Pack, Part 28: Of the Puzzle

The subway rocked and squealed, turning around the bend with a clattering of wheels. Justin was onboard, his disguise discarded.

His dyed black hair ruffled in the soft breeze of the stagnant air conditioning. He was nearly alone on the subway car—it was in the early morning hours.

The others were spaced out at the various stops, waiting for his call to board. Most would be sleeping. Buncombe would.

If Justin were to see one of the other pack members board his or any car on his subway, he was to call. If nothing happened, he would ride it for four hours before letting one of the others take over.

He was nearly lulled to sleep by the steady vibrations of the car, but Daldion forced his mind to focus.

“We do not agree with the others,” he said. “So it is our duty to prevent our fears from coming to pass. We could not stop them from coming this far—but if we are viligant, perhaps we can turn this to a victory.”

“You really think this is a trap? That we don’t have the advantage?”

“Buncombe underestimates Halling. He thinks himself older, wiser. But he does not reckon in Halling’s companion—the original Ruler. He is far beyond…” Daldion’s thoughts lapsed.

 

Hiram’s eyes opened. His gaze was blurry. Closing them, he focused for the briefest of seconds, pulling on the power of the Thin Places to cleanse his body of the need to rest, the lethargy that lay upon him, and the remainder of the drugs Connor had put into his system.

He sat up, dressed only in a thin white shirt and boxers. Most unbecoming for someone of his age. He wanted a vest. And a tie.

On the bed across from him, Sarai was shaking the cobwebs from her head and running her eyes over her body, making sure nothing was missing. Her tank top was damp with sweat.

Hiram blinked admiringly. She was always focused—her stint in the Israeli special forces had brought that to her. Only when she was seeking did she lose herself in the moment. It was rapture to her.

Tobias was still lying on his back, green eyes on the ceiling. Hiram stood, sending his power to his legs to prevent himself from stumbling. Touching Tobias and Sarai in turn, he did his best to bring them up to full strength.

The three were just pulling on their coats when Connor walked in. He looked them over.

The IVs that had fed them during their coma had run dry, but Connor’s butler came in behind him, carrying a tray laden with rolls and fruit.

“Eat,” Connor ordered. “It is time.”

 

Justin felt it before he saw it. A tremor that seemed to shake the air as the car pulled into the station. He reached for his pistol. Francisco had showed him how to use it.

Justin moved back, away from the door, ready to draw his weapon. Who was at this station? Buncombe. Of course it was Buncombe.

The doors slid open to an empty station. Empty. Unnaturally empty.

The he heard the sound of a shot.

From around a pillar came Buncombe, his top hat flying from his head in his flight. He slammed his back to the concrete pole and changed his clip. Looking up at the incoming subway he saw Justin. Of course it was Justin.

He flinched at the concrete inches from his head blew apart. Cocking his gun, Buncombe gave a hurried instruction to his companion and dived out from behind the pillar.

Tobias, a similar pistol in his hands, stepped out from the concession stand he stood behind and fired at Buncombe. Three shots hit the ground around the rolling Englishman. Then the fourth took him in the side, a small mist of red exploding from the wound.

A savage grin coming to his face, Tobias sprinted forward, diving for Buncombe’s gun and knocking it away. Buncombe writhed, trying to put pressure on his wound.

Tobias lowered the gun at Buncombe’s leg. “Alive is good, I think. Connor will make you talk. But, perhaps, it would be better for you to be immobile.” His finger tightened on the trigger.

Shot.

The sound echoed in the empty subway terminal. Tobias fell back, surprise etched on his face as he dropped his gun, both hands going to the small red hole in his chest. Then he fell.

Justin stood still as Buncombe rose. He was staring at his still-smoking weapon. The black steel. So innocent…and the tiny hole that delivered death. His conspiracies had always involved death, but this was different.

He was shocked. Not that the bullet had hit—though that was impressive, thought a small prideful part of his mind—but that he had shot. It had taken him second. Whole second where Buncombe could have been further wounded or worse. He hadn’t been able to fire.

It had been Daldion, drawing the confusion away, pushing Justin to tighten his finger. And he had shot. And killed.

Justin threw up.

Pack, Part 27: Pieces

Lights flashing in a row. Blackness between. Wind—broken glass underfoot.

