Paper Moons Part 17 (Patreon)

Scrambling to my feet, I went after him. Gabriel was not moving in Reese’s arms and was almost comically dangling from the hold he him in.  The older man's footsteps were sure and quick as he navigated us out of the cave and into the night ocean air. I could see the tide he spoke of. The way the waves were crashing against the rocks with an eerie amount of speed.  The waters lit up with thunderous flashes, the sky up above boiling as a storm began to move in.

Frantically, I looked around.  There was something that wasn’t right.  There was something off about Reese down to the way he looked. The voice was the same but his demeanor was cold. The warmth that radiated from the man as he cooked in the kitchen, the affection that shone in his eyes as he wrapped an arm around Elias at the campfire. I saw none of that now.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I told you. To Elias.”

“Will that help?”  He didn’t answer. “Reese. Will that help?”  When he kept walking forward I knew without a doubt, I couldn’t let this go any further. My job was to protect Gabriel. I had been hired by this man to do so.

Picking up a piece of driftwood, I gripped it in my hands.  I made my way up to him as silently as possible. Flexing my fingers, I swung.  The wood connected with the back of Reese’s head, sending the man stumbling. He caught himself at the final moment, not dropping Gabriel as they both went stumbling to the sand.  Reese rolled quickly, hand on his sword as he cast violent eyes on me.

Standing over him, I stared down, hair whipping in my face as I held the piece of wood up in defense. “Answers,” I demanded.  “Because right now, I’m thinking you’re not even you.”

He stared up at me with cold dark eyes. “What the fuck kind of assumption is that?”

“The kind I make when someone decides that I’m not worth giving five minutes of an explanation to.”

“You think you deserve an explanation? You were tossed here at my feet, in a completely secluded area, and my boy, the one you are supposed to be protecting, is looking far worse in your hands than before he left.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Then perhaps, if you wish to see this done in a different light, you should be working with us, instead of sending us off into unknown territories, based on a story!” I shouted.

Reese stared at me. I stared back. The ocean waves tumbled back and forth, lapping at my feet, but I did not balk.  My breaths were coming in heavy pants as the fear from the day began to cloud me and all I wanted at that moment was answers. Answers, I was learning, were apparently incredibly hard for the people of this world to give. At least truthful ones.

Holding up his hands, Reese began to stand. He kept his movements slow, trying to show me that he meant no harm.  “Alright, kiddo,” he soothed, his voice much more of the one I was familiar with. “Alright. You want answers, I’ll give them. But we can’t keep Gabriel here.”

“Why?” It felt far more dangerous for him to be moved constantly than to just find a dry spot to hold up.  That is, until I saw the hesitation on Reese’s face. “You don’t want him seeing where we’re at,” I said slowly. “There’s something about here, about you, that you don’t want him knowing.”

“Why the fuck–”

“Your clothes are different. Your demeanor is different. That sword you have strapped to you is one I’ve never seen before. You said yourself that we just appeared in a secluded area. A secluded area you happened to be at and one you wish for us to exit as quickly as possible. What is it you don’t want Gabriel to know that you are hoping I won’t figure out.”

He blinked at me. “Anyone ever tell you that you are far too astute for your own good?”

“My mother.”

He laughed at that. A short burst of disbelief.  Keeping eyes on me, he bent down to pick up Gabriel.  “There’s a shack just up on that bluff. We can get him warm and dry. And I’ll tell you what’s going on. You deserve it after whatever the fuck that detective work just was.”  Hefting Gabriel onto his shoulders, he looked me up and down. “Keep your stick with you if you want. You got a good aim.  I’m actually a little impressed.”

