All Hell This Eve

It’s when you’re in your cups that you’re most vulnerable to the delving inquiries of friends, and over the years those who know me best have waited until I was drunk to probe into my past. Who was the most beautiful woman I ever saw? The best meal I ever ate? What’s my favourite song, or the greatest play I have seen? The list really does go on and on. Looking back, by far the most-asked question over the centuries has been what was the most dangerous battle I was involved in?

Those who ask are rarely happy with the answer. People have a morbid fascination for how things were in the past; yet they are seldom interested in the actual truth. Instead, they seem to hope for validation of their own simplified, glossed-over, modern view of history, not the brutal, terrifying horror of those bygone days. 

 I have watched as humanity grew from a small tribe of hunters to the first harvesters of a planted crop. From biting an apple, they learnt how to grow them. This important step moved them from being at the mercy of nature, to having a measure of self-determination. Inevitably, the wealth this new ‘civilized’ lifestyle created led to envy in others, and conflicts arose on an increasingly larger scale. Add the evolution of more sophisticated technology and weapons, and warfare quickly grew into a truly intimidating form of mass slaughter. 

Throughout the countless eons since slithering from my garden I have found myself in so many battles and dangerous situations - either standing alongside friends or just to break the sheer monotony of the unending centuries – that most conflicts have just merged in my mind, or I have forgotten them entirely. There have been a few though that stand out above the rest; fights worthy of recognition and recording.

Since the first papyrus was created, I have documented my journey with humankind; and sitting here, reminiscing in my secret library, I find myself recounting an old danger that recently reappeared in this modern world.

Journal entry 31st October

I watch the front door as the gurneys file out into the waiting ambulances, flashing their red and blue hopes for survival into the deep night.

“We just lost the last one,” a cop reports, leaning his ear back into the radio for a reply to the distressing call.

“Fuck,” O’Hanian moans as he steps over an empty body bag while heading towards me. “That’s twenty-three… all kids. They started dying a couple of hours ago.”

I look deep into the stressed police captain’s eyes. What’s reflected is hollow and lifeless. “You couldn’t do anything about this.”

“Bull-fucking-shit,” O’Hanian spits. “We’ve known this poison was hitting the streets for weeks now, and the brass keeps telling us to keep it quiet to prevent a panic.”

“But would that not be a good thing? Surely, panicked people won’t buy drugs?” I ask, a little confused.

“People will buy drugs no matter what you tell them,” Vulk explains as he watches the first ambulance pull away. “They think the stories are either lies, it’s a bad batch or it simply could never happen to them!” My friend Vulk is a wild beast from head to toe. A Úlfhéðnar – or Viking wolf warrior – the werewolf’s incredible physiology means he can never get drunk, so he occasionally delves into more potent pharmaceuticals to relieve the boredom of the centuries.

O’Hanian admits, “there’s also a chance we’d panic the peddlers and manufacturers into hiding. I hate to say it, but we need them operating so we can find them and close them down permanently.”

“So, why are we here?” Vulk asks the obvious question. “This sounds like a drug squad case, or perhaps criminal investigations or the murder unit, not our usual thing at all.”

“You’re here because we just got back the report about the stuff these stupid schmucks have been injecting,” O’Hanian explains. “It’s called Trick-or-Treat. The lab says it’s mostly organic, and it’s about to flood the streets unless we find the supplier.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me; opium and marijuana are nothing, if not organic.”

“Yeah, but this shit has nothing to do with them. The lab thinks it’s actually venom that’s been altered into a narcotic form.”

“Venom? Now that is interesting,” I admit.

Ignoring me as I crawl inside my head and contemplate the issue, Vulk continues talking to the cop who’d called us in on the case. “I wouldn’t think that’s unusual. Many poisons are used in pharmaceuticals these days. It was just a matter of time until someone realised instead of licking poisonous toads to get high, you could get a better buzz from injecting them instead.”

O’Hanian shakes his head at the logic of this. “It’s just not cost effective to do this kind of work without making the product so expensive that no one could afford it.”

Storms of confused eyebrows drop over Vulk’s face, “You’re losing me.”

 “The lab thinks what these idiots are pushing is close to the original source, as though someone has started milking vipers and putting it straight into a needle. Without synthesising, can you imagine the cost and logistics of keeping and milking the number of snakes required to produce enough of the drug to make this all viable?”

“Got it. You don’t think this is being made by the usual drug cabals, more likely, it's someone in our little circle of oddities and myth-behaviours?”

“Nearly. I’m interested in where the toxin is coming from, rather than who’s peddling it, though I assume one is going to lead to the other.”

“Still not sure what this has to do with us?” Vulk asks again confused.

“We still haven’t worked out exactly what sort of venom it is,” O’Hanian admits. “I’ve been assured if it was from an orchid bulb or a scorpion, our labs would’ve had it pegged instantly. This toxin’s completely different from anything they have on record. It's beyond rare, it’s exotic.”

“So we’re either dealing with something really new here…” Vulk says.

“… or something really old,” I finished, re-entering the conversation. “You’re right to be suspicious, and I may know a few people that could know something. I have to warn you though, if I’m right about this it could mean trouble for everyone.”

