Ankles crossed, short heeled boots up on table, Madison lay back in a sunlit bar on the outskirts of both West End and Ghost Town. An out of the way establishment that was of ill repute for its violent customers, but maybe the 'slinger, the grave digger, the magician's assistant, maybe one of them was looking for a fight. Looking for blood.


She tipped her head back and grinned a low slung grin as a burly sir headed her way, tipping his sweat stained hat. She crooked a brow sat up. Dropped her feet from the table. He reached down to grab her throat. To say hello. A salacious whisper or two left on her lobe.

"How about I f*ck you with a gun?"


Her response and his too-much-drink swirled at him, punched him. He looked at her in disbelief.

"F*ck me with a gun?"

"Yeah." A smile as she got to her feet, drew an arm around his lower back.

"You crazy bitch?"

"Crazy is such a common word. How about maniacal?"

He gazed at her. He swayed. She shoved her gun down his pants. Pressed it right against his balls.

"Like it?" She got right into his face.

"Yeah."

She brought a knee up into his groin, pressing the side of the gun into his johnson in a hard squeeze between knee and revolver. He twinged and howled. She shoved him back into the table.

"No I won't be your whore you f*ck."

His lewd whisper the cause for her anger.

But hadn't she been looking for that?

Hadn't she wanted blood. Her hand swiped down hard into his face. Broken nose.

And she hurried outside, not even quite aware of what she had just done. Knowing only that she was crying. That her melancholy was becoming a dangerous creature, and worse still, that she had no desire to quell it. But to walk that edge.

She was alright but she can't come out tonight

They are calling me The Devil's Wishbone.

The Manager. A very tall gentleman with close cropped silver hair, a long silver beard and a pair of black spectacles. He wore a stovepipe hat and carried with him a leash everywhere he went, where from it meandered a rotund pup called Leo.

The Manager was a patient man. A considerate man. A man who never took any decision lightly. But his hotel was his livelihood and his hotel was not a hide out for wanted criminals. No matter the backstory, he knew the woman of Room Two was the one on the posters that still flittered about on posts around town. A face sunfaded now, covered in other tack ups and bills. But hers still rested beneath them. Her legacy a paper tatter, but still... she had been wanted.


He had dallied at the bottom of the stairs for some time before he headed up and knocked upon her door. In one hand was the leash and from it rotund Leo, and the other held a letter.


"Mz. Rye."

"Manager."

He handed it over. She looked peaceful, her eyes softened, her whole face relaxed, the first he had seen it so in a couple months. She opened the letter carefully with a yawn. Then flicked her eyes to meet his. Just stared.

"Why?"

"I cannot have a criminal stayi-"

"I'm not a - "

"Mz. Rye.."

She inhaled a breath and lifted a hand over her mouth gently, tilting her head just so, encouraging him to go on. There was no sign of anger on her face. Her held breath said she had perhaps expected this visit. That she was understanding, but needing his words anyway.

"I understand you have been in a situation already that has not been ideal. That you were abducted from town. I wish I could be more accomodating, I really do Mz. Rye. But several members of the hotel have been.. for no better term, perturbed by the idea of a criminal in their living space."


Madison nodded and her hand fell, curled around a hip. "I see. And when did these complaints start?"

The Manager looked down to Leo who stood wide eyed, floppy ears perked high as they could get, tongue wagging.

"I'll have you know the posters for your arrest were tacked up in the Penny Moon, too. I took them down immediately to respect your privacy and erase any embarassment. And any discomfort to our other guests. But your face has been seen all over Rhy'Din. Bars. The Market. I'm afraid I have had already two individuals leave. We are not the type of establishment that can withstand such a turn over. If a few leave, often it ripples throughout the hotel."


Another few nods from her.

"When would you like me to vacate?"

"As soon as possible, Mz. Rye."

Blue eyes lowered and she folded the letter and slid it down the back pocket of her jeans, next to that coin of chances, truths and dares, next to a wire for lockpicking. A smile to him and she tipped her head back the other way. "I will be out of your hair by high noon tomorrow."

