Archive of Our Own

"This is the calm that follows the storm, servant. This is the settling of the dust in the wake of incompetence unsurpassed. And within this abeyance, my eyes are once again drawn to a singular vexing mote, floating about my periphery."

"Nearly fifteen years have passed since the Black Guardian's most egregious failure to protect—"

"Do not attempt to misdirect my ire, servant. I shall not entertain another moment of your oleaginous wheedling. Rather, I would shift our attention to the mote, if only briefly."

"And what is this mote, my liege?"

"The what is a who. It does not surprise me that you know nought of whom I speak, and that the oft-futile task of enlightening you should once again fall to me. His name is Peter Jacob. He is the one who foiled the efforts of all you assigned to protect the artifact of the opposition, including the Black Guardian, whom he defeated most readily. Frankly I would be impressed if I did not find the entire incident so disgraceful. I had your word, Pious Augustus."

"My word remains as true as it was when I first pledged my undying allegiance to you, Ulyaoth, Master of the Planes. Never mind the Black Guardian. He was weak, famished, redundant; his hunger for souls had surpassed the point of sustainability. Forsooth, his destruction relieves us of a mighty burden."

"We shall see. Although I cannot divine its precise location, I sense that the Sigil of Xel'lotath remains in Peter Jacob's custody. That man has been dragged through the Veil and forced to accept the Secret World and his place within it as an irrevocable consequence of his meddling, but he has yet to take any further action against my machinations."

"No doubt fear stays his hand. Perhaps he believes that this same fear will protect him."

"Yes. But such a flimsy shield will avail him nought against the wiles of Xel'lotath. Perhaps it is already too late."

"Perhaps. And what if she does yearn for a champion of her own, to spread her insanity throughout the corporeal world? Just as you have chosen me to do your worldly bidding, my liege?"

"Let her yearn. Just as Mantorok is destined to slobber uselessly in his eternal confinement, she too has no greater destiny than the humiliation of total oblivion. It is of no concern to me, but it would behoove my most abject servant to take heed: Peter Jacob also has yet to learn of the Gathering of Light. Thus, your window for an untroubled retrieval of the Sigil has yet to close; I suggest you make haste and take advantage of the opening. Find Peter Jacob. Find where he has hidden the artifact. Deliver unto him the mercy of its repossession. And perhaps then I will deliver unto you a morsel of forgiveness for your prior miscalculations."

"I understand, my liege. You have my word. The artifact is as good as ours."

"Is it? Is it ever ours, Pious Augustus…?"

"A Fata Pădurii…?"

"Yes, on my life. Lord Dibblethwaite carried it into the club as if it was an ornamental fig, pot and all. Even we knew the old braggart would get bit sooner or later, though he swears up and down he thought the deuced thing was dead. I suppose I would too, up 'til the moment my latest trophy suddenly springs back to life, trebles in size and starts devouring everyone within range." With his thumbs hooked tight beneath his braces, the gentleman allowed himself another few chomps on his pencil and then heaved a sigh; as far as cigarette substitutes went, surely the humble pencil ranked among the greats. "Alas! And there you have it, Jacob—the straight gen, more or less. At least, that is as much as the Templars were willing to divulge, in re the question of how the beast managed to swing an invitation into their little rumpus room."

What a strange sight! Mr. Kenneth M. Arbogast without his tobacco, without those great chimney plumes of smoke fogging up his eye-glass as they swirled towards any given ceiling in the Council of Venice Press & Publishing Office (Ealdwic branch). The Jacob in question—Peter Jacob, occult photographer dans toute sa something-or-other—wondered what must've happened to impel his boss to give up the habit, but more likely the man simply ran out of cigarettes.

Or perhaps he simply rather craved the great taste of wood and graphite, like some kind of hamster. Mr. Arbogast did sort of resemble one in his own paunchy, jowly way; Peter wisely decided to keep this observation to himself.

"Par for the course," he uttered instead, his voice dry and precise, but hardly audible over the clattering din of the P&P staff room. "Famously tight-lipped, that lot."

"Suppose it goes with the territory. At least in this case, the only damage incurred went to their own real estate so to speak. The Temple Club will survive." Mr. Arbogast removed the pencil from his mouth but continued to ruminate. "Although I dare not say the same for that poor butler of theirs…"

Peter would leave the pencils (and the rumination) to the jaws of the senior editor. As a matter of uniformity, the Council of Venice demanded Pica type for all internal use forms, including CoV-191029-H.2.2: "Photographic Identification Record - Class II - Cryptozoological (Rev. v.2)", a basic but mandatory document identifying the Who or What Are We Looking At in any photograph bound for Central Publishing. Purely administrative in purpose, and lord knows how the Council of Venice adored its administrativia.

If paperwork was what passed for daily bread with the Council, Peter supposed his photography work must be their butter, or perhaps more like the jam these days. However he would argue, possibly saliently, that not all of the sticky business was entirely his fault. Not too long ago, he experienced what his handler described as a "nervous breakdown", or at least, those were the words that would be permanently inscribed into his service record. Fair enough—one could only take responsibility for the funny turns of their own brain. But who gave him the assignment that led to the breakdown in the first place? And then, who put him on "sanity leave" for six weeks after all had been said and done and burned and sort of exploded into a twisted tangle of ex-automobile right in the middle of Ealdwic Square?

