{"sf1_id":5640,"sf2_id":"Wel7kYl1","title":"Maranatha - Chapter XIV - as told by Sybrand Brubaker","author":"khakidoggy","words":9406,"posted_at":"2005-05-03T01:31:00.000Z","tags":["Character Development","Food","Jackal","Lynx","M/M","Oral","Siamese Cat","Torture","Violence"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/5640-maranatha-chapter-xiv-as-told-by-sybrand-brubaker","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/Wel7kYl1","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/5f/b2/5fb201f7-d395-44db-bfa4-2d4670a51c2b","description":"#14 of Maranatha","content":"  \n  \n\n  \n\n  \n\nM A R A N A T H A  \n  \n  \n  \n© Osfer, May 2005  \n  \n  \n_All rights reserved.  \n  \n  \nMay only be distributed for free.  \n  \n  \nMay not be altered in any way.  \n  \n  \nContains material of an erotic and homosexual nature which may be illegal to  \nread in your country, state, province or region.  \n  \n  \nThe author takes no responsibility for transgressions on the part of the reader  \n  \n  \nComments welcome at  \n[[email\u0026nbsp;protected]](%5C)._\n\n  \n\n**Available on paperback in 2005**\n\n  \n\n[  \nMail the author](%5C) for information  \nor [  \njoin the mailing list](%5C)!\n\n  \n\nCheck out [Maranatha on WikiFur.](%5C)\n\n  \n\n~ Enjoy. ~\n\n  \n\n* * *\n\n  \n  \n\nChapter XIV - as told by Sybrand Brubaker.\n\nI am walking. The street is busy with morning people. People running to and from  \npublic transport stations and work, women ushering children to school, teenagers  \nobviously playing truant. Beside the pavement the road is just coming out of  \ngridlock, with less expensive cars populating the asphalt than just a few  \nminutes ago. Walking in Maranatha is a pleasant experience, if you don't mind  \nthe noise and the stink of fumes and of competing foodstuffs from the shops you  \npass, don't mind the annoying screech of youngsters being poorly managed by  \ntheir too-soft parents, of girls giggling and bitching about nothing, boys  \ntaunting each other about nothing, the glare of the bright winter sun overhead  \nand the air, just cold enough to give you a chill but just warm enough to make  \nyou sweat if you're clothed in winter garb, if you don't mind the drone of  \nhundreds of thousands of miserable lives, the flitting snatches of images and  \nphrases from radio stations blaring from open-windowed, horn-beeping cars and  \ntelevisions mounted in kiosks, news reports complaining about rises in murder  \nrates and this morning's brutal attack on the Sargasso building., if you don't  \nmind the homeless people littered liberally around the streets the farther you  \nget from the commerce district. Like I say, pleasant.\n\n\u0026nbsp; Two people are walking with me. One is annoying and can barely keep up, the  \nother isn't real and consequently can move through people, which is even better  \nthan the way I move between them. The one who can't keep up, who keeps getting  \nbumped into and has to trail behind me, is the jackal I saw with Tiber during my  \nsurgery and earlier, up on Tiber's floor of the Sargasso building. He's been  \nprattling on about how he knows of my reputation, and have I been working for  \nMister Ferrum long, and he only started working for him a month ago, he was a  \nbounty hunter of sorts before then, something that runs in the family, and then  \nhe mentioned his brother and became quiet. I don't speak to him at all, he  \nannoys me and I am trying to fathom just why Tiber wants him dead. That is, I  \nassume he wants him dead, because he ordered the jackal to meet me outside the  \nSargasso building once I got past the police and escort me into the city. It may  \nseem like a leap in reasoning, Tiber tasking this jackal, one Kierkegaard, to me  \nand my conclusion that he must be killed, but you don't know me, nor my  \nrelationship with Tiber.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; We have an understanding, he and I. Which is to say, he seems to understand me  \nbut I don't understand him, which fascinates me and is the reason why he is one  \nof the few people in the world I honestly don't want to kill, ever, because as  \nlong as he is in the world I am not totally unique. He has a predator's mind in  \na herbivore's body, something which never fails to catch his business  \nadversaries by surprise. It puts tremendous strain on his psyche, something that  \nI can relate to, though he seems to weather it much better than I. He doesn't  \nappear at all insane, something I can't boast.  \n  \nEvidenced by the second person walking along with me, Jeremy. He appears to me  \nas a grey fox dressed in grey, featureless clothes. A long grey coat with  \nshoulder-pads gives him an air of austerity, which his permanent friendly smile  \nbelies.  \n  \n\"Have you figured Maranatha out, yet?\" he asks me. I always listen attentively  \nto Jeremy, because he always has interesting things to say. By always I mean  \n'always when he speaks', which isn't often. I can go months or years without  \nseeing him, and then he'll be there, knelt beside a child I've been contracted  \nto kill, laying a hand on the child to calm her before I grip the back of her  \nneck and rupture her spine with my thumb-claw, or he'll be sitting on the  \ncounter of a hotel room kitchen where I'm frying up the kidneys of the bell-boy  \nI've been dismembering in the bathroom, and he'll strike up a conversation with  \nme. He is always insightful and I love seeing him. I try to kill most foxes I  \nmeet, because he tends to visit most often when I kill that species.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I ask Jeremy what he means, but my lips haven't fully settled into their  \nstitches and my new skin sits awkwardly on the muscles of my cheeks, so the  \nwords are garbled. The verbose, chattering jackal behind me pushes past two  \noverweight mothers arguing about the price of veal today to walk beside me for a  \nspell and asks me what I said, but I ignore him and as I return my focus to  \nJeremy, the jackal has to fall behind or impact the streetlight I pass.  \n  \n\"I can tell you now, and you can realize it later, or I can come back later,  \nafter you've realized it.\" Jeremy says. He has his hands clasped behind his back  \nand unfolds them for a moment to reach behind and between his shoulder-blades,  \nscratching. He does that often.   \n  \n\"Now,\" I say and my voice has a very different character than usual. Whatever it  \nwas Tiber's surgeons sprayed down my throat, it made my voice deeper, more raspy  \nand glacial, rough granite slabs mashing together. I like it.  \n  \nJeremy smiles at me, becoming translucent as he passes through a younger fox  \nwith headphones on. He doesn't need to ask why, even though I'd love for him to  \nvisit me again, I want to hear what he has to say now. I'm an animal, after all.  \nI will always elect for a little food now over a lot of food later, it's simple.  \nI look at him with great attention because if he's going to give me some clue or  \ninsight, it's monumental. It might even have something to do with the mission  \nI'm on, though it's very unlikely. I stop, and the jackal bumps into me, and  \npeople complain as they try to shove past me and through Jeremy's image.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Maranatha is a place where history repeats itself. Things don't just happen,  \nthey happen again. And people here never learn from their mistakes. You'll find  \nthis useful, I think.\"   \n  \nI gape at him. His insights have always been sharp, but more specific. He taught  \nme the love I have for, and the care I take of, my fingers as killing  \ninstruments. He taught me that I can observe my emotions and my body's pain with  \nthe same detachment with which I can observe my toes. He taught me to accept the  \nthings that happen to my body on my long, winding road toward death, and to  \naccept that that road will be littered with corpses and that I should enjoy that  \naspect of my existence as well. Let me repeat, for clarity's sake, that Jeremy  \nis a figment of my schizoid mind and that he taunts me and drives me to draw out  \na particular torment as often as he tells me insightful things.  \n  \nBut this degree of revelation is new. He's never mentioned anything that doesn't  \nhave anything to do with me personally, and here he's talking about the nature  \nof this city. He's already fading and it's as if the jackal can now move more  \nfreely, as the pedestrian crowds thin out and he can walk more comfortably  \nbeside me, tugging his coat collar down now the wind isn't so fierce.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Who was that?\" he asks, walking beside me as we stroll past a baker's shop. The  \nsmell of fresh bread is intoxicating, especially when mixed with the faint scent  \nof offal from the containers behind the butcher's across the street. These so  \ndistract me that it takes me a little more than a second to become curious about  \nwhat the jackal just said. \"That gray fox you were talking to.\" He must be  \nconfused, or perhaps there simply happened to be a gray fox walking near me when  \nI was conversing with Jeremy. At any rate, I feel I am nearing my destination  \nand I ignore him.  \n  \nThere's no one thing in particular that tells me this, not the sight of the  \noppressively looming skyline in the distance, nor the more weather-worn look of  \nthe buildings in this part of town. Not the hurried, eyes-to-the-ground manner  \nof the blandly dressed pedestrians, no doubt selecting the drabbest possible  \nattire so as not to accidentally spark the ire of a gang whose 'colors' they are  \naccidentally wearing. Some of those gang folk are plainly visible, congregating  \naround expensive cars in their expensive clothes, waving expensive guns and  \ndoing expensive drugs to distract them from their all-too-cheap lives.  \nUnconsciously, my fist clenches with the desire to put a few of them out of  \ntheir misery, or to see, purely out of curiosity, whether I could survive if I  \nsimply ran into that group on the corner and started shredding them.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; But the day's still early, and there's plenty of time for that.   \n  \n\"Do you have a gun?\" I ask the jackal at my side. He grins and nods and can  \nbarely keep up with me when I round a corner between two buildings. I'm getting  \ncloser to where I need to be, I can feel it. You're aware of the childish old  \nmetaphor, \"you're getting warmer,\" yes? I never understood that. When I approach  \nsomewhere I need to be, whether I know it specifically or not, it feels to me  \nlike the air gets thicker, like it's more difficult to move until I penetrate  \nthe very heart of this obstruction and find myself precisely where I am required  \nto be.  \n  \nI positively grunt with effort, pushing through the webbing of this resistance  \nand my paces slow, much to Ulrich's confusion. To his credit, he doesn't comment  \nor complain. I might not make his death too painful. Perhaps even instantaneous?  \nI'll see how I feel when the time comes. In the meantime, I almost trip over my  \nfeet as I push through the last of the pressure and re-enter 'thin air', so to  \nspeak. My jackal guard - how like Ophios! - follows with some confusion and  \nblinks in the sunlight that bisects the brick-building-enclosed plaza we find  \nourselves in, casting a line of light straight through the middle of a shadowy  \nsquare.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The light is my path and I experience a hilarious, divine ecstasy as I spread my  \narms and imagine myself performing a balancing act on a beam of golden sunlight  \nacross an abyss of depravity, as an errant son of Mafdet - no, with my new face,  \nhand-stitched and hand-stolen from my dear colleague Claude, I ought to  \nrepresent a panther god, should I not?  \n  \n\"Do you know any panther gods?\" I ask Ulrich, who follows me with some confusion  \nas, in the purest elation, I walk foot-over-foot along the thin line of  \nsunlight, arms outstretched far enough that one could see the slightly red seam  \nbetween the panther fur covering my hands and wrists and my natural stippled  \ngrey hide running up toward my elbow and further. As my eyes adjust to the light  \nI can see the huddled figured in the shadows more clearly... Bums. Homeless.  \nTransients. Intransigent, despite their ability to adapt to their environs. I  \nknow these types. Many claim not to want a regular life, so comfortable in the  \nsegregated, semitransparent reality in which they live, so distant from everyday  \nlife that they believe themselves to have a unique perspective on it. Illusions.  \nI clear my throat.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Robert Holloway.\"  \n  \nI said these words quite softly, so it's unsurprising there's no reaction, not  \neven a twitch. I repeat it, a little louder and now I notice some shuffling on  \nthe northern border of the little plaza of poverty. People move to the side,  \nrevealing something of a tent made of rags and patches of cardboard and similar,  \nhardly distinguishable from any other such structures. Then something flashes in  \nthe tent's opening, something yellow and I stagger back as if I'd just been  \nshot.  \n  \nThe concrete surges beneath me in waves, I try to balance myself but the  \nmovements are too quick and I'm rolling over the ground, holding my ears -  \nClaude's ears - and the pressure makes blood seep from the seams. I let go,  \nquickly, but only because the pain in my stomach begins to outweigh the bashing  \nagony in my skull. I open my mouth to scream but the sound comes out as a  \nchoking, hacking gurgle as my stomach empties itself and in the process of  \npurging, my vision returns to normal and the pain ends.  \n  \nI tremble, and I'm still unbalanced, but I spit the sick out of my mouth and  \nonto the yellow puddle on the floor and stand up, blinking to see, and find  \nthere's clear motion from the square's denizens toward the two or three small  \nalleys that offer routes of escape. My hand clasps the jackal's shoulder,  \nfingerclaws extended through the holes in Claude's hide, and they pierce  \nUlrich's coat - his name was Ulrich, wasn't it? - and shoulder and he winces,  \nbut doesn't pull away. \"Kill anyone who tries to leave.