Maskbound: The Ultimate Hunter

Director Zaphira Crown crossed the cracked floor without hurrying, her violet coat whispering softly against the tiles. Every mask in the ring lowered a hand’s breadth, then another, as if the air gained weight.

“Chair Thorne, the council voted six to two and I abstained, which entitles me to review,” she said.

“Director, the vote stands until it is reviewed in session, we have not yet adjourned,” the Chair answered, rising from the bench.

“Then consider the session adjourned, Chair, reviews tend to begin that way.”

Rook returned his rifle to his back with the care of a man putting away a grudge for later. Penn’s wings folded into nothing, Orrel’s chain went black, and Brask hurried to hide his undershirt behind a pillar.

She stopped in front of Nilo and studied his face the way a person memorizes a street before dark.

Her gaze swept the bandolier, “I count seven masks, four friends, one of them a hammer, plus a very expensive crack in my dome.”

“I’ll pay for the dome, Director, it might take a while,” he said, still level.

“The dome is insured, your composure is not.”

She turned her back on him, which in a room of eleven captains was a statement of its own. When Crown spoke next, her voice reached the very top of the dome without once being raised in anger.

Crown lifted one gloved hand, “By the authority of the Director’s chair, I rule as follows.”

“First, the Safeguard Order is suspended until this council finds a way to remove a mask that does not kill the wearer.”

A murmur ran around the councilors’ bench like wind through paper, the Chair’s mouth opening and closing without sound. Six of the nine looked relieved, a count that told the Hall exactly who voted against their own conscience.

“Second, Nilo is registered as an Unclassified Hunter, Bureau rank B,” Crown said, “with the privileges of a captain, effective this hour.”

[ RANK ]

[Bureau rank: B]

[Class: Unclassified Hunter]

[True rank: A]

“Third, Squad Nine receives eighty thousand marks a month, an office on floor twelve with windows, plus a printer that works.”

Ganzo sniffed into his sleeve, “A printer that works… I never thought I would live to see it.”

“Chat, we have windows,” Pipa breathed.

Bruno straightened his coat, “I shall require a desk of reasonable pedigree.”

“We shall need a ledger for the budget,” Zinnia added, “plus a second ledger to supervise the first.”

“I will hang a sign on the door, SQUAD NINE, NOW WITH WINDOWS,” Ganzo declared, wiping his nose.

“Chat, vote on the font in the comments, I am personally rooting for the curly one,” Pipa chirped.

A tiny voice squeaked from the hook, “I would like it noted that I only fainted twice, a personal record.”

Ganzo scooped Pipa into one arm and Bruno into the other, laughing enough to rattle the dome. Zinnia stepped neatly out of reach, already drafting an itemized list of the damage to the budget.

“The council will protest this ruling in writing, Director,” the Chair said stiffly.

“Please do, Chair, I enjoy reading.”

Pipa’s drone turned a slow circle, “Chat, the Director just read a budget aloud on a live stream, somebody clip this before the printer changes its mind.”

Rook crossed the cracked floor alone, lowering his Falcon mask until it hung at his side like a hat. He stopped one pace away, the whole ring quietly watching a captain decide whether he owed anyone an apology.

“The file was wrong about your hands and wrong about you, I intend to put it in writing,” Rook said.

Nilo scratched his nose, “Write it small, I have a reputation to protect.”

“Next time announce the plates, I was wearing those,” Brask muttered from behind his pillar.

As the captains filed out, the cold drained from him all at once, leaving his hands trembling. Zilch’s voice ticked through his skull, calm Nilo, worst Nilo, while Jingles sneezed twelve times from relief.

“Unclassified is a category I invented nine minutes ago on the back of a pastry bag,” Crown murmured.

“You invented a rank?”

“I invented a loophole, ranks are what loopholes grow up to be.”

The man in the brass collar finally rose, bowed once to the Director, and descended the steps toward the floor. He stopped in front of Bruno, studied the horns, the squad behind them, then said nothing for a full breath.

“You stood with your friends,” the man said at last.

Bruno swallowed hard, “I did, Father, I would do it again, in front of the whole council if I had to.”

