Penny Dreadful © 1995

Written back in the day (i.e. long ago) when I still considered the idea of being a fantasy/fiction author. Just a trifle, with neither beginning nor end, and very little in the way of editing...

...he saw her in a corner, cheek resting against the palm of one hand. She was staring straight ahead at the votive candle on the table before her. As she moved her other hand back and forth across the flame, she let it lick her fingers with a sooty kiss. The candle's glow lent some color to her otherwise colorless face, illuminating the deep green eyes buried under a thick swipe of black kohl. She appeared bored; she appeared lonely. James had never seen her before. He had a nagging deadline to reach tomorrow morning with his music reviews for Scorpio Rising.  He hadn't even begun the editing process of his roughest of drafts-- but that could wait. It would be his duty to see to it that the striking creature seated over there was neither bored nor lonely from this moment onward.

“Don't waste your time with her," the owner (and bartender this evening) of the Crow & Key warned in a clipped British accent, wiping a glass with a grey rag. "That there's Penny Dreadful-- s'what we call her, anyways-- she's as quiet as the grave, my friend. Never bothers with nobody. Just sits there is all. Strange bird, that Penny Dreadful. Don't know what her real name is. Never speaks."

"Well, then I guess it's up to me to get her talking," said James, drinking the last bit of foam from the bottom of his glass. James loved a challenge. He didn’t particularly love the bitter brown ale, giving a final swallow and wishing for a nice domestic, bland bottle of anything to rinse the burnt-peat taste away… but what else would one drink in a bar such as this?

Donnie Crowley laughed a gritty, sandpaper laugh. "You go on, then-- give her a try. You'll see what I mean. That there Penny Dreadful, she's a mystery, mate." He gave James a wink. "I've clean given up on figgerin' her out. Time to pass the torch on, I suppose. Looks like a job for a younger, more intrepid explorer."

James stood from the stool and emptied some bills and change onto the bar, when Donnie pushed a bottle of pale domestic ale at him, icy vapor curling from the open neck, as if he had read his mind . "For luck," said the grizzled bartender with a smile. "Maybe you can come up with some clever bit to say to her that none of us have..." James amiably took the bottle and nodded, downing the final bitter swig in the glass that remained, and then started off toward the dark corner.

She was no longer playing with the candle flame, rather just staring at it with a desperate sadness that all but broke James' heart. What was it? The downward cast of her eyes, the downward curl of her lips? He knew nothing of this girl other than the local mystery as retold by a barkeep who was known to dip into the sauce himself on more than one occasion. And yet James now felt compelled to take her quickly in his arms, caressing away all of the misery that clung to her like cobwebs, like graveyard moss.

She turned her gaze to meet his, and his heart nearly leapt from its cage. So beautiful, he thought, so fucking beautiful... He sat down in the chair across the table from her, careful not to appear too eager, lest he should scare her off. But she wasn't moving. Her eyes weren't even dashing about in search of the quickest exit; in fact, they had never left his own. Yet there was still an uneasiness about her, one that was trembling just beneath the surface of the skin. Her entire body seemed clenched, as if at any moment she might spring out of his reach, straight over his head and up into the ceiling rafters, only to scuttle into an even darker corner, one where rats and roaches and ghosts of past conversations fled.

"Hello..." was all that James could manage, and he cursed himself silently. For all the gift of gab that he possessed, his talents seemed lost on this pale wraith before him. She blinked slowly, blackened lashes kissing one another briefly, then parting to show the shimmering emeralds tucked inside. Their hue shifted with the candle's wavering flame, from glints of green to the rusty gold color of autumn leaves. She wore fingerless gloves of black lace, and one hand rubbed a thumb and two fingertips together, smearing the soot of the wick deep into her skin. In the bobbing and weaving of the tiny fire, the lace appeared to be highlighted a deep blood-red, and upon closer inspection James found its inlaid patterns to be intricate, delicate weavings of swirls and roses. The knuckles were hugged in silver rings, all differently-shaped-- ankhs, crosses and claddaghs, bodies of faceless lovers tangled in tantric embraces...

