawk with a missing eye.”
They looked at each other. “And how does a half-blind bird of prey come to lead the animals that would otherwise be his dinner?”
“You'd have to ask him that,” he said.
“Why are you so nervous?” Swan asked.
He tried to shrug. When they didn't relent on the question, he said, “He has some ideas I don't exactly agree with and he...well, him and his posse threatened me. A lot.”
“I see,” Crow said. “Well that's certainly something, isn't it? Do you think we'd be able to talk to him, then?”
“You could try, but I don't think his goons would let you close enough. He's lodged in the lone tree North-East of here.”
They bid the falcon best of luck and took off. They had grown accustomed to the strange looks they got every time they did this, although Crow was focused more on ignoring the pain that racked him every time.
As they skimmed the horizon, the tree became apparent in the distance. And, it seemed, several yards of uncovered grassland around it. The hawk, and whoever his goons were, did not let anyone near.
The nearby animals thought they were just a bunch of punks. There were no birds in the area.
When the two flew into range of the tree, almost immediately there came a loud screech.
“Swan?” Crow shouted, “We need to land!”
Before she could yell back at him, they were jolted out of the air. Crow shouted for Swan to adjust, but it seemed she couldn't, and they hit the ground with a thud.
Crow moaned and tried to stand, then felt a pair of talons push his head to the ground and wrap around his neck.
A group of birds landed in front of them, lead by one with a scar across one empty eye socket.
“You must be Adam,” Crow said.
The hawk walked up to him, his followers in step. They were all hawks, it seemed.
“You know the rules,” Adam said. “No bird comes uninvited into my circle.”
“So you built that tree, then?” Crow said. “It's very nice work. And this grass, it's really very expertly done.”
The grip around his neck closed off his wind pipe. He struggled to breathe.
“I don't appreciate poor humor,” he said. He nodded, and the grip around Crow's throat gave up. He coughed.
Swan said, “We've only just arrived. We were following a tip that you would be here.”
Adam spat. “Impossible. There haven't been any birds out of the forest in two weeks.”
The dove and the magpie looked at each other, confused. Crow looked back at Adam and said, “But, the end only started five days ago.”
Adam looked at him closely, then nodded towards the bird on top of Crow. He removed his foot from the magpie's neck, and he stood up.
“What is that thing around you?” he asked.
“It's a harness,” Swan answered.
Adam let out a shriek. She went silent.
“What she said,” Crow responded.
Adam scoffed. “A harness for what?”
“My wings are broken.”
He said, “Show me.”
Crow sighed and made to spread his wings. The effort was more painful than it had been before, as they were considerably more torn now that they had been in use for nearly a week.
Adam examined them closely. “How did this happen to you?” he asked with little sympathy.
“I fell,” Crow said. “When the end started.”
Swan tilted her head and looked at Crow.
“No,” Adam said. “You didn't. If you had, you would be dead by now.”
“And yet here I am,” Crow said. “Look, there's obviously some sort of disconnect between us, because I know for a fact that we're telling the truth. Maybe you're suffering from some sort of delirium? It has only been five days.”
He looked at the other hawks and saw the expressions on their faces.
“It has only been five days, yes?”
Swan said, “You can't have been out here for two weeks!”
“Two weeks?” Adam said. “It's been nearly five.”
The gawked.
“Over a month?” Swan said. “But how-”
“You're lying,” Crow said.
“What reason would I have to lie, little bird?” Adam said.
“Because you're a highfalutin prick, that's why! You've sucked up on power and now-”
One of the hawks pecked at his neck, causing him to bleed. He stumbled backwards and looked towards his attacker.
“You snide bundle of feathers and filth, I-”
“You'll do what? Your wings don't even work right!” the attacker said, laughing. The other hawks joined. Adam remained silent.
“I think we should leave, Crow,” Swan said.
“And why is that, dove?” Adam said. “Are we starting to scare your timid little heart?”
“Technically you don't scare the heart-” Crow said before he received another peck.
Swan shushed him. “I'm not afraid of you, or your men, but I can tell that we're not wanted here.”
“It's passed that point, dove. Every bird out here reports to me, and that counts you, too.”
“What do you mean, every bird?” Swan said. “Listen, we're only just stopping here for a little while before we continue on our way. We wanted to warn you that the darkness is still coming, and if you stay here you're going to die.”
The hawks looked nervously at Adam, who glared at Swan. He started to laugh, and the others joined up.
“I've been watching the darkness, bird,” he said. “Every day I fly up as high as I can go to see if it is coming. It hasn't moved in weeks.”
“But we've been fleeing from it for five days and it hasn't stopped moving!” Swan shouted.
Adam said, “Maybe your size has limited your capacity for thought, eh dove?”
Swan shook her head. “Why stop here? What if the darkness starts moving again?”
He shrugged. “If it does, we have enough lead on it to move on. But here, we've got food.”
“What's stopping you from traveling farther East?”
“It's a dead wasteland out there, dove,” he said. “Nothing but corpses and snakes.”
“You know what else is out there, don't you?” she pleaded. “The home of the Watchers!”
Adam eyed her curiously for a moment. “So, what, you think we can march out into the desert and walk up to the Watchers' doorstep, ask them if maybe they'd stop the end of the world?”
Swan seemed deflated. “It's worth a shot, isn't it?”
“Most of us would die out there. And even if we made it, assuming the Watchers were so moved by our display of stubborn hope as to forgo the apocalypse, what would we do then? March back across the wastes to reap the benefits? It's suicide no matter how you look at it.”
“What other option is there?” she screamed. “Here, you're just waiting for death!”
Adam spat again. “I don't know who you are, but this conversation tires me.” He looked towards the other hawks. “Have her disciplined in all the intricacies of our organization. As for the magpie,” Adam said, gesturing towards Crow, “get rid of him.”
One of the hawks moved towards Crow, and Swan put her wings around him. A hawk pushed her down and severed the harness with its beak. They kicked at Crow, their talons digging out pieces of skin and drawing blood, as Swan pushed against them as hard as she could.
Then there came a deep, otherworldly rumble that shook the earth itself. The hawks stopped in their task and turned their heads West.
The dome of blackness, before only a speck on the horizon, was now all that they could see. The edges of it had, in fact, already reached into the glens. The land grew black, the air thin, and suddenly the wind was filled with the screams of thousands of animals.
Adam turned towards Swan and walked towards her violently.
“You brought this!” he shouted. “You're the messengers of death the raven told us about!”
Crow mumbled absentmindedly, “You are absolutely imbecilic, aren't you?”
Adam turned to attack him, but Swan leaped at him. She dug her beak into the hawk's neck and twisted as hard as she could. A spurt of blood stained her face and chest, and she grabbed Crow and started pulling him away as Adam stumbled backwards, a beak-sized hole where his throat used to be. Most of the other hawks had scattered, and as Adam fell onto his side, the rest did the same.
The ground shook more violently now as the entire animal kingdom stampeded away from the darkness. Swan saw creatures erupting from the great dome, tackling the animals and ripping into their flesh as it encroached on the glens at a horrifying speed. Her confusion was outweighed by her need to survive, and she dragged Crow as best she could.
It didn't seem to amount to much, however, as they were quickly passed by other animals that pushed and shoved her away from the now-unconscious Crow. A break came in the stampede and she looked out to find a herd of elk coming her way that would surely trample them both. She jumped onto Crow and latched her claws into his legs and flew up as hard as she could. To her own surprise, the ground lifted up, and though the strain was immense, it was not dissimilar from the strain she had felt flying with Crow in the harness. She couldn't keep it up for long, she knew, so she pushed as hard as she could away from the darkness.
Almost immediately, they were struck by other birds fleeing from it, paying no mind to the slow dove with extra baggage. They nearly knocked Crow from her grip, so she flew higher. She seemed only to find flocks of larger and larger birds, so she went higher and higher, until finally the sky was clear, and she looked down.
An alarming number of the animals had been consumed, so that now only a very small portion remained It was obvious that its rate of expansion was greater than that of the speed of the animals, and Swan watched with growing despair as they were all swallowed up.
The dome was below them now, and pushing farther outwards. Her wings were starting to give out, and though she pushed as hard as she could, she couldn't hold the two of them up any longer.
Against her will, she let go of Crow. She watched him drop with horror, and immediately folded in her wings and dove after him. The darkness grew closer and closer, and when she reached him, she put him above her and folded her wings around him as best she could.
She assumed this was the end, and whispered a goodbye to Crow, hoping she would meet him in Asthuria.
After a sickeningly long time, there was a horrible squelch, and the world went black.

