1

Jack had had a bad day. It was the kind of day that put a shadow on you – darkened your whole past and any future you could envision. Jack’s life was, admittedly, not to be envied, but there was some good to it. He had experienced his small share of happiness at times; was even in possession of a few memories over which, like the small embers which remained after a bonfire, he could warm the cold fingers of his misery and make it all a little more bearable. Not today though.

Presently, Jack sat in his usual spot at the Rooster, trying to drink away his sorrows. Somehow, he hardly had the energy even for that. He sipped his beer irregularly, as though he kept forgetting it was there. What little he drank hardly did much to take the edge off. His nerves were wrought. He felt his spirit frayed.

He just kept going over the scene from earlier that afternoon in his mind. He had been in a good place, comfortable at that high-stakes table. He had felt, for the first time in his life really, that he had earned his spot somewhere above all the squalor and the mediocrity that had been his world for as long as he could remember. There had even been a moment at some point where he had felt sure that the stars had aligned, that his whole life, all the trials and the failures, hadn’t been for nothing – that everything he’d ever experienced or done had led him to this place of glory.

Then it had all come tumbling down. Just like it always did. Directly after his brutal defeat he had found, for a little while, some small comfort in his outrage that he had lost due to clear and obvious cheating on the part of Donny Carmichael – a known liar and a thief – but this comfort was doomed not to last. So what, Donny had cheated? They were all cheaters in one way or another. Jack had himself managed only to buy in after months of pulling robberies in the alleyways of the Strip. The game itself was just one short round in that never ending game of cards in which all the dirt money of the world passed from one dirty hand to another.

The fact remained: Jack had been unable to do anything. He had lost all the money he had spent months saving up, and then some. It was one thing to lose what he’d saved, but quite another to be in debt now to Mr. Gabriel. That last failure had been all due to his pride. He had no one to blame for that but himself.

Jack pushed his half-empty glass of beer away, towards the dim red candle that sat in the middle of his two-person table. He surveyed the room absentmindedly, watched his fellow down-and-outers coldly. Normally, he might have felt a kinship for the drunks and the degenerates which populated the tiny establishment, but the shadow allowed him no such comfort. His one-time comrades had turned to strangers. There were no friends – a friend was just a person who hadn’t found quite the right opportunity to cheat you yet.

Jack shook his head. No, he couldn’t quite believe that. Even he wasn’t so pathetically cynical, and ever unpredictable chance seemed ready to confirm it for him by just that moment sending in one of his few remaining friends.

It didn’t take long for Dusty to spot Jack moping at his usual corner, even with only one eye. Of course, Dusty had heard about what had happened at the high-stakes game. Word travelled fast on the Strip, where info on who was up and who was down was one of the most sought commodities. Jack was well liked among his fellow thieves, and there were none who were pleased to hear that he had been marked by Mr. Gabriel – least of all Dusty who could still recall with clarity how he had originally taken young Jack under his wing nearly fifteen years ago when Jack was only fourteen years old.

“Hey, bud,” Dusty said, pulling up a chair.

“Hey,” Jack replied, not really looking at him.

Dusty gestured to the barkeep. “Let’s get you something a little stronger, eh? I’m buying.”

Jack did not protest. He was rotating the tiny red candle between his fingers.

Two shots were placed up on the edge of the bar within arms reach of Dusty who, leaning back in his chair, grabbed them and placed one in front of his friend. “Cheers,” he said, and they each downed their drink.

Afterwards they were quiet for a while. Dusty was waiting for Jack to speak first, and eventually he did.

“I keep thinking about what I could have done with that money,” he said. “I could have started a business or something. We could have made something of ourselves.”

Dusty laughed, though not with unkindness. “You know what happens to businesses,” he said. “Sometimes they fail. There’s risk no matter what. You’ve got to spend money to make money, like they say, but sometimes you spend money and you don’t get anything back. That’s just life.”

“Yeah and sometimes you spend money and end up indebted to Mr. Gabriel,” Jack said, bitterly. “Is that life, Dusty?”

Dusty shrugged. “I’ll admit, that’s a hell of a hand you’ve been dealt, bud.”

Jack shook his head. “I wasn’t dealt it. I did it to myself. I was a fool. I got too full of myself, thought I could turn it around. I lost my self-control.”

Dusty looked hard at him. “Now that, I know, is not true. That isn’t you, Jack, losing self-control. You don’t know what it’s like to really lose self-control. Maybe you weren’t as disciplined as you could have been, but in the end you just miscalculated, that’s all, that and some bad luck.”

“It wasn’t bad luck,” Jack said. “It was Donny Carmichael and his damned cheating.”

“It was bad luck that landed Donny Carmichael at your table,” Dusty retorted. “That was out of your control. But you’re still in control of yourself.” He sighed. “I remember when I was at my worst. If you’d seen that, you would have seen a man who had truly no-self control. I tell you, bud, there is evil in this world. Mr. Gabriel is one evil son of a bitch, but he can be dealt with. The worst kind of evil is the evil in yourself – the kind that makes you do things you wish you could stop yourself from doing.”

Jack had heard it all before. He’d learned everything he knew about card-playing from Dusty. Nobody knew cards better than him, but his knowledge had come at a price. He was a slave to the game, in body, mind and spirit. People had told Jack about what he’d been like, only a few years before he’d met him – one of those desolate kinds with hollow eyes, ever seeking the perfect hand. He’d come close to annihilation after ending up in a similar situation to the one that Jack was in now – with Mr. Gabriel as well, no less. In the end, he’d managed to claw his way back to life, losing his right eye in the process. It was a small price to pay, by Dusty’s own admission.

