Catapulting pell-mell through the topsy-turvy, extra-dimensional vault-prison known as the Strong Room, pursued by a pair of merciless, soul-draining Wawrdns, most people would puke their eyes out in abject fear.

Catapulting pell-mell through the topsy-turvy, extra-dimensional vault-prison known as the Strong Room, pursued by a pair of merciless, soul-draining Wawrdns, most people would puke their eyes out in abject fear.

Not Avide.

As she ran, Avide's lovely face was marked by a subtle, almost playful grin and the look in her eyes was one of a junkie on a fix. Perhaps this had more to do with her promised payment than it did with her current location or condition. Perhaps her ecstatic state of mind had more to do with the heist that she'd just pulled off, or maybe with the new-found power that she felt, thrumming through her mind, body, and soul from the glowing orb she'd just pilfered.

Perhaps.

But for those that really knew her, there could be little fact that it was all of these things, existing in perfect conjunction with one another.

This was Avide's world...and she loved every nanosecond, every molecule, of it.

That, and that she knew she was going to get away with it all.

Avide knew that she now held one of the things she had long sought. One of the things that she'd stolen...lied...and killed countless times to obtain. Avide now held a Foundation Stone.

And now all the world would suffer...

Art Source: "Stealth mission failed" (c)/by Plumporange

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth, Avide (c)/by Corey Blankenship

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #TenetsTales, #Avide, #FoundationStones

"Shomriel."

"Shomriel."

The voice, though unspoken, nearly destroyed the fallen. Just the utterance, directed solely at one being, was far too...large, far too...significant to be borne by just one living thing. In truth, if the word had been directed at a mortal creature, the poor, piteous thing would have exploded into a fine red mist.

As it was, Shomriel was groveling on the ground, clutching its odd, insect-like head in its six pairs of hands. The fallen angel spluttered, its mandibles clacking and jerking in pain and abject agony.

"Master....please....your....v..v....voice...."

Stygal shoved another handful of screaming souls into his massive, garage-sized gullet. Their screams were the perfect seasoning for this particular gory repast, and he was enjoying himself far too much to bother himself with thoughts of his servant's sufferings.

"Shomriel, my Worm. Report," Stygal thought. Mental words whipped across the planes of existence to find their mark in the mind of the demon, Shomriel.

The six-armed demon flailed like it had just stuck its tail into a 220 volt outlet. "M...m....master! A...Ah...all goes....a..ah...according...to plan!"

The Demon Lord barely heard his servant's cries for pain. Somewhere, hundreds of Christians were being martyred, their heads sawn off by men in dark robes. Stygal, He-Who-Brings-Death, could feel his power growing with each arterial spurt. He gloried in the unspoken, yet abject and outright, worship of his name. Stygal lost himself in the deaths of the martyrs, and for a while, nothing else in all the universe existed.

Finally, he came back to himself and snatched up three more handfuls of souls. As he brought the first handful to his mouth, he surveyed the writhing, small, insignificant, yet tasty things. For a moment, he almost considered pausing his feast, but....

"What of Olarus, Worm?" Stygal asked, his mouth full again of heady smells, flavors, and screams.

Shomriel was nearly mad with pain. The fallen would have given anything...anything...if his Master would cease speaking directly into it's thoughts. If it believed that any would hear it, it would have considered praying to the Almighty for the smallest pause in the torture, but Shomiel knew better.

"Oh...oh...Olarus ssssss...suspects nothing my Lord! Ssssoon...my....legions...will be in....plaaaaace....to ah...ah...aaaact!"

"Well done, Worm," Stygal replied, crunching with satisfaction. "Put your legions in place and stand ready for my signal."

"Yessss! Y...yyess, Master!"

The Demon Lord severed the connection with his servant and surveyed his domain. He was unhappy to see that many of his favored snack was fleeing from him. No great matter, Stygal thought to himself, soon I will have both the souls and the bodies upon which to dine...soon, when his legions tore down the Curtain from within, and opened all worlds and reality to him. Then, Stygal would again be known by the name which he'd received in the Time Most Ancient.

He-Who-Brings-Death would again rule from on high....

Art Source: "He, of Genocide" (c)/by andrewmar

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth,  #fabricofreality, #Olarus, #Makes, #Me, #MMWW, #TheCurtain, #Shomriel, #Meltsar, #Tenet, #TenetsTales, #Stygal, #DemonLord, #HeWhoBringsDeath

Olarus turned from his task, irritated.

Olarus turned from his task, irritated. The Curtain was beset from all realms and upon all sides, and despite his most valiant efforts, the Once-Angel was barely able to bridge merely the most critical of the tears. All around him, the tendril-world of Between--the Space-Betwixt-Space--flickered and flitted like unending ribbons of intertwined existence set against colliding fields of oscillating light and shadow.

As he walked, stones that looked more ancient than the stars themselves coalesced from nothingness into substance, providing a solid footing for his strides. To Olarus, this amazing event was utterly unremarkable, as Between was an integral part of him and of his existence. He had been created when this place was created; he was made to make safe, make sure, and maintain the Curtain. Between, or at least this area of Between, was as much an extension of his being as were his three sets of arms. To the Once-Angel, this simply was the way things were. But things were not now the way they should be as it related to Olarus and the Curtain...they had not been that way for some time, in fact.

And the Once-Angel was going to do something about it.

"Show yourself, Shomriel!" Olarus bellowed. He did not attempt to hide his anger or his frustration. The strands of Between shivered and quivered in a reflection of Olarus's rage.

The mist-strands of a particularly dark area of Between circled slowly, like dark ribbons floating on the surface of a muck-filled pool; vine-coated stones and strange, oddly marked cylinders of stone began to grow and form out of the darkness. Across those stones came crawling an abomination.

The Once-Angel shuddered. Though he found it hard to believe now, Olarus knew that he and this thing were once of the same ilk. They were both of the Meltsar, but Shomriel had fallen long ago and had become a horrific, twisted thing indeed. Now, the pale-skinned creature scuttle-crawled like a lower thing, scrabbling with both its legs and its three sets of horned, clawed, and armored arms. It had a long, prehensile tail that ended in a wide-knife blade bone that whipped and slithered like a thing with its own perverse will. But most changed to the eyes of Olarus was the visage of Shomriel. Long ago, they had both been among the most beautiful to behold of the Hosts of Heaven, but no longer for the pale-skinned Shomriel. Now, the fallen had a twisted and inhuman countenance - a terrifying cross between devil, nightmare, and insect.

The corrupted walkway of ghastly stones met the precise and ordered walkway of Olarus, and the fallen creature scamper-scuttled before the blue-skinned Once-Angel. It drew itself up and the semblance of the two fallen, one recent and one ancient, was chilling.

Shomriel cocked its strange, alien head and hissed, "Greetings, brother. What aid might Shomriel bring thee?"

Upon being referred to as 'brother', Olarus took an unconscious half-step back and Between shivered in response. Some of Shomriel's mandibles flexed, a motion sign that Olarus would soon learn equated into the fiend's smile, and the fallen twisted its head in the other direction. The effect was...unsettling.

Finally, Olarus spoke. "I...I am in dire need of your help, Shomriel. The Curtain is being ripped and torn at a rate that I cannot maintain by my own. I would ask that you and...our other brethren...the Meltsar under your command, would aid me in defending the Curtain."

Shomriel shifted its uncanny head first in one direction and then the other, so far so that it almost looked as if the creature's head would snap off. After staring with its unblinking ebon eyes for a long, silent time, it finally hissed a reply. "Yes, my brother. Shomriel shall help thee. But Shomriel has a price."