\"   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Those words, and the flash of the jackal's gun as I let him go, cease the ripple  \nof movement and this fetid little pond of poverty returns to perfect stillness.  \n\"Good,\" I say with a smile, righting myself, and the stillness turns to frozen  \nparalysis. I always sense a particular kind of shock from people when they  \nwitness someone, in this case myself, suffering very powerfully and then  \nrighting himself as though it bothered him no more than would a modest burp. The  \nfact that my eyes, ears and wrists are bleeding probably helps. \"Now. Robert  \nHolloway,\" I repeat and I proceed toward the tent, now abandoned by its  \nneighbors. From inside there's the stirring again, a gruff cough and a flash of  \nyellow that makes me dry retch again, though this time it doesn't catch me off  \nguard and I can take the searing pain in stride, keep walking on my unsteady  \nlegs and focus through the alternately green-red haze that poisons my vision.  \n  \n\"I'm Holloway,\" says the gruff voice. No fear, which would be curious if coming  \nfrom a citizen, but far less rare coming from a bum with nothing to live for. I  \nmake a quick judgment as to his nature, and decide he runs on guilt. It is guilt  \nwhich motivates this man to segregate himself from society and to cloister  \nhimself with this filth. Here, he can do the least harm. Interesting.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Do you know why I'm here?\" I ask. My voice is raspy, stomach acid having given  \nmy throat that typical rawness, the spasming in my abdomen causing a continuous  \nwarble to my voice's timbre. I wonder what that yellow thing is that so excites  \nmy instincts that my body reacts so violently to it. I wonder, as well, whether  \nRobert Holloway is going to cause any clarity to form on the subject of why  \nTiber called me to Maranatha, why he pitted me against Claude, and what the  \nsignificance is of the names he had me memorize.  \n  \n\"Ain't got a goddamn clue, bud,\" is what Robert Holloway replies as he climbs  \nout of his tent, but initially I don't hear him because a thunderous buzzing  \nobliterates my hearing, as of a septillion perfectly harmonious wasps which had  \nsuddenly swooped, hummingbird-like, into a perfectly static crystalline  \nformation on the inside of my skull. After my hearing, my sight spirals toward  \nabsence, first the color fades from everything and then the shape, leaving me  \nwith blobs of light and dark which my brain tells me have meaning - 'wall', is  \nwhat one blob means and 'gun' the other and I know this despite the fact that I  \ncan't differentiate the blobs, and then there are so very many that my mind  \nshudders to contain them all. Brick, person, belt, sky, cloud, dust, dirt,  \nconcrete, leather, face, enamel, oil, all of the concepts we normally only  \npassingly contemplate and instinctively process now clamoring and crowding to  \nfit, at once, in my consciousness. And while that consciousness is, as I've  \nindicated, exceptionally expansive, it's by no means enough to contain the full,  \ntotal realization of even this small space around me. As if in response to the  \npressure in my mind, my body tries to empty itself again and wet slime passes my  \nlips, a sensation so clear and unilateral that I cling to it for support.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I must be flailing and screaming, I usually do when this happens. I can only  \nimagine Ulrich's panic, employed to guard someone with a reputation greater (or  \nworse) than Jack's, now mentally degenerated to the unrestrained capacity of a  \nchild with a vicious migraine and tasked, as well, with the duty to keep the  \ndenizens of this plaza pacified. I can't imagine what it would be like to be  \nintimidated by a situation like that. It must be wonderful.  \n  \nOne color emerges from the zero-gravity maelstrom that surrounds me and punches  \nthrough me, and it's yellow. I hunger for it suddenly, with a purity that  \noverrides all over sensations, like a child hungering for a particular type of  \nfood, its brain tricked by millions of years of evolution to transform the  \nbiological process of comparing the food's nutritional value discerned by scent  \nto the nutritional deficiencies of its body into the emotion of desire. I desire  \nthat color, that object, I ache for it. And like any predator, without  \nrestraint, I pursue it.  \n  \nThe yellow is wrapped around a body and with all my strength I work to extract  \nthat meat object from the precious color. Merely touching it causes my sense of  \nbalance to return, my vision instantly clarifying, though the low, buzzing hum  \ncontinued unabated. I scream, I know this because I feel my jaw ache, I scream  \nwith all my being and finally, finally I have what I need, I have the yellow and  \nthe hunger abates and the assault on my senses abates and the pain abates and I  \nstand, upright, laughing.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Ulrich's eyes show their whites and every single pair of nicked or torn ears in  \nthe square is folded back as far as they'll go. . If shock was what these people  \nexperienced after my recovery from vomiting, there isn't yet a word to describe  \nthe nature of the paralysis that grounds them as, after my fit of trembling and  \nrolling and screaming, I am suddenly calm, and chuckling.  \n  \nI'm wearing a yellow raincoat, you see, and I find this terribly funny. As an  \nexperiment, I grab the hem, moving to take the coat off, since It's pulled on  \nover the leather jacket I was already wearing, but just as I suspected, my  \nstomach heaves again. My body, or my subconscious, or perhaps some other facet  \nof me entirely wants this coat and won't let me be without. That's fine by me. I  \nhave other things to think on.  \n  \n\"Jesus Tapdancing Christ, man! For fuck's sake, take it, take it!.\"  \n  \nThe body I had taken out of the coat is now lying on the ground, his shirt torn,  \nexposing a rotund belly with the typical coloration of a badger. The old male's  \nface is so grimy one can barely see the white stripes along his face and one  \nmight take him for some sort of bear, in the dark. \"You are Robert Holloway,\" I  \nstate and I sense that Ulrich takes comfort in the way I return to business,  \nprompting him to return to his, which isn't difficult since the crowd he has to  \nkeep quiet is utterly paralyzed. \"Where did you get this coat?\" Robert Holloway  \nmakes a few noises signaling confusion, so to help him clear his mind, I stroll  \nto one of the walls, where a large white polar bear, pupils narrow and eyes  \nred-rimmed from drug-abuse, take the lit joint from his lips, pick up the  \nwhiskey bottle he's loosely, limply cradling, roll up the sleeves of my precious  \nyellow coat - there are some gasps, as this exposes the seams where my  \ngrey-furred arms are stitched to the sleek black-furred gloves I'm wearing - and  \nsmash the bottle over his head, dousing him in foul-reeking whiskey, giving him  \na quick stab in the ample belly with the broken bottleneck before tossing the  \njoint in his face, causing him to start burning.