13.
Swan opened her eyes, surprised to find that she wasn't dead.
Tentatively, she surveyed her surroundings. Her jaw dropped.
The world had become a rough negative of its previous state, the sky being pitch black and the trees being a light grey. The farther West she looked, however, the more disheartening it became. Just black. Whatever the origin of this darkness, it was dissolving the natural world into itself.
She looked around her to find Crow laying on his back, taking shallow breaths. She ran to him and looked around. Other animals lay writhing on the ground, tendrils of darkness growing upwards from the ground and piercing their sides. Some creatures broke away from them, and struggled outwards from the dome, but most collapsed and began to expand. The blackness soon eked out from every orifice, soaking back up into the ground, until all that was left was a worn skeleton wrapped in skin and fur.
This spectacle repeated infinitely in all directions, it seemed. A full grown deer roared up on its hind legs over the corpse of one of its foals, and the tendrils pierced through his knees. He collapsed, screaming curses at the darkness which were silenced when the tendrils forced their way through his mouth. He struggled and shook violently in place for a few moments before ceasing altogether. When the black leaked out of his ears, Swan turned away. But everywhere she looked, there it was; the end of life itself.
She grabbed hold of Crow and started to drag him once more, holding onto the hope that they could still escape, knowing that they couldn't. She watched the growing tendrils and dodged around them as best she could, crying and screaming as she pulled Crow behind her at a painfully slow pace.
And then she felt a tug, and turned back to find one of the tendrils piercing through a wound on Crow's neck. She lunged at it, but before she reached it, something strange happened.
Instead of bulging, it shrunk. Withered, it fell out of Crow's side. Not thinking twice, she grabbed him once more and continued to pull him away.
A creature reared its head and galloped towards them viciously and Swan ran as hard as she could. When she looked in front of her, she found the wall of the darkness to be impossibly close. It had been miles away not moments ago!
As the creature made to pounce on her, Swan pushed forward through the darkness, and fell forward.

14.
She felt blinded. She shielded her eyes from the sun and looked around.
Desert.
The silence was horrible, the only sound coming from wind stinging the dunes. She checked Crow to find him still breathing, and lifted herself into the air cautiously.
On the Westward horizon, she saw the darkness eating up the glens. It was miles away, and she watched it with horrified fascination. As she looked around, she saw a wide circle of corpses leading off from where she and Crow had landed. She touched down and shook her head.
How-
Before she could finish her thought, there came a growl from behind her, and she turned to see the blackened dog clenching its teeth. As it did so, many of them crumbled and fell out of its mouth. It lunged for them once more, and Swan dove as it collapsed on the sand. It turned back towards them, foaming at the mouth, but with its leg bones jutting out of its rib cage, it couldn't move an inch. Dove watched it, terrified, until finally it stopped moving, and she fell over into a fit of tears. She was shaking, holding back vomit.
Finally, she took a breath and sighed.
Somewhere in the wastes lay the home of the Watchers. It was a slim chance, but the only one she saw. She picked back up with dragging Crow, as there were no materials to make another harness, and pushed further East.
Towards the place of her origin.

Good Morning Magpie, Part 1: The Dove and the Magpie, 1

Part 1: The Dove and the Magpie

1.
The wind blew fierce, a torrent in the night, as the magpie was tossed about through the clouds. His chest burned, his wings ached, and he had been flying away for longer than he could remember. No rest, no slowing, only purpose.
Though he had tried to flee from the darkness that poured from the seam, he could no longer bring his wings to carry him. He fell through the storm, hearing the ghosts of his life whisper in his ear.
You should have stayed.
You were not worthy.
You are a traitor.
These sounds careened through his skull as he fell through the trees, bouncing between branches. He heard several cracks and felt a horrible pain in his wings, and he cried out into the night.
Finally the ground spiraled upwards, eager to introduce him to his death.

2.
But death didn't come to him. It was pain. He'd hit the ground with a heavy thud, and lay there mumbling to himself as he tried to recount how he got there. He drifted in and out of consciousness as the sun dawned on the world, and myriad small creatures fled to the East. He couldn't see the darkness from which they were running, but he could feel it. All creatures could, somewhere in their souls.
He felt great fear and great sadness as he saw the sky turning gray. He watched the color drain from the trees and the underbrush, heard the sounds of the few creatures unwilling or incapable of leaving die down into silence.
He tried to move, but his body racked with pain, and he stopped. He examined his outstretched wings, and looked away immediately. He shuddered.
The magpie closed his eyes to keep from crying, and let himself pass into a state of sleep, though he wasn't able to rest. Images of his life flashed before his eyes, and soon he was incapable of keeping the tears at bay.

3.
Just as delirium came to him, he felt a tug. Soon his whole body ached, and he was overwhelmed with vertigo. It's the world collapsing, he thought. Soon he'd be dead, and the pain of his broken wings would be relieved.
But soon never came, and his discomfort grew immensely as the movement became more vigorous.
“Leave me be!” he called into the sky. “Don't tempt me with relief, then pull it away!”
“Shut up, you baby,” came a voice that stopped the magpie's heart. He labored his eyes to see.
A dove of purest white had hold of his wing, pulling him Eastward.
When the shock of it passed, he kicked his leg into her side, and her grip lessened. He pulled away.
She turned on him. “Do you want to die?”
“I had grown accustomed to the idea,” he said. When he tried to ruffle his wings, he fell to the ground, crippled in pain. “Just leave me be. You can't mend my wings anymore than you can carry me away from the darkness. Go and save yourself, noble dove, and forget my eyes.”
As though his words had fallen on deaf ears, she grabbed hold of his wing once more and started back to pulling him. Finally, the magpie pecked at her neck.
“You're wasting your energy, dove! I am short for the world, and you will be too if you don't flee with the rest of animalkind!”
“Shut your blasted beak and help me carry you or we will both die, because I am not leaving you here!”
He gave a loud sigh as she continued to pull his dead weight. “What displaced sense of honor drives you to this deed? You're only making my hurt all the worse, and for what little life you may be sparing me I shall die all the more pained for my broken wings!”
She dropped him and turned viciously. “Shall I fashion a splint for your wings, so you may not burden me with your aches? Or should I simply tie you a noose?”
“Lady, I mean you no offense of this, and I appreciate your intentions, but you haven't the slightest clue how cruel you're being. I do not wish for death any more than you, but I have accepted my fate for what it is. Please, little one, you're running out of time.”
“Even if the sky itself crumbled to the ground, I would not turn my back to your need. So you can either stay an ass and kill us both, or get off your bloody rump and help me.”
The magpie eyed her for a few moments and sighed. He pushed himself to his feet and gingerly slid his wing beneath hers.

