“It's a shame that she's comatose,” Maxwell said, looking down at the still figure that lay in the corner of the room, the uncomfortable cot beneath her. He turned to his employer, who was sitting at a bench against the wall, scribbling in a notebook with the stub of a pencil.

“Such a waste, the procedure was a failure.”

“Hold your tongue,” Victor said, and Maxwell felt the muscles in his face go slack.

The man in the horn-rimmed glasses finished his sentence, and stood, regarding Maxwell, who still stood with his hands clasped behind his back, tongue hanging from the corner of his mouth. He looked like nothing so much as a hanging victim.

“You don't like how I work? Is that it?”

Maxwell's expression didn't change, his eyes fixed on Victor's.

“Speak, but lower your eyes, and look properly ashamed of yourself.”

“Yes, of course,” Maxwell swallowed, and continued, “it just seems that your...predecessors...would have been much more efficient. Not wasting...raw materials...like this.”

Victor scowled.

“I hate to break this to you, Maxwell. You're only three weeks old, and most of that was spent unconscious. You aren't a loyal family retainer, no matter how much you wish you were.”

Victor narrowed his eyes, and leaned in to growl at Maxwell through gritted teeth.

“I could reduce you to ashes with a word, you wretch. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

“Good.”

"A equals X," says Mister One.
"A equals B," says Mister Two.
"A equals nothing under the sun
But A," says Mister Three. A few
Applaud; some wipe their eyes;
Some linger in the shade to see
One and Two in neat disguise
Decapitating Mister Three.

"This age is not entirely bad."
It's bad enough, God knows, but you
Should know Elizabethans had
Sweeneys and Mrs. Porters too.
The past goes down and disappears,
The present stumbles home to bed,

The future stretches out in years
That no one knows, and you'll be dead.

The thin, blonde man sat at the end of the bar, going over receipts and entering them into a small ringed book. Occasionally, he would enter numbers into a calculator, scratch his temple with the end of his pen, and write the number down.

Wade sat in a patch of sunlight, watching the stranger work. The two of them were alone in the bar, and he assumed that the man was Jacob, Mari's business partner, though he didn't know.

As quietly as possible, he ate his apple, and enjoyed the warmth of the sunlight. Simple pleasures following an unproductive day and a forced recategorization:

“You the boarder?” the blonde man had asked.

“Uh...yes,” Wade replied.

“Good. From now on, if anyone asks, you're the night watchman.”

“Will I be drawing a paycheck?”

The blonde man laughed.

“Will I still have to pay rent?”

More laughter.

When he finished up the apple, he dropped it in the trashcan behind the bar, where empty bottles were normally deposited, and padded upstairs, leaving the thin man to his tabulations.

As quietly as possible, he slid into Algernon's office, past the detective and his business call, and into the bathroom, where he washed the sugary remains of his breakfast from his hands. Slipping back into the office, he settled in the chair opposite Algernon.

“Late twenties? Brown hair? What color eyes?...brown. Stupid of me to ask. And she never came home?”

Algernon leaned back, and stared at the ceiling fan that wobbled in a creaking circle above Wade's head.

“Any jewelry?...a ring? Insured? Beautiful. We can handle this. We'll classify it officially as a theft, but the rate will be higher. Add on another thirty-six percent to the average rate.”

He was silent for a moment.

“Alright. Thirty percent. Any lower and I'm hanging up, though.”

Another bit of silence.

“Okay, fine. God. Twenty-five percent and not a cent lower.”

Algernon hung up, leaned back in his chair, and sighed with such force that his cheeks puffed out.

“Tough negotiation?”

“Missing person, never came back from a party over in Grimsby.”

“Grimsby? Don't tell me...”

“Yeah. Carver place.”

Wade looked down at his feet, and flexed his toes. He could feel blisters on the souls of his feet, from all the walking he had done yesterday.

“Only twenty-five percent higher than normal? Man.”

Algernon leaned back, his chair creaking, and rested his feet on the top of his desk.

“Oh, like you have any room to complain about going farther than your pay dictates. Need I remind you about that bandage on your hand?”

Wade looked down, considering the knife-wound on his left palm, and the spot where it emerged on the back of his hand. It hadn't hurt when he'd received it, in the grip of the Arafel, but it had started to itch and ache more and more as the wound began to mend, though the edges of it were still red and tender.

“Did I tell you that I ripped a guy's ear off before I got this?” Wade asked.

“Like, you punched him and tore some cartilage?”

“Nah. Ripped it straight off his head. It was in my hand, no connective tissue.”

Neither spoke for a long moment, and Algernon licked his lips, trying to come up with a response.

“You say the weirdest things, you know that?”

“You're the one that brought that job up. I just didn't know if I'd told you about that part,” Wade said, shrugging, “besides, you wanted to use that whole thing as part of an ad campaign.”

“Well, you didn't, and I don't think I do, anymore. Now I'm going to have trouble sleeping.”

