Rudy

It was a strange, new world. Familiar, though.

She used to have such flights of fancy as a small child; elaborate games with her imaginary friends, adventures and romps and games of hide-and-seek. Her parents, both doctors of one sort or another, were uniformly alarmed when she came out of her room talking excitedly about her adventures with her imaginary friends… she didn’t really have any normal friends, beyond the family cats. She hardly even played with her toys, except a favorite few. She was such an intelligent child, but it felt like she was slipping away, even as she was advanced a grade at age seven, from second grade to third.

She didn’t stop seeing her adventure friends, but, after a long battle with her parents… mostly her father… she learned to pretend they weren’t there. She learned to at least pretend to sleep quietly in her room each night rather than go off with them and come back with a head full of stories. She learned to not look at them when company was around, or talk to them when others could hear. She learned to “play with others” and “chew with her mouth closed” and say “yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”

Eventually, she learned to just not look at them. One day, years later, after a night of wild dreams, she tried… and they were just gone. She was fourteen.

The next few years were hell for her parents. She saw to it. She went through a dark period in her life, dressing in black, torn clothes, writing dark, sad poetry, listening to groaning, angry music. Her mother called it her “Goth phase,” and she got angry every time she heard it.

The only reason she didn’t drop out of school, eventually, was because of her cats. When she was eleven, a schoolmate’s dog died. She’d seen this dog just about every day for years, on her way to school… a great, noisy Rottweiler, in a yard she’d always felt was too small for him. The child who owned him disliked her greatly, but the dog… the dog just adored her. He’d wait for her to pass and go nuts, bounding and slobbering alongside her down the fence, just waiting for her to pet him. The moment she did, he’d just stop and lean in, gazing at her with adoring brown eyes for as long as he could get “scritchins.”

The boy, once, spent an entire year trying to get the dog to hate her on sight. For a while, she’d see them on the porch in the morning, the dog with welts on his hide and the boy holding his head pointed at her, yelling and snarling at the dog to “get her!” He never stood a chance; the few times the dog would bolt at her during this dark time, he’d still just cavort at the fence, looking desperately for love and scritchins. The boy finally gave up, and they returned to their normal routine.

The boy announced that the dog had died, one day, at recess, the first day of school. He said it casually to his friends, where she heard him. The dog had gotten into some pool chemicals and gotten sick. It had taken him two weeks to die under the back porch, over the summer. Crying, she went up and asked him what the vet had tried. He just looked coolly into her eyes, even smirking a little, and said they never took him. He just let him die, suffering, under the porch. He told them the dog had run away.

Her cats had been the only ones left in the house she could build any kind of imaginative relationship with. Of the three, “Owl” was, by far, the oldest, having been a household fixture five years before she was born. Of the three, Owl was the most patient; indeed, there had been times when the girl had seen Owl looking at her with what she thought was a mother’s love, even as she dressed the long-suffering feline in outlandish outfits to have tea. A majestic seventeen-year-old “silver tabby” Maine Coon, Owl had been showing her age for the last year or two; slower to get up, slower to get to food and water, sleeping more and more. Neither of the other two… Anjelica, a smallish black-and-white “jellicle cat,” as the girl’s mom called her, who was eight and a prim kitty who would still “dance” with the girl in her bedroom, and “Grimmy,” a crafty six-year-old Mackerel tabby who spent most of his time either trying to get out of the house or trying to steal her toys and hide them away, like he thought he was some sort of ninja…  showed any signs of slowing down, but Owl had just about become a throw pillow, as the girl’s mother put it.

She wanted to make a difference to those she loved dearest… she finished high school, surprising her parents, her teachers, and every schoolmate who made fun of her attitude, so she could be a veterinarian.

Owl lived for a surprisingly long time, surprising to everyone except the girl. She finally died, comfortable, happy and sedated, on the girl’s lap, when the girl was seventeen. Owl was a venerable twenty-three years old. The girl had doted on her above the other cats… not neglecting the others, as they still required occasional feeding, litter duty, dancing and toy finds now and then, and a little loving every day… and convinced her parents to do well by the geriatric queen, nursing her and encouraging her at every step.

Something changed after that. She laid Owl to rest next to the garden, in a lovely little grave with cat toys and a small headstone the girl had made herself, with her father’s tools and advice. She went to her room, threw away all her black clothes, and asked her mother to take her shopping. By the end of her last year at school, nobody recognized her, with her ready smile, her slightly silly quips, her colorful clothing and a sudden interest… and talent for…  little pranks and jokes. For those close to her, every day with her was an adventure… you could never tell what little jokes she might make, what pranks she might play on who, what outlandish stories she might tell to tease your wits. Her mother half-joked that she was possessed by Owl, but nobody could argue with her scholastic achievement or drive.

