The ride home were mostly spent on sleeping, face pressed up against a wooden post and Hell Steed’s ass only a foot or two away. I were too tired to care.

My dreams were filled with visions. Not like The Mountain and its birds stealing power from heaven, not like mixed up memories of the past, but of Jewels, Simon, and Corso. Corso’s knife flipping through the air, Jewels saying that I were “that Chase.” I couldn’t even remember telling her my name. Then there were Simon, who’d taken a special sort of offense at being poisoned. Like he thought Corso were an armature.

Momma weren’t home but she’d left behind a letter. I’d wanted to stop and read through all of it front to back but didn’t have enough time or patience. Despite the long ride home, Simon and Corso’s words hung in my head and overpowered everything else.

So, I wandered the house and made sure everything were still in one piece. Tidying up were how I survived after daddy started getting sick and after he passed on. Cleaning the home were like cleansing my soul, if only for a little while. Messes always came back.

Once I were sure everything had been put to order with the livestock, dishes, and garden, I went back to my room and sat down with momma’s notes. Turned out she rambled in letters as much as she did in real life. There were pages of tight neatly packed wording.

I turned it over trying to find signs of which parts were more important that others but came up empty. Start to finish I read, tired and occasionally skipping lines, then having to go back over the fine cursive. All the way until I find a passage that made me stop and set the letter down.

Eventually I reread the entire portion of the letter.

Your daddy made them promise to leave you out of this mess. A curse going back generations he said. He didn’t want you becoming a Hound, any more than I did. I saw how your granddaddy ended. I’d seen how your daddy never took to the change. I’d never wanted that for you. We never wanted it.

He’d made them promise to let me be. Likely the same as he’d made me promise to get momma away from this place. Only both those had failed. I’d become a Hound and survived the change. Momma, she had those black wings like Cassandra did. Like those crows from the vision who’d stolen from heaven.

They’d said it were bad blood on your grandma’s side. She weren’t the right kind of woman. I can’t attest to that, having never met her. Your daddy never spoke much of his momma on account of her passing away. I’d read her journal though. She were tough enough but scared.

Hate to say it, but maybe that fear ate at her. I imagine what your daddy almost became, and think on what I’ve seen you turn into. Lord knows it’s enough to give a body nightmares. Imagine being alone out here, hardly a town to speak of and Wellbrook were barely a think - and knowing your husband were a half a monster hisself.

I flipped through the rest the passage. It contained more of the same. Momma’s worry over this half twisted body the men in my line had. How daddy’s change had left him stronger and tougher but short of breathe.

My mind drifted back, putting together pieces of momma’s letter with what I remembered of those last few months with daddy. He’d always been the quiet sort, letting actions speak for him.

Maybe that’s why I’d stopped talking after he passed.

I’d seen a dire need for me to be the man in the family. To grow up and stop playing kid games. My examples had been hard working men who kept heir heads down and toiled away steadily. At least, that’s what I’d always believed.

It were stupid to still be stunned by this mess, but hearing it from Cassandra and Tawny had been one thing, reading momma’s accounting of what happened were another entirely.

In the letter, she explained that she’d been at a college when daddy showed up. He’d taken a class or two with family money, apparently my granddaddy had been an extremely hard worker and wanted his son to get an education.

At some point my granddaddy had stopped being able to earn as much money. Daddy moved back, and momma came with him. They both settled in Chandler’s field. It made me wonder where my granddaddy used to live, because this house were too crowded for three adults. I knew that because adding Jenn to the home had made the house feel cramped.

I flipped back to the beginning while struggling to remember all the questions I’d written down. She hadn’t left me my original list, only a long meandering series of thoughts that spun a useless yarn of babble as much as they answered anything.

She had been learning to be a tattooist. It’d been a last ditch effort after daddy’d started to get sick. Momma wrote that she’d used all the knowledge she gained working first aid at Wellbrook, coupled with favors some Rangers owed her, to try any number of solutions to daddy’s ailing body.

Momma had failed then bottled herself up. I reread the damn letter again and wondered how I’d missed so much.

When your granddaddy were ill, I’d been the one to take care of him. I stayed home and tended his broken body. The years had been unkind, he said. Said he’d been close too. Not that it meant much because when he were lost in a fever, he said he were too far, then too close. Then too far. Like he chased something that didn’t exist.