Why, the Council of Venice itself, of course. Still, Peter believed that they were being unusually understanding about the matter, considering they had yet to levy any sort of sanction beyond the mandatory sabbatical, which he spent mostly confined to his bedsit. In fact, there had been no real punishment at all, unless one counted the weekly pokings and proddings and unkind comments about one's choice of dressing gown by a visiting Council nurse.

How unnerving. No cheque for the damages to a visiting diplomat's Rolls-Royce? No garnished salary? No fine…? The Council of Venice loved "punitive gratuities" almost as much as they loved making their agents fill out forms, especially when the forms had something to do with the aforementioned fines. But Peter received nothing of the sort, and six weeks was just enough time to incubate a horrible little inkling as to why and what his actual punishment might be…

Enough of that.

Besides, his handler went through the trouble of reassuring him otherwise, via the favored means of epistolary communication—that is, a note slipped beneath the door to his bedsit on Ratcage Lane:

And naturally, it was this caring, protective Council of Venice who had yet to give him a single new assignment since he returned to work on Monday. Every morning, he checked his inbox and gave his handler a ring, as usual. Every morning, nothing to report. Every morning, an empty box—with the exception of Wednesday, when he received a pamphlet extolling the virtues of "institutional reposure" at a Council-run facility somewhere in rural Belgium with the not-at-all ominous name "Blisswood".

Bad tidings, all around. Not only was he about to get sacked, but sent to Belgium…? Peter sensed that his predicament might require more of a miracle than what one could engender with only the usual appeals to St. Whoever Is The Patron Saint Of The "Dog House", but dashed if he knew what that would be until he espied the lone Photographer Request form (CoV-191145-K) someone had kindly deposited in his inbox before he arrived at the office this morning.

An assignment!

He could not remember the last time he felt so overjoyed to see a sheet of Council Blue carbon paper awaiting his bleary eyes. They wanted a shot of a Fata Pădurii and it was right here in Ealdwic! In the Temple Club! Dead! As in squirmless! Peter so dearly appreciated subjects that did not squirm. Relief was at hand, close enough to touch; he reckoned he'd be glad to kiss the thing, if only he could actually get into the Temple Club to commence the whoopee. For all their public bluster, those Templars were infamously tight-lipped and tight-doored when it came to their own properties—naturally, one had to maintain active service with those Red-Blooded Bullies just to set foot in the foyer.

The Templar escort would be popping in later, after five, giving Peter some time to complete the photographic identification form beforehand. Moreover, the escort would almost certainly be Cherrydale, and he would almost certainly arrive a bit late with a litany of grievances. With luck, he would have a lead on another anomaly that just might require the involvement of a Council photographer. With unluck, he would start banging on about getting more "glamour shots" to post to whomever happened to be his sweetheart that week.

Oh, good god, not again, Peter grumbled to himself in advance. But he was a professional, and he would disregard the clairvoyant creep of weariness and ready the next CoV-191029-H.2.2, loosening it from the top of its stack and feeding it into the typewriter, turning the platen knobs until everything was just so, aligned and ready for the first field.

[A.1] Cryptid Common Name: ___________________

He started to type. But was anybody ever truly ready…?

"Fata…"

"Pă-du-rii, Jacob. Double-i, breve over the a, there. Have you never heard of these?"

"Only in passing. Fay folk, Romanian in origin, I believe?"

"Correct, as usual. One of the Transylvanian natives. The name means maid of the forest, derived from one of their fairy tales or some such. Oh, you know the sort. Beautiful young girls lost in the forest, lured to violent ends by evil men, then turned into monsters hell-bent on revenge."

"Egad."

"But I say, do not let all of that forest maid business lull your senses like it did old Dibblethwaite's!" warned Mr. Arbogast. "Perhaps they really were pretty little lassies once, perhaps not. Either way, they are right terrors and nigh indestructible to boot. I heard that the Templars had to summon Pit & Pendulum to dispatch the thing for good. Burnt it to cinders. Ghastly business."

"So Honesty Yard authorized the kill?" Peter peered upward, suddenly seized by the ghost of a memory, a side note in an archaic Codex. "But what of the truce?"

"Truce?"

"The Bacaş County Accord. Surely you know of this?"

"Hmmph. Now look who's schooling whom."

"We ought to know, it was mediated in part by the Council of Venice some six hundred years ago."

"Hardly current events!"

"It was right after the inhabitants of Bacaş County—normal and paranormal—cooperated and cast out the Mara, queen of the vampires. They agreed, from then on: No more unnecessary aggression for or against the fay of the forest," said Peter. "Considering the Council's involvement, I would've assumed the truce extended to Secret Worlders like us."

"Or like the Templars?"

"Then again, from my understanding, that word unnecessary bore an awful lot of weight over the centuries. Perhaps nowadays there's nothing left of it but a mere shred of a suggestion."

