Ctenoid Soul

The Queen’s Tournament: The Second Cut

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✨Beyond The Veil✨

Wulde & Verren

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Location: The Bastion Command Center Time:Late night

Interactions: @deegee Kessler • Mentions

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The night sky was starting to lighten noticeably by the time Field Warden Riddenhouse had finished his report about his encounter with Kessler, along with his request for a meeting, and sent these to Commander Verren. Their contents were bound to cause a stir, he knew. Whether that stir would result in something beneficial remained to be seen.

Another thing that would soon cause a stir was the spoon sitting in the steaming coffee mug on the table before him. The Wardens’ greatest weakness was their reliance on chemical enhancements. Of these, the most crucial, the one on which they relied most heavily, the one without which the entire organization would collapse, was this dark, addictive decoction brewed from the roasted and ground seeds of an exotic plant.

Wulde usually drank his coffee black, but right now he was in the mood for cream and sugar. Taking the spoon, Wulde swirled light colored vortices in the near-black liquid, stirring and blending until the whole mixture was a light brown. Then he removed the spoon, set it down on a napkin, and waited. For the coffee to cool, and for something else to happen.

The lounge fell into sudden silence as the doors slammed open.

Six of the Commander’s guards stormed in with flawless precision, their synchronized footfalls echoing through the room like a war drum. Clad in reinforced black armor with glowing visor strips and insignia tags identifying them as Command Tier Security, they moved in a tight diamond formation, weapons holstered but hands close—trained, lethal, unflinching.

Without acknowledging the startled stares of the onlookers, the formation cut across the lounge and came to a halt directly in front of Wulde’s table.

The front-most guard took one step forward, extending a gloved hand to place a sleek electronic tablet on the table before Wulde. It activated automatically, glowing with the unmistakable seal of the Commander.

No words were spoken.

The guards held their position for three beats, waiting.

Then, in perfect unison, they pivoted sharply on their heels and marched out just as swiftly as they had arrived, leaving behind only silence, tension, and the glowing summons on the table.

PRIORITY ONE: DIRECTIVE FROM COMMANDER VERREN
EYES ONLY — ENCRYPTION LEVEL: BLACK VEIL

This matter is urgent. You are to report to the Commander’s deck immediately.

Field intelligence and recent contact with the lycan referred to as Kessler has placed you on a short list of required personnel.
Clearance has been granted. You are expected within the next ten minutes.

At the bottom of the screen, a countdown had already begun. 00:09:52 and ticking down.

Wulde nearly blew coffee up his nose when the doors slammed open to admit six uniformed guards. These marched into the lounge, went up to his table, presented him with a tablet, then left without uttering a word. His mug was still poised within breathing distance of his pursed lips as the doors closed behind the departing group.

Wulde gingerly set the mug down and looked at the tablet, read the text, and noted the timer counting down from what he assumed had originally been ten minutes. There was enough time that he need not leap up immediately and sprint for the door, but neither could he tarry.

The television in the breakroom showed typical wee-hours programming: the opening credits of an ancient comedy series ran, in which the title character walked importantly through a hallway lined with a sequence of heavy, secure doors that opened and closed automatically as he went, accompanied by jazzy, catchy theme music. At the end, the man entered a telephone booth and then dropped from view, whereupon the broadcast cut to commercial.

While a particularly shouty spokesman extolled the near-miraculous properties of some obscure cleaning product, Wulde picked up his coffee again and gulped it down, faster than he would have liked, while it was still hotter than was comfortable. With rasping breath and tear-filled eyes, he rose to clean and dry out his mug, wiped his eyes and mouth,then returned to his desk, combed his hair, and straightened his clothes. His habits of cleanliness and neatness were strong even in the face of an urgent meeting with the Commander, and he carried out these routines quickly and efficiently, still having plenty of time as he set out at last for the austere corridors leading to the Command Center.

Those corridors, and their doors, reminded Wulde somewhat of the ones he had just seen on the tv show. Although there was no telephone booth, there was a small elevator that pulled him sharply into the bowels of the complex beneath the old firehouse that was the Bastion’s surface facade. Wulde did not often visit these underground levels, nor had he stood face-to-face with Commander Verren since the day he got his Iron Brand and promotion to Field Warden. Indeed, this would be his first time ever visiting the Commander’s deck.

As he approached the final door, the timer on the tablet showed that he had about a minute and a half to spare.

The Commander’s deck pulsed with red alerts and low mechanical whines. Smoke coiled in the air like a warning.

Verren sat in silence, the glow of monitors painting harsh angles across his scarred face. Cigar clenched between his teeth. Eyes locked.
He didn’t rise. Didn’t greet.

He watched Wulde approach so slowly, deliberately, as the last seconds ticked down.

Screens flickered: claw marks, thermal scans, shredded tech. Kessler. The Pack.

A muscle ticked in Verren’s jaw.

He exhaled smoke as the plume of foggy haze surfaced around him.

No words. Just judgment. His eyes pierced deeper with a stone-cold expression before ashing his cigar off to the side in an old coffee mug.

“Why is it, Warden Riddenhouse, that I’m reading a report about one of my own playing babysitter to a flea-bitten mutt?”

“Tell me. Did it wag its tail when you gave it orders, or just piss on your boots?” He sucked back on his cigar, watching him with little expression.

Field Warden Riddenhouse drew himself up straight as he entered the command room. He had expected to find in it a Faraday-caged menagerie of high-tech devices, with banks of gauges, timers, monitors, speakers, perhaps a giant lighted lucite map of Halcyon City; to an extent, he did find that. On one of the monitors the Warden recognized Kessler.

He had also thought that the air here would be antiseptic, clear, and rigorously climate-controlled; he had not anticipated the smell, sting, and haze of cigar smoke. Wulde, himself a neat-freaky non-smoker, didn’t like it. In the thickest part of that smoke, wreathed in a nicotine nimbus of authority and disapproval with notes of sandalwood and leather, sat Commander Dane Verren, regarding the new arrival with glinting, bloodshot eyes.

Without rising or otherwise stirring, the Commander spoke. His voice was hard, his tone accusatory, his questions confrontational and rude. He seemed displeased. After he finished, Wulde wasn’t happy, either. The Field Warden paused a beat to compose his response. When he spoke, it was to address the implied questions that actually mattered, not the explicitly-worded ones, which were stupid and insulting.

“Sir,” he began, then paused another beat: “If I understand you correctly, you want to know why I made the decisions I did during my encounter with Kessler. I did so because, at the time, it appeared the only way to defuse a situation that might otherwise escalate into full-on conflict with the Iron Fangs. Such a conflict would be bad for several reasons, one of which being that it would greatly hamper our ability to discover who has been picking on the ‘Fangs lately, something I was tasked to investigate. Offering to work with Kessler seemed the best chance for getting to the bottom of things.”