4.
The day wore on between exhausted arguments and long periods of silence. The magpie was in pain, asking every dozen feet to be left along, but the dove refused to grant his wish. But finally she grew tired herself, and they agreed to sit and rest for a short time.
The magpie cleaned his feathers as he watched the dove gather bits of twig with her beak and arrange them in a pyramid, a pile of fluffy detritus beneath it. She disappeared for a little while, and before he could think she'd left him for good, she returned with a thin slab of rock, which she set next to the makeshift tower. She began to strike it with her beak.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Sparks flew off the stone and into the twigs, and almost immediately they burst into flames.
“It's cold,” she said. “Colder by the second.”
The dove nestled herself to the fire and set her eyes on the magpie.
He looked away awkwardly.
“You seem awfully resourceful for a bird of peace.”
She blinked, but said nothing.
“Do you know what happened?” he asked.
At this, the dove broke her gaze and looked away. She said, “No. But I saw it happen. I was flying.”
“Oh,” said the magpie. “Oh I see. What happened?”
She took a deep breath. “I'd been traveling with a flock of gulls from the South, we'd just come over land when we heard what could only have been a thunderclap. A bright flash burned our eyes and the very air we breathed seemed to alight in flames. It looked to me as though the horizon had cracked, and a great blackness was seeping out from it, sapping the life around it of its color. We fell, like all creatures of the sky did, but we were high enough to regain our lift before we hit the ground. Is that what happened to you, magpie?”
He looked away. “No such luck, I fear. A cougar had just taken me into its den, played with me as it would a mouse, and broken my wings. When it heard the crack you describe as thunder, it grabbed its cubs and ran. I only barely managed to pull myself out from that hole before it was trampled closed. Of course, I'd be better off had I stayed below. Almost assuredly I'd be dead by now. It's ironic really, that the world should be coming to an end and all I want is to die, and the only thing keeping the world from granting me my wish is a dove with a sympathy complex.”
His jabs had no effect, and she made no reply. He coughed.
“So, the gulls then? What happened to them?”
“The creatures that came from the shadows took them.”
The magpie turned his head to one side. “Creatures? I saw no such creatures.”
“Had I left you with your suicidal delusions, you'd have dined with with them not moments after we met. You're lucky to be alive.”
“Lucky? Have you ever known a bird to break its wings and fly again? I'm not a bloody ape, I can't just set them back into place and wait a week for nature to work its course! The only thing this body can do well enough to brag about is fly, and I've no chance of ever doing that again. If this magpie be lucky, I should wish my enemies were half as fortuitous.”
“The Gods have granted you life. You should be appreciative that they only took your wings.”
He stared at her for a few moments. “No. No, no, no!” he cried desperately, “A religious dove! It could have been a masochistic wolf or a lunatic koala, but no, the one creature in all of creation to feel charitable towards this dying bird is a theologian! My dove, I wish you'd revealed this to me sooner, I would have just slit my throat from the start!”
“I take it you are no lover of religion.”
“I am not, at that.”
“That's your prerogative, then. It's none of my business whether you're eternally devoured by the great Worm-Sloth in your afterlife, so long as it doesn't happen because of me.” She paused, then said, “We've rested long enough, we need to keep moving.”
The magpie sighed. “I apologize for being so rash, I simply have a long history with those who drink from the pond of Asthuria. You seem to be an understanding bigot at least, which makes you tolerable. And that reminds me, have you a name?”
“None that you have any business knowing. But you may call me Swan.”
As she patted out the fire, he looked at her with a crooked grin. “If that's the game we're playing, then my name is Crow Raven Hawk of the Eagle family, thrice descended of the Vulture clan and second cousin twice removed of-”
Swan thwapped him across the head with her wing, and he stopped.
“Come along, Crow,” she said with a wry smile. “We must be on our way if you're ever to return to your palace.”
“A sense of humor!” he said. “That's encouraging.”

5.
The second time they stopped, it had begun to rain. They were only losing ground to the darkness, and Swan only agreed to stop when Crow had pointed out she was barely breathing. She hadn't bothered with a fire, they merely sat in the rain and tried to recoup some of their strength.
“So,” Crow said, “you said the gulls were... eaten, was it? How did you escape that?”
“With great difficulty,” she said.
“And the creatures you say came from the darkness. What manner of creatures are they? And why haven't we seen them?”
There came a guttural roar from behind them, and the two instinctively jumped into the air. Though Swan flew up several feet, Crow simply fell on his face. The dove cam back down and grabbed him once more by the wing and started dragging him away from the noise.
Then there were a series of heavy footfalls approaching them, faster and faster, and Crow kept looking behind his back to see what it was, but saw nothing.
“What could make that sound?!” he yelled.
“Keep moving!” shouted the dove.
As they passed between the leaves of grass, they heard other noises too. Howls, shouts, cries, a demonic chorus that was moving at an unnatural speed. They came upon a ridged hill and hid behind it, and the thing that had been chasing them passed by. It pounded off Eastward, and other things followed in its wake. Crow could make out shadows, but nothing more.
He whispered, “Swan, you were in the air, did you see what these things are?”
She said nothing, and put her wing against his beak, giving him a stern look. He stayed quiet.
The angry ruckus continued past them, and it became readily apparent to the birds that there was a veritable army of these creatures.
When the stampede of creatures seemed to pass, they were left with an awful silence. After a few moments, they lifted themselves up and pushed forward once more.
But when they pushed past a bush of crab grass, they stopped in their tracks.
There lay on the ground a rabbit, blood trailing from its mouth, paw twitching. It had been trampled in the initial rush to escape from the darkness, and now five gulls were picking at its entrails. But the gulls were not normal. They were jet black, and no light reflected from their wings. One of them gnawed at an exposed rib, and its beak cracked and fell apart. Instead of stopping, it simply used the remaining shell to scoop up gore, tilting back its head to let it slide down its throat.
One gull moved toward the rabbits head and plucked out one of its eyes. It held the gelatinous sphere in its mouth for a few moments, staring directly at Swan and Crow.
“Does it see us?” Crow whispered.
The gull bit down, and the eye popped. Bits of it flew everywhere, and the gull hopped over the corpse towards them.
It opened its beak and made a call, and trails of black slime sprayed outwards from its mouth. It spread its wings, the same blackness spreading from its side. And then it broke into a run at the two birds, and Swan was locked where she stood. Crow looked between the two of them and pushed her out of the way, letting the gull run past them. It stopped and turned.
“What's wrong with you, dove? We have to move!”
The gull turned towards Swan and walked towards her, and she tried numbly to back away from the creature, but she was frozen with terror.
Just as the gull was about to peck her gut, the magpie took hold of a stick and struck it across the head, which flew from its shoulders and bounced once off the ground, then collapsed into a pile of black mess. Its body fell over, and did the same thing.
Swan lay wide-eyed on the ground, and Crow dropped the stick.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“Whatever these creatures are, their bodies are astonishingly frail.”
She stood up and stared, quivering, at the black mass on the ground, and the four remaining gulls feasting absentmindedly on the rabbit.
“What's wrong?” he asked.
“They were with me,” she said, “when we fell. They were of the gulls I traveled with.”
Crow looked at the small, ravenous flock. “But these things aren't natural.”
“It's the darkness,” she said. “The stuff pouring from the seam. It covered them, and now they're...” She trailed off.
“Wrong,” he said.”
She nodded.
Without another word, he slipped his wing over hers, and they continued around the gulls. But they had little hope that they would encounter anything they wanted to see.