Twenty-one years of age found her hip-deep in the University of Chicago’s DVM program, a program she’d had to extend to the full four years due to time constraints. She was already deeply involved with the Chicago Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Center, which not only fulfilled the field-work portion of her education requirements but guaranteed her a place to work upon imminent completion of her degree. Her graduation drew near, but there were a great many animals in need of care and those took priority.

She was nonplussed when a small, quiet young woman walked into the exam room where she was caring for a sneezing, lethargic chinchilla named Gulliver. An unusual creature that was outside the scope of general veterinary medicine as yet, she was charmed by these lively, delicate, soft, surprisingly intelligent and funny animals and made a point of knowing as much about such exotic pets as she knew about any cat, dog or goldfish. As she administered the first mild dose of medicine to the poor thing, the woman eased in and said “hello, Rudy.”

She could only stare for a moment, absently petting the distraught rodent. The girl looked a little nervous. She was on the small side, maybe 5’2” at best, perhaps 20 years old, wearing a rumpled black button-up two sizes too big for her, hanging open over a white T-shirt, black jeans and white socks… but no shoes. Short black hair framed a round, pale face with big, black eyes. She stared at the girl, nervous and excited. “Hi, Rudy. You are Rudy, right? I think I’m right. Do you remember?”

As the girl stared at her, she thought she could see light reflect back from her eyes. Like a cat’s. Suddenly, it clicked, an excited, almost audible click, as it all came rushing back to her. Wide-eyes, one hand on Gulliver, she could only stammer “A… Anjelica?”

Now, I spend all my time split between my waking job as a successful veterinarian at the CVE&SC and my time as a Pooka at a set of lofts near Hamlin Park, goofing off with other Pooka, Satyrs, a particularly invectively-inventive Nocker called Canter Maloney, one patience-strained Walden Proudfoot the Quick, a Boggan, and the occasional visits from a large, surprisingly patient troll Knight named Arden Peterbilt (usually on business from the Duke Damian Lightwalker of the Seelie Court of Chicago Summer), whom I pick on mercilessly when he’s in town, and an unsettlingly whispery Sluagh who calls herself Elizabeth Marie Coombs, Underseeker Of Conspiracies. Apparently, Elizabeth likes to keep her hand in on undertakings across the realm, especially… well… conspiracies. There’s an Eshu around here, I’m told, but I’m yet to meet her. They travel a lot, I guess.

A Baron Gregory Hammerwalker sees over the freehold here, as well as the realm covering everything east of the river from Graceland Cemetery to Old Town, but not Cabrini Green. He’s an old Grump of a Satyr with horns so great I wonder he can keep up his head! He still likes his fun, and you can always see a glint in his eye even as he imparts his baritone wisdoms and flirtations. He’s fond of saying his “trago” isn’t going to “take him to the party for a long time,” whatever that means. Lakeview, and especially Boystown, provide a great deal of Glamour for those of us so inclined… and we Pooka and our Satyrs are so inclined, believe me!

I’ve spent the last year reacquainting myself with the Realm, relearning Chicago as Anjelica and I used to see it. The Seelie Court of Summer and the Unseelie Court of Winter trading roles with the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes. The roles of the Kithain and who best… and worst… to play our pranks on and tease. The nature of Dreams. We’ve also talked about the plague of the Shadow Court with Gregory, but I’m not all that worried about them.

Anjelica still lives with my parents; she has them believing she just likes to hide in obscure places in the house when she wants, although they suspect she’s getting out. Grimmy doesn’t stick around much anymore… he still stops in there for a meal and a warm bed, and maybe to hide a spoon or a dishrag, but he has other, more interesting dreamers to tease.

Owl died trying to make sure the dreams didn't die in me. I'm yet to meet Kith or Kin who knew her and didn't have great respect for her, which is saying something for a Pooka. I don't know why she did what she did, but, even as I can feel my Pooka mein coming out more and more, I'll always be grateful, always love her.

-Rudy Tabootie, Edited by Sir Walden Proudfoot the Quick

Cricket

Dearest Cricket;

I am afraid I must leave you for a time. Portents warn me that something approaches on the Wheel which I may not be able to withstand alone, and I must seek allies who have combatted this force before. Sadly, you are neither ready to face such a thing nor able to survive where I must go.

As of now, you must face your own path. I am sorry; I feel your anger still controls you in ways which will not bode well for your time on the Great Wheel, but I am of little help to you now. I am still entirely unsure of your co-conspirator, the self-styled “Saint of Killers,” as I know his mentor by reputation and the man has done as much damage as he has done good, but he seems to provide grounding and direction you are, as yet, unable to see for yourself. Hopefully, you discover you are better able to see your path than an unknown name on a computer screen can.