Wulde stopped. It would have been easy to talk too much, to further pollute the already smoky air with unavailing verbiage until the Commander inevitably cut him off, more annoyed than ever. Besides, the less he talked, the less smoke he would have to breathe in. If Verren had read his report, and listened to the attached audio of his exchange with Kessler, then he already knew what Wulde knew, including about the lycan’s cheeky request to meet with him. The ball was in the Commander’s court. Wulde remained silent and awaited his boss’ reply. He resisted the urge to hold his breath, which was tempting for more than one reason.

The Commander's chair creaked as he shifted, leaning forward just enough for his shadow to stretch across the desk. His voice cut through the haze, low and sharp.

“You gambled.” He let the word settle before continuing, slower now.“With my name. With our authority. With the leash we’ve kept tight on the Dogs.”His finger tapped once on the desk. The sound was soft, but it landed like a warning.

“And what if Kessler had gone for your throat instead of playing nice? What if your olive branch looked more like a white flag?”He paused again. Not long, but long enough to make it clear the question wasn’t rhetorical.“But. You're not wrong.”

The words weren’t praise. Just acknowledgment.“But don't mistake not being wrong for being right. We're walking a line so thin it is practically non-existent. And when you start dealing with wolves in the dark, you'd better be damn sure who’s holding the leash.”

There was a rustle of paper. The report, moved aside like it had told him everything he needed to know.

“Now. Tell me exactly what this Dog wants.” He leaned back in his chair, interlocking his fingers together. “if we had anything to do with, why would I share that information with some irrelevant lycan who thinks he's clever for barking at our gates?

So many poisons besides cigar smoke filled the air: accusations, criticisms, loaded questions, implied threats. Wulde worked to internalize as little of them as possible while he considered the Commander’s words, and how to respond to them.

”You say that I gambled, Sir,” he began, his tone level: ”yet I saw no risk-free option. You pose a bunch of ‘what ifs’, to which the only answer I could give is: I don’t know, Sir. If, for instance, I had simply attacked Kessler and managed to kill him, what would have happened next? Or what if I had sent him away empty-handed? What gambles would I have been taking then?” Frustrated, Wulde shook his head. ”Again, I don’t know. Do you know, Sir?”

The next item was irritating, yet more straightforward to respond to. ”Kessler wants to find out who killed Logan Delaney. So do I. We agreed to meet again in a day or so to discuss what if anything we managed to find out. He also said he wanted to meet you. I did not respond to that; it’s a presumptuous and unlikely request and not one I’m qualified to answer.” All of these were things the Commander should already know, as they were all in his report.

Wulde met Verren’s last question with a puzzled frown as he pondered the possibilities. ”It had not occurred to me that we had anything to do with it,” he conceded, although that was not strictly true; he had just quickly concluded that it made no sense. ”As to why you would pass such information on to the Iron Fangs, that obviously depends on what the point of killing Logan was in the first place.”

Wulde looked squarely at the hard, cold face of his boss. You want me to entertain this hypothetical? Fine, he thought. I’ll entertain it, then. I will show it the time of its life. ”The manner of Logan Delaney’s death suggests somebody trying to send a message. Is there a message, Sir?”

Verren sat in silence for a long moment, the kind that made the air feel thinner.

“You talk about risk like you had no choice,” he said at last, voice even, low. “You did. You had the Code. And you stepped around it.”

His gaze stayed locked on Wulde, his expression was direct as if studying a flaw in a blade.

“The supernatural are a cancer. Kessler is not a contact, Wulde. He’s a lycan. Vermin that need to be eradicated and you gave him a reason to return.

The faintest curl of his lip, gone as quickly as it came.

“Logan Delaney’s death is none of our concern. One less stray dog on the street. The Fangs are weaker for it, and that suits me fine. But every word you’ve traded with Kessler is another thread for him to pull. Threads become ropes. Ropes become nooses.”

A slow, deliberate tap of his finger against the desk.

“The Glamour must be protected. You’ve given a street animal an opening and in doing so, you’ve given me a liability.”

A pause, the gold in his eyes cold and unblinking.

“You took the oath. If you’re going to break it because you’re afraid of a pack of stray street dogs, then you’re not a Warden. I live, breathe, and I’m willing to die wiping out every single one of these monsters to protect humanity”

He leaned back, dismissive, already moving to other matters.

“Secure the meeting. Then get out of my sight. Someone else will handle what you should have done someone who still remembers what it means to wear this mantle.”

Wulde felt his stomach turn to ice as he listened to the Commander, ice in which flavors of apprehension, frustration, and disillusion swirled and clashed. He had always heard of Verren’s prowess as a tactician, as a strategist and planner, yet here was in evidence only reflexive hostility and rigid dogma.

”The Glamour must be protected” Verren had said, yet showed no curiosity when a new, as yet unidentified player emerged capable of challenging the Iron Fangs in their own territory and murdering their leaders. “You had the Code” the Commander had said, which Code he seemed to believe read: “Go for your gun the moment any non-human crosses your path, regardless of other considerations. It’ll be fine.”

There was nothing else to do here, apart from complying with his boss’ command to “secure the meeting.” Wulde thought that sounded oddly like: “Lure Kessler into an ambush,” but he kept that suspicion to himself. Rather, he drew himself upright and said

“Sir” in his best NCO’s ‘Sir’-as-a-four-letter-word tone. ”I shall send to Kessler now to arrange the meet. I will forward you the final details once they are confirmed. Sir.”

Pulling out his phone, Wulde sent Kessler a message precisely as he had said: “Verren has asked me to secure a meeting. Drunken Inn late tomorrow or night after. Let me know what time works for you.” With yet another curt “Sir” to his boss, the Warden then fulfilled the second part of the Commander’s directive: getting out of his sight. He made his way briskly, eagerly along the corridors leading back to the surface, relieved to at last be free of that polluted Command Deck.

As soon as possible thereafter, he would go home and dig out one of his father’s old burner phones to send Kessler a different message: “Tomorrow evening, Aisling Park. Any news on truck?” Wulde would just have to trust that Kessler would work out who the second message was from, even though the phone number would be unknown to him, just as it would be unknown to the Wardens. Sometimes, having had a crazy, paranoid survivalist for a dad came in handy.

✨Beyond The Veil✨

Wulde & Kessler

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Location: Neon Dream RinkTime:Late night

Interactions: @deegee Kessler • Mentions @Oso Dominic Blackmoor , @Tpartywithzombi Dane Verren

, @FunnyGuy Sean Stone

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Wulde set his own chair the right way round, although pulled back a bit from the table and turned partly to the right, so that he wouldn’t bump his legs if he had to get up suddenly. He draped his coat over the back, then set his gym bag down on another chair that he pulled next to him before sitting down. The only weapon he carried was an expandable baton strapped to his right thigh. The Warden had requested a silvered one a couple days before, upon getting the assignment to peep on the Iron Fangs with Barton, and to his pleasant surprise had been issued it right away.