"Grisly stuff." Arbogast cringed, nibbling thoughtfully at the red rubber end of the pencil. "Well, if even I knew nix about all this, surely some foolhardy young Templar who fancies himself a big game hunter might be forgiven for his latest attempt at bagging a trophy, hm?"

"Not if doing so would violate the treaty. He never should have taken it out of Bacaş County to begin with."

"Perhaps not. But he did, and the Templars have already paid dearly for his idiocy so I say the matter's square. Honestly, what choice did Pit & Pendulum have but to slay it? It ate the butler!"

Peter paused. "It is dead though, right?"

"Err—the butler or the…?"

"The Fata Pădurii."

"Dead as a dog biscuit. Or so I've been reassured. Or so I hope. I've not yet seen the corpse for myself, of course, but you will! Later on, hm?" Mr. Arbogast chuckled smokily and fetched a hearty clap for Peter's shoulder.

"Ah ha," he feebly laughed it off, once more allowing the rhythmic chak-chak-chak of typeslugs battering a CoV-191029-H.2.2 to fill the air between them. "I hope so."

"As do we all, and not only for the sake of productivity. To say nothing about how dashed quiet it's been around here lately, these past few weeks must've been quite tiresome for you as well."

"Tiresome? Like sitting around my flat with nothing to do but count the flowers on the wallpaper and listen to the shipping forecast? I daresay that sort of thing is more of a threat to a fellow's sanity than a basilisk."

Mr. Arbogast hefted up the corners of his pudgy cheeks into something resembling a smile, though it failed to conceal the concern pinning it down. "Nobody worth their salt would hold it against you. If you ask me, the Council never should have asked such a thing to begin with. An incomprehensible…" he searched, "lizard thingummy that kills with but a glance is hardly fit to be approached, much less photographed. What were they thinking?"

"To be fair, we've always known they can be trapped. In mirrors. Reflections. Or even a negative…"

Peter's hands stilled. His nether lip continued to tremble, but he stopped speaking. Mr. Arbogast was saying something, but he had stopped listening too.

"…eh, Jacob?"

Another clap to his shoulder sent him reeling back to whatever passed for his reality. "Anyway. It was on the loose in Piccadilly Circus, of all places! The Council had to do something about it. Even the Templars were scrambling for a solution and time certainly wasn't on our side. I'm happy I was able to provide some small assistance."

"Right-o, that's the spirit, Jacob." Arbogast hardly sounded convinced. "Never met a shot he couldn't snap sooner or later, hm?"

As Peter resumed typing, he found his gaze helplessly drawn towards that vacuous rectangle monopolizing the top right corner of the form:

[A.5] Attach PHOTO-GRAPH here and append SIGNATURE to the field below in BLUE or BLACK ink.

This field ever loomed large. We shall see.

"I'm not so sure about that. But thank you, just the same."

It was the sort of statement engineered to conclude a conversation, so all parties involved could get back to their respective business(es) as usual. However, Mr. Arbogast only got as far as a couple paces before filling the air with a prolonged sough.

"Peter," he began; the usage of his first name indicated a turn in the general timbre of things. "I know I've said this before and I shall say it again: You really don't have to carry on like this."

"Is it sapient?"

"What?"

"Fata Pădurii—is it sapient?" Peter inquired, motioning towards the form in his typewriter.

"Oh. How in the deuce should I know? I expect you'll find out for yourself later. Perhaps one of the Templars can tell you," said Arbogast. "Listen, I do appreciate your dedication to the profession, but, well, the Council tends to chew up their photographers, you know. Spits them out like pips from an apple. The things they make you see. The things that see you—"

"Is it dead? As a dog biscuit," Peter recited as he typed. "Now, was that an exact quote?"

"Verbatim, from Lord Plimmswood himself."

"Very evocative. Suppose he missed his true calling? He ought to come write articles for us."

"Peter, I'm being quite serious."

"So am I. Five days back on the job and this has been my only assignment. I've got to carry on like this."

Mr. Arbogast shrugged. "Well! As I said, these last few weeks have been slow for all of us. No need to take it personally."

"Do you know, the only other thing I've received in my box for this entire week was a brochure for some giggle-house in Belgium?"

"Come now! Blisswood isn't a giggle-house, for heaven's sake!"

Peter glared back at the man, stunned. "I say! Did you leave it in there?"

"Of course not, old chap. I'm simply familiar with the place, is all," he explained. "The Council nurses swing by every so often and dish those out as a matter of routine. Again, it's nothing personal."

"The brochure described it as a supervised recuperative facility for emotional exhaustion, for those unfit to convalesce with the general public by dint of being Secret Worlders," Peter went on, softly. "I've been institutionalized before, I know what all of that means."

"Oh fine, if our Peter Jacob says it's a giggle-house, it's a giggle-house. Who am I to argue with an expert?" conceded Mr. Arbogast. "But as I've been trying to impress upon you all week, you don't have to carry on like this, either!"

Peter groaned, and he braced himself for the impending lecture. "Very well. Go on."

