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Chapter 2 - Bloodhound

He was gonna be a cowboy. He bought a one-way ticket on the Pacific Railroad with his daddy’s money. The work would be hard, the Mojave sun would make him sweat, and the feral cattle would make for poor partners in any conversation. None of that mattered a lick to the raccoon. He heard the horn of adventure hollerin’, and neither heaven nor hell could keep him coming, westward bound.

That night, at around three in the morning, Poet and Jack checked into the Full Pines motel. It was small and dingy, and a ten mile drive from I-95, somewhere vaguely within the vicinity of Augusta. Some sprawling nature reserve found itself located next door. Neither Poet nor Jack bothered with remembering its name. The two animals fell into their room, and by harnessing that momentum, just as quickly collapsed into their prospective beds. Poet set a timer for eight in the morning.

But when Poet woke up, Jack was gone. And when the raccoon looked out the front window of the ground level motel room, he realized that his car was missing from the parking lot. The keys that he’d placed on the nightstand were nowhere to be seen. The alligator hadn’t even bothered to switch off the heat lamp that the motel loaned out to cold-blooded guests.

In the panic of the night prior, the raccoon had forgotten to take the phone charger out of his car. The cellular device lay uselessly on the thinly carpeted floor next to his bed. It wasn’t as if he bothered to ask for Jack’s number, and the raccoon strongly doubted that he’d return a call if he’d also seen it fit to steal a car, but it’d be exceedingly difficult to ask someone for a ride. Poet hadn’t memorized anyone’s phone number even Malvina’s. It was well past eight; it’s never easy for the alarm on a dead cell phone to work properly.

A bitter resentment churned at the bottom of the mammal’s throat, but it hadn’t manifested into a complete malice just yet. He wouldn’t call the cops over this. He turned on the coffee machine, and was thankful that the older device took pre-packaged sachets of coffee grounds instead of the more modern coffee cups that the raccoon found distasteful. He’d take a quick shower while the coffee brewed, sip it slowly until his fur dried, and see about borrowing a phone or a phone charger at the front desk. Poet never really relished showers the way that other animals did; he always dreaded the long wait required for his pelt to dry out completely. The shower didn’t last longer than a few minutes. The raccoon sweetened the inky black concoction with only half a packet of sugar. He then perused the nightstand for reading material. Poet had the choice between Gideon’s bible or brochures for local campgrounds and RV parks. The latter choice seemed far more interesting.

A crow in his mid-forties manned the front counter. Poet remembered that a ram was in charge the night prior. The bird donned a red Hawaiian shirt and faded blue jeans. Jeans seemed to suit folk well in Maine. A surgical mask hung at the bird’s neck, but as a chime announced the arrival of a guest, he scrambled to fasten the straps on the back of his head. Poet had little doubt that the crow was happy to have a beak far smaller than some birds had. The raccoon tried not to take for granted how easy having external ears and a muzzle helped with wearing masks. The first thing that the crow saw was Poet’s black cowboy hat.

“Howdy, sir! You checking out early?”

The raccoon decided to lie. “Howdy, sir! Actually, as it turns out, I’ve got a bit of a situation on my paws.”

The crow shuffled nervously and spoke with a voice teetering into panic. “Oh, goodness! Sorry to hear about that, sir. What’s wrong? Is there any way I can be of service?” The bird’s high level of concern for his guests seemed almost absurd when compared with other motel desk workers Poet had met before.

The mammal waved a paw dismissively. It naturally bent at a perfect right angle. “Oh, don’t worry. Nothing on your end. It’s just that my friend and I- a real big scaly gentleman- wanted to go hit the trails. And he wanted to watch the sunrise, but my lazy hide couldn’t be bothered with getting out of bed before eight. Problem is, he borrowed my car, and my phone charger’s in there, so my phone’s dead, and I’m a bit stranded. You wouldn’t happen to sell USB-C chargers, would you?”

“Um- no, we don’t sell anything electronic, but here, let me…” The bird then began to madly scramble throughout the drawers of his desk, his eyes widening the longer it took him to find anything useful. Eventually, he produced a black cable. “Here, you can borrow this!” It was a USB-A charging cable.

“Ahh, so sorry. That one doesn’t fit my phone.”

The crow was distraught. “Oh gosh, so sorry, sir. Let me…” He even fell out of his chair to check the floor, for whatever reason. Rusty drawers opened and closed noisily. “I can’t find any cords. You can borrow the phone if you’d like!”

“I’m a bit out of practice with remembering phone numbers, I’m afraid.”

“Ah, gosh. That’s a horrible situation you’re in, I’m so sorry.”

Poet rubbed at the fur on his chin. “It’s fine. I imagine I’ll just call an Über or a taxi or some such.”

“I’m afraid we’re a bit too out in the boonies for anything like that- Tell you what, I can call one of the other guys on staff to watch the desk, and drive you into town to pick up a charger.”

Poet waved his paw once more. “Oh, that’s not necessary, I can just wait.” He couldn’t wait, but the crow’s overeagerness was becoming awkward.

“Oh, no. I insist! It’s my fault, really.” It really wasn’t. “We should honestly have a charger around.” Poet tried to keep the white streak of fur above his eyes from rising. But if the motel worker was going to be this persistent, it almost seemed more awkward to refuse at this point.

“I can take you up on that, then. But do at least let me pay for gas-”

“Not a word about paying for gas. Just sit tight, I’ll get Alphie to cover for me in just a jiff.”

An echo of a thought crossed Poet’s mind. Whoever was pursuing Jack had stolen a cop car and impersonated a cop. To take over a motel would be a far easier task.

But the crow didn’t have any wounds, and the incident with the mysterious Wolf took place miles away. The alligator made sure to pick lodgings situated well off the beaten path. And most importantly, Poet wasn’t a paranoid person. Far too few people had trust in strangers anymore.