“I didn’t realize it was a competition,” Jack said in regard to their misfortunes.

“I’m just saying. Mr. Gabriel can be dealt with, as bad as he is, he’s still just another man looking to get his.” He scratched his pocked cheek below his glass eye, seemingly unconsciously.

“Come on, Dust,” Jack replied. “Don’t pretend like I’m not as good as dead.”

“You’re too young to be so forlorn,” Dusty said sharply. “Now come on, fine, we’re not rich as hell like we thought we’d be, and fair enough, it might take years for you to pay back Mr. Gabriel, but you can pay him back. He’ll only come after you if you try to run off, believe me. As long as you don’t do that, you should be fine.”

“And how the hell am I supposed to pay him back, huh?”

“We’ll talk to Esme,” Dusty started and Jack groaned. “No, no, listen to me – we’ll talk to Esme, see if we can get a few scores, then we’ll go back to lower-stakes. I’m not saying it’ll be quick. We’re going to have to hustle again for a while, but that’s just life, Jack. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to in order to survive. You hear me?”

Jack sighed. “I don’t know if Esme will agree,” he said. “She seemed pretty put off by the end of it, like she was relieved we weren’t going to be working together anymore.”

“You just let me do the talking,” Dusty smiled. “It’s that compassion of hers. She’s got more of it for people like us than the marks, believe me.” He rose from his chair then. “Come on, let’s go.”

“What? Now?”

“Yes, now!” Dust exclaimed. “Listen, bud, you’re in a hell of a jam. I can tell you’re licked, so all the more reason to get to work. That’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

“Fine,” Jack said, getting to his feet. Though he didn’t want to admit it, Dusty was right, he was feeling a little better now that he had something to do – some course of action. He patted his pocket and felt the weight of his knife there – an old bone-handled knife with little skulls engraved into the side of the blade. It was a longtime companion of his. He might have had to sell it to buy himself some time, but now he felt it better put to use in his work.

-

Mr. Gabriel, while not being the most powerful person in the city, or even on the strip, was still well known by all. He was a middling member of the family, and like anyone with any authority in that group, there were always rumours about him. He, like many of his brothers and sisters, was said to have an interest in the occult and this, apparently, had some influence on how he dealt with people he opposed. There were the usual stories of ritualistic hits and people going missing under strange circumstances. In any case, it was a fact that he was not someone you wanted to owe money to, due to his penchant for cruelty. People said that Dusty had gotten off easy with the beating that had had left him with a still perceptible limp in his gait and a missing eye. There were those that claimed Dusty had been shown some small mercy because Mr. Gabriel respected his card playing – one of the few skills he showed a real admiration for, besides, so the stories went, butchery. Nobody could confirm one way or another, though. Rumours abounded of other, not so merciful cases in which Mr. Gabriel himself had peeled strips of flesh from dealers hands who had cheated him, and burned the soles of the feet of people who owed him money (supposedly to put a bit of heat in their step, he would say).

Such stories circled Jack’s head, despite his effort to keep them at bay, as he walked with Dusty down the Strip. The sky was inky, no trace of any stars, drowned as they were in the false light of the crowded Main Street. He watched the old man weave with some effort through the crowds of drunken tourists, his slight limp a hindrance, and thought of what he himself had experienced.

He had asked Dusty on a few occasions, usually while they were drunk, about what Mr. Gabriel had done to him. In particular, he had always been curious how Dusty had lost his eye. Despite people calling it a mercy, he couldn’t imagine how terrible it must have been to have someone cut out one of your eyes. Eventually Dusty had corrected him on this misunderstanding.

“Nah, they just beat me so bad my eye socket cracked and punctured it. Probably they could have saved my eye had they got me to a hospital on time, but the whole thing was just sloppy. I was out of it, anyway. It was my hip that hurt the worst, I couldn’t even tell there was anything wrong with my eye. Both of them were so swelled up, I couldn’t see anything. Eventually I fell asleep, next thing I knew I was in the hospital and they’d already removed the damn thing.”

Presently the two men turned into an alleyway, abandoning the flashy lights of the Strip’s main attractions – card-halls and casinos, billiards clubs, bars and strip joints, the occasional diner that had once hosted this celebrity or that – and plunged into the city’s more peripheral draws: dens of smoke, parlours of night people looking for some company, lodges for those with an esoteric bend, and of course, the fortune tellers.

They stopped in front of the small store-front, their faces cartoonish in the neon blue and red from the sign which read: Palm Reading, Crystal Ball, Tarot.

“Come on,” Dusty said, lumbering with some effort up the stair case and through the glass door which rang a rusty bell with a hollow timbre.

Esme appeared, stepping through the beaded curtain behind the counter with an alluring smile that instantly faded the moment she laid eyes on Dusty.

“Esmeralda, darling!” Dusty declared.

Esme’s eyes shifted from Dusty to Jack and back again. “What are you two doing here?”

“Why, we’re here for a palm-reading! What do you think?” Dusty said with a grin.

Esme narrowed her eyes at him, and then turned to Jack. “I guess I deserve that. There’s no point in playing dumb with you. I heard what happened, Jack, sorry.”

Esme was the kind of woman whose age was hard to tell. She was dark, in complexion, hair, and eye, and therefore obscured in a way. In truth, she was middle-aged, though the only thing which indicated this was her voice – hoarse from years of chain smoking. She used this to her advantage with her clients though, playing up the rasp when she pretended to be possessed by the spirits of dead loved ones.