Forces align against you. I can tell you that much, and more: forces also align with you on your path. Your time on the Great Wheel may yet be long, although dangerous in these days. Look for a dire wolf in dire straits, a girl that may not be the girl of your dreams but the cat of someone else’s, and judge your friends carefully and wisely. In the coming war, I can gift you with three things:

My wisdom, as you have best absorbed it. Remember... not all that are wicked need die. Alternately, not all that are sainted can be saved.

My training. Birds will guide you where I cannot, as they recognize, in your Kia, a kindred spirit. They love you, and will give of themselves to you. No bone will be badly cast, and no heart spent unwisely. Do them justice, and try to avoid… as you call it… “losing your head.”

Gifts. I leave you the Heartstone… a simple stone with a surprising number of uses, should you have the sense for them… which you will find on the desk in my Sanctum at Clark and Irving Park, next to Wunder’s Cemetery. You know where it is. I also leave the Sanctum in your care until I return. I must advise you, much of what you may find there will be beyond what you are ready to know, and a very few things you may find can kill you… or worse. Do not pry too deeply, but use what you can wisely.

Dear Cricket, your path leads you where few could even imagine to follow. Yours will be a difficult and unusual road, and I deeply regret not being there to better set your path. Should I survive the coming battle, trust that I will return to you. I imagine we will have much to discuss.

-Waldeburg

The Terror Below

Here we see the Greater Eastern European Harbinger Bunny, a rare, carniverous specimen only seen in large populations where some manner of Dark Lord or other sentient, commanding predator can be found to sustain their growth. Naturally nocturnal, these lapins are actually a species of werelagomorph, apex predator bunnies capable of... transforming, for lack of a better word... into a kind of savage primate-like beast when provoked or hungry enough, changing from a seemingly harmless burrow-dweller into a very real threat to life and limb while preserving key details of their ancestry... a fluffy tail, razor-sharp foreteeth and powerful hind legs being most prominent.

Harbinger Bunnies are voracious, capable of eating several times their body weight when the opportunity presents itself, and they are extremely social. Indeed, a single burrow, in times of prosperity, can harbor dozens of these bunnies, presenting a tangible risk to the countryside as unwary travellers can suddenly find themselves surrounded and attacked from all sides by a swarm of the beasts that apparently was not there mere moments ago!

While not terribly smart, the Greater Harbinger Bunny has shown the ability to recognize prominent complex threats such as weapons and demonstrated their acumen in disarming prey and keeping them seperated from such tools, a distinction that seperates them from closely related werelagomorphs, such as the herbivorous Lesser North American Auspice Hare.

Extreme caution is advised when travelling in rural areas of Eastern Europe, and the suggested action when confronted by any kind of bunny while in such areas is to, quite simply, run away.

Spring-Heeled

"The moon will be full in three days. Your spirit shall forever remain among the humans. You shall age like them, you shall die like them, and all memory of you shall fade in time. And we'll vanish along with it. You will never see us again." - Pan, "Pan's Labyrinth"

---

Jack settled back into his favorite hiding-spot as his guests began to poke around. He had no idea why they were here, but he'd just as soon not confront them. Unless they made a mess. Or poked their noses where they didn't belong.

He struggled with a moment of angst, toying with it as much as he suffered it. The Court certainly had him on edge; he loathed that little moniker the Lord had bestowed upon him, "Spring-Heeled Jack." As though he were some freak. Practically all the Dunters could do it. They should be glad he doesn't heed his Unseelie urges and devour every last one of them.

Maybe he should! Maybe they deserved to die, every last one of them, laughing at him behind his back, shunning him unless they absolutely must speak to him. He could even leave Razorback out of it and just feed his bottomless hunger. The horror when some innocent found all those half-eaten corpses! The horror could feed him for decades, nightmare after delicious nightmare...

Slowly his thoughts turned to her. Thinking of innocents brought the memory to the forefront unbidden. Her smiling down at him as he shuffled aside, holding the door of the tenement open for her, in awe of her beauty. The warmth of her fingers as she stopped to touch his face. The concern in her deep brown eyes as she set her groceries down and asked what had happened. The sublime terror as he bolted. She hadn't seen him since, but he was never far away. Her guardian monster.