Your daddy were the same way. Remember how I used to shoo you out of the room when he were really bad? It weren’t fair, but we’d hoped this mess would die with him. Foolish me, should have packed up and took flight back to the coast. But I’d waited too long, mourning your daddy, worried my family would hardly know me. Your grandmomma, my momma, would say I spoke and wrote like a common born whore. "Were" ain’t proper, she’d say.

She’d be right of course. I’d been taught better, but I liked it. It helped me fit in. None of the women around here took well to college language. Said it were too high flouting for their tastes. Lord knows I needed people, real people to talk to. Your daddy were my man and that meant something, but I couldn’t let my life be only him.

Shame on me. I’d failed anyway, for all the changes I made to my way of life and manner of speaking. It’d done no good.

At some point momma’s letter drifted away from answering my questions and turned toward a sort of self defense. Like she’d needed to prevent me from accusing her of failing every which way from Sunday. I didn’t need to blame her, I needed answers.

The letter all but said that my family had been searching for something over generations. Given my dreams, that were likely the blue orb of magic that those black winged folks had stolen from the heavens. It didn’t explain a damn thing about why momma and Cassandra had black wings. Though I didn’t think momma had stolen anything from some fantasy world herself, I did suspect that being a tattooist might somehow be related to being a thief.

I skimmed through the pages of letters again, trying to pick out anything worth a ounce of gold and couldn’t sort past her babble in short order. She’d worked in the mines. When my granddaddy passed, she put her nursing skills to work up the tents and learned a mile more about first aid. After a decade she’d gotten pretty good but quit so she could raise me.

That rung a bell, but that had been shortly after Jenn’s house caught fire. Momma kept me busy learning to fix up the house and do little chores. We’d gone into town which is how I got to know the other kids in the area. Somewhere in the years that followed, my body had grown along with my interests, and I’d started to notice Lily.

It weren’t new, but told from momma’s perspective, it were like seeing another side to the story. I’d hoped she’d simply address each concern one by one, but maybe she’d been as flustered by my wall of inquiries as I were by her recount of our lives.

I skimmed over toward the ending and stared at the text pertaining to my daddy on his death bed.

I don’t rightly know what to make of your questions. You asked if you weren’t a hound, then what are you? Well, a hound’s purpose might be one thing according to Cassandra, but from what little I’ve pieced together from your granddaddy, he never called hisself a hound. He’d never heard of it before. When the fever gripped him, he’d say he were a hunter of the plains. A lone wolf on the prairie searching for his lost heart. Though that don’t make sense either.

I’d always thought he spoke about his wife. The ladies around town said she used to be a beautiful woman who’d had many a man hot on her tail. Though they also said once she’d picked your granddaddy, she never strayed. They were insistent upon that, and I simply assumed she’d been his missing heart.

Your daddy didn’t give me much to go off of. He’d had dreams too. Said he were searching for something but he’d never been in his right mind enough to share, and I were too heartbroken to ask. I’d seen my share of dying men, and I knew we’d little time for me to pry questions out of him, especially ones we’d hoped to put to rest.

It’s a curse son. Lord help you if you have a boy of your own.

I’d been with all of one woman in my life and from what little’d been explained to me over the years, getting with child were far more complicated than a one night stand.

A knock at the door shook me out of my jumbled thoughts. I glanced up and sniffed. Jenn or momma should have been home by now. Surely they hadn’t both decided to simply avoid me all weekend.

I got up and walked to the door. A few feet away I could tell that neither of the women had returned. My visitor were someone else.

One hand went to my gun hanging from the coat rack. I cocked the hammer back in case my visitor were unfriendly. Though it seemed impossible for Corso to have followed me home, maybe one of his henchmen had decided to get revenge.

I opened the door slowly and stayed ready to shoot my guest.

Ranger Wan stood in the doorway, hat in hand, and shuffled from foot to foot.

“Mister Craig. You’re home.”

My finger eased off the gun slowly. I nodded and took slow breathes to steady my heartbeat.

Wan didn’t notice. He paced back and forth again, then asked, “You deliver the package?”

My head shook. I stepped outside and went for a rocking chair we’d placed by the front door. Wan refused to sit so we both ended up standing.