“Things didn’t really go the way we hoped they would,” Dusty said. “So it looks like Jack and I have to get back to work.”

“We had a deal, Dusty,” Esme said. “You know how I feel about this kind of work. We said this would be it.”

“Come on, Esme, I’m asking you as a friend,” Dusty replied. “Our boy is in a pinch, as you well know. We just need some funds to get us started. I might have come here asking for a loan – Lord knows you made off like a bit of a bandit yourself on account of our arrangement – but I respect your work too much for that. Just a couple of scores, that’s all I’m asking for, just something to get old Jackie boy here back on his feet, what do you say?”

Esme bit her lip. She looked concernedly at Jack, who avoided meeting her gaze, and then back at Dusty. “It’s not right. I don’t feel right sending my clients into the mouth of the lion, so to speak.”

“Oh come on, we’ve talked about this,” Dusty said. “You’re already pretty much robbing them -and I don’t mean that in a bad way. The people who come here, the people who wander off the Strip like, in a way they’re looking to get robbed. It’s part of the experience! We’re practically doing them a service.” He laughed then, but it felt a little forced. It was true that they’d talked about this all before.

Jack’s eyes wandered to some of the posters on the wall depicting a selection of the major arcana. He regarded the Wheel of Fortune lined with people that were tied to it – at the top, a smiling, bound man met the sun and the clouds, an illusion of freedom, while at the bottom a man who could have been his brother was being ground into the flames of Hell. Esme followed his gaze and a sad look came over her. She sighed heavily.

“Fine, but just a couple!” She agreed at last.

“Oh, Esme, you’ve got a heart after all! I don’t care what anyone says,” Dusty exclaimed with a laugh.

Esme scoffed. “Just give me a second.” She produced a thick ledger and opened it up. “I’ve got three appointments tonight – two of them are regulars, and I would never feed them to you, but they don’t have anything worth stealing anyway. The third is a new client, I don’t know much about her. Other than that there may be a few walk-ins.”

“Well, we’ve got nothing better to do tonight, do we, Jack?” Dusty grinned at his younger friend.

“The Lounge then?” Jack replied.

“Sounds good to me,” Dusty nodded. He looked at Esme. “When’s that new client of yours?”

“She’s coming at midnight,” Esme said, still seeming resigned about the whole thing. “She was a little odd on the phone.”

“A rich eccentric,” Dusty said, rubbing his grey chin. “Could be promising. You know how to reach us, Esme. Let’s go, Jack.”

Jack began to follow Dusty out of the small shop, but stopped briefly and turned around. “Thanks, Esme,” he said, still not really able to meet her eyes. “I really appreciate you doing this for me.”

“Don’t mention it, kid,” Esme told him. The sad look had not left her eyes. “Sorry again, about your big loss.”

Jack shrugged and stepped towards the door. “The Wheel of Fortune spins on, I guess,” he said, and stepped out into the night.

2

Many a night Jack and Dusty had spent at the Lounge, just a block down the side street from Esme’s shop. It was an underground joint and admission was by invitation only, making the clientele almost entirely locals. They were friends with the owner, a rotund and taciturn gentleman by the name of Johnny who ran a tight ship. He was happy to pass along messages from Esme to them, when and if an opportunity for a score arose. Dusty let him know the deal as soon as they entered, and he nodded understandingly.

“Sorry to hear about what happened, Jack,” Johnny said through his thick moustache, his face fixed into his permanently neutral expression.

“Thanks,” Jack replied. He admired Johnny, admired the way he seemed to meet everything with clear comprehension and the talent he apparently had for holding on to success.

“Just a heads up though,” Johnny said, leaning in conspiratorially. “Donny Carmichael.” He motioned towards the other end of the Lounge where, sure enough, the snake was seated at a low-stakes game and chatting up a couple of the night people who always lined the walls of the place waiting for someone to win it big and throw a little of the earnings their way.

“Thanks, Johnny,” Dusty answered for Jack, noticing that a stray cat had apparently caught his friends tongue. He pulled Jack away from the bar. “Just ignore him,” he whispered as Jack stared hard at the man who had cost him everything. “It’s not worth it.”

They took a seat at the table closest to the exit and waited. Occasionally some of the night people who they were familiar with would try to come up and give Jack their condolences, having heard about his loss, but Dusty waved them away, sensing how each time it was mentioned Jack’s eyes were drawn to Donny who still sat laughing at the cards table. Despite his cheating, he had not walked away with any winnings, but neither was he in debt, and seeing him live freely and without fear of having his legs broken by Mr. Gabriel’s men filled Jack with a silent, aching rage.

“Just forget about it, Jack, seriously,” Dusty told him. “We’ve got to be ready to go.”

Eventually, Donny finished up with his game and rose from his table. He grabbed one of the night people, a young lady that Jack had once enjoyed the company of himself, back when he had had the funds, and made his way towards the exit.

“Damn it,” Dusty muttered, but there was nothing to be done. Donny spotted the two of them and told his companion for the evening to hang back a minute.

“Well, gentlemen, it’s good to see you,” he said as he approached their table.

“Just keep walking, Donny,” Dusty said.

“Say, Jack, sorry about today,” Donny said, slicking back his dark, oily hair with a ring studded hand. “It’s a shame about that bad hit you took, but I sure hope there’s no hard feelings.” Jack stared into the young man’s beady eyes. “Put it there,” he said, extending his hand.