Stumbling, dodging around poles. Fire.

 

“The subway.” Zerihun’s voice was resigned. “It will be in the subway. Or at least they will be.”

They were in the hotel’s shabby conference room. They still wore their disguises: Justin as a young South American—Francisco’s son, Francisco as a rather dapper mustachioed ex-military man from the same area, Buncombe as his butler, and Amber as Francisco’s wife.

The Thin Places stretched above them, connecting their minds. The wolves formed insubstantial bodies of blue light, stalking around the room. Limbering up for the presumed battle. They were magnificent…and neon.

“If this is about their Ruler…why would he be on a subway? It’s small, confined…deep underground. It could be a death trap.” Justin didn’t get it. It wasn’t making sense.

“It will be a death trap. For him.”

Justin shivered. Killing. He wasn’t sure he approved. But he wasn’t in charge. And Connor was trying to kill them. Apparently.

Buncombe’s eyes were fiery. “He won’t be expecting it. When I followed him—”

“You’ve been stalking him?” Justin interrupted.

Buncombe sniffed. “’Course. Until you and your problems got me recalled from the city and back out to the bloody wilderness. I know everything there is to know about ‘em. His favorite restaurants, chauffeurs, flats…”

“Flats?”

“Apartments.”

“Is that the UK version?”

Buncombe sighed, like he had the conversation before. “No. It’s English. We made it up first. That’s the reason it’s called English. Then you Americans had to go flippin’ mad and screw it up.”

Amber tapped the table with her knuckle. “Are we really having this conversation right now?”

Justin looked down, but Buncombe had one final salvo. “Did the same bloody thing with football…”

“Didn’t know you liked the Patriots…”

“Wrong football, twit! We had it first! Go Chelsea!”

Amber growled, the sounds rumbling through the room and making the tall glasses on the refreshment table shiver.

The two arguing men looked at her.

“Enough,” she said. “Thanks Iridess.”

“I’ve heard Buncombe go through that a thousand times. Ever since the whole Webster incident.” Iridess’ voice was amused.

“Oy! He was—”

Justin looked at Buncombe. “Let’s move on.”

With those words a shiver seemed to run through the blue permeating light of the Thin Places.

Buncombe’s mouth was still open. He was working it soundlessly, trying to speak. But he couldn’t. His eyebrows furrowed into an angry line. He glared at Justin. And clenched his teeth.

A line, like a blue laser, seemed to grow from midair, connecting Justin’s mind and Buncombe’s. It shivered, dancing. Justin didn’t know what it was. What he was doing. He glared back. The line jumped thinning at his end and thickening towards Buncombe.

Then, without flash or fanfare or applaud, it disappeared.

Buncombe looked resigned on the outside—but on the inside it was obvious he was seething. His eyes were pure murder. Justin shuddered internally. Whatever peace Buncombe’s apology had made was obviously gone.

“Buncombe…” Justin began, his hands twitched nervously, tapping the table in rhythm. A number rhythm. OCD…again?

“We should move on.” Buncombe spoke flatly. “I know what subway Connor is most likely to ride on—there’s one that runs almost directly from his campaign office to his nearest penthouse.”

Buncombe stood, and swept off his top hat. “He must be trying to avoid attention and move incognito—to avoid attention, the media, and all his bloomin’ fans. He might be in disguise—like you’ve learned from me, he could have learned from his pack’s Watcher.”

Pulling a thin file from his long coat, Buncombe slid four photos across the table. A man Justin recognized as Connor Halling from the TV commercials. A man, older and stern—labeled Hiram Retland. Sarai Olgin, a tan woman of Middle Eastern origin. And Tobias Tory, a pale green-eyed Norwegian.

“Memorize their faces.” Buncombe looked serious. Not angry now, just focused. “They will attack—and kill—on sight. You must do the same. But we are not here to attract attention. You all have your weapons?”

The three other humans at the table nodded, hand’s tapping their respective fire arms. Justin had to hold himself back from touching it three times. He felt Daldion’s comforting presence and relaxed…a little.

“You may not be able to use them,” Zerihun said at a nod from Buncombe. “When we meet, especially if there are more than two of us, the Thin Places will make using anything besides our bodies as weapons difficult. It is a pure place—where things of the fallen world are rejected.”