"Name it," spat Olarus.

"The next time the Betrayer passes through the Curtain, he shall not leave."

Olarus did not reply, but merely nodded.

"Shomriel will claim his prize...This time, Tenet shall not escape."

Art Source: "Guard of Sanctuary" (c)/by D8P

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth,  #fabricofreality, #Olarus, #Makes, #Me, #MMWW, #TheCurtain, #Shomriel, #Meltsar, #Tenet, #TenetsTales

With the horn he drank his last Supper's Wine

"With the horn he drank his last Supper's Wine, His libation pouring through feeble bones, still he holds his justice close, while he waits an alabaster Throne..."

"Do not mock the dead," Tenet answered harshly.

The fleshless voice replied, "I do no insult to a fallen blood brother. An oath I swore and uphold."

"This is a holy man! He would bear no allegiance to a Fallen," Tenet protested, his beard against his chest as if pressed down by a crown of iron.

Cold burning eyes studied him. "It is no shame to confess lament. Our brother walks openly behind the Tapestry from which you finally wandered out."

Tenet's shivered under his thick cloak. Silver streaks slipped over his grey face. He finally let the truth break free with his grief, "I come too late."

"In his first steps beyond the Tapestry, he desired to tell you he held no grudge in your absence," the spirit consoled.

Tenet wandered closer to gaze upon the thick beard under the Grecian helmet. He stared upon the waxy face and realized how long he had been away. "Too long...," he muttered into his own goat-beard.

A cold hand fell on his shoulder and, despite his native distrust, the weary wanderer accepted the solace of the undead. "Our friend awaits the Day of Returning."

The spirit sighed and mournfully added amid Tenet's quiet vigil, "It is for us to respect those as brave as Giovanni to stare their dread Foe in the face and call Death friend."

Art Source: "King Specter" by BorjaPindado
Story and Characters: (c)/by Corey Blankenship, Tenet and Giovanni (c) Brannon Hollingsworth

"Damn you, Deacon," Rachel growled through clenched teeth.

"Damn you, Deacon," Rachel growled through clenched teeth. She had no idea how the man did it, but somehow her partner had a knack for getting her into the worst situations. Soaked to the bone, stalking a psychotic murderer outside an abandoned meat packing plant, this time was no exception.

The man--Deacon called him "a fiend" and refused to refer to him as anything else--had already murdered seven homeless people and an entire family: three little girls no less. He had to be stopped. The man seemed to have a penchant for torture. All of his victims had been found in positions of subjugation and terror, mouths frozen in silent rictus screams. What they'd not been able to figure out what exactly how they had died, none of the victims had a mark on them, but that didn't make them any less dead.

Rachel was pretty sure that Deacon had an idea of how they'd died, but he wasn't giving anything up. They'd been partners for a long time: going on seven years, or was it eight? She could not remember, but she'd spent enough long, tension-filled nights with the man to know a thing or two about him. The first was that if he didn't want to give something up, you were wasting your time trying to break or make him. She'd never seen a will so strong in another human. She said will to herself, but she'd never admit that to Deacon, if he were here, she'd call it thick-or-hard-headedness. Despite her mounting terror at what she was about to do, Rachel allowed a small smile to peek out at the edge of her mouth.

Rachel wished that he was here with her.

"Damn you, Deacon," she said, getting a tighter grip on her Glock 22, she flung herself away from the single street light and into the shadow of death and darkness.

Art Source: "Red Light Heat" (c)/by Benef

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Deacon, #Fallen, #Imran, #TenetsTales, #Sector7, #Sectof7, #Cleatus, #Rachel

All I could see was Rachel’s face: blood-spattered, pale, and still.

All I could see was Rachel’s face: blood-spattered, pale, and still. It was the stillness that gives a body the feeling that someone has driven a spike of frozen iron into your lower back. The kind of stillness that is simply NOT natural. All things move, even when they are still, if you get my meaning. If you don’t believe me, try staying crouched and hidden sometime--you’ll quickly begin to waver and tremble, your body making tiny, subtle movements as you try to remain still.

I bet Rachel had crouched somewhere in the dark, trying to hide from the Imran. I bet she’d shivered and trembled, legs and body quaking. I bet she’d stifled her cries. Hand over her mouth, snot running out of her cute pug nose, pushing back the gasps, tears streaming out of her bewitching hazel eyes.

I bet the Imran--that was the old name for it--had lapped up her fear. They’re known by many names: Popobawa, Khalid Khanzada, Zain Haiders--I had my own name for them, but it was the sort of name that isn’t used in polite society. Regardless of what you called them, they were sadistic, sinister, and sick-and-twisted fu… -- sorry, again, old habits, you know. In the Grand Scheme, they were roughly classified as Mid-listers among the Fallen; they feed off of raw fear and they delight in the causing of it among mortals. Metaphysically speaking, they are the wine-snobs of fear: they know how to make it, and the love everything about its production and consumption. And the sonufa… --sorry...it...it...it had gotten my girl.

I closed her eyes with one hand and with the other, pulled Donkey, my custom built .500 Linebaugh, and mechanically dropped out its normal load (my 385 grain “Mulekickers”). I crossed her still-warm arms across her chest while simultaneously popped in six rounds of my hand-made 535 grain “Derailers” with my speed-loader. My old, steel grey eyes drooped shut, and I bowed my head, whispering some soft words and wiping some water off my gritty, stubbled cheeks.

Like I said, my eyes are old. They leak sometimes.

I felt the thrum of the Power slide into me. It’s an ambient thing--like standing too close to highly charged power lines. I had a pretty good idea where the Imran had gone to hide. It would be waiting for me, in the place where I’d first encountered it, three days ago. If only I hadn’t been so stupid and so damned cocky. If only I had burned the old meat-packing plant to the ground. If I’d’a done that, then maybe the Fallen would not have been able to gain strength, take on a mortal form, and cross-over into our world.

It was on me - all of it. Rachel; the homeless folks downtown; that poor, unsuspecting family. It was all on me. Sign me up, teacher, and put my name on the board.

‘Deacon did it, Teacher! It’s Deacon’s fault!’

With a flick of my anaconda-thick-wrist, I snapped Donkey’s chamber back into place and slipped it into its well-worn holster in the hollow under my left arm. It felt good there, a reassuring and constant weight--and old friend beckoning from beneath my threadbare trench coat.

Yea, it was my fault; my mess.

I grinned sardonically.

But that meant I got to clean it up, too.

Art Source: "Horror Art" (c)/by Jan Ditlev

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Deacon, #Donkey, #Fallen, #Imran, #TenetsTales, #Sector7, #Sectof7, #Cleatus, #Rachel

"You have found the Hall of the Headsmen..."

Anishkar stroked the feline head that crowned his staff. He gazed at the shrouded figure before him, who knelt because of the spear against his back. Another prisoner hung its head, chafing its chin on the iron collar around its neck.

"You have found the Hall of the Headsmen, but I do not think it is to join us, as your friend says," the priest told the two.

"You are correct," the bald man on the ground confessed.

"Why do you come, One-Who-Cannot-Lie?" Anishkar asked.

The prisoner raised his head. Despite the bruising around his eyes, the priest noted how black they were, flecked with silver. "How do you know what I am?"

The priest leaned forward over his staff, staring into the prisoner's eyes. "The eyes tell everything about a creature. Yours betray honesty, while your friends are filled with lies."

