Blue moon of Kentucky
Oct 16, 2015 11:55:33 GMT -5
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Sadistic, Cory Steel, and 1 more like this
Post by Grimm on Oct 16, 2015 11:55:33 GMT -5
“Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the 2015 Deadly Rumble: GRIMM!”
Grimm stands in the ring victorious.
This time, the number one contender wasn’t decided willy-nilly. Someone in the front office didn’t draw a name out of a hat or reach up to pluck it out of thin air because they needed something on a list. And they didn’t just hand it to anyone who ran down to the ring and declared themselves the challenger. This time, there could be no discussion. No debate. It was close, of course, as these things tend to be. A match of that nature could have gone any number of ways.
But it didn’t.
It went this way.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the 2015 Deadly Rumble: GRIMM!”
Grimm stands in the ring victorious.
Phinehas stood in the kitchen. He’d brought down a mirror from the highest attic and balanced it on a window sill. Old as it was, it had left a trail of silver filigree flakes. Phinehas looked and flexed his fingers. The silver still speckled his hands.
What those hands have done…
There at the window he smelled the coming of the first hard freeze. It made him smile. Looking into the mirror did not, for in the mirror he saw smeared images that were not of him, or Ruth, or the House of Grimm. Instead, the mirror reflected smudges of the Michaels family. Lips moved, hands and arms gesticulated, but Phinehas could not hear so much as the scuff of a chair and could not make anything out beyond the limits of the blurred edges. He could not know for sure, but he could certainly presume.
Look at them there. The things those two have been through. Even now Justin still struggled to reconcile his way through the labyrinth that was his past. To find and slay his minotaur. It’s a life that had not been his own, and yet no one could deny the man’s success. Some would explain that as the result of pure will. Stormm’s Manifest Destiny. Others would try to argue that the influence of the Black Hand had brought it all about.
The Black Hand again, pulling strings and putting on puppet shows of our struggles and redemptions. Or so it would like you to think.
The kettle sat tremulous on the stove. Two stoneware mugs waited patiently on the counter. Ruth had tea leaves to read, after all, as soon as they’d drunk down to the dregs, and as soon as she finished her jack o’ lantern. She sat at the table, eyes narrowed, carving unfathomable intricacies into a pumpkin with her brother’s utility knife. Layers of newspaper held piles of shavings and pulp. The scent of gourd innards overwhelmed the kitchen.
Phinehas leaned to peer closer into the mirror. Would the Michaels clan be in any mood to celebrate Halloween this year?
“…pumpkin spiced deadbolts.”
Phinehas stood and turned to his sister. “What?”
Still carving, she glanced at him. “I said, I understand Hangtown Hardware is doing a brisk business these days. It looks like everyone is preparing for a category 5 hurricane to blow through. Or something. Boarding up windows. Reinforcing doors. Adding extra locks.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do. They’re worried about you and Billy, and what you might end up doing to the town before this is all over.”
“Can you blame them?”
She gave some aspect of the carving a little flourish. “They’re spreading pitch on their door frames, Phinehas. They think it’ll keep the ghosts, or whatever you two stir up, from getting into their homes. It’s like the Harvest Festival has come early.”
The kettle whistled. Phinehas took it off the burner and poured the water into the mugs. Now they had only to wait for the tea to steep.
“Maybe it has. For months the federation has been little more than one big kerfuffle about bringing down the Black Hand. Thing is…has anyone stopped to ask themselves Why, exactly? Does the fact we’ve given it a name make it more official, and does that scare them more? Because the idea of an organization somehow gives them a framework, a method to what some would consider our madness. But I would say to them, look around you. Nothing’s changed. If you’re a miserable sinner in one shape, you’re a miserable sinner in another.”
The night grew, and the moon cast a blue pall over the hollow. The usual shapes moved along the hills and across the sky.
“That being said, I think the recent trials prove just how little influence President Foley has had for us, however people choose to define us. Any one of Billy’s last three matches would have ended the careers of lesser men. I wonder what other excuses these people have to offer up now.”
“And Billy…he still insists he’s holding up?”
The Lord of Misrule shrugged.