“See that they stand with you,” he said, and walked on.

Straight as a rod until the doors closed behind his father, Bruno finally breathed out shakily into his collar. Pipa quietly handed him a handkerchief printed with the stream’s logo, and for once nobody joked about it aloud.

The old grin crept back onto Nilo’s face, a little too light for the room, “Does the printer come with a warranty, Director?”

“It comes with Captain Bellow’s apology, which is rarer,” she said, already walking.

“Nilo, walk with me,” she added over her shoulder.

Zinnia caught his sleeve before he could follow, “Floor twelve at six, I will have the budget fully ready and you will have an explanation ready.”

“I have three, ranked by how much they hurt.”

“Lead with the one that hurts the least,” she said, releasing him.

The elevator rose in silence for ten floors, Crown watching the numbers climb with her hands folded behind her. Somewhere past floor thirty-five she produced a pastry from her sleeve and handed it over without a single comment.

He licked sugar off his thumb, “Is this the pastry the Captain asked for?”

“The Captain’s pastry is a classified matter.”

“What did you keep in the empty cases, Director?” he asked, squinting along the glinting row.

“Nothing yet, I had them built for a day I hope to be wrong about.”

Her round office on floor forty held twelve empty mask cases, glinting along the walls like missing teeth. On the desk lay a single folder, its cover marked with a thirteen in the Director’s own handwriting.

“I was standing outside those doors for eleven minutes, I wanted the dome to crack before the captains understood why,” Crown said.

“You let me walk in alone.”

“I let you walk in loud, there is a difference… so did you.”

“Show me what you carry, in order, with each name said aloud,” she added.

“Jingles, Clangor, Zilch, Cadenza, Drifter, Rattle, Magpie,” Nilo said, touching each hook.

Crown listened to the names with her eyes half closed, like a person hearing an old song. When he finished she nodded once and said nothing, which from her was practically a standing ovation.

‘Seven names, a voice for each, and not one of them interrupted to correct the order.’

She opened a leather notebook, uncapped a pen, and began to write, glancing at his face between each line. The scratch of the nib was the only sound in the room until she finally read the entry aloud.

“Left eyebrow steadier than yesterday, mouth less eager to joke,” she read, “one new scratch on the chin, still a face that wants to be remembered.”

“It’s a very flattering entry, Director, I’d like to see the one about my hair.”

“Your hair is not in the notebook, it changes with every mask.”

‘She writes my face down every night so that somebody in this city remembers it, never once saying so.’

“What is in the folder, Director?” he asked, nodding at the cover.

“A single page with a question mark, I add a line each year, and so far I have written nothing.”

“A question mark is a start, most of my life was a blank,” he said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

Crown closed the notebook, “Unclassified protects a secret too, every nation on earth would pay a fortune for a Hunter who can wear anything.”

“What you killed in the Market Ring was a host of the Masquerade Court, an organization that has been writing letters to this city for twenty years.”

“Cobb was its postman, Thimble its seamstress, Sweetwater the smiling face on the door,” she continued.

“Above them stand the Guests, above the Guests stands one Host, wearing everything.”

“Then why does the Bureau talk about them like rumors?” he asked.

“Rumors cannot be subpoenaed, I needed eleven years to find a witness the cameras would believe.”

“And Mister Plumb, the man in the accountant’s suit?” he asked.

“Hired help, the Court keeps the staff it can afford to lose.”

The plain mask from the Market Ring sat in a velvet box on the shelf, waiting, perfectly still. Nilo studied it from across the room, keeping his distance, the way a person studies a sleeping dog.

“The Court sends three things to its chosen, a card, a mask, and—” Crown said.

“An invitation,” he said quietly.

A tiny voice quivered from the hook, “That mask is laughing at me… very quietly… can you hear it?”

“Not laughing, listening,” Zilch said.

“It whispers that word at three every morning, the technicians have stopped taking the night shift.”

“It said it to me in the street, right before it stopped being a man.”

She closed the folder without opening it, looking older than anyone in that crowded room ever saw her before. Behind her the city glittered in the windows, nine million people who just watched a Visage lose its face.

“They will come for you now.”