Justin raised a hand. “So what exactly is the plan? We wait on a subway until someone comes and then we kill him? What should I do?”

Buncombe’s fire returned. “I suggest you stay out of my way, peep.”

Amber broke the tension—and Justin’s unconscious counting—with a slap on the table. “Shall we?”

Pack, Part 26: The Big Apple

Justin squinted in the hard winter light as he stepped out of the airport. A phone with the numbers of his fellow Pack members was in his pocket, a small pistol that he had no intention of using was in a shoulder holster, he wore glasses that barely fit his subtly altered face, and the name on his ID was not Justin Kobe.

Ah, conspiracy. It was more enjoyable when it was theory.

Justin walked to the nearest taxi, sidestepping bystanders. Their shouts and waving arms and mundane lives did not concern him—at least not according to Buncombe. He was something else—a privileged member of the Pack. Called to a higher purpose. Immune from the doddering of common humans.

It seemed like a lonely way to live. No wonder Buncombe was what he was.

He handed the driver a note that would indicate his destination. He knew Spanish like the Ramirez Yale he appeared to be—thanks to two years of it in school—but his accent was all wrong, and anyway, he didn’t trust his voice.

He was shaking with fear.

Francisco and Buncombe were miracle-workers. In the few hours of the plane ride across the border they had changed Justin from a black-haired pale and soft American to a tanned and fierce looking man of Southern American origin. His face matched that of the passport’s perfectly.

“We have to live around laws,” Buncombe had said, putting the finishing touches on his own disguise. “The other Pack uses them—has used them—to their advantage. And we’ll be in New York. Halling’s backyard. His pub, aye?”

Francisco had been looking through what appeared to be a pile of passports, drivers’ licenses, and visas. “When you live as long as we do, the law can be…difficult. Taxes and such.”

Buncombe had rolled his eyes and blinked, getting his bright blue contacts to settle in. “One man owning a house for 100 years straight is a bit of legal issue, if ya’ catch my drift.”

So now Justin was alone, heading for the rendezvous point at the hotel, looking like someone he certainly was not.

He paid the driver in cash—provided by Buncombe—and looked up at the hotel through his brown contacts.

New York…

It was smellier than he imagined.

“Welcome to my world.” Buncombe seemed to emerge from the stone wall of the alley next to the hotel. “The world beneath the bloody skyscrapers—where things are just as barbaric as the Stone Age.”

Justin nodded at the hotel, keeping a calm face at Buncombe’s sudden appearance. “Places like this?”

The hotel was shabby, dirty, and the customers Justin could see in the lobby did not look savory. Nice. Savory was too…Buncombe.

“No,” Buncombe said. He pulled Justin into the alley he had come from. It was like entering the Thin Place. It was suddenly dark. Semi-darkness—as the close-built buildings above blocked out the light.

Trash. Rotting waste. Cardboard boxes flimsily protecting both possessions and huddled figures. Eyes peering curiously up at the two figures that disturbed their rest.

Justin jerked out, jerked away. Back into the sunlight—weak and biting as it was.

Buncombe was behind, his teeth bared in something that wasn’t a smile. “The normal people…the bourgeoisie, as some of my friends would say, have always been repulsed by reality.”

Justin was silent. He couldn’t argue.

Buncombe removed the baseball cap that was part of his disguise, revealing his gray-flecked hair. He pulled a rumbled top hat from his side bag, brushed it off, and put it on. He ran a pair of fingers down the sides of his moustache.

Justin recognized the gesture. “What?”

“This is my world, Justin. Old and dark and dirty. Queen knows I don’t like young upstarts—especially arrogant young upstarts.”

Buncombe held up a hand to still Justin’s outburst. “I am entitled to my opinion on this side of the ocean…at least now that that civil rights things worked.”

Just how old was Buncombe?

“Old, at least by your standards,” Daldion’s hollow voice came. “Amber told you—more than a hundred years.”

“The point is,” Buncombe said, his voice now serious, “is that I have seen things happen—bad things—because of people like you. What happened last time—the death of my friends and half the humans in this Pack—was because of a mistake. Inexperience. A Ruler who was my friend died because the people he trusted were not dependable.”