Snarling and gutteral laughter brought him to his senses. A series of rumbling crashes rocked the hideout as his guests brought a stack of cars toppling down. The sound of metal screaming and glass exploding resounded throughout the junkyard. They cackled with glee, howling, and he caught a glimpse of their shaggy pelts in the gathering dusk, their snouts and red, glowing eyes. One of the upper cars erupted into flame with a belch; apparently, its tank had never been emptied.

Loup-garou, the Court called them. Likely scouting the 'yard as a... base. Or nest. Den? Whatever it is they call it. This won't do. People avoided the junkyard, nowadays, because people were afraid of it... but they should be afraid of him, not some savage, bloodthirsty beasts. Well, not some other savage, bloodthirsty beasts.

His stomach rumbled and he casually picked up a tire rim. Metal squeaked as his massive teeth crushed though, taking a sizeable bite of the body of it. Chewing quietly, he weighed his options and came to a decision. The Wyrd could take them easily, here in his home.

He rose from his awkward seat, patting Razorback in it's homemade sheath on his back. The Seelie ridiculed him. The Unseelie hunted him, especially his Powrie brethren. Only here was he safe, in his Domain. Nothing loved him, even here... except Razorback, when he fed it. And her. Nothing would take that away from him. He lunged upward, his thick legs pushing him some forty feet into the air, his steel-shod boots slamming with a crunch into the roof of another broken car atop another teetering pile. His guests, startled, whipped around to face him, snarling and hissing.

"Gentlefolk! I much appreciate your interest in the junkyard, but may I suggest you find other stomping grounds more to your liking? As you can see, these demesne are already claimed... and I will not give my ground."

The beasts, surprised, roared with laughter. On closer look by the flames, he could see these beasts, even for loup-garou, were sick. Misshapen limbs, mottled hides, patchy fur and even scales on some, no two looked alike, and they all looked diseased. He already knew where this would go. He smiled widely.

"Little boy, you are just in time to consecrate our new home! What better housewarming gift could we ask for than a fool with a death wish, come to bless our hearth with his blood? All... his... blood." What was apparently the leader shambled forth to greet him with its raspy, wet-sounding voice. An abomination with no neck, its head and twisted muzzle seemed to protrude forward from its hunched shoulders, and scales covered most of its body, except its mangled right forelimb. It towered above the rest.

The mutant grinned horribly as it looked up at him, who appeared to be a ragged, stubby young man, short and thick and awkward, with mismatched, patched clothes, a long automotive-sheetmetal blade tied across his back and metatarsal plate steelworker boots on his feet. Its lackeys howled excitedly as it raised a gargantuan bloodstained pipe wrench to send them forth.

"I accept your challenge, monster" Jack roared. The monsters froze at the sound of his voice, many times louder than it should be. It echoed throughout the junkyard and seemed to come from every direction. The wrecks, themselves, reverberated with the sound. He reached back and brandished Razorback with a wave; the blade snarled as it came forth, like an angry boar.

Terror crept into the beasts' minds. The junkyard seemed to deepen, towers of wrecks reached to the sky, and light could hardly be found, except for an uncooperative, frustrating red flame. The smell of metal, of oil and gas and machine fluids, stifled their senses. An inexplicable horror overcame them; something terrible was coming.

If nightmares had nightmares, these beasts began to imagine them now.

Jack sprang from his perch, screaming a gutteral Redcap battle cry as he slammed into the ground before the leader, shockwaves rattling the wrecks around them. The pack looked on numbly as he stood upright, the leader sputtering and gagging as it slowly peeled in twain before his gore-covered blade. They could do nothing for moments except stare at their death, framed in an inferno of a car fire.

What was once an unfortunately short, ugly young man had become a growing humanoid nightmare. Hides of indeterminate origin and mismatched bits of metal armor hung from his blocky frame and huge steel boots encompassed his feet. A small, shapeless reddish cap sat on top of the wild black hair of his head. Blood-red eyes glowed wickedly at the lot of them from over a crooked nose. A jagged black blade covered in red runes rested easily in one meaty, grey hand, extending to be almost as long as Jack was tall. His massive mouth grinned open, ever wider, impossibly wide, his huge, flat yellowed teeth parting as his thick tongue licked the gore from his blade. He scowled horribly at the taste.

It occured to one of the beasts that a human head could easily fit in that mouth. Or a child. That mouth was made for eating.

"Now," Jack began, reaching for a nearby wreck, "if'n tha lot a ya 're anythin' like yer master 'ere," and one massive boot nudged half of their leader aside, "then all ya to a one's blood tastes like th' inside a' me own arse. An' I'll not be dippin' me cap inta th' like o' tha' mess." He laughed as he wrenched a door off the wreck, brought it to his mouth, opened wide, and proceded to smash and shove the entire door into his mouth as though it were paper. He chewed noisily for a moment, gleefully noting their reactions as they muttered and whimpered amongst themselves, then swallowed. "H'wever, if'n it mek's any a' yer feel any better, I'll still be killin' th' lot a' ya, if only fer layin' hands on thet which ain't yers... an' not havin' tha sense ta say 'sorry.'"

