Mizrah's Ladder Ch. 14

The isolation of this task makes your apartment feel less cozy and more sepulchral; your own ignorance and lack of exposure feel akin to wandering through rocky badlands with a compass that only worked a seventh of the time. You lean your chin in the palm of your hand, and your thoughts wander, eyes tracing to the coil of Spider-Ogre silk you'd wrapped in tin foil.

What is Yusuf doing right now? Why hasn't he responded to your messages? Is he hurt, or just being angry at you? Why were you so stupid and aggressive with him in the first place - you never say the right thing, you always manage to fuck things up with the people you love. No wonder you're alone again. You nonetheless envision that roguish, princely face of his, smiling confidently at you from onstage.

...yet his face resolves unbidden into Ascher's; your mind forms his clement, knowing gaze, the broad set of his shoulders. There, the familiar ache beneath your ribcage, and the frustrating grind of your teeth as you contemplate your earlier ill fate - in many ways, he would have been the perfect man for you if circumstances had been forgiving. He would have been ideal for this situation, a seemingly bottomless encyclopedia on lost and living languages, as well as bizarre cultural practices.

You find your cellphone in your hand, flipping to the folder holding his videos and photos, and even though you are yet wracked from within after your fight with Mizrah, it's...heartening, in a sad way, to look at your old flame and remember

Winter, two years ago...a video of the two of you sitting on that nightclub sofa, his defined arm around your shoulder, thin lips brushing your ear as he whispers heart-melting adoration; your eyes close and a smile of dreamy contentment spreads across your face at...whatever it was he told you.

Spring, that same year...a selfie of you both down at the Tamerlane Institute Gardens; he has a peculiar, slightly baffled expression from losing his entry ticket (it was in his back pocket). Your arms are thrown around his narrow waist, smiling and kissing his cheek.

From last Summer, when he'd come back on leave...you hold him in your arms, lying in your bed and warmed by the morning sun. Despite how much larger he is, you cradle his head against your chest, filming this moment and whispering how you wished it would never end. There are dark circles under his eyes...how pale he'd grown from lack of uninterrupted rest.

The only times he'd ever slept free of nightmares were those spare days at your side...If only that had been enough to keep him here and with you. The mission of the Corps and an insistence that a cure for his affliction lay out there, beyond where Western psychiatry had failed, had always pulled him back out into the darkness of the unlit world.

In your monstrosity, freed from the burden of your misfortune by the sacrifice of your Human Soul, he was lost to you forever and that...is...

...no. You do not accept it.

You are the master of your own destiny now, and as you'd found, you could interfere with that of others. As you sit there in the lonely, dim light, a dread plan formulates in your head, one impossible to describe beyond an instinctive understanding of probability and how to crack it like a femur between your jaws. It is entirely selfish and stunningly impulsive, but the pain of being separated from your packmate and in the midst of an unresolved conflict has a desultory effect on your judgment.

You needed to see Ascher; most likely he was knee-deep in jungle mud trying to build a school, or trying to teach modern agriculture to people whose way of life hadn't changed for two thousand years so it was just...impossible.

...unless it actually wasn't, and it was just improbable.

You climb in your car and begin to drive out toward Ashland, to that place where the ruin lay thick and the Metavolis crackled the air with potential. It's like a pilgrimage that returns you to that car ride with Yusuf, and as you swerve between cars on the freeway, your vision blurs with tears. They roll down your cheek unbidden, something that hasn't happened for years; to think that the tragedy you'd endured, from your cruel mother's sudden death to Gregory Stathis' vengeful frame-job, hadn't provoked you to cry, but this conflict with your loved one did.

You feel anger in your heart, uncomplex and potent, against Yusuf for the first time. He left you just because of a little fight - why would he do that? Why won't he talk to you? Is he just trying to hurt you? He's doing a damn good job, and you know that Ascher would never do anything like that to you. The guilt isn't as large a thing as your spite though. Through this Accursed magic, you could finally take what you wanted instead of waiting for the world to turn against you as it always had.

You park your car at the old, abandoned factory where Yusuf had shown you a fraction of your power; the crackling potential in the air rages like invisible, veinshot lightning above you. You climb rusty fire escapes, jump gaps where you need, and finally reach the top of the crumbling corpse of a building

The last time you'd seen Ascher, he'd left you with a token of his - a sympathetic link provided unknowingly in the form of an old visa page for the Republic of Samothrace (where he could never enter again), torn from his passport. It carries a grainy photograph of him, and standing at the top of the factory where a storm grumbles and growls overhead, you can't help but admire him.

Ascher's eyes are gentle and deep; even from a photo you can feel a sense of empathy and patience built up over a life of hardship and suffering. His dark brown hair is parted somewhat messily on the left, slightly sunken cheeks framing thin lips you remember for their impeccable softness. In this photo he had a short beard...you wonder how he'll look if this somehow works.

It's unfair to do this to him, and in a way it feels disloyal to Yusuf, because Ascher is definitely an old flame that somehow just kept getting away. Of course, Mizrah had scoffed at the notion of monogamy, which in this...state of being, seemed rather an unnatural choice. You loved whom you loved, and there was more than enough room in your heart for both of them, but...

