The Comfort Of The Knife

I only had a few minutes to arrive, but I wouldn’t be rushed. Not for this. The room came with a small desk and a pen, some paper, and envelopes. In a handful of minutes I drafted two letters. One for Melissa and one for Amber; they deserved to know what had happened to me if I didn’t make it back by morning. They needed to know why I didn’t make it back. In retrospect, the letters weren’t really for them, but me. In drafting them I confronted why I was doing this—I needed practice. What I hoped would come from it—resolve, maybe, or power if for future use. As well as if I had any sense of guilt or awareness that’d let me turn away from this path—none at all. They should’ve been letters expressing my feelings to them both. Those I’d intimated or knew but didn’t have the heart to say. Instead they were arguments, bluntly, that I hoped would dull the edge of their pain and anger toward my selfishness.

I left them on my desk and slipped out the window.

The streets were nearly empty—save for the golden trail the mask’s HUD conjured to lead me to the meeting location. It was the quiet hours when bars slept and parties slumped to unconsciousness. Here in the city, the stars I’d grown accustomed to back home were distant. Their light, a celestial memory. Yet the moon was there. The lone eye of heaven, so broad that you’d think it was peering through a magnifying glass to better observe our petty dramas. It was red that night—the moon—making its crystal palaces look like dripping murder weapons. I turned my mind back to earth, and raised a hand in a half-hearted wave as I spotted Secretary.

They leaned against the edge of a fountain that burbled in shifting colors that played delightfully across their skin. When I was close enough to see their face—still far too pretty, too designed—I was taken aback. I’d expected a smugness similar to early in the day. Instead I found them resigned to some degree.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Secretary shook their head, “Just the worst thing, little brute. My department decided to place bets on tonight.”

“What?”

“I know. Secretaries, they have no decorum, but the money being placed was too much for even my refined morals. I bet as well, but then they told me how it’d work. We’d be stuck betting on those we nominated.”

I rolled my eyes behind the mask—remembered I was wearing a mask. Then tilted my head and arrayed my body to better sell the way my sympathy for them had dried down to clay. They pantomimed their hurt.

“You think I’ll be the worst?” I asked.

Secretary said, “Hardly, but this was a bet about the quantity of the work. Not the quality. I think you’ll be rather middle of the pack. Fair place to be, but oh well.”

“It’ll be my pleasure to lose you money,” I said. “Anyways, I want to amend the deal, just a bit, before we start.”

“Little brute, you’re not so early to begin negotiations. We’ll be starting any minute.”

“I know. Means you won’t have much time to wiggle out of what I want.”

Secretary pursed their lips. “Clever,” they said. “I can’t give you more points, it’d be unfair.”

“I don’t want more,” I said. “I want to share them. Three way split, even between Melissa, Amber, and myself.”

“Really? What makes you think they didn’t get chosen for the Wild Hunt as well?”

I looked around the empty square. “There’s no one else here,” I said. “Besides, I owe them more than they owe me. I’m splitting my points.”

Secretary said, “Points are hardly a gift.”

“It’s all I have besides my life,” I said. “So, split them.”

Secretary waved their hand as Blotomisc stepped into my conscious acknowledgement. The damn thing still wore my dad’s face.

“Tell the point tabulation committee that entrant, Nadia Temple, will be splitting all her points that derive from her assignments with the Faceless Corps. with entrants Melissa Knitcroft and Amber Scorizni.”

Blotomisc took a bow to acknowledge the order before stepping back beyond the edge of any conscious senses. Secretary pushed up from the fountain and gripped my shoulders as if to squeeze me together.

“Done. Now don’t fuck this up, my little brute. I want my bet to at least break even.”

They raised their hand into the air and snapped. Though in that instance it was no snap, but a singular peal of thunder born from the unison of a hundred people—Secretaries—snapping as one. It ripped through the air and with it the spell that I was under without realizing. The square was full of my competitors as well as their Secretary sponsors. Each of us clad in the grey skinsuit and mask given to us.