Jack said nothing. Almost unconsciously he felt his hand slip down to the knife in his pocket.

“Nobody here is going to shake your hand, you arrogant, dumb prick,” Dusty said, and Jack would later feel some surprise at the anger in the old mans voice. “You’ve got no respect for the cards. Take a hike.”

“Hey now, there’s no need for insults,” Donny replied, mock hurt written on his face. “You know, I really feel for our friend here. I was even thinking about putting in a good word with Mr. Gabriel on his behalf, maybe to buy him some time.”

“What?” Jack said, his expression snapping into one of outrage. “What do you mean by that?”

“Didn’t you know?” Donny asked. “I’ve been working for Mr. Gabriel for a while now.”

“Just get lost, Donny,” Dusty exclaimed now, shifting his position slightly to put himself between him and Jack. “God damn it, just go!”

“Fine, fine,” Donny replied, and then motioned for his companion. As he walked through the exit he said, “I’ll let Mr. Gabriel know you’re hard at work getting him his money!”

“Sorry about your loss, Jack,” the girl said softly, following Donny out of the Lounge.

Jack just sat there with his fists clenched.

“I guess now we know how he got away with his cheating,” Dusty muttered. He tugged at his grey whiskers and grimaced. “God, what a…” he trailed off and sighed. “No words, there’s nothing we can do about it, Jack. This just means there’s definitely no way we can mess with him now. You’re just going to have to accept it.”

Jack continued to sit in silence. Eventually Dusty ordered them some drinks.

“It’s almost midnight,” he said, bringing the drinks back to their table. “Let’s finish these and then get sharp. I’ve got a good feeling about this new client of Esme’s.”

Jack downed his drink and exhaled shakily. “Alright,” he said, the rage slowly draining from his eyes.

-

Shortly after midnight, the call came. Johnny made a gesture from the bar and Dusty rose, but he shook his head.

“She wants to talk to Jack, she says.”

Dusty shrugged. “Well, go on then, bud.”

Jack went to the bar and took the receiver from Johnny.

“Esme? What’s up?”

“Listen, Jack, I’m not telling Dusty this because I know he’d just go either way,” she started, “but I’ve got a bad feeling about that lady.”

“So it’s a no go, then?” Jack said, deflated.

“Well, here’s the thing… Okay, she’s got a lot of money – I mean a lot of it – but it’s like I said, I’ve got a real bad feeling, Jack. She said some weird stuff and she gave me the creeps.”

Jack understood now why she was bringing this to him and not Dusty. Dusty would have just laughed it off, but Jack was not in the habit of taking things lightly when someone was trying to help him out.

“You’re sure she’s got money?” He asked evenly.

“That’s the only reason I’m calling you about it,” Esme said. “Money like that, the money I saw with my own eyes, that could help you out of the bind you’re in but, to be totally honest, I’m not sure it’s worth it. I mean it, Jack, there’s something really wrong with this woman.”

“What does she look like?” Jack asked after a pause.

“Oh, Jack,” Esme replied. He could hear the hesitation in her voice. “She’s older, maybe in her fifties or sixties, thin, she’s wearing a nice black dress, not revealing in the slightest, long black gloves, and a red silk scarf. You can’t miss her, she’ll probably be wearing sunglasses.”

“Sunglasses?” Jack repeated.

“I told you, she’s weird,” Esme said, “She wore them the whole time she was with me.”

“Alright, thanks, Esme.”

“Are you really going to go after her?” Esme asked.

“I don’t exactly have time to mull it over,” Jack said, “If she’s got the kind of money you’re implying, well, it’s like you said. I’m in a bind.”

Esme sighed shakily. “Alright, Jack, just make sure you and Dusty call me when it’s over.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, I’m serious!”

“Okay,” Jack agreed. “Which way did she go?”

Esme told him, and then wished them luck. He hung up and then motioned for Dusty to get up.

“Let’s go,” he told the old man.

“It’s on?” Dusty asked.

Jack nodded, and then relayed the conversation with Esme. Unsurprisingly, Dusty just laughed. “This town, I tell you,” he said, “Just a bunch of superstitious drunks – it must be something in the water.”

3

It didn’t take long for the pair of thieves to figure out where the mystery woman had gone. They considered it fortunate that she was apparently not heading towards the Strip, but rather deeper into the network of side streets and alleyways of the city. Once they spotted her, and saw the wealth she wore on her sleeve, the challenge became simply finding a way to ambush her before some other lowlifes got their claws in her.

“She is an odd duck,” Dusty commented from the shadows of an alleyway as they watched her proceed beneath the flickering streetlight of a desolate backstreet. She was just as Esme had described, sunglasses and all.

They ducked out and took a parallel street, advancing ahead far enough to give them some time to prepare.

“You ready?” Dusty said, taking out his small, snub-nosed revolver. Jack honed his knife.

“I think so.”

They emerged from the darkness. The sound of Dusty’s gun cocking echoed in the empty street. “Hold it, lady,” he said. “Come forward, nice and easy. We don’t want to have to hurt you.”

Dusty proceeded to give his usual spiel. In a way, Jack suspected that Dusty liked to view himself as some kind of gentleman thief – never rude or cruel, if he could avoid it. Jack, on the other hand, had no taste for the business. He had always thought of it as an unfortunate but necessary stepping stone in order to procure the funds for his real trade – cards.