That wasn't what you were after. Not his heart, not this time. You needed his intricately detailed knowledge; his cool-headed, multi-faceted wisdom; and...there's no denying, you were lonely and needed someone to talk to.

Surely Yusuf wouldn't begrudge you that, right? You weren't intent on taking Ascher into your bed; if circumstances were different and you weren't at odds with your packmate, perhaps you might as well but...

This was for Mizrah. He needed you.

Your eyes squeeze shut, and you focus on Ascher's visa picture, crystalizing his handsome face in your mind. You bring his smell to the forefront of your sensory memory - the sun, those 'curiously strong' mints he liked, his distinct masculinity - and hunt for the frayed thread of his (mis)fortune among the many tens of thousands linked both closely and tangentially to you. They exist in a sort of idealized realm, spreading outward from your imagination and yet intimately linked with the living world; difficult to tell what's real and what is virtual as you plumb the realm of possibility and probability.

It's eerie how easily you identify and pick out the vibrating, scintillating string of Ascher's ill luck; like a twisted umbilicus made of nightmare-fog and crackling hearth-light, it stretches from the seat of your pattern out into the darkness. He feels millions of miles away, as if on another planet, but as the Metavolis in the air crackles and snaps around you, igniting with pops of heliotrope light and fueling your brute-forcing of entropy, you chase down the fraying end.

With your will, you snap down upon it and taste cold, wet mountain air; you smell gunpowder and myrrh; you feel the ivory keys of his life's song, a tragic dirge of loss stretching backward but interrupted by brief chorals of joy, measures of peace. In those moments you can sense your own presence...and resolve that this is the right thing to do.

For Yusuf. For yourself.

You savage. You tear. You yank upon what little good luck he has and burn it like tinder as arcane formulae drip from your bleeding lips, forming and smoldering in the air; the chants and growls, ululating howls and maledictions render your will unto reality, corroding and tearing apart any resistance as you roughly haul his life's path, bending it like a sapling back toward you.

His visa bursts into violet flame in your grasp, and even as it scours your fingerprints you keep your grip the whole time; your eyes blaze white as you channel the Curse through your being.

Glass cracks around you; car alarms go off; sidewalks split and crumple and you sense a pigeon drop dead in the air above you, its internal organs transmuted to confetti that bursts from its mouth and eye-holes when it impacts the roof.

A nimbus of eldritch forces steam and shimmer around you before dissipating somewhat anticlimactically.

Nothing to do now but wait. You return to your lonely apartment, climb into your lonely, cold bed, and look at pictures of Yusuf. You feel ridiculous pining like this, especially after what you've done...it probably didn't even work, you had little understanding of how to control this Power beyond shapeshifting, tracking, and causing small financial disasters.

You cry into your pillow, and locking your phone, you close your eyes and sleep miserably. Your dreams are a tangle of unrequited love; running fearfully on all fours through a dark, primeval forest from something far larger than you; Mizrah's face smiling sadly at you, his fingers working over his guitar, his voice banishing you from his life, his talons tearing your flesh, his cock driving you to the edge.

The boundary between sleep and the waking world is usually a blurry crossing, difficult to distinguish one from the other; not this time as you awaken quite suddenly, your sheets soaked with sweat. You're shivering and feel as if you're fighting off an infection. An echo of the banal human life you'd lived still chides you for rising habitually in the afternoon, instead of arbitrarily with the sunrise to attend the drudgery that had defined years of your existence. You don't do that now.

Werewolves Hunt at night.

Washing the crust from your eyes and blowing your nose, you gaze at yourself in the bathroom mirror; despite feeling crummy, your dark ringlets are lustrous and bright. Your skin is clear and perfect, and the dark circles that had once hung under your eyes are almost gone. The outside clearly does not reflect the inside in this case...the human shape is fine camouflage.

Idly, you check your phone and almost drop it in your sink - six missed phonecalls, as many text messages in the morning...all of them from Ascher; god he even left a voicemail. In spite of your misery over your errant packmate you can't help but find yourself smiling as you read his texts.

How...? How had it worked

Ascher: `Hello Isabel, could you please call me when you get this?

Ascher: `Hey I'm sorry to bug you, you're probably working, I'm back - surprise! - and am in a bit of a bind here.`

Ascher: `My bank apparently went out of business and FDIC didn't cover my deposits isabel i just lost over seventy five thousand dollars what is going on here'

Ascher: `isabel i just got arrested!`

Ascher: `at the river district police department i am so sorry i don't have anyone else's number here, please call me, they think i robbed a gas station`

Ascher: `if you get this please bring a shirt and tweezers and a bandaid :( my phone is gonna die`

...oh god.