6.
Night had fallen once more, and though the rain had stopped, everything was covered in mud. They had encountered no more creatures, and labored greatly to keep it that way.
“You wait here,” Swan said as she wandered away. She returned again with dry sticks and another piece of flint.
“You have quite the nose,” he remarked.
As she made to start the fire, he held out his wing. “I don't feel right letting you do all the work.”
He struck the flint with his beak, but caused no spark. Instead, he shattered the piece of rock in two and got his face stuck in the ground. Swan pulled him out, laughing. Indignantly, he left her to her work, and laid back and stared at the sky. Black clouds, no stars. He sighed and sat back up.
“None of this water tastes well. I'll be a very happy magpie when we've reached the East and can drink from the clean pools there.”
Swan said nothing, continuing to stare at the fire.
He coughed. “So, what shall we do about the creatures then? We can't go Westward lest we become like them, and I fear to so much as touch one of them for all the gross coming off them.”
Silence.
“Haven't you a plan?” he asked.
She looked at him, and he saw that she was crying. “Any plans I may have had were destroyed the moment we saw those gulls.”
“So they were dead! Or undead. Either way they weren't the companions you had before. Isn't it Asthurian doctrine to live in the moment?”
“If you had gone through what I have,” she said, “you would not say such a thing.”
He watched her as she gazed into the fire.
“What have you gone through?” he ventured.
She looked at him, but did not answer.
They sat in silence again, and the magpie nodded off. Swan watched him with a mix of emotions, then returned her gaze to the fire.
Crow awoke with a start, giving a short scream before falling onto his side. The dove gave him a worried look.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
He looked around quickly, then settled his eyes on the ground and sighed. “I haven't had an easy night of sleep in a very long time.”
“What is it that haunts you?” she asked.
“What is it that keeps you silent?” he returned. “We all have our demons, Swan.”
She closed her eyes.
“I have traveled between both poles, and have made many friends along the way. I have seen all of them die, be it from age, predators, or carelessness. I had promised to make no more friends, and though I shared no names with gulls I had certainly grown enamored with them. And they too were killed.” She paused, then said in a whisper, “The Gods are cruel.”
Crow asked, “Then why do you abide by them?”
“Because despite all the horrors I've seen,” she said, “I am still alive.”
“And admirable stance,” he said. He made no effort to comfort her. He knew there was no comfort he could provide.
“I come from a storied family,” Crow said, “and I left them behind. My guilt is what haunts me.”
The fire was dying down, and Crow picked up some sticks with his beak.
“Would it comfort you to sleep by my side?” she asked.
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you making an advance on me?”
“If you're going to act like a child, fine. Consider my offer rescinded.”
He looked away. “I apologize. My father was too smart for his own good, and I fear that same wit was bestowed on me. I haven't the nose for serious situations.”
“If it's wit you wish to call what you have, I should hate to meet someone half so funny as you.”
They remained silent for a time before Crow spoke quietly, “May I lay next to you?”
After a few moments of consideration, she nodded. He walked to her side of the fire and settled next to her.
“The world is coming to an end,” he said.
“So it would seem,” Swan replied.
He closed his eyes. The dove watched him as he fell into sleep. His form slumped a bit, and then he began to shudder. Swan settled closer to him and put a wing around his shoulder to pull him close.
He rested his head on her neck and whimpered, “Emma. Emma.”
Swan replied in a soft voice, “Sleep, magpie. Cast your fears to the wind and dream peaceful. Leave your hurt with me.”
His shuddering soon ceased, and he fell silent.
The dove closed her eyes, and began to dream.

7.
The next morning, Crow awoke alone in the clearing. He gazed bleary-eyed from the scorch marks on the ground to the trails between blades of grass.
“Swan?” he called out. “Are you here?”
There came no reply.
“Swan?” he said in a meek tone.
He sighed. “I've been abandoned once more.”
“Oy!” Swan shouted. Crow started.
“What's your damned problem!” he shouted. “Aren't I in enough pain?”
She came ambling out of the thicket dragging behind her a contraption of sticks and grasses spun into ropes.
“Not yet you aren't,” she said with a grin.
“What on earth is that?”
She set it on the ground and walked towards him. “I had a revelation. As we are, we're losing more ground than we're making. You can't fly with your wings akimbo, and I can't carry you.”
“So?”
“So, we need to fly but we can't one do what the other can't. But if we worked together?”
He looked at the contraption, then back at the dove. “And what does that have to do with this?”
She smiled. “It's a harness. With my wings doing most of the work, yours won't have to work so hard to keep us aloft. I think if you but keep them stretched-”
“I am awestruck,” Crow interrupted.
“I'm sorry?” she said. “Does that mean you're impressed?”
“It certainly does,” he said. “You've done such a good job of seeming intelligent, I am simply shocked that your lunacy hasn't shown its colors sooner. Have you not seen my wings? I cringe but to move them, let alone keep them outstretched. And that's when we aren't in the sky! I would be just as well off trying to fly by myself!”
She took a harsh tone. “Is that your threshold, then? You're only willing to live if you don't have to hurt doing it?”
“I've already hurt enough, Swan.”
She eyed him for a moment, then walked up on him and pushed him. “What do you have against the world that you're so afraid to live in it? You haven't even tried to fly since I found you!”
“I jumped when the creatures moved past us!”
“But have you tried since? You're so convinced of your doom that you would not even argue against it for fear of being wrong! What harm is there in hope?!”
Crow glared at her and stepped forward. He said, “Hope?”
He opened his wings, cringing, and spread them to their fullest length. The dove stepped back.
Feathers jutted out from them at every angle, blood matted them together, and in several places bone jutted out from the skin.
“Have I any hope to fly again? Or should I simply close my eyes and pretend that nature is more a mother than she is a bitch, that she will grant me flight instead of gangrene?”
He closed his wings with a relieved exhale and said, “I am hopeless, Swan, because there is no force in this world or any other that could fix me.”
Rain started to fall once more, and the dove shouted, “What good does that serve?!”
“To be realistic?”
“To be fatalistic! You've broken your wings, so you are as good as dead? The Gods have-”
“Don't you dare speak to me of the Gods!” he yelled back.
“And don't you dismiss them so quickly! What have they ever done to deserve your scorn?”
He scowled. “What have they ever done, what action have they committed, what great good have they set upon the Earth that makes the Gods so deserving of adoration? Has there been any moment in your life when you were not in pain? Yet you cry out to them, as though they would ever step from their gilded thrones in the deep halls of Asthuria to mend the broken heart of a lowly dove, or the wings of a poor suicidal magpie! And in case you haven't noticed, the very personification of evil is eking out of a seam in the world! If the Gods had any bloody sense at all, they would be fleeing Eastward with the rest of their congregation. We've been abandoned, Swan! The only difference is, I'm willing to admit it.”
He turned his back to her and started to amble in the direction of the seam.
“What are you doing?” she called out.
“I refuse to wait for death a moment longer!” he shouted. “I'm marching into it with every ounce of what little strength I have left.” He looked over his shoulder. “Does that satisfy your silly little convictions? If nothing else, at least I am taking an active role in my demise.”
Swan grabbed her harness and caught up with Crow, keeping apace with him.
“I'm sorry you feel the way you do,” she said, “but if nothing else, can you think of me?”
He turned to her. “Of you? I would cast you into the seam itself if it meant I could follow!”
“Then... what about Emma?”
Crow stopped in his tracks and looked at her. She saw great fear in his eyes.
“How do you know of her?”
“Whoever she is, is this how she would want you to spend your last days? Would you rather her see you as a coward?”
“If you have any sense of self-preservation,” he stated, “you'll stop with this immediately.”
“And what if I don't, magpie? What will you do to me with your broken wings? Peck me until I bleed out?” She opened her wings and lifted herself several feet into the air. “Come and get me, Crow!”
He stared for a moment, then turned and continued West. Swan landed and caught up with him.
“I'm just trying to make a point.”
“You've made it,” he said. “You have made that point into a sword of absolute clarity. I am exactly as worthless and as helpless as I have led myself to believe. Congratulations, you've transformed my miniscule fears into unfettered certainty. Now, please, leave me my last shred of dignity and pretend we never met.”
“Crow...”
“It has been an interesting diversion, little dove, but I've grown tired of it, as I have of you.”
“I understand you hating me, Crow, but-”
“Hate you?” Crow turned and looked at her with tears in his eyes. “That's the work of insurmountable wit, Swan. If you think I am capable of hating any creature other than myself, you haven't the slightest understanding of my character.”
“Crow, I'm just trying to help you stay alive!”
He screamed, “How many different ways must I express it, little dove? I don't want to stay alive!”
He marched away from her as the rain grew heavier, but she continued to chase after him.
“But I want you to!” she called.
“You don't even know me!”
She grabbed him and forced him to stop.
“I know you're in a lot of pain, and the lion's share of it isn't from your wings. I know that for all your tripe about not caring, you saved me from that gull and have kept me in good company for the short time we've been together. You're the only friend I have in the entire world, and you've set yourself on the edge of oblivion just to spite me!”
He stuttered. “It... it isn't spite for you-”
“It may as well be! Every step you take Westward is one I will take as well, and even if you drown yourself in that darkness, I won't hesitate to follow you down! No words, no wit, no amount of anger can shake me of my conviction. Our fates are tied, whether you like it or not.”
He watched her, doing his best to shield his eyes from the rain and wind.
“And to be honest, I don't want to die,” she said.
Crow looked towards the East and sighed. He looked at Swan.
“Fine. We'll try your damned harness.”