“It ‘could’ be trouble?” O’Hanian grunted, shaking his head and looking towards the remaining body bags yet to be removed. “I think we’re already in trouble. It's Halloween tonight, so I figure we have a maximum of twelve hours to get this one solved before we have a massacre in our hands. With all those parties planned, if we can’t get this shit off the streets by then, the death count could be incalculable.”

“But surely some is already in the hands of the dealers?” Vulk asks.

Clearly frustrated, O’Hanian bites. “So? Is that a reason not to try? Seriously, these small incidences feel like trial runs. I think someone is planning something nasty for tonight. Why else call this crap Trick-Or-Treat? I’m desperately asking you to hit up all your freaky contacts and help me out here.”

I place a firm hand on the police captain’s shoulder, bringing him back from near-hysteria. “If I’m right, then a two-thousand-year-old treaty has just gone out the window and things are about to get a lot worse than a few hundred deaths. We could be facing genocide here. We’ll get to work and see what can be done.”

For some reason, O’Hanian doesn’t seem comforted by the thought.

1:03 a.m.

I have walked this earth since humanity ran from its garden, writing down my explorations in these journals, and I am proud there are very few horrors or dark secrets that have any hold on me. Yet despite this, entering the darkened rooms inside the Bar of Endless Sorrows always reminds me there are still things in the world that really do bump in the night.

I should point out that what I find a constant source of wonder is not the pubs patrons. You expect the weirdest of the weird in the world’s oldest arcane watering hole, so you’re generally prepared for them. No, what gets me is the door to the Sorrow floats, preventing anyone who doesn’t belong from ever accidentally stepping into a pub that could hold vampires, witches, and any number of horrors and nightmares a Yugoslavian farmer from the 15th century would recognise.

If you’re meant to enter the Bar of Endless Sorrows, then the spell on the door will find you. It’s one of the oldest and strongest arcane magics I know as the pub, in one form or another, has been running since the first fruit was crushed and fermented into something with a little more punch than apple juice. It’s a universal truth that, after food and sex, the next thing on the list is always, always, finding something to drink.

Only a handful of mortals have known of the Sorrow’s existence, and of those, almost none were outside the community of shadow dwellers. Personally, I always thought Shakespeare and Dante had found their way in. I’ve even heard a rumour that much of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was written one night when the Fae high court were partying, and Billy Shakespeare was sitting at one end of the long counter that takes up most of the front room, furiously scribbling notes.

Tonight, the place was quiet as it was Halloween, so most patrons likely had parties to prepare for. It was also only the mid-synodic month, meaning much of the community was absent because of a partial moonrise. Though scientifically there was no astrophysical difference between a crescent moon and a waxing gibbous, for those who live within the shadows, the strength of the full moon is an all too real issue. Many enter the pub on these nights to escape suffering the satellite’s effect on them, explaining why there were not a lot of werewolf attacks these days.

“The usual Amun?” Akan asks, already pouring a drink into a glass. The bar is decked in the frivolities of the season. There are cheap plastic bats on strings slowly rotating overhead, while fake spider-webs, reaching skeletons, smoking cauldrons and grinning jack-o’-lanterns line the walls and shelves.

“Why not? Tis the season and all that.” I take the offered JD and coke from the Mayan demon for alcohol, who wears flashing plastic devil-horns on his head. “Stolas in tonight?”

Akan looks uncomfortable, a true feat on a face with so many piercings and facial tattoos. I throw up a hand in surrender. “I know the rules; I’m not looking for a fight. What I need is some information.”

This brings a frown from the demon. “You know what he is, don’t you?”

“I know, and I already have the payment sorted,” I say, then with a little less assuredness, add, “I think.”

“Third table from the back,” the demon states, turning away and pouring a drink as another customer walks through the door. When I entered, it had been dark, yet this time bright sunlight fills the doorframe.

I take the drink and snake my way back into the darkest part of the bar. This is more like a side room built to ensure those who hate the sun could not accidentally fall under its cleansing embrace when it speared through the front door.

The tables back here lay under a heavy cloud of smoke boiling out of braziers and hookahs - fuelled by unworldly spices and opiates. I find Stolas sitting at his table, holding a Stephen King book open in one hand, while the other nurses a cup of steaming tea. Every so often he giggles to himself, then turns the page and commences reading and giggling some more.

I wait until he sees me. He looks up, smiles a knowing smile, and gestures at the seat opposite.

“Forgive me, I’ll just finish this chapter and be right with you.” He returns to the book, and as I sit, his sharp face splits into a huge grin at some internal joke, before suddenly bursting out with a sharp bark of a laugh.

“Oh, Mr King… Brilliant!” He complimented, wiping tears away from his eyes with the back of his hand.

Normally dressed like a well-to-do businessman in a tailored suit of the finest quality, today he’s wearing the vestments of a priest. I see straight past this outward facade to the creature buried deep within. When dealing with arcane creatures, I can usually pierce their disguises, recognising something akin to an aura about them—their true selves, if you will. A black pit surrounded Stolas with malicious crimson eyes staring out of its depths that remind me of an owl.

Finally, he finishes his chapter and dog-ears his place on the corner of the page, before setting the book down in front of him. For that act alone, he deserves to burn in a special little hell.

 “I love this guy,” Stolas says, pointing at King’s name on the cover with a perfectly manicured nail. “It’s almost like frightening kids again. I mean, his horrors are so childish… ooh a big dog… ooh a scary car… ooh a clown. How the hell did he ever sell so many books?” As an afterthought, he added, “now there’s a true mystery. I wonder who he sold his soul to for that small miracle?”

