Interlude

I have been asked by a few of my associates as to why I use the term 'Archangel' in this blog. I answered that it is simply a term of convenience, as it is the name that my readers would be familiar with. Personally, I use the term 'Father' when conversing with other Timberwolves and 'Azrael' or 'Archangel' when speaking with all others. Azrael is a better fit, I think. The Archangel of Death...

Before the holocaust, there was the occurrence that lead to the codification of the word 'genocide'. The rise of the Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire lead to a nationalistic fervor - the land that is now Turkey would regain its former glory, a land of one people and one religion. However, in the way of their projected eastward expansion were the Christian Armenians (totaling some two million) and that simply would not do.

The perfect solution to the Armenian question came in the form of the First World War, and with the world distracted the genocidaires went to work. First all of the Armenians' weapons were taken away (the Armenian soldiers fighting in the war reassigned to slave labor). Professionals in Constantinople were taken away in the night and swiftly disposed of. Groups of Armenians were marched out of their homes and bayoneted by death squads. Even more were marched hundred miles to the harsh deserts of Syria, every step of the way calculated to lead to their death.

One night in the Syrian Desert; an elderly man stood with a young boy, the only other Armenian survivor of their march. They were quite lucky that they had survived that long, but the soldiers had decided that there were too few left to continue the march, and as such the duo were lined up to be shot. The elderly man was skin and bone, but the boy was in even worse a state - he looked as if he was simply rotting away, bits of flesh hanging off him as if he were already in the grave.

As the soldiers prepared to shoot, the elderly man reached down and touched the child's shoulder.

"It's alright, (o). We'll be seeing each other again very soon."

The boy gave a knowing smile, and then the shots rang out into the night. The elderly man did not fear, for he had seen the angel of death and knew that he would be avenged. The boy, on the other hand, did not fall.

The Turkish soldiers swore loudly, thinking that they had missed, and gave another volley. The boy smiled a wide, crooked smile, and refused to die as they unloaded bullet after bullet into him.

"Don't you see?" He asked, voice wheezing - his lungs had been pierced at least eight times. "I can see. I can see everything that you've done. I've been shown what you've done."

Then the soldiers recoiled, threatening to break ranks, as the boy reached into his skull and tore out his right eye. Blood poured down his face as he tore the optical nerve, which shimmered with white light. The eye floated into the air and expanded, the wind picking up as it grew to the size of an elephant, hovering in the air. The optical nerve had become hundreds of long, downy wings, interlocking together and lighting up the sand below.

"I CAN SEE," it boomed, "I CAN SEE."

The soldiers didn't notice the bloodied, rotting boy and the rusty bayonet until it was too late. The lone survivor, the one who had broken ranks the second the Eye had manifested in its true magnificence, was intercepted by the Russian army. On his body, they found a beaten and bloodied journal containing this tale. At the very end was a sketch of the British Tomb of the Unknown Warrior (which the soldiers, obviously, did not recognize). Underneath was a dotted circle, and in perfect Russian, "I'll be seeing you very soon."

Be you on the 'right' side or the 'wrong' side, blood is still being shed. While (arguably, and I shall not be getting into such debates here) justifiable, you must take care that you do not delve to the depths of your foes.

Contact

I received a letter at my residence yesterday. In it was a simple message - "Please meet me at [this place] and at [this time], it is important. Love, Maria."

Maria was from the days before the Timberwolves, when I was a rogue combing the streets for money and drugs. She was a quick fling, and I'm curious as to why she would contact me so many years later. The obvious answer is that it is a poorly-constructed trap. I am willing to humor either Maria or the moron who thought this would fool me, whoever it may be. Anybody with such an intimate knowledge of my life would be an eldritch horror from beyond the stars or a simple security risk (to myself or my associates), either of which would be reason for backup. As such, myself and two other Chicago Timberwolves will be taking a little field trip on Saturday down to St Louis.

Personally, I'm quite worried that it may actually be Maria.

Sañjīva

Last night, I had the wonderful opportunity to impart some information to the Free Radical. I am now considering telling the story of how myself and a few of my compatriots happened across those two poor Choir victims, but I will have to ask the permission of those involved and ensure that it does not contain any information deemed inappropriate for the public to hear. Hermes tolerates the existence of this blog, but I walk a thin line and prefer not to be forced to take it down if someone were to complain.