Buncombe stepped back, taking a breath. “Bloody. Listen. I’ll try not to hit you so hard in the future. Just do as you’re told—you’ve a lot to learn.”

Turning without another word, the man entered the hotel.

Justin watched him go, not moving. Confused. “Was that an apology?”

“As close as you’ll ever get,” Daldion mused. “No matter how much he dislikes you, he needs you. It would not be advisable for us to be outnumbered. As a Pack member, out of all the humans in the world you are qualified to stand by him in battle. But in the last…incident…the human didn’t obey orders. He broke. And the Ruler of that time, Buncombe’s friend of almost fifty years, died because of it.”

“I will not break,” Justin whispered. A seedy couple passing him gave him a glance of questionable quality, but he ignored them. His mind was on something above their understanding.

Daldion retreated, going into the recesses of his mind. “That is what the one before said.”

Justin hung his head, his skin hot, his eyes angry. “Does anyone believe me?”

“I do.” Daldion was swimming at the edge of the darkness that was his mind. “But the future is uncertain…”

Pack, Part 25: Countdown

Connor Halling opened his eyes, and refocused on the man speaking. His media advisor—a man who had stuck with him through thick and thin, making the enigma that was Connor Halling likable to the gullible masses.

In other words, a genius.

The man had kept talking, even though Connor’s eyes had been closed. That was a rule to all who worked under the statesman. Never assume. As it were, Connor hadn’t been sleeping, but concentrating. The media advisor had guessed that, but the time for the meeting was at an end.

Connor held up a hand the and man stopped speaking immediately, waiting for orders. “Time’s up. Finish with the event organizer. Changes to the schedule.”

Then Connor waved a dismissive hand. The man disconnected his computer from the projector, picked up his laptop, and exited, heading directly for the office of the heavily-built woman who ran his public events. They would figure out the details—especially since Connor had set a bloc of days where he would be unavailable.

The days when the prophecy, the vision, would be made.

It was something he had waited years for. It would be perfect. To see the other Pack in one location, a location he ruled…it was almost too good to be true. So he had made it true.

According to his well-paid contacts in the airport, four people—two men, a woman, and a teenager had arrived in a private plane from Canada, just across the border. It had barely cleared a safety check, but was now sitting in a small rented hangar at JFK. The owners had said they would be taking it out within a week.

They would not—not if Connor had anything to say about it.

It had been duly modified by his grunts. Sabotaged as it were—just in case his prey managed to escape what had been prepared for them. They wouldn’t reach 1,000 feet. The bomb would detonate right after liftoff.

Small aircraft had such poor safety records, especially 30 year-old former South American bush planes.

Not that his Pack knew anything about it. They only knew their job…and that was impromptu for the most part. At the moment they were in the basement of one of his mansions just outside New York City proper, in medically induced comas. They would recover just in time to meet their adversaries in battle.

It wouldn’t due to have unexpected plans and thoughts disrupt the future Connor was making.

Connor intended to be there. To watch. The final destruction of his enemies. To be free of the…fear.

His throat clenched as the presence, the being with which he shared a body, moved within his mind.

“Fear…fear…” It was whispering. “Have no fear…for I am with you. We will not fail. We cannot fail. I cannot fail…Fear…”

The being’s thoughts were disjointed. Only because of him, because of it, was Connor who he was. Without it, he was nothing.

Marduk. The Ruler. The rightful Ruler.

“Soon of the remnants of the Pack, then of the world. Of all worlds…”

The thought was as clear and cutting as ice.

But the fear was behind it. Connor hid it, as he hid all treasonous thoughts. No matter what the others thought they were not one. There was Connor who used the power and the strength and ability…and there was Marduk, who existed. Who thought and dreamed through his human host.

It was only because of weakness, of fear, that Connor was allowed full control of his own actions. But should he fail one too many times…Marduk could find another. Would find another.

Connor Halling—Judge of the Pack, ex-Senator, ex-Governor, ex-Mayor, millionaire, and presidential candidate—was expendable.

Pack, Part 24: To Go or Not to Go

A city.

The vision was simple. A skyline—glowing and packed with monument of steel and glass.

New York City.