Normally people reacted in one of two ways – they were either paralyzed with fear, or immediately fell into hysterics. Dusty had long ago worked out with Esme a profile for the type of marks she could send their way – usually it was rich older ladies, like this one, but this time was different. It was hard to tell, admittedly, with those sunglasses obscuring a good portion of her face, but she seemed far too calm. No, up close, Jack could tell exactly what Esme had meant about her. There was something off. He was always nervous anytime he had to rob someone, but this time his nervousness quickly escalated to fear and then to panic. It took everything he had not to just turn and run, even Dusty seemed a little shaken up when the old bird showed no hint of concern at being robbed.

“Nice and easy,” Dusty kept saying, to the point where Jack wondered if he was saying it more to himself than their mark.

The closer she got to them, the more put off Jack was feeling. Under the light of the faulty street lamp, it became clear that she was wearing heavy makeup and lipstick. It seemed to Jack like she was wearing a mask. The way she moved, too, was strange and disturbing. She was very thin and with each step it was like her small, frail body was under enormous strain.

“There we are,” Dusty said, and Jack noted the sweat on his temple shimmering in the dim light. “Now hand over your purse and any other valuables you’ve got.”

“Ah,” the lady suddenly said, and her voice felt harsh in Jack’s ears, like grinding metal, “It’s my money you’re after, is it?”

Dusty let out something which sounded like a cough in an effort to steady himself and Jack could tell that he too was reeling from the awful sound of her voice. “Ahem, yes, we’re not about that.”

“Yes, but I have many gifts, you know,” she said, her words crunching painfully in Jack’s head. They were filled with something like static. Had Dusty not been standing firmly at his side, he would have turned and run right that moment. “If fortune is what you seek, there are better ways. I can give you the means to obtain a great treasure.”

“Money will suffice,” Dusty managed to reply.

She held out her purse. “Do you know the name of this city?” She asked, but neither replied. “No, you don’t know who really runs this place. I can feel Him, beneath the earth, turning, the wheel and the serpent: Sha-ishrasharshala.”

Jack clenched his teeth and tasted iron, moaning slightly.

“Shut up, you goddamned schizo!” Dusty exclaimed, no trace of his gentleman thief persona remaining. He gestured with his gun. “Take her purse, Jack!”

“What the hell, man!” Jack said, sputtering, half enraged by Dusty’s demand and half from him so carelessly using his real name.

“Just do it!”

“Come here, boy,” the lady said, smiling. He could not see her eyes. “Take my money, if that’s all you want.” She seemed to sway awkwardly in the shadows, like a drunk, though her words were lucid.

“Shut up!” Dusty exclaimed again, holding his free hand to the side of his head as though his skull were about to roll off his shoulders.

Jack inched his way forward, holding his knife out in front of him. He couldn’t think clearly through the static. He kept telling himself, just grab the purse and get out, grab the purse and get out, and his body, reacting more to the words in his head than anything else, did as it was told. He snatched the purse and then backed off.

“You’ll want these as well?” She asked, softer now, holding up a gloved hand on which she wore several rings and a silver bracelet.

“Take them off,” Dusty ordered, his jaw muscles flexing.

“Let’s just go,” Jack pleaded quietly. “Come on.”

“No,” he said, not taking his eyes off the lady.

“Very well.” She removed the glove from her other hand and the two men gasped. At first it seemed like the veins in her hand and wrist were just dark, then Jack reasoned that it was simply a trick of the eye, but even in the dim light of the alley it was clear that something black was writhing beneath her pale, transparent skin.

Jack cried out. He tried to turn and run, nearly dropping the purse in the process, but Dusty grabbed his arm. “Keep it together, bud!” He glared at the lady. “And you! Hurry up, hand them over.”

She removed her rings, one at a time, and then carefully unfastened her bracelet. Jack could not bear to look at her exposed skin. His mind was reeling, he felt exhausted and sick and wanted nothing more than to go home. Dusty looked at him like he was going to tell him to grab the jewellery. Jack had never seen him like this before – he was frenzied, it seemed to him. Seeing Jack in the state that he was, something softened in Dusty once more. “Wait here,” he whispered to him, and then went himself.

“Come here Mr. Thief,” the lady cooed, “come and take them. I have much to offer you.”

What happened next happened was too fast for Jack to really see. She handed Dusty the rings and the bracelet, but before he had a full grasp of them she quickly grabbed him with her glove-less hand. He screamed – not a scream of fear, but a scream of agony. He dropped his gun and with his newly freed hand clawed at his good eye while he tried to wrench free the arm she held fast to.

Jack, shocked, dropped the purse and, to his surprise, in a moment of unexpected bravery charged the pair and tackled them to the ground. There was a struggle which he managed to wrestle himself from briefly. Dusty, freed from the woman’s grasp, still cried out and now clawed at his eye and his ears. Jack looked from him to the lady who, in the struggle had lost her sunglasses, and what he saw in her now exposed eyes unleashed a torrent of ice water in his veins. All fight turned to flight, and he took off yelling at the top of his lungs.

“Help! Someone, please, help me!”

He could hear her pursuit. Her voice followed him down the alley like a ghost of static and broken glass.

“Gifts! So many gifts! Take them! All the treasure of the earth can be yours!”

He turned only once, and seeing the she was within arms reach, burning two holes into the back of his head with those damned, writhing eyes, he screamed and immediately tripped over a discarded trashcan, sending himself sprawling upon the grimy alley floor. Then she was upon him, her face pressed up against his, her fingers prying their way into his mouth. He could smell the powdery make-up, the thick perfume, and something beneath it all, something not unlike smell of the raw sewage which sometimes crept up into the streets from the sewer grates stamped with the city’s seal.