“This is your field-spell?” I asked Secretary.

They held a finger to their lips. “Trade secret. Even to my little brute.”

I didn’t have time to question them further because a sharp whistle sliced through my thoughts. Most of us in the crowd clutched at our ears from the pain. My eyes found the source of the sound leaning against the railing of some cafe’s terrace. Their face was masked, but they were no less distinctive. First there was their height—so small they’d make Melissa feel at least somewhat tall. Then there was the fact that they lacked human arms though looked as if that was no bother. Atop their head was a furry entity with six round marble-like eyes. Its body ran down theirs like a mantle of some sort. Albeit one with arms—four of them—that were muscled, clawed and moved with the boneless fashion of a tentacle at the summoner’s whim. It was with one of those arms that the person had used to whistle.

“Good, I have your attention. Y’all can call me the Kennelmaster. Well, you will call me the Kennelmaster,” the Kennelmaster said. “Cause y’all are dogs. Mine now to deploy as I see fit for the tasks the Lodge has decided must be carried out. Tasks that are, well, too much for the Lodge’s common roster.”

An arm slid their mask just slightly out of the way so they could take a drag of a cigarette. They blew the smoke through the mask’s nostrils.

The Kennelmaster continued, “See, most of the roster are people unlike y’all. People with feelings and morals that they’re unwilling to compromise on save the most dire situations. So, that’s where you all come in. You, my lovely dogs, don’t have none of that. Your Secretaries have found you to be brutal people. Unforgiving people. Capable of the worst that need be done, but aren’t so far gone that we’d have to put you down. Cause we would, will, and have when it turns out one of our dogs is a smidge too feral.”

“Kennelmaster, we have an itinerary to maintain,” a Secretary—not mine—said to them. They lounged in a chair at one of the cafe’s tables.

“I know, I know. I’m just trying to give them a full picture,” the Kennelmaster said.

This Secretary said, “Dogs don’t need to know the full scope of their pen. Now, some of our targets are on the move, and I’d rather we do this efficiently.”

“Fine,” the Kennelmaster said to them. Turned back to us, “To skip to the end, because apparently showmanship is dead, y’all are being tested on how good of dogs you’ll be. Cause neither the Lodge nor myself wants to keep a dog incapable of doing what’s asked. Thus, we come to the Wild Hunt, where we’ll let you pups loose onto the entirety of the district to go after the Lodge’s enemies. They always try to slip in during exam season. You’ll find ‘em, kill ‘em, and be graded on such by the Lodge’s ever lovely Secretarial department. If you fuck up, they’ll see it, and if you do it especially well they will as well.”

The Secretary near the Kennelmaster snapped their fingers. In a wave all our masks fit snugly onto our faces. A few people—myself included—tugged on it in surprise. It didn’t come off. Soon after my HUD was updated. A roster of names and crimes scrolled down in the bottom corner of my vision. In the other corner a minimap of the Lodge district appeared. Dots clustered at the edges. While that same guiding glow trail that led me to the square returned. Only this time it was a loose web that wiggled out in every direction—to every target.

“Now, alls below, happy hunting,” the Kennelmaster said.

We needed no more instruction. I watched as some of my fellow dogs seemed to teleport, take to the air, or step into some kind of portal. Me, I just ran, glaive held in both hands as I sprinted down streets toward the nearest target—I wasn’t trying to be picky. I especially didn’t want to look at their names. Made it easier.

* * *

My first target was a few blocks from where we started. I didn’t look at their name, but I did see their crime: serial homicide. Just the type of target to help make this. . .easier for me. The killer moved slowly but in a flickering fashion. They’d linger only to hop a few feet, linger, then hop.

“They’re hunting,” Sphinx said inside of me.

Let’s see whose better, I thought.