Jack passed a sign that indicated that he was just leaving Androscoggin Riverlands State Park. His mind raced far too fast to form a practical plan. He only needed to head west, and the navigation app on his phone told him that he’d achieve that goal if he turned left in one mile.

The Bloodhound wasn’t much further away.

Hendrik van Leeuwenhart died in Nova Scotia in 1899.

Just yesterday, Jack had held a conversation with the old ram, right before the alligator’s pursuers began to give chase. Hendrik decided to hold off on passing into the afterlife, and lingered as a ghost.

Powell, the Queen of Spades, had told Jack to seek Hendrick out on Oak Island. The brown-furred cat with a golden tooth disclosed the information over the phone while out in Switzerland for the Teleraine Gala. The alligator would find what he was looking for. All he needed to do was ask a ghost for directions. Jack had brought a Ouija Board.

It was a toy board, the first one that the alligator could get his claws on at a Goodwill store. The planchette was made out of petty plastic. It didn’t matter, if a ghost could drag heavy stone across an old wooden board, a ghost could drag a brittle plastic plaything across compacted paper.

Jack arrived at Oak Island just before the sun started to rise.

Hendrik van Leeuwenhart was a prolific thief and con artist. His family name, which translates into “from the House of Lionheart,” was entirely made up out of whole cloth to impress the European aristocracy of the 19th century. He was no heir in any prominent Dutch family, nor was he an heir to an Awngaimene House, for he was born a peasant and a Tystwole. But as time passed, and as circumstance thrust him into the magical world, Hendrik had decided to start a rich career in thievery.

He never burgled the wealthy in the cold of the night, creeping along mansion rooftops after the sun had set. The ram instead endeared himself to the wealthy directly. He’d stumble into invitations, make up wild fabrications about his own wealth and family status that no animal could corroborate, and snatch bits of jewelry or pieces of art that caught his fancy. At first, the task was noble. The ram kept a weather eye out for any magical artifact that had somehow ended up in the clutches of a clueless member of the Tystwole bourgeoisies. But as time passed, and as circumstance thrust him into more trusted positions, he began stealing mundane objects of wealth as well. The cure for greed hadn’t been discovered by medical professionals yet.

Van Leeuwenhart was never caught. His story was only told in Awngaimene circles.

As legend had it, his stockpile of valuable goods had never been uncovered either. His treasure was hidden out there somewhere, ripe for the plucking. There were no maps. No riddles. No esoteric clues leading to the vast treasure. The ram was last spotted delving into a series of catacombs in Indonesia, and then he was never seen again. Only one person had properly investigated.

But stranger still, Powell had discovered a lead more than a century after the ram’s disappearance. Hendrik had apparently drowned searching for the Oak Island Money Pit; a legend in its own right. The cat never told Jack how he stumbled across that fact, but it hardly mattered. The alligator was now in possession of a lead that countless witches had sought for more than a hundred years. One need simply ask a ghost for directions.

But Jack wasn’t searching for the treasure. He was searching for someone who also had that lead.

A day earlier, the skies of Nova Scotia were gray and stormy, though only a light misting of rain fell to the earth. The alligator felt foolish as he withdrew the Ouija Board from his duffel bag, laying the children’s toy onto the soil unceremoniously. Jack set himself up near a notable stone well, but decided to hide in a copse obscured by pine trees instead of contacting the dead out in the middle of a public trail. The pandemic had significantly cut the tourism to the island, but there was no merit in taking pointless chances contacting the dead in full view of any rogue hiker.

The Good Bon, the Jack of Hearts, was a flamingo and talented necromancer. He wrote down the components for a simple spirit channeling spell. The writing on the piece of notebook paper was neat and flawless, impressive considering that the flamingo had written in pen.

The Jack of Clubs lit three black tapered candles. Only one was required, but it wasn’t as though the alligator was wasting important ritual components. The candles were a dollar apiece. He then sprinkled a mixture of salt, grave dust, and ground up animal bone, then surrounded himself in a circle. Jack didn’t feel it prudent to ask for the provenance for the dust. He sat cross-legged, with the spirit board directly in front of him, and brought forth a small cotton bag filled with herbs with which to set on fire. One flick of the alligator’s lighter did the trick. He winced as the bag burned in the palm of his claws, but it was an important part of the spell that he suffer pain, and he could heal the burn wound afterwards anyway.

Jack then proceeded to chant the necessary phrase. The words were only tangentially related to Old English. His voice was low and gravelly.

“Ic clipe unc, gast anmal deaþ. Haewv ne unc fried, tod unupon deþ ungehálgod graf. I clipe unc, astyrt anmal. Gehiert mic, and answart aec deþ, hwilc ic jet lác, oder drohtoþ on ecnesse in wodnos, séder gast ierfan.”

The monologue was sloppy, full of awkward stutters, and entirely lacking in enthusiasm. But all the same, all three candles were magically snuffed out. Witches tended to find themselves entirely at ease amongst the dead, but the alligator was superstitious. The already chilly air dropped in temperature. The wind had ceased entirely. The sudden indication that a ghost was present caused Jack to startle. He brushed a significant amount of the salt mixture aside with a single swoop of his meaty tale. But this task was far too important for Jack to lose his wits so quickly. He placed his claws on the planchette and waited for the undead presence to guide them. A few moments passed in stillness, and the alligator remembered that he actually needed to ask a question.

“Am I in the presence of Hendrik van Leeuwenhart?”

A second passed, then another, then five, and then ten. Fear transformed into foolishness, and Jack was quick to blame the wind for snuffing the candles.

But then the planchette moved; not towards “Yes,” but instead towards the letter “L.”

L-E-A-V-E

It took an entire minute to spell the word out. The ghost was in no hurry to threaten the alligator with any expediency. It almost seemed deliberate.