-

He awoke screaming in the predawn light, his arms and legs thrashing. The bum, who had been stooped over him, caught a foot in his shin and toppled over shouting, “Good Lord! You’re alive!”

Jack went on hollering until his voice ran out, which didn’t take long, and his already exhausted limbs had used up the last reserves of his energy. His eyes rolled in his skull for a while as he gasped until he was forced to close them tight. When he opened them once more he felt himself back in control, somewhat. The bum had taken off.

Jack’s head felt as though someone had tried to split it in half, and there was a loud ringing in his ears. He wheezed as he tried to lift himself up and get his bearings. Bits and pieces slowly started coming back to him, each more terrible than the last. At last he had to try and stop himself from remembering. For the moment, his only concern was finding Dusty. He stumbled down the alley, holding his arm out for balance. For the briefest moment he saw the darkness writhing beneath his skin and he screamed hoarsely and blinked – it was gone.

“Get a hold of yourself,” he breathed, and he managed to, for a bit, until he found Dusty’s body in a pool of stagnant blood – then he collapsed once more, choking back a sob.

The streets were spinning around him. He could not tell which way was was up and which down, and all the while the ringing in his ears was getting worse – lowering in pitch, but not in volume. He wiped the tears away from his eyes and looked one way and then another. There was no one out yet. Night had hardly changed to morning, save for the dim glow on the horizon.

“Get it together, get it together,” he told himself after a while. He knew he couldn’t stick around. Dusty wouldn’t want him getting caught up in this.

He felt sick and strained beyond belief. He tried to think of his next steps – he wanted more than anything to go home and sleep, but he couldn’t get the face of the lady out of his mind, her eyes…

Esme. He would go to Esme. She was involved, she would need to know what happened. He clung to this goal desperately, it alone got him back on his feet. He looked once more at Dusty’s mangled corpse, lying right where he’d left him when he’d run away, and then got moving.

-

By the time he made it to Esme’s shop, the ringing in his ears had evolved entirely. It was no longer inside of his head, but sounded, rather, as though it were coming from somewhere outside of him. So too had it gone from a high pitch ringing to a deep and harsh rumbling, almost grinding sound. It forced him, the worse it got, to hold his palms up to his ears in an attempt to block it out. He groaned as he shuffled up the stairs and through Esme’s door. He was in too much pain to even realize how odd it was that she had left it open.

“Esme!” He tried to call out. “Esme!”

From behind the beaded curtain he could see a faint light.

“Esme?” He stepped around the front counter and through the beads.

The room was dark and curtained, at the centre a table, the top of which was covered in carved arcane symbols, was knocked over – the shattered remains of a crystal ball were scattered to one end of the room. At the back, the curtains had been ripped down and beyond that came the source of the light – Esme herself.

She sat hunched against the back wall. She had pulled her knees up to her chest with one arm, and the other laid limp at her side, holding in its fingers a shard of the crystal ball.

“Esme?” Jack wheezed.

She looked at him. Light poured out of her eyes towards him. He beheld a halo wrapped around her black, messy hair.

“My God,” he murmured.

“She came back for me,” Esme said. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, staining them with illumination. “She said she had a gift for me.”

“We never should have messed with her, Esme,” Jack said, “You were right.”

“You can hear it, can’t you?” Esme asked. She wasn’t really looking at him, he could see. “You can hear it, grinding beneath the city? The Old Thing – Sha-Ishrasharshala.”

“No, Esme,” Jack said, feeling the tears now burning in his own eyes. “Please.”

“You can see it, now, can’t you? My spirit, burning at the edge.” She closed her eyes and it was dark once more. “I can feel it, brimming over.”

“Stop, Esme,” Jack pleaded, his voice shaking.

“I’m not worthy of this gift,” she said, and then plunged the shard of glass into her throat.

Jack scrambled to try and stop her, but the blood was coming too fast. He was bathed in it, trying to pry the shard from her fingers. He watched her choke – watched the light in her eyes fade until there was only fear, and then nothing; Only silence and the harsh rumbling from below growing louder yet.

4

Slim had always been an early riser. It was easier for him, being a man without vice, one of the many benefits afforded to him by his choice of lifestyle, and not even the best by far. The best, by his reckoning, was the respect it earned him from some of his colleagues and the fear from others. The fear was a good thing, a necessary thing, being an enforcer of Mr. Gabriel’s. It was good to keep people on their toes.

On this particular morning, however, it was his early rising which would benefit him the most, as he was probably one of the only people awake in that nocturnal city to see Jack wandering in the outskirts. He was sitting in a diner – the only one he knew that was open at that hour – sipping a decaffeinated coffee, watching the sun rise on the grey and grimy streets, when he spotted the lumbering, blood-soaked figure emerge from an alleyway. He nearly choked on his coffee.

“Hey, Mitch,” he said, calling to the owner of the diner – another early bird like himself - “Come take a look at this!”

Mitch joined him, wiping his hands on his apron, and cursed when he laid eyes on the bloodied, dazed-looking Jack shambling down the sidewalk. “Isn’t that Jack?” he said. “What’s he doing in this part of town, and looking like that no less?”

“I don’t know,” Slim replied and got up, “But I guess I won’t be able to enjoy my coffee this morning.” He fished a bit of cash out of his pocket and placed it on the table – he was not one to skip out on a bill – and told Mitch, “Give Donny Carmichael a call and tell him to meet me on the Strip in front of the Royale, he’s going to want to see this.”

“Sure thing,” Mitch replied, taking up the cash and admiring his tip.