Tenet picked up on the emphasis in the man's words. He glanced around the cut stone throne room and noted the moss in the grooves. His wool cloak kept most of the chill of the air from his body. He shifted his gaze to the amethyst eyes inset into the black jaguar figurine. They glowed with an otherworldly light that hinted to ageless intensity. An intensity matched by the insatiable hunger in the priest's eyes. An intensity Tenet knew too well.

Tenet spoke, "So it is true."

Anishkar tilted his head, "What do you deem to be true?"

"You are among those who have taken a taste for Fallen flesh, and I am right to have come," Tenet answered.

With a sleight gesture, the spear that was behind Tenet was in his hands and he leaped at the priest. His partner took the signal and emitted a soul-piercing shriek at her guard, who crumpled into death's embrace. Anishkar had seen all of this.

Anishkar the Headhunter came prepared.

Art Source: "Cyborg Panther" by LennartVerhoeff

Story and Characters: (c)/by Corey Blankenship, Tenet (c) Brannon Hollingsworth

"A Boogaloo," Tenet said

August, 1685
Port Royal Island, South Carolina

"A Boogaloo," Tenet said, glancing up from his near-prone position in the soft, powder-like sand. "I'm almost certain of it."

"How kin ya tell?" James Reston, Sheriff of the newly established Stuart Town, spoke quickly but did not move. He was the sort of man who quickly gathered his ingredients but took some time before deciding what he would do with them.

Tenet pointed to the oblong footprints, each with three bulbous toes. The ubiquitous grey sand, softer and finer than talcum, was perfect for holding prints, the trouble was they were quickly marred by even the slightest breeze or movement. As fate would have it, the breezes coming off of Port Royal this evening were strong and constant. "I am sure of it. These footprints are near proof."

Reston's red face, made more so by exposure to the tropical-like glare of the sun of the South Carolinian days, scrunched up. "Alligator?" he queried, turning his head too and fro like a confused hound.

Tenet nodded slightly, shrugging his wool-shrouded shoulders. "Could be, but I don't know of any alligators that also have hands." The pale man pointed to a pair of other prints, farther apart from the strange footprints and distinctly hand-like. One appeared to be nothing more than a smudged imprint, but the other, which had trailed off the powdery sand and into the thick, grey pluff mud on the river bank, clearly displayed long, clawed fingers.

Reston spat out a curse. "So what be these Boogaloo?" He turned to watch the sun slip below the western horizon. The sky was aflame with golds, scarlets, oranges, and purples and the air was filled to bursting with the evening song of the cicada and frog.

Tenet opened his mouth to answer, but in that instant the sun was gone, and an odd, shivering hooting sound joined the cacophony in the hot evening air. All around the two men, who stood on a promontory overlooking the mouth of the Broad River, a force of things emerged from the gnarled pines and veiling Spanish moss.

They looked like twisted caricatures of miniature men crudely crafted from the sticky grey pluff mud. Their arms were far longer than they had any right being and their hands seemed purposefully fashioned for throttling. Each Boogaloo was different from their brethren, reflecting the hand-made nature of these beings, and each bore signs of their crafter's marks: necklaces of oyster-shell, bracelets of beads and feathers, or mismatched armor made of driftwood or coral. Regardless of their individual features, each of them bore a sign that marked them as totems - hand-carved faces of wood, with glowing red eyes.

As the two score and more of the creatures closed in on the two men, Tenet answered Reston, "Hand-crafted death..."

Art Source: "The Boogaloo" (c)/by GaryLiabArt

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #TenetsTales, #Tenet, #SouthCarolina, #Boogaloo, #Gullah

"You do yourself no favors to come here."

"You do yourself no favors to come here."

The voice filled my ears like the void itself spoke, even as it emptied my soul. The entire space caused my eyes to defocus, blurring into grey and blue. I felt like an atom wedged into a great wall of gunmetal, cold and alone. Alone, except for the voice.

"You open secrets you are not ready to hear."

This accusation angered me. I have always been ready to hear a secret. This thing didn't know me. I belted out, "Try me."

I felt a shiver run down my soul and blinked.

Then there it was. A thing I couldn't name if words existed to describe it. My body froze as my pulse raced. Again my eyes reflexively flickered and it was closer. So close it could reach and touch me.

The Thing extended one of its terrible arms and spoke once more, "Let me Illuminate you."

Art Source: "The Fallen" by The-Hand

Story and Characters: (C)/by Corey Blankenship

You should well know the price of the secrets you seek before seeking them

"You should well know the price of the secrets you seek before seeking them," the crone hissed through yellow-stump teeth. "The price may be well more than you wish to pay, Fool. Are you willing to barter with the Wrembhwicce?"

The hooded figure nodded curtly. The motion was not one of respect, it was one born out of fear. Anyone with eyes to see could tell it.

The crone planted her staff beside her left foot and began walking in a large circle. She moved slowly and deliberately, always turning to the left, counter-clockwise to the hooded man before her. She drug her staff through the powdery dirt of the cave and the path it traced in the dirt mirrored the sign she bore in the place of her eyes. As she paced, she murmured under her foul breath and though he strained desperately to hear the words, the hooded man could make out only bits and parts...

"helico...spiracial...ammon...nautilious....vogel...fermatti...jannos...pspir..."

With each revolution, her words became more saturated with vile hatred and malice. Her voice, though murmured, began to thrum with dripping, black power. Closer, ever closer the hag came, with each leftwise turn, towards the hooded figure. Finally, as her voice reached the zenith of its power, she stopped before him. Her scarred visage was contorted in something that could not quite be identified...fear...rage....pain? She screeched into the hooded man's hidden face.

"SPEAK! Speak, Fool, and tell me what secret you most desire...once the price has been paid, it shall be yours."

This was the moment the hooded man longed for, in truth, he felt that this was the moment he had been created for... With an unseen grin, his reply came laced with not-so-subtle triumph. "The loxós. I want the loxós, witch!"

The look on the hag's face was a picture of twisted horror. "No! NO! NOOOOOOO!"

But it was too late. The bargain had been struck. The deal was done.

Art Source: "Maebyn Witch" (c)/by DaveAllsop

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #tenetstales, #Loxos, #Wrembhwicce, #fabricofreality, #THISISABIGDEAL

I Am...the Curtain.

I Am...the Curtain. The Curtain Between Worlds. The Curtain and I are one. The Curtain was the very reason for my Creation. I control it. I conserve it. I continue it. I cultivate it. I am Olarus.

And now, I am Fallen.

This, I think, was not the intent of He Who Was My Master and yet the silvered, subtle words of Lucifer seemed right to me at the time. I Listened and soon, I could feel Pride stir within my breast and I Followed the Shining One. I Followed him straight out of Glory. I Fell. It was not what I intended, and yet I must now bear the brunt and pay the price for my choice. Yet, I shall not choose a side in the Great War. I REFUSE! I no longer care for the Silver-Tongued Price of Lies, nor the Great Father of All. I have only one care now, and it is I...and I Am the Curtain.

The Curtain is all I have now, you see. I must protect it. I must maintain it. I must avenge it. Now, with the Great War, the Curtain is tattered and torn. I have many hands and they are able, and I try to mend these rips, but these fallen: the devils, and demons, and all their imps and perversions and all these exalted: the angels, the cherubim and seraphim, the principalities and powers - ALL OF THEM CARE NOTHING FOR MY CURTAIN!

Can they not see? Can not see what they do to It....to Me? They rip and tear me...it...endlessly as they travel hither and yon. They care nothing for the subtly woven fabrics that compose the Veil of All Reality. To them, it is nothing more than a Passage, a momentary path from one world to another, or from one Reality to Another. They have no idea of the titanic, shimmering, shivering POWER that lies within these Cosmic Threads, or of the pain it causes the Curtain...causes ME...when they abuse and misuse her.