It is, however (even with our connection to the Archangel) extraordinarily rare to hear somebody complaining from beyond the grave, so I shall take this opportunity to tell of an associate of ours.

Anton lived a lonely life, a man shuffled all across the world and considering no land his home. The only real sense of identity he had was as a Buddhist, and as such he became rife with self-loathing at the things he had to do on the streets of Chicago. When we found him, he was deep in depression and on the verge of suicide. We helped him, however. The Timberwolves gave him a home and a family, and did not force his hand to evil deeds. He incorporated the Archangel into his own theology as the personification of Nirvana, and although many of us were... uncomfortable with him twisting our faith around himself, Anton was quiet about his beliefs and Hermes' predecessor ensured that the issue was not pressed.

After failing to show up to several 'meetings' despite confirming that he was interested in our product, an affiliated dealer then went off the radar entirely. Concerned with the money in our pockets, several of us went to go track the dealer down (Anton included). Simply enough, he was at home, but he looked like hell. We instantly assumed that he had been injecting questionable heroin, as his left arm had been rotted down to the bone but he was still alive and breathing. Anton, having the most first-aid experience, tried to patch him up - but the dealer died on the spot, as if he had simply been waiting for someone to say goodbye to. "Goodbye, Anton."

I had been unaware that Anton had known this man. Anton seemed to be unaware of this fact as well, and we chalked it up to eldritch shenanigans and allowed the matter to rest. However, shortly after, Anton began to sleepwalk every night. He complained of terrible, vivid nightmares - he would wake up naked in a place where the ground was made of hot iron, and then innumerable terrible beasts would swarm over him, tearing him apart.

Over, and over, and over again.

Sometimes it would be with iron nails, or the teeth of giant red beasts. Sometimes he would be pierced by arrows, or have his flesh stripped off strand by strand as if it were made of string. Then every morning he woke up, still screaming, as the wounds of his dreams were still present, and only he could see them. I decided to help him through this, linking his dream to hell (although I did not specifically recognize it as the Buddhist hell at the time) and thinking that perhaps he was having a crisis of faith. I was right, in a way. As these nightmares continued, he became certain that this was the fate that awaited him after death. His belief in the Archangel had been wounded, and I feared for his safety.

While this was going on, there had been a string of serial murders in the area committed by a man wearing the skull of a deer. Usually we stayed out of such matters, thankful that at least those murdered were in a better place, but then one of our own was killed. He was just a young one, and had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Instantly the attention of the Timberwolves was upon the murderer, and the packs were sent out to hunt.

We cornered him in a dingy alleyway, guns drawn. He looked familiar, in his filthy blazer, with his vague accent...

He introduced himself as -Hart-, and asked why we hesitated. I replied (for I was quite a bit less sophisticated in my early days) "Shut the fuck up Anton, we know it's you. Get that stupid mask off and face us like a man."

He removed his mask, and our suspicions were confirmed - we were facing Anton. However, we knew that it was -Hart- before us. The posture, the expression, the way he spoke was all wrong. It took us approximately ten seconds to determine that something was horribly wrong, and another five to fill -Hart- with lead. The screaming that resulted afterwards was very much Anton's, and I recall cussing very loudly.

"I don't... I don't..." he repeated, in a pleading voice, as he bled into the gutter. Then at the very last moment he calmed, looked up to us with dull eyes, and thanked us as he died. -Hart-'s murder spree continued uninterrupted, and we ended up losing three more good men before we got the sense to send the victim as far away as possible and make sure he couldn't get back to pass It on.

Old pain doesn't die (it waits), and I would prefer not to relive the experience once more to glean a meaning from it. Find your own this time, if it so suits you.

Double Date

Outside my window there is a graveyard, the happiest place in the world.

I have been looking into Buddhist teachings lately. To be enlightened is to be free of this mortal coil, and to become free of suffering. It is interesting that the creatures I discuss all offer their own form of nirvana.

A little more than a week ago, our leader woke up to find a post-it note stuck to his mirror. On it were the twin triangles and a simple code.

qdqdzmz nds ji ocz xgjxf ojhjmmjr wmdib orj

Our leader isn’t much of an intellectual (my apologies, Hermes), so the code was brought to me to decipher. It a simple Caesar Cipher, and I had the real message in my hands quickly enough.

viviere six on the clock tomorrow bring another

We were, at the time, in Chicago. I couldn’t help but laugh when I read it – it appeared that the Archangel had invited us to dinner. As I was the only one in the room, Hermes told me to have my best coat and left. The next day we met in front of the Viviere and went in.