When he began walking, I kept pace with him.  My stick raised at his back the entire way.

~~~~~

The shack in question was nothing more than a small one room building with weathered plank siding.  A ratty sofa was in the center of the room along with plates of waxy candles.  Reese deposited Gabriel onto the sofa, going around the room and lighting the wicks as the wind outside began to howl.  It cast the entire place into an eerie flickering glow, the plank siding doing nothing to keep the chill from seeping in.

I stood there, wet and tired, staring at Reese shivering.  When he finally turned around, he gave a pointed look at the stick I still held. “Don’t ever use the same weapon twice on someone,” Reese told me.  “You don’t want them to ever see you coming.”

Blowing out the match, he went to a trunk along the back side of the room, digging out a few blankets. He tossed one to me before covering Gabriel up.  “What happened?” he asked.

“You need to give me some answers first,” I told him, refusing to back down.  “Why are you acting so secretive? What even is this place?  Where’s Elias?”

“Elias is home,” Reese said calmly. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell him about this place at all.”

I couldn’t fathom why such a dingy place would need to be kept a secret.  Unless Reese was doing something that Elias wouldn’t approve of. But, I had seen the two of them. They doted on each other. Elias looked at Reese like he hung the moon.

I felt my stomach drop. “Are you having a secret affair?”

“What?” Reese looked at me like I had grown a second head. “No. What the fuck are you– I’m the fucking Baron.  I’m not fucking around on my husband.”

I stumbled. “What?”

Sighing, Reese dropped his head back. It hit the edge of the sofa, bumping up against Gabriel’s knee. “I’m a Baron, kiddo.  Harbormaster, to be exact.”

He was well known for cutting bloody swathes through the market. If you received the Harbormasters ire, you weren’t going to last the night. “The Harbormaster is one of the most cutthroat and bloodiest Barons to date.”

Reese held out his arms and took a bow.

“And you’re him?”

“I’m him,” he said bitterly.

My eyes flicked towards Gabriel. “And they don’t know.”

“I’d prefer they didn’t but I’m assuming Gabe is about to.”

I looked around, feeling my throat go dry. I was sitting in a room with a killer.  A man notorious for violence.  Yet, he called me kiddo and had made me hot cakes the morning after I had crashed on his couch. “I– I don’t understand.”

Reese sighed. “Didn’t expect you to.” Motioning to a chair, he had me sit down while he settled on the floor near the sofa.  “Elias isn’t doing good,” he said.  “He hides it, but the madness was getting worse. And I tried to find options for him but the fallen that have been here before have all but died. There are a few that are left, I hear, but they're gibbering madmen more than anything else.  And each day I had to sit and watching as Elias got worse and worse and worse.  Now, I just am not a man that’s going to accept my lover's fate. So, I did something about it.”

Extending his legs outwards, he unsheathed his sword, tossing it far off to the side. I doubted, if he wanted to kill me, he would need such an item, but it did make me feel a bit better.

“Barons have connections. Far more connections than they let on. And they have free rein and access to magic. Especially magic that is innate to them.  I needed more options available to me so I could hunt down the Knowing.”

My eyes went wide. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“You can’t just hunt down the Knowing?” I protested. It wasn’t even possible.  But Reese raised a brow at me in challenge.

“Because the all powerful deserves a free pass in life? Nah. Whatever that s.o.b is, tossed two people I care about, to their death.  They’re gonna have to answer to me now.”

“Have you found anything?”

“Not yet.” He kicked off his boots, looking suddenly much more the househusband he had made himself out to be.  “I was kind of hoping that you could stave off some of the madness with this moonlight bullshit.  I wasn’t ever expecting you to cure the entirety of this though.

“Why not tell Elias?”

“Because he worries.  And I want my Elias to be happy.”

There was always such softness in his voice when he spoke of Elias. A tenderness there that I rarely heard him give to anything else.  I never doubted his words when he spoke of the other man.  I just had to wonder, how deep he was willing to go for him.

[[Don’t you think Elias and Gabriel are going to have an issue with your plan to go after the Knowing?]]

[[Isn’t being the Baron putting Elias and Gabriel at more risk?]]

[[Is the Knowing even a physical being that can be confronted?]]