Descending Star

DOLLYFACE

For Victor Elias Haupftenberg, the end of his second life began on the commencement of that most fateful day, when they had picked up the scent of the Dollyface on the summit of Mt. Rainier and chased her across the Olympic Peninsula to that high grassy vale.

From there, the Game began, and he did his part, as instructed by the Goddess of the Hunt. The aromatic boy, the delicious pet, had been designated as bait, and Victor was assigned with boxing him in.

He reconstructed the boy's life; researched his old Phoenix neighborhood, and mapped his routine. Victor found the bedrooms of his closest friends, and he designated the stage for the boy's glorious end, a beautiful promenade where fingers of light reached in from all sides through high arched glass and reverberated between infinite mirrors.

Jillian sent her last directive from deep in a rural hinterland west of Edmonton. The order had two parts. First, Victor raced east, through northern Idaho and into Montana, where he fueled the jet, prepped it for flight, parked it on the airstrip. Then he set out to comply with the second half of Jillian's order: to return to the father of the boy, to spy on the little clapboard house from downwind, observe the two Cullens who maintained a tireless watch, and to await a change.

Jillian wanted them confounded and uncoordinated. The pretty one, the bronze haired telepath who protected the boy, that one faced a reckoning, but Jillian would find her in good time. Jillian expected to have hours with the human pet, on their elegant stage, for their pas de deux. Jillian needed dear Victor to watch the Cullens back in Forks. Victor had to verify that the Cullens stayed there, through the duration of the dance, uncertain and confused.

"If these ignoble Cullens abruptly abandon their posts in Forks, that would be a change," the Goddess of the Hunt provided. "Should they assemble in force and race south for a unified attack, you will tell me, won't you, liebchen?"

"Yes," he stammered, "but two in Phoenix already guard the boy."

"Yes, only two."

"They are talented, the boy's guards. And there are seven in total. Seven. A regiment. They are as strong as the Italians."

"Hyperbole is unconstructive, treacle tart. We've discussed this."

"Seven is too many," Victor stubbornly insisted.

"Seven would be... tricky, liebchen. That is why you will watch. And listen. And report any change."

So Victor sprinted from Montana back to the Olympic Peninsula, to watch and listen for a change in the Cullens who remained there on guard.

He detested and dreaded the duty, all the way there; the tall blond male and the slight caramel haired woman had chased him thrice, all the way to the Salish Sea, off the coast of Tacoma. They enjoyed his terror and made sport of him. Inevitably his luck would run out, and now Artemis had her stage, on the other side of the continent. Would she come back to his aid, should he find himself cornered? He couldn't be sure. She needed him, certainly, but now she would not break her focus for anything.

Worst of all, as he raced west, his thirst tormented him. He hadn't fed since Edmonton. Jillian had promised a feast in Vancouver. That had been days ago, and he'd been running to exhaustion on one mission or another, ever since.

On Puget Sound, his terror and thirst combined forces and conspired against his determination to obey orders and prove his worth. He veered north, three hours past midnight, into the seedy commercial outskirts of Tacoma, an odd juxtaposition of low income housing and semi-abandoned warehouses overshadowed by smog and high tension electrical towers.