No Smoke Without: Part One - Keep Careful Watch

[Non Compos Mentis]

They say time waits for no man.

As it turned out, I wasn’t entirely a man.

As it turned out, time didn’t care.

Gold sat in both our possessions that night as we left the arena. She sped off first, at an immediate pace that had me briefly scared that my ruse had been spotted right from the beginning. This wasn’t some frightened girl though, she had become so used to being watched from the shadows that her every action was dictated by that paranoia.

I followed her into the night, toward what I was sure would be an inconspicuous retreat well outside the public eye. The new North American Champion streaked off into the distance as I hung behind far enough to avoid unwanted attention. I left the silver-haired warrior to watch for the fiends she’d become accustomed to running from while I remained patient.

I wasn’t running from my demons, I was chasing after them and the ever-enigmatic Eira was the first step in their direction.

The silver Mustang would easily outpace the battered Pickup that trundled on, unspotted, behind it, but a rusting faded-red truck would never catch the eye as suspicious. That is unless it was made to look so. A deep silver muscle car, however? Some might wonder if she wanted eyes to be looking her way after all.

Not far from Greenville, where the night’s action had taken place barely an hour previously, was the North Carolina border and we passed over it with the distinct impression the journey would not be over quite that quickly. I was right as Eira took the muscle car on a tour of the western quarter of the state, a route of which I was unsure if it was rehearsed or completely improvised. Either way, it was meant to shake a tail.

By that point the sun had fallen from the sky and darkness embraced both cars fully save for the freeway lights that flickered overhead like fireflies. I’d long since given up trying to keep track of our location, it was plainly obvious that Eira would not allow a tracker that luxury even if she didn’t know he was there. The occasional road sign rolled on by but was followed by a change of direction that made it all but irrelevant.

I turned on the radio and settled in for the drive, hearing the voices of some county sports’ station recapping the night I’d already lived. “And big news in the world of wrasslin’ tonight as PCW Return To Glory certainly shook things up.” The anchor blared over the airwaves in the overly fatigued tone of a phoney announcer working the nightshift while hopped up on too much caffeine. His southern drawl drooled through the speakers like motor oil.

To counter the morose whine of the sportscaster, he’d been teamed with a younger and clearly more motivated co-host who ham-fistedly dove into the results from the night, country-twang warbling hard as he went. “You’re not kidding! At the top of the bill Lantlas showed he can still influence the World Title as the Sadistic versus Gem match was ruled a no-contest due to his interference. Special Guest referee Eira left the match high-and-dry after Lantlas interjected himself.”

“But titles did change hands elsewhere…” the host interjected, cramming his obviously scripted words in where he could. I kept my eyes on the road, staring ahead to make sure that Eira’s Mustang was still just about in sight. A sign that instructed Icard was in 5 miles flew overhead and Eira immediately turned right. I followed.

“And how! There are new Tag Team champions after Psychedelica defeated the UnHoly Alliance for the newly resurrected belts. Eira beat Mikey Wright to capture the North American Title. And opening the show, Non Compos Mentis earned himself only the third grand slam in PCW history by winning the International Title from Kelli Starr!”

It was music to my ears to hear news of my victory. The International Title sat in the back of the cab with my gear to avoid any tempted gazes but I could feel the warmth of the gold all too well from up front. I’d joined the named of Mikey Wryght and Ace Anderson as the only men to hold the grand slam in PCW and I’d managed to deal the Black Hand a damaging blow in the process. The night, until this point at least, had gone as well as I could have hoped.

The boorish anchor returned and negativity betrayed his written-down words. He longed to be done with talk of ‘wrasslin’ and get back to the important talk of the NFL preseason and whether the Panthers would improve this year. “Which sets up for an exciting night in two weeks when, live on E! Entertainment, new International Champion Non Compos Mentis teams with World Title contender Gem to face the World Champion Sadistic and Mikey Wryght…”

I finally took my eyes off the road and glanced at the radio for a moment. I hadn’t heard the card for Trauma 177 while I was at the arena, I’d left too soon in order to chase my quarry.