"Yes. Ahem. Well, as you bally well know, I've been working in this industry for nearly forty years. I've seen some of the very best occult photographers in the business reduced to gibbering wreckage—and yes, hauled off to places like Blisswood—all because the big berets upstairs are not the ones who have to go out into the field and actually deal with the nitty-gritty of the whole thing." Mr. Arbogast replaced his eye-glass, which had slipped off in the meantime, dangling from a gilt chain attached to a collar button. "Your recent breakdown noughtwithstanding, I would say you've built up a reputation as a most reliable agent. You do everything we ask of you, and more besides."

"I have to, or else I'll get sacked. Or sent to Blisswood. And I'm not prepared to argue over which one's worse," said Peter.

"Ah! But that is where you are mistaken. Dedication like yours is nothing but fodder for the cannons in a department like the P&P. It is the fate of all useful things and people—to be trod upon like an old carpet. No no, what you need is fresh air, a new horizon, somewhere you may exercise your talents to their fullest extent without the constant threat of abuse from those who do not and cannot understand them. Yes, you're precisely the sort that the good old grey griffin needs populating her fledgling Observations outpost in Jamestown."

There it was, that one-two punch combination, the words Observations and Jamestown and for the Nth time this week. Peter rubbed his brow but remained mum.

"And I don't mean the one in the States!"

"I know you don't, Mr. Arbogast."

He went on enthusiastically, winding up for the pitch. "Haven't I told you about St. Helena?"

"Many times, Mister Arbogast."

"Cracking place. Heck of an rock. Absolutely the cat's adenoids. Have I said that?"

Peter nodded. "Yes, over the past five days you've likened the island of St. Helena to just about every kitten's caboodle that one could imagine."

"But the adenoids, Jacob, did I mention the adenoids?"

"You mentioned the adenoids, yes. Most eloquent."

But once again, the adenoids would fail to convince. Mr. Arbogast's smile sagged like an exhausted tube of toothpaste. "Ah, so I have. Well, take my word, it's absolutely splendid. Topping, even."

"Is it really?" Peter twisted his neck to get a good look at the man. "Have you been?"

"I should say not! 'round the world and half-way back in a Council dinghy, you'd have to be bananas!" Mr. Arbogast blustered in his tergiversation. "Ahem. Yes. I mean that in a flattering way, of course."

"Of course."

"I suppose one would have to be at least a little bit of a birdbrain to brave a flight like that. Er—not literally, I'm afraid. The only way is by ship, unless you suddenly sprouted the wings yourself."

"If only these old boots of mine yet retained the structural integrity for long-distance puddle jumping," Peter mused.

"I'll agree, it's a bit remote—"

"Remote? That island might as well be closer to the moon than it is to Ealdwic!"

"You're probably right, but the Council isn't presently hiring for the moon." Mr. Arbogast, with all the unthinking grace of the cigarette fiend, scrubbed out the butt of his pencil against the back of Peter's chair. "Gosh. Well, what else is there to say about St. Helena? Surely she has other qualities worth extolling?" He mulled it over. "It's where Napoleon snuffed it."

Peter returned a grim nod. "Indeed. He lasted five and a half years down there. How long is the Council assignment?"

Mr. Arbogast failed to answer this. Rather, he patted Peter's shoulder and leaned in for the kill. "Anyway, and get this: The Service Bureau is so desperate to fill that post, they personally reassured me that they would be one hundred per-cent willing to overlook the, uh, recent foibles of any prospective imports."

"Foibles…?" Peter looked back at the man again.

"You know what I mean."

He did; he sighed. "If they are that desperate for help, perhaps they should ask Weltsy? Tell him how isolated it is, no doubt he'd be game."

Peter was referring to his coworker, one Welton Updike, a towheaded pilchard who occupied the post room the same way a stoat might occupy a bog hummock in the spring. Exceedingly difficult to imagine the lad ever abandoning the place on his own volition, especially if this would entail having to do some other task besides ogling the postage stamps.

"Weltsy's gamier qualities cannot be overstated. Alas. Our dear Helena does not require a gofer, she requires a saint," said Mr. Arbogast.

The man at last lapsed into silence, and Peter could no longer detect the corners of his husky form hovering around his blind spots. Secure in the feeling that he would now be safe from any more attempts to deport, he nosed closer to the grindstone and started typing a little faster.

Chakchakchakchakchak…

"I say—!"

"Aie!"

Ping!

A sudden reprisal from behind startled Peter right into a premature carriage return. It was Mr. Arbogast again, leading Peter to wonder if having nothing to do all day (besides bother the underlings) was one of the stated perks of becoming a senior editor.

The man returned to Peter's periphery and shivered theatrically. "Deuced cold in here, eh!"

"Uh, indeed, Mr. Arbogast," Peter stammered, gesturing to his breast, clad in slightly moth-eaten worsted wool knit, in the Griffin's own cerulean blue. "That's why I'm wearing this slipover today."

"You wear that blasted thing every day," observed Mr. Arbogast, who moved to poke another hole through it with his pencil stub.

"Not every day?"

"Well, it is beside the point. My point being, the bitter winds of winter have already settled into my bones."

Peter regarded this dubiously. "It's only October."

"Never mind what the calendar says. I mean that the imminent winter shall be an especially miserable affair, mark me. Cold. Wet."