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; He's groaning, trying very slowly to bat out the flames, clearly riding a  \nrecently scored high and unable to adequately rise to the occasion. Blood spurts  \nin a little fountain from the gash in his belly while his face and upper body  \nburn away and there are further gasps and shrieks, though none move for fear of  \nUlrich's weapon, instead huddling together against the walls, literally clinging  \nto each other. I smile. It's not that they have any love for one another, these  \npeople. They just want to make sure their neighbors don't move out of the way  \nand leave them as lone targets.  \n  \nThe badger is reacting to what I have done. Remarkably quickly for a male of his  \nsize he rises to his feet and charges, thick arms outstretched. I straighten my  \ncoat, put one foot backward and dart my other hand forward to grip him by the  \nmuzzle, instantly ceasing his motion. My spine and my injured knee catch the  \nmomentum; there's some pain, but it produces the desired effect - awe. \"Robert  \nHolloway,\" I say patiently as I push the male back to the ground, the polar bear  \nhaving now ceased his groaning. Likely he's died of asphyxiation, too high to  \nnotice any of the pain. I feel sorry for him. \"Robert Holloway, if you answer my  \nquestions I'll most likely simply leave. Where did you get this coat?\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Robert Holloway seems more clearly now to understand the nature of his  \nsituation, and he answers. He tells me he found it in a dumpster downtown  \nrecently, though actually he found it earlier. I ask him what he means,  \npatiently, because people tend to babble unclearly when they're frightened. He  \nexplains that he found it months ago, and kept it, and then gave it away to a  \nhandsome young male, with whom he slept, and that he later found the same coat  \nin another dumpster. His sentence doesn't end quite right and I perceive that he  \nhas more to tell about this person, but he is difficult, so I stand up and walk  \nin the direction of one of the walls, where the huddled people start to shriek  \nin panic until Robert Holloway calls me back, explaining that, mere days ago, he  \nmet the young male again and that they coupled again, but that he looked  \ndifferent.  \n  \nWhen he's finished speaking, he looks at me, and I look at him. A destitute old  \nman, lying on the floor at the mercy of criminals and madmen, who could be a man  \nwith a house and a family or a lover or at the very least a place in society,  \nwho would be a benefit to his neighborhood and to all who knew him, but for his  \nwretched, self-chastising guilt over something he did or didn't do, which he  \nfeels should have happened otherwise. I contemplate, once again, what guilt is,  \nbecause while I know the word I have never experienced it, like love or  \naffection.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; My silent contemplation lasts just long enough for me to realize that I feel no  \nneed to ask more and that I have lost interest in this place, so I turn, and I  \nwalk away, and once I reach the street Ulrich understands that this isn't a  \ndramatic gesture but that I'm genuinely leaving, I hear him shout some threats  \nand fire a gunshot, which may have been in the air or into somebody, I don't  \nknow. Shortly thereafter the jackal comes jogging out of the alley and onto the  \nstreet and falls into pace next to me.  \n  \n  \nBy the time Ulrich and I reach a place where I feel like stopping, which is at  \nleast an hour or two of solid, silent walking, I have developed a measure of  \nappreciation for the jackal. He hasn't asked any questions, and while, in part,  \nthis is because he fears me, I feel it is also because he is beginning to  \nunderstand what I am and how I function. I feel rather comfortable with him now,  \nand have spent some time during the walk considering methods of killing him that  \nwould most show him my appreciation.  \n  \nWhen I stop, immediately Ulrich is at my side, reaching under his jacket for his  \ngun, but I lay my hand on his and stop him. \"We're not here because of a name on  \nthe list, Ulrich. We're here because...\" I scan my surroundings, letting it inform  \nme why I've chosen to stop here and when I'm faced with a splendidly crafted  \nsign with gold letters on a red background, I understand, and it makes me smile.  \n\"We're here because I'm hungry.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The windows of the Dong Ma Eatery - an understated name for what looks to be  \nquite a prosperous restaurant, perhaps hinting at more humble origins - are dark  \nand there are no lights on inside. The sun on the streets is at its peak,  \ncasting a dry, pale warmth to battle with the hesitant frost that's been  \ncreeping in and out of the air all morning. When I stand at the glass door for  \nover a minute, Ulrich looking rather anxious behind me, all the more so when he  \nsuddenly jumps at the sound of a distant police siren, an older fox appears on  \nthe other side of the door. He shakes his head, and then his arms to the  \nnegative. \"I'm hungry,\" I explain to him, but he continues shaking his head.   \n  \n\"Close, close,\" the old fox enunciates, pointing at the sign to the side of the  \ndoor, indicating the Eatery's opening hours. He turns his back to me and takes  \nhis mop out of his bucket to continue vigorously cleaning the white-and-black  \ntiled floor. I knock on the window again.  \n  \n\"I'm hungry,\" I repeat and reach into my pocket, finding a money clip. I've  \nnever fully understood money, and while Tiber has frequently offered to explain  \nit to me I've always found my interest to start wandering after the first few  \nsentences and we both simply gave up. The roll of bills is quite thick, and I  \ntap it against the window, which attracts the old fox' attention. \"I'm hungry.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; This time, the meaning of my words seems to ring home and the fox immediately  \nsets his bucket and mop aside and runs to the door, jangling keys to unlock the  \nlocks while he shouts incomprehensible commands over his shoulder with obvious  \nenthusiasm. Ulrich and I are led into the restaurant, whose lights flicker on  \nsuddenly and the older fox bids us to wait at the 'wait to be seated' podium  \nwhile he closes the door and begins to draw the curtains on all the windows, a  \nlaborious task which he takes to with relish.   \n  \nThe colors are dark, rich and deep, reds and blues, the mere sight of which  \ngives the sensation of being wrapped in velvet, all decorated with gleaming gold  \nand onyx, or crafty simulations of such materials. The chairs are high-backed,  \nwith thickly padded upholstery and the large round tables of deep-varnished  \nmahogany are spaced far apart. I must be holding a lot of money, that the  \nproprietor of such a fine establishment should alter his regular opening hours  \nfor me.  \n  \nThe money is pressed, in full, into the hand of a young Siamese cat whose gender  \nI can discern neither through sight nor scent, which is uncommon for me. The  \ncreature, whatever the case, is beautiful in appearance, garb and manner, and  \nsoon joined by four more, all wrapped in black silk robes, tight around the flat  \n(or flattened) chest and wide, sensual hips, flowing loose about the legs, whose  \ncream-colored hide sometimes teasingly offers glimpses through the nearly  \nimperceptible folds and bands of the garment. They appeared out of nowhere,  \nthese Siamese, and though they have no features that distinguish one from the  \nother I become aware that every time one of them disappears, gracefully  \nvanishing into the discrete, recessed black doors that lead to the service area  \nor to the kitchen, it is a different cat, identically dressed, which reappears.  \nThis is curious, but it entirely fails to attract my interest and I am quite  \ncomfortable.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Soup bowls with those elegant porcelain spoons the Chinese favor,  \nblack-lacquered chopsticks with gold engravings which, considering the  \nearnestness of our hosts, will most likely be destroyed after our meal. Carafes  \nof spring water and red wine are placed on the table without Ulrich or myself  \nasking for them and to drink from them we have the choice of crystal glasses or  \nbowls. This thoughtful blending of Western and Eastern culinary styles is  \ncontinued in the plate setting, which is complimented by jade plates with gold  \ntrim and silverware which is as decorative as it is functional. Menus are  \nproduced, thick, leather-bound books displaying pictures of almost every meal,  \nand are removed as quickly as they appeared when Ulrich makes his selection and  \nI show no interest whatsoever. With a smile and a nod, the Siamese who takes the  \nmenu from me assures me that the chef's selection will not disappoint.  \n  \nAll this, mind you, without a word. Only soft, bare footsteps, the rustle of  \nsilk, the gentle clink and ting of tablesetting and soft, ephemeral music, in  \nshort, it's utterly sublime. I wonder if any of my victims now reside in  \nafterlives as sublime as this. I wonder if I will, when my time arrives. I  \nconsider that if my existence has to continue beyond this wretched life, I would  \nlike it to be like this.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; As we wait, and simply enjoy the atmosphere of utter peace and luxury, all but  \nfour of the cats depart. Their slitted eyes display a serenity and calm I rarely  \nsee and their motions are mesmerizing in their fluidity. Hips asway,  \nblack-tipped tails trailing after them like smoke after an incense bowl and with  \nperfect synchronicity they circle the table, feline muses smiling soft smiles as  \nthey regard my jackal guard and his panther prince. Such a pantheon we  \nrepresent, it brings tears to my eyes.  \n  \nA look of shock, then from one of the cats and the manner in which that shock  \ndissipates tells me this one, at least, is a male, though I know no more about  \nthe others than before. The shock was at the sight of my stitches. The jacket  \nunder my precious raincoat fell open, it seems, exposing, ha ha, my seams. I  \nregard the felines who share a look as they unzip the jacket under my raincoat  \nand peel the collar back as if they understand that removing my yellow raincoat  \nwould mean the death of them all.   \n  \nOne straddles my lap side-saddle, the male, and he's a creature of silk and air,  \nso light. He takes my hands and holds them, palm-up, bidding me to hold them in  \nhis position while he peels my sleeves back. The other stands behind my chair  \nand frees my neck from obscuration by the triple collars of shirt, jacket, coat  \nand my whole body shivers deliciously as two pairs of delicate feline hands  \nstroke my bloody stitches. The shivers turn to chills and back to shivers when I  \nfeel a coolness around wrists and neck, and I must have experienced another,  \nbrief episode because there are now bowls of water on the table, one wine-red  \nand the other nearly clear and a pile of square linen napkins which the felines  \ntending to me take, wet, and apply to my stitches to clean them, squeezing the  \nreddened napkins out over the wine-colored bowl before they lay them in a  \nbasket.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp;  \n\nA thing lays.  \n  \n  \n  \nA person lies.  \n  \n  \n  \nI've never lied in my life.  \n  \n  \n  \nAm I?  \n  \n  \n  \nBeautiful.  \n  \n  \n  \nEverything used to be so beautiful.  \n  \n  \n  \nJimmy Knuckles, how could you?\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \nMy Ophios is enjoying himself. While I'm enjoying the bathing by my curiously  \nmute and furiously cute attendants his pair of felines is treating him to  \ndifferent kind of cleansing. Apparently his dick was in need of cleaning  \nbecause, by the bobbing of the lower Siamese' head just below the table it's  \ngetting a thorough tongue-bath. Either the young cat had his or her tongue  \nsurgically smoothed like some of the working boys like to do (such a challenge,  \nto be a feline cocksucker - I wonder if I should try it sometime?) or he's a  \nmaster at his art because Ulrich is thoroughly enjoying himself. He's sprawled  \nout in his chair, balanced perfectly on its hind legs, swayed back and forth by  \nthe sensuous motions of the two felines, one at his feet, the other, like mine,  \nbehind him, sharing open-mouthed yet shallow kisses. Ulrich's eyes are closed,  \nhis jacket open to reveal a sweater-clad chest which I know, without seeing it,  \nbears even more scars than even my body does.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Time passes. He climaxes, his sighs suddenly laden with a high-pitched whine,  \nthe cat at his feet slowing the bobbing of his or her head... But the scene  \ndoesn't change, and it continues, and Ulrich climaxes again and only then does  \nhe open his eyes. By this time, my stitches are cleaned and feel far more  \ncomfortable, even my clothes have been washed, as much as possible without me  \ntaking them off, and I have hardly a bloodstain to show for the surgery I  \nunderwent mere hours ago. Ghost-like, the four felines vanish through the wooden  \ndoors and before they can even fall shut behind them, Ulrich and I both already  \nwincing at the loud slam that's going to ruin the blissful calm we've been  \nenjoying, others come through, the Siamese in their silk wrappings, one after  \nthe other, carrying bowls and baskets and trays, dozens of dishes, each of them  \nof sufficient quantity to sate the appetites of five healthy men, each of them  \nintended only to be sampled and enjoyed.  \n  \nI wonder at these creatures, who orbit my jackal guard and me so ephemerally.  \nEvery movement of their gorgeous bodies invites one to take them for granted,  \nencourages it even. Why are they here? Why are there so many such exquisite  \nbeings in an admittedly prosperous, but still ordinary 'eatery'? The obvious  \nmethod of obtaining an answer to that question would simply be to kill one of  \nthem, for the purpose of discerning how they would respond. Would they huddle In  \nfear, would they attack me... Either way, their response would give me information  \nabout their nature, the purpose of their presence here and their relationship to  \nthe aged grey fox who opened the door for us. Perhaps my initial instinct was  \nflawed - a hideous notion, as I'm sure you'll understand, but it's been known to  \nhappen from time to time. Perhaps these felines own the restaurant and the old  \nfox merely was a janitor.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I take one of the creatures by the hand - even the smoothness of their fur  \ninvites a more delicate touch than I intended. How very curious, their magic.  \n\"Tell me,\" I ask the feline as I draw him or her onto my lap, a position the cat  \ngracefully inhabits, leaning its modest weight on me and treating me to the  \npress of hip and thigh as it extends a perfectly coiled arm to the table and  \ndeftly takes two chopsticks in its fingers, bringing some fried vegetable or  \nanother toward my lips. I accept the morsel and it delights me to such a degree  \nthat I begin to purr, Ulrich laughs at this, he himself stuffing his face with  \nthe delicacies presented on the table, but I'm so entranced with the cat on my  \nlap that I can't even be bothered to walk around the table to impress upon the  \njackal the impropriety of his reaction. \"Tell me,\" I continue, lickin my  \nunfamiliar lips, \"Why is it I feel no desire to kill you?\"  \n  \n\"Perhaps we are not for you to kill,\" say all the cats at once, dulled voices  \ncoming even from the doors, droning from above as if every one of the Siamese  \nspoke the words at once. I nod and politely push the cat off my lap, much to its  \nsurprise.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Thank you,\" I say as I stand up and take a bowl of fried pork from the table,  \nand I've pushed the outside door open and walked onto the street before Ulrich  \ncan break the spell of the eatery's peace. I stand outside with my bowl, waiting  \nfor Ulrich to emerge which, after a few moments, he does. He's zipping his pants  \nup and blinking in the light and quickly zips up his jacket even though it isn't  \nnow as chilly as it was this morning. Disappointment of an almost child-like  \nquality emanates from him despite his attempts to keep his demeanor dour and his  \nears pricked upright. He loved being in there and, though he knew he wouldn't be  \nin there forever - he's clearly a man raised with disappointment from when he  \nwas very young - he had counted on being in there a little longer and would have  \nliked to know a little beforehand when I intended to leave, so that the  \ntransition from the soft, heavenly embrace of the room and the service and the  \nmeal to the coldness and noise outside wouldn't be so abrupt.  \n  \n\"I was hoping I could sneak out back to the men's room to bang one of those  \nkitties,\" the jackal says mournfully, stuffing his fists in his jacket pockets.  \n\"Why did we have to leave all of a sudden?\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I look at the Dong Ma eatery, and concentrate very deeply. Not on the sight of  \nit, in particular, its windows drawn, its sign unlit, but on my memories of it,  \nmy experiences. \"Because it was weird,\" I answer my jackal guard and begin to  \nstuff sweet and sour sauce into my nostrils. Ulrich completely abandons his  \nattempts to understand me and I smile, which causes him to remember whom he's  \nserving, and shuts him up. I, meanwhile, my olfactory senses appropriately  \noverwhelmed by the pungent sauce, concentrate. As I said, very deeply.  \n  \nThe half-empty noonday streets vanish from my experience and are replaced with  \nhalf-empty evening streets. The difference is that during the day, people try to  \ndisregard the presence of others o they can feel more alone and independent  \nwhile at night they take comfort in knowing there are other people also enjoying  \na night on the town. Glass half empty, glass half full. Half full of what? And  \nwhy not simply drink it? Honestly, you people and your expressions.  \n  \nPeeling away layers of interpretation and interpolation I let my instincts and  \ntheir sensory memories shape the universe. My body and my mind are intimate  \nlovers, and my body's faculties know the lusts of their bedfellow. They know  \nthat I want information, salient information about this place. It must be  \nsignificant, because I was drawn to it, so my instincts are already yearning to  \npour their sage whispers into my reality-deafened ears. Rounded, bereft of their  \ntufted points. I don't miss my old ears yet.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Light gushes onto the street. Succlent, scintillating warm light bursts from  \nDong Ma's wide-open windows and sloshes over the pavement and onto the street  \nwhich seems to rejoice in the warmth it's granted, soothing it against the chill  \nof a night that's just not frosty enough to draw snow from the sky, at least to  \ngive some purpose to the cold the streets endure. Sounds, smells, everything  \nradiates from Dong Ma, where males and females of all types sit and talk and  \nlaugh and eat and have the best time living people can have when they're not  \nhaving sex.   \n  \nI walk up and down the street, peering into Dong Ma's unlit windows, my jackal  \nguard following with some trepidation, though he's used to me by now and doesn't  \nmind my curious behavior. Good. My senseless instincts show me the world as it  \nwas, the night-time spectacle of plenty. None of the cats are to be seen, but  \nfor one fat Siamese who eats his meal with such a lack of sophistication that  \nany relation beyond their species seems unlikely.   \n  \nDo you understand what's happening, my inadequate sweetheart? I call you  \nsweetheart, of course, because I love you. Is joking the same as lying? If you  \nknow, send me a letter. What's happening is that the faint clues I  \nsubconsciously perceived - hairs on chairs, stains, wear-marks on the carpet and  \nbillions upon billions of scents - are being tabulated in my mind, weighed  \nagainst one another and filtered to produce a digest of Dong Ma's recent  \nhistory, showcasing its most significant events, all by my instincts' primitive  \njudgment.