“Never read him,” I admit, trying to get the demon onto the reason I was here. “I hate to admit it Stolas, but I need your help.”

“Well, I’ll be, the all-knowing-Amun needs help from little old me? I never thought I’d see the day.”

Stolas was a knowledge demon, so hiding anything would be a waste of everyone’s time. Coming to the bar, I had decided to use the one trick he would not expect, the truth.

“Kids are dying because of a new drug that’s recently hit the streets called Trick-Or-Treat. Nothing new there except this one’s pretty much straight poison. Some humans in-the-know are thinking it has arcane origins, and they’re getting desperate enough to do something drastic to find and stop the source.”

“That would break the treaty,” Stolas says, perhaps a little too happily for my liking.

“If what they think is true, the treaty has already broken and you guys could be in for a world of hurt… and that may just be the point of all this. Someone may be trying to trigger a conflict between humanity and the rest. I need not mention that these are people who today have drones, satellites, and infrared. This would not be a war, like the old days; they can do some serious damage now.”

Stolas sits and ponders for about a minute, his fingers tapping out a rhythm on the cover of his book. He then admits:

“I knew about the deaths, of course, but the possibility the drug was coming from someone on the other side never occurred to me. I just thought the Market was up to its old tricks, finding some new way to kill themselves with no assistance from us.”

The ‘Market’ he referred to was the name many in the game used for humanity, who often ended up being their customers for whatever shady deal they were offering. I always felt ‘victims’ was a far more accurate description.

“I admit there’s still a chance that’s the case, as you can never discount the stupidity of humans. But if it isn’t, well I need to get working on this as soon as possible, or else there could be dire consequences for all.” I try to turn the tables a little by attempting to get some free information. “The drug’s name didn’t get you intrigued before now?”

Stolas nods his head as he ponders on all I have revealed. “What’s your question?” he finally asks, proving he’s not so easily caught by such an obvious ruse.

“Where can I find the Regulus?”

Stolas is startled at the name, a good sign I had caught the knowledge demon off-guard. He does not answer right away; instead, he closes his eyes and withdraws into himself. I cannot tell if it’s a trick of the lighting or whether the area around his chair grows darker. Finally, his eyes snap open and he answers.

“Today you’re lucky. I feel I owe you a small debt for information I did not already possess, so I won’t require the usual payment. Also, I don’t have what you seek; I can only point you at someone who I believe does. Having failed to answer your original question, to officially complete our transaction, I require only a small token payment for this name.”

I hope the relief on my face does not show. One must always be careful when entering such bargains blind as the payment often outweighs the information sought. Not knowing the required payment before asking was risky, but I couldn’t think of another way to proceed without the Knowledge Demons’ help. He’s asking for a token was a sign that what I had given him was far more valuable than what he was giving in return. It would be all-too-easy to think this was something like demonic honour, but I doubt this was the case. If you live long enough, you learn there are very few who walk this path with you, so it's never a good idea to cheat or piss off someone who might turn around and bite you in the ass centuries later. It also helped that we were both in the knowledge business, and I am sure part of the time Stolas used contemplating his answer was spent weighing the benefit of hard negotiation.

“You must seek out the Unicorn,” Stolas says, picking up his book and opening it at his previous page. “He will lead you to the Regulus.”

“Thank you,” I say, then nervously ask, “and the token?”

The demon looks at me from over his book with a playful wink, “Surprise me.”

I stand up from the table and pull a small box from my jacket. I place the gift in front of the demon, then start heading out the front door.

“What’s this?” Stolas asks, inspecting the box.

“Open it… you’ll see.”

Intrigued, Stolas opens the box and pulls out one of the treats inside. He then breaks open the small, horseshoe-shaped biscuit and retrieves the piece of paper it contains. The Knowledge Demon carefully unfolds the cookies’ fortune and reads:

‘Judge a man by his questions, not by his answers. Your lucky number is 15.’

As I exit the pub and am hit by a cool night breeze, a roar of laughter erupts from the rear of the building.

I step into an empty street and pull out my phone. For some reason, you don’t get the best coverage in a pub that sits in another dimension. When I had entered the Sorrow, it was just after 1 a.m.; now the heavy sky and deserted street suggest it was getting close to daybreak.

I thumb open my phone; it takes a minute to update itself and then announces it’s 4:11 a.m. I then go to contacts and dial Vulk’s number. Yes, I know a werewolf with an iPhone.

“Amun?” the voice at the other end asks.

“I’ve got a lead on who might be behind all this. Can you meet me at the Stag on Wiltshire?”

“What the hell are we going to find there?” Vulk asks, a little too uncomfortable at the location for there not to be a story attached. I store that away for some fun later.

“Getting information,” I reply, thumbing the cancel call button and effectively cutting off whatever smartass comment he was about to make.

The neon light hanging from the front of the building proudly announces that anyone can get anything at any time inside. I am there for about twenty minutes before Vulk’s Ford Cobra finally pulls up. Only 400 made, this 2 door V8 falcon is one of the rarest cars in the world, and he’d bought one after watching Mad Max. I hate to admit it, but the beast suited the old wolf right down to the ground.

“What are we doing here again?” he inquires, climbing out of the car.