From a side pocket of the gymbag he extracted his phone and began pressing some buttons. “I’m going to mute any notifications so we aren’t disturbed,” he explained, which was true -although he also took the opportunity to press some other buttons as well before putting the device back in the bag: “And yes, I’m recording this,” Wulde added, almost as an afterthought. “Price of admission.” He grinned as the double meaning of that last phrase occurred to him.

“...So, tell me why it’s you I want to talk to, and how you knew I was looking for a conversation.”

Wulde had let the visitor’s request hang in the air while he attended to preliminaries, but now he sat back and contemplated, as if noticing it for the first time. After a pause he said: “It is customary for somebody initiating contact to identify themselves and state their business. I’m guessing that you aren’t much for etiquette and formalities, so I’ll ignore that and play along.

“I am a Warden. My name is Wulde Riddenhouse. You are an Iron Fang. I don’t know your name offhand, but I could probably look it up easily enough.” He gestured with his hand towards Kessler: “Or, you could just tell me.”

Wulde did not wait to see if the lycan would do that, but instead pressed on. “Whatever your name, you have some status in the pack. You might even be here talking to me at Dominic Blackmoor’s behest.

“Why are you looking for a conversation? Because you want to know if the Wardens had anything to do with what you all found in that warehouse. I won’t keep you in suspense: No, we did not.”

Wulde stopped to peer inquisitively at his guest. “How am I doing so far?”

Kess ignored the human’s request for validation. He was, at the same token, gratified that his hunch had been right about finding a Warden in this area. That he had tracked one down at only his second port of call, was simply good luck – but he didn’t feel the need to edify this Human any more than he felt was necessary.

“In the Pack I am known only as Kessler. A long, long time ago though, I had a name from your world. Damon.” His mouth forming the shape of his Christian name felt foreign to him, even as the word left his mouth. The broad-shouldered man felt no need to clarify whether he ‘had standing’ within the pack. “Perhaps that is why I’m here, rather than out there, cracking skulls. It’s good to meet you, Wulde.” His salutation bore no discernable sarcasm, or animosity. It merely was.

“We lost a brother last night. Someone took him from us. Someone without respect, or decency. Someone either very stupid, or very much the opposite. It was either a calculated hit by someone looking to start a war, or the work of rank amateurs who simply didn’t know that they were standing in a lake of gasoline, about to strike a match.” He leaned forward, close enough that Wulde could make out the scent of his breath. “I don’t believe it was the latter. *a pause* Now, it is my good fortune that I met you. A Warden willing to talk to the likes of me. Don’t think I would take that for granted. I won’t. You say the Wardens had nothing to do with Logan’s death… convince me.”

Wulde listened closely as the lycan spoke. He nodded to acknowledge the name. “Kessler”, he repeated. It was a name he thought he remembered seeing or hearing in conjunction with the Iron Fangs. The older human name was not familiar. The Wardens might or might not have some dossier on that somewhere. Still, Wulde filed the name “Damon” away. One never discarded anything unless necessary, especially not information, no matter how insignificant-seeming.

He also filed away the other name Kessler dropped: Logan. Lieutenant Grant had spent hours in video conference with the Bastion, poring over the faces captured by their camera outside the warehouse that night, cross-checking them with known associates of the Iron Fangs and attaching names to them. The list of known Iron Fangs who hadn’t showed had dwindled to just a handful of names by the time Wulde and Barton had taken their leave of the South Halcyon Friends Meeting House. “Logan” was presumably one of those names. Now Wulde had confirmation.

At Kessler’s concluding request, the human frowned. “Convince you? Not sure how I’d prove a negative to you,” he pointed out. “I can tell you this, though: I spent the better part of an hour poking around that warehouse after you guys left, after somebody had smoked it out- they actually pulled me off another assignment in order to do that poking. I don’t think my superiors would have diverted resources like that if they already knew what happened.”

Kessler’s eyes narrowed, though he made no move whatsoever. “I don’t think you understand, Wulde. I came here to find a Warden. I’ve found one. I either leave from my talk with a Warden, convinced that war is coming for you and yours, or convinced that the path to the truth lies elsewhere. Now, if you can’t prove to me that the Wardens had nothing to do with Logan’s death, then we best be on our way to someone above you, who can provide me with some proof.” His eyes were hard. He stood, and walked over to the service counter to the closed cafeteria, grabbing a coke from under the counter, and leaving a fiver on the counter-top. He popped the tab.

“This is your chance. There is only one. I either return to the Pack with concrete evidence that it wasn’t the Wardens, or I return to tell them all Wardens need to die this night, or you kill me, and I don’t return, in which case… see option two.” He smiled thinly. “Guilty until proven innocent. So. Again – convince me. Clear your good names.”

Wulde could only stare at Kessler in disbelief. The problem was not that he could think of nothing to say in response to the Iron Fang’s ultimatum; it was, on the contrary, that he could think of hosts of things to say, almost all of them bound to make the situation worse. The lycan took a moment to grab a soda, which gave the Warden a moment to craft a diplomatic response, something well outside his usual skill set.

Wulde took a deep breath, trying his best not to make it sound like an exasperated sigh. “I don’t understand what you expect to walk out of here with,” he said, as calmly as possible. “A signed note from Commander Verren saying it wasn’t us? A taped confession beaten out of some rogue vampire? The only way to prove we didn’t do it is to find out who did, which we are attempting to. Unfortunately our ability to do that has been pretty badly hampered by the fact that *someone* torched the scene before we had a chance to investigate it proper-.”

The Warden realized that he was getting angry and…not diplomatic, so he broke off and took another breath and made “prayer hands” before resuming: “Look, maybe you *want* to start a war over nothing more than your hunch and my inability to prove a negative, but I prefer to believe that you don’t. We don’t have much to go on, but I’ll give you what I can. Here.”

He reached into his gym bag to pull out his phone and searched through some images. He found and expanded the one he had of the strange crew van and the masked individuals hauling a heavy burden (presumably a bagged Logan) into the warehouse. He showed it to Kessler.

“Some of my colleagues got a tip a few days ago that there was ‘suspicious activity’” here he waggled his hands to emphasize the frustrating vagueness of that expression: “at that warehouse, which hadn’t been visited by a soul, not even by squatters or junkies, in a couple months prior. They set up a motion-activated camera and it caught this image. This was from the day before your people found Logan’s body there. There’s a few other images, but they don’t show much more, just the truck coming and going.”

Wulde glanced ruefully at the screen. “There’s no way to know who any of the people in this image are, if they’re Wardens, if that’s Logan… We ran the plates on the van, but they were both expired and stolen.” He looked back at Kessler.

“It’s what we have. If you want more, we’re going to need to go get more. We would need to try to find that van, though I suspect it’s been ditched and torched by now. And we would need to hit the streets and find out if anybody saw anything. It’s your territory, so people might be more likely to talk to you than me.”