The urge to flee caused the reptile’s hindclaw digits to flex, as though he’d break out into a dead sprint if anything touched him. But Jack steeled his nerves once more.

“Oh, dahbin io?”

A-W-N-

“Alright, I understand.” The word was too long to waste time spelling. “I am searching for your lost treasure. I wanted to ask where it might be, you left no clues behind. It is the year 2021, and no one has found it yet.”

No

Jack furrowed the pale ridge above his eye. “What do you mean? You won’t tell me where it is?”

No

“But- What do you mean?”

T-R-E-A-S-U-R-E-N-O-T-T-O-B-E-F-O-U-N-D

Forming complete sentences over a Ouija Board was a lengthy process, and nigh unbearable. And taking the time to pick words out from the jumbled mess wasn’t automatically easy when the alligator hadn’t written any of the letters down. Jack decided to take a different approach before deciphering the ghost’s less-than-useful response. “Listen, I know that no one’s spoken to you here before-”

The ghost interrupted the alligator by whisking the planchette across the board briskly.

N-O-T-T-H-E-F-I-R-S-T

Apprehension was once again melting into annoyance. “OK, that’s- I know that already. I just-

The planchette started to move without a question having prompted it.

N-O-T-T-H-E-S-E-C-O-N-D

This was new information. “Thank you for letting me know, but that’s not what I need right now. I just want to know where you hid your treasure. If you’ll tell me?”

W-H-O-A-R-E-Y-O-U

“I’m not- Fine. My name is Jack, I’m just… I’m looking for someone who’s looking for your treasure. I don’t care about finding the treasure, I just need to find her.”

The planchette remained still. Twenty seconds passed.

“OK, fine. She’s an alligator. She’s got pale scales, just like me. She doesn’t speak so… I have no idea even if she’s tried talking to you- I don’t know, this is stupid. But I need to find her.”

S-H-E-A-S-K-E-D-T-O-O

“Yeah, she asked where the treasure is, right?”

T-R-E-A-S-U-R-E-N-O-T

“Yeah, OK. ‘Treasure not to be found.’ But where did you send her?”

W-H-O

Did she even manage to get an answer out of the old ram? Or was the ram simply suffering from ghost dementia? Jack knew well that spirits of once-mortal animals had a very fleeting grasp on their own memory, though bits and pieces could be restored with time or magical know-how. The Jack of Clubs made sure he was speaking to the right ghost either way. “You’re van Leeuwenhart, right?”

Yes

“The treasure hunter?”

Yes

“OK. Was someone looking for your treasure?”

W-H-O

“Yeah, I get it. So… what, your treasure’s not here?”

Yes

“Which is- wait…” Jack got caught up in the double negative. “Is your treasure here?”

No

“So you just came to Canada and died?”

D-R-O-W-N-E-D

“Sure.” The alligator silently scolded himself for getting swept away by the background lore. He was here for a specific reason. “I’m just- Just, please. I’m looking for someone. I’m led to believe that she’s after your treasure. I just need to know where she’s headed.”

N-O-T-J-A-C-K-B-U-T-Q-U-E-E-N

The reptile witch wasn’t about to be put off by ghostly madness, and continued to plead undeterred. “OK, I can work with that. And where is she going?”

W-H-O

“Please. Listen. Your treasure is the only lead I’ve got. Please, just tell me where it is.”

The planchette remained still. Thirty seconds passed. And then:

C-H-I-H-U-A-H-U-A

Annoyance returned in full force. “Like the dog?”

No

“OK, then what-”

D-E-S-E-

“Alright, I get it. Desert.” Jack wasn’t entirely familiar with the map of Mexico, but vaguely recalled Chihuahua being the name of an area somewhere. His temper festered, but he couldn’t get mad at the ghost for that one.

“Fine. And where in Chihuahua am I supposed to go?”

The planchette moved to “No,” lingered off towards the letters again, and then stopped on “W.”

And for the next fifteen minutes, Jack pleaded with the ghost for more specific information. But the planchette remained in place the entire time. The light rain had slowly become more substantial, and the paperboard had gotten soaked to the point where even the planchette started to rip at the images printed on top. Jack dragged the plastic triangle to “Goodbye.”

And now he was driving out west, bereft of a substantial plan. The alligator had smuggled himself across the Canadian border with a glamoured document that tricked the border patrol into thinking that he was an essential worker. The same plan would most likely work a second time, but that was the extent of the Pack member’s strategy. All he needed was to get to Mexico. Chihuahua was only just across the border. Jack wouldn’t even need to find the treasure, he only needed to ask the locals if they’d seen another American alligator around. One who was deaf.

It was a flimsy plan, but it was the best that the Jack of Clubs could work with, considering that someone had plans to murder members of the Pack of Cards. And so, under the verdant canopy of trees that populated Maine’s wilderness, Jack made his way westward, opting to take the first highway he stumbled across.

Suddenly, the air became rife with the noxious scent of burnt fur. It was even potent enough to penetrate into the car. And then, something heavy rammed into the right side of the sedan that Jack had stolen. It was strong enough to knock the heavy vehicle into a ditch.

The crow’s beat-up pickup truck was more rust-colored than blue. The bumper had practically melted away. But the old beater got the motel employee where he needed to go. Poet and the crow, who’s name was Jeremy, were now headed westward. The top two buttons of his red, palm-tree bedecked shirt were open; it had gotten warm out. The two were headed in the opposite direction of the majority of the trailheads, but Poet improvised an alibi concerning a secret fishing spot that his friend kept rambling about. The widest sections of the Androscoggin River Basin lay eastward. The procyon passenger found it prudent to wear a mask in the stranger’s car when he saw another mask hanging from the rearview window.

When the raccoon saw his car left abandoned in a ditch, however, his skills at crafting an alibi were suddenly put to a more challenging test. The mammal had to keep himself from wincing at the cracked windshield and bits of plastic and metal scattered everywhere.