“The guy we’re looking for isn’t here, but someone who’ll point us in his direction is.”

I head to the building, and as we enter, the largest man I have ever seen shouldered out Vulk while exiting the door. What made this man even more striking were the thick coke-bottle glasses he wore on his melon-sized head.

“Hey,” Vulk protests.

“Forget it,” I remark, placing one hand guardedly on the shoulder of my friend and directing him inside. I could sense that man was all sorts of trouble.

The gaudy neon outside is replaced by the brothel’s grimy waiting room. The old Asian woman behind the counter smiles at us warmly. “Welcome to the Stag, anything you want, we got it.”

“We want Ki-lin,” I sweetly request.

The old woman looks us over slowly, clearly shocked at the request. “Perhaps you two want to start with something a little more your own… err… size?” Odd how her broken English accent was gone. “I mean, the big guy might be fine, but you…”

“We don’t want to fuck him,” Vulk asserts, pulling a credit card from his wallet. “We just need to talk.”

“You police?” the woman asks, eyeing me suspiciously. “We’re all paid up here.”

“I’m sure you are, and no, we’re not cops. Just tell Ki-lin that Vulk and Amun are here to talk to him.”

The woman eyes me again, though now it’s more curious than suspicious. “You don’t look like Amun,” the old woman declared, recognising my name. She then gestures at Vulk, “he’s a big tall man with many muscles, like him.”

“Oh, he’s Amun alright,” the big tall man with many muscles standing next to me grins, enjoying himself. “He’s just shrunk a bit with age.”

The front door jingles as more customers wander in, and with her focus now elsewhere, the old woman moves us on with a flick of her head without taking payment. “Room 8-12, now get out of here.” She then turns to warmly address her new customers with the same bad English accent she had first used. “Good evening handsome sirs, welcome to the Stag, anything you want, we got it.”

We step through to the rear hallway. At the end is a small elevator, and Vulk pushes the button marked up. As the metal doors open and we enter, Vulk questions, “All paid up to who?”

“You vice?” I hit the button marked eight.

“No.”

“Then why does it matter?” The door closes and the lift jerks upwards. “We have murders to solve.”

“I think that number just went up by one,” Vulk remarks as the elevator opens to reveal a naked body lying on the floor before us.

Vulk rolls the body over and checks his vitals. He shakes his head in the negative.

“Damn it, Ki,” I say, inspecting the body for what killed him.

“This is the infamous unicorn?” Vulk asks incredulously. “The unicorn is a male prostitute?”

“Well, they could only be caught with sex,” I explain, standing up and moving through the open door to room 12, “and he no longer trusted women.”

“I thought they were like a horse? Where’s his big horn?” Vulk demands, gesturing at an invisible horn jutting from his forehead.

Before entering the room, I pointed at the Unicorn’s penis, which was clearly visible.

“Jesus Christ,” Vulk says, seeing the enormous member for the first time. “I mean, it’s not even hard… and look at the size of it.”

Inside the room, I pick my way about, looking for whatever could have killed the Fae. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I close my eyes and search for that which can’t be seen. Meanwhile, Vulk pokes around, sniffing and snorting his way through the room, and, of course, the old wolf quickly finds something.

“Well, I’ll-fucking-be,” he exclaimed.

I open an eye and look at my friend standing on the sofa, peering intently at the ceiling’s smoke detector.

“It would seem your friend liked to film things.”

“How the hell did you find that?”

Vulk starts pulling the device apart to get at the hidden camera inside.

“I do have some abilities of my own you know,” he says, tapping his nose, “now start looking for the receiver and the recorder this thing’s hooked up to. The camera only has a small transmitter, so that stuff has to be nearby.”

Feeling stupid for underestimating Vulk, I start by looking in the most obvious places for the equipment.

“Found it,” I yell, looking at a DVD-R player suspiciously attached to the TV, itself suspiciously sitting out in the open. At the back is an odd little black box which I took to be the hard drive.

Vulk steps over and studies the box for a second, before switching on the TV and pushing the stop button on a remote. He then thumbs rewind, then play and instantly an aerial view of the room hits the screen and we are watching ourselves enter the open door.

“Well, this looks promising,” Vulk says, rewinding the recording, then hitting play again.

The image of the room returns, but this time it shows Ki-lin slowly undressing the man with the thick glasses we had seen exiting. Once undressed, the man grabs the prostitute by his alicorn, leads him to a chair, and bends him over.

Uncomfortably, we watch as Ki-lin was crushed under the weight of the bigger man. Something is clearly wrong. The Unicorn is in distress and struggles, and this seems to intensify the pleasure of the big man, who, after a minute, climaxes with a shudder. He then stands back and throws the distressed Ki-lin to the floor. We watch as the Unicorn’s movements become weaker and slower. The big man cleans himself on Ki-lin’s shirt. He then dresses and leaves the room, ignoring the figure on the floor who’s clearly dying.

“Fuck,” Vulk swore as the Unicorn slowly crawls out the door.

“This is worse than I thought,” I admit, looking around the room. “I think Ki-lin was killed to keep him quiet.”

“About what… and how? It looks like he was just rogered to death. I’m not sure that’s a crime, I mean, it’s obviously murder, but how would you organise something like that?” Vulk asks, pulling his phone and calling in help to secure the crime scene.

“Oh, it was murder,” I declare, “and I know who’s responsible.”