You are a slim kite trailing long, dark streamers, torn between a gale of horror at what you've done to him, and a zephyr of heart-soaring joy that he's actually here. He's been at the station since before 7am, which means he's probably been stuck in a horrible jail cell without anything to eat or drink

Yusuf's sad eyes, his angry grimace fade before Ascher's kindly smile - you don't even feel guilty anymore - as you pack a bag with a bread roll and sliced chicken. You have a few shirts of his, folded up neatly in the back of your closet, clean and pressed. You select a maroon, short-sleeved garment that you love, pausing to inhale its scent and smiling into the fabric. It still carries the complex notes of his being...part of you wishes you'd thought about getting him that raspberry sparkly juice he always craved whenever he came back Stateside, but that's probably the last thing he's thinking about right now.

"You're not...jumping around between guys. That's not you," you assure yourself. "You just need his help...you just want to talk to him, so you catastrophically fucked up his life, that's all." The self-talk is grounding, it drives back the wordless static of animal instinct that roars for you to take violent action. Translated to words by your human mind, they each scream to you.

CLAIM ASCHER

DOMINATE CHARYS

BIND MIZRAH

...none of those. You're not going to Mark him as yours, you don't have that right; you're not going to just hunt down and dominate Charys, you are unprepared; and...you're not going to chain Mizrah to your will, even if you knew how. You love him.

You choose a black skirt that conforms to the swell of your hips, coming down to a modest mid-thigh; it's criss-crossed with leather belts in the front. Cherry red stockings, thin enough to handle the humidity and draw attention to your long, sleek legs; your fingers had lingered over a matching set of risque undergarments that you knew he'd like but...this wasn't that sort of rendezvous. Still, the sleek, dark blouse you wear with the top couple buttons open is classy and only slightly suggestive...far more your style; you've pushed a collection of colorful dresses and conservative shirts you wore for your old job off to the side in your closet. You at least want to look nice for him.

Sleek white flats hissed across the floor of your apartment building, down into your parking garage, and you were crawling through the seethe of riverfront traffic to the police station. Your eyes hood with hostility at the sight of the ugly, squat concrete structure; the Pomdufond South Police Department were paragons of corruption and incompetence, and you'd taken part in protests (and even an odd riot!) outside this building in your wilder years. Fortunately you'd never seen the inside until today.

What a shitty place...every officer looked strung out and exhausted, and the ones who didn't gave you the slimy feel of a lamprey drinking from a bigger fish. You state your case to the reception cop; she takes you through the pig pen to the jail, and you're surprised the inmates don't cat-call you. Not that you desire that particular dishonor cast your way, though...you can feel it on the edge of their lips until an unnamed, instinctive fear catches their voices.

Is it going to affect Ascher?

Your pulse is thudding in your throat.

Your palms are sweaty but you feel incredibly cold.

Mizrah's sad, hurt expression flashes into your mind, but then you remember his words: 'I never should have dragged you on deck.' It isn't all about him, even if this is all for him.

You harden your heart, putting him out of your mind as much as you can...and you almost completely forget about Yusuf when you lay eyes upon Ascher Ryazansky for the first time in over a year.

He's classically handsome, like the hero of a fairy tale, even as battered as he appears. Your old flame is seated on a bench in a jail cell, elbows on his knees, head hanging low...you can tell that he's probably halfway between consciousness and disturbed sleep. For some reason, his shirt is missing, revealing the set of his wide, brawny shoulders and his well-built chest...years of rebuilding houses and schools in lands torn by war had melted softness from his body, except for in his gentle, kind eyes. He's got bruises on his shoulders and arms; you recognize the telltale signs of billy-club strikes - why? Who would hit Ascher Ryazansky, one of the kindest, most non-threatening men you knew?

You smell his blood staining the front of those dark blue, baggy cargos you recognize as his 'travel pants'; he must have arrived less than a day ago and you have to wonder just...how? Had what you'd done actually worked, or was this just some wild ride of coincidences? A great series of misfortune events had befallen him, as if he'd been...well. Cursed. You see that he's got one shoe off, a foot wrapped in bloody paper; what happened to him?

...bloody, murderous rage seizes you. You look at the portly cop unlocking his cell and calmly consider reaching into his back, grabbing his spine, and pulling his head down into his chest cavity; but then Ascher would see you for what you are, a ravening, awful, beautiful monster, and he'd loathe you.

So instead you call out his name

He stirs, as if awakened from a miserable trance, and he looks up from the floor at you with lovely eyes the color of a rainy forest; what have you put him through, just to bring him here to your side?

Will he begrudge you if he finds out you did this to him? Will he run in terror if he sees the wolf-demon in your soul? Will you lose control, someday, and kill him?

The anxiety spirals ends when he looks at you with recognition, and his weariness cracks and falls away. There's that familiar smile like the sun climbing over the shore of your home island, he's fighting emotional overwhelm to see you again; he opens his mouth to call your name back -

- "Isabel..."

"I know that look." She's stubbed a second cigarette by the time she's finished with her strange tale, and Charys is gazing at you with derision; as if you're insane for doubting her, not the other way around. "It isn't my job to make you believe the truth; just to give it to you...but you're not the kind of fool who operates on blind faith." Charys never takes her eyes off of you as she barks for her packmate.

"Mala."