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The number of males receiving oral sex from someone under their table is  \nstaggering. This of course doesn't mean all these males were being serviced  \nsimultaneously, as I explained, this tableau is a digest. Still, how can people  \nbe so unimaginative in their secret thrills? Where are the people carryiing  \nbody-parts of others in their pocket for the sheer excitement of it? Where are  \nthe bullies who stabbed a young streetlad in the stomach, bandaged and dressed  \nhim up nice and told him he had to resist the nausea and pain for an entire  \nevening, and not call for help and not let anyone notice he was dying - or the  \nbully would kill the boy's friends. These are secret pleeasures I could get  \nbehind, not the sad, tawdry blowjob-under-the-table.  \n  \nFortunately not all Dong Ma's occupants are so unimaginative. Some merely eat  \ntheir meals and converse, others - immediately, my thoughts shift track and  \neverything I can see through the sense-memory of the Dong Ma's windows vanishes  \nexcept one table-setting in the near corner, a large space reserved for a single  \ntable whose occupants enjoy a masure of privacy. Tiber Ferrum is among them, the  \nonly one eating his meal.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Tiber makes a point of eating meat when he eats out, even though his  \ngastrointestinal system can't digest it and he has to take various medications  \nafterward to keep from regurgitating it. I've always admired self-destructive  \nprinciples, as opposed to addictions. I suppose it stems from the typically  \ncarnivore-dominated nature of the business-world, some signal Tiber wants to  \nsend or some type of understanding he wishes to foster. He fascinates me, Tiber.  \nAnd he, just a horse! Time was when I made a point to kill just about every  \nherbivore I came across, at least one of every species. Sure, I made plenty of  \nforays into the stalking of predators - infinitely more interesting prey, let me  \ntell you - but the purely basal, instinctual satisfaction of killing and eating  \na prey animal is something that fascinated me for many years.  \n  \nUntil Tiber.   \n  \nHe frightens me, and that makes me love him. I know I'm not alone in this, but I  \nalso know that it isn't a competition. I look into those eyes of his and I am  \nsatisfied that the purpose blazing behind those large, dark, gelatinous pupils  \nis hidden at such a depth, between so many layers of plots and contingencies  \nthat I will never understand fully his designs. Merely the knowledge that there  \nis a creature in this world whose intent, not merely his intelligence but his  \nintent, surpasses mine, fills me with a hope I have experienced only since  \nknowing Tiber.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Would you like to know how he slew me, way back when? I could dangle this morsel  \nof information in front of you and you would follow me like a famished streetdog.  \nI could deny you even the hope of hearing the story and you would be forever  \neager for it, so perhaps there is no greater disappointment I can give you than  \nmerely to tell you. Why, you may ask, do I wish to spoil your fun? I am  \ndispleased with you, dear reader. I suspect you haven't been following me  \nlately, that you haven't been doing your best to understand. No, don't scan back  \nup the page, stay with me now. Eat the scraps I feed you, and do better.  \n  \nSome years ago, in a city not Maranatha, I was killed. The manner of my murder  \ncaused me to lay myself at my murderer's hooves. Tiber had killed me, while I  \nhad never known him. I was living in his city, taking lives and exploring the  \nways that fear rippled through communities in response to the deaths, the way  \npeople hardened or shattered, utterly fascinating. For how long Tiber had me  \nwatched, and by whom, I honestly don't know. I never asked him, and I have  \npunished myself on more than one occasion for failing to notice I was being  \nobserved.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; But observe me he did, did Tiber, my beloved scourge, and somehow he, lacking  \nthe instincts I put to such good use, employed his intellect to understand me.  \nHe couldn't have known me beforehand and by his admission he didn't, merely he  \npicked a victim at random. One morning he woke up and set himself the task of  \ncornering and killing a murderer the police couldn't stop, all without  \ninterrupting his usual duties, making use of no more resources than normally  \nwere at his disposal. Often my victims are chosen for similarly trite reasons -  \nI want to find out if the taste of liver changes over the years and then find a  \nlarge multi-generational family to butcher and sample, for instance.  \n  \nTiber scanned the papers and found reports of grisly murders which, he decided,  \nwere connected and sent out his private security detachment and employed private  \ndetectives, in the same manner he would if he were spying n a colleague or  \ncompetitor. They tracked me circumspectly, reporting to him over months or  \nweeks, I don't know, until Tiber had devised a strategy. Which he implemented,  \nto my ruin.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I became aware of what was happening almost instantly. One morning, I was  \nthrottling someone and I felt the life slip from the old lady well before her  \npulse ceased. She died before I properly killed her. I was horrified and left  \nher body behind and ran away like a young man after his very first kill, which  \nwas foolish because if I'd inspected the body I might have discovered what had  \nhappened. Some kind of poison in her bloodstream, perhaps introduced slowly,  \nwhich caused her heart to fail in response to the severe level of stress she  \nexperienced when I strangled her right beside her dozing husband, letting her  \nsee the Wheel of Fortune on her black and white television all the while.  \n  \nThe next day I was chasing a young streethustler through the warehouse district,  \nhowling like a hyena, following the trail of blood and terrified sweat he left  \nas he ran. I loved the scent of panicked young flesh, I savored every second of  \nit. Finally I cornered him, turning him into an alley between two large silos,  \nwith a fence at the end. Naturally he would jump up against the fence and  \nnaturally I would be faster, pulling him down and tearing him to shreds - but  \nthe fence was electrified to specifications vastly beyond the legal, and the boy  \nwas fried to a cinder before I could lay a hand on him. Week after week I was  \ntaunted at every turn, with unseen, unheard snipers or small spring-loaded  \nshrapnel mines taking out my victims before I could get to them, Tiber  \nsuccessfully predicting every single target I would pick and killing them before  \nI could until after two months of this torment I could take no more and decided  \nprivately to get one more night's sleep and then kill myself. Somehow Tiber  \nanticipated even this.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; And when I awoke, the final torment. My claws, my precious claws, had somehow  \nbeen clipped and my house - or rather, the house of the recently deceased  \nDavidson family - had been stripped of all implements of death. No stabbing  \nweapon, no pen or nail-file, not even a slightly pointy spoon. For hours I  \nscreamed and shook and beat the walls until I broke my hands. And then I saw a  \ngun on a chair, a gun, of all things, and while I normally would never have  \ntouched it I was so desperate for death that I didn't care, I had to have it,  \nand with shaking hands I held it at my temple and pulled the trigger and a spray  \nof confetti hit the side of my head and a little flag saying 'bang' came out of  \nthe barrel and I lost my mind and fell over.  \n  \nI awoke, naked, on the floor of an office. Tiber was standing at his  \nwindow-wall, with his back to me and explained to me that there was no security,  \nand that he'd had enough to drink that his reflexes were dulled enough that he'd  \npose no threat to me even if his reflexes had been a match to mine to begin  \nwith, and that there were knives of various shapes on the coffee-table between  \nhim and myself, and that he was behind my recent lack of success.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The rage in me swelled and ebbed like the tides of a world whose moon spins at  \nany speed it fancies until the emotions in me melded, tears streamed from my  \neyes, I crawled over to Tiber's hooves, clung to the fabric of his trousers and  \nsobbed against his thigh while he cupped my chin and told me everything would be  \nall right. Never once, throughout all this, did the horse in his splendid suit  \nlook at me.  \n  \nAnd now, cutting this revelation short enough that hopefully it gives you less  \nsatisfaction than you'd hoped for, let's return to the issue at hand: Tiber, in  \nmy memory world, having dinner In the Dong Ma Eatery. Across from him sits a  \nferret in a black leather trench coat - literally, a trench coat that looks like  \nit saw service in the Great War - and some other males in black bomber jackets,  \nthough it's the ferret I deem important and put to memory.  \n  \n\"We're done here,\" I inform Ulrich and drop the bowl of fried pork, blowing my  \nnose into my hands to get the sweet and sour sauce out of it. Having no  \nimmediate instinctual sens of direction, I decide the next name should be best  \nlooked up in a public directory and proceed in the direction I perceive to be  \nmost likely to feature an unvandalized phone booth, with Ulrich trotting behind.  \nWe're crossing the pedestrian walkway over the inner Maranatha ring road, a  \nroute which is either utterly pointless or so new as to be as yet largely  \nundiscovered, because the traffic is so light, when I suddenly feel the urge to  \nkill Ulrich, a very very strong urge that strikes me as so peculiar that I don't  \nimmediately satisfy it.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I look at him, walking behind me with grim determination, but also some honest  \nacceptance of his fate and a steadily growing self-respect, which he takes from  \nhis service to me. He's grown on me, and I could tolerate having him around more  \nthan I've ever tolerated any assistant before, and I don't even feel the need to  \nkill him because he's annoying, like all my other assistants were. But I still  \nfeel the need to kill him. I see a handsome grey fox sitting on the handrail of  \nthe walkway, and I recognise him as Jeremy, and when Jeremy nods to me I turn  \nand grab Ulrich by the shoulders and before the poor jackal even has time to  \nformulate the question in his mind why, suddenly, I thro him over the edge of  \nthe walkway and onto the highway below, I push him, and he falls, and before he  \nhits the ground he himself is hit by a car - the only car to have passed under  \nthis walkway in the five minutes it's been in view as we walked up to it - and  \nthe car screeches to a halt. Jeremy stands up and lays his arm around my  \nshoulders.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"I told you,\" he says as he kisses my cheek, and I giggle like a teenager.  \nJeremy is so sweet to me sometimes. \"Maranatha is a place where things happen  \nagain. Where people don't learn from their mistakes. And it's also a place where  \nbrand new mistakes are made. Your friend Tiber understands this.\"  \n  \nBelow, the sound of a door opening, running feet, searing, running feet and the  \nstatic of a radio. \"This is detective Lombardi, request immediate backup and  \nmedical assistance for a civilian at the second western pedestrian bridge over  \nthe Maranatha inner ring road.\" More footsteps, the pulling of a gun. \"You up  \nthere! Show yourself! Police!\"  \n  \nI look over the handrail, and I chuckle at what I see. \"May I play with him?\" I  \nask Jeremy, pointing at the police officer below. He's a black panther, with a  \nface as uncharacteristically rough-hewn as mine, who could easily pass for me is  \nhe were wearing the face Tiber's surgeons removed from me before they gave me  \nClaude's. It's a detail few normal people would notice on anything but an  \nintuitive basis, but I can, even at this distance, see the skull under his skin  \nand now I understand why Tiber wanted both me and Claude to come to Maranatha  \nand felt so drawn to the yellow raincoat, which is identical to the yellow  \nraincoat the policeman below is wearing.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Play nice,\" says Jeremy and pats me on the shoulder as I leap over the  \nhandrail, making use of the policeman's hesitation at the sight of both that  \ndisplay of athleticism and the sight of me, and the striking similarity I bear  \nto himself. I bat the gun out of his hand with ease and for a moment we circle  \neach other, perfect mirror images.  \n  \nI will never understand the depth or the limit of Tiber's calculating predictive  \nability. How keenly he understnds some facets of my insanity that even I haven't  \nbegun to classify, and how elegantly he exploits them. It is a privilege to be  \nhis pawn and I decide, for the duration of this assignment, to make it my  \nmission to spread this understanding. To find the players in Tiber's game, the  \npieces of his puzzle, and by hook or by crook to teach them what a privilege it  \nis to be manipulated by a mind like Tiber's.  \n  \nDetective Lombardi's education begins with a left hook to the jaw and the  \nbinding of hands, feet and muzzle before I dump him in the trunk of his cop car  \nand hop onto the severely dented hood, sitting next to Ulrich, whose head is  \nturned in a direction opposite to his shoulders. He's alive, clearly, but for  \nhow much longer I can't really tell. I decide to wait for the ambulance to  \narrive and meanwhile to sate my curiosity, and simply watch my jackal guard to  \nsee if he sees me and to imagine what he's thinking.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Curious.\n\n  \n  \n\n  \n\n  \n\n_To be continued._\n\n  \n\n  \n\n**Available on paperback in 2005**\n\n  \n\n[  \nMail the author](%5C) for information  \nor [  \njoin the mailing list](%5C)!\n\n  \n\n  \n  \n  \n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Maranatha","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/5170-maranatha-chapter-xiii-as-told-by-sybrand-brubaker.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/5930-maranatha-chapter-xv-as-told-by-sybrand-brubaker.json"}}