We head downstairs to wait for the police, and Vulk suddenly takes a detour, grabs the old woman minding the front door, pulling her into the private office behind the counter.

“Who was Ki-lin’s last customer?”

I close the office door behind them and take guard out front, making sure no one can see them as I listen in their talks.

“Tell us or I’ll let everyone know that you’re a cop stoolie,” Vulk growls.

“Who would you tell? Who would believe you?” The woman has reverted to her perfect English accent.

“Well, it was Stolas who pointed us in this direction in the first place, so I’m sure he’d be interested.” I smile and nod. Dropping the name of the Knowledge Demon was a nice touch.

“You wouldn’t dare,” the old woman gulped, worried. “You’d never get away with lying to him.”

“Who says it would be a lie? Here’s my police badge. You already told us what room Ki-lin was in, so I’d be telling the truth.” The badge was real, one of many we have stolen from O’Hanian over the years.

“Alright, alright, I owe him nothing. It was the Dog Star bastard.” I hear the woman spit on the ground as though clearing her mouth of the foul-tasting name.

“The who?” Vulk asks.

“Holy shit,” I say through the door, “I was right. The guy with the glasses is a cockatrice. That explains everything.”

“A what?” Vulk probed, stepping outside.

“A Cockatrice. It kills you with a glance. A Basilisk!”

“No kidding?”

“They are also called Regulus, which is what I suspected.”

“Why?”

“Their body fluids are venomous.” I indicate Vulk’s groin. “All of them!”

“Eww,” Vulk groans, catching on. “That’s how he killed the Unicorn? Now that’s nasty.”

9:23 a.m.

Vulk pulls the Cobra up to the front of the Maguwamban Embassy. As a minor African nation bordering Egypt and Libya, its entire consulate ranks only the top floor in this narrow six-story building, with a single guard in the foyer. Most of the other floors are rented by Maguwamban businesses looking to attract investors and clients.

“Not that way,” I tell Vulk as he automatically heads to the front door. “The real power of Maguwamba is out the back.”

I did not think this was going to work, but it’s the last chance we had. We walk around to a nondescript wooden door at the rear and I knock heavily twice. Having waited a respectful time, I went to knock again when the door was suddenly opened by a huge African, wearing an old, faded INXS t-shirt.

“We need to see the Shayṭān,” I tell him, recognising the man as a Zabaniyya, one of the supposed guardians of hell.

“They not in,” the man says, his heavy accent almost smothering the words.

“Tell them it’s about the Cockatrice.”

While the outside of the building is distinctly 21st century, the inside is more like something out of the Arabian Nights. Lush tapestries and fine silks cover almost every surface in the large room, making it more like a spider’s lair than a business office, which is probably the point. Its three occupants are lounging across huge, elongated sofas. Thanks to the lighting and the hanging material, most of their features are obscured from view.

“You want to see the Regulus?” one asks.

I can only see a mane of blonde hair, yet the voice had been distinctly Middle Eastern, so I step forward, hoping to get a better look. “The truce has always been held most strongly in this household, yet I feel you will be blamed for its ruination, which nears by the hour.”

“We?” another voice draws out, sounding similar to the first. “We hold the truce dear; we affect no one and have little contact with the Market. We hide ourselves in this luxurious prison to ensure the holy pact remains intact.”

“That may be true, yet the truce is in danger nonetheless, and it’s one of yours that is destroying it. Why? I have no idea. Supposed jealousies or lust for previous times of glory? Personally, as this is the day for remembering the dead, I believe this is revenge for some slight.”

“And you think it’s a cockatrice,” says the third figure. “There has not been a birth in many centuries. They are an impossible creature, with no reason for living in the modern world.”

“Yet they occasionally do appear, and perhaps it’s not a new birth? Perhaps there has been one missed and living a secluded life all these years?” I enquire, hoping they reveal something we can use.

“Why have you come to us with this accusation?” The first figure chimes in, clearly the leader here.

“We have followed the path of information laid before us,” Vulk states, pulling a small vial from his pocket and handing it to the doorman standing guard behind us.

The Zabaniyya checks the vial thoroughly, before carrying it forward, head down, and passing it almost reverently to the leader. Though it’s still hard to make out any features, I can see well enough to watch as the figure takes the vial and inspects its contents cautiously. After short scrutiny, it opens the container and gingerly tastes its contents.

“There’s also this,” I added, pulling a still lifted from the video of the hidden camera in Ki-lin’s room. “You’ll note the eyes.”

The guard collects the photo and takes it to the trio, gaze again lowered.

“I do not recognise him,” the second figure says after the briefest glance at the image. It then hands the photo off to the third figure.

The first, having swirled the drug around in its mouth like a fine wine, spits the vial’s contents out onto the floor. “I get nothing from this,” it remarks, tossing the drug back. “You’re wasting our time.”

“Wasting your time? Twenty-three kids are dead from this poison,” Vulk snarls.

“Let’s go,” I say, reaching out and pulling my friend back.

“But they obviously know something.” I can feel Vulk trembling under my hand, rage barely restrained.

“Take your dog out of here before we smack him with a rolled-up newspaper,” the first figure says.

I turn and the large doorman is there, looking like he’s considering physically imposing himself into the conversation. “Let’s go.”