But this will cease. I will see to it. I am UNCHAINED. I am OLARUS. I am the CURTAIN and I will PROTECT MYSELF, or

I
    will
             perish
                       in
                               the
                                            attempt.


What these fools do not understand is that if I am the Curtain, and I go....where, then, will be the Curtain?

Where I go, goes the very fabric of reality....

They will do well to fear me. FEAR OLARUS AND RESPECT THE CURTAIN!

Art Source: "Blue Devil" (c)/by Toshi13go

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #tenetstales, #TheCurtain, #Olarus, #fabricofreality, #THISISABIGDEAL

The rising sun kissed the clouds over the Roman city that would one day become known as the City of Lights.

258 A.D.
Lutetia Parisiorum

The rising sun kissed the clouds over the Roman city that would one day become known as the City of Lights. The subtle roses and salmons that overtook the quickly fading purples and blues of the night were utterly breath-taking. It was as if God Himself was finger painting the dawn into existence.

Mistral, perched high atop an aqueduct pillar, one of many that brought water into the city from the distant basins of the Rungis and Wissous. The fallen angel's eyes were not on the dawn, however--of that, he could care less--they were focused on the site of his meeting this morning. The site of his next job, or the end of this phase of his existence.

Mistral really didn't care one way or another.

But Mistral was a creature of habit. He had served as a magistrate of Heaven, before his temptation and his fall, and his heart still beat with a measured, militant tempo. He would do his level best to ensure that nothing in this meeting caught him at unawares and that he had minimized--or eliminated--all risks. As he scanned Mont Mercury and the ramshackle collection of structures around it, a pair of morning doves flew past.

"Bonum mane angelus!*" one sang out, a bright bird eye glittering in the morning sun as it spoke to him.

With a mere thought, Mistral crushed the creature. He watched impassively as the broken feathered body plummeted to the earth.

"Pretender," he said coldly, filling his own regal wings with the breeze and casting his form into the sky.

None of the early morning risers in the Roman city on the swampy eastern side of the Seine witnessed the sight of the angelic creature flying over their thatched or tiled roofs. No winged shadow fell across muddied streets or picketed fields. Mistral hid himself from any who might have an eye to see or an ear to hear.

Unlike the one who he was about to meet.

'The Fool,' thought Mistral, landing on the apex of Mont Mercury. For ages, it had been a druidic circle and after that, it was a spot held sacred to Mars and Mercury. Mistral could feel the dark, pagan energies swirling and eddying all around him. He thought it a good spot for a meeting, at least for him, but he could not understand why the one who'd called him here had selected this spot.

Something triggered the fallen's keen senses and instantly, his twin segolo were in his hands. Two massive pieces of razor-edged, cold-forged iron, the weapons were his own design. The hafts were a longsword blade with no hilt and where a hilt would normally be found, a wickedly-curved half-moon shape. They functioned as swords, as massive punch daggers, as axes, or as tridents - but in whichever horrific way that Mistral desired to use them, they caused death and destruction. Holding the razor-sharp blades, the fallen slowly spun around the wide crown of the hill, his cold, impassive eyes searching for whomever--or whatever--had triggered his finely-honed senses.

"Thank you for meeting me," came a voice from the edge of the circle. There, in the deep shadow of what was once, long ago, a standing stone and was not little more than a broken nub of rock, stood a pale man in grey.

"The Fool." Mistral intoned the word verbally this time. Like a statue on display, he pivoted slowly toward the sound of the voice.

"It is good to see you again, Mistral." the pale man said, removing his woolen hood to reveal his pale bald head, odd grey-and-silver eyes, and his charcoal-grey goat's beard with two silver stripes. "I am glad you've decided to take me up on my offer."

Mistral stalked towards the pale man, his wings filling with the cool morning breeze and the pale light of the eastern sun. The fallen's tawny, feathery hair fluttered as well, and Mistral's entire form, despite its cool impassivity, seemed to vibrate with anger and hatred. "How do you know that I will not kill you where you stand, Fool?"

The pale man smiled, sadly. "Because I know the Truth. Because I know You. Because I know of Your Choice. Because I offer you What You Want."

"And what is that, Tenet?" Mistral intoned coldly, feeling the truth in the pale man's words and hating him even more for it.

"A chance to kill."

Mistral was taken aback, but he would not allow his icy exterior crack with the outward expression. "You? You offer me a contract?"

Tenet nodded. "I do, assassin. Do you accept?"

Mistral's stony face cracked slightly and he looked around him, expecting an ambush. "What trick is this, Betrayer?"

Tenet shook his head. "No trick." His strange eyes bored into Mistral's. They both knew that he could not speak a lie.

The winged fallen lowered his weapons. "I accept. Who shall I slay for you, Tenet?"

Without pause, Tenet replied. "Denis."

Mistral pursed his lips. "The one many call the Bishop of Paris?"

Tenet nodded. "Yes. The one and the same. I want you to behead him."


*-"Good morning, angel!" (from Latin)

Art Source: "Assassin" (c)/by GreenBreen

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #tenetstales, #Mistral, #assassin, #BishopDenis

I woke up face-down in the sand and rock.

Spring, 1963
Dead Man Peak, New Mexico

I woke up face-down in the sand and rock.

A voice sounded from somewhere over me. "Hey..uh...mister. You alright?"

I think I grunted. I was not entirely sure.

Tentative, the voice came again. "Mister?"

I felt a hand on my shoulder. A hand that slowly, gently turned me over.

I screamed at the intense pain that flared through my entire body and at the scorching arrows of fire that stabbed into my eyes.

"Dear Father in Heaven!" The voice was not tentative this time, it was outright scared. "What in God's Name are you?"

From scared to inquisitive in a heartbeat.

I groaned, unable to speak because of the pain, and the parched throat, and the cracked lips.

"Here, let me get you some water."

As best I could, I nodded. The simple motion made it feel like the skin on the back of my bald scalp and neck was ripping apart. I whimpered, and tried not to nod anymore.

"Who are you?" asked the voice again, this time concerned.

That was something that I did know, at least. As a matter of fact, it was only one of a few things of which I was consiciously aware. I cast around in my brain for what I was called, like a tongue feeling around in a mouth for a lost tooth. "Tenet," I managed to gasp.

I felt the voice nod, because the owner of the voice was over me, with one hand on the back of my head, gently raising me up so I could sip some water. "Good to meet you...er...Tenet. My name id Aelred. Aelred Wall. Here...drink."

I drank. It was deliriously delicious. Then, darkness.

***

I awoke sometime later in cool darkness. It was glorious. I think it might have been the best thing I'd ever felt, in fact. Even though my entire body was wracked with a searing, tingling fire, I managed to crack open a single eyelid and take a brief look around. I was in some sort of high-ceilinged structure that was made of stone. It was all narrow pillars, shadowed, dusty walls, and eye-pleasing arches. It reminded me of ancient Spanish missions, and had a wide, covered, open-air porch beyond the main area where I was seated. Outside, it was night in the desert and the sky was alive with stars.

I realized that apparently, Spanish missions were something that I recalled as well, in addition to my name.

I saw a small, Mexican man behind a bar take notice of me, wipe his hands on a rag, pick up a glass of water, and then head in my general direction. Exhausted from my visual tour of the place, I closed my eye and settled in for him to visit me. I heard him approach and asked, "Aelred?"

The man's musical voice drifted up and down as he replied. I knew immediately that this was not the same person who helped me earlier. "Nah. He left ya here. He said something about needin' to go start a monastery or somethin'. I think you scared him halfta death. Put the fear'o'God inta him. You can call me Chuy."