"Tends to be."

"But this year!" Mr. Arbogast lowered his voice. "Oh, I can feel it in my ventricles, Jacob. Nought awaits us but an unutterably rotten season, downright diabolical. Nothing but sleet and snow and that putrid slush that piles up 'round every streetlamp and 'neath every automobile, woof!"

"Not entirely sure what you want me to do about this, Mr. Arbogast." Peter allowed himself half a grin. "May I suggest investing in a good pair of ice creepers?"

Evidently not; Mr. Arbogast very suddenly changed tack. "Say, did you know? While we're all suffering up here in merry old Ealdwic, our friends in St. Helena shall be enjoying the sweetness of summer," he noted for no particular reason. "Isn't that lovely? Isn't that a lovely thought?"

"Quite. From my understanding, the weather on St. Helena is amenable year round, if somewhat cloudy due to the trade winds."

"I say! You have been swotting up on the place lately, haven't you? Did you get to the part with the giant earwigs? Deuced fascinating place, isn't it? You would fit right in!"

"With the giant earwigs?"

"With the giant earwigs."

Peter moaned out loud and buried his face in his hands; that'd do.

"All I ask is that you consider the proposal." Mr. Arbogast's spirits flagged with his impending retreat.

"I have considered it. Considerably, I'd say."

"Well, consider it some more. Make hay while the sun shines, and so on. You may never get another opportunity as spectacular as this!"

And that was the end of that, for the remainder of the day at least. Mr. Arbogast withdrew all the way back to his lair, and Peter returned to the exacting business of navigating Venetian red tape. Although a form like CoV-191029-H.2.2 started off with all the usual things one might expect to see on this kind of thing—creature name ("Fata Pădurii", two i's, breve over the a), approximate age ("Adult"), height ("2.75 meters"), weight (information to be supplied later), location sighted ("Temple Club, Snooker Lounge"), is it sentient ("Yes"), is it sapient (I'll come back to this one), is it dead ("As a dog biscuit")—its later fields really boiled the matter down to its most esoteric bones. Nigh twelve years working for the Council and Peter Jacob still had no idea what they meant by "Does the creature offend? In what manner?" or "Is the creature differentiable? Show your work", and the CoV-191145-K he received that morning failed to broach such topics.

And all of this, just to have some summary form to which he could attach a photograph (plus the original negative), to be packaged and covered in stamps and posted to Venice for the approval of Central Publishing, only to have that same form (sans negative, which would be surrendered to the photoengraving department) duplicated and appended with additional notes and covered in more stamps and posted back to Ealdwic, to be delivered to the ladies in copywriting so one of them could submit her own English-language update to an encyclopædia entry that was already some forty-five years out of date, and was it any wonder!

The Council of Venice updated its 28-volume Universal Codex of Cryptic Creatures at the speed of banana slug. The volume Peter held in his hands right now ("Volume VI") further enumerated itself as "Edition CXXXIX", with a publication date of 1885, and this was considered "recent". Inside, one could find a comprehensive compilation of knowledge regarding nearly every creature, living, extinct, or undead, unique to the Secret World; Peter knew for a fact that it was missing a few specimens. Once, and not very long ago, he even approached the topic of contributing some data, but…

Enough of that. He finger-skimmed across the pages until he found the entry he sought: Fata Pădurii.

There's something for our Winnie to update, Peter noticed. The current standard maximum fine now stood at a whopping 10,000☧. For all its outmoded quirks, the Council of Venice never failed to keep up with punitive inflation.

Peter ultimately shelved the volume with the vague impression that something was being understated. Alas, his research turned up nothing about whether or not the creature offended. The entry did have its own photographic plate however, captured in 1878 and hand-tinted by one Ermentrude Giehl; to Peter's eyes it resembled nothing more than a barren stand in a nameless forest.

"Winnie, do you know what it means to offend?" he asked the woman who happened to be wandering over to the bookshelves at that moment.

Winifred "Winnie" Rampaul, who sailed all the way from Port of Spain in hopes of making her mark on the sparkling West End stage, only to end up to writing copy in soggy old Ealdwic. She rode a motorcycle to work and always wore a strand of pink conch pearls—real (or so she claimed). She also stashed copies of Hearts & Flowers and Illustrated Tales of Real Romance and the like all around the office, though calling attention to these would earn one a clip on the ear or worse. Her current beau was Weltsy; on those rare occasions where he could be dislodged from the post room, one might see him zooming around the city, clinging to the woman for dear life while precariously perched atop her motorcycle's rear luggage rack. And there lied the extent of Peter's knowledge of the woman.

"Do I know what it means to offend, Mr. Jacob?" she repeated his words jovially. "Are you saying you dislike my perfume?"

"Oh, is that what it means?" Peter lifted his brow in innocent surprise. "It's on the cryptid report form, but I've honestly no idea what they meant by it."

"No? Next time you go to take one of those photographs of yours, put your nose right up to your subject and give it a good whiff. Then you will know what it means to offend."

"I see. Next time I have a death wish, then." His laughter turned nervous when he noticed the woman's scrutinizing leer; Winnie had a vested interest in all matters toilette, a going concern that unfortunately radiated to everyone else.