Vulk turns and looks the guard up and down, takes a slow step towards him, then turns and faces me, deliberately presenting his back to the Zabaniyya. “All right, I’ll go… for now.”

“We thank you for your gracious time,” I say to the trio, then follow the frustrated werewolf outside.

Walking back to the car, Vulk suddenly turns on me.

“What the fuck was that about? They obviously know something, so why didn’t you try to get it out of them? You weren’t concerned about that doorman, were you?”

“I got everything I was hoping for,” I explain, trying to calm him down.

“How did you get anything out of that?”

“I now know there is a Cockatrice out there somewhere, and I’m pretty sure those idiots know who he is.”

“So how do we find him, then?” Vulk forced a calmer note into his voice.

“Stakeout!” I grinned, then opened the car door and climbed in.

We sit and watch the rear of the building. Not the most exciting part of our day, and when Vulk began fidgeting after 30 seconds, it got really annoying. Finally, I had to ask.

“What?”

“I seriously have no idea what we’re doing here. Who were those guys?”

“You may know them as Shayṭān, or maybe as Whisperers.” The old dog gestures, the names mean nothing. “How about genies?”

“Mythical creatures that live in lamps?”

“Says the werewolf,” I laugh. “The difference between myth and reality. Like all of us, they are just an ancient tribe trying to survive in this crazy world.”   

“By hiding out in an African embassy?”

“By being the best drug producers in the game.”

“Oh,” Vulk says, finally understanding why we are here.

3:58 p.m.

Too many hours later, we are still in the car. We pass the time judging the costumes some people are already wearing for Halloween. Vulk wolf-whistles at a particularly cute witch, who blushes, and I swear walks slower as she passes by. When he turns back, face split in a hungry grin, I raise a finger to my lips and pantomime a shush. We’re trying to remain inconspicuous after all. In reality, all these costumes do is remind me of the impending tragedy looming if I’m wrong.

Finally, the Zabaniyya and a figure I assume to be one of the Shayṭān, whose face is hidden behind a Keffiyeh, depart the house by a car brought to the rear door. Vulk starts the Cobra’s engine and skilfully follows, making sure he’s never close enough to be conspicuous. After around fifteen minutes, the car ahead exits the city, heading into the countryside.

The roads are still lined with houses; though they’re much further apart than in the suburbs. Almost all are decked out for Halloween, with plastic skeletons, tombstones and inflatable horrors of every description populating well-manicured front lawns. Because of the lack of traffic along the road, I suggest Vulk should back off when the car in front pulls off the road and up a small dirt driveway to a house.

We drove on past just in case this was a test, only pulling over further down the road as though we were inspecting the giant inflatable Mummy peeking around a tree next to a house. Vulk watches the road behind through his rear vision mirror, just in case the car pulls back out and heads off in the other direction.

“You actually know what you’re doing?” I joke.

“Yeah, thanks, I’m so new to all this. I mean really, thank god you’re here to hold my hand,” he replies sarcastically.

When the car never re-enters the street, I open the car door and get out.

“Ok, well, I’ll take a look. Come back past in about an hour to pick me up, and if I am not here, well, wait a little longer.”

“…and then?” Vulk demands, ducking down so he can look out the open door.

“If I have not shown up? Come and save my ass.” I close the door and reaching for the vehicle’s side mirror, break it off.

Vulk looks at the mirror in my hand like I had just slapped his mother, which was ridiculous; he loves the car far more than his mum.

“You’re paying for that!”

I head deep into the trees on the opposite side of the road, before snaking my way around in a wide arc above the dirt road and the house. From here I can not only make out the car we’d been following parked further down the hill, but two figures standing on top of a small rise trying to see the main highway through the trees. Carefully, I creep into a listening distance as Vulk, with a loud rev of his engine, finally drives away.

“Perhaps your suspicions are wrong?” the larger shadow asks.

“Perhaps,” nods the smaller one, “let’s go. We have a lot to do before tonight.”

The men return to the vehicle, take something out of the trunk, then creep on towards the farmhouse further up the hill. I follow, hugging the shadows just in case anyone was still watching.

I round the house and approach from the opposite side, diminishing the chances of someone spotting me. I sneak up to a window and peek inside, recognising  the man with the thick glasses who’d killed Ki-lin sitting at a desk, scooping white powder into a series of small glass bottles. Next to him are several thousand, all full and sporting a jack-o’-lantern logo.

“Even when they showed me this shit, I refused to believe it was you,” the Shayṭān we’d been following says from some unseen part of the room in old Arabic.

The Cockatrice, startled, looks up from his work. “How did you get in here?”

“Your arrogance knows no bounds. You’re not the only one who remembers how to use their abilities.”

“Father...” the murderer says as he stands.

“Never call me that. You’re no spawn of mine.”

“And you call me arrogant, yet you ignore what’s so clearly obvious to everyone.” The young man tosses one of the bottles he’d been filling to the intruder. “You have cursed me since my birth, ignoring my calls for support and my plan to increase our standing in this world. Well now, we’ll see who has the better vision for the future.”

“What have you done?”

“What the Fae should’ve been doing since humans toppled our first kingdom, returning us to our rightful position as rulers of these lands. Humanity should fear us, not leave us hiding and begging for table scraps and living in sewers.”

“Not even you could be that egotistical. You’ve declared war on the human world, destroying a treaty that’s kept the peace for an eon.”