“Where do we begin with this one?” Wade asked, changing the subject.

“I need to make some more phone calls. We'll do some legwork, later.”

Wade pushed himself up out of the chair, and stretched his back, before glancing toward the door.

“I'm going to go grab some smokes,” he declared.

“Pick me up a packet of the Wides, would you?” Algernon said, tossing an empty pack to him, eliciting a dirty look from his employee.

“What? I'll reimburse you, don't worry.”

Wade grunted, and left the office, heading downstairs. Jacob was still tabulating the receipts, dust still danced in the slanting sunlight. He headed for the door, the wooden floor creaked beneath his feet. When he reached out for the door, it flew open, leaving him reaching for thin air.

On the other side of the door was Mari. Her eyes were obscured by a pair of convenience store wraparound sunglasses.

“Oh, hey, Wade,” she said, quietly, as she came in, “you working today?”

“Later,” he said, “Algernon's looking up some information, right now. You okay?”

She nodded.

“Bit of a headache, and I feel hung-over, even though I haven't been drinking. I'll be fine. Don't worry.”

“If you say so,” Wade said.

Wade left the convenience store, ignoring the sound of the ringing pay-phone and the sign that declared that “this phone cannot receive calls.” When he was ten paces distant, the phone stopped.

He didn't even notice. It was just another source of noise in the living city that churned around him.

Every time his left foot left the ground, he struck the head of the pack of cigarettes against his right hip, hoping that it would have the desired effect. Doing it the normal way was out of the question, because of his injured hand.

He stopped by the entrance of the alleyway to remove a cigarette from the pack. The opening was blocked by police tape, and inside were the chalk outlines.

As he lit the cigarette, he looked in. The police assumed that both of them had been killed by the same person, not thinking to check the contents of their stomachs. At least, they hadn't released any information to the public.

The pocket knife was heavy in his pocket, and he'd washed the blood from his hands.

I didn't kill anyone, Wade assured himself, that wasn't a person.

Algernon was sitting on the hood of his car as he waited for Wade to return. The younger man threw the pack of cigarettes to his employer as he headed for the passenger side door.

They sat in the car as Algernon lit a cigarette and cranked the window open.

He put the vehicle in drive, and they headed west.

“Where are we headed?” Wade asked.

“First thing's first. Carver.”

Wade felt his muscles tighten.

“Is that wise?”

“Last known place she was located. Best place to find more information.”

Wade nodded, but didn't say anything.

“Oh, suck it up, fool. You say 'I ripped off a guy's ear!' like it's the most fascinating thing ever, and you have a problem going to call on this guy.”

Wade let out a nervous laugh, and turned to look out the window.

After a time, they reached University Hill. The graffiti had grown more elaborate, with the repetition of “9/72” over and over again. Seventy-two appeared on its own several times, but nine never appeared individually.

“Something appears to be happening on the seventy-second of September,” Algernon muttered, “or rather, December eleventh.”

“Probably not a date.”

“Probably,” Algernon agreed, “but how can you tell? The Novs have always been a weird bunch. Every six months they get convinced that something terrible is going to happen and make extra work for all the janitors.”

“How often does something really bad happen around here?” Wade asked, “or rather, as bad as they seem to suggest.”

“Once every four...no, five years.”

They passed the University, and headed down into Venburg, and then began the long, shallow climb up into Grimsby.

The houses got larger, as if the texture of the city was growing more and more coarse, and the sidewalks disappeared completely.

Algernon pulled in and parked angling in toward the fence on the wrong side of the street. The two of them got out and walked toward the gate, Wade stood at Algernon's shoulder, towering over him as he hit the button on the intercom.

“Yes?”

“Heller Consulting Detectives. We need to ask someone about Iris Nejem.”

There was a crackle of static from the intercom.

“Hold on a moment.”

They waited a moment, and the door opened. Victor Carver stepped out, and walked along the drive until he reached the gate. He looked deflated, and the lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses were scratched to such a degree that his eyes were almost completely obscured.

“Victor Carver?” Algernon asked, “may we come in?”

Carver looked from Algernon to Wade, and back to Algernon.

“Did Iris Nejem come to your house on October twelfth?”

After gazing at Algernon for a moment, he turned back to look at Wade, his eyebrows lowered, his obscured eyes narrowing. His bloodless lips didn't move.

“Mr. Carver. Are you listening?”

A sneer crossed his face, but he didn't respond. He turned back to look at Algernon.

“You know something, don't you?”

Carver turned on his heel, and began to trudge back up the drive, toward the door.

Algernon drew breath, preparing to yell something at the receding figure. A fire had kindled in his eyes, and his lips briefly pulled back from his teeth in a vicious expression.

Wade put his hand on Algernon's shoulder.

“No. We're not getting anything here.”

Algernon exhaled, visibly deflating. He continued to glare at the figure.