I cut through an alley and took a spot in a dumpster’s shadow. From my vantage point I could only see a woman wobble down the street. She was drunk enough to smell of booze even where I lurked. At the thought, words flashed briefly at the center of my HUD: Nasal Filter Applied. How convenient. Still, I didn’t see the killer despite the insistence of the golden strands. I blinked on the Omensight and grinned as they were revealed in such perfect clarity.

A cloud—there weren't many other ways to put it—clung about them. Strands of some Court that was ambitious yet demure waved in the breeze as if saying, ‘No, don’t look at me. I’m hardly worth it.’ I frowned as I watched the spindly thing leap from lamp to lamp, unnoticed by anyone relying solely on the mortal sight. It—because I had already gouged its face from my mind and could hardly call it a human being—clung by its taloned toes atop a lamp’s point. Its body tensed ready to fire.

Under the Omensight, I could see the thread that connected it to the woman. The thread dripped with sadistic glee that was caustic to my eyes. Slowly the thread grew taut. I flicked to the woman. She slipped and tumbled to the ground—an opening! I bolted from my shadow. Springboarded off someone’s trash can. All at the same moment the cowardly killer shot itself from the lamp. I need more distance, I thought to sphinx. They responded by shifting inside my spirit and unfurling their wings from my back. In two flaps I had more air, more distance, and the thread of my own imminent violence intersected with the killer.

Mother’s Last Smile was thrust forward to take the cruel little thing in the side. We crashed diagonally through a storefront. I rode his body like a scooter across the shards. It quivered—I twisted my glaive—it grew still. Limbs curled on itself like the spider it thought it was. In the corner of my HUD its entry briefly flashed green before it disappeared. I left through the business’s front door. The woman had barely processed any of what happened.

I held out my hand to help her up, but stilled as I saw the gold of the HUD linger around her. She was on the list. I resisted the urge to spot her name. Focused on the crime.

“You extort businesses?” I asked.

“Whuh,” she said. “I guess. I mean, messes happen around here.”

“Mmm,” I hummed. “Says you funnel the money to a cult out east.”

“Says who?” she asked playfully, not yet aware this was an interrogation. “What can I say, there’s a nice little group out near Tahoe. I wanna help them out. Now, are you gonna like, help me up?”

My eyes narrowed behind the mask. I watched as a black void ran itself across her face. Swipe-swipe gone. She was no woman, but a parasitic worm that belonged at the bottom of some rare bottle Amber stole from the outpost’s bar. Still, I clasped the worm’s hand—enveloped it in my own so no hand-spells could form. Then hauled them onto my glaive. Its tip pierced the extortionist’s neck. I nicked an artery from how the wet warmth of its life splattered my legs. It raised its other hand to form a spell. Fumbled drunkenly with their fingers, so I helped them again. Cleaved hand from wrist—no more confusion—and waited for the entry to disappear.

When it did, I went to gather up the wannabe spider—my feet pulling away from the sticky blood puddle growing beneath the worm in wet-sucking plops—and dragged it back into the street. Dropped its body atop the worm and split the tiniest infinity with my hand-spell. Chalcedony flames poured from my finger in a burning waterfall. I sweeped it this way and that to coat their clumped bodies with as much fire as possible. Let them burn down into nothing, so I felt nothing when I took to the street again for my next target.

* * *

The golden path crawled over the apartment’s face like an orichalcum centipede. Zigzagged down the fire escape to curl in front of the doors. The list had no human names for these entries. Instead the only name connected to each dot in this place was, vestal of Searing Light.

“My cousin is present,” Sphinx said.

Cousin? I thought.

“A soldier from the Court of Virtue. Per mortal system, we both sit under the ruling banner of Stars as a Principle.” Sphinx mused, “They’ve made a temple of this place.”

Through the Omensight, I pushed my vision through the walls—they weren’t that thick—and watched as bound mortals—children and young teens—were pushed inside of a focusing circle in the apartment building’s common room. With each one the circle would flair, and out step another vestal. They stood tall as Amber—over six feet probably—and were dressed in white tunics that fell to the thigh. Golden armor cinched their waists, banded their arms into clawed gauntlets, and made sabatons and greaves of their feet and legs. Two long elven ears spred from behind a featureless golden mask set within a jungle of wavy chocolate tresses.