"Egad, you look like an unmade bed. Your hair—do you not have a comb?" was her appraisal for today.

"Who, me? Of course not. It's the latest fashion, haven't you heard? The mop-top, they're calling it." Peter was often ahead of his time—roughly three decades too early in this instance.

"Mop is apt," said Winnie, unable to conceal her nettle. "In a sane and just world, the cops would do you in if they caught you blundering around town like that."

Thank goodness this world is neither nor, Peter mused internally. "The cops…!" he mused externally. "Been going to the films, have you?"

And why not? Even Peter would agree that The Rex on Æthelburga Row was as pleasant a place to whittle away a few rainy hours as anywhere else in Ealdwic. It screened an awful lot of imports from the States, talking pictures where gangsters were constantly shooting at "the cops" and the cops were constantly shooting at gangsters, and then a bevy of chorus girls dressed up like chandeliers would come out and shimmy around and warble a vapid little tune about young love in the springtime or something like that.

At this junction, one Peter Jacob might feel compelled to admit to, on multiple occasions, falling asleep during one feature and waking up during the next.

"Every Friday night. Bah, what else is there to do in Ealdwic?" groused Winnie. "Unless you're a Templar, the most exciting thing going is the tube to Holborn."

"Not so. Why, you can go to the park right across the square, feed the birds. That's what I like to do."

"That is because you are a certified flat tyre."

"I believe the polite term is confirmed bachelor, Miss Rampaul."

"Honestly! A man your age ought to be married by now," she chided. "Nestled in with the one you love, pushing a pram up and down the Redcrosse, that sort of thing."

Peter laughed at the thought. "Oh no! Occultists really shouldn't have children."

"Perhaps not. Not me though, and I intend to tie the knot as soon as possible. As soon as my favorite so-and-so in the mail room finally gets the notion in that canceled stamp head of his to volunteer."

"I wouldn't hold my breath. I've worked with Weltsy for three years now." Peter tapped a finger against his skull. "I've seen his head."

Winnie's smile soured. "So have I. Have to say, it does seem a bit wanting for notions."

"So…?"

"So what?"

"So, why not ask him yourself?"

"Really, now!" she huffed.

"Think about it. What is the worst thing that would happen if you did?"

"I mean, a lady like me, proposing marriage to a fella?" There was a funny little twinkle in Winnie's dark brown eyes. "Why, it would cause quite a riot, don't you think?"

"Well, it is Ealdwic. I reckon there are very few things left in this funny old world of ours that would shock anyone living here," said Peter. "I say do whatever you like. Just don't try to sneak it into the Temple Club."

"Too right. By the way, what is all this chewing gum about the boss putting the hard word on you over some grand dame named Helen?"

"Oh, you mean St. Helena! Splendid island, hear tell. Heck of a rock. Topping, even. The cat's adenoids."

"Is it really? Do cats even have adenoids?"

"They do on St. Helena." Peter threw up his hands in defeat. "Oh honestly, I haven't the foggiest! The Council is opening a new outpost down there and Mr. Arbogast is trying very hard to make it my problem."

"What sort of outpost?" wondered Winnie. "Surely not Press & Publishing!"

"No, it's an Observations post. Remote as anything, but I suppose the Griffin has her reasons."

"I suppose. What does Observations do, precisely?"

"Not entirely sure," Peter admitted. "Observes things, if I had to put a wager on it. Cryptids. Dimensional anomalies. Giant earwigs. Who can say? Though I cannot imagine an isolated chunk of volcano in the middle of the ocean has much to see on any front, and last I read even the earwigs have done a runner. Anyway, apparently we're having a heck of a time finding someone both willing and qualified to bung their high hat into that particular ring, so Mr. Arbogast thinks I should bung mine in there instead. Can you believe that?"

"I've believed less believable things." Winnie squinted. "Since when do you wear a topper?"

"Fair point."

"Are you going to go?"

"Not if it can be helped."

Winnie brightened at the news. "So you are going to the Temple Club later to get that photograph for me, are you? Oh, I'm ever so glad. I know you've been having a rough go of it lately, with the whole basilisk affair making you go a little…" She hmm'd and made a swirling gesture with one finger. "Honestly, we all know that you like to be thorough but I doubt the Council will ever understand why you detonated that visiting envoy's motorcar."

"I explained why!" Peter protested, stricken by a memory like a fresh bruise. "There was a basilisk hiding in the engine compartment!"

"No. No, Mr. Jacob, there wasn't." Winnie reminded him, quickly softening her firm tone. "But perhaps there is some kernel of truth buried in all this mess?" When the man moved to protest again, she lifted a finger to silence him. "I am not saying that you deserve the Blisswood treatment, but maybe the boss has the right of it for once? No? A change of scene to soothe a troubled heart? It worked for me."

"Did it? Perhaps I ought to try my luck in Port of Spain?"

"Perhaps. But I believe the job is in St. Helena, Mr. Jacob."

"Everyone is trying so very hard to get rid of me!" He softly lamented.

"Everyone is so very worried about you, that's all," said Winnie. "Besides, when was the last time you left the city?"