8.
After sorting out the tangled mess, she slipped part of it over her head and stepped into two loops, one for either leg, and pulled them taut. The slack went into the underbelly of the harness, which Crow slipped inside of as tenderly as possible. They immediately admitted that it was an awkward setup.
Swan flapped her wings, and they lifted off a few inches from the ground. Then they fell, and Swan exhaled heavily.
“By the Gods, you're heavy,” she said.
He rolled his eyes. “Perhaps if we got a running start?”
She nodded and prepared herself for take two. She took off into a run, Crow keeping his legs in time with hers as best he could, and when she spread her wings the two lifted off.
She called out to Crow, “Spread your wings!”
With a sigh he did so, and immediately they picked up lift. Swan flapped her wings and the two glided upwards, and Crow laughed.
“I can't believe it!” he shouted.
“I didn't think it was going to work either!” she yelled.
He didn't understand what she'd said through the rain. “What?”
“Nothing!”
As they flew higher, Crow surveyed the extent of the damage to the world. For miles the world seemed bleached of its color. Only at the edge of the Eastern horizon was there even a hint of color and sun. Before they turned their course in that direction, Crow looked back to the West.
There appeared to be a wall of black expanding out from the seam on the horizon. It bled off onto everything it touched, and grew slowly across the land.
“My Gods,” he said without thinking.
And then they turned East, and he shook his head. Though his wings ached and there were pins and needles at the slightest bump in the air, he was not in as much pain as he had expected. Perhaps this won't be so bad after all, he thought.

Murder, Part 3

Chapter 3
He takes a long drag and exhales, watching the wisps of smoke curl and dissipate. There aren't enough cigarettes in the world to block out the memories he's plastered to the wall. Not that that's going to stop him.
It doesn't make sense that he still feels this way. By all rights, he should be looking at those pictures with pride. It may just be in an advisory role, but he's helping in an investigation, one that could revitalize his career. Or at least the general media's interest in it.
But he can't shake that sense of shame that looms over everything he's done in the last twenty years. It doesn't make sense, but it's there.
He's been on the case for nearly a week, now. If the pattern continues, there are only a few days left before the new Couples Killer takes another set of victims. And Walter is clueless.
He has gone over every file, every newspaper clipping, ever piece of memorabilia available to him, and not a single lead has come to mind. It seems a river of alcohol twenty years deep has dulled the edge of his criminal instincts.
It doesn't matter too very much, though. Even if his involvement with the case only goes this far, the media will still have a field day. “HERO COP HELPS IN SECOND COUPLES KILLER CASE.” It doesn't matter what the actual truth is, the headlines can only say so much. Money and fame are mutually exclusive, and neither one gives much thought to reality.
Still, he'd like to be able to say he's helped to some capacity. A general opinion is coming about that Kennedy wasn't really much of a president, and it took fifty years for the American public to let that become more important than his legend. What kind of shelf-life will Walter's legend have? Hopefully just enough to last through to his death.
There's a knock at the door, and Walt waits for it to go away. But it doesn't.
With a sigh, he gets up and answers.
It's James.
“Hey, Walt. Mind if I come in?”
“Uh, sure, come on in.” As he closes and locks the door behind the kid, he says, “What brings you out here?”
“Have you found anything?”
Walt takes a deep breath, looking around the entryway. “I've been trying a while, but nothing's come to me.”
The kid seems distracted by the memorabilia on the walls. “You've kept all this stuff for all these years,” he says. “I can't imagine what it must be like to be that successful. You know, I did my dissertation on the original CK case.”
Walt leads him into the living room. “Is that right?”
“Yes sir,” he says with a prideful smile. “I was at the speech you gave at UCLA a few years ago, I tried to meet you afterwords but you vanished pretty quick.”
The kid's attention is drawn to a short, rusty knife in a glass case on the wall.
“That's the knife he used to kill the husbands.”
The kid seems surprised. “They let you keep it?”
Walt shrugs. “After being closed for so long, evidence stops being a thing of necessity. The department was going to throw most of it out, but I took it with me when I retired.”
“Throw it out?”
“Yeah, they were modernizing the precinct and didn't want to deal with all the clutter. A lot of important information got nixed, all that's left is a, a read-out on a computer says what happened to who and why. A paragraph maybe.”
“That's a shame. It's not like that anymore, I can tell you.”
“Well, it was a more innocent time. Can I get you something to drink?”
The kid shakes his head. Walt pours himself a glass of whiskey. When he sits down, the kid follows suit.
“So, I take it you didn't come out here in the middle of the night to bemoan the mistakes of the past?”
He smiles. “No sir, there's just something I want to run by you. It hit me like a tidal wave, you know? And I had to share it with someone, just to make sure I wasn't crazy.”
“Well, share away, son.”
The kid nods. “So, we know the new couples killer is someone with an intimate knowledge of the case. And we know there are some details about the original killings that were never released to the press. So the new killer would have to be someone who knew the original killer. Maybe an unknown accomplice or a friend-”
“Son, I know the case like the back of my hand, and I can promise you that Milovich didn't have any friends. His family was gone before he was out of adolescence, and he didn't like people. He would never have had an accomplice.”
The kid's smile fades. “Oh.”
“It's not a bad idea, son. You're thinking out of the box. But it doesn't hold water.”
“Oh, I see.”
The kid looks down and stutters for a few moments.
“Well, I'm sorry I wasted your time, Walt. I'll try to think harder next time.” He gets up and starts to leave, but Walt stops him.
“Hey, kid, don't worry about it. There's nothing to feel bad about, okay? I was in your shoes once, I know what it's like. But I'm telling you, going down that road is a waste of time. I can only say that because I have the experience to back it up. We're going to find this sumbitch, you understand?”
The kid nods.
“Walt, do you mind if I... Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“Sure son, go ahead.”
“How do you balance family with...” he gestures towards the murder hall of fame, “all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Ever since I got this case, I've been spending all my time trying to find something. But things between my wife and I have gotten... Well, not any better. How did you deal with it?”
Walt looks at him and considers the answers he could give. But for once he feels like being honest.
“I didn't.”