The door began to close. He palmed it. "Madison."

"She caught the door on its hinge, peered at him. "Yes, Manager?"

"I.. I am terribly sorry to do this to you. You are welcome for meals as you like."

A curt nod. "It is fine, Manager. I can see how my presence would alarm."

"You are more than a little trouble, Mz. Rye. I know not the truth to those posters, to your history, but no one has happen to them what happened to you if there was not some truth in it. It is just not the way it eventuates otherwise. I am glad you see our point."

"Good night, Manager."


The door clicked, her forehead against it. She turned around to her belongings. Backpack, clothes, flask, whip, crop, throwing dagger, spare bullets, saddle bag and hat.

She would be gone by dawn.

What is taking you so long?

I'm keeping my head low. All this Prop 37 bullsh*t is flying.

That Shane fellow told me a week back at the Inn that any type of magic user is under threat, even those that are not naturally magically endowed. Once an outlaw, always an outlaw. Papa was right.

I do wonder how that Arts woman is. I saw that sonofab*tch priest throw the acid on her. I treated her. Wasn't good. Caut can only do so much. And the others around kept talking about some dream witch. Whatever the hell she is. I don't like the sound of that at all. Said the town would pay in nightmares.

I hope not. Got enough of my own.

On the doorstep of Zeal's she sat, Marigold chewing on her hair, nudging her knee with that brown wet nose. Madison gazed at the horse, watching her. Was she so different from her only companion? They both responded too well to the same things; magic, food and a wet tongue. She was certain if Mari was a human she would be a whiskey drinker just like her.


The bar had been shut down indefinitely while the lawyers worked on the details. Madison had made it clear to Check and Laurice that she couldn't be proprietor, that with her name damaged as it was it was too risky and she wouldn't have Charlie's Pride and Joy get tarnished because of her trouble. She would have to lay low, and when you run a bar that is out of the question. The boys had been amicable. Reasonable. Taken it all on board with a grace beyond their years and allowed her to take grief in stride, leaving that space she always needed.



But tonight she had wound back here, decided to sit and smell the coming rain, wait for it. Maybe linger on a few good memories. So much had happened. So much.


Above, the stars were hiding and the clouds were sailing fast. It was dizzying to stare at for too long. Beside her passerby would come and go, but everyone kept their head down. Their favourite haunt almost forgotten. She would smile now and again, but some of those passing faces recognised her from the poster and did not smile back. That was okay. They didn't have to.


Then she looked back to the horse, that wet nose turned to the sky, like she was smelling the storm.


"Let's get."


The 'slinger mounted her steed and they took off, just as the drizzle began.

Unsent Letter

Mr. Gale, I hope you are alright. I miss you. Maybe if I left a trail of gin and tonics you'd come around again. Where have you gotten to? I need your sound advice, that wonderful perspective. And I need to know that you are alright. Please let me know.

After nine pm and the streets were melting into the dazed end of the day, an hour when the blinds go down, kids tuck into blankets and lovers kiss one another good night, before another day of working. That was, most people. Most families. A lot of couples. Madison, she was just getting started.


A rangy walk through the ghost streets, the night roads she hadn't visited in a while, and back into West End for a certain homefront. Outside, she bent down, grabbed a fistful of grit, and began to peg little pieces of that gravel at a second story window. It took a few hits before Michael heaved open the window, smiled and turned, heading down to meet her.

"What's been happening?"

"I could ask you the same thing, Mikey. You didn't meet me two weeks ago at Sam's like you promised. I was worried."

"I.."

"Don't want your birthday gun I take it." Fingers slid into belt loops, her eyes wide, brows raised. She wanted to know the score.

"Look I ... I was busy."

"This is business Michael. You do what you say or you are gone. Got it?"

"Why you bein' such a bitch for, chr.."