James' eyes traveled back to the face, a face which appeared to be carved from ivory-- finding not a single flaw, neither bump nor scar. Her lips were painted a deep burgundy, though they appeared black in the shadows thrown by the candle's constant flicker. Several charms hung at her white throat, all silver like her rings: more ankhs, strange dragon-like creatures, more crucifixes. A black velvet bustier was laced up to the cleave in her breasts, the sleeves of lace not quite covering her shoulders, and where the sleeves ended, the gloves began. She was a vision he expected to find somewhere else, at clubs like Tantra, the Crypt, the BatCave, the Abyss, on those special Gothic and Alternative Dance nights... not in a tiny, unpretentious side-street English pub like this-- a favorite of his, nonetheless. He didn't want her to assume from his stare that he was some kind of pervert who was merely taking inventory on all her finer assets, but he couldn't help himself. He was a guy, after all. Hormones or not, how could he help but to notice her beauty?     

"Sorry... it doesn't bother you if I sit here, does it?" James asked apologetically, again slightly cursing himself for the less-than-stunning conversation that he was struggling to strike up. She blinked again, bracelets jangling softly as she pushed a long glossy strand of curlicued hair out of her eyes. Much of it was pulled back and restrained by more braided black ribbons, but a few bits poked free to frame her face. James was nearly consumed with this overwhelming need to run his fingers through it. He leaned a bit closer, and could smell spices-- a sweet, smoky scent. Never before had a woman made him feel so positively silly. He'd chatted up hundreds of girls, and later hundreds of women, in his relatively short lifetime of a quarter-century on the planet, but never before had he been at such a loss for words as he was right now. With this bizarre Penny Dreadful, he could scarcely recall where his tongue was. And she hadn't even uttered a single word herself.

"You just look like something's wrong. I only wanted to know if you were all right-- if there was anything I could do." Her lips were now drawn deeper into a pout, and James knew in an instant that his awkward fumbling for just the right words was getting him no where fast.  "What can I say to make you smile?" There. Now there was something. It was witty, it was sweet-- and yet there was no change in her expression. Not even a wince, a look of disdain, nothing. She'd probably heard it all, every cheesy line, every lame come-on from many a stuttering, drunken barhopping fool that had no doubt circled her like a wobbly moth drawn to her most enticing of flames. Still, he couldn't bring himself to give up quite yet. "Please-- I'm begging you. I've never begged a strange woman in a bar for anything. Not even so much as a phone number. And I'm now begging you to smile. If you don't, I'll be forced to sit here until there is the most remote of possibilities that a smile might happen in the next several hours. So please, for the record, I am begging you. You're breaking my heart."

One half of her lips curled into a partial smirk, probably more for his benefit than anything else, and he beamed. "Thank you... now introductions are in order," he said, clearing his throat.

"I know who you are." The ghost actually spoke... James' heart began to pound.

"How could you know?" James extended his hand cordially across the table. “I'm--”

"I know who you are because you've been here before. I've seen you at this bar many times."

"Huh-- I think I would have noticed you," he mused aloud. He most definitely would have remembered laying eyes on this extraordinary creature.

"I only make it my business to be noticed when I want to be noticed," she answered to his unvoiced question. "That stupid Crowley's made a game out of it." She rolled her eyes in the direction of the bar, exasperated. "He sends over as many patrons as he can. It's like the Riddle of the Sphinx to him. A barside carnival show." She lowered her voice, in confidence. "I've tired of the flunkies he sends over each night. There's no mystery to unlock here."

"I see." James continued to gaze on her, his mind clouding with less-than-pure visions and sadistic scenarios of the wickedest kind. He blinked them away. "I reiterate, you're breaking my heart."

"I know all about broken hearts."

"I believe that." James eyed her carefully. "You look as though someone's taken a beating on your heart."

"Life's done that. It happens to everyone, eventually." She gazed into the candleflame, sighing softly. James could smell a citrusy, smoky scent again. "It happens in different ways, of course. Life lays out many paths, but eventually they all meet in the same place."

"Where would that be? To where does Fate draw us? Where do we meet? Here? The Crow & Key?"

"In Death." James shuddered at her answer. Spooky little chick, this Penny Dreadful, pretty little girl with the gothic moniker. Intriguing, nonetheless. He shook off the chill.

"Well, I have the utmost confidence that the two of us'll be around for quite awhile yet. Might as well make the most of it. No future plans of owning a piece of real estate six feet deep..." he chuckled. "You said you know who I am-- care to take a stab at the Name Game?"

"James."