Terror slathered my thoughts, This is a chain-summoning. It’s a nest!

“Nadia, quick, another hunter seeks your prize,” Sphinx said.

I pulled my vision back from inside the building just in time to make out a lithe form sprinting down the rooftops toward the nest. As I shouldered through the lobby doors they flipped onto the fire escape and slipped into a room on the top floor. It’d be a race between us for who could clear this place faster.

Guided by the HUD and my Omensight, I sprinted down the hallway into the common room and froze. The block I put over the faces of the “summoners” flickered as I knew my options strained at what Amber’s mental trick could help me ignore. People used in a chain-summoning were chosen for what they lacked. Not enough spiritual mass to retain their ego in the bond. Nor enough density to remain the master, or at least an equal. The minute each one was bonded they were lost. Either you killed the entity and left their spirit a frayed thing full of holes, or you killed them and forced the entity to discorporate.

“Nadia,” Sphinx said, “remember who the target is.”

It doesn’t make it any better, I thought.

In the moment of freezing, the vestals stopped summoning and examined me as one. Raised their hand as one. With one blazing glint of light, they all fired upon me. Square cruciform strips of fire shot toward me. I ran laterally to evade—leaped behind a couch—and waited. Their spells pummeled the couch. The heat leaked through the leather, but it didn’t pierce.

When I didn’t move, the vestals hurriedly grabbed another kid. He was small, plump like kids could be—if he lived he’d grow out of it—and he fought for the chance to grow. Struggled and thrashed in his pajamas. His feet burnt on the carpet as they dragged him.

“Stop!” I yelled.

I leaped up and let loose an Atomic Glory for the summoning circle. The flames consumed the paint, and the threads of Virtue that embroidered the symbols with power. They dropped the child before the flames could touch him, consume him—I didn’t finish that thought. Brands of fire were loosened back in my direction as I returned to my couch cover.

As one the vestals spoke, “Cousin, it is not typical for us to make war. Why do you do so?”

Their voice carried along the strands of reality that backed even the Real. Conceptual vibrations that shook the entirety of my spiritual musculature. Sphinx responded for the both of us.

“No war, cousin, only a hunt. You’ve crossed a mortal line.”

“Ahhh, given time they’ll all be pure. Pity your bondmate won’t be privy to the sight.”

As one they raised their hands to receive swords of frozen sunlight that kissed their way into existence. They laid blade over gauntlet and advanced on my position as a unit. Their attention turned from the children onto me made my job much easier.

“Kids, close your eyes,” I ordered.

Through the Omensight I saw them obey. Ten pairs of eyes shut, their owners cowered, and with that I rose. Pointed my hand-spell at the boy who dodged a future as a battery, and brought him with me into Godtime. The vestals’ advance slowed to a crawl. In their feature-less faces I could see the moment of their recognition; letting go of the children had cost them the only leverage they had over me.

I hopped over the couch and methodically—definitively—struck each one with an Atomic Glory. There wouldn’t be any defense from them. We may have been in the same link in the Chain, but they were new while Sphinx and I were tested. I dropped the Godtime and watched as their “summoners” collapsed to the ground. The bond was new, but even a new bond between a summoner and an entity was a deep one. These kids’ spirits were frayed and worn—I never checked back to see if they recovered. In the moment, I left the kids to the kids, and ran up the stairs to keep hunting.

Unfortunately, my opposition had already made it to the first floor above the lobby. I pushed my mind how many other entries I knew were in all the rooms above me. Failed to ignore the red that flickered before the entry was stolen. We spotted each other from the other end of the hallway. She wasn’t just the lithe silhouette I saw earlier. I could see that she was muscular—rippling with power for quick bursts—and she had cat ears. Two tails that swung behind her as she no doubt took her measure of me.