The room is hot, at least twenty guys are sitting there trying not to be angry. Walt is twiddling his thumbs and sipping on a mug of spiked coffee.
He had a long night.
After what seems like forever, the door opens and the police chief comes in.
“Sorry I'm late, fellas. There was a wreck, blah blah, tell me we've got something.”
Dead silence across the board. He runs a hand through his hair as he reaches the front of the room.
“So that's it, then? Quadruple homicide and we've got nothing?”
“Actually, sir,” Walt says, “I think I may have something.”
He gets looks from everyone in the room, but the only one he notices is the one he gets from the kid. Walt looks away and steps up next to the chief.
“Alright, what have we got?” he says. “Nothing. Same deal as with the first killer, and that's why you brought me on board. No evidence left at the scene, no suspects, nothing. So, I figure we look back on the case this one is imitating. What if the original CK had an accomplice we never knew about, or a friend he may have blabbed his feats to? That's the only way these things could be happening the way they are. So I looked back through my records and found a whole slew of people who are potential suspects. Old college buddies, neighbors, ex girlfriends.”
The chief is handed a folder with a list of names, which he hands off to someone else. “It's a stretch, but it's worth a shot. I want a background check on every name, find out where they are and what they're doing before the day is out.” He looks at the kid. “Good thinking, bringing this guy on.”
James's mouth is just slightly open, and as the chief leaves the room, others get up to leave. But James stays seated and stares at Walter with a look of disbelieving confusion on his face.
Walt walks right by him, giving him little more than a cursory glance through the crowd.

James catches up with him outside the building.
“What was that?”
“It was what it was.”
“You stole my lea!”
“I did what I had to! You have no idea what it's been like for me, kid. Whatever it looks like, I have not been successful. I have been riding on the heels of the CK case since it wrapped, and I've practically gone bankrupt. I'm sorry I lied to you, kid, but you'd never have agreed to give me the shot if I'd asked. You have to understand, this is my last chance to ever amount to something. You still have your whole career in front of you.”
The kid's expression has softened, but Walt can't tell his emotions.
He doesn't say anything. He just walks away.

Murder, Part 2

Chapter 2.
He kicks a pebble as he leans back against the brick, lights up a cigarette and takes a deep drag. He's tired, cold, and he hates giving interviews. They stopped being worthwhile a decade ago.
The check in his hands is for a pretty decent figure, but it's not as much as he was expecting -not as much as he needs, that's the main thing, but really that figure was never going to come anyway. He sighs and keeps riding his cigarette, hoping for a speck of relief to be nestled somewhere in the tobacco, like a golden ticket.
'Ramble on.' That's the kind of thing you expect your delirious grandpa to do when you're sitting on his knee sipping cocoa and talking about the good old days. Every person working in that fucking building acted like I was just another guy.
A door opens up next to him, and the kid asking him the questions comes out. He walks up to Walt and shakes his hand.
“I want to thank you for giving us your time, Mister Valero.”
“Come on, it's Walt,” he says amiably.
“Walt. Well, I want to thank you for coming in, it was a great pleasure talking with you, and an honor. Really. A lot of people sit in that chair and talk about their lives, most of 'em these faded has-been celebrities who weren't even relevant when they were relevant. But you're a real hero, Walt. I respect all the work you've done, and I just want to say, I hope my own kid turns out half as good as you.”
Walt smiles and pats the kid on the shoulder. “You're killin' me with your kindness, son. I wasn't a hero, just a guy doin' his job. You would have done the same if you'd been in my place.”
He blushes. “I don't know about that, sir.”
“Ah, you don't give yourself enough credit. You know, you remind me of an old friend of mine. If you're half as smart as he was, I'll bet you won't have to worry about a thing as long as you live. You tell your kid to keep up the good work, and you do the same yourself, alright?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alright.”
The two part ways and Walt trots down the street. He still runs into an honest-to-goodness fan every once in a while, and it always cheers him up. It always feels good to be recognized.
He gets into his car and drives the long way home, savoring the afternoon air. It reminds him of his days working on the CK case, driving all across town to talk to character witnesses and compile leads. Truth is, no one could have done what he did. That's the bitch of it all, really. He was the only one who put it together, and if he hadn't, the guy would have gone on to kill again. Maybe so far as dozens more. It was pure chance that he and his team stopped Milovich before he killed his tenth. It was such an amazing story, in fact, that they made a movie about it in the 90's. Starring Clint Eastwood, of course. That one ended up feeding Walt's family for a good six years.
He's long since retired from the police force, long since divorced his wife and disowned his children. None of them gave what he needed. None of them lived up to his expectations. Sometimes it keeps him up at night, but that's why there's whiskey.
By the time he has pulled up, he's already in his chair hugging a cold glass. It's been a long day, productive as it was, and he's ready to get drunk.
His house is lined with memorabilia. News clippings about the CK case, pictures he'd taken with various celebrities, everywhere is a reminder of the glory days. Everywhere is a portrait of what his life was, and what he will be remembered for.
Walter Valero cannot help but feel small in this huge chair, but to feel old in this rapidly evolving world. He knows that the praise hefted onto him by his peers is ill-won. His career as a police officer was, in truth, nothing spectacular; sub-par really, if you want to get down to brass tacks. There was no skill involved in catching the Couples Killer -he just got lucky. And ever since then, he's been living off that one bright spot in an otherwise shitty life. Had the case not been as gruesome as it was, or had it not caught on to the public's imagination so thoroughly, Walter would be homeless right now. Without his press, without his house, without his whiskey.
If he doesn't do something soon, that's just how it's going to be.
He's going to die alone.
As he falls asleep, he thinks of the glory days, and imagines they're still here.

The phone rings, and Walt is startled awake. He looks to his left and sees that it's nearly five hours later, but he feels as though he'd only dozed off momentarily. He picks up the phone.
“Hello?” he says groggily.
“Walter Valero?”
“Yes?”
“Hello, sir. My name is James Sanford, I'm calling on behalf of the Everett County Police Department.”
“Not to be rude, Mister Sanford, but it's nearly four in the morning.”
“I apologize for calling so late, but it's, uh... it's urgent. We've got a case going out here, we'd like to get your input.”
“You should know I retired three years ago. I'm no longer qualified to-”
“This is concerning the CK case.”
The world seems to grind to a halt, and for a moment Walt can't even speak.
“I'm sorry?”
“I can't say any more over the phone. Do you have transportation?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Come to 5900 Walnut Avenue and I'll tell you everything. Good night, Mister Valero.”
“Wait,” he said. Walt rubbed his temple. “CK is dead, I watched him get the injection. Are we talking an impersonator?”
“Come to the address and we'll explain everything.”
At that, the line clicks dead. Walter hangs up the phone and stares at the picture of Adam Milovich, sitting in a jail cell, smiling in that awful way he used to do. Looking at the man who caught him. Laughing.