At first, Poet held his tongue, but Jeremy made a comment regarding the wrecked vehicle. “Buncha drunk drivers.”

A small, aggravated exhale fled the raccoon’s nostrils. “That’s actually my car.”

The crow’s eyes widened; his lower, nonchalant tone was suddenly thrust an entire octave higher. “Oh, shit- er, yeah, I can pull over.” Jeremy slowed his truck down and merged onto the grassy shoulder. He pulled the handle to the parking brake to make sure that his own vehicle didn’t slip into a ditch as well. “Are you sure that’s your car?”

“I didn’t get a look at the license plate, but it’s certainly the color and model.”

“Oh, gosh! Well, I’ll call 911. Is your friend still there?”

Inviting the police would make the situation far more dangerous. “Wait, hold off on that- It’s such a weird little thing, but my insurance rates skyrocket unless I go through an auto repair shop under their corporate umbrella.” Poet was immediately disappointed in himself; that poorly crafted fiction hardly seemed befitting of a successful writer.

“But your friend-”

“Well, naturally, if he’s hurt, we’ll call 911.”

The two animals crossed the road and investigated the damage. Thankfully, Jack wasn’t present at the scene, as a dead body or otherwise. Poet’s shoes were made for city streets, and would get ripped to shreds if left carelessly to the whims of mangled metal and plastic, so the raccoon tip-toed around the debris until he reached the driver’s side.

Jeremy watched from the street.

“Is your friend there?”

“No, he seems to have left the scene.” The door was left ajar, and with precise care, the raccoon gingerly opened it further in order to fetch the phone charger and car keys. The keys wouldn’t be useful whatsoever, considering the state of the car, but it was a force of habit. The raccoon’s apartment was unlocked with a key card.

In the backseat of the wrecked vehicle sat the package with a picture of the sun on it. Jack had left it behind.

Poet put his knees onto the driver’s seat and strained himself in order to grab the package. It wasn’t small enough to grab with one paw, but it sat snugly under the raccoon’s armpit once he grasped at it with two. The bird, from the side of the road, called out, “What are you doing?”

“Grabbing a few things. I found the charger though! I’ll call my friend once the phone’s charged.”

“What’s with the package?”

Poet rolled his eyes. “Honestly, it’s a long story.” A story that the raccoon wasn’t privy to. “If you want to head back, I can probably sort this out from the motel.”

“Didn’t you want to call your- um… roadside assistance guys first?”

“I have to charge my phone first to accomplish that.”

Jeremy smacked himself on the head with a talon. “Oh, in that case, you can just use my phone!”

The crow was far too helpful. Poet was completely unable to exit his presence with any grace, and once again, suspicion gnawed on the part of the mammal’s brain responsible for doubt. Poet decided to tangle himself further in his unnecessary web of lies. “I appreciate it, but I think I need to call the insurance office through my app. Otherwise I get charged the normal rate. You know how it is.”

“If you say so. I get it, though, all that insurance stuff just goes right over my head.” Poet carefully made his way to the roadside once more. A logging truck veered into the other lane to pass the two animals.

The corvid motel employee continued. “Welp, if you’re ready to head back, s’pose we should get going. Especially if you want to contact your friend.”

But Poet knew that Jack was somewhere out in the woods, doing something mischievous and inconvenient. And he wasn’t going to scour his limited Awngaimene contact list in the hopes of finding someone who potentially knew someone who possibly knew the Pack member’s phone number. To head back would be to reach the dead end of this mystery. Poet’s chances at finding Malvina would vanish the moment he stepped back into the crow’s truck.

Poet decided to forsake social niceties. Besides, if the crow were evil, there wasn’t much that the raccoon could do to defend himself.

“Jeremy, I think I’d prefer to look for him alone.”

The bird crossed his arms and shuffled his weight. “What’s all that about? I’m not just gonna up and leave you here.”

“I appreciate the help, but I haven’t been entirely candid with you, and…” Poet decided to completely trust Jeremy and fill in the gaps of the mystery; at least as much as he could without revealing the existence of magic. He wanted to believe that he could trust strangers. “It’s a bit embarrassing.”

“Well, shoot, if I’m getting in the middle of a lovers’ dispute, by all means-”

“No, no, nothing like that.” The raccoon chuckled at the thought. “I don’t really know him that well, if I’m being honest. We just have a mutual friend.”

The alligator was definitely good-looking. Poet would have been tempted to invite him into bed if he wasn’t in the middle of a baffling mystery, or if the witch wasn’t such a gruff asshole. The reptile’s massive tail did weigh nearly as much as the raccoon himself. One often hears things about men with big tails. But Poet went on. “I don’t know what his deal is, but apparently, the alligator’s not particularly opposed to grand theft auto. He took my car without telling me, but… maybe I’m being silly, but part of me thinks that I can handle this situation without calling the police, out of respect for our mutual friend. He probably just thought he could take my car.”

Jeremy narrowed his eyes and studied the crash, kicking an errant piece of the bumper further into the ditch. “You realize you’re still gonna need to call the police, right?”

“I’d rather find this guy and get our story straight beforepaw.”

The crow shrugged. “I can respect that.”

“I do really appreciate the help, though, Jeremy.”

“Not a problem whatsoever, sir. Too many people acting selfish these days.”

“Truer words were never spoken.”

Jeremy looked both ways, then crossed the street. “Good luck, sir.”

“Oh!” Poet fished through his pockets and handed off the hotel key card from his wallet. He slipped another twenty under the flat piece of plastic. “If it turns out that I do mysteriously disappear in the forest, I should probably check out first. And naturally, that includes the tip.” He boldly ran across the street and passed off the card. “Though thank you very kindly, Jeremy.”