"I know about you and the Mako. The last fight. You keep on making death wishes boy, AND they'll come true. You quit the skidding all over the place and get your goddamn act together. You in or you out?"

"Jesus, Madison." Michael mussed awkwardly at his dirty blonde mop of hair, looked down. "I've had a lot of work on. Picked up some more shifts. Ye can ask Brentan."

"He's a jackal. And you shouldn't be hanging with him." A quick look of him over. "Have you been to Sanctuary, been with the Specialist too?"

"Madi! Quit the questions. I don't do none of that!"

"But you shoot up hoodlums. Michael, I'm trusting you, I trusted you. I have to be sure of our ground, okay?"

"You're being a bitch. You are. Quit talking to me like I'm ten for crissakes, alright!"

Exasperated he kicked at the curb and swung away, his fists clenched, then he swung back around, full of words, swallowed them, grunted and headed back in. Slamming the door.

"Godda..." A frown at the door and she let out a sigh, sweeping off her hat. She lifted a hand to her brow and gazed off down the road.

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


"Heil?"

She pushed open the door to his office and headed inside, a styro-mug in each hand. He smiled at her and got up, adjusting the straps of his shoulder holsters and took a cup in hand. "Thanks. You look like sh*t."

"Thanks", with a mock scowl she quipped, a tired 'slinger, lounging against the blinds. Fingertips brushed along one, pushed it down as she peered into the gloom of late twilight, the next night. "We need to straighten out our contacts. Cut a few loose."

Heil had taken off the lid of the coffee and was blowing across the steam watching her steadily. "Who pissed you off?", he almost laughed.

"Two of the boys I used to have as contacts are off the wall. And Trent, the grifter I told you about who has been heading up the Red City contingent, he's had too much trouble."

"What kind?"

"Orpheum. They've been shadowing him. Roughing him."

The inspector frowned and stood straight, he hadn't taken a sip yet, his eyes were glued to her. Her silhouette draped by the window, slivered by streetlight that came through the horizontals.


"Madison, I think you should worry about yourself. You can't control your contacts. Maybe once, but after what happened to you, it's not the same."

She turned and considered him, frankly, tipping her head a bit, for him to go on.

He took a deep sip.

"What I'm saying is I think we should be.. official. Partners. I've got enough contacts to keep us on track and then some. If you have anyone who is steady we should both sit down, see what they have to say", he gestured with his coffee, calmly, smoothly, as he leant against the window beside her, toasting artificial mug to mug. "I think we both know that what used to work for you doesn't anymore. We could be a good team, Madison. I'd be honoured to work with you. I .. trust you."

"Hesitated..", she played, smirking.

"No, I do. You've done a lot of good. I know about your Riverview work. The Circus. They are big feats and I know the Watch couldn't have done that. .."

"Are you saying you will quit?"

"I want to start up a business, with you. Get some others involved if they want." He flashed a smile that eerily mirrored her own. He looked different when he smiled. Less angular, sharp. He even had dimples.

"Heil, I need time, I can't answer that now."

"Why not? We work well together."

"You'll get into some trouble won't you, trying to leave the Watch?"

She searched his face. He took her mug away and rested it on his desk, grabbed her hand, squeezed it. "Come on. Take a chance, here."


Madison looked at their hands and back to him. "I need to think about this."


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


She walked the streets rubbing her hands against her hips, her eyes crinkled up against the oncoming breeze. The wind howled. Everything was so different. Should she start up a partnership with him, something serious like that? She was used to doing it alone. But they did work well. It was such a gamble though. She didn't want to worry about someone, someone she didn't know she could protect. He was a smart guy with a mean arm himself, but he wasn't a Salvador or a Skid. And she couldn't bear to let him down.


The streets eventually crossbacked on themselves and she found herself before Zeal's. Closed signs tacked all over the door. She wondered how Check and Laurice were.


She wondered if things would ever be the same again.