He pulls up to an old house and it's like '89 all over again. Dozens of cruisers, several network vans waiting just outside the perimeter, floodlights.
Everyone's wearing a face like they don't know where they are or why. Walt's seen that before, too.
He gets out and walks up to the perimeter, where a portly cop stops him.
“Step back please, sir.”
“I'm Walter Valero, son. One of your guys called me in.”
“You got a badge, mister Valero?”
“Not recently.”
“Then I'm afraid-”
A voice shouts, “Jim! Let him through!”
The cop turns, surprised, then shrugs and lifts the tape for Walt.
For the first time in more than twenty years, Walter steps onto a crime scene. A chill runs down his spine, like he just stepped over his grave.
The source of the voice, an eager cop in his mid twenties, walks up to Walter and holds out his hand.
“Mister Valero, thank you so much for coming out at this ungodly hour.”
“Are you James?”
“Yes sir.”
He shakes the kid's hand. “Good to meet you, son. Now, you mind explaining what this is all about?”
The kid nods, but his face remains grim. “I think you need to see it for yourself.”
Walt shrugs. “Lead the way.”

Excitement and horror. That's what he's feeling.
The house is torn up on the inside. Pictures ripped off the walls, wall paper peeled back. The contents of any cabinets have been tossed onto the floor. Broken glass litters the carpet.
In some places, there's blood.
He's walked all through the house, seen the damage, examined the little tells. The same tells CK left twenty years ago.
Walter does nothing but breathe for a moment, taking it all in. What was he expecting, exactly? Whatever it was, it wasn't this. An impersonator, sure. Not this.
This is CK down to the letter.
The kid makes to explain the scene, but Walt stops him. There are other cops on the scene, and they're watching him closely.
He takes a deep breath and says, “The killer came in through the front door, probably knocked and either let himself in or was let in. You'll find traces of tranquilizer in both the male and female victims, which the killer got into them by way of a dart gun. He bound the female in a wooden chair, which he set right here, then stripped and hogtied the husband and laid him out in front of her. He went all through the house and broke every mirror he could find, and judging from the amount of glass here probably took a few windows too, and gathered it all up in a pile here. He used an ammonium carbonate to wake them, and from that point until about four hours and forty five minutes later, he tortured the husband until finally putting two bullets into either side of his chest. Approximately five minutes later, he shot the wife in the head. He then dragged their bodies into the backyard, where I assume they've been arranged very artistically.”
The kid turns to the other cops in the room. “Guys, this is Walter Valero, key investigator on the original CK case. I opted to bring him in due to his unparalleled knowledge of the particulars of the Couples Killer.”
“He ain't told us nothing we don't already know,” said a bald cop.
Walt chimed in. “And you're not going to know anything he doesn't want you to.”
“Maybe if this were the actual CK, but that guy was put to death what, eleven years ago?”
“Twelve.”
“Either way, he's gone. That means this here's the work of an imitator, and that means the guy's probably delusional, and-”
“And that means he probably made a mistake, yeah,” said Walter. “That's what I would be inclined to believe, if I didn't have twenty years of nightmares on my side. Gentlemen, there have been a few CK impersonators, but they all either made mistakes or failed outright. This is beyond the point of imitation. I visited all five crime scenes in the original case, they all looked exactly like this.”
“So what? Guy probably saw a documentary on the History Channel-”
“I've seen every one of them, trust me,” Walter said. “We never released pictures of the bodies to the press.”
“Then he read one of your books.”
“I never detailed the full process of CK's cycle.”
“Then he read someone else's book.”
“Alright, cue-ball,” Walter said, “you want to question me, that's fine. But you don't give a starving man a brick and tell him it's a cheesburger, alright? I know what I'm lookin' at here. There are things about this that an impersonator simply wouldn't know. Now, Mister Sanford, you brought me in on this to get my professional opinion, presumably because you and your friends are out of leads. Well, I'd bet money that this isn't the work of just an imitator.”
There's silence in the room for a moment, then cue-ball says, “Alright Mister Valero, thanks for the hints, now would you mind leaving us to our crime scene?”
“How many have there been?” Walter asks Sanford.
“Excuse me,” cue ball says.
“These are the third and fourth, respectively.”
“Alright, have your lab guys run the gamut of tests, on the bodies, on the floor and walls, on the samples, on the evidence.”
“Hey!” the bald cop screams. “What the fuck do you think you're doing?”
Walter turns on the guy. “Alright Gonzo, you want to direct traffic? I hope you know what to look for, 'cause if you yell at me one more fuckin' time, I'm leaving and I'll never help your department again.”
He stares Walt down, balling his fists, but he says nothing.
“Alright then, it's established,” Walt says. “You folks need my input on this.”
“The problem here isn't what we need from you,” another of the cops says. “You're not a cop anymore. Legally, we could get in trouble for letting you tell us what to do. All due respect sir, when it comes down to the paperwork, we're the ones who are going to be held accountable for what you end up doing here. Isn't that right, Fenton?”
The bald cop nods his head, “That's the polite way of saying it.”
Walter looks around at the group of people and nods. “I apologize, fellas. I haven't been on a crime scene in years, and old habits die hard. Please, do your jobs. Sanford, can I speak to you a minute?”
He and James walked into a side room of the house and stood across from each other.
“You didn't clear me coming out here with your colleagues?”
“No, sir.”
“Or with your department?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“When the first set of killings happened, I immediately made the connection to the CK case, and when I proposed we bring you in on counsel, my superiors said it takes two to make a trend. Now, we got out here two hours ago, and nobody here has any idea what to make of it. The guy who did this, he wasn't under any pressure at all. No prints, no tracks, no left-behind property, not even hair or skin in the glass. We've already had a background check done on the victims, there's no overlap in friends or family, so ostensibly there is no connection between the two couples so far. My assumption was, the only way we could find a lead was to look back on the case this one is imitating, and that means sooner or later we'd have to bring you in.”
Walter shakes his head. “That's admirable, but you should have cleared it with the proper folks first.”
“I just didn't want anyone turning over the crime scene too much before you got to see it.”
“Well, kid, I'm here now, and seeing what I have, I'm just as lost as you guys.”
“You haven't seen the bodies yet.”

Outside, the sun's just starting to crest the horizon, and Walter is a little confused.
“This is wrong.”
“You see it too, then?” Sanford says.
The husband is on the left, the wife on the right, and they are set head-to-head in a straight line horizontally with the house. They are completely naked, covered in blood -the husband far more than the wife- and their eyes have been glued open.
And their extremities have been severed and replaced where they were once connected.
“Was it post mortem?” Walter asks.
“Yes.”
Walt shakes his head. “No. Milovich said there was a sanctity to his victims after death. He would never have dismembered them like this.”
“So, what do you think it means?”
Walt rubs his head. “I don't know.
He turns away and rubs his head, looking at the sky. After a yawn, he turns back around. “I think I'm going to go home and give this a long think.”
“But don't you think you should look at the scene some more. or-”
“Son, I've seen all I need to. Milovich never left anything he didn't want found at a scene. If this guy's worth half his salt, your techs will find something and that'll lead you to him. Me, I'm going to go home, have a glass of whiskey, and try to think out of the box.”
“Alright then.”
As Walter starts to walk away, James says, “Uh, Mister Valero?”
He turns around and says, “Please, it's Walt.”
“Right. I just want to say, there was another reason for me calling you out here. I actually did my dissertation on the CK case, and you were my motivation for joining the force. I think if we caught this guy, and I had my name next to yours in the books, well, I think I'd be set for life.”
Walt looks at him for a few moments.
“Yeah, you'd think that. Well, thank you much, son. I'm honored.”
At that, Walt walks away, leaving James to consider the corpses by himself.