Bloody

"We never saw her coming. One moment, the entire house was still; we had no reading of life anywhere in the structure. The next, Agent 0237-3 was impaled by a mass of bone and our right cannon housing was torn completely off. We still have no readings on her, and our only visual recording shows just blurs before 0237-3's fluids obscure it. Losses constitute four entire members and catastrophic damage to surviving satellites; discovery, acquisition and assimilation of replacement satellites will take as much as a year. We think you knew we did not stand a chance. We still do not even know what you sent us against, but if you are attempting to accumulate data, we are no longer available as your shock troops. We have lost too many satellite agents already, and we are requesting reassignm-" Agent 0237-Core, whereabouts unknown

---

She grinned, only a little distracted. She couldn't hear Them, but They were close, still, and They were pleased. She wondered why her prey couldn't work like she did, move and see and kill like her. Now they never would. The weak once again justified the strong. She brushed a stray hair from her eyes with one bloody hand and glanced at the shattered, torn forms around her...

She found herself staring at the "bone" she'd been playing with. Four feet of osseous blade projected from her clenched fist, fat and dense and... not particularly sharp. Must hurt to be cut by it. It weighed strangely little, and she had no idea where it came from. The entire implement was covered in gore, rent flesh and bits of bone not of itself.

A voice cut through her meandering introspection. Not Them, but something piercing. Something young. A girl, alone, calling to her. The mirror was in place, the candle lit, the sun shut away. Older magicks sang to her.

She smiled again. Something feral stirred. She could smell blood, and a haze crept into the edges of her vision, a copper taste tinged her tongue. Another feast. Another revenge. They would pay. They will pay until the end of time.

She stood up straight, suddenly, and glanced down at the shard in her hand with vague disgust. Without a second look to her victims, she cast the bone aside and stalked away. The shard slammed through the door of a car parked nearby, coming to rest as it slammed through the far door and into the brick wall next to it.

Rarely did a victim call to her, anymore. When they did, she could not hear the Voices, feel the force of Their will. She could see. She could live. She could touch the rage in her heart.

It didn't happen often enough, anymore. She needed a mirror.

"Bandersnatch"

Nobody is sure, exactly, when the problem started, but when one little girl awoke screaming in the night during a rash of child disappearances throughout the Chicago slums in the 1970s, the only thing she could say about her nightmare was "Bandersnatch," after a monster in a popular Lewis Carroll poem. Over the next few years, she found other kids who had dreamed of a similar beast... and the name stuck.

The young lady disappeared on her thirteenth birthday. Her parents, awakened by the sound of a coughing roar upstairs, only found her destroyed bedroom... and a lot of odd fur or wool.

The Bandersnatch (or The Chicago Bandersnatch, among children from other areas) is a massive beast. Standing roughly six feet tall at the shoulder, it towers over adults and is downright monstrous to children. The overall impression is that of a large dog... a plump, barrel-chested body on heavy legs with oversized paws, long, floppy ears, a long, thick tail curled over it's back, and a little poof of extra fur on it's head. The poof on it's head and the ears come together to make the Bandersnatch look almost like it's wearing a funny wig. The whole body seems to be covered in a dirty cream fur that's closer to wool, softening the entire image... until you see the face.

The face of a Bandersnatch has been captured in local children's drawing more accurately than any adult suspects. Closer to human than canine, the massive, flat face has absolutely no nose, only two little, beady bright green eyes over a massively oversized lipless human-like mouth full of stubby fangs set in protuding red gums. The Bandersnatch almost always leaves it's mouth hanging open, letting it's enormous, mottled tongue hang out. A cloud of rotting stench permeates the air around it, enamating from it's brownish saliva and spread about by it's lolling tongue as it drools. The Bandersnatch enamates a sense of glee and hunger, as though excited about the idea of biting it's prey in half. It could easily do so to a child.

The only certainty anyone's determined about Bandersnatch (singular and plural... yes, there are more than one of them) is that it seems to prey on only bright but angry young children... usually boys. The more angry the child... the more vicious, brutal, violent or sadistic they are... the more likely, it seems, that a Bandersnatch will come for them. This isn't absolute, and many boys have grown to become violent, brutal young men... but it still does happen occasionally. Sadly, these same boys never believe the stories when they're warned. Other children almost never actually see them... almost never.

Nightmares have to come from somewhere.