Something made me raise a brow at the name, but I could not remember why. "How long have I been here, Chuy?" I asked, noticing that my throat was no longer as raw as it had been. Despite the dull agony, I opened my eyes and watched him.

The small man opened his mouth to reply, but all that came out was the sound of chopping, growling, thunder. Or, more accurately, the sounds of several massive motorcycles pulling up outside devoured his words completely. Chuy seeing a host of thirsty new customers, left me sitting and departed to see to them, leaving the glass of water in his wake.

I reached for the water and behind the transparent glass, saw the image of one of the bikers as he strode into the porch area. Something about the way the big, black-skinned, leather-vested, cigar-smoking man moved--like he was intently aware of the physical space around him--twigged something in my foggy, vacant brain. It was unexplainably odd, seeing him step up into the covered porch and noticing the slight spasm in his shoulders and neck, or watching him move through the tables, his eyes constantly scanning the area in a eight foot radius from him.

Almost as if he was much bigger than he really was.

Then, I saw him. I really saw him. He was much more than a man. He was massive: at least nine-and-a-half feet tall and probably six hundred pounds of pure muscle. Tattoos that burned with a subtle fire all their own covered every inch of his taunt skin and a single, red eye--the only one he had--rested in the center of his vaguely conical cranium.

A Greek word came to me, unbidden: Kuklōps.

A cyclops...

I rose from my chair and step-staggered out onto the open-air porch. The creature, who still looked like a man--albeit a very large, very well muscled, and obviously tough man--to everyone else there, turned and faced me as I entered. An ugly grimace crawled across his features and in his true cyclops form, I could see the single red eye flare with power. The night sky around his head literally rippled with the strange forces emanating from the eye.

The man growled and the members of his gang reached for their various stashed weapons.

All I could do was speak a one word question, "Ace?"

Art Source: "Punk" (c)/by Gimaldinov

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #TenetsTales, #Ace, #Cyclops, #NewMexicointheSixties

The edges of the Curtain are fraying.

The edges of the Curtain are fraying.

Few realms relish in these moments when the gaps and tears grow wider to reveal that man is not alone. Mine is such a place. We have craved the coming days, too long in the dark. It came like a key-shaped star dropping into the midnight pool of our reality. It split open a pinprick, through which we smelled a scent long lost to us. This fragrance came to our starved hearts like morsels of food to a prisoner.

Fear.

We slurped at the seam and nourished our spirits. Mankind made it easy, so well-sown and watered with concerns. We knew the harvest was ripe for the picking. We just needed a little more strength before we opened the door and claimed our reward. Their fertile souls would be a welcome exchange for the depravity of our cage.

Then the Grey One drew near.

That Betrayer caused no small injury with his meddling. He, too, saw the key hole from the other side. He hated it. Better, he feared it. There is little like the taste of fear from his kind. I nearly leaped at the eyelet in the Curtain just to suck at the vapor of his dread. But we waited and grew stronger. He jammed a stopper into our draught. He thought his patchwork fixed the breach and kept our coming at bay.

He was too late.

The slit in the fabric tore in a flash of blue fire. The Exile could not realize his error too soon. It was time for the Wanderer to meet the Imprisoned. It was time for the Darkness to spread into the land of the living. I have long waited for this moment, and the silver-touched would be my first prize. I summoned the monoliths, the decayers, the desiccants, the shadows, and the Things-Man-Forgot-and-Feared-To-Name. It was time for a reaping. The fire in my heart kindled my visor and sped along my sword forged in the depths of our realm.

It was time for Tenet to face Apollyon.

Art Source: "WarCry" (c)/by JustMick
Story and Characters: (c)/by Corey Blankenship, Tenet (c) Brannon Hollingsworth

#Tenetstales, #Apollyon, #CoreyBlankenship, #TheEvent, #demons, #paranormal

The Maritsa ran red with blood.

September 27, 1371 A.D.
Chernomen, Serbia

The Maritsa ran red with blood.

"By the hinges of Hell!" I cursed. Bodies, horribly hacked and mutilated, floated around me as I led what remained of the Sect across the river. I knew we had to cross into northern Greece. I knew we had to put as many leagues behind us before the sun rose. There was no telling what the Turks would do once dawn arrived.

"How has this happened, Tenet?" Roksana asked. "How, in the name of Christ, did eight hundred defeat eighty thousand?" Her dark eyes were wild with fear and disbelief. I eyed her carefully, watching for any signs of weakness. We were literally wading through a river of blood - not the best place to be when traveling alongside a vampir, even one who was Christian.

Giovanni answered before I could reply. "Superior tactics, a night raid, and the fact that the King of Serbia and his brother were desperate for revenge, I would expect," he said cooly. The man was oddly detached and calm. The fact that he mentioned King Vukašin Mrnjavčević's brother, Despot Jovan Uglješa, revealed what was on his mind, however. We'd lost Giovanni's brother, Johann, amidst the chaos of the battle. None of us believed he was dead, but there were worse things than death, especially for an Edenson.

Johann was not the only one who was missing. Our own Turk, Kadir, had been captured and I was almost certain that I'd seen Ormolus, our unicum animarum, ripped into pieces. I was not sure if the mechanical man could be made whole again, even if we were able to retrieve all of his parts and pieces. The Sect of Seven had been riven, splintered, and torn.

But that was not the worst of it.

I climbed out of the blood-soaked river and immediately lent a hand to Giovanni. I had no idea how the man had crossed the river Maritsa with the chest on his shoulders. I had barely made it carrying my own weight. Granted, I was gravely wounded from an axe blow to the ribs, but still... "Hand me the chest, Giovanni."

The bearded man grunted and pushed up the lead-lined wooden box and clambered up the slick, muddy slope. Roksana came last, drawing her bow as she did so and immediately began a sweep of the surrounding forest.

"We need a place to rest and tend our wounds, Tenet," the Edenson said, breathless from his exertion.

"I know, but I fear that the Turks will be at our heels when they discover what we have." I shot a look with my odd black-and-silver orbs towards the chest.

Giovanni made a face in confusion. "How will they even know, with all of the chaos?"

"They have Kadir," I replied solemnly.

A hint of fear slid in behind his eyes. "He will not tell them," he hissed.

"He does not have the jawbone, or else they would have never taken him," I said.

The fear started pitching a tent and Giovanni gasped. "I had not realized, but yes..."

I waved my pale-skinned hand in the dark air as if shooing smoke from my face. "The retrieval of the jawbone is a problem for tomorrow. For now, we need to get as far away from here as possible. I suggest south, into Greece."

The Edenson nodded, too weary and wounded to argue.

"There is a hut an arrow's flight from here," came the soft, sibilant voice of Roksana from the dark woods. A shiver ran down my spine at it's sound. I could tell she was leaning heavily upon the strength of That-Which-Was-Within-Her to keep going. The dark-haired vampir would never admit that she needed to stop and rest, but the intent of her words was clear.

I looked from the heavy chest, with its precious cargo, to the panting Edenson lying on the muddy bank, and then back across the blood-and-body filled river towards the burning bones of Chernomen. I ran a hand across my bald scalp and sighed. We needed to run and run far and fast. My companions, though each far more than human, still had their limits. "Very well. Lead us there."

The pale of dawn was beginning to creep into the sky as we stepped into the clearing and saw the small, neat hut before us. A split-rail fence leaned crookedly beside it. In the light of day, I thought for a moment that I saw the hint of something hovering above the hovel, but in my weariness, I dismissed it.