Magenta has revoked her protection. This leaves me open to more threats. Magenta is the one who started this war, and she can end it. I have enough fish to fry, with the Orpheum, with the Grease runners, let alone some feud between her and Arts that I am only involved in because I was unwilling Turned.

I don't want her help.

But I want my allies. I want those days back. Working with Skid, Sal, Cal. Where are my boys? Where the hell are you?

Maybe I have to go convince them of the work we do. Or maybe the leaves have turned and it's time to find some new partners. Trent is still around, he's the only regular. But I don't know if I can trust him much longer. He'll do the job, he always has. But he wants sex. I've never seen a man emanate it the way he does. And it's getting harder to deny. I've been alone a long time.

Karras has disappeared, and I miss that man with every part of my being. Every goddamn part. But I fear I have to let go. I have enough danger in my world. I want my love to be clean, at least that in my life.

I'm hot, I'm sweaty and I'm pissed off. I went for a long, long ride to breeze it off but it didn't work.

I am going to give those Kindred bitches one hell of a time. I am done. I don't care how ruthless or reckless I have to be. It is better than standing still and taking it like a dog.

Tag's been such a good friend to me, I don't know why he still is now that I don't need him like I did, as a kid. But I like the man, a lot. And there's not too many men I'd pull into my personal group. But he's a good heart. Anyone can see that a mile off. We drank some of Charlie's moon that I've had kept under bed since his passing. It still tastes perfect. But the whole time, with every sip we shared, I couldn't help like I was bringing violence upon the man. He's got his life all planned out for him, he's got the life he wants, I don't fit into that picture. I know I'm Trouble, not that I want to be, but when you're in this business it's what happens. I'd never forgive myself if a soul like his got hurt because of my bothers. If Arts or Mags lays even a hand on him, I will ***scribbled out*** them. ***scribbled out*** And they better keep distance from Ba'Shara too.

And I still don't know why I keep this diary. I keep thinking it's for you, child, if ever I bear you. So you know your Mother, so you know the truth.

"If we do this then you can't stay in town. You have to go elsewhere."
"I'm not running."
"You're back, I haven't seen you in days and days and now you want to work this Job and you are denying what I'm saying. Like usual. For fu--"

Madison stiffened beside Heil, her pale throat rolling with a hard swallow. Hand curling at her knee, the other arm squashed against the passenger side door, elbow jammed, that hand curled about the gun.

"You sure you want to do this Madi? It's the end of the line."

She didn't answer. She didn't have to. Blue eyes were brewing storms. Her mouth had no feeling. No warmth. No humour. No cruelty playing into the curve.


With barrels of gasoline and with Suliss' barrage of mithril knives laced with poisons, at the ready if need be, the gunslinger and the detective headed towards The Orpheum. Matches in hand and bloody murder on their minds.

Magenta's note was slipped under the door of Madison's room, the big blond not keen on disturbing whatever might be going on in there, weary of confrontation, and--after the scene in the Inn with the creature Lassie--uncertain of the strength of her own self control.


__________________________________________________ ___________


Burn this when you've read it, it began. Really. No matter what that bitch from the Daughters of Cacaphony said last night, you, we, are Toreadors, and we will keep the Masquerade.

Arts' demand is simple, if impossible to meet. She wants her blood out of one of us, and the only avenue I know besides a permanent ending would be to be remade by kin of another bloodline. I would do it were I to know a route. Alma would have been joyfull at the opportunity, but Artsblood and her DreamWitch ended her. And the quality of kin available in RhyDin do not instill me with any sense of promise. If I see a chance I will take it; as the mantis woman stressed to Charna that, immortal though she may be, her patience is not endless.

About the creature that accosted me last night, the girl who called herself "Lassie." The Daughters are a new clan, dating back only some 300 years, at least as far as the Tor know. They are unaligned and lawless, as you saw. Some claim they split from our line, others see a connection to the Malkavian. Surely they sprang out of the Camarilla, but exactly what branch they've so bent remains a mystery.