Murder, Part 1

Chapter 1.
1989:

It ends tonight.
Through the cold evening air I can feel shortness of breath, the trembling heart, the tensing of muscles, her eyes getting wider and wider until it seems like they could pop right out of her skull. At least one of her fingernails is missing from compulsively digging them into the oak chair I've bound her in. There's blood on her chest, her legs, her upper arms, and splotches on her face, and none of it is hers.
The horror she embodies in this moment is a mirror, and I stare into it as willingly as any man to face the truth of his own dementia. I feel sorry for her, and I wish I could cut her bonds and give her the gun I used to shoot her husband, tell her to put it to my knees and fire because that's where it would hurt the most, then put a round in my stomach and let me die as its acids ate through the rest of my organs. But that would be too easy.
To give her a way out would be too simple. I want to be defeated, more than she or anyone could ever know, but I refuse to make it easy. I want her to find a chink in my armor of her own volition, and I want her to exploit it to every gruesome end. But I already know she won't. She's stopped begging, stopped crying, now she's just staring at me. I think it's possible she's altogether forgotten how to speak.
She looks like a domestic cat, caught in the arms of an angry child, knowing it's going to die but incapable of striking back by virtue of its own origins.
I hate her for being so pathetic. I hate her for being so helpless, for giving in so quickly.
And I hate myself for needing to do this thing in the first place. And deep down I've come to understand a horrible truth, one that I've only barely touched on as yet, but will surely revisit as these killings continue; though this act will set the demons at bay, in less than a week I will be hungry for more.
Killing sets me at ease, but like sex and drugs, its effect is only lessened by time and experience.
She will be my tenth victim, and my last. I've made sure of that.
I wave the gun in her face and watch as she becomes a pencil sketch of herself from the fear, and I put my finger on the trigger and she practically shits herself. It's a crude thought, I feel guilty for it, but what the hell, it's murder.
I take a deep breath, and I consider just walking away. I won't, obviously, because she's seen my face, heard me talk. Not that it matters at this point, but I can't stop the killer in me from going down that road. But, really, how big of a mind-fuck would it be if I pressed the gun into her temple, leaned close, got right in her face, and just screamed at the top of my lungs? And before she has time to let that sink in, I just turn around and walk away. I'd be out of the apartment before she could even process the fact that she was still alive. It'd be worth doing just for the weirdness of it.
But I'm too far for that now. Caught up in my own silly little web. I have to kill her, and not just because of the ostensibly obvious reasons. The carnal necessity that brought this whole thing out in the first place, that's why I'm here. That's why I have this gun, that's why I shot her husband, and that's why I have to shoot her.
I have to because I need to because I want to.
So I put the gun against her head, and I lean close, close enough to kiss her on the lips, and I look her right in the eyes.
“I'm sorry,” I say, and I pull the trigger.

I'm blinded by the gunfire and deafened by its scream, but it sticks around too long. Something terrible has happened, and before I can take it in, I'm pulled backwards onto the floor. A foot stomps on my hand and the gun I had is ripped away. I've been flipped over and put in cuffs, and I hear some vague mumblings about rights. And then my vision returns.
There's sobbing, and it's a woman's voice, and I look up to see that she isn't just alive, she's unharmed.
There's a smoking hole in the wall behind her, and I can't help but smile for all the rage and relief I feel.
“You couldn't have cut it any closer if you tried!” I shouted.
A pair of spit-shined shoes under a perfectly trim brown set of suit pants steps on the shattered glass in front of me, and suddenly I'm yanked up off the ground, made to be eye level with whoever's in front of me.
And as soon as I see his face, I smile.
And I wink.


2009:

“Alright Walt -uh, may I call you Walt?”
He rubs behind his ear. “Absolutely.”
The kid smiles. “Cool. Alright Walt, here's the deal, I'm going to ask you some questions, and they're going to be vague. The way we do these sorts of things is, we ask these short form questions to give you room to work with, so you feel free to ramble on about whatever comes to mind. What we're going to end up doing is, we're going to cut up the footage of the interview -use the bits and pieces that are most compelling, or best represent a certain period in your life.”
“Period?”
“Uh, yessir. We're doing a retrospective on your whole life.”
“I was under the impression you were going to stick mainly with the Couples Killer.”
“Well Walt, that will certainly make up the bulk of the thing, but we have to fill forty five minutes of air time. The CK case, as compelling as that is, everyone knows it, we spend the whole night talking about it people won't watch through to the end. What we're going after here is the story behind the story. What motivated you to become a cop, you know, stuff like that.”
“I see.”
“Are you comfortable with that, Walt? I assume our legal team went through the particulars-”
“I'm afraid I was misled a bit, but that was the fault of my people, not yours. Don't worry about it, son. What do you want to know?”
“Hold on just a moment.”
The kid turns and signals to the crew around the set -a yellow wall and plastic tree that could only look natural from a handful of perspectives. Red lights flash on top of three separate cameras, two of which are fixed, the other resting on the shoulders of a bald man with orange facial hair. Everything in place, they give the kid a thumbs up.
“Alright Walt, tell me about your childhood.”
“Ah, well. It was pretty run-of-the-mill. I was born in Dallas, 1961, youngest of six. My dad was a WWII vet, flew with the 8th Pursuit Group in '43. I was not exactly a planned child, my brothers ended up taking care of me more than anyone. My father died of lung disease when I was in high school, mother following soon after for... various reasons. I was brought up a pretty strict, upstanding kind of guy. Now, my brothers, they tended towards the hippie movement, but by the time I was old enough to really see what it was, it had already started to fall apart. Then there was Vietnam, now I never went over there obviously, I was only fourteen when the war ended, so I can't say much about it first hand, but I watched my siblings burn their draft cards and run from their responsibility, and I swore I'd never go down that road. Retrospectively, sure, it was a bad war, and probably not worth fighting, but I was raised to follow the orders of my country. I went into the army in '79, went to Grenada in '83, came home and joined the Academy. By '89 I wasn't too much better than your average beat cop. Big difference was my morals. Most of these guys, they were raised on Dirty Harry, you know what I mean? That was a big problem back then, a lot of guys were getting into law enforcement for the wrong reasons. They wanted to be Clint Eastwood with his .44, taking the law into their own hands and lookin' badass the whole way. That ain't the way of things in the real world, though, you understand, police work is mostly just boring paperwork. Me, I'm one in a million. I got lucky with my career, and you ask any other famous cop out there who made a name catching some serial killer, he'll tell you the same thing. Right place, right time. And if he says different, he's a liar. Now, that's not to say that there isn't any skill involved, there's a lot to being a cop that most people don't realize. There's plenty of people who couldn't have figured out the pattern, who would have been stumped by all the bits and pieces, and there were, too. But I can name at least five guys offa top of my head who were a stone's throw away from my job, who coulda took that case as far as I did. It's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. And being the right guy for the job.”