held him tight, and began to squeeze the life from his body.
The more he struggled, the tighter the vines became, until his bones began to snap like pieces of dry wood.
Simeon’s screams filled the night, diminishing to little more than a pathetic whine as his blood flowed, watering the hellish vegetation. He was waiting for the inevitable death that would not hold, when through a darkened stone doorway in the ruins of the castle something appeared and began to move toward him.
The man was tall and of indiscriminate age, clad in robes that seemed to be cut from the fabric of night. He leaned on a staff as he slowly approached—a walking stick that appeared to have been carved from bone.
The figure stopped mere inches from him, and stared deeply into his eyes.
“You should be dead,” the magick user, Ignatius Hallow, said in a voice ripe with curiosity.
“That I should,” Simeon managed, though his throat was clogged with bile and blood.
“Why have you come?” the sorcerer asked.
Though it took all the strength that he had remaining, Simeon managed to answer.
“To . . . learn.”
And then he died, his body no longer able to sustain his life as a result of the abuse his fragile human form had endured.
But as before, death would not have him.
“Do you like it?”
Simeon’s eyes were focused on the bare skin of a waitress’s arm, or more specifically, on the tattoo that curled its way around her pale flesh.
That was all it took to stir the memories of long ago.
He pulled his eyes from the tattoo to gaze up into the woman’s face. She was attractive in that used sort of way, the deep lines around her eyes and smiling mouth hinting at a hard life.
“Quite lovely,” Simeon told her, forcing a friendly smile. He didn’t want to be rude and draw attention to himself.
“I had it done when I was just a kid,” she said, taking his empty wineglass and placing it on her tray. “Wished I hadn’t as I got older, but now I think it’s kinda nice.”
She smiled again, as he agreed.
“You’re new in here, aren’t you?” she then asked, becoming more personal.
This was what he’d hoped against. Simeon had needed to get away by himself, away from the demonic trio that served him, even for just a single drink.
Methuselah’s was the best place he could think of. He’d always wanted to patronize the strange bar that catered to the most unusual clientele. And looking around, he was glad that he had.
A golem of stone wiped the surface of the bar with a damp rag, as a minotaur checked identification at the heavy wooden door. In one corner of the darkened establishment sat creatures more reptile than human, served by a waitress whose skin was nearly translucent, her internal workings on view for all to see. Four succubi that had followed a group of humanoid travelers down a hallway leading to the restrooms emerged from the darkened passage, dabbing at their mouths with lacy handkerchiefs.
Methuselah’s was a most fascinating place, and Simeon was glad he’d come, but he caught sight of what was coming through the door and knew it was time to leave.
He smiled again at the waitress, ignoring her question as he took some bills from his pocket and placed them on her tray. “Keep the change.”
“Next time you’re in,” the waitress said, eyeing the cash before slipping it into a pocket on her apron, “you be sure to ask for Katie.”
He stood up, staring at the three demons that had just entered the bar. Their eyes were shifting about the room. They were looking for him.
“I’ll be sure to do that, Katie,” Simeon told Katie, reaching out to take hold of her arm in a firm grip. “But I’m afraid that in a little bit you won’t even remember I’ve been here.”
She seemed a little startled, a bit perplexed at first, but then he watched his magick seep deep into her flesh, and spread throughout her body, and as he released his grip, she was already moving toward her next table.
His presence forgotten.
The demons had come closer, waiting for him to notice their presence.
He turned to them. “You’ve found me.”
“When we noticed you were gone . . . ,” one of them began.
“You were worried?” Simeon asked. His coat was hanging over the back of another chair and he retrieved it, pushing past the demons on his way to the door.
“Was it wise for you to come here?” another asked in a voice low and soft, so as not to be heard.
Simeon stopped as he hung his coat over his arm.
“Your concern is really touching,” he said, trying the smile again but certain to make it appear as obviously insincere as he could manage. “But it’s nothing you need to worry yourself about.”
“Hold this,” he ordered, handing his coat to one of the demons smart enough to keep her mouth shut.
Simeon walked away from his pale-skinned escorts and placed his hands together, allowing the two rings, one on the ring finger of each hand to briefly touch, before raising his hands in the air.
“Excuse me,” he called out, feeling the ancient power imbued in the two pieces of jewelry flow through his hands and out into the tavern’s patrons. “Just to be on the safe side,” he said as they listened. “I was never here.”
He watched the memory of him leave each and every one of those present, all of them going back to whatever it was they were in the middle of doing before the pale-skinned man with the curly black hair called on their attention.
“Happy?” Simeon asked the demon that had questioned him, stealing back his jacket from the other, and throwing it over his arm.
He headed toward the door, ahead of his entourage.
“Have a good night,” he told the minotaur as it opened the door for him and the demons that followed.
Remy stopped to let Marlowe sniff the base of the parking meter, before the dog lifted his leg to spray it with urine.
“Where do you keep it all?” Remy asked him.
“The pee,” he said. “I can’t imagine one dog having so much of it inside him. You must have some sort of storage tank or something. Is that what it is? Do you have a storage tank?”
Marlowe had no real idea what Remy was talking about and answered in the expected manner.
Remy chuckled, walking down Boylston Street with Marlowe sniffing at the ground and pulling slightly on his leash.
He and Marlowe had been careful not to make too much noise as they got ready to leave the house on their walk. Buttoning his shirt while Marlowe patiently waited just outside the door, Remy had watched Linda sleep. His body still tingled with the memory of their lovemaking, and he considered crawling back beneath the covers for another go, but a faint, pathetic whine from the hallway was enough to reignite his other purpose.
He had a call to make that couldn’t be made from his cell, and besides, he’d promised Marlowe a walk.
Remy loved the hum of the city by day and night, but this time of the early morning, when things were so remarkably still and quiet, was high up there on his list of favorite times. It was almost as if the day to come was waiting, tensed, at the starting line, eager for the pistol shot that would signal what was to come.
He loved this city and the humanity it coddled, which made the reason he’d left his lover, and his bed, to head out into the early morning, all the more pertinent.