The Warden leaned back and looked questioningly at the lycan. “I have the sense that this discussion is going to wrap up soon, and afterward we’ll both need to go back to our cohorts and tell them something. We can tell them we’re working the problem, or we can tell them we’re going to war over it. I prefer the former, what about you?”

The Human’s response started off less-than-forthcoming. Sarcasm, deflection. Kessler was patient throughout Wulde’s bluster and increasing temperature, a neutral expression on his face. It was all a little amusing, honestly. Finally, the Human produced his device, and showed Kessler the goods. “See – that wasn’t so hard, was it, Human?” Kessler pulled out his own phone, holding it close to Wulde’s. “You wouldn’t mind making those pictures sharable, would you? Sure would appreciate it.” After copying the photos to his device (which was otherwise security-protected, so there was nothing Wulde could glean from Kessler’s mobile, other than some progress pics of his bike. He didn’t use the phone much, honestly…) he rose. “So… about that signed letter from Verren…” He broke into a grin. “That was funny as fuck. *a pause* I agree with you. We should report back, tell our superiors that we’re on this. I’ll put an ear to the ground about this van, too. Let’s meet on neutral ground at midnight tomorrow. I’ll bring any new intel I have, you do the same. We might just avoid a war, here...” He grew serious. “Bring Verren. I’d like to meet him.”

He walked for the door. “Don’t go giving me reason to doubt you, Wulde. We got a good thing going on here. Not likely to find too many Lycans willing to talk like this. I’d rather this, then the other alternative …Thanks for the intel.”

Wulde watched Kessler leave, then slumped back in his chair, exhaling in a loud, horsey blow. That sound faded into silence, broken by the bustle of the rink staff’s cleaning and by his own thoughts. The latter were both louder and harder at work than the former.

He had breached security by sharing that image and information, and had exceeded his authority by agreeing to help Kessler, but this was very much an “apologize rather than get permission” situation. While he wasn’t entirely convinced that the Iron Fangs would go to war just on Kessler’s say-so, he was not about to risk anything of value on that suspicion. And he really did think that they were more likely to figure out what had happened to Logan, and who was encroaching on the Iron Fangs’ territory so brazenly, if they worked together. The question was whether he could get the Bastion to agree with him.

Looking at his phone, Wulde realized that the audio was still recording, so he stopped that and then started uploading the audio file to his cloud. A copy of that audio would go with his report. A report which he was now going to have to spend the next couple hours writing, instead of punching his trash-talking co-workers. A report which would be going straight from his workstation into Commander Dane Verren’s inbox, protocol be damned.

Just as he was readying to leave, he noticed a message notification from a fellow Field Warden he had missed earlier.

REPORT. Sometime during the last 24 hrs, an unknown party killed Logan Delaney, Second In Command of the Iron Fangs lycan faction. Iron Fangs members continue to search for the culprit. Be advised that their presence and activity within Halcyon may increase.
Time of Acquisition: ~1900hrs
Source: Informant with high veracity
NFI

Wulde, upon reading the message, could only laugh.

✨Beyond The Veil✨

Wulde Riddenhouse

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Location: South Halcyon Friends Meeting House Time: Night

Interactions: @JJ DoeZachariah Reed n/a Mentions: N/A n/a

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Wulde was in the breakroom back at the South Halcyon Friends Meeting House, drinking lukewarm coffee, when he finally decided to look at the message. A furtive buzz on his phone had announced its receipt a couple hours back, while he had been in the middle of inspecting the charred remnants in the warehouse; however, for obvious reasons, he had ignored it at the time.

He had the breakroom to himself now. Wallace was still at the front desk. Barton was in a classroom, napping on a makeshift palette of commandeered rest mats. Lieutenant Grant was in the church’s library cum media center, poring over Wulde’s bodycam footage and photographs. The other Wardens were headed back to the Bastion in the crew van, taking with them the meager bits of physical evidence he had bagged inside the warehouse: a couple air samples and surface swabs, the charred remnants of a chair leg, a discarded end piece of thornsteel rope, and a single tooth.

Wulde had found that tooth by the foot of a shelf rack a good thirty feet away from the burn site; most likely it had been tossed or kicked there after being knocked from its owner’s head. It was generally clear what had happened at the warehouse: somebody had been bundled there the previous night, tortured, and killed. That mostly answered three out of the five W’s. Hopefully, the tooth would help the Bastion figure out the who. Most of the senior Iron Fangs had shown their faces to Wallace’s spy cameras outside the warehouse this evening; the Wardens needed to figure out who was missing.

And now, here in his inbox, was another mystery: an unexpected message from Zachariah Reed, cryptically entitled “Business Proposition”. The idea that Reed might have a proposal for Wulde was not unusual in principle: their professional interests overlapped over the field of forensic accounting. Yet the particulars and circumstances of this message were baffling.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, I need to step back from day-to-day operations at Reed Financial indefinitely.” That was vague and ominous. Obviously, something both big and sudden must have happened in Zachariah’s life for him to make such a drastic decision so abruptly. Was he ill? In legal trouble? In love?

And he was asking Wulde to take over everything. Did Reed have no other second in command he could hand the reins to? Apparently not. So not only was he making a big life change quickly, he was now ask Wulde to do the same. Could he even do this?

He puffed out his cheeks and set his phone down atop the notes he had taken of his own debriefing with Lieutenant Grant. He leaned back as much as he dared in the folding chair and looked up at the wall, his eyes landing on a placard that bore that famous quote from Niebuhr’s "Serenity Prayer". He chuckled mirthlessly as he read it, contemplating how it commented on his current situation. Serenity, courage, and wisdom indeed. A bit more helpful, perhaps than those dubiously motivational slogans he had seen moldering on the warehouse walls earlier, but not by much.

Wulde Riddenhouse had a lot of questions for Zachariah Reed, questions he would only get answered if he agreed to meet with the guy. Thus, while his final decision about the “business proposal” might prove difficult and weighty, his immediate next step was obvious.

He picked up his phone again, but then paused, considering. “Time is unfortunately a factor”, Zachariah had written. Vague and ominous again. But Wulde couldn’t just up and leave right now. First, Grant might still have questions for him; second, his ride was taking a nap. After a moment he typed:

Re: Business Proposition.

Zachariah,

This is indeed a large and unusual request, suddenly made. I have many questions to ask, and things to consider. I expect to be tied up for the next couple hours, but should be able to make time after that. I want to talk to you about this, so name a time and a place.

Wulde

He set his phone down once more, then got up to recharge his coffee cup. He had the wisdom to know that all he could do now was wait, and the serenity to accept that.

✨Beyond The Veil✨

Wulde Riddenhouse

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Location: Warehouse Number Twelve Time: Night

Interactions: N/A n/a Mentions: N/A n/a

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The wardens noted the rising tendrils of smoke from several blocks away, but only when they drew close enough to see the bay doors could they tell that it issued from their warehouse.