I don't know her strength, but be wary. Among their powers is song, and the Sirens of the Illiad are said to be nothing to a Daughter in full vocal flight.

Let me know your thoughts on the former matter. I will make this change if opportunity permits, if only to spare you the suffering. If Jane returns...no, when Jane returns...I think she will care little what manner of monster I am, since the monstrosity itself did not change her feelings.

As I hope you know, I intended none of this. I will do what I can to make it as right as such wrongness can be.

Magenta

__________________________________________________ ___________


The script was surprisingly loopy and girlish, with neat little circles dotting the i's and the lower case j's. Clearly no forgery, it carried her perfume and the scent of her skin, the latter so faint that only another of their kind might tease it out. Though a single piece of bond paper, it felt surprisingly heavy in the hand.

The entryway to Heil's office was clouded with smoke, his suit breaking through it as he headed towards the leather chair where Madison was draped, head tipped right back, eyes closed though he knew she was watching. He took a seat on the corner of the walnut table, waited for her attention. It came around quickfire.

"I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to discuss this matter until now. I trust you've spoken to your Mother?"

She nodded, smoke jetting from her nostrils as she crooked her brows and uncurled her legs, sliding calves down for feet to hit the floor. She shifted until she was comfortable, reading his face the way one regards exotic text. Trying to find the meaning to what she felt.

"Madison, I only know the odds and ends. What's been going on with you for the past few months has been a helluva jigsaw and I do need to know what's going on so I can help. Your parents were .. were not okay.."


"They are now. Look, I'm not trying to be a mystery here. But I can't divulge everything. It puts you at risk. And for all your thoughts of the past I do value your partnership. I don't want to lose it."

She'd already lost one work partner, the magician. Honesty was a virtue she kept to as best she could with everyone with whom she dealt. But sometimes in business things got to hot. Sometimes you just couldn't carry. Another drag. He watched her hold it in. Watched her wince slightest and exhale. He wouldn't rush her with the details. It wasn't the way you handled the Rye. You let her open her in her own time.


"I got more than a little sidetracked with the Elysium case. I didn't even make it to Sanctuary by the time the storm hit. Things got a bit rough and I had to make an exit. My parents can't know, they couldn't then especially. "

"Not after Lofton", he acknowledged, gently.

"That's right."

A silence, a frost, it developed in the air. Heil had watched as that had all happened. As she got wrangled by her own town. Dragged to hell. Jezebel. She wasn't a red woman, though he always got the feeling that she considered herself so in her heart of hearts, despite all. No matter how much good she had done.


"You were mentioning a ring, Heil?"


He held it out. He half expected that that was her new gist. It was thick. Brass. Too-heavy. Too-shiny. She had the feeling around that thing that it ought not to be touched. She hated looking at it. It flooded her mind with memories of Sam, on the road, getting abducted. How she had failed him. And how not a few weeks later something very like Sam had been speaking to her from a wall in the Inn, asking for "It", and how that voice took shape and wrestled her to the dirty ground. Tried to kill her. It. It. It. And yet there had been no dawn in her mind that the It was the ring. She had seen it as some vestige of a man she cared about, a friend. Sam Reed. Sam Reed who was not Sam Reed any longer. She didn't care to know what.


"Your mother gave me the ring back, said it wasn't yours."

"It belongs to someone I know. I was holding it for him.."


Even that story was faded in her head. She could hardly remember the Why's anymore. Maybe because none of it mattered.


"So, Magenta, should I be investigating her Madi? How deep did you get, there?"


He watched as her breath held. The way her eyelids fell, the look she gave him that asked "do you really want to know?"


"Madi?"

"She's a Vampire."

The frost that hung in the air seemed to amplify. The unspoken driving a painful thought through his consciousness. He stared at her. He stared without admonishment or shock. He felt... surreal.


"I see."


She simply grinned and took another drag, turning her face away as the sunset reached in through the blinds, like lecherous, hungry arms.