“Anytime, sir. Thank you for the tip!”

“Naturally.”

Poet meandered off into the woods, foolishly trying to push aside the branches of a thorny, overgrown bush. Within seconds of braving the wilderness, the raccoon had found a tear in the sleeve of his shirt. If Jeremy was planning on hurling an unsuspecting fireball at the raccoon, now would have been the ideal time. But after their brief conversation, thoughts of the crow’s treachery were completely absent from the raccoon’s mind. He heard the pained sounds of an old engine attempting to come to life, and then, Jeremy was gone. Poet jammed the charger into his back pocket, held tightly to the package, and traipsed off into the wilderness.

The gash in Jack’s arm was far too wide and deep to be treated with magic performed on the fly. He was very proud of his aviator jacket, but had no strong feelings whatsoever for the five-dollar white T-shirt underneath. He ripped it off and attempted to soak up the blood that slowly poured from the wound. The jacket felt funny when rubbing up against the gator’s scales, but at least it couldn’t chafe. He’d have to teach himself how to sew sometime in the future.

Jack had heard a few tales about the Ghendryhkt Bloodhound, but today was the first day he found himself being pursued by one. That must mean that the other passenger in the faux cop car must have been a summoner, in addition to someone who could cast The Void Creeps In. It was convenient to find beings to make summoning pacts with if you could overlap another reality onto your own. But that also meant that the other passenger was alive.

The Wolf, after all, couldn’t cast any magic outside of The Magic of Silence. Such are the rules imposed by that particular Circle of magic practitioners.

The reptile Pack member didn’t catch a good enough glimpse of the Ghendryhkt Bloodhound when it first collided with the stolen car. Nor could he make out any details whenever the beast attempted to pounce. It moved with an unnatural speed, and only ever looked like a blurry streak, briefly layered over reality. Thankfully, Jack was quick enough to nullify the Bloodhound’s inertia the second and third time that the beast tried to leap onto its quarry. The first pounce ended up in a wicked gash on the pale alligator’s right arm, as well as the right side of his torso.

A menacing growl came from somewhere off to the alligator’s left. It almost sounded slobbery, as though the beast were rabid enough to choke itself on foam. Quick as a flash, it broke through a bush and pounced once more. A hurricane of leaves and broken branches flew out in all directions. Jack lifted his good arm, but instead of erasing the creature’s inertia, the reptile magician went on the attack. Jack sent a controlled dose of Applied Force and knocked the Bloodhound against a large tree with a sickening crunch. The creature was sent flying hard enough to crack the wood, but no harm came to the Bloodhound as a result. It quickly regained its composure and scattered off to find another hiding place.

The hound was certainly ravenous, and couldn’t stifle its hungry growls for too long, but it didn’t attack at every single opportunity. It knew that its prey practiced magic, and so it remained hidden and quiet, waiting.

Unfortunately, Jack was getting tired. Much like how a body part gets sore when you train a single muscle for too long, a magic users’ entire body starts to get fatigued if they practice intuitive magic for too long without a break. Shooting off unfocused blasts of force was less strenuous than nullifying the force of a specific target completely, but the alligator could feel his breathing become heavier, and his legs start to give out. Still, Jack had to keep moving until he reached some sort of clearing, or at least an area with far less trees to hide behind. He heard a guttural growl once more, directly behind him, and turned to walk backwards away from it, using his heavy tail to guide himself before he ran into a tree.

Perhaps the Bloodhound could feel the reptile’s fatigue. It pounced once more, though it didn’t bother with any plant cover this time. The magical creature moved too quickly for Jack to make out anything other than a lithe body with six legs and thin, dirty brown fur. Jack waited until the Bloodhound was mid-air before he pushed it back, but this time, he conserved his strength, only using half of the force he did previously. Instead, the alligator turned, and sent a blast of force point blank into the trunk of a dying tree, pushing it over onto the creature as it fell. The tree missed. The Ghendryhkt Bloodhound moved too quickly, even after sustaining an injury. Jack could only run and defend himself whenever possible, buying time in this unrelenting pursuit wherever there was a sale. He wouldn’t last much longer in this state.

Poet wore a mask; narratively appropriate, considering he was a raccoon. It is recommended to wear a mask during a pandemic, but there exist other masks with other utilities outside of keeping yourself safe from disease. But Poet wore no bandit’s mask to conceal his identity, nor did he wear a magical spell to betray the true emotions that lay within his head. He wore an imaginary mask like an actor wears an imaginary character. He played the role of someone that he was not. Like a cowboy in a western. And the mask read as sarcastic, and petty, and witty, and all the things that one might portray if they wanted to hide a hidden sense of fear.

One often wears a mask to hide from others. Some animals use a mask to hide themselves from themselves.

And so, even all alone, without an audience to appreciate the uncanny degree of sass, the thought at the top of the mammal’s head was thus: it wasn’t much of a State Park.

For one, Poet only wallowed through the choking, thorny wilderness of a choking, thorny forest for about the length of a city block before he stumbled onto another dirt road. He tore up his shirt and got brambles stuck to his brown-and-gray fur, and it was all for nothing. He started to amble down the dirt roads, passing by a few houses and a small cemetery on the way. There was even a mongoose doing some gardening in the front yard of a ranch-style house along the road. Poet, having dressed in the least optimal outfit for a hike, had to wave awkwardly and hope that the other mammal didn’t feel like asking questions.

The poor beast was anything but a tracker. He’d written a few investigative mystery scenes for Tighter Chambers, but none of the cursory research translated into expertise in the real world. For a moment, Poet thought he could keep an eye out for tracks indicating the alligator’s enormous tail, swishing about in the dirt road, but no marks manifested in the raccoon’s field of view. So he instead relied on his sense of hearing, and heard very little outside of summer songbirds and the unrelenting chorus of cicadas.