”Shit,” grumbled Barton.

“Not unless they were storing dry dung,” Wulde rejoined as he rolled down the window to peer at the building with his optics. “Stop the truck so I can get a better look.”

”Smartass,” muttered the other Warden, even while he complied.

Wulde set the binoculars to thermal. The smoke itself lit up the display, unsurprisingly, obscuring nearly everything else. He could just make out a faint heat source somewhere behind its glowing cloud. The hot spot appeared to be ground level, and in the middle of the floor. Also, there was a tiny, intense spot a few feet above it, probably a light bulb.

An insurance fraud investigator by day, Wulde had seen arson attempts before. If whoever started this fire had wished to burn down the building, then they hadn’t done it right. More likely, they were trying to burn something small inside.

“Crew Van, you there?” Wulde called out, only moving a finger around the optics’ controls as he took a picture.

“What is it, Pickup?” came a voice from the speaker in the dashboard behind him. The Wardens hadn’t bothered to come up with more imaginative callsigns before heading out.

“We have eyes on the back entrance, the loading dock” Wulde reported. “No vehicles present, no detectable movement inside or out. One of the bay doors is open, and smoke is exiting. Whatever fire might have caused it seems to have already burned out. Over.”

There was a pause that dragged on for a couple minutes until the dashboard speaker sounded once more: ”Pickup, this is Crew Van. You’re clear to enter as long as you think it’s safe. Over.”

Wulde watched the smoke wafting out of the warehouse and hesitated. “You have oxygen in that medical kit?”

”Roger, it’s a small unit with about a fifteen minute supply. You want to borrow it?”

”Correct. Charlie Oscar doesn’t just stand for Commanding Officer, you know. I’m on my way to you. Out.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

About ten minutes later, Wulde stood at the bay door, sweeping a pencil of light through the smoky interior with the lamp mounted on his shotgun. As he was about to enter a structure of dubious integrity, he wore a hard hat, and beneath that, an oddly medieval-looking iron mail coif, meant to offer magical as well as physical protection. He thought it made him look like a character from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

In yet another sacrifice of style to utility, he wore his ballistic vest over his trench coat, so that he could attach things like his bodycam to it. About his neck hung the oxygen mask. A knapsack carried other gear, as well, including lockpicking tools.

Having cleared the inside of the warehouse as best he could, he lowered rock-salt-lensed goggles over his eyes, to shield them among other things from the irritating smoke. He then keyed his communicator.

”Crew Van, this is Riddenhouse,” he announced, using his personal callsign now that he was no longer transmitting from Barton’s truck. ”I’m going in.”

✨Beyond The Veil✨

Andrew Carlino

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

Location: The Bastion Time: Late evening

Interactions: n/aMentions: n/a

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

Andrew Carlino could only stand and glare. In response to the doctor’s request for information on the Code 3, the Wardens records clerk had just said to him that favorite phrase of all bureaucrats: “I’m sorry, but…” which was their idiom for: “No, fuck off.”

Resentment and frustration grew steadily in the psychiatrist’s tone as he pressed in turns for a medical file, then for a name, then for *any* information about the missing Warden and/or the circumstances of their disappearance, and then at last for an explanation for why not.

“That information is strictly confidential,” the clerk said to the last: “It hasn’t been released , not even to me. I couldn’t even tell you any of that if I wanted to.” And I don’t want to, her tone said. Functionaries like this one derived their importance from defending to the last any information or resource in their charge that might be sought after by those looking to accomplish something with them. Access denial was both their superpower and their raison d’etre. And right now, this clerk was flexing her powers and raisons at the expense of Dr. Andrew Carlino.

“Can I talk to somebody who does know?”, the psychiatrist demanded.

The clerk shrugged; Andrew thought he saw her smirk, as well. “Not in this department, sorry,” she answered, in a tone that sounded anything but. “Unless you have access to the Command Center, you’re probably out of luck.”

He rapped his knuckles as if to some unheard music for a moment, perhaps some suitably angry-sounding passage from Beethoven. Diabelli Variation 28 felt about right.

“Out of luck,” he repeated bitterly. “In that case, I’m also out of here. I came out here for nothing. Sorry to have wasted your time.”

The clerk was saying something as Andrew turned and left, probably assuring him that he had not, in fact, wasted her time. He had definitely wasted his own time, he seethed, as he walked back to his office. He need not have come into the Bastion at all. He shouldn’t have. He should be home right now, defeating Fenrir the World Devourer at tug-of-war in his living room while listening to something nice by Scarlatti, rather than stalking these spartan corridors empty-handed with Variation 28 stuck on a loop in his head.

Wardens passed him in those corridors, sometimes greeting him with a curt: “Hey, Doc,” greetings he did not bother to return this evening. He had nothing polite to say to anybody right now, so he didn’t. Ignoring everybody he encountered, he finally arrived at the refuge of his office. He slammed the door shut. Like most doors in the Bastion, the one to Andrew’s office was heavy, and thus satisfyingly loud. The sound made him feel a tiny bit better.

As a psychiatrist, Andrew Carlino knew quite a few relaxation techniques. Some of those involved chemicals, but this was not the time for that. Instead, he lay down on his own analytic couch and stared at the ceiling, forcing himself to breathe slowly and deeply for a while. This calmed him down, even though it did nothing to eliminate the source of his frustration.

It did put him in a clearer state of mind to review his options, unappealing as those were. He had gotten a message reminding him that he was overdue for shooting practice with his sidearm. Andrew Carlino usually hated shooting practice, but tonight the idea of shooting the faces off of silhouette targets while pretending that they were bureaucrats saying: “I’m sorry, but…” appealed to him more than usual.

Unfortunately, one does not simply walk into the Warden practice range. It was heavily defended by its own bureaucracy, whose lidless eyes watched sleeplessly over the tight scheduling and strict issuing of weapons and ammunition. He would have to schedule a time, probably a week or so from now. Hoping that he would still be mad at bureaucrats then, Andrew Carlino sent a message to the armorer, requesting a time for shooting practice.

✨Beyond The Veil✨

Wulde Riddenhouse

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

Location: South Halcyon Friends Meeting House Time: Night

Interactions: N/A Mentions: @jj doe Zacariah Reed; @oso Domonic Blackmoor

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

Wulde went straight back to the Sunday school classroom after he had sent the Bastion his response, and for a few minutes he had the room to himself. The other Wardens either had filed into the breakroom to take up Lt. Grant’s offer of refreshment or were on their phones trying to find out more about the Code 3. Wulde, who was not in the mood for either of those things, chose instead to spend some time in the mute company of childishly drawn dinosaurs and more professionally rendered doves. Through one thin wall of the quiet room, he could hear the resonant voice of Lt. Grant complaining to somebody about something, although he could not make out the details.