Taken aback, but only for a moment. "Well, that was easy. Shit, some lucky guess. You do this for a living? Stop people on the street and guess their birthdays and weight? Tell their fortunes? You read tea leaves or Tarot cards?" She was back to silent, now clearly unamused. James thought he had better make a quick recovery. "Well, I'm impressed, all the same. I suppose now I owe you a drink for that scintillating display of otherworldly phenomena ."

"You owe me nothing."

"Sure I do. It's the holidays, a time for giving. Here." He reached to hand her the freebie bottle. Cheap move, he thought, berating himself. "So, what do you see in the future for me?" he asked. "Any drastic relocations? A sudden scaling of the corporate ladder? An upward swing in cash flow?" 

She pushed the bottle away crossly. "I don't drink."

"Well, kinda defeats the purpose of hanging out in bars then, doesn't it?"

"Not especially. I like to watch people. People enjoy looking for Death, the irony being that once they find it, they'll do anything to claw their way out of His grasp." Her voice was like tiny blue wisps of smoke playing with his brain.

"Why so morbid? I never understood you little Gothic chicks having this preoccupation with death---"               

"Why do people come here, if it's not to look for Death?" she asked sharply, though her voice was still barely above a whisper.

"Death? What do you mean, to look for Death? They come here to socialize, to drink-- they don't plan on finding something bizarre and extraordinary here--" 

"They come here in search of something that they can't name, that they don't recognize. And after they've drunken themselves into a false sense of warmth and comfort, they oftentimes lean right into Death." Her emerald eyes glinted, shimmered in the flame. "Mind you, it is a false sense. They might stumble back out the door, stagger out onto the pavement-- only to be shoved up against a wall and knifed in a darkened alley, or run over by a taxi driving dangerously close to the curb. Perhaps to be dragged home by a prospective lover, only to get bludgeoned to death and left to rot in a dumpster, or the river-- even in the non-literal sense, Death is within the realm of possibility. People might think they're having the time of their lives, with the love of their lives, only to later learn that they've been used, cast aside, much like a paper cup or dirty sock. They take their chances when they let their guards down, when they let their thoughts and vision be clouded and consumed by the very drink they themselves consume." Fascinating.

"So why do you come here?"

"I told you, because I enjoy watching them. I enjoy watching them dance with Death, unknowingly. It makes me feel... less alone."

"Donnie was right. You're a strange one." Royally fucked-up is more like it, he thought to himself, taking a drink out of the bottle. Couldn't let a good pale, flavorless domestic beer go to waste.

"Do you normally make it a habit to converse with strange ones, then?" she asked, lowering her eyes.

"I suppose so. Every now and again. All part of the job-- artists and musicians are some of the most seriously disturbed souls there are. I've had some pretty eye-opening interviews. But it keeps life interesting."

"Until Death finally catches up with you. Now that would be an interview."

"Enough with the Death, already. No wonder you're alone. You probably creep people out when you go on about Death like that." He paused, afraid he might have offended her, afraid that he was being horribly insensitive. He lowered his tone. "Are you really that sad? Has life really treated you that terribly?"

"I'm... not always alone," she said carefully, pursing her lips as if thinking very hard.

"You seeing someone?"

She looked up at him as if he had just asked the stupidest, most offensive question. He may as well have asked the Pope if he had gotten any lately. "In my time, I've been in the company of many," she answered flatly. "But the moments shared have been brief. The love is always so one-sided. I need too much. I need more than any one person can give me."

"Maybe you just haven't found the right one yet." James was feeling lucky. Extremely lucky. Sad girl, beautiful face and shape, smelled great, hotter than hell-- perfectly-painted little gothic chick who looked like a lacquered piece of living artwork-- and not only was she apparently vulnerable and needy, she sounded like she had the inklings of some serious nymphomania. Excellent combination. Yes, he was indeed feeling lucky. He could overlook the necromania. The other elements far outweighed the strange and even the borderline scary.      

"For your sake, that's not an invitation, is it..?" His face fell.

"Jesus, why don't you just save yourself the trouble, and let me stick my own knife in here..." James motioned to his heart, shoving an imaginary blade into his breastbone.

"You're cold."

"Cold... yes, cold. But you-- you are not. You are teeming with life. You are warm. You have not found Death yet. Or else, you have not recognized Him." 

"Or Her..?" Now he thought he might be catching on. She smiled.