It has not registered yet. That in a few days I'm going to be meeting my husband again. That man come out of some cold. As wrapped in lies as a baby in papoose.

Lit fire to all my things. I kept only the clothes I was wearing, the guns and the bottle of whiskey rested by my feet. Everything else belongs to the desert now.

I've got nothing in trade for everything. I'm not a woman who deals in halves.


I just can't shake the feeling that something is still missing. That the burning city and the endless rust means more than memory and the pain of that journey. That he is back and never was really dead makes him as shipwrecked as I.


I don't even know what to say anymore. Words hardly fall. Too much can break and I'm tired of them bruises.

"New 'ere eh?"

The boy nodded, more focused on the stew. It tasted a few days old but it was food and better than the wheat pegs he was chewing from Rhy'Din through to Arndale. He tried to keep his eyes off the assistant. Her beady eyes were like a pair of knives. Cut into his jaw and cheek bones to see the filmreel of his thoughts. Focus on the stew. Eat, Michael, eat. Keep your eyes away.


"Anythin' I can do ya for?"

He swallowed down his last morsel. Wiped his mouth with a sleeve. "A room."


A few awkwardly quiet minutes later and he had a key and a bed. A real bed. With them duck feathers and giant quilt. It was rough but kept him warm.


There came a knock on the door.


There came a letter.

His young hands trembled and he couldn't help himself but wonder how many times Madison had been in the same situation. Gritting her teeth or shaking in her shoes over what a letter might read. So The Cabaret knew he was here already. Hexxmen too.


"You don't know Eli and you won't. They bring him up and you walk."

"But he's dead."

"We have to keep that up as the general consensus. Hexx catch wind of t being otherwise and we've got a whole new game."

"Why do they want him?"

"Because, Michael, Elison Blue is a king. He's a king of the plains. "


At breakfast, Michael lifted up his coffee and took a swig, still thinking on those words, and what they meant, and if he could ever be a king too.

Bullet bounced off tin and the wire fence trembled. Shadows spread along her outstretched arm up in the field where she stood, waving away the bugs with a brim as target practice spent the hours. Another row down. Another case expired. She breathed in deep and faced the city, there over the dusty nowheres of the dilapidated farm once run by family related to the Teas and Tomes brood.


Noon came quicker these days, with all her sleeping the mornings away. Wasted the night before, she'd expend herself like so many cans and bullets, trembling off of her own wire.


She was burning down at both ends.

"Michael, get yourself to the Fox and Foul, it's a hotel near Hunter Lane, it's out of the Hexx's jurisdiction so as long as you can stay covered the better it will be."

"I can't."

"What do you mean?"

He went silent and Madison could hear the voices of others rising around him, given space to fill as he took his time to go over his words. He was someplace loud. Maybe another hotel. A bar. Off a side street.


"Michael?"


"They want to hire me."


"Don't."

"I could play it up for a few days, keep their craziness at bay until you arrive."

"Don't Mikey."

"Who you comin' down with?"

"Me myself and I."

Michael rolled his eyes and grit his teeth. "Okay okay, whatever. Look, I'll get to the Fox but I think it best if I act."

"Don't."

Madison Blue. Sure rings true. Will he be mad when he knows I threw the ring off a canyon? Or did it stand for something more? Did I break more than the eye can see?

I've set Cora to meet with the Fox. Fingers crossed.

Rinn

The boy knows. Payment will be served at the Line. I'll be there with a few, so expect company. Can we lodge with you in case we have to? I'll cover that too.


Belle

Old habits die so hard.

That old sunshine feeling

The panes of glass stood jagged like crystal teeth in the morning, ready to bite into the day. And she stood within the broken vision, dressed for an other world, not for the landscape of destruction, in only a rough, hessian dress and a very thin skin. The smoke rose around her, the fields were burning, the sky was an inverted abyss, and everything around was fallen. The air was cinders. The air so hot and black you could touch it.


