Sorry, everybody. I think I caught the flu and then immediately followed it with a bad case of mono that I'm in the midst of recovering from. Also, I've realized that it'd be much easier to take audio notes and type them up if I could stand the sound of my own voice on the recorder. 
For some odd reason, I love hearing myself talk, but I hate recordings of myself. I hear that's common though.
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I dream of fire.
The plaintive tones of the telephone jar me from the fitful excuse for slumber I've managed to achieve. I blearily grope for the phone and bring it up to my face, desperately trying to curb my natural impulse to greet the person who just woke me up with the sort of profanity to make a twenty-dollar prostitute blush. "What? I mean, hello?"
"Avwolf, sorry to wake you." It's V. Now I'm really glad I managed to pick up the phone without swearing.
"No worries, V." I blink, and make a noise that's the [censored] love-child of a sigh and a grunt as I try to shift my brain into a gear. I feel like I've forgotten to use the clutch. Between my general incapacity to think after being started awake and the sensation of having my face used as a bass drum head by a particularly enthusiastic marching corps, I'm having a little trouble figuring out why she's calling me. I stall, "What's the word?" I can hear Verilidaine sigh into the phone, but it's got a note of relief rather than the heavy weight of depression.
"Docs say that shi's going to pull through. It was hit or miss for a while, but shi's through the worst of it." I manage to clump just enough of my wits about me to figure out what the hell she's talking about. Sable Dove. Verilidaine continues, unaware of my cognitive difficulties. "Still in intensive, since the bullet grazed through past damn near every vital bit in hir neck. But shi's going to make it." I can hear the edge of tears in her voice. I smile slightly. Sable was a friend, regardless of anything else shi might be, and I'm glad shi'd survive the attempt on hir life. V swallows, and speaks again, "So, what did Sable tell you at the end?"
"Mmph. That I'm the only one who can get to the bottom of the things, and that I 'shouldn't trust the cat.'"
"Well, that's damn mysterious."
"And unhelpful," I sigh, "There are a lot of cats in the city. A lot. And Sable is only on good terms with...well, I could probably count them on my fingers."
V chuckles. "Yeah...There are a lot of folks who keep Sable off their friends list. If you need anything, I'll be glad to give it to you, no matter how hard. How are you holding up?"
"Ugh...Like I'm about ready to fall down."
"Tsk. You're working yourself too hard. Need someone to help keep you warm, help you get to sleep?"
I laugh ruefully. "Thanks for the offer. I wish I could accept, but you know that path isn't going to be a well-traveled one for either of us. We walk down it, and neither of us would come out the other side. Not friends anyway."
"Well," V says, a smile evident in her voice, "It was worth a try. Next time, maybe you'll play along a little better." I swear I can hear her wink though the phone.
"Sorry, four hours of sleep, if I can call it sleep, are not exactly conducive to my witty repartee. Get some sleep of your own, V, I'll catch you later."
I hang up the phone and almost regret my words. Whispers, echoes, longings, all those things I try to deny, try to put in the back of my head, to fake, to
forget... I slide back under the covers of my bed, pulling them up around me again. Well, V was right about one thing. I'm too damn cold. Though like hell I'm going to find somebody who can keep me warm. Sometimes it seems like ice water runs through these veins. Stare into the darkness too long, that abyss will just pull the heat right out of you, like the unforgiving cold of deep space, tearing the warmth out of the stars and consigning it to nothingness. Watching a friend, somebody you're supposed to protect, be gunned down in front of you is a hell of an abyss to look into. I glare at the ceiling and try to will myself to sleep. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work, but two hours pass with me in a horizontal position pretending to rest.
I sigh and wipe my face. I'm not going to get any more sleep anyway, I might as well get something accomplished. I pry myself out of bed with the help of my nightstand and make my way back to my coat, digging the cigarette pack out. I shake the last cigarette and the discarded bullet casing out of the wrinkled soft pack onto my desk and crumple the empty package into a ball. The cigarette slips between my lips. I pat my trouser pockets absentmindedly, looking for something that is obviously too large and awkward to fit in my pants. There, crouching in the shadows in the upper corner of the densely packed closet of the room in my apartment I refer to as the “office,” is what I'm looking for. A couple sharp tugs free it from its spot in the closet, and I set the soldering project helper on my desk. It's a nifty “third-hand” for working on electronics projects, with articulated arms to hold a project, and a big magnifying glass on another articulation. Next, I head into the bathroom for a pair of tweezers, and grab a couple more painkillers. I'll be needing more coffee soon, but that can wait a bit yet. I settle into my second-hand, faux leather office chair, which creaks like a plantation manor house in a gale, and carefully clamp the bullet casing into the project helper. I slide my ashtray closer to hand and mash the cigarette ashes piling inside into a fine powder with my thumb. A quick breath of air blows the ash over the bullet casing. Any oil remaining from someone handling the cartridge would leave a fingerprint in the ash, probably a thumb print from loading the magazine. My cigarette wobbles as my lips purse into an irritated frown. Not even an interesting smudge shows up on the casing. Damn. I stand, retrieving my lighter from the nightstand in my bedroom, and return to the office, lighting my last cigarette and slumping down in the chair, a steady stream of smoke spewing from my lips. I'll have to remember to buy more cigarettes today too. I cast my gaze through the magnifier again. The casing's a generic thirty-aught-six brass, shiny, clean, and...there's an engraving near the primer. So it's not so generic after all. No manufacturer's markings, just a simple equals sign and the numeral three. [censored]. I throw myself back into my chair. L'Ordre du Chat Riant. The Order of the Laughing Cat.
The Laughing Cat are a bunch of anarchist assassins and grifters for hire. I'd hesitate before I gave them credit as having more brains than the goons you sometimes saw blow in from out of town and trash the place, but they're probably more dangerous. They know how to move in the same crowds I do, and easily ingratiate themselves through "clueless" persistence. Whether they're running a con or setting a mark up to die, they don't mess around, and they don't have a lot of respect for badges. This casing wasn't left by accident. It's a message and a warning. Somebody's brought in the big boys to play. Hard to believe somebody like a Laughing Cat would miss his mark. Almost as hard to believe as Sable living a charmed life to survive. [censored] probably just has a carotid artery that's a quarter of an inch too far to the left, leaving hir prone to headaches, passing out, and surviving sniper shots to the neck. The least I can do for Sable now is follow up on hir lead, chase down hir enemies. Or the people who wouldn't be sorry to see hir go, anyway. Somebody must have brought the Laughing Cat in on this. Hell, the only people shi ever really made mad were big wigs. And the first stop is the obvious one: FastChapter. I shrug into some more-or-less clean clothes, slip on my coat, check Loquacious, and grab my hat. The door clicks locked behind me.
Wielder of the Wooden Spoon. Boogeymen and Slendermen everywhere beware.
Sowwies darlins. He was posting again, was hoping that meant mebbie next installment might be soon.