"Yes, or Her. Death can take on any shape. He-- or She-- is invisible. That is, until you're face to face, and it's already too late-- by the time you recognize Her, you're already being snuffed out..."  Their eyes met, and for a second James could not tear his gaze free. So stunningly attractive in a bizarre way... everything about her. He wanted her, wanted to bring her home and fuck her and make her cry until all the sobs were silenced, all the tears were loosed, and she was a warm, reeling, divine body bathed in happiness and completion. He felt something in his loins flare, and he shifted awkwardly in his chair.

"Leave with me," he said softly, fighting the urge to lurch across the table and take her by the shoulders, to drag her out the door and down the pavement to his apartment. She said nothing. "Come home with me... talk to me. Where it's quiet. Where there's no one else. Then tell me if you still feel Death everywhere." She smiled, eyes still riveted on his. Despite his own attempts and hopes of seduction, he felt himself caught in a sticky-sweet, dewy web.

"I assure you, Death would still be everywhere. Even around you." She reached slowly across the table, her fingertips brushing his cheek gently. "Caressing you... holding you..." Her face was suddenly inches away, though James didn't notice her move forward. Her mouth hovered before his. "...kissing you..." His eyes shut, and his tongue grew taut, awaiting the seemingly inevitable-- which didn't come. He opened an eye to find that she was seated across the table, a good three feet separating them again. She was still smiling, adding a coquettish wink. Even in his dizzied state, the scariest part was that he wanted her more.

"Caroline... Sandra... Harley... you met them all here."

That came out of left field.  Ticking off names from the past-- three weeks ago. Several months ago. Damn, that Harley-- that had been last winter, hadn't it? He only remembered her because of the unusual name-- but hadn't given the girl a second thought since. "What..? How did you--"

"You came here and picked them up at the bar... you danced the dance with them, drank the elixir with them-- then took them back to your lair and did your deed." James could feel all the blood draining from his face. "And you never saw them again. Right?"

"You sit here like a fucking mute-- and when you finally open your mouth all it spills is Death? And if that's not sick enough, you start in about my lovelife? How in the fuck would you even know? How would you know their names, or what we did..."

"You aren't that hard to follow, you know."

"Follow?"

"Yeah. And they were fairly easy as well."

"Easy?" He wanted to stand up from the table, but couldn't. Not now. He took another swig from the bottle.

"You never saw them again," she repeated. "They never returned your phone calls-- that is, if you bothered to call them back at all, right?" His face blanched. His stomach flipped. "You figured they were just one-nighters, right? A passionate fling, perhaps? Something to do on a Friday night?" she continued on with a menacing nonchalance. "You're a passionate human being, James. Your blood boils with passion. It consumes you. It makes you prowl the streets, the bars, in search of something to quench it, doesn't it? We're not so different, you and I."

"Oh, hell yes, I think we are... you're fucking certifiable... how long have you been stalking me?"

"Stalking. Now there's an interesting word. Yes. I suppose stalking would be accurate. But not in the way you mean. No. I was preparing. Internalizing. Observing. Making mental notes."

"For what?"

"Do you still want to bring me home with you?"

"Huh?"

"Do you still want to bring me home with you?" she said again. "You were thinking it before. You've been suppressing a dire and animalistic need to leap across this table and sweep me off my feet to the heights of ecstasy, and unless you plan on throwing me down on this table and taking me here, I would assume it would entail bringing me home with you."

"Apparently if you've been stalking me, you already know the way there."

"Would you like me to go now and wait up for you? Let you have a few more drinks here and leave the porch light on, so to speak?" She's enjoying making me squirm like this, he thought. "That wouldn't do. That's not your style. You want to take me by brute force, whisk me away to some torrid passion pit that you have rigged in your cozy bachelor pad. Erase the tales of castle ruins and darkened dungeons, of chains and torches... sing me songs of satin, wrap me in velvet, let me twine my fingers through your ever-spilling raven's locks--" (she softly took hold of some black tangles that draped his shoulders, letting them spill free of her gentle grasp) "--give me the sweetest thrill of my sad and sorry life, correct? Show me that everything isn't so wretched and full of Death after all..?"

"You're insane..." But everything she'd said was exactly what he'd been thinking all along. How did she know?

"You think too loudly, James. It's deafening. It's etched in your face, it's shining in your eyes. I'd have to be blind not to see it. Now please tell me that you'll give me what I want."

"What do you want?" he asked, weakly. He had no choice but to ask, at this point. 

She didn't want to feel cold anymore.