Everywhere was outside, and even within walls of a room the outside was climbing in. There was no escape from what had happened. The sound of the screams and the shards of sudden silence still pierced. She fell to her knees in a crumble. Her mind rubble. Her voice gone. Breathlessly she fled into the desert with the horse, out of touch, isolated, and the sole survivor of this storm. Above wheeled the hungry ones, and all around. Horse and rider rode for days on end, the kind that link together like a chain, seemingly endless. Any memory was a fallen leaf. Her bones felt ready to break.

So the scarecrow drapes herself against the windowsill. She takes a swallow of the gold stuff and holds her breath. She can't keep doing it anymore, this she knows, this the body tells her, this the lack of sleep and trauma dreams present. While her mind moved on her body held still to a cellblock on Lofton where her dignity was carved out. She waited for the mood to pass, for the collected nature of her old way to return, but it did not. She did not smile. Did not laugh. It was not out of control but beyond these limits to where she was numb and the quiet was becoming a sort of stillness that was void of much and mutedness was suiting her better, slowly, ever so slowly.

The degree's she had put between herself and her husband, Tag, Michael, Jane and Arts were withering to a point that memory could not even surface. Everything was drowned. It was a catatonia of thought. She wondered aloud to herself when something fell out of her grip, when she found her gun loaded or empty and could not recall doing any of it.


The sudden shock never did she get used to. It was as though she were operating, a machine, an engine, and that was all. Everything was slow motion and destroyed. It was a bad way and shape to fill.

On the streets below Marigold flicked her tail and rolled an amber eye to passers by, as if to stop them, as if to gesture them to this Rapunzel of her own making.

I have been nursing myself back with the aid of sleep and mugs of dandelion root. A local herbswoman came by at Heil's urging and I appeased her pockets and his worry in a few coins. I've been feeling a sense of floating since, though I can feel everything that touches my skin, I feel like I'm held only by the smallest of strings. I don't worry so much about floating away, because I don't think of it at all.

I'm meeting with Brentan a little later who has been working for some kid's shelter in his own bid to do better in the world. There's been some heartell he's off the Angel Grease but I think it's too soon. I know how quickly they can turn.


Heil dropped by an hour or two ago, time is a little wobbly for me, and he said he thought I was doing better, looking better, sounding better and that he'd seen a report wash up on some tinderbox about ninety miles from Lofton. Means Rinn has started the fire already. But I can't act yet. Andy is too fresh and Bunny is even more of a threat than the Russian herself. I know Elijah thinks it's just to rile me, her talk, her threats, but when she has that Bunny around it's a different tale to tell altogether. He also mentioned he'd seen Karras in town and wanted to know if I'd go to a show, his shout. I didn't tell him I'd seen him myself, only a few weeks ago, though I was in the throes of my own hell that night and could barely look at the moon let alone the magic man himself. I never thought I'd see the gent again. Some part of me in it's numb way still cries out for him. And cry it does, it's a pain that has no face, just a drum in me that pounds at the thought. But I'm too weak these days to be good to anyone. I need time. I need distance. And I know talking to him is it's own breed of trouble. And Eli would never approve and he would know from the first what I had harbored while he was gone.


Some work has come into my fold about running some kids out of the Circus' eye and under town to some safe houses. I'll do it when I'm fit again. Rumours are wild as the wind that the Circus already has a small legion and are on roads to Rhy'Din again. It's not even been a year.


And it reminds me, of Charlie. Damned if he did and damned if he didn't. I love you Charlie. And I miss you everyday. My husband would have loved you. I only wish he could have known you.

I woke up a couple nights back to something I couldn't make out at all but which had me in a trance. Words, maybe, or just singing, chanting, roused me bad. I haven't told Elison about it because I'm scared he'll get that look on his face again. I'm feeling guilty every time I write in this book. Things I should tell my husband. But I can't. But this sound went on and on and I could hear it coming from some alley. I wandered out into the street trying to find the source but I couldn't. I haven't been sleeping since. The chanting is in my head like a carousel, unending.