"Good job, Roksana. We will rest here for a bit and then will continue onward."

If I would have only known how wrong I was...

Art Source: "Serbian Mythology - Talason" (c)/by Vanja Todoric
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #Tenetstales, #Serbia, #OttomanEmpire, #Sectof7, #Roksana, #Giovanni, #Edenson, #Johann, #Jawbone, #Kadir, #Ormolus

Sens squawked hoarsely, flapping its inky wings.

1350 A.D.
Lublin, Poland

Sens squawked hoarsely, flapping its inky wings. Off in the distance, a storm was looming and the Raven seemed disturbed by its deep-throated rumbling.

Tarik looked up from the tome it was perusing and shot a searing glance at the bird. "Husssssh," it growled.

Sens settled down immediately, tucking its black beak beneath soot-colored feathers.

Tarik went back to studying the book, scanning the arcane glyphs and symbols over and over again. The creature honestly did not know why, but it did it anyway...it had done so for nearly a hundred years now. Tarik knew all of the words and phrases in the book by heart, backwards and forwards, yet it could not help but to gaze upon them...as if there were something hidden therein that it was missing.

The creature tore its eyes from the tome and made its shuffling way over to the far side of the chamber, where a black iron brazier sat, upholding an infernal flame that cast lurid red light and sordid blue shadows at the same time. In the flames, there was a message. Tarik drank it in, hungrily. It was so rare to receive news these days, what with the Black Death running rampant through Europe.

There was so much to do and so little time to gloat over it.

Tarik listened to every fragment carefully, just as it did everything, and tried desperately to contain its excitement. An old enemy was near and it was Tarik's privilege to dispatch him. The Betrayer was in nearby Krakow, and apparently he was holding the Plague at bay. Tarik grinned and the creature's toothy maw nearly spit its malformed skull in two.

"Make ready to leave, Sens," the creature cackled, fishing out a lock of hair from a desiccated corpse in the rear of the cavern. A few hissed words later, and Tarik's nightmarish form had changed,morphing into an odd-looking young man--or perhaps a young woman, it was hard to tell--dressed from head-to-to in supple brown leathers. A fine dagger rode upon its hip and a wide-brimmed hat rode atop the thing's charcoal-colored head.

Tarik moved briskly to retrieve the tome and held aloft its hand, where Sens, the familiar raven took temporary roost. For a moment, a foul, scarlet light was kindled in both the raven's an in the creature-turned-human's eyes. A knowing smile crawled across Tarik's lips and far away in the distance, the thunder rolled.

"Take heed, Tenet. There be a storm coming..."

Art Source: "200/366" (c)/by excellero
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #Tenetstales, #Tarik, #Sens

"Hell's Hinges," Tenet cursed.

December 4, 1845
Glendalough, Ireland

"Hell's Hinges," Tenet cursed.

Father Billy Donnelly's thin, browish-red eyebrows jumped up like fairy legs doing a jig, and he crossed himself reflexively. "Language, Brother Tenet, language. What ever could be the matter?"

Tenet's odd, black and silver eyes were scanning the area just at the edge of the monastic city. The Father noted that there was far more dark than light there, in those strange eyes, which disturbed the priest deeply. Billy was Irish and that meant that he was no man's fool first off, but secondly, he was a man of the cloth--a true servant of the Christ--and he knew enough of the Good Book to know what Tenet was. However, he was the type of man to judge another not by his stock, but by his walk, and to date, the thing that called itself Tenet had proven itself to be honorable and trustworthy and for the most part, as good as any sinner born to flesh.

But, Billy Donnelly was no man's fool, and he would do his best to strike Tenet down if the need arose. After all, Billy was God's man and a Shepherd of the sheep of Glendalough. If there be a wolf in the glen, then it would be Billy that would deal with it.

Tenet was studiously observing the area around the foot of the Gateway, that two-storied granite, wood-and-slate roofed structure that stood as an entryway into the monastic compound and marked the outer edge of the sanctuary. The priest had told him that the structure, with its cross-inscribed keystone, had stood for as long as the monastery had been in existence.

Or perhaps longer.

The Father prompted again. "What troubles ye, Tenet?"

The pale-skinned man gestured with his chin-beard, long and pointed it was and mostly coal black except for two thin silver streaks. "That beggar there, outside of town. He's dragging something."

Father Billy nodded. "Aye, oh aye, we get our fair share of beggars, tramps, and thieves here, especially in these turbulent times. Everyone and their brother still at one another's throats. The Rebellion was horrible and lots are still sore to the marrow about it. Yet, we feed them, and clothe them if we can, and give them what they need. It is as St. Matthew says, yes, 'For I was hungered and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger and ye took me in: naked and ye clothed me...'"

Tenet nodded, dully, and then turned those strange eyes upon the Father. The priest got a shiver from the top of his tonsure to the bottom of his sandals. "True, but don't let that one in, Father."

Again, the fairy did a reel across the Father's forehead. "Why, in the name of God, should I not?"

Tenet began walking in the direction of the gate. By the line of his shoulders and the set of his pale face, it was clear that he was preparing himself for battle. "Because that thing is no beggar. It only looks like one. It brings death, plague, and suffering."

Father Billy was aghast. "Why would it want to do that? How do you know?" he called.

The pale man-who-was-not-a-man stopped and turned on a booted heel. "Because it wants to fill that sack with something far worse than death, plague, and suffering, Father. And I know because it cannot enter the Gate...and because of that." A pale finger pointed to the small, cream colored dog that followed Father Billy everywhere. The Wicklow terrier barely reached the priest's calf, but in its stance, it looked like the fiercest guard dog that had ever lived. It was growling and slavering, and its hackles were standing on end. It was staring straight at the man with the sack who was creeping around the edge of town.

Tenet turned and resumed his stalk to the Gate. "Your dog knows a rat when he sees one."

Art Source: "Hands Collector" (c)/by rawwad
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #TenetsTales, #WicklowTerrier, #Glendalough, #Ireland, #FatherBillyDonnelly, #GreatIrishFamine

Rude Awakening

“Not quite what you were expecting.”

The man shrouded in black clothes and boots shifted slightly in response. The squeaky voice piped once more over the counter of parchment and musty tomes. Tomes was the appropriate word for such exotic and scholarly books covered inside and out with strange script.

“Have you forgotten we were a step lower than our masters?”

An oily whisper slipped through the shadow’s pale lips. “Of course not. Neither you or your masters ever rose above our boots, vermin.”

“I prefer Quill, but that was always lost on your lot,” a clawed hand patted down stray quills on either side of the speaker’s pointed face. “Besides, if I remember correctly, you are called the Fallen, which makes boot-height now head and shoulders above the best of you.”

The fallen hissed. Darkness seeped like tar to choke the candlelight on the desk. Quill’s hackles rose in response, the spikes on its head and back shooting upright. Its brown eyes gleamed with a feral light before it blinked and took on a serene air. It reached behind it and pulled out a single spar, wincing at the pain.

“Your kind brings out the worst in others. A pity, shadow-once-made-of-light. It is proper that the chosen people called you Bohu.”

“It has been a long time since someone called me by that crude name,” Bohu retorted. “But that brings fond memories of snuffing out their lands. Delicious memories.”

Quill dipped the severed shaft into a ink pot and began to scrawl on a loose piece of paper. “Strange that. You forfeited your light but you hunger for the light others possess.”

“How did you know to call me that, much less learn to write?” The fallen’s condescending tone wasn’t lost on the massive porcupine dressed in medieval attire. Its nose perked up as it watched embers illuminate in the darkness. The fallen had lit something and puffed at it. Quill’s snout drew at the scent for a moment before answering.