The Black Hand was not off the agenda and I welcomed it. With the International Championship in hand I could take another chunk out of their reputation by beating another grand slam winner and the current World Champion. And who would I be calling a partner but another equally, if not more, motivated individual who had sworn to kill the cancer eating its way through PCW’s heart. Gem had failed to beat Sadistic for the World Title, ironically by the hand of her own father, but I was sure her resolve would remain steadfast.

Sadistic, on the other hand, had to contend with the knowledge that he hadn’t fought a winning fight that night. He’d escaped, as he had the unpleasant knack of doing, by the skin of his teeth with his title in hand and this time his loyal band of disgusting brothers was not the cause. It was inexplicable how he’d escaped this time, but his luck was bound to run out soon.

Ahead in the darkness, Eira turned off the main roads and onto the tighter, more obstructive backroads. For safety I turned off the headlights, relying purely on the lights of my target and memory of her path to guide my way. The chase felt like it was coming to an end, but I wouldn’t count on it just yet.

I kept careful watch as the fireflies of the Mustang’s headlights flittered through the growing number of trees. Eira was taking us away from the limelight of wandering eyes, like I had expected, and further we descended into the dark of some obscure North Carolina woodland. If I lost her then, I may have had to retreat and that was no option I wanted to consider.

I needed to know things, I needed to speak to her in a place that was completely and utterly safe. The only place I knew that would match the description was her own home.

Every blink of an eye brought forth images of claws cleaving at flesh, the scars of which laced my right arm. They brought thoughts of rising flame and vicious, hateful eyes. They brought the sullen pain in my heart, in my soul, that was explained by no memory or feeling and would drive me to kill myself if I did not seek to understand what had caused it. They brought the visions of the Angular Man, who I now knew by the name Calder. Who I now knew to be a Cleric of The Order.

Eira was my only hope to understand it all, and so I followed her.

All the while I had to keep an equally careful watch for the movements occurring around me. The landscape of PCW had shifted immensely overnight and I could no longer place my focus on the mere anger of Kelli Starr’s betrayal. She’d captured herself another title, the Black Hand had seemingly turned their backs on her and I couldn’t count on her cashing in her rematch. The contenders would be circling, among them would be familiar and threatening faces I was sure.

Perhaps Mikey Wryght would be one of them, gaining an immediate promotion from the North American title hunt. Or perhaps Grimm or Stormm would bend Foley’s ear while Wryght cashed in his rematch on Eira to give the Black Hand yet another shot at domination. Nathan Saniti had not had a rematch after he had lost the title to Kelli Starr. The only people I could truly rule out were Sadistic, Gem and Eira herself.

It was no relief though, I’d still need to keep an eye on more people than I could manage and the Black Hand would be looming in the shadows as ever. All this to contend with alongside the struggle to understand what was going on in my mind. The time for celebration had come and gone already, now was the time for careful, cautious steps.

All of a sudden the lights in the distance halted. Through the expanse of branches, climbing roots and foliage, and rogue woodland I could barely make out the headlights but they remained still as I ground to a stop. Shutting off the engine, I left the truck were it sat and carried on by foot to avoid the noise of such an approach. I chose a direct route rather than following the path, going through the woods instead.

The thick growth somehow managed to look weary, perhaps wilting in the humid, choking summer heat, even at such a late hour. It provided effective cover in the twilight at the expense of an incredible feeling of claustrophobia. Trudging through the foliage, the two illuminated dots in the middle-distance disappeared and were replaced by the wider, more hospitable lights of a home.

I pushed on through the cover and toward the home of my target, knowing that one wrong word would leave me at the mercy of not just Eira but potentially the entire Order before I had what I wanted. No more PCW, no more memories to be worried about, no more life. Only a quick, silent death.