I did tell Heil. He tells me it's the night terrors. I'm going to believe him.

I've lost Charlie. I've lost Mari now too. But maybe they will return in one way or another the way the man that returned to me isn't what he was but is still my husband. My Rock.

I ran into someone tonight and it wasn't coincidence. I did it because Cervenka told me Harris was one of the Hands trying to play down the king and I believed her because I don't have a lot left to believe and I felt I had to trust her because Elison always had and I trust him with my life. If I were to find out she did this, and she's alligned with the Hexx, I don't know what I wouldn't do. Harris was understanding after I realised he was nothing but a decoy. But he also told me about something else. A Beltane Ball. I'm still not one for such occasions these days what with my head still being for sale out in the posts of Lofton and yonder, but why not? It's been tense for Eli and I. We need a little fun.


I haven't asked him yet. I can't even bring myself to write about the differences he displays. Why his hair is so white. Why he looks like he's seen a ghost. It makes me tear up thinking he's been crying. And I never could abide his tears.

Elison

We wanted babies once. Do you remember when we used to discuss it? Part of me wants to go home again. Do you? I wonder what you think. I always am. And now you're back and I can't stand myself for all we could have done. I want to know why it's not only your name that has changed. I want to know if we can get back to where we used to walk. I love you. Do you know that?

Madison


Unsent, in her top drawer under a revolver.

Talulah. The as yet unborn tulip sat ready in its seed, the soil surrounding rich with the evening's watering and a few tender words from a gunslinger. She stroked a finger along the terracotta with a sad smile and watched as the dirt grew lighter and lighter as the seeds drank up their nourishment. Soon there would be a flower in this space. Blue and full of life. Talulah.

Once upon a time, in a white house in Lofton, her and Elison had lain curled up in their four poster oasis serenading laughter at one another in happy plans. They would have a child someday and the dreams they twined together were of boys and girls without faces but with names. Talulah had been one suggestion. Talulah Donaldson. But that had all gone out to sea when Elison's shadow followed him out between the white washing on the line, the ghosts of the past, and he never returned. When Madison took up the gun and left that white house on a cloudy morning to enter a new life.


She returned to the plant over the course of the night, between smokes with hip leaning against the sill and gaze coveting the fading sun and even fainter lines of folk passing the threshold of Ghost Town for some decayed establishment to call home for the night. She watched this quarter like a hawk. She was its unsung queen. The king was out for the night. She could feel his pulse hit the dust with every step he took, like a measure of time, saying he would be right back. She sometimes thought he would not return and that maybe all of this was a madness. But his smile lifted the hairs on her arms and he told her she wasn't a dirty pearl and she felt clean again, she felt new again, she felt like maybe she could be someone's mama, could be someone's wife, properly. That maybe she could get the bloodstains out of her hands. Get the devil off her back.


"Talulah, wake up."

The bed of soil lay exposed but as yet its mocha-dark sheets unturned. The soil grew lighter still.

Brentan wants to work with me. With Heil. It's not such a stupid idea. I told Heil I had reservations. He said he wouldn't let me get dirty. But it isn't so easy. I know my hand.

I haven't seen the others in a long time. The Enigma is close and I know she's still in GT but it's never near enough. None of them are. Most of them are gone. It will always hurt. I'm bad at letting go. Worse still is the feeling I carry in my heart for the blackbird.

Word arrived that Rinn has taken Vara as his own along with Bunny and Andy. Michael has taken up with Vara says the letter too, which is a surprise and isn't a surprise all the same. Lofton Town is a funny place with even funnier folk. They won't stay on they will find some other outpost to make a life at. Doing as they do. I just hope Michael doesn't find anymore trouble.

I dreamed of having a daughter again. Her name wasn't Talulah, it was Sophia.

I opened Zeal's again, but as Charlie's. I owe this to him. It's been a while now and it's if he isn't gone. I miss him.