“Something’s wrong. What’s wrong?” Wan cocked his head to one side. He glanced between me, the house, and spun a slow circle to check out our surroundings.

“We’re safe enough here. No one else around but you and me.”

The information barely registered. I reached for a pencil and paper. It took a few questions and some chicken scratch on one of my new pocket books, but eventually I managed to convey to Wan what happened. Despite showing up at the store five days in a row, not once had the store been open. It’d stayed closed and no one responded to my knocking, even during the hours stated on the window sign.

Wan’s face puckered up tight after he finally put it all together.

“Doesn’t make sense. He’d always been punctual.”

I can check Monday morning.

It’d mean I’d skip sleeping, or resting in the wagon and throwing my schedule off. Time were hard when I spent almost a day simply traveling back and forth to Bell Town.

“You should. Maybe he’s out of town for the week. Though he hasn’t left Bell for months. Most of the Rangers use him for post. He’s trusted. He’s trusted, dammit all.”

Wan stomped and threw his hat on the ground. His actions worried me. I’d never seen him flustered by anything. Not during the trials where we’d run for days and Ash kept us ragged. Of course, after working with Obsidian for three months, I felt sure the Ranger trials were more of a head game than an actual test of fitness.

“Pardon my manners Mister Craig. Rude of me. Our deal still stands if you’re of the mind.”

Don’t know what marking Cassandra has planned.

“Then we’d best go see what the miss cooked up for you.” He waved his hat at me and turned toward the path off my property. Wan paused and turned back to me. “Though I’ll ask you to keep trying with our contact in Bell Town. We’ve few enough to trust outside the circle. Yourself and the Widow Craig included, of course.”

My lips tightened. Rangers having contacts had been one of the odd tidbits Obsidian spouted when telling me to stand in a field holding weapons. It hadn’t fully registered that Rangers might not be able to use normal systems. Post had never been a concern of mine since no one wrote me letters.

“You coming? Only so many hours in a day and no use spending them here.”

He had a good point. My weekend were going to be busy enough. I nodded, grabbed my belt, gun, and hat then headed out after Wan. I’d need time to ponder over momma’s letter and sitting around the house puzzling over it wouldn’t do me any good.

“Tawny’s busy at Wellbrook’s refinery. His wife’s knees are wearing thin so they’ve decided to camp where the monsters present themselves until she’s on the mend.”

I nodded.

“He said I’m to get your story for the week then report back to him come Monday.”

Tawny hadn’t given me any warnings about who I spoke to. Wan seemed to know everything anyway and we were headed to Cassandra’s home. Between those two factors it were likely Wan could be trusted.

I wrote down notes about my week while Wan led us to a pair of horses he’d readied. Instead of playing twenty questions, I piled on the notes until I felt everything important had been put to paper. My first work of week were simple enough. I spoke of Simon and that he’d done a short stint up at Wellbrook. I went on to explain that I’d run into Corso and he’d chopped off another man’s hand as a warning to me.

Then I handed the mess over to Wan and let him scan through it.

He said little then nodded at the end.

“Busy week.”

I nodded then crooked a finger in question. The horse swayed to one side and my balance were disrupted.

“Not a clue. They sent me out on one of those missions years ago, after I’d become a Ranger. Went poorly. I don’t leave the mountain side much anymore.”

My nose wiggled side to side as I pondered that. Momma had plenty to say about Wan and Ash but most of it had been chiding them for being children. If I were to guess Wan’s age, he were somewhere between momma and I, which meant she’d been living in Chandler’s Field since Wan were my age.

“I promised to teach you how to wield whatever weapon the miss gave you, but there’s no reason we can’t talk about it now.”

I pointed to my throat.

He smiled but didn’t laugh. “Better that way. I’ll talk, you listen.”

My head bobbed slowly.

“Back when I was a kid, I’d had a teacher from the east. Or so he said. It was New York and people lied about their backgrounds. Reinvented themselves every other day. Some were drifters, others escaping their homelands.”

Simon would have fit in with them. He drifted because he wanted work, though I’d come to suspect he never made enough money to send any home.

“My parents are still back there. That’s who the letter’s addressed to.”

A shoulders lifted in a lopsided shrug.