After a while, the others began shuffling back to take their seats, with moods as black as their coffees. It was not rare for a Warden to go missing, although it was never welcome news, and rarely ended happily. Everyone was disgruntled by the development, and no one’s gruntles were more dissed than those of Lt. Grant, who stamped into the room with a look that suggested that she was about to confirm Wulde’s suspicions about how loudly she could yell when she saw fit. Most of the Wardens hardly seemed to notice at first, as they inevitably had started talking about the MIA.

Somebody had discovered the name behind the Code 3: Zacariah Reed. No one in the classroom had any additional details about the disappearance, nor about Reed. Judging from their conversations, Wulde realized to his surprise that he probably knew more about the missing man than any of them did. Reed was someone he had known by name before he even joined the outfit. He was a colleague of Ben Gerber’s, a fellow forensic accountant. Wulde had long suspected that they had been working together on whatever investigation got his stepfather killed; could Reed’s disappearance be connected to that somehow? Gerber’s murder had been years ago, but then, vampires operated on long timescales.

Lt. Grant, to Wulde’s surprise, did not immediately try to command silence; rather, she waited a few minutes for the hubbub to subside before quietly clearing her throat. She might as well have bellowed out: “Oye! Oye!”, as the effect was just as decisive. All voices ceased at once and all eyes turned towards the front of the room where she sat perched upon that undersized desk.

”Thank you for your attention,” she began, her tone now calm and commanding, in stark contrast to what Wulde had heard through the wall just a few minutes earlier. The Lieutenant had clearly managed to collect herself in the brief interim.

”I know we’re all concerned about Warden Reed, but we must focus on the task at hand. That task is to investigate a warehouse not far from here.

”Warden Wallace -you all saw him when you came in- has been investigating for the last few days reports of unusual activity around one of the warehouses. Vehicles had been seen visiting and departing it several times a day after its not seeing a soul for almost six months. On a hunch, Wallace set up motion-sensing cameras overlooking both the front and the back of the building.

“Last night, a crew van not unlike the one we have here pulled up to one of the back loading docks, and several burly men carried a large, bulky bundle from the back of the vehicle into the building. No one else was detected entering or exiting after that, until shortly before sunrise. The men emerged from the building, no longer carrying the bundle. They drove away in the same van, leaving the cargo bay door open, and haven’t returned since.

”Wallace did as a good agent should and sent me a report with those images. I’m sending you all those pictures now. I’ll send the report later.”

Grant paused to press some buttons on her phone. A few moments later, a chorus of chirps signaled that she had done as promised. Some of the wardens looked down at their phones. Wulde resisted the urge to do so himself, preferring to stay focused on the Lieutenant.

Grant continued: ”By the time I had gone over everything Wallace had sent me, it was already near evening, and by then there was more news. More vehicles arriving at the building, motorcycles this time. And some of those motorcycles are still there as of last report. We sent the alert to you guys because we recognized both the patches and some of the faces. I’m sending you those now, too.”

There was another smattering of chirps, and of looking at phones. This time, there were gasps and grunts. ”Iron Fang patches,” one of the Wardens muttered. ”That looks like Dominic Blackmoor!” another exclaimed.

Yielding at last to curiosity, Wulde pulled out his own phone to peruse the sent images. He skipped to the last ones, one of which indeed clearly showed the Alpha of the Iron Fangs, standing on a loading dock in a faint pool of light, most likely from the headlamp of one of the gathered motorcycles.

”As you can see,” said the Lieutenant, ”something has happened that merits our attention. And this brings us to our mission: We are to enter the warehouse and find out what we can. Whatever is important enough for Dominic Blackmoor to show up in person to examine, we want to see it, too. I only want one of you bumbling around inside the warehouse, though. Too many hands spoil the crime scene. The rest of you will secure the perimeter or man vehicles.”

”I volunteer”, offered Barton. Grant just looked at him.

”Of course you do,” she answered drily. ”You all did when you showed up. But we’ll just let God decide. And by God I mean me.” She pointed at each of the Wardens and counted out loud: ”One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.” Wulde was Four, apparently.

The Lieutenant pulled a die out of her pocket and rolled it on the desk next to her, meaning that no one but her could see the outcome. After peering at the result, she looked up at Wulde and grinned.

”Congratulations, Four. You’re up.”

”Good times,” said Wulde, in a tone that indicated anything but.

✨Beyond The Veil✨

Andrew Carlino

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

Location: Andrew Carlino’s home Time: Evening, wearing on into night

Interactions: @Tpartywithzombi Dane Mentions: n/a

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

At long last, Andrew Carlino marked Evelyn Godwin down as a no-show and called it a day, closing up his office and migrating thence to the more domestic wings of his house. The first new order of business was to let his dog in from the back yard.

He’d fed Fenrir the World Devourer dinner and let him out just before his scheduled appointment with Ms. Godwin so that the dog wouldn’t disturb the intake process. A perusal of the perimeter security cameras showed that the terrier was entertaining himself with something along the back fence. It must not have been too engrossing, since Fenrir came right away, bobbed tail wagging like a frantic metronome, when Dr. Carlino opened the sliding door and called his name.

Andrew skritched the Jack Russel’s ears and chin for a bit, then indulged in a couple rounds of fetch before leading the World Devourer back inside for a somewhat less than world-sized treat. As he did, he noticed that it was starting to rain. Just in time, he thought with some relief; he was not in the mood for muddy paws and wet dog smell.

The doggy intake having gone more smoothly than Ms. Godwin’s patient intake, Andrew headed into the living room to relax for a bit before turning to evening business. The psychiatrist didn’t have any appointments with Wardens on his calendar tonight, and he had just inventoried his medicines and “enhancements” yesterday, so he had no urgent business at the Bastion. He even dared hope he might have the evening to himself.

As Andrew entered the living room, Fenrir dashed in past him to jump onto his human’s favorite chair. The terrier set himself proudly in the middle of the seat, bright black eyes regarding the doctor with an air of expectant defiance. Andrew was just considering whether to evict the squatter or just sit on the couch instead when his pager went off. He pulled it from his belt and read the message with pursed lips.

URGENT
CODE 3 - Last location Nightclub in Sector 6
ALL WARDENS REQUIRED TO DO A STATUS CHECK.
End Transmission

Code 3 meant that a Warden had gone MIA. The message didn’t identify who that was, nor could Dr. Carlino have guessed, since he was not usually privy to operational details. The upshot was that the Bastion wanted to know where everybody was. Andrew pecked out and sent a quick message: “DR C @ HOME,” then slipped the pager back into its holster. After a moment, he opted to ignore the dog in favor of hitting the couch for a quick nap.

He woke up to a soft wheezing sound at his feet. Fenrir had joined him in his couch nap and was snoring. A glance at his phone told Andrew that he had slept about an hour, and that nobody had called or texted him in that time. That was just as well; nobody seemed to have good news for him tonight. Sitting up and listening told him that it was still raining.

He hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and was getting hungry. He went into the kitchen to make some coffee, and to finish off the tiramisu he had left in the fridge. He had some leftover ziti, too, but the tiramisu would go better with the coffee. As the caffein and sugar stirred in his brain, the Doctor began to realize that he probably needed to head into the Bastion tonight, after all.

A Warden’s going missing might involve, among other things, their psychic state, so it would be a good idea to find out at headquarters who the missing agent was and review their file. The errant Warden might also be due for a visit once they re-emerged from whatever it was they had gotten themselves into. If nothing else, they would want to re-stock their enhancements after having been out-of-pocket for a while.

By the time Andrew was washing up after his supper, Fenrir had awoken and realized that his human was in the kitchen. A clatter of tiny claws on tile heralded the World Devourer’s arrival. The doctor played with the dog for a few minutes before going upstairs to change.

Soon after, now in sturdier, less formal clothes, the doctor came back downstairs and headed towards the garage. As he did, he sent another text to the Baston:

“Coming in. Need info on MIA pls.”

✨Beyond The Veil✨

Wulde Riddenhouse

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

Location: South Halcyon Friends Meeting House Time: Night

Interactions:@tpartywithzombi Dane Mentions: N/A @osoDominic @deegeeKessler

@infinite cosmosLucian

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

Wulde noticed that Barton was slowing down and dimming his lights as his truck pulled up to a squat, shabby monument sign marking the entrance to a driveway.

They were in a rundown “mixed-use” zone, where the buildings were smaller than the hulking factories and warehouses they had passed earlier; here was a drab assortment of service stations, hardware stores, private medical offices, clubhouses, and the like.

Wulde looked from the sign to the building behind it and frowned. “A church?” he asked, bemusedly.

“I believe the term for this one is ‘meeting house’,” replied Barton, as he turned into the driveway. The headlights swept over the sign just then as if on cue, briefly illuminating faded lettering that indeed read: “South Halcyon Friends Meeting House.” A crunching sound signaled asphalt giving way to loose gravel.

Wulde frowned. “So, we’re supposed to be, what, Quakers, then?” He found that odd; he had always thought that they were supposed to be pacifists.

“You gotta admit, it’s a creative cover,” the other Warden offered.

The parking lot was behind the church, screened by trees and a brick wall; thus, it was not until they were in the back that they could see how many other vehicles had already arrived: only three so far, though one was a crew van that might carry any number of passengers.

Wulde saw no one outside as he dismounted from the truck and looked about the dim parking lot; it was a safehouse, after all, which meant it would not be conspicuously guarded or surveilled. The lighting in the back lot was dim; however, the Warden noticed here and there in the surrounding trees and hedges a glint from what looked to be rectangular arrays of little glass circles. Infrared illuminators and cameras, he surmised.

A plain, locked metal door with a buzzer next to it greeted the newcomers with the unspoken message: “If you belong here, you know what to do”. Barton gave the buzzer two quick presses, and then the two wardens turned to face the camera. Wulde resisted the urge to smile and wave sarcastically.

The door burred and clicked, which upon opening revealed a bare room overlooked by a window in the right-hand wall. Framed in that window stood a plainly-dressed, conspicuously inconspicuous man who gave the new arrivals a neutral, questioning look. Barton produced his phone and announced: “Field Wardens Barton and Riddenhouse.”

The man nodded and pointed to the only other door. “Third room on the right,” he instructed laconically. “There’s a breakroom first door on the left, but that’s for afterward. Please just go straight to the briefing.”

There was another buzz, this time from the interior door, and Wulde and Barton now entered a long corridor lined with office doors, of which only the two that the desk clerk had mentioned were open.

Aforementioned third room on the right was clearly a small classroom, flanked by two small folding banquet tables with chairs arranged along the outer edges. Four other field wardens already sat at those tables, two on each side. At the front of the room, sitting on the front of a small teacher’s desk was a formidable looking middle-aged black woman, who nodded to the new arrivals and said: “Take a seat, gentlemen.”

The assembled group sat and waited for a few moments before the woman seemed to make a decision. She picked up her phone and pressed a button. “I’m calling it, Wallace,” she announced to it. “ “We have quorum. Anybody else comes, thank them for their time.”

The voice of the man at the front desk responded: “Roger,” after which the woman lowered her phone and faced the assembled Wardens.
“Thank you all for coming,” she declaimed in a strong, deep voice. “ “I am Lieutenant Laquita Grant.” Although she spoke quietly, Wulde guessed that Lieutenant Grant could have commanded a small auditorium with that voice, even without a microphone, if she so chose.

Lieutenant Grant scanned the room calmly and confidently as she spoke. “ “You all are here because you got a message reporting a disturbance at one of the warehouses in the Gutterbane. Obviously, you are here because you are to help investigate that disturbance. Just as obviously, I am here to tell you how you are going to do that-“

A hushed yet insistent chorus of electronic chirps and buzzes murmured about the room. Reflexively, everybody looked at their phones, watches or other communication devices. A baffled murmur spread throughout the room as the Wardens read the messages that had just arrived. Lieutenant Grant made a noise at once irritated and resigned as she looked at her own phone.

“ “Right, y’all take care of this,” she instructed. “ “Go ahead and grab some coffee while you’re at it. We’ll resume in five. Make that ten.”

A din of scrapes and rumbles ensued as the gathered Wardens pushed back their chairs and rose, still gazing at their respective devices. Satisfied that he had a handle on the situation in the room, Wulde finally checked the obscure message app on his own phone:

URGENT
CODE 3 - Last location Nightclub in Sector 6
ALL WARDENS REQUIRED TO DO A STATUS CHECK.
End Transmission

The Wardens filed out of the cramped classroom and instinctively spread at generous intervals along the corridor, as if the status checks they were about to give had a blast radius. Wulde took a spot just past a pair of restrooms, then composed his own message:

Re: URGENT
Current status: Attending mission briefing w/6 other Ws, OIC LT Grant.

Wulde then referenced the safehouse address and ended the message. Hopefully, that would satisfy the Commander.

✨Beyond The Veil✨

Andrew Carlino

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

Location: Andrew Carlino’s home office • Time: Dusk

Interactions: n/a • Mentions: n/a

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

She was late, the doctor noted, his annoyance mounting as the violinist span out that interminable final chaconne. She had already been late when the partita had started playing. Now she was unconscionably late.

Fidgeting irritably at his desk, Andrew Carlino glared resentfully at the clock mounted on the opposite wall of his office, as if it were somehow responsible for the inconvenience, mutely daring the contraption to tick off yet another minute with Ms. Godwin still not there. Eventually, inevitably, the clock did just that.