“As fine as you’d expect, after what he’s been through. After what he’s about to go through.”
Phinehas would have to light the candles soon. The house was already filling with shadows and anticipation.
“But first I need to winnow down the concerns standing between me and Billy’s date in the ring at Collision Course.”
Phinehas began the countdown on his silvered fingers.
“The Order. Infiniti Council. (un)Stable. The Saints of Killers, whether they want to frame us, or be us. Justin’s quest. Michael’s campaign. The tag team titles…”
“Yes, about those…” said Ruth, as she put her weight behind a particularly difficult cut.
“I know, this week’s all about Crazy Power. Individually, they put on a good showing during the Rumble. As a team, well, Alexa Black has been very clear on her feelings regarding tag team wrestling. I’m not surprised, because she doesn’t have the discipline necessary to function in a tag team. We’ll brawl for a bit while she’ll hope to slake her bloodlust. Then it will be over and she’ll go backstage to pout and threaten people like she does every single week. You never can tell which Crazy Boy will show up, though. He’ll be the wild card through all this.”
He returned to the counting.
“And still there is Eira’s declaration of her world title aspirations, even now. The sheer amount of things to address is absurd. And anyone would be conflicted by any one of these.”
Ruth paused and looked up from her work. “That’s a lot of noise to cut through. How do you keep it straight?”
“Maybe I don’t. Maybe I don’t even try. I’ve got a secret, Ruth. At the end of the day, the Dillinger boys will always remain. We started our own personal Sherman’s March through the PCW all those years ago, and the scorched earth campaign ends when we say it does. We are the Black Hand. We’ve always been the Black Hand, before it was nothing but a whisper in the hallways. We’ll always be the Black Hand whether it’s officially recognized or exists or has ever existed or not.”
A fox burst out of the underbrush down near the road and ran through the corn stubble.
“Or maybe we just exist as an idea to give people something to blame, to be afraid of, to explain away misfortunes. Something like…a boogieman, if you will.”
Phinehas grinned.
“Then again, I’m one of the Brothers Gruesome, so these are just the musings of a fiend. Believe what you will.”
Ruth set the knife to the side and cracked her knuckles. She spun the pumpkin towards him and smiled. “What do you think?”
“Showoff.”
Grimm stands in the ring victorious.
This time, the number one contender wasn’t decided willy-nilly. Someone in the front office didn’t draw a name out of a hat or reach up to pluck it out of thin air because they needed something on a list. And they didn’t just hand it to anyone who ran down to the ring and declared themselves the challenger. This time, there could be no discussion. No debate. It was close, of course, as these things tend to be. A match of that nature could have gone any number of ways.
But it didn’t.
It went this way.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the 2015 Deadly Rumble: GRIMM!”
Grimm stands in the ring victorious.
Phinehas stood in the kitchen. He’d brought down a mirror from the highest attic and balanced it on a window sill. Old as it was, it had left a trail of silver filigree flakes. Phinehas looked and flexed his fingers. The silver still speckled his hands.
What those hands have done…
There at the window he smelled the coming of the first hard freeze. It made him smile. Looking into the mirror did not, for in the mirror he saw smeared images that were not of him, or Ruth, or the House of Grimm. Instead, the mirror reflected smudges of the Michaels family. Lips moved, hands and arms gesticulated, but Phinehas could not hear so much as the scuff of a chair and could not make anything out beyond the limits of the blurred edges. He could not know for sure, but he could certainly presume.
Look at them there. The things those two have been through. Even now Justin still struggled to reconcile his way through the labyrinth that was his past. To find and slay his minotaur. It’s a life that had not been his own, and yet no one could deny the man’s success. Some would explain that as the result of pure will. Stormm’s Manifest Destiny. Others would try to argue that the influence of the Black Hand had brought it all about.
The Black Hand again, pulling strings and putting on puppet shows of our struggles and redemptions. Or so it would like you to think.
The kettle sat tremulous on the stove. Two stoneware mugs waited patiently on the counter. Ruth had tea leaves to read, after all, as soon as they’d drunk down to the dregs, and as soon as she finished her jack o’ lantern. She sat at the table, eyes narrowed, carving unfathomable intricacies into a pumpkin with her brother’s utility knife. Layers of newspaper held piles of shavings and pulp. The scent of gourd innards overwhelmed the kitchen.