Instead of shouting, he jabbed his finger on the intercom button:

“Yes?” came the crackling voice.

“Hey, Creepy. Let your boss know he's a son of a bitch.”

No answer, just a crackling noise.

The two drove back eastward, toward University Hill and Little Masyaf. Wade cranked down his window and lit a cigarette, shortly afterward, Algernon did the same.

They drove in silence through Venburg, and Wade only broke the silence when they started climbing the side of the hill.

“See what I mean? He's a creep.”

“I see. I see,” Algernon said.

“Well, you've been in this business for a while. Any intuitions?”

“He's a creep. A jackass.”

They slowed and stopped at a red light.

“I'm also reasonably certain that he's connected to the problem we're trying to solve.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I don't have any proof, or anything. She disappeared after going there, and he refuses to give us any information? Refuses to even speak to us? Sounds fishy.”

Wade nodded.

“Hold up,” Algernon muttered, looking off to the side of the street. Wade glanced up, and saw Theia standing in front of a group of a half-dozen hashshishin, who were slowly advancing on her, matching their pace to hers.

Algernon pulled the car over slightly past her on the street. She produced a can of spray paint and raised it, a stream of black blinded one.

Wade got out of the car, and opened the rear passenger side door. Algernon emerged from the driver's side, and reached into his suit coat.

Theia began to run back towards them, and Wade lunged past her. He reached out at the closest one's head, and grabbed it in a crooked-fingered grip, his hand curved into a talon. He twisted from his waist, and slammed the man's head into the brick wall of the apartment complex that they stood next to.

The hashshishin crumpled to the ground, a smear of blood on the wall.

The others began shouting, two of them turned toward Wade, knives raised. The other three left standing kept pursuing Theia.

Algernon produced his pistol, and lined up a shot. He held the pistol two-handed, from the lead Hashshishin, to his gun, to his eye. He squeezed the trigger.

The man folded up around the bullet wound, his head impacting the pavement. The other two halted and scattered, one dashing off into traffic, the other into the alleyway.

The two remaining on Wade did the same, both dashing out into traffic.

“What, you didn't rip of his ear?” Algernon asked Wade when they regrouped. Theia had already climbed into the back seat of the car, sitting with her feet on the sidewalk.

“He was moving forward. It only worked the other time because no one was expecting it.”

Algernon opened the Driver's side door.

“They weren't expecting it this time.”

Wade climbed in, as well.

“Yeah, but I was still expecting it,” he declared.

“So what was that about?” Algernon asked, looking at Theia in the rear-view mirror.

“They were screwing with the graffiti,” she declared.

“So, you thought you'd screw with them? That's probably a bad idea unless you've ripped off your share of ears, like Wade here.”

“Shut it,” Wade declared, slumping down into the seat, and looking out the windows.

“Ears?” Theia said.

“Don't ask,” Wade said, “and don't you say anything, old man.”

“Old man? I'm only forty-six.”

“Doesn't matter. Don't say anything.”

“Could you drop me off at my apartment?” Theia asked.

Algernon looked back at her.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, “I think I know where it is.”

“You ever think it might be a bad idea to attack gang members messing with your graffiti?” Wade asked.

“Of course that's a dumb idea,” she said, slumping back into her seat, “but I can't just let them get away with it, can I?”

“Can't you?”

“Shut up, Wade,” Algernon said.

They parked behind the bar after dropping off Theia. Wade unlocked the back door, and held it open for Algernon. He went up the back stairs, and headed for the bathroom. He washed his hands and went back into his closet.

Algernon headed for the bar, where he sat opposite of Mari. The bar was almost empty, with only a couple people sitting at tables around the bar.

“Looks dead. Are we going to be alright?” he asked her.

“You Santiago? Jacob's partner?”

“I thought you were his business partner?” Algernon replied.

“You're just joking around now. I know you're familiar with him, and their living arrangement,” she said, leaning against the bar.

“What about him, then?” Algernon asked.

“He tracked down a college band. They're going to play a show here Monday night. Put some asses in seats, you know?”

“Sounds good. Wade probably needs the extra cash that working door will get him.”

“Yeah. Jacob found a way to use him as a tax write-off.”

“Interesting.”

She looked over at him.

“Really?”

“Well, no, but I don't want you to stop talking.”

Mari closed the bar early, that evening, and lowered the blinds. She and Algernon sat together in a booth, and drank together.

And one thing led to another.

Above their heads, Wade writhed in his sleep and opened his mouth. Out of it emerged the shadowy smoke-form of the Arafel. It pooled around him, and dripped off the bed, and spread on the floor: the wood grain of the floor changed and twisted.

It kept pouring from him, gushing from his mouth and thickening, climbing up the walls. Faces emerged from the wood: screaming, weeping images, writhing in pain.

Voices emerged from the Arafel, chanting in droning voices.

“Ayh Jee Yu See...”

The room filled with cold, black smoke, and some of it began to spill out from under the door.

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