Outside, Slim quickly caught up with Jack, but made sure to keep his distance. “Hey Jack!” He shouted. “I’m talking to you, Jack!”

Slowly, the bloody young man turned to face him. His eyes were distant and pale.

“What the hell happened to you, fella? Where in the goddamn do you thing you’re going?”

“I can hear it,” Jack croaked, though it didn’t seem like he was saying it to Slim. “The serpent and the wheel, grinding beneath the city.” He smiled faintly. “There is treasure in this place.”

Slim was baffled by his words. He had heard junkie-speak before, as he called it, but Jack was supposed to be clean, as far as he knew about the kid, and there was something grating about his voice besides. Still, he picked up on that last bit. “You better hope there is, kid, ‘cause Mr. Gabriel’s going to be expecting some money from you pretty soon.” He licked his lips, as was his nervous habit – an ironic tick, he had been told, for a man supposedly without vices. “You aren’t thinking about leaving town, are you, Jack?”

“You have a strange heart,” Jack replied, at last addressing the short, clean cut man before him. “Your spirit is cold and severe. There is use for you, in this place of fortune.”

Slim was looking at the blood on Jack – there was a lot of it, and he realized, seeing it up close now, that it seemed fresh.

“Have you got any weapons on you, Jack?”

Jack slowly pulled out the knife from his pocket and Slim quickly reached for his gun. “I’m going to get you to drop that right now,” he told him, and noticed that there was no blood on it. “Anything else?” He asked.

Jack shook his head no.

“I’m going to pat you down, just in case, no sudden movements, you hear me?”

Jack did as he was told. Slim found nothing.

“Alright, why don’t we go for a little drive, eh, buddy?” Slim said and was relieved to see Jack comply. “I think Mr. Gabriel would like to meet with you.”

-

Donny was not pleased to be woken up early. His companion had already left sometime not long after midnight, and he had been looking forward to sleeping in late. He was angry at first, until Mitch told him what it was about.

“It’s Jack,” Mitch said through the receiver. “I don’t know what the hell that kid’s trying to pull, but it ain’t pretty. Something crazy is about to go down. Slim wants you to meet him outside the Royale.”

So Donny got dressed and tried to make sense of things. He felt a little worried. He had not expected Jack to snap or try to pull something, and Mr. Gabriel was unpredictable enough to put the blame on him for taking it too far with the guy. He cursed under his breath as he buttoned up his shirt and left his apartment.

A few minutes later he was out on the side of the street. The sun was just starting to peak above the horizon, casting long, dark shadows down the Strip. Slim pulled up shortly and stepped out of his car. Donny tried to look inside the car, but the windows were too tinted to see.

“He’s in there,” Slim told him. “Jack,” he clarified.

“What the hell is going on, Slim?” Donny hissed.

“Nothing good,” Slim said, cool as always. “The kid is a mess. I think he may have killed someone or something, not sure.” He narrowed his eyes at Donny. “You didn’t mess with him at all last night, did you?”

“No! Of course not,” Donny answered, trying to conceal the shakiness in his voice.

“I sure hope that’s true,” Slim said, still glaring at the oily young man, “Because it’s looking like Mr. Gabriel might not get his money, at this rate.”

Donny said nothing.

“No you better go in there and let him know that…” he trailed off. “On second thought, I’d better go talk to the boss. You stay here and keep an eye on our boy, you got it?”

“Fine, fine,” Donny said, no longer able to hide the fact that he was shaken.

Once Slim was gone, Donny opened the door of the car and looked in – he nearly shrieked when he saw Jack’s bloody face staring back at him.

“What the hell, Jack? What do you think you’re doing?”

Jack just smiled back at him. “Your spirit is made of loose threads,” he said in a strangled whisper. “The winds of this city will tear you to pieces, pretty soon.”

Donny slammed the door and cursed loudly as he ran his fingers through his hair, nearly ripping it out of his skull. Slim returned from the hotel and beckoned to him.

“Mr. Gabriel wants to see him,” he said quietly. “Help me get him inside – discretely, Donny, if you please.”

-

They took the service elevator up to the top floor, the suites. All the while Jack stared at Donny who couldn’t help but tell there was something wrong with his eyes. He whispered things intermittently: “You serve no purpose here.” “There is a worm in your heart.” “You will never see the treasure. Fortune hides itself from your eyes.”

“Goddamn it, shut up!” Donny shouted after a while. He looked at Slim. “What the hell is the matter with him? Is he high or something? And whose blood is that anyway?”

Slim just shook his head. “We’ll just let Mr. Gabriel deal with it,” was all he said, much to Donny’s fury.

Once on the top floor, they walked the complacent Jack to Mr. Gabriel’s suite. He seemed not the least concerned about his present fate. They rang the buzzer and were let in by a servant who proceeded to guide them to Mr. Gabriel’s large office. “Try to keep the blood off the rug,” the servant said, a tone of futility bleeding into his voice.

Entering the office, they beheld Mr. Gabriel, fully dressed and groomed at his desk. “Bring him here,” he said in a velvet voice.

Mr. Gabriel was an imposing man, even sitting down. Had it not been for the luxuriousness of his suit and the immaculate way he combed his long, blonde locks of hair, his heavy features and menacing gaze might have gotten him mistaken for an enforcer. He grew no facial hair with which to hide his thin lips which always seemed curled into a grimace and his eyes, pale grey in colour, eternally peaked out from the shadows beneath his large brow. In certain lights, he seemed hardly human, and when standing at his full height of six foot seven, nearly three hundred pounds in weight, he could only be described as monstrous. His voice alone, and then only when isolated from the rest of him, had any potential for humanity, it being smooth and slightly high-pitched, even beautiful at times. When attached to the rest of him, however, it had a jarring effect, which merely completed the picture of intimidation.