"Just this summer. I went to Downderry, in Cornwall."

"Was that for business or for pleasure?"

"Business. But I did have a very good ice cream while I was there. Shall we say both?"

Winnie raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, alright. Hardly counts, I know," Peter relented. "Perhaps I have become a bit of a homebody these days."

"You love Ealdwic, as do we all. But I'm not so sure the feeling is mutual."

"Between the Templars breathing down my neck, and the broken radiator in my flat, and the barmaid in the Horned God who insists on calling me Paul, and that one streetlamp by the railway station that gutters every time I walk beneath it, I fear you may be right," he said. "But! Are you aware of how the Council prefers to send its staff overseas? They shroud you in postage stamps and load you onto the next freighter with all the other parcels. Can you imagine how many stamps it's going to take to ship an entire bloke from here to Cape Town, and then to St. Helena?

Winnie did not, and evidently had no interest in doing the math. "Say no more. I think I may understand what is really troubling you."

"Do you?"

"Mm hm. I think you're afraid that if you leave Ealdwic, all those sweet ickle birds in East Enson Park will starve to death." She smirked. "If it means that much to you, surely at least one of us here will gladly take up the birdseed bag in your stead, Mr. Jacob."

"How you've soothed a troubled heart," he deadpanned.

With that, the two went their separate ways, back towards their separate tasks—Peter to his typewriter and Winnie to hers (though a careful observer would perchance notice that back-issue of Sentiment half-concealed within her notebook). A nearby telephone whirred, but Peter paid it no mind; the noise was a constant companion for a busy publishing office. However, not long after the alarm, his keen ears received a sudden bellow through the half-open door leading to Mr. Arbogast's office:

"By jove, man!"

And a surreptitious peek through the crack revealed Arbogast himself, plum-faced, sputtering like a flivver into the telephone receiver. "What do you mean, it's gone?! Plimmswood, you told me that thing was dead—! You most certainly did, sir! Yes, you did say dead! Dead as a dog biscuit! Surely it didn't get up and walk away…"

In that instant, Peter knew the score from front to back: Fata Pădurii was gone, and so was his shot. Unbelievable!

"So you reckon Lord Dibblethwaite destroyed the corpse? But why, man? His reputation? Hah, trying to save his own skin, I say. Or his wallet. No no, say no more, I know what the fine is. Well aware." Arbogast glanced upwards; no doubt by now he'd noticed his audience. "Well, what of the lads from the Herald? Now, none of that, old boy, you've got to tell them something…"

By the time Mr. Arbogast emerged from his office to deliver the bad news, he found Peter by the coat hooks, blue beret'd and buttoned up in tidy Council white.

"I'm taking my tea break outside, Mr. Arbogast. I reckon I need a spot of fresh air," he bleakly informed his boss, while his hands automatically checked for the skeleton key effigy he kept on a chatelaine—an Elemental Focus, for survival in the Secret World (even in, or possibly especially in a place as cosmopolitan as Ealdwic) necessitated befriending some kind, any kind of weapon.

"No worries. Gosh, it looks like it's bad luck today, all around," he remarked; his pencil appeared several centimeters shorter, with the eraser chewed to a mere nub. "I'll try to wring whatever gen I can from the Templars, but I fear your photograph is gone with the wind."

"I fear the same."

"Most frustrating. Strewth, we really needed that bloody shot, you know! Those toffs in Central Publishing have been pestering the dickens out of this office day in and day out about getting updated photographs for that blasted Codex of theirs!"

"Terribly sorry…" Peter cringed when he noticed how that vein was starting to pop out of Mr. Arbogast's head.

"Now don't blame yourself for the drought, Jacob; lord knows we have other photographers who could've carried on in your absence," he said. "The fault is entirely circumstantial. It's just been too dashed quiet around here lately."

"Mm. Either way, I suppose a new Fata Pădurii simply wasn't in the cards today," agreed Peter. "Never mind. I fancy a walk through the park will improve whatever's left of it."

"So long as you refrain from, uh, setting any more cars on fire, and so on. Ahem. Yes. Which is to say, keep your head up, Jacob. The day isn't over yet."

If the old bounder was attempting to encourage, his downcast eyes gave no indication. In fact, he seemed rather more eager to return to his office, anything to remove himself from the unhappy situation at hand. This suited Peter fine, for he wasn't in the mood for chit-chat.

And yet, he wasn't in the mood for moping, either. As he tugged on his gloves, he started to harbour an inkling of a feeling, a rummy sort of instinct that he could neither account for nor deny. Some nameless forces far beyond anything he could fathom were quietly aligning into a shape that resembled Trouble and it was all he could do to prepare for it. He wondered if this little outing of his might require one more piece of equipment, something he usually kept ready and waiting in his cubby.

Yes, the good old VPK should do nicely. After all, why shouldn't it? This was the same one that travelled with him to Amiens in 1916. The same one he used when…

Enough of that. Today Peter would bring along his most reliable import, the Vest Pocket Kodak, the one with the little stylus and the flap you could open up to write notes directly onto the negatives. Its exposures were very small—only 4 x 6.5 cm—and it was not the most up-to-date or professional model, but portability kept it relevant, a viable option. Perhaps the only option, depending on the various ins and outs of the assignment.