His scent of smell, however, found itself suddenly violated. Of all the rich scents of the forest, the raccoon couldn’t shake the scent of burnt fur and flesh from his poor palette.

After wandering down the road, completely heedless of the direction, the exhausted author stumbled across a trailhead. Poet thought that it’d be far less strange to walk on a dedicated trail than the side of a backwoods road. The tree cover would provide shade, and the raccoon would sweat a lot less, at least. The tight blue jeans left very little breathing room for the mammal’s furry legs, despite the tail hole, but at least the ripped-up silk shirt left him feeling breezy. The raccoon did worry about digging through his fur for ticks later. His body had already become a feast for the mosquitos.

Then, Poet heard what sounded like thunder.

The sky was hardly bereft of clouds, but none of them took on any hues of grumbling gray, so there was no way a sudden storm was rolling in. However, the thundering report didn’t sound anything like gunfire, unless the hunters of Maine preferred cannons to .22s. It sounded as though magic was being practiced, which worried the raccoon. When the Wolf had attacked Poet and Jack, they were sequestered off in some pocket dimension, far from the curious eyes of other animals. Tystwoles lived nearby, and if the animals weren’t in danger of being accidentally thrust into the clutches of a magical world, the practitioners of magic were in danger of meeting the blades of the Psychic Wardens.

Perhaps the most threatening thing a witch could come across, the Psychic Wardens were beings that manifested out of nowhere whenever an Awngaimene animal was in danger of revealing the secrets of magic to a Tystwole. They didn’t appear one-hundred percent of the time, and they never bothered magical creatures or menacing demigods, but every Awngaimene knew that the fickle beings were potentially seconds away from plunging a blade into a careless witch’s back if they practiced their craft too openly. That was one of the reasons that the Awngaimene had to keep their society a secret.

The stakes were now raised. Poet, completely unable to cast any spells, was theoretically safe from the Wardens, but he couldn’t help from casting the odd look behind his shoulder, scanning for any animal who lacked in discernable detail. The Wardens hid in plain sight, appearing as blurry apparitions with shifting details to those unlucky enough to spot one.

More thunder rang out throughout the forest. The nearby birds scattered, their song becoming silent. The lone mammal heard the noise of a tree fall. He wasn’t far off from whatever was occurring.

Poet fought the urge to call out, but his mind raced with possibilities. The procyon had no clue how the two animals in the cop car could have caught up to Jack, unless the alligator was facing a new magical threat. There was nothing the mammal could do to stop the crunching of leaves underpaw, nor could he stifle his staggered, heavy breathing under the hot summer sun. But all the same, Poet jogged lightly towards the strange sounds. There wasn’t anything he could possibly do to help the much-more skilled reptile from the Pack of Cards, but the man was Poet’s only chance at finding Malvina, and he couldn’t abandon him now.

Somewhere off in the distance, Poet heard the whistle of a train, and for a fleeting moment, he wondered whether or not the rumbling of the iron horse on its iron trail had caused the mammal to hallucinate the strange thunderous sound.

That’s when a large, furry shape flung itself from behind a bush and sprang towards the raccoon. Poet closed his eyes and brought his paws up, reacting subconsciously, as though he could defend himself from a massive predator. But instead of finding a few new claw marks in his hide, Poet noticed the shape simply glance off and slip into the underbrush once more. It was as though a major law of thermodynamics had just been repealed.

“The hell are you doing here?” screamed a familiar, gruff voice.

The mask withheld. “Investigating a car theft. What the hell is that-”

“No time, get behind me!”

A wounded Jack rushed to the raccoon’s side. Using his muscular, scaly arms, the reptile man-handled the squirming raccoon until he wrestled the mammal into a position safely behind himself. Said mammal was on the cusp of making another quip, but Jack first demanded, “Why the hell did you follow me?”

“Bitch, you stole my car!”

The point didn’t seem to resonate with Jack. “Do you have any idea what-”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d be fighting something right now! I saw my wrecked car, and like any rational animal, I-”

“Did you call the cops-”

“I did not call the cops!” Poet turned, so that his back was up against the alligator’s, though he mostly ended up just straddling the tail. It was difficult, keeping the gator’s spikey bits from jabbing into the raccoon’s sensitive bits.

Jack seemed taken aback, as though he assumed that Poet would call the police. It was almost as though he were fishing for something to yell at the raccoon about.

“Why didn’t you call the cops?”

“Well, ACAB, for one. But I also didn’t- I don’t know. Psychic Wardens and all that. And I kind of thought I’d find you and talk you into giving me my car back-”

A shape moved in the bush. The creature wasn’t stealthy enough to avoid detection. “There!” shouted Poet. The two animals twisted with an almost unpredictable grace, and Jack raised his uninjured arm to afflict the Bloodhound with another dose of Applied Force before it could even strike. The beast vanished once more. “Did you kill it?”

Jack grumbled. “No, the little bastard won’t die.”

“What is it?”

“The Ghendryhkt Bloodhound.”

Poet hesitated. “And what is-”

“No time to explain!”

The sound of a train’s whistle penetrated into the forest once more.

“I have an idea,” mused the raccoon.

Jack didn’t pick up on the dramatic cue. “Alright, what is it?”

“Well- We gotta get on that train-”

“I’m not jumping onto a moving train-”

Poet couldn’t help but utilize his penchant for sarcasm. “Fine, I guess we can just take my car again.”