“Shouldn’t you be more surprised I was prepared for you?” The critter retorted.

A gloved hand dismissed the question. “Your kind seemed to have our scent. I’m not surprised you were waiting in your hole for me.”

“I said prepared, not waiting. I read up on you long before this day.” Quill adjusted his glasses on his snout. “Your presence in this land disturbed my sleep, and so I had to find out what sort of plague had infiltrated my home.”

“I’ve only been in this spit of land for a few hours, you senile fossil,” the fallen spat.

“Oh Bohu...your kind forget what effect your efforts to manifest create,” Quill chided.

The elder porcupine set down quill and shook the stale parchment to dry the ink. It squinted to inspect its work and then lowered the page to stare at the darkness thicker than night that blocked all exits. He sighed in his high pitch way.

“Memories are important, as your ravenous stomach knows. By your presence I can tell you were particularly attracted to mine and know that while ancient, they are far from the dementia you claimed.”

Quill continued, his voice growing resonate despite its native timbre. “You are yet young in this manifestation and growing back into your strength. You should have waited to claim this feast. Because, while many memories grow dim in this darkening age, my kind never forgot the day our master’s failed the Test.”

A cruel laugh answered. Bohu relished that memory. It had been the sweetest taste of life stripped away from his kind’s victims since they were Exiled. “I remember it well.”

“So do I,” Quill lamented. His tone turned stern once more. “I remember what the Lord of our masters said to your kind for your contribution to their failure.”

The shadows flickered for a moment. An acquired fear whispered from the recesses of its midnight heart.

“You are right to fear. Because I remember every single word,” the scribe intoned.

“But you’re just claws, fangs, and sharp fur! There is none of the power in the First Beasts to fly, crawl, and swim!” Darkness pressed out again, though the figure seemed to be tugging hard on its burning stick.

“We were made by the same Word of Power,” Quill bared its large front teeth in its best impression of a smile.

“And by that power I consign you to the fate of the fallen of our kind...Return once more Bohu to your partner Tohu to await Judgment!”

The shadow leapt over the desk, a smoking dagger in its grip. “No!”

Fiery chains gripped its wrists and dragged it back to a circle of ghostly flames. It gasped as the golden light that collared and burned its oily skin. “What have you done?!”

“I told you, but you didn’t listen. I prepared.” Quill then barked, its eyes a mix of feral and otherworldly light.

“As our highest and wisest became our basest and lowest, so you will slither into the Deep. As the noblest became the slave of all, you will be humbled into the Pit. As the Light cast all Shadow from His Garden, you are cast from this tainted World. Bohu-ashne-vo’Tohu, Vrad-zhi-ulmi-nohu!”

The shadow shrieked. Its arms and legs shriveled and sunk into its sides. Its head snapped back, the bones crushing inward. Shoulders and hips shattered and fused into the vertebrae. Spasms wracked the slender, supple band of darkness amid the transparent gold flames. The fallen thrashed inside its fiery cage, stricken by its serpentine form. It hissed a curse, “A thousand deathssss haunt you, Ichnuemon! A thousand deaths of a thousand lovesssss….!”

Quill turned the paper over to let the now burning sigil face the withered fallen. Light flashed from it and kindled the circle into a column of holy fire. Then gloom settled, but of the grey predawn sort. Bohu was no more. Quill slumped his shoulders and shambled around the desk. Nothing remained of the shadowy fallen except a glossy, soft box and thick folded paper. Quill pawed them open to find round sticks like the one Bohu had puffed on. The aged creature surmised the other were tools to light the rolls that smelled of tobacco and fillers. He pocketed them and made for the roof.

Sitting on his favorite spire, Quill hung his feet over the side and pulled out the box. He struck a stick and a small flame lit its tip. He put it to one end of a roll and puffed as one would a pipe. Flavored smoke slipped over his tongue and tingled his senses. He puffed a ring toward the rising sun and looked over his woodland. A pale star hung above the thick firs.

“Good morning, dawnstar! Too bad I won’t be seeing you for awhile. Pesky fallen take too much work...Perhaps you will be kind to watch my tiny spot of dirt?” He dragged on the tobacco and listened.

“I gathered not. Very well. I will make a tea and go about the Gardener’s business.” With that, Quill flicked the burnt stump of tobacco away and clambered down. He squeaked softly to himself, “I wonder what century I’ve woken up in this time.”

Art Source: "Elder Porcupine" (c)/by ursulav
Story and Characters: (c)/by Corey Blankenship

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #CoreyBlankenship, #Quill, #Bohu, #TenetsTales

The garganta, its hide still smoking from Israel's well-timed and blessed shots, whirled to face the man who'd wounded it and slain its progeny.

February 18, 1887
Near Sun Ranch, Montana

The garganta, its hide still smoking from Israel's well-timed and blessed shots, whirled to face the man who'd wounded it and slain its progeny. As the wolf-demon spun, its tail thickened and lengthened, transforming itself into a grotesque parody of something akin to a scorpion's tail. The creature leapt at the rancher, its slavering jaws snapping at Israel and its tail stabbing at me.

I rolled quickly to the right and then to left, guessing and praying that I'd chosen the right combination to avoid the garganta's stabs. In the shuffle, I heard my cowboy companion bellow in pain, followed by three quick barks from the Winchester. A reflexive whoosh of air, another cry of pain and I heard the rifle clatter to the rocks.

The wolf-thing yelped in pain and shook its muzzle vigorously. Streamers of white, smoke-like stuff began leaking out of multiple sizzling holes in its face. Israel had made his shots count...which was good, because I was betting he was empty, or near too it, even if he was able to get the gun back.

And all we'd succeeding in achieving was making this thing really, really, really angry. I knew I had to take things up a notch, but doing so meant taking some major risks. I rolled to my feet, slicing across the tip of the garganta's tail with Sicol. My spirt-blade sliced into the wolf-demon's tail, removing the last three feet cleanly.

"Betrayer!" the garganta howled in pain, whipping around to face me. As the creature pivoted, I caught a glimpse of Israel: he was still moving--barely--and he was bleeding from several savage wounds.

"Right here, Rover," I spat, sheathing Sicol and fishing around in one of my many belt pockets. Quickly finding the small delicate item I needed, I palmed it into my right hand and then pointed towards my face. "Come get me."

Driven frothing mad, the wolf-fiend lashed out at me with claws, teeth, and gore-stumped tail. I felt the claws sink deep into my chest and abdomen, ripping at wool and tearing at skin. I no longer cared about the tail, but it slammed into my thighs like a massive, bloody battering ram. It was the mouth that I was focused on, and just as I'd predicted, the garganta, true to its name, came right for my throat. I waited until the last possible second and then shoved my right arm as far down the demonic wolf's mouth as I could get...and then I crushed the ancient clay container like an egg, spilling all of the contents down the beast's gullet.

The garganta's pale eyes went wide with pain-laced surprise as it instantly felt the strange fire erupt in its throat and begin consuming its insides. It thrashed, snapping my arm in several places and nearly knocking me over with a wave of intense and immediate pain. The demon-wolf howled and screamed at me, writhing in agony as fire it could not quench ate it away from within. "What have you done to me, Betrayer?" it screeched, clawing at its own throat in desperation.

"I've set you up for what you deserve, demon" I dove out of the way, knowing full well what was coming next. Wincing, I hobbled over to Israel, trying to keep all of my insides where they belonged while attempting to do the same for my friend. Gritting my teeth against the surging pain in my right arm, I started dragging Israel up the stony rill as quickly as I could.