I creep from the window to the building's rear door. Luckily, the house is so isolated that it’s not locked.

“Egotistical? Am I the one watching them poison the Fae by building a world of iron? Am I the one that keeps us docile, growing obese on the enslavement of our kind while hiding like frightened children in backrooms of nothing nations?”

Inside, I sneak about until I can see the figures in the room from the dark hallway.

“You stupid boy,” the Shayṭān scold, picking up a vial. “This is their world now… we survive only under their sufferance. Do you think this shit could do anything to them that would really matter? They number in the billions! Even at our height, we never had the strength or numbers to match the onslaught this war calls for. Humanity has won, and all you’re doing is ruining any sort of life the Fae can create for itself.”

“Any chance at all!” I add, stepping into the room.

“You!” The Shayṭān hisses, hiding his face behind the Keffiyeh he’d worn since leaving the embassy.

“That’s it Father, hide… be ashamed of your own visage.”

I lift the mirror I’d taken from the car, but my arm is suddenly ensnared by the Zabaniyya, who’d been standing inside the room’s door.

“Hold him,” the Cockatrice orders and the guard wrestles me into a headlock.

“Maula?” the Shayṭān asks in surprise as his servant follows his son’s order.

“My people have been working with you for centuries,” the Zabaniyya replies. “We have lost our fortunes, our country and our future. Your son promises we will rule once more, and we will no longer be ashamed of our true natures.”

The young man removes his glasses, and I drop my gaze to the floor.

“That won’t help,” the Cockatrice laughs as Maula grabs my head in one hand, his massive fingers gripping either side of my face. He begins to squeeze, and I scream as my head is compressed in his powerful grip.

“You’ll look at me or your head will pop like a watermelon,” the Cockatrice scoffs.

Desperate, I reach into my pocket and pull out something I always carry for such occasions. I swing up and strike Maula’s head. Instantly, the pressure stops, and I drop to the floor.

“An iron nail. Well done Mr Galeas, how poetic.” The Cockatrice steps up and kicks me in the stomach. Pain explodes behind my eyes, along with my breath, but I manage to keep my vision lowered, avoiding his direct gaze.

“It’s amazing what makes a myth,” the young man seethed, yanking the nail free. He then walks over to his father and jerks the covering away from his face.

“You think you can dance with me, boy?” The Shayṭān asks. “I’ve been fighting for thousands of years.”

“Not lately though,” the Cockatrice yells, slapping his father’s face. The blow separates both, and they begin circling the way boxers do.

Though still groggy, I notice the Cockatrice’s hands have turned to claws. Behind me, Maula groans as his body react to the iron, a metal poisonous to all Fae. His powers of recuperation mean this won’t be enough to kill him, however.

Despite the pain, I get to my feet and look for the car mirror. I find it against the wall, its glass shattered, so I pick up the largest piece, hoping it will be enough. Using the wall to keep my balance, I turn back and watch as father and son try to kill each other.

The Cockatrice looks more reptile than man. He disdainfully reaches out, pulls his father close, and spits in his face.

The venom, the source of the drug that had been killing so many children, runs down the older man’s cheeks.

“Your powers are wasted on me, blood of my blood.”

“I know,” the Cockatrice retorted, shifting his grip and grabbing his father’s neck with both hands. The claws pierce the skin and blood flows freely down the struggling Shayṭān’s throat. “Did you think I’d want you to die so easily? No. For your betrayal of our people, you’re going to die slow, hard, and in my hands.”

The Shayṭān struggles, throwing ineffectual blows at his enormous son, who continues to squeeze and hold his father in place effortlessly. The Cockatrice’s fingers sink deep, and blood fountains everywhere. The noises filling the room are horrific; bubbling, gurgling, strangled gasps from the dying Djinn trying to breathe as his body automatically attempts to clear his throat.

The son watches his father’s eyes roll back and his bloodstained lips turn blue. The Shayṭān’s body reacts to its impending death by twitching, with the tongue jutting out to create more space for air. The legs give way, the arms flail about—and through all this, the Cockatrice holds on, his fingers unbreakably buried in his father’s neck.

These struggles slow as the body dies, and it's only once the blood stops flowing down his arms, that the son pulls his crimson-stained fingers out and lets his father fall.

Cleaning his hands on a tablecloth, the Cockatrice turns his attention to me. “Is this not how nature is supposed to work? The young, hungry, and desperate replacing the old, fat, and stagnant? This will be our world, and there’s nothing any of you can do about it.”

I watch the monster through the shard of a mirror in my hand. “You’re right. The young should replace the old. That’s the point your father was making. The time of the Fae is done, so either step aside gracefully and live life as best you can or rage against the wind and be crushed by inevitability. Either way, you’re finished.”

“Finished? How do you kill mythology? Did you bring a weasel or a mongoose? What else did they claim was useful to kill a Basilisk on the internet?”

Behind me, Maula gets to his feet, his body finally overcoming the iron nail. I move between both, ensuring not to look the Cockatrice directly in the eye. I’ve no idea if the creature could turn me to stone with a glance, and I’ve no interest in finding out.

“I didn’t bring a weasel or a mongoose.” I step into the centre of the room, allowing the Zabaniyya to get behind me. “Will a wolf do?”