“You are insufferable-”

“Ooh, that’s a lot of syllables-”

The Bloodhound pounced once more. For one second, the details of the creature's face were clear, as though the moment would become a perfect snapshot, forever preserved perfectly in the raccoon’s memory. Though the being’s body was almost shaped like a panther’s, its head had a far more uncanny structure. It was almost as though it were shaped like a smooth horse’s skull with a canine muzzle, with only the thinnest layer of light brown fur barely covering up the pale, bone-like flesh underneath. Streams of rabid foam dripped out of its open mouth. Instead of flat horse teeth, it had razor-sharp fangs, and though it didn’t have completely empty eye sockets, its penetrating yellow eyes sat uncomfortably far back into the creature’s head. It had six legs, and the two forepaws were posed to push Poet on the ground within seconds. The Bloodhound was pouncing from the mammal’s right side, so it wouldn’t just push him into the muscular alligator.

The raccoon could only chirp once in alarm. Jack was too late to cast anything. Pointed claws immediately dug into the raccoon’s furry chest. They didn’t penetrate deep enough to pierce the heart or lungs, but they certainly brought with them a measure of pain that the meek little writer was completely unfamiliar with up to that point.

Poet didn’t let go of the package, but when he fell to the earth, he could hear what sounded like ceramic breaking from within.

However, before the full weight of the Bloodhound was unleashed onto the smaller mammal, Jack was able to whip his tail upward, right into the creature’s stomach. This didn’t stop the momentum of the Bloodhound going forward, but it at least prompted the creature to writhe, bringing his claws out of the raccoon in the attempt to strike at the alligator. With a punch magnified with the magical power of Applied Force, Jack sent the magical being flying off instead. Being able to focus his strike with his physical claws instead of just shooting off the magic into open air, Jack was able to send far more force into the creature this time. Once again, the beast’s body managed to splinter the bark of a nearby tree, and once again, it recovered and vanished into concealment.

Jack offered his scaly paw to the raccoon, helping him to his hindpaws. “Are you good?”

Having been knocked onto his back, Poet struggled to catch his breath, grabbing at his bloody wound. He took the reptile’s claws, and wordlessly helped himself up.

“I said ‘are you good?’”

Poet struggled to speak, but finally found himself able to form words. “Breath… gone… but yeah… not dead.”

“Let’s just find somewhere-”

“We can’t… just keep running from that… It’s too dangerous.”

“Well, you can’t just jump onto a moving train!”

“Listen,” Poet had finally caught his breath. “They put way too many cars on the same train these days, I think they need to move slower. But still, they’re faster than us. We’re not going to outrun that Bloodhound otherwise.”

Jack scratched his head. Poet could see the blood starting to visibly pool through the alligator’s otherwise thick jacket. “Fine.”

The two animals started to run down the trail, using the designated path as long as they could before they’d have to abandon it and trudge through the forest’s thick foliage. It wasn’t too difficult to hear where the train tracks lay, especially after Jack’s magic managed to shut up all of the feral creatures of the forest. The reptile stayed behind, keeping the magic-less mammal in his sights at all times. He never once mentioned the package held tightly under the raccoon’s arm, nor did he explain why he left it behind.

Menacing growls behind competed with the noise of the rumbling train ahead. The two animals abandoned all plans regarding stamina conservation, and broke out into a full sprint. The trail bent to the right, and Poet pushed through the thorny bushes all the same. His entire chest burned with afflicted nerves and breathless exertion. Before long, the raccoon spied a normal, asphalt road, and on the other end were the moving carriages of a commercial train.

Somewhere within eyesight of the road, the Bloodhound pounced, but Jack was quicker this time. There weren’t any cars in the immediate area, thankfully, but Poet could see a few barreling down the road in the distance. Jack opted to utilize the Spell for the Moment this time, having conserved enough strength, and watched as the creature frantically tried to bite and scratch at the alligator, all to no avail.

“Quick,” screamed Poet. “Cars are coming!”

The two animals bolted across the road, but the Bloodhound didn’t follow. It was almost as if it were afraid to enter into any open areas. Poet and Jack ran heedlessly through the brief patch of forest and made their way to the tracks. As Poet predicted, the train wasn’t moving fast enough to render jumping onto the side of a train car impossible, but there was a separate problem entirely. Oil tankers and otherwise impenetrable cars passed by, and not a single one had an opening where an animal could find any footing.

Jack and Poet stood next to the pile of stones under the rail and watched helplessly as the plan fell apart. Until Jack shouted, “I’ve got this.”

He ran up to a rust-red wagon with a locked door. The lock was incredibly large, and bulky enough to prevent a feral elephant from ripping it off, but the alligator jumped onto the side of the moving carriage and grabbed at the lock anyway. Applied Force wouldn’t cause the lock to break, but nullifying the bottom half of the device’s inertia while applying force to the top half would increase the amount of damage exponentially. A nigh unstoppable force met with a practically immovable object, and the lock twisted, crunched, opened up, and flew off wildly into the wilderness, lodging itself two-thirds of the way into a large oak tree. The Jack of Clubs flung the door open and entered into the train, delicately holding onto his claw as though the lock had injured it.

Poet stopped and stared for a moment, completely stupefied, but then he realized that he actually needed to catch up to the train. Jack leaned his head out of the side of the car, but then his eyes went wide.

“Behind you!”

Poet didn’t bother with turning. He could hear the chilling growls of the Ghendryhkt Bloodhound without even looking. At some point, the predator had ignored its impulse to remain hidden, and crossed the road anyway. Mustering the miniscule remainder of his strength, and ignoring the screaming of his wounds, Poet broke out into a sprint towards Jack.

The train then started to pick up speed.

The raccoon didn’t even notice his chest injury anymore. His leg muscles had begun to whine out with far more agony than the open wound. He started to hold onto the package with both paws, but lost the charging cable along the way. There was no supernatural power that the little mammal could rely on, nor was there any biological phenomena outside of a surplus of adrenaline. Poet felt himself start to stumble. Jack was getting further and further away, once again abandoning the raccoon.

But Jack decided to jump out of the train.