“Used to be this man who taught all the kids in the neighborhood. Anyone who’d listen, how to use their bodies to fight. He’d force us to learn our bodies before learning a weapon.”

Eyes slowly blinked. Wan were over explaining and it bothered me. I nodded so he’d keep going.

“He taught me two things that work for every weapon I’ve ever seen.”

Our horses tread a steady path along the road. I wondered if I’d locked the door but decided not to worry about it. People rarely came this close to The Mountain willingly, and one thing Chandler’s Field had little of were thieves.

Bell Town though, I let the thought hang. Corso had opened my eyes to another side of people and it bothered me.

“Anything this miss gives you will need practice. That’s always a given. Use it soon, use it often, use it against any spawn from the pits you can find. Learn it’s limits.”

I nodded. It were an obvious suggestion.

“First though, think of how your body moves. You’ve been,” Wan dirfted a bit then shook his head, “You’ve changed into those other bodies. A dog. A wolf man.”

He stared across the gap between our mounts until I nodded again.

“Your body doesn’t move the same, but you got used to it, right?”

My head dipped.

“Any weapon you get will be like that. My teacher used to wax on about practicing with a weapon until it became an extension of your body. Which is an ass backwards way of approaching the real issue. A weapon has a range of motion like a human does. You learned how your body moves, how far an arm will go before it pops and strains. How long your legs will hold a weight.”

I nodded again.

“Learning a weapon requires the same knowledge. Learn how far it goes before it breaks. Learn how it moves with your body. Like leaning into a punch with your hips. It adds force. Weapons are the same. You got to learn how they move.”

One hand pointed at my body and gestured from toe to head.

Wan’s lips tightened as he tried to understand my gestures. He blinked slowly then said, “And how you move with it. If that’s what you meant.”

He’d gotten close enough.

“If the miss can do your marking tonight, it likely won’t function right for a day or two. Maybe longer. Weapons are heavy, or so Ash tells me. They’re a thick ink. Like a bar under your skin. Hardwood always complains that her gun gives her shivers in the winter.”

That didn’t sound attractive. I’d known that each marking carried with it a sort of side effect, and a price. My own eyes felt like lumps in my back. They mussed up my normal eyesight when in use. The Wildling Touch and Heartseeker often made my body hot and cold from either end. The idea of having a lump under my arms didn’t sit right.

I thought of Corso’s surprise visit again and realized that it might have gone radically different if I were able to pull a gun out of thin air. How quickly could I have shot the lot of those thugs and Corso hisself?

“Your notes said something about Corso’s men. One had a chain about his neck.”

I nodded.

“Likely he couldn’t speak right. Like what you suffer, only he’d be raspy. Since the marking gets put on his neck. Or that other fellow, Mister Corso. Word is he’s a scary one.”

My head dipped to one side and I wiggled fingers again.

“He’s the type that smells trouble a mile away. It’s said that Obsidian and Sterling once went to Bell Town simply to remove him. And Corso set out an ambush. Took them two days to escape. He tore into Tawny about there being a traitor in our midst but no one could figure out who.”

My forehead wrinkled. That sounded dangerous. Anyone that could ambush Obsidian had to be a scary individual. That shadowy Ranger seemed able to appear and disappear at a whim. Unless someone used a sun based marking on him.

“Near as anyone can figure, Corso has a precognitive ability. He can see the future, or maybe futures. He mixes that with his flickering blades and gut anyone within eyesight.”

I pointed at my chest.

Wan nodded, catching on faster this time.

“He let you live. Which means he doesn’t know what you are, or his powers are more limited than Obsidian believes. Or maybe he’s playing a longer game.”

Fingers wiggled in question.

“I’m not a deep thinker. That’s Ash and Tawny. They’re the thinking type. I’m more a break someone’s arm first and worry about questions later sort.”

I chuckled. It came out as a dry heave of air.

“Once we know what the miss is thinking about your weapon, then I can give you some exercises. Material that will focus on learning range of motion. If you practice enough, then maybe a month, or two, you’ll be able to use it effectively.”

Imagery becomes form. Form becomes power. That’s what momma had written in the letter. She’d laid it out for me. Wan were saying the same sort of nonsense. The marking became an item. That item became an extension of my physical body. I’d have to learn how to move with whatever the item were, same as I learned to walk on four legs or in a hutched sort of monster.