And then a feeling—not words, but an emotion.

“Something will happen in New York.”

—

“We should leave—now,” Buncombe said, pacing. “If something’s happening we need to be there.”

“It could be anything,” Justin argued.

They had been talking—all together in council—for almost an hour. The vision had been related and lines had been drawn. Buncombe, Rigel, and Francisco for going, Justin, Daldion, and Zerihun for caution. Iridess and Amber kept out of the argument.

Buncombe threw an arm wide. “It could be an anything we need to see, watch, or stop.”

“Is not the purpose of this Pack to defend this land?” Rigel looked angry. Daldion’s harsh words had caused a division. “It is our duty—no matter our feeling of caution.”

“To defend from what?” Zerihun’s voice was cold. Justin found it surprising to be arguing on the same side as the Teacher. But then again, there were things bigger than an petty disagreement. The black wolf continued from his pedestal. “From the other Pack—and the only reason for that is the fact that our world is no longer under our protection. It is our duty to combat them—not random events.”

“It is them,” Buncombe insisted. “Why else would the Prophet have seen it?”

Justin noticed he did not used Daldion’s name. “It may be them,” Justin replied, trying to keep his voice from the sarcasm he excelled at. Buncombe deserved it more than any of his fellow Pack members, but now was not the time. “But there is no way to know.”

Rigel looked condescendingly at the human who dared to take the role of Ruler. “There is every chance it is.” He nodded at Daldion.

The gray wolf closed his eyes and bowed his head. “It is true. Visions are affected by the viewpoint of the viewer. If I was to think of the other Pack, my vision would likely concern them.”

“And were you thinking of them?” Buncombe pressed, grinning a little.

There was silence for a moment.

“Yes.”

Buncombe slapped his thigh and the sound—provided by each individual mind to their imaginary ears—carried like a gunshot. “Then we have no reason to wait. Let us crack on. Tally ho and what not.”

Justin glanced at Daldion. He had had an idea but hadn’t spoken to Daldion about it. In hindsight, he should have done it before the meeting.

Justin stepped forward, forgetting he was on a cracked pedestal, and almost fell. He recovered, the sharp bolts of Buncombe’s silent laughter piercing his pride. But he gritted his teeth and held his words back for a moment. Then he spoke. “I—I was thinking of this before the meeting. There’s theory—in time travel—called a paradox. An infinite circle that can’t be completed or begun, in theory. If I go back and kill my grandfather, what will happen my existence.”

Iridess spoke for the first time. “We were alive when the thoughts first began to emerge. We are aware of the idea. What is your point?”

Prophecy. Time travel. Thin Places. And he thought life had been complex at high school. Justin cleared his throat. “My point is this—if Daldion sees something concerning the other Pack and sees us there—doesn’t that make the vision?”

Daldion’s lowered head dipped lower but Justin pressed on. “What if going to New York makes the event? As we don’t know the nature of the event itself, it seems to be too much of a risk. A self-fulfilling prophecy. We aren’t reacting to the future. We’re creating it.”

There was a breadth of silent. But then Buncombe took his hat off, as if in respect. “Ruler, if something looks like tea, smells like tea, and tastes like tea, what is it?”

Justin looked for a hole in the statement but couldn’t find evidence of a trick. “Tea?”

“No, it’s really smashing poison. Or bad coffee.”

Justin shook his head. “How does that have anything to do with—.”

“It doesn’t.” Buncombe was done with the conversation. He looked to the council. “We have always followed Daldion’s visions. Have they led us wrong? Has it ever been disastrous?”

There was a chorus of quiet negative affirmations from the council. All but from Justin and Daldion.

Buncombe shrugged. “Then our only option is to go to New York. And there, as I’m sure all of you besides our newest…member…know, is Connor Halling. Perhaps this is our chance to end him. Perhaps even alone. Without him they will be helpless. Most of their capital, their power base, will be gone. Our hiding will be done.”

Francisco voiced his agreement. “I agree. We should go.”

Zerihun blinked slowly. “I do not agree. It is too much of a risk.”

Justin shook his head. “We can’t go. Not until we know more. At the least we need to scout.”

“No time,” Buncombe said. “The Prophet’s vision didn’t give us a window. We need to be there as soon as possible.”