Phinehas leaned to peer closer into the mirror. Would the Michaels clan be in any mood to celebrate Halloween this year?
“…pumpkin spiced deadbolts.”
Phinehas stood and turned to his sister. “What?”
Still carving, she glanced at him. “I said, I understand Hangtown Hardware is doing a brisk business these days. It looks like everyone is preparing for a category 5 hurricane to blow through. Or something. Boarding up windows. Reinforcing doors. Adding extra locks.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do. They’re worried about you and Billy, and what you might end up doing to the town before this is all over.”
“Can you blame them?”
She gave some aspect of the carving a little flourish. “They’re spreading pitch on their door frames, Phinehas. They think it’ll keep the ghosts, or whatever you two stir up, from getting into their homes. It’s like the Harvest Festival has come early.”
The kettle whistled. Phinehas took it off the burner and poured the water into the mugs. Now they had only to wait for the tea to steep.
“Maybe it has. For months the federation has been little more than one big kerfuffle about bringing down the Black Hand. Thing is…has anyone stopped to ask themselves Why, exactly? Does the fact we’ve given it a name make it more official, and does that scare them more? Because the idea of an organization somehow gives them a framework, a method to what some would consider our madness. But I would say to them, look around you. Nothing’s changed. If you’re a miserable sinner in one shape, you’re a miserable sinner in another.”
The night grew, and the moon cast a blue pall over the hollow. The usual shapes moved along the hills and across the sky.
“That being said, I think the recent trials prove just how little influence President Foley has had for us, however people choose to define us. Any one of Billy’s last three matches would have ended the careers of lesser men. I wonder what other excuses these people have to offer up now.”
“And Billy…he still insists he’s holding up?”
The Lord of Misrule shrugged.
“As fine as you’d expect, after what he’s been through. After what he’s about to go through.”
Phinehas would have to light the candles soon. The house was already filling with shadows and anticipation.
“But first I need to winnow down the concerns standing between me and Billy’s date in the ring at Collision Course.”
Phinehas began the countdown on his silvered fingers.
“The Order. Infiniti Council. (un)Stable. The Saints of Killers, whether they want to frame us, or be us. Justin’s quest. Michael’s campaign. The tag team titles…”
“Yes, about those…” said Ruth, as she put her weight behind a particularly difficult cut.
“I know, this week’s all about Crazy Power. Individually, they put on a good showing during the Rumble. As a team, well, Alexa Black has been very clear on her feelings regarding tag team wrestling. I’m not surprised, because she doesn’t have the discipline necessary to function in a tag team. We’ll brawl for a bit while she’ll hope to slake her bloodlust. Then it will be over and she’ll go backstage to pout and threaten people like she does every single week. You never can tell which Crazy Boy will show up, though. He’ll be the wild card through all this.”
He returned to the counting.
“And still there is Eira’s declaration of her world title aspirations, even now. The sheer amount of things to address is absurd. And anyone would be conflicted by any one of these.”
Ruth paused and looked up from her work. “That’s a lot of noise to cut through. How do you keep it straight?”
“Maybe I don’t. Maybe I don’t even try. I’ve got a secret, Ruth. At the end of the day, the Dillinger boys will always remain. We started our own personal Sherman’s March through the PCW all those years ago, and the scorched earth campaign ends when we say it does. We are the Black Hand. We’ve always been the Black Hand, before it was nothing but a whisper in the hallways. We’ll always be the Black Hand whether it’s officially recognized or exists or has ever existed or not.”
A fox burst out of the underbrush down near the road and ran through the corn stubble.
“Or maybe we just exist as an idea to give people something to blame, to be afraid of, to explain away misfortunes. Something like…a boogieman, if you will.”
Phinehas grinned.
“Then again, I’m one of the Brothers Gruesome, so these are just the musings of a fiend. Believe what you will.”
Ruth set the knife to the side and cracked her knuckles. She spun the pumpkin towards him and smiled. “What do you think?”
“Showoff.”