“Hello, do you have a reservation?” the man at the front asked, looking warily at Hermes and his moth-eaten grey business suit.

“They’re with me,” said a thin-faced man in a considerably fancier suit than Hermes’. I was lead to a table, and the thin-faced man whisked Hermes to another part of the restaurant. I surveyed the other people at the table. The one next to me was in a red sweater, leaning backwards and looking sullen. He looked to be in his early twenties, with short black hair and small bags starting to form under his eyes. Across from me was an elderly woman, white hair shining oddly in the dim light. Then, next to her, was a middle-aged woman who looked to be on the verge of tears.

“What’s all this about, then?” I asked, picking up my menu and surveying it in a vain attempt to look casual.

“Just a meeting, looks like. I don’t know why they wanted spares... or psycho cultists who don’t know shit, but, you know, not judging,” the sullen behoodied one drawled.

“Please, we’ve just met,” I replied. “My name is Thoth*, it’s a pleasure to meet all of you.”

“Jacob,” the sullen one said, rubbing his hand against his cheek like he was used to something being there and kept forgetting that it wasn’t. “Does that mean I get to tell you how sick you are later, Timberwolf?”

“I certainly hope so,” I said dully, studying the elderly woman’s hair. That’s it, I thought, it’s wet. “Am I to presume that you are a Camper?”

“Yes. In addition, I have identified Jacob as a proxy of the Slender Man, and the terrified woman next to me is a servant of the Smiling Man.”

“Haven’t heard of that last one before,” Jacob grumbled. “How many are there, now...?”

The Camper paused, and then slowly said “Unknown.”

“Yeah, what good are you, then,” Jacob said. “You, with the flowers! Where the fuck did your boss come from?”

The middle-aged woman made a kind of choked squeaking noise, looking down to see a rose pin on her jacket. She tore it off and put it on the table, looking at it as if it was going to attack her at any moment. Jacob started laughing, a high-pitched grating giggle that made me want to stick my dinner utensils in my ears. He picked up the pin and pocketed it.

We slowly became familiar with one another, ordering wine and swapping stories while our superiors spoke. It took a long while, but I eventually became comfortable. But alas, all good things come to an end, and we parted ways considerably more drunk (sans the Camper, who remained dead serious throughout the entire dinner).

Jacob was found dead the next day, torn apart at the waist and stuffed with roses. It’s like a Christmas truce – you may have a friend on the other side, but it’s inevitable that the situation will get out of your hands. It is better to simply wait in our trenches and wait for the war to end.

*I said my real name, which I will not be repeating here.

Meathook

A small town in Poland had had to deal with a nuisance beyond squalor and taxes one late autumn – the local graveyard was being disturbed by what appeared to be a wild animal. Every morning the citizens would wake to see the earth in front of a grave torn asunder, like a wound in the world. The beast didn’t appear to have reached the bodies, fortunately, and the town posted a watch in order to capture the strange creature.

The first night, a huge shape lumbered through the streets of the town. An uncanny fog had settled over the town, and the militiaman could only see the small silhouette of the beast as it lumbered into the graveyard. The man’s senses were overcome by the reek of acrid smoke, and doubled over coughing as the beast tore through the ground yet again. He recovered moments later to see that the headstone was smashed to bits, and a trail of viscera lead out of the gaping hole and down the muddy streets. He gave chase, and followed the trail to the town’s bakery. Nailed to the front door with her own ribcage was the corpse of an adolescent girl. The man recognized her – she had been  murdered three weeks previous, the killer never found.

The man quivered, and called for the rest of the militia. Within half an hour the twenty of them were gathered at the front of the cemetery, crossbows in hand and dogs at their sides. The dogs whined and tugged, and absolutely refused to follow the scent of the beast. Fortunately, they did not need to – the stench of smoke was still in the air, and the man knew that the beast remained in town. After an hour of searching, they returned to the bakery. They were cold, wet, and directly below the beast as it stared down from the rooftop. With an almost human shriek, it leapt down onto the muddy path, ruby eyes glinting and greasy black fur shining in the dull moonlight. It paused, and that was just enough time for the militiamen to fill it with iron crossbow bolts.