He rolled awkwardly, and though a few dozen stones cut painfully into his back, the alligator was quick to find his footing. He promptly caught up with the raccoon, and blasted the Ghendryhkt Bloodhound with one last push of Applied Force. The witch attempted to magically shove the creature underneath the moving wheels of the heavy train, but unluckily, the beast flew off into the forest instead.

Jack grabbed the package and ordered Poet to “Hold onto my back!” Poet held onto the larger male’s shoulders, piggy-back style, and with the endurance of an athlete, the reptile Pack member was able to keep up pace with the train. His lungs screamed silently. His leg muscles threatened to burst like bloody balloons. The combined physical exertion made a poor bedfellow with the over-reliance on intuitive magic, and Jack had to ignore every impulse to pass out before he reached the open train car.

But in less than thirty seconds, the alligator had managed to catch up.

He threw the smaller mammal into the open compartment and flung himself in right afterwards, holding onto the cardboard package tightly. The train had started to move at a much quicker speed. The Bloodhound wouldn’t be able to keep up. His putrid aroma started to fade the further the train chugged along.

Once again struggling to find his breath, the mammal wheezed out a pathetic, “Thank you,” before slowly crawling over to sit next to the Jack of Clubs.

“Yeah, I’m glad we made it.”

The train headed south, but there’d be a bend in the tracks soon enough. It wouldn’t be long until the two animals were westward bound.

Miraculously enough, the raccoon’s mask kept itself intact, surgical and otherwise. “I’d say that… settles the debt… regarding the car.”

Schichtwry was munching on a Big Mac in the moonlit parking lot of a McDonald’s in Maine. He was ravenously hungry. The wood-colored mink was using the bed of a pickup truck as his chair. Régis-Louis finally made his way up to Maine in order to pick up the mustelid, though it took an entire day of driving to make it up there, and the blue flannel-bedecked, heavy-set black bear wasn’t about to take the mink to a hospital. Schichtwry knew that his right arm was broken, and wouldn’t have been surprised if a few of his ribs were as well. Still, problems would accompany going to a hospital with wounds like that. One would be inclined to report to the police. And that proved tricky, what with the mustelid dressed up like a cop without ever having set paw in a police academy.

The Silent Wolf sat quietly in the front seat of the truck. There was nothing she found important about the conversation.

“So what exactly is your plan now?” asked the ursine.

“I made a pact with the Ghendryhkt Bloodhound, right? Now, I know, I know. I’ve got no clue what realm the beast comes from, I just know I can get to it with my other magic-”

“I don’t give a shit about how your magic works. What does the Bloodhound do? I’ve never heard of it.”

Schichtwry polished off his burger and licked the ketchup from the ends of his stained digits. He still had enough ketchup and mustard on his face to serve as makeshift clown makeup. Régis-Louis continued. “Any day now-”

“Shut up. My mouth was full.” The mink coughed a little; his ribs hurt. “As I was saying, I can sense whenever a doorway to this dimension opens up. That’s how the Bloodhound gets around quickly; wormholes or some shit. I don’t got remote viewing or anything through the Bloodhound. I can just get a… I don’t know, a general sense of where it’s headed. Kind of like a psychic intuition, or- you know, how folks describe the Record. And it looks like Jack’s headed towards Boston.” The mink’s eyes narrowed like a feral predator’s mid-hunt. “We’ll catch him so easily.”

“But Desmond’s telling me that he already knew that, jackass, so I’m not sure how that helps.”

The rearview window of the truck was open. The Silent Wolf could hear the conversation clearly.

Desmond was the King of Clubs.

“We’ll be able to track him after he leaves from Boston, Lou. We’ll know exactly where he’s going-”

“But we wouldn’t need to track him if you and the Wolf fucking kidnapped him like you were supposed to.” Régis-Louis wasn’t aware that he’d made a point against an entirely unrelated argument. Some people just like to argue habitually.

The Silent Wolf was content with killing Jack instead.

Schichtwry thought it best to avoid mentioning the Wolf’s attempt at murder. He was only just then coming to terms with the fact that actual murder was a part of Desmond’s plans. “Well, he’s in the goddamned Pack of Cards! I’m not that good! We’ll catch him, though. We’ll catch him.” The smaller mammal spoke that last sentence with an almost fanatical fervor, as though maybe murder could find itself on the agenda after all. He then proceeded to shove seventeen fries into his mouth at once. “How the hell did he know we’d be after him, anyway?”

The bear let go of an exhausted exhale that he’d held for half of a minute. “Been scratching my head about the same thing. Desmond too. No one would have snitched, and that’s a fact.”

“All the better that the Bloodhound’s after him.”

Régis-Louis didn’t respond.

The day before, Schichtwry and the Silent Wolf had walked arduously from the wrecked cop car to the first abandoned building they could find. Some trailer in the middle of nowhere had been stripped of its furniture and left to rot decades ago. The feeble lock was no match for a well-placed bullet. The mustelid called the closest contact he knew, and the bear lived as far away as Philedelphia.

The Gray Patriots had only just begun to develop a presence in New England, despite a key member owning property there, but there was probably a single-digit amount of members living in the entire six-state area. At least until the Patriots got the Teleraine Academy involved.

Schichtwry whined and writhed after having drudged his broken body across several miles, but despite the complaining, the mustelid wouldn’t die.

The Silent Wolf made no conversation, nor did she help ease his suffering. For an entire day, she watched a motionless forest and made plans. Schichtwry tried in vain to sleep. Régis-Louis arrived and took the mink to dinner before taking him to a healer.

And the conversation between the mink and bear was useless. The Wolf thought up her plans alone. The Bloodhound was arbitrary. Desmond had found Patriot sympathizers in the Pack of Cards already, and the alligator’s whereabouts would be as easy to figure out as the effort required to send a single text. That wasn’t what concerned the Wolf.

Someone in the Patriots filled Jack in on Desmond’s plans.

One of the Patriots was a traitor.