05-14-2020, 09:32 PM
“You could tell me, and perhaps I would fall asleep on my table right now just to escape the telling.” The cigarette hanging for a moment between his lips, he smacked his palm down in illustration of stupor, then blew out his draw. He smirked. “Build a foundation from lies and it is bound to crumble. We all know it, yet we all do it anyway.” And he finally stubbed his smoke.
“Ah, and so we find common ground, stranger. Not for the drinking. But for the monsters, yes. Though I know no one-armed boys. Memorable as a missing eye, I’d wager.” Even in his cups he did not physically point out the deficiency in himself, but there was poison in his tone. “I looked death right in the eye at a lake in India, and she claimed one of mine with the spit of her tongue. Now I help a boy hunt for her sister in Moscow’s waters and hope she does not take my other.” He barked laughter, perhaps because it seemed the second creature did not exist at all, at least not where the boy thought. You will never find her, Nimeda had told him. There had been no news for weeks, and now he had other problems.
“Dead things are walking now? That is news. I saw corpses in the tunnels rescuing an ungrateful girl from her own stupidity. Creatures hungry for flesh, and the scientist who tied her down in the dark.” He paused a moment, squinted a little. Thought was slow, but Sören had never liked not knowing, and he suddenly realised the stranger had implied recognition. The bite was one of annoyance, more for the fact it was only the context that offered a brief flicker of dim memory. Though he had a good eye for faces, he had a better one for those useful to his endeavours, and in any case the hunt for oblivion rarely made a bedfellow of clarity.
“Ah,” he said flatly. “I remember you. You were the cop she told her woes. Did you apprehend the devil, or is the debt still unpunished I wonder? If not it surprises me the boy did nothing. His heels burned into the darkness, heedless. Another stupidity. But he seemed intent on a death. A man shouldn’t promise it unless he means it.” But he shrugged, ultimately uncaring of either fate. The girl was somewhere in America now, and caught in yet another net of trouble it seemed, by the brief communications he had received from her: demands like he were her father’s errand boy.
“We all die, though,” he said, but the smile was gone now. “It’s life’s first promise, and her biggest joke at our expense.”
“Ah, and so we find common ground, stranger. Not for the drinking. But for the monsters, yes. Though I know no one-armed boys. Memorable as a missing eye, I’d wager.” Even in his cups he did not physically point out the deficiency in himself, but there was poison in his tone. “I looked death right in the eye at a lake in India, and she claimed one of mine with the spit of her tongue. Now I help a boy hunt for her sister in Moscow’s waters and hope she does not take my other.” He barked laughter, perhaps because it seemed the second creature did not exist at all, at least not where the boy thought. You will never find her, Nimeda had told him. There had been no news for weeks, and now he had other problems.
“Dead things are walking now? That is news. I saw corpses in the tunnels rescuing an ungrateful girl from her own stupidity. Creatures hungry for flesh, and the scientist who tied her down in the dark.” He paused a moment, squinted a little. Thought was slow, but Sören had never liked not knowing, and he suddenly realised the stranger had implied recognition. The bite was one of annoyance, more for the fact it was only the context that offered a brief flicker of dim memory. Though he had a good eye for faces, he had a better one for those useful to his endeavours, and in any case the hunt for oblivion rarely made a bedfellow of clarity.
“Ah,” he said flatly. “I remember you. You were the cop she told her woes. Did you apprehend the devil, or is the debt still unpunished I wonder? If not it surprises me the boy did nothing. His heels burned into the darkness, heedless. Another stupidity. But he seemed intent on a death. A man shouldn’t promise it unless he means it.” But he shrugged, ultimately uncaring of either fate. The girl was somewhere in America now, and caught in yet another net of trouble it seemed, by the brief communications he had received from her: demands like he were her father’s errand boy.
“We all die, though,” he said, but the smile was gone now. “It’s life’s first promise, and her biggest joke at our expense.”
![[Image: odinraven.png]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/odinraven.png)