It twitched and collapsed, and the men all breathed a sigh of relief. That is, until they heard the sound of dragging behind them. The corpse of the girl tore itself from the wall and was pulled towards the corpse of the dog as if being pulled by a meat hook. The girl’s corpse met that of the dog, and they twisted together in a sick dance as the clammy flesh melted together. The beast rose, convulsing as the bones of the girl popped into place and her dirty hair sewed itself throughout the dog’s skin as it formed a new coat of fur.

Then two of the man started gurgling as flesh was stripped from their bodies as if torn by an invisible hand, muscle torn out without breaking the skin and their bones splintering and slipping through like medical needles. The process was over in ten seconds and the beast loomed, now the size of a bear. Its new left eye, appropriated by the man’s best friend since childhood, stared at him pleadingly before being overtaken by a tide of red. The beast shivered and opened its mouth full of human teeth, smoke pouring out of its throat as it looked upon the terrified militia. Then it strode past them, the guards shrieking in agony as the arms holding their weapons simply [i]fell off,[/i] the mud becoming to become inundated with as much blood as water. As the militiamen bled to death in the dirt they heard the sound of the screaming baker as he was dragged out of his home above the bakery and into the streets. Then they heard the sounds of a man confronted with his secrets. Then they heard the sounds of a man being buried alive, and then finally the sounds of their own heartbeats slowing to a peaceful stop. Only the first man survived long enough to tell anyone what had happened.

Sometimes they don’t have anything against you, see. You’re just there. Wrong place at the wrong time, and you become meat.

Reconaissance

One day, a middle-aged man by the name of Abassi fell ill. Living in rural Nigeria, he had been fortunate to survive so long, but with so many in his community living so poorly he feared for his own survival. The disease was strange, a malady of the mind - he went into an almost supernatural trance when in the presence of pencils or paints. Abassi drew on anything he could reach, and drew of things he had never seen before.

Disturbed, he went to the clergyman of his small village. To the clergyman, it was an open-shut case - he had been cursed by a witch. The man asks how this could possibly be, and the clergyman said that he would like to look at the demon's art that Abassi had created.

The clergyman noted that all of the scribbles were of strange aquatic beings and oceans, and thought perhaps that the water Abassi had been drinking had been cursed. His suspicions were confirmed when, two nights later, Abassi attempted to drown himself in a hand-dug hole and three inches of mud. The community instantly flared up, demanding that the witch be brought to justice. Abassi survived, but just barely - he went comatose, and was not expected to survive longer than a few days.

The clergyman accused Abassi's young wife of being the culprit, as she was the one who collected the allegedly cursed water. She denied it, of course, but her family distanced themselves and the judgement of the community was brought upon her. The devil was exorcised from her through fire and dirt, and she joined the Lord's ranks.

Abassi survived, in a way. He slowly relearned the ways of his people after he awoke. Then he decided to apprentice under the clergyman and become a person of faith, learning the ways of God. One day the clergyman vanished after professing that he had taught what was once Abassi everything he knew, and the apprentice became the new clergyman of the village.

He gathered all of the villagers, and said...

"Hello, my friends. This is a nice village. Your faith continues to inspire me."

All of a sudden, the poor villagers started getting quite a bit more clean water to drink.

Mo(u)rning

Quite a number of years ago, a young boy was separated from his sick parody of a family. It was for the best, said the people who took him - his new family would care for him. Unfortunately, this boy was a product of his upbringing, and despite the welts on his face and the cuts on his back he was obstinate in 'abandoning' his parents for his new foster family. The situation was above his head, however, probably for the best. The boy's new family showered him with affection, but the boy resisted, and the new family became tired and frustrated.

The boy, desperate for real companionship, turned to the streets of New York City circa 1970. He found his place in a small-time gang, breaking into cars and houses. Crime was quickly climbing, and soon the small gang faced stiff competition. The boy fought for his misguided ideals, however, and eventually he abandoned his foster family. He became addicted to crack cocaine and stolen money, skillfully evading law enforcement for a good eight years. They eventually got him for drug trafficking at the age of twenty-six, and was locked away. During his incarceration, the small-time gang fell apart, and knowing no other life the boy sought a new 'family'.

It was there he found the sign of the twin triangles, and his new life. He left behind his life of petty crime, and fought for a purpose. This boy became a scribe, of sorts. The Timberwolves gang had more of a need for investigation and interpretation than other gangs, for their idol worked in mysterious ways. They say this boy still lives, treasuring his freedom and slavery in equal measure. 

They say he took up the name of Thoth.