Realizing with a defeated sigh that his frustration was absurdly misplaced, the psychiatrist lowered his eyes to the file on his desk; he opened it and began to read it again, more to pass the time than to refresh his memory.

The file contained both medical records for Ms. Godwin and a referral letter from her primary care physician, one Dr. George Sokolov. Dr. Carlino knew Dr. Sokolov, had worked with him before. He was one of the good ones, and understood better than most of his fellow GPs what sort of referrals Andrew Carlino was interested in.

Evelyn Godwin. White woman, 67, widowed. Her emergency contact information listed just two relatives: one son, Blake, 45, and one grandson, Tariq, 20. Both were also surnamed Godwin. Much of her history was uninteresting: she had been reasonably healthy most of her life, but nowadays presented with some typical age-related physical complaints, along with bouts of mild depression. Lately, however, her mental state had become more unsettled. She had grown withdrawn and hostile and become obsessed with the idea that her grandson was transforming into some other person.

Dr. Carlino turned from the letter to the medical records. Dr. Sokolov had done his due diligence: appropriate physical and neurological tests, a basic mental health questionnaire, some common cognitive tests to check for signs of dementia. He had asked enough questions, and taken enough notes, to build a rough timeline for the development of her delusions, to present events in the context of the patient's life. It was a good referral; Dr. Sokolov had done everything a good PCP ought to under the circumstances, and nothing that one shouldn’t.

The chaconne was nearly finished. Dr. Carlino suspended his perusal of the file and waited for the music to end, then paused the recording before the next track could start. The office hung a while in expectant silence. The opposing clock ticked off another minute. There was still no sign of Ms. Godwin.

Grumbling discontentedly, Dr. Carlino restarted the partita from the very beginning, the opening allemande. Its linearity made a refreshing contrast to the involutions of the chaconne, exactly the sort of music his brain needed to think clearly. He briefly considered putting the allemande on repeat, but decided against it.

Returning his attention to the file, Dr. Carlino saw that Dr. Sokolov had indicated a working diagonosis: “Dementia-related psychosis. Delusional misidentification syndrome, intermetamorphosis.”

That final word was by far the most interesting to Dr. Carlino. Reading further, he learned that Ms. Godwin had been quite agitated on her most recent visit to her doctor, nervously recounting her last time seeing her grandson. He had been growing increasingly surly and ill-mannered lately, she said, probably on account of the company he had started keeping in “bad parts of town”.

On Tariq's last visit, she claimed, he had been especially nasty to his grandmother, and, she insisted, there was something off about him physically, as well, about the way he moved, among other things. She even mentioned thinking that his limbs looked too long, that he had more hair than usual. It was these last observations that had triggered concern in Dr. Sokolov, and motivated him to refer Ms. Godwin to Dr. Carlino.

The psychiatrist sat back and mused on what he had just read. Conflicting explanations, surmises, suspicions roiled about in his mind, their savage breasts only partly soothed by the music. He needed more information, a lot more. And he could not hope to have it until he had a chance to talk to Ms. Godwin.

There was still no sign of her. Dr. Carlino knew that it was premature to worry. It wasn’t *that* unusual for a patient to be late for, or even miss an appointment entirely, annoying though that was. Yet something was off. Dr. Carlino waited for the allemande to end before again pausing the music, so that the office would be quiet as he called the number in the file for Ms. Godwin.

The phone rang and rang before finally going to voicemail. The outbound message was one of those automated ones, rather than a personalized one from Ms. Godwin. At the tone, Dr. Carlino identified himself and his reason for calling, asking Ms. Godwin to please call at his office number. Once he had finished his message, he hung up and started the music again.

When that infernal chaconne came back on, he decided to try again, once again only reaching voicemail. Instead of leaving a message, he hung up and called the other numbers in the file, those of the son and the grandson.

The son picked up right away, with a dry, concise “Blake Godwin”. The ensuing conversation did little to reassure the men on either end of the line. The son had not seen nor heard from Ms. Godwin in a couple days. Until Dr. Carlino’s call, he had found that odd but not alarming; however, it was very much unlike his mom to miss an appointment. He asked the doctor to please call him as soon his mother showed up at his office.

After hanging up with Blake, Dr. Carlino then called the grandson’s phone number. The number rang and rang and didn’t even go to any sort of voice mail. He hung up and looked up the address given on the contact form for Tariq. It appeared to be a tenement on the South Side, in or near Gutter’s End. Not a nice part of town.

The psychiatrist rose up from his desk and began pacing. His vigil for Ms. Godwin had stretched by now into the evening, and his office had grown dark, so he flipped on lights as he passed their switches on his circuit of the room. Eventually his tour brought him to the console of his sound system, where Bach still hovered, waiting to bother him once more with his chaconne.

Dr. Carlino decided instead to change the music entirely, going to his usual standby: Scarlatti. The new music calmed him down enough that he was able once more to return to his chair behind his desk, where he then sat, musing, drumming his fingers absently to the music. One entire keyboard sonata had finished playing, and a second one begun, when his phone unexpectedly rang.

“Is this Dr. Carlito?” breathed a nervous man’s voice. “It’s Blake Godwin. Has my mother shown up at your office?”

The doctor frowned as he replied: “No, not yet. Look, I told you I would call when-“

“I’m at her house. She’s not here,” Blake interrupted. Alarm mounted steadily in the man’s tone as he spoke. “Her car is here. The lights are on, but she’s nowhere. I’ve looked all over. I have the key…”

Dr. Carlino adopted his best calm-but-firm voice: “Mr. Godwin, please listen to me. I do not wish to borrow trouble; however, it would perhaps be prudent if you called the police at this point.”

He heard a dismayed gasp on the other end. “The police? I…First my son ghosts me and now this. Oh, god…Do you think…?”

“I don’t necessarily think that anything has happened,” Dr. Carlino tried to reassure the other man. “But it is still important to take prudent precau-“ He noticed then that the line was dead, and looked down to see the “Call Ended” message on his phone’s screen.

He laid the phone on his desk with an exasperated sigh. As if commenting on the development, Scarlatti began modulating just then into distant minor keys. The doctor allowed himself a flash of amusement at that before considering his next move.

Blake had let slip that his son had “ghosted” him. It might well be a coincidence. But Andrew Carlino had gotten to where he was by trusting his intuition, and his intuition was now telling him that something was amiss.

He had not had a chance to intake Ms. Godwin, so she was technically not yet his patient. However, that didn’t make it alright for him to just share information from a medical record with third parties. Instead, he contacted the Bastion, to inform the Wardens that he was preparing to investigate an “anonymous tip” about a possible lycan-related incident at a South Side tenement address. That was a lie, of course, and the whole affair was an ethical gray area at best; however, Andrew Carlino somehow doubted that the Wardens would report him to the medical review board.

And it was better than having the police unwittingly stumble into a lycans’ den, should they follow up on a missing person report for Evelyn Godwin.