The light grew closer, forcing its way through the gloom to draw me in. I reached the treeline quickly, feeling the burden of the darkness slowly lifting from my shoulders and mind. I peered on from the boundary, staring up at a home that had all the hallmarks of an age-worn Elizabethan manor but was several thousand miles and few hundred years out of place.

The manor house loomed high into the air, a monument to the tastes and aesthetics of the woman who lived within. And there she was, her form silhouetted in the window. Eira stood extremely still, as if waiting for something, or someone, and I hoped that I was not me. It wasn’t. As I looked on the form I saw next brought the words of Calder, the Cleric, out from the depths of my mind. “We believe you to be a candidate for a very specific position within The Order. We’ve observed you for a long time, watched everything you’ve survived and thrived under.”

“What ‘position’?” I heard my voice growl with a familiar frustration, a tone I’d heard in my other conversations with the Angular Man. Calder’s remembered face turned to me with the tell-tale half smile painted on his lips. He knew so much more than we was allowed to tell me, so much more of the world I had only just been introduced to, and yet I had only asked for the tiniest piece.

I could not see the surroundings that we walked through then, but I remembered the darkness. Calder and I walked through it as if a shadow was teaching its child how to embrace the shade. Meanwhile I looked on at the window and Eira, her seductive shape plain to see and then dwarfed by the ominous figure that walked behind her. “There are few people in this world who can face the darkest of our enemies and live. Those that can are not, strictly speaking, entirely human. They possess something that sets them apart, makes them stronger than any normal man. You may think yourself normal but somewhere in your lineage you have the blood of something from the world I have shown you.”

“You think I’m part fucking wolf?” I spat out at Calder in disgust at the accusation, too naïve to understand exactly what he had meant. I wasn’t part wolf, I’d inherited the traits of one from someone, somewhere in my family tree. But then, having just been introduced to the idea, I took it with bile.

“Lycanthrope, vampiric… anything within our realm. That part of you could have begun many generations ago, a recessive gene buried deep in your biology. I’m not suggesting your father is a Lycan.” Calder spoke again as if I was a child, guiding me through a strange new world. For all the frustration he’d appeared to cause me, he had been polite throughout.

“It’d explain a lot…” I joked, a reflex. An overwhelming sense of isolation dawned on me as I felt the world grow ten-fold around me and my defence was to joke since I could not fight it. My mind contorted to drag more of Calder’s voice out of the abyss and I felt it pulling from what I saw in front of me. The gigantic man stood tall over Eira, his hands lovingly on her shoulders. The outline of untamed hair and the lanky appearance that betrayed his true brute nature.

“Your ancestry has gifted you a toughness, just like the man you could replace. That toughness gives you the ability to face the horrors we must overcome, to find the forces that dwell in that darkness and destroy them. The man that occupies this role is referred to as the ‘Seeker’ and is by far the most feared and revered of our combative ranks.”

Calder’s words rang out in my mind and I found myself cowering back into the claustrophobic gloom of the trees. I knew the monster in the window, the one caressing Eira with care and love. I knew him by a far worse image. I saw the rogue, the rebellious one whose actions had led Calder to me in the first place. Without his revolt my soul would never have been cleaved in two.

“Recently the man in this role has become problematic to us. His behaviour has placed us in a vulnerable position that we can’t allow to continue much longer. We’re attempting to correct his indiscretions now but we can’t escape the possibility that he may be a lost cause.” A lost cause that needed a quick contingency plan, a rushed operation to throw their new operative into the fray. It was this man that rebelled and gave them no option, the man who stood against that which had lived for millennia. What could I do? I retreated. I ran back through the roots and foliage until the light was behind me and the truck came back into view.

“We can’t escape the possibility that you will have to replace the man you know as Murdoc.”

I started the engine and turned on the headlights in my panic. They could have seen me, known that Eira had been followed that night, but I didn’t care. I ran then, from Murdoc, the cause of my suffering. I ran then, from the pain.