“A hunting cat,” Sphinx said. “How cute.”

My opposition growled, “You’re slow. I thought we’d be competing for prey.”

“Things were complicated,” I said. “You’re fast though.”

“I make things simple,” she said.

Her hand flicked away droplets of blood onto the seafoam wall. We both glanced to the door with the last vestal behind it. Tensed our bodies to race for the last target. Then there was white. A train car of white that blew through the room and into the hallway. So bright I saw stars. Gone so soon that I only processed what it was by the smell of ozone in the air. The clap of thunder confirmed it as both me and the cat girl covered our ears. Hers were no doubt more sensitive than mine; the sound sent me to a knee, it sent her sprawling.

When I could move I inched toward the gap in the hallway. Looked out into the street to see another hunter astride some avian entity with white-blue wings whose feathers were still dimming from their electric brightness. The hunter tossed a mock salute my way before taking off in search of other targets. I didn’t look at the size of the smoking skeleton that remained in the room. I did make my way to the roof.

I leaned my glaive against the ledge of the building. Leaned my head out into the open air to catch a cool night time breeze. Through the Omensight I watched the district explode with street level fireworks of Sorcery. Loops of one Court, another, a third, from the common to the unknown whipped into the air as dogs ran wild and blood with them. With me. I looked down at my body. My lower-half, red on grey, with the shoes of the suit being the brightest. So soaked that my footprints were still made out in crimson. I looked back to the district.

“Why’ve we stalled?” Sphinx asked.

I’m tired, I offered.

That wasn’t true. My heart beat fast and clean, adrenaline pumped through my veins, and part of myself was lost in the heady high of violence. The life-death dispute I had resolved multiple times now, and kept winning. I’m happy I couldn’t see my face—I could feel the smile that stretched across. Told myself I was just happy to save the kids from the ferocious cat on the first floor.

“You like what you like,” Sphinx said. “That’s fine.”

“Is it?” I asked aloud. “I’m a dog.”

“A dog wouldn’t ponder the disgust that lies beneath its pleasure. You’re complex. Human.”

I was pacing now. Shaking my head as I walked between the poles of my disagreement.

“But what does it say that this was the offer? That even in the explanation I didn’t go home. This is what Secretary sees me as!”

“The Kennelmaster, said you are this,” Sphinx began, “but Secretary only offered you a chance to see how broad ‘anything’ would be. You’ve discovered that. What anything doesn’t cover.”

The blood the cat girl had splashed on the wall came to mind. Not that. Never that.

“But I’m enjoying—,” I said.

“A job well done. A city made safer,” Sphinx put forward.

I had killed a serial killer. Slew an extortionist funding cults in the east. Helped destroy a nest of chain-summoned entities before they could wreak havoc. Alls below, I saved children.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m good. It’s fine that I enjoy this. Making things safer for everyone, so Melissa doesn’t have to worry.”

“Nadia?” Sphinx asked, worry creeping in.

I ignored it, “I’m sure Mom and Dad smiled just like this after they were done. Splattered with the result of hard work. Yet, kept things separate. The work them—the hidden them, and what I got.”

My smile returned to my face wider than ever. I even panted as I felt the urge—the LUST—run through my body with the little crack in my logic. I ran my bloody hands down the mask. Shivered with delight at the sweet sanguine pleasure that flooded my brain. The guilt, the worry, the regret could wait for daytime. While I was masked I could let go, and accept myself.

“Nadia, I think we should go home,” Sphinx urged.

I shook my body out and loosened my limbs. Cooed from behind the mask.

“Never,” I said. “Forward, always forward!”

And I caught sight of a thick river of gold—points to be claimed—that twirled through sky toward others who had to die. With a slight twist of my spirit I flexed and let loose Sphinx’s wings. Then leaped from the top of the building. Its wings stiffened to catch the wind—it’d never let me fall—and together we flew amongst gold.