“I concur,” Rigel said.

Iridess nodded her shaggy head. “I am with the Watcher.”

Amber’s gaze was on the ground in the center of the group. “I am with my companion.”

All eyes turned to Daldion. But the wolf was gone, vanishing back into the darkness of his mind. His voice floated out the darkness. “It does not matter what I think. The matter had been decided.”

Justin stood uncomfortably. The others began to leave one by one—until only Buncombe was left. As the older man turned Justin called to him. The Watcher turned back, looking at his Ruler over one shoulder.

“What if don’t want to go? I am the Ruler after all. What would you do?”

There was no hesitation in the man’s voice. “I would go. You are not my Ruler. Not yet.”

Then he was gone. 

Pack, Part 23: Clarity Through Pain

“Focus.” Connor’s word was sharp.

Tobias Tory—the Prophet—was struggling, hanging as he was from two ropes attached to the high ceiling. The ropes were cutting into his wrist and his thin shirt was soaked with sweat.

Connor Halling was sitting in a slim leather chair, one leg over a knee. His expression was blank as watched the man in pain before him.

Hiram was there, on his feet, circling, making sure it didn’t go too far. It had before. Tobias was not the first Prophet. Hiram doubted he would be the last. But he was strong—so perhaps he would last a while.

The pale man’s green eyes were closed and his face was struggling to stay calm, to stay focused. But the tearing of the ropes at his skin was breaking it. A groan escaped him.

Hiram looked to Connor, expecting an order. But the man didn’t move, simply stared.

They were in Connor’s mansion. One of several he owned in various states and countries under different names. Safehouses, all over the globe.

And they were in the living room.

Cold sunlight streamed in through huge untinted windows, drying the sweat. The temperature in the room was at least freezing, but Connor seemed unaffected. He had not turned on the heat when he had entered to check on Hiram and Tobias’s progress and Hiram dared not without his approval.

Tobias suddenly jerked, his eyes opening wide.

Connor leaned forward slightly. It was a common sign in young Prophets. They were not used to the…abstract things witnessed in their visions and it often came as a shock. But no matter. So long as he got one.

The politician waited for a few moments to let the vision subside.

“Hiram.”

At Connor’s command, Hiram reached up and undid the knots holding Tobias.

They were simple—ones that any former Norwegian sailor would know and could have undone in a half-heartbeat. If it had been anyone other than Connor that had told him to hang there Tobias would have.

His wrists were chafing—bleeding—and Hiram stepped forward, hand outreached to heal. But Connor’s order was clear.

“Stop. Not yet.”

He motioned for Tobias to approach him.

The entire living room was empty. It had a wooden floor, like a dojo, but aside from Connor’s chair, no furniture. The dark wood at his feet felt…consuming. He stood in the middle of nothing, with no object—or even thought—to protect him from Connor. At least when he was on the ropes he had known what the next second would bring.

Connor smiled disarmingly. “Explain, please.”

Tobias nodded quickly, preparing his tongue to speak English. The companion in his head helped, but his accent was still present as always. “It was…a dark room. Long. Light flashed on the sides…it was like being underwater. And there were boats above me. Many boats.”

Hiram raised on eyebrow.

“There was blue…blue everywhere. And people—but they were not solid. Like ghosts. And then there was a jerk and everything went white.”

“More.”

Tobias hesitated. “And I thought…I thought I saw the Seeker—the one from the other Pack. She was following me. And when I tried to run other people, the other pack, kept appearing in front of me, blocking my way.”

Connor lifted the phone from where it lay on the floor between them and held it to his ear. “Did you hear?”

Sarai, elsewhere in the house, nodded and adjusted her headset’s mike. “I hear it all. Interesting. It may take some time.”

Connor ended the call. Sarai was the Teacher. She would figure out the vision’s meaning. But he knew part of it already. Enough to begin his planning.

He flicked his fingers at the other two men in the room and they left him. Hiram was reaching for Tobias’s wrists to heal as they exited the doors.

Taking a long breath, Connor used the phone to call his butler—who was somewhere else in the house. He didn’t feel like finding an intercom button. “Wine—Burgundy. 100 years.”

In minutes the butler was at his side, pouring the deeply colored wine into a long slim crystal glass. He nodded and the man withdrew.