Slim and Donny stood on either side of Jack, each holding one of his arms, as they brought him forward.

“My, my, what happened to you, dear boy?” Mr. Gabriel asked his small eyes burning with curiosity from beneath the pools of shadow.

Jack seemed to go limp for a second. His face suddenly wore a baffling expression of elation. “Ah,” he breathed, “ah, you have seen the treasure! You know Him!”

Slim saw Mr. Gabriel’s thin lips part only slightly and he thought, with incredulity, that the man was smiling softly to himself.

“Would one of you like to explain what has happened to our dear friend?” Mr. Gabriel said.

“Well, like I said,” Slim began, “I found him like this on the outskirts of town. I think he was trying to leave, maybe, I’m not really sure. He’s not been making much sense.”

As though agreeing with him, Jack went on. “You hear Him, don’t you? Toiling away beneath the streets? Drawing up the fortunes from below?”

“He’s making perfect sense to me,” Mr. Gabriel chuckled. It was an almost girlish sound. Slim noticed then the slightest gesture as Mr. Gabriel began to gently stroke the large signet ring on his little finger. Had the office not been so dark, Slim might have been able to see the symbol on that ring: a serpent intertwined between the spokes of a wheel. “What do you think, Donald?”

Donny sputtered. “I didn’t have nothing to do with this, sir, I swear!”

“Oh, come, come now,” Mr. Gabriel replied. “You know that’s not entirely true, of course.” He began to rise up from his chair.

“Please!” Donny cried.

As Mr. Gabriel rose, the room seemed to shrink around him, in reaction to his impossible size. “Calm down,” he said softly. “I just want to get a closer look at our friend.” As he approached Jack he murmured softly, “Your eyes, Jack. Has anyone ever told you that you have marvellous eyes?”

Jack, still smiling, gestured to Donny and said, “His blood his weak.”

Donny turned on him then, but Mr. Gabriel, effortlessly, separated the two, all while hushing them quietly. Having gently pushed Donny away, he set his large, thick hands on Jack’s shoulders – a gesture from him which, alone, would have stopped the heart of a weaker man, but seemed not to perturb Jack in the slightest. He said, almost whispering. “It will have to do, nevertheless.”

In the flash of an instant, Mr. Gabriel produced a small, ornate cudgel from his belt and, with the grace of a man half his size, struck the side of Donny’s head with a sickening crunch.

Slim flinched, and then kept very still. Jack, according to his seemingly new permanent state of serenity showed no reaction. Mr. Gabriel turned to Slim. “Sorry about that,” he said quietly. His tone was one of embarrassment, it seemed to Slim. He walked passed them then and poked his head through the door and said something to the servant just outside who then proceeded to follow him back in. He gestured to Donny’s sprawled body. “Don’t worry about him,” he said, “I’ll take care of it. Please bring our new friend, Jack, here to the guest room. He will be staying with us for a little bit. Make sure he gets himself all cleaned up.”

“Yes, sir,” the servant said, as serene as Jack whom he presently turned towards. “Come along,” he said and Jack, still complacent, followed the servant out, leaving Slim with Mr. Gabriel and the unconscious, possibly deceased Donny Carmichael.

“You’ve done good work today,” Mr. Gabriel said, placing his free hand now on Slim’s shoulder as he put the cudgel back in his pocket with the other. Slim felt his knees nearly buckle, but kept it together. “I’ve heard about your work. You impress me, and our friend, Jack, didn’t have much to say about you – that’s a good thing, incidentally, as you can see.” Slim remembered Jack saying that he had a strange heart and swallowed dryly. “I think I’ll consider giving you a little more responsibility in this business of ours. Would you like that?”

“Very much, sir,” Slim managed.

“I’m happy to hear that,” Mr. Gabriel replied. He took his hand from his shoulder and stepped towards Donny. He looked down at his crumpled body without pity. “What happened here today? If anyone asks, that is.”

For a second, Slim froze, but clear-minded as he always was, his thoughts quickly returned to him. He cleared his throat. “Jack attacked Donny once we got here,” he said. “Then we had to take care of him.”

“Very good,” Mr. Gabriel said and then returned to his desk. “You may go. Expect to hear from me soon.”

“Yes, sir,” Slim said and left the office without sparing a glance at Donny.

-

The next morning, as early as usual, Slim returned to Mitch’s diner. He ordered his decaffeinated coffee as always, but this time Mitch joined him.

“So, what happened?” He asked.

“Jack went crazy,” Slim answered, taking a sip of his coffee. “Killed Donny, if you can believe it.”

“That’s what they’re saying,” Mitch nodded. “What happened to Jack?”

“What do you think?” Slim said into his mug.

“Ah, figures,” Mitch said, shaking his head. “That poor kid never had much luck. Him and that pal of his, Dusty. You heard about what happened to him?”

“Yeah.”

“Gruesome, eh? When I heard, I thought Jack might have done it, but now they’re saying he did it to himself. Can you believe that?”

“It’s a damn shame.”

“But that can’t be a coincidence, can it?” Mitch said. “The both of them? The same day?”

“Crazier things have happened in this place,” Slim replied.

“No kidding,” Mitch said. “This damned town. There’s something wrong with it. It just eats people up, doesn’t it?”