"I want your passion," she said simply. The words were nearly lost on him, as he was consumed in his own definition of passion while he looked on her-- a strange cocktail of longing and fear. Her eyes were the most intense, beautiful shade of green he had ever seen. "I want to have the drive and desire that you have, that I lost so long ago. I want it back." The eyes were wide now, brimming with a blaze behind them. "... And I'll do anything to have that chance." Her words were forceful, solid with a determination unlike any he'd ever experienced. Inside her fragile casing of velvet and lace, he knew she was foaming, rabid. Nails could easily become claws, teeth could grow into fangs...

But, he tried to remind himself, this wasn't a fucking Anne Rice novel, this wasn't a scene culled from the poison-candy pages of Poppy Z. Brite-- this was the real world... He shuddered as he caught a glimpse of her in his mind's eye, biting at his throat, pausing with a crimson grin to lick at his dark blood as it spilled down her chin... he had to stop going to those goth clubs downtown. Had to. Some people who dressed like this took the scene way too seriously... and yet, there was something otherworldly about her. She couldn't be... James wouldn't allow himself to ask. He knew now why he had been riveted. That had to be it...

"You want my passion... in exchange for Death, right..?" he said, swallowing. His throat had become dry.

"Everyone needs a taste of Death in order to put Life in perspective-- but I'm not this black widow that you think I am..." she said softly. "I don't just go around fucking indiscriminately... you don't understand..." Her stony exterior was crumbling to mossy ruins. The green glazed over to black as her eyes filled with tears. James' heart felt like it was shedding, splintering, piece by piece when he looked at those eyes. They appeared blind. Blind but for one thing--  him. A hall of mirrors, her eyes. Turning every corner, he saw his own face, his soul reflected. Those eyes held his every secret, his every move.

"Someone took me to the brink of Death, took all that I had inside, every drop of life within... and from that night onward I have been in search of something to warm my bones again, kindle my heart again, stoke the flow of my own blood again..." He wanted to look away, but again, was mesmerised. "At first I did it to drown out the hurt, the hate-- to take out my anger and frustration at such a cruel, sadistic act that had befallen me... one over which I had no control." she hissed, her face knitted into a frown, eyes focused on something faraway that James could not see. "I was nearly mad. I threw myself into one situation after another, and of course I couldn't find the same life I had once before... I wasn't in my right mind." Her eyes returned from their journey into the past, resting on his again. "I've searched. I've clawed through the muck and the shit of this world, in this strange shell, looking, scrambling, trying to keep my head above water all the while... and every one of them that I found left me to drown," she whispered, her voice shaking slightly. "I couldn't keep them. I simply sucked the life out of them. I tried to give, but couldn't give enough... and a person can only give so much... so when the others themselves became empty and tired of giving they would leave. I too had to move on."

James begged silently for the tears to keep from straying outside the lines of her lashes. He had to bite down on his lower lip to keep his own emotions in check. He tasted blood, shivered again.

"How can a person continue to give when nothing is ever returned? When there's nothing left to be returned..?" she asked, saying it more as a statement than a question. "And then I found you." A tear managed to get loose, dragging a black line down her pale cheek. "I found you, but I knew if I got close I'd scare you away, like all the rest." Another black streak. "So I took what was closest to you... tasting here and there... I couldn't help it-- I couldn't get that close to you and then not take some for myself..." she moaned, shaking her head. "Have you ever settled down to bed, ready to sleep, when suddenly you're gripped with this fear that you'll die before you wake? That Death will take you all alone before your next sunrise, right in the middle of your last dream..?"

Where is my crucifix, he wondered to himself, thinking back to his brief childhood stint as a good Catholic boy. However, after only a moment of consideration he was convinced that a hundred crosses would do no good after all. A hundred crosses and two hundred cloves of garlic and three hundred stakes through the heart would do absolutely no good at all.

"I need passionate blood," she continued.

Holy water, he thought. Holy water.

"When your little girlfriends stole away in the night after you'd fallen asleep, I took them in alleyways, even in the atrium of your apartment building, just so that I could taste the faint glimmer of what you'd given them-- sometimes I'd call to them, lure them onto the balcony-- and make them disappear. But the passion left in their blood was faint, so very faint... I almost couldn't taste it." Her voice again grew quiet as a cemetery as the memories danced before her eyes-- green again. "They had almost always... already grown cold."