Not that I’d had much practice as that in between monster. It scarred Jenn. It bothered momma. The fact that both women in my life reacted poorly to it made me wonder if becoming a misshapen back-bowed beast were worth a damn.

I’d get it sorted. At least this way I seemed able to be a man. That stance hadn’t changed from my time in Wellbrook Mines. I intended to die as a human, come demons from the depths of hell itself, or where ever the mine’s ink spun portals led to.

We reached the edge of Cassandra’s homestead, where the road ended and trees thickened to form a natural barrier hiding her home away. Wan stopped and whistled loudly, alerting the dogs in the distance. I got off my horse and hitched it to a tree.

Only a fool would steal mounts this close to Cassandra’s home. The dogs kept back most monsters. I suspected they had fed off ink based beasts and were similar to Hell Steeds in that regard. It would explain why there were so many of the damn mutts, and how they acted a bit too intelligent for normal dogs.

“The miss sometimes cackles to herself.” He shrugged.

Cassandra’s laughing?

My face bunched in question. I couldn’t hear her over the mess of dogs barking. They moved toward us in a wave.

Wan blinked at me then nodded. “Right. You haven’t had much chance to research marks, have you?”

My head shook. I’d barely started last weekend, when Cassandra let me take a glance through her books. It were on my list of things to do this weekend. IF nothing else, I wanted to find the marks I’d seen on Corso and his henchmen. It’d help me know how to fight them, should the need arise.

“It’s important to know what marks do at a glance, but it’s also the hardest task we’ll ever get. Battle comes quick and ends just as fast. Rarely do Rangers get to have a full hunt.”

A hunt. Once a month there’d be a big nasty beast crawling out of the ink pools in The Mountain. They’d find their way to the surface, chasing after lesser monsters and attempting to eat their bodies. Harold had called them unclean.

Wan kept talking while my mind struggled to keep his words in line with what I’d been learning. “It’s rare the mind that can think fast enough, or even remember every marking in the world. Even the miss can’t do it, and she’s been working the ink for an age.”

I nodded. Her books had hundreds of tattoos each, and there were likely variations of those marks that were different between people. Based on last week’s conversation, it seemed likely that a lot of markings were invented based on the wearer’s needs.

“Most you can figure out by looking at what they are. Those working girls in Bell Town, it’s safe to assume anything they’ve got is to keep them clean and eager.”

Jewels markings had likely been of that sort. She’d pointed out the one that let her tell when men were in heat, which seemed silly but apparently worked well enough.

“Mister Corso though. He’s a harder one. Most of his marks are misdirection. Fakes designed to fool others.”

Fake tattoos made little sense. Maybe it were like slight of hand for anyone he dared fight. Some fool would be looking at his arms thinking the spiderwebs on them meant something, when his real powers lay in the dozens of circles across his body.

“Obsidian should have harped on and on about thinking of counters.”

I nodded.

“Take advantage of the learning you’re being offered.”

My pencil and paper being tucked away prevent any snide remarks from making it out of my mind. Momma wouldn’t like me being rude, but Wan’s statement were wholly unneeded. I realized my knowledge had huge gaps, especially during these last three months.

“Come on. The miss’s clearing her table.”

He led the way, and I took a peek at his markings.

Crows. His back were filled with them. Black winged masses that fluttered and spun around each other. They weren’t moving, but I couldn’t tell where one began and the others ended.

What are those for? I made a mental note of yet another set of markings to research. Though it might be polite to wait until Wan weren’t looking. I considered it something of a test, to see if I could learn what other Ranger’s marks did without asking them.

Maybe that were stupid, but if Obsidian and visions had taught me anything, it were that Rangers may not be on my side. Helpful, aiming for the same goals, but we weren’t exactly a unit. Heck, most days they hardly seemed to be even friendly with each other.

Part of me missed the simple days of working at Wellbrook. The job had been hell, but at least we’d been on the same team. Except for Ducky. Odd that he were more on my side now that he’d become a Ranger.

I shook off the muddled thoughts, pushed passed the mob of dogs bouncing and slobbering all over me, and stepped into Cassandra’s home.