The garganta, regardless of its own pain, stumbled after me. Pale flames licked its frame, but it would not be denied. "Nooo! You'll not take my vengeance from me, Tenet! I will have the human's blood!" The demonic canine scrabbled after us, twisting, twitching, rolling, and roaring every few feet to try and escape the strangely colorless flames that were now roaring within its ribcage. Each bone stood out in stark shadow to the profane fire that burned inside its skin and organs.

I groaned, pulling Israel as quickly as I could, trying desperately to stay just a little head of the wolf-thing. I was getting dizzy, my silver blood spilling from my wounds and my shattered arm, but I kept checking the dark, snow filled sky for what I knew was to come. Desperately, I kicked loose rocks towards our lupine pursuer, hoping to harm or slow it further.

Haze-and-pain-filled moments later, I felt my center of gravity shift and new I was to the top. It was like my stomach was about to burst from the pain, but I managed to roll the nearly unconscious Israel over the lip.

"NOOOOO!!" howled the garganta and I felt its long, talons sink into my calf. I could feel the simmering heat from inside the beast, even through its claws.

The sky began to brighten. It was like day was rudely intruding into night.

"No," I gasped weakly. I did not want to be this close when IT happened.

The Fallen wolf thing pulled itself up over me and my woolen cloak began to smolder. It's lava-like saliva dribbled across my face, scaling it like hot grease. "I may go before the Throne this night, Tenet, but you shall stand beside me."

"no..."

The maw descended.

The sky brightened. The sun had risen directly over the rill. The darkness was done. The snow was melting from the air and from the ground.

"Help!" I cried, desperately. There was no one there to hear me.

Suddenly, the garganta was blasted away from me as if it had been launched out of a catapult. I fierce, defiant whinny resounded across the stones and I heard the heavy clomp of Sham's rear hooves hit the ground.

Sham!

Sham, my wonderful, glorious steed and saved me! He'd bucked the garganta clear off me and into the bottom of the rill.

At that moment, the sky tore asunder and fire from Heaven--a literal column of white-hot flame hotter than a million suns--slammed into the demonic wolf beast and in the span of three heartbeats...

..nothing remained but a slowly pool of cooling now-igneous rock.

I lay back against the stones and laughed. I laughed until I cried.

Eventually, I heard Israel laughing too, from somewhere behind and above me. I was hurting too badly and was too exhausted to look, but I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was on his back too.

"What's so funny?" I asked, in between giggles.

The rancher kept chuckling as well, but replied. "Hell, Holy Man. I don't know, but I figure if you ain't screamin' then you ain't dead...I figure if yer laughin', then it's a good sign we ain't gonna die."

Sham came over and nuzzled me with her muzzle. "No, thanks to Sham, we're alive."

"What in th' world did ya do to that thing?" Israel asked.

With my good arm, I tossed a piece of the clay container towards the cowboy's voice. "Catch," I called.

He did, and I heard him fumble with it a moment or two. Still snickering, he read "Nadab. Nadab? What in th' world's that?"

I'd stopped laughing, watching the sky finally return to its normal state of darkness. The snow had not yet come back, however. Finally, I answered. "Old Testament stuff. Nadab and Abihu offered God some strange profane fire as an offering. God didn't take to it too kindly. I quoted: 'And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.', Leviticus, Chapter 10, verses 1 and 2."

Israel was quiet for a minute. Then, he asked. "Really?"

"Yup." I replied.

"Nadab. That's some good stuff!" Israel commented.

"Nope, not really." I deadpanned.

We both busted out laughing again. We were still laughing hours later when the Doctor finally found us...

Art Source: "Intense screaming" (c)/by Abz-J-Harding
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #Tenetstales, #Montana, #ShunkaWarakin, #JosephSherwood, #IsraelAmmonHutchins, #ShamtheWonderHorse

"Get out of here, now!" I screamed.

February 18, 1887
Near Sun Ranch, Montana

"Get out of here, now!" I screamed. I'm not sure if it would have mattered. Deep down inside I knew that Israel would never run, would never back down. This was his land, it had been his father's land before him, and his father's father's before that.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that this thing, the garganta, had most likely called this place home long before the arrival of those first red skinned men who eventually became the Ioway had first arrived here. For all I knew, this thing could be older than me... Something like thunder rumbled, but I realized too late that it was not thunder at all. It was the creature, growling as it made its way stealthily down the hill.

Snow began falling faster, deadening the air in the ancient, but recently bloodied, rill.

Israel was pumping shells into his brand new Winchester 1887 as fast as he could get them out of his coat pocket. I'd never seen a weapon like it, nor a weapon that could put as much lead downrange as it could. It was impressive and Israel'd paid a load for it, but I was not sure that it was going to keep us alive against the wolf-fiend that was stalking us.

"Where's Jo?" the rancher asked, scanning the odd skies--white flecks on velvet night--as he sought out his prey.

In all of the confusion, the Doctor had slipped my mind. He run off after his horse, firing blindly up the rocky rill when last I'd seen him. I wondered, briefly, what his stance on 'this supernatural hogwash' was now. I sought him out with my odd eyes, but in the high contrast, white-on-black world that was closing in on us, I could not find him.

Then, I saw it.

Emerging from the pitchy night, the garganta seemed to slowly take form. It was as if the fat, wet snowflakes were sticking together and taking on the wicked, twisted form of a massive wolf. A distended, almost skeletal jaw emerged, dripping a hot, steaming stream and long, horn-like ears swept back from the creature's narrow skull. Long spikes protruded from it's hump-like back and unlike any other wolf, the garganta now possessed cruelly dexterous, claw-studded hands and it walked upon its hind legs. I knew it could move quicker on all fours, so I knew that this was not a hunting posture...

It had come to inflict and enjoy pain. It was solely focused on Israel, the man who had killed it's spawn a year before--almost to the day--and there was a hellish malice that flickered in its pale eyes.

I had to act now.

Reaching into Beyond, I drew Sicol silently from the snowy sky beside me. If the garganta noticed any shimmer in the Curtain, it did not show any sign. I took that small blessing, added three bounding steps and a massive, utterly non-human leap and drove my silvered spirit katana right into the wolf-thing's ribcage. It was only as I neared it that I realized how truly immense this thing was; it was easily three times my height and four times my weight.

The Fallen howled like the Pit itself had been opened. With a titanic whack of its right elbow, it smacked me into the rill wall. I heard things crack that should not when I hit and felt lightheaded all of a sudden. For some reason, I had lost track of some important body parts like my arms, hands, and legs.

A growling, snarling voice ripped into my musing moment. "Don't worry. In a moment, you won't have them to keep track of anymore, Betrayer."

The wolf-fiend was reading my unprotected thoughts...things had just gotten a great deal worse.

"You have no idea, Tenet," the wolf-demon-thing barked, its massive tooth-filled maw inches from my face.

Israel answered that bark with seven 10-gauge barks of his own, all delivered within less than a few seconds.

The garganta howled and leapt into the air, twisting like a dog trying to avoid a striking snake.

"Blessed bullets, Holy Man! Hoooo Waaaa!" the rancher cackled in victory, cutting his eyes toward me while quickly pumping more cartridges into his rifle. "I learn't a thing 'r two when I took out 'at Shunka Warakin thing last year!"

Art Source: "Out of the Darkness" (c)/by Abz-J-Harding
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #Tenetstales, #Montana, #ShunkaWarakin, #JosephSherwood, #IsraelAmmonHutchins, #ShamtheWonderHorse