"You... 'took' them..?" he asked carefully. I am seated before the Undead, his mind whispered. Again, as if she had heard his thoughts, her eyes darkened, emptying twin black streams to roll down the other cheek.      

"I made sure they'd never come back..." She sighed. "That was after I tried to taste you through them-- tried to feel you... tried to fill myself with your vitality, your beauty..."

I'm sitting in a bar, talking to a nosferatu, a beautiful chick who just happens to be a blood-hungry monster-- and people are drinking, and the room is smoky, and somewhere in the same city a jukebox is seeping strains of Bauhaus, the Sisters of Mercy, SunShine Blind, and life is just going on around me...

"What do you mean that you 'took' them..?" he asked hoarsely. His voice was trying to make an escape, right now when he wanted answers the most.

"I am getting the feeling that if you still want to take me home, you ought to do it quickly. Do it now. Before the sun comes up and all of this is null and void in the light of normal daytime." She stared at the candle, and yet made no move to get up from the table.

"What do you mean that you 'took' them..?" he repeated, willing her eyes to meet his. I should feel sick right now, he thought, I should feel like throwing up, because I know where this is leading, and it's scaring me shitless...

"I just... I had to taste it, to taste you, you know..?" she replied weakly, playing with the wick again, as if trying to avoid answering him directly. "I couldn't leave without taking some of you home with me..."

"You're not telling me this. You're not. I refuse to hear it." From somewhere came a pounding-- ah, but it was only the blood against his eardrums, beating a warning...

"I..." She swallowed. "I couldn't remain content with your image, with mere thoughts of you. I listened at your door, at your window, to your laughter, moaning, crying... wanting so desperately to be the one making you laugh, moan, cry..."

Again, James felt his face go white.

"And I'd wait, I'd crouch, sometimes in shadow, wishing for them to leave. Sometimes I'd call to them." She shook her head, ran her fingers against her charms; they jingled like wind-chimes. "If they wouldn't leave by their own will, I would have to lure them... because I had to see them. I had to see the flush still fresh in their cheeks. I had to taste your tongue on theirs. I had to rest my hand against the hearts that you made pound... my fingers against the flesh you made quiver and glisten--" Now she was wringing her hands plaintively, the gloves making a scritching sound of lacey palms against one another. "I'd take them with such a force, I'd grab hold and slam them against a wall, and bury myself in them, all the while searching for you inside... and I'd only be left with remnants, but still they were better than nothing... so put off, so frightened, they would run away. But before they'd get a chance to wrestle free, I'd lean in..." She lurched across the table again, and James felt his face being lured closer as well. "... and I would tell them to stay the fuck away. To go back to their tiny lives of bars and clubs and city boys, but to never, ever come near you again, or I wouldn't be responsible for what would happen to them."  Pause. "Because I want you. I know you like no other. From the second I saw you, I felt that heat, I felt that passion, that passion which matches mine, otherwise so unequalled, so unparalleled. I heard it. It took ahold, and I couldn't have fought it if I'd tried... don't you understand..?"

James wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved or terrified.  She wasn't a vampire. At least, not of the fictitious, blood-sucking ilk. But at the same time, she was a vampire-- a vampire far more sinister and sad than any found on page or screen-- one that hungered for life, thirsted for passion. One that had been dealt a lethal blow and was now desperately clawing through one night at a time in search of a way to feel alive again. The very worst kind of vampire to be, he thought, is the metaphorical, psychological vampire.                 

"A life without passion is Death..." she whispered. "A lonely, walking Death. A nightmare in daylight. Food without taste. A rose with no scent. Fingertips possessing no sense of touch--" She paused, her eyes again faraway. "One broke my heart-- no, break isn't a strong enough word. He took it, shattered it, destroyed it, killed it. Someone I would have done anything in the world for-- and he led me to believe that he felt the same, but quickly proved otherwise with indifference, with mockery..." Her eyes spilled more tears now, trickling coal streaks. She reached up and ran her hand along his cheek, and he didn't flinch. He felt an intense warmth spread throughout his body. "Ah, there it is... I knew I'd find it... I knew I wasn't wrong about you, James..." Her mouth curled into a hopeful smile. "Show me a place where there's no more Death... show me that place now... and I promise you will have no regrets."

He knew of just such a place, and it was a mere ten-minute walk around the corner, through a swirl of dry winter leaves that rustled against the cold concrete like sighs and quiet, knowing laughter.