From out of the corridor, Vulk pounds into the room in full werewolf form, impacting Maula’s back and driving him to the floor. The Zabaniyya rolls with the blow, and both quickly regain their feet and face each other. Maula pulls a knife from his jacket the size of a small sword, and the blade flashes with a silver glint. This is what they had collected from the rear of the car.

I could not be sure if the danger registers with the snarling werewolf, but I honestly don’t think it would have mattered if it had. The frustrations of the investigation had taken a toll on my friend. We had seen most horrors in this world, but the deliberate poisoning of children is something that had been twisting in his soul. Some lines you simply don’t cross.

The werewolf issues his challenge, an eerie long howl, then crosses the short distance between the two and lands feet first on the Zabaniyya’s barrel chest. Though he does not knock Maula over, the blow forces him backwards a few steps. This allows Vulk to follow up and, with teeth bared, he lands on Maula’s shoulder and bites deep into the soft flesh around the throat. Strings of crimson-slicked skin and gobs of blood fly as the werewolf tears away a mouthful of flesh.

The Zabaniyya screams in pain and drops his knife, and the sound distracts the Cockatrice. I use this opportunity to lunge forward and drive the mirror shard into the monster’s eye, the glass puncturing the fragile orb. The creature bellows in pain as he pitches backward, clutching at his face.

I turn to see if Vulk needs help, but the werewolf is doing just fine. With clawed paws, he strikes at the stomach of the Zabaniyya, creating great crimson lacerations. With unnatural strength, the werewolf bites and slashes again and again, until one paw comes away tangled with a large ribbon of entrails. These Vulk discards with a flick of his paw, then leaps back onto Maula, snapping at his throat.

Despite the pain, the Zabaniyya remains a formidable opponent. One of his enormous fists lashes out and punches Vulk. The tremendous blow sends the werewolf tumbling across the room to strike the far wall with a heavy thud. Maula then gathers his wayward intestines the way a sailor ravels a loose rope, pushing them back into his torn stomach by the handful. 

I turn back to the Basilisk writhing on the floor. He was scratching at his ruined eye socket with his claws, attempting to withdraw the mirror shard. I search about and collect the discarded silver knife, along with a vial of the drug, then return to the flailing Cockatrice.

“Believe me, I know how hard it is to kill a myth,” I explained calmly, standing on the child-killer’s arms, “but there’s one thing I have learnt.” I dip the knife in the vial, ensuring it is well coated in the venom. I kneel, grab the monster's head, and plunge the weapon into his remaining good eye. I put all my weight behind the blade as I continue, “everything can be killed—you just have to put the effort in.”

The knife goes straight through the socket and the thin skull wall behind, then into the brain with a wet crunch. The Cockatrice shrieks and bucks in agony, but I hold on, using all my weight to keep his head pinned underneath the knife. The violent struggle causes the blade to cut back and forth, and I can feel the tip scrape against the back of his skull.

I really have no idea whether it’s the silver, the venom, or just a good old-fashioned knife in the brain that kills the monster, but as he’d promised his father, he dies slow, hard, and in my hands. Not once do I let up, but continue leaning into the blade until the creature’s struggles completely end. From here, I also watch as Vulk destroys his opponent.

Maula had gathered his intestines and put them back into his ruined stomach, which I assume would eventually heal, but the werewolf had no intention of letting that happen. Vulk leaps on him from behind, his jaws on the neck, finally driving the wounded Zabaniyya to the floor. Maula immediately tries to get up and, almost comically, his intestines again boil out of his stomach and unspool everywhere.

Trying to fight off the werewolf, Maula manages to slip on one of the slick tubes, and he pitches face-first into the floor. To the symphony of crunching noises of a feeding werewolf, I pull the knife free and use the blade to dismember the Cockatrice. I have no idea how much damage a basilisk can recover from, so as I cut pieces free, I throw them into the middle of the room. Once this grizzly task is done, I do the same to the body of the Shayṭān.

I jump out of my skin and spin, knife ready to strike, when Vulk’s hand falls on my shoulder. Back in human form, he asks for the weapon and then sets to butchering the remains of Maula in the same way. While he’s busy, I search the kitchen and find lighter fluid and matches.

Vulk had been busy in the meantime, and when I returned there’s a bonfire of furniture, papers, body parts, and drug vials in the middle of the room. I splash the lighter-fluid all over, then standing back, I toss a lit match into the pile. The accelerant ignites with a soft explosion, and soon an enormous fire is roaring inside the room. I look at Vulk and flick my head towards the door.

We clamber down the hill and make our way to where Vulk had parked the Cobra. Behind us, a thick, black column of smoke rises into the darkening sky as the fire grows. The flames inside illuminate the windows, making the house resemble a large, squat jack-o’-lantern.

People begin gathering along the street as cars pull over to watch the house burn. I start to worry as Vulk and I are covered in blood and gore, but the wolf gives me a wink. About us are vampires, witches, mummies, pirates, superheroes, ghouls, and a fair number of zombies whose graphic makeup far exceeds our own bloody visage. They are soon joined by firemen and cops—some of who were actually the real thing—who start putting out the fire.

 We get a call placed to O’Hanian, and then take a rest, leaning against the Cobra like two teenagers hanging out in a parking lot on a Saturday night. The old dog looks at the monsters gathering about the car, many of who congratulate us on our costumes and the vehicle, and with a face smeared with blood asks…

“So, can we go trick-or-treating?”