Connor closed his eyes and began to think—what would happen. What would need to happen. And how to change the future.

His mind reached out—he was the Judge after all—and began to feel the eddies of emotion of the world. It had served him in business and politics. It would serve him now.

Pack, Part 22: The Prophet(‘s Mind)

It was like Justin imagined leaving a cocoon would feel like. Leaving a warmth and a belonging—to a cold nothing. A place between places, between minds. Death. Ice. Then he was in Daldion’s. It was different, but it was not nothing.

Daldion turned to Justin, golden eyes dull. “The feeling will lessen. The pain will become…normal. It is a cost of traveling the gap between minds—in the Thin Places.”

He turned and led the way.

They floated up the cliff, ignoring gravity—which existed only if they wished it to. It was Daldion’s world—it was as he pleased.

But beyond on the cliff…beyond the mists at the edge and the crag was nothing. Nothing. Blackness.

Justin couldn’t see himself. Couldn’t will light into existence. Couldn’t see Daldion before him, though he could hear the soft pad of pawsteps and the click of Daldion’s nails on the hard ground.

A small light appeared, illuminating Daldion’s eyes, two gold orbs in the darkness. Two suns.

“This is my world,” Daldion said. “I live in darkness to see beyond. I look into the shadows to find the light. My visions come to me here—without distraction, without influence.”

The light widened, revealing in a circle of light a room. Stone carved, open, wide widows with views of a flat obsidian panel. Circular, like that of a tower’s top.

“This place once existed,” Daldion whispered, his mind-words without emotion. Hiding emotion. “When I was chosen to join the Pack—from all the others—I felt it was an honor. A privilege to be among the rulers. I was not destined to be the Ruler, but among our people…my people, those of the Pack were above all others.”

He slowly paced the room just outside the ring of light, a gray ghost. “I failed in my early days. I was slow to see. Some, like the Ruler, could see clearer than I—I, the great Prophet.”

He scratched a line on the floor and the light dimmed. Daldion moved to the center of the room, sitting on his haunches, nearly as tall as Justin. He stared his companion in the eyes. “I had this built, to keep my mind from wandering. We had a world then, to command and keep. But I could not see it, nor taste it, lest it distract my sight, confuse my focus.”

The light turned to darkness, and the room disappeared from sight. Justin, unbidden, closed his eyes and sat cross-legged. He had never been one to meditate like some of his New Age—conspiracy—friends, but it seemed oddly appropriate.

Daldion carried on speaking. “I sat in darkness. Without food, without water. Trying to find my gift, to grasp it. But it slipped away.

“I was one of the Pack, but I was the outcaste. The youngest—even as you are. But then it changed. I began to see things—dark things. They were discounted. Rejected. The Ruler and Watcher, thinking it was their gift to see, that I was a mistake, ignored my words.”

Justin shifted, and Daldion broke from his trance. The light appeared again, just bright enough to give things a shade of gray—no color. “Of the past…that is Teacher’s role. He will teach you, in time. But know, Justin Kobe, my companion—that I am not to be trusted. My visions are of what can be—now what will be. I learned that…” his voice trailed off. “No matter my surety, you must judge for yourself.”

Justin stood. “But the Ruler before ignored you—”

“And had I not done what I had done, it would have been aright. Much death…much sorrow, would have been averted.”

The light faded from Daldion again and path of light, showing the way over dark ground, traced back to the crag.

Colors began to whirl and form into shapes and movements, filling the darkness with unearthly shades. It was like the northern light, but infinitely more complex and subtle.

“Go now, Justin Kobe,” Daldion said firmly, his voice exhausted. “You have seen what I have chosen to teach you. It is now up to you.” His voice faded.

Justin took a step on the path to the crag. And stopped. Turned. Spoke.

“No.”

The colors faded from the darkness like a projector that has been switched off. Daldion’s golden eyes appeared as the wolf walked into the light. “What?”

“No.” Justin was resolute. He flicked his black hair back from his eyes. “I want to see—I want to see the future you are. I don’t know what happened then…but perhaps together we can stop it from happening again.”

Daldion closed his eyes and his mind was plunged into darkness once more.

“As you wish…”

The visions began.