Trouble always had a funny way of coaxing out his luckier charms, or so he tried to assure himself as he completed his preparations. After winding up a new roll of the requisite A127 film, he slipped the little camera into one of his coat pockets, then pivoted on his heels and bustled out of the office without so much as a cheerio to anyone.

Perhaps Mr. Arbogast's forecast struck true and 1930 would produce an especially wretched winter. Only October, and there was already a touch of frost in the air to match the horizon, silvery and lousy with billowing clouds. The weather in Ealdwic, like anywhere else in England, was famously fungible. As he walked down Redcrosse Circus, Peter watched the skies and wondered if they might not see a few snowflakes this evening.

Otherwise, the chill did not bother him so much. His Elemental Focus naturally radiated some warmth, augmented by fingerless gloves and the most recognizable component of any standard-issue Council of Venice kit: The cerulean blue beret. In truth, such a lightweight hat did not offer any meaningful protection against nastier weather, but Peter supposed it was better than absolutely nothing. To its credit, it could hold its own against the caliber of breeze that would send the typical pork pie airborne.

The park in Ealdwic—properly named East Enson Park—awaited at the junction of Redcrosse and Ealdwic Square, not far from the tube station. The place hardly qualified as an expanse, really just a meandering footpath through some woods, peppered with a few benches and lamps, some eroded statuaries and plaques. However, should a denizen of the city ever feel that ancient bone-yearning to return to the world of trees and grass and birds and other harbingers of natural chaos, East Enson Park would have to do.

Peter Jacob never really considered himself a chaotic person; nevertheless, and to his frequent dismay, it always seemed to swirl about his being, effecting trouble (or at the very least, a bit of a muddle) wherever he went. He had no sensible explanation for it. It was not something he did on purpose. His father was a sexton while his mother played the church organ, resulting in a properly antiseptic Catholic upbringing; one of his sisters became a nun, for heaven's sake!

On the other hand, why not consider it…? He considered the considering as he crossed the gated threshold into the park proper: Embracing chaos, not hiding from it, not dreading it, not even fighting against it. A sort of surrender to it, really, the same way he would surrender his backside to the bracing embrace of a frigid park bench. Inhaling sharply, he folded his arms a little tighter against his body and turned up his coat collar in hopes of cheating the wind.

I could even put that on my next calling card, he mused, slouching forward and resting his chin in his hands. He imagined how it might look:

From whence sprang the current supply of it, anyway? Yes, the fire-bugging. Yes, the nervous breakdown. Yes, the Basilisk assignment. But Peter suspected that the true, if unspoken impetus for the Council's quietly disquieting handling of the matter arose from an even earlier incident.

It could only be the Black Guardian's reprisal from beyond the grave, one last swipe at the measly mortal who laid it low.

Shortly before the whole fiasco with the Basilisk (and definitely against his better judgment), Peter dared to post an album of his own photographs to the Council of Venice Enquiry Bureau. The photographs, the ones from 1916 Amiens, the roll that took him over a decade to develop out of fear of what else he might expose. The memories alone were predictably hideous, but only that—memories. Harmless he figured, like the pages of notes he included that described each photograph. Only that—harmless observations, harmless, even helpful. For example:

And yet, a fortnight later, the Enquiry Bureau returned the notes, sans photographs but with a chilling notice:

Furthermore, he found his notes marked to hell and back with thick black bars inked over many words, as if the censorship itself was in fact the message—a harbinger of consequences yet to be fathomed.

What have I done? His regretful refrain at the time.

A hoax, they said? But surely they knew—! The Council of Venice had to know about the Ancients, even if only nominally. The Templars knew for sure; Peter's involvement with the Black Guardian was what drew them to Rickmansworth so long ago, in their futile bid to hunt a new head. However, beyond that singular whispered instance, he never heard the gods' accursed names, never saw any acknowledgment or proof of their existence, not even in the Secret World. No Bonethieves, no Horrors; he never spied so much as a Trapper scuttling behind a shadow.

Then again, the Council of Venice itself arose during the calm following a storm, in the settling of the dust in the wake of incompetence unsurpassed—some nameless party's cosmic meddling, lifting veils that should've been left undisturbed. So many veils, veils behind veils behind veils, infinite veils. How deep it must go! Small wonder why they might labor to keep this sort of thing hush-hush. Peter wondered how far the Council would go to protect these secrets but now he feared that his insatiable appetite for truth had already taken him one road too far towards finding out, just as it had one peculiar night in Amiens.

Such grim recollections brought to mind the mounting of an expedition to the Sun on wax wings. Nothing but trouble.

And gravity.

Enough of that. Peter turned his attention to the activity bustling about below. Mostly the usual crop of city pigeons and house sparrows, with some starlings and blackbirds milling about the grass, along with a few robins and oh—! A magpie too! The chic black, white, and blue of the magpie's plumage always caught his eye; funny, intelligent birds who made for charming subjects.

Perhaps I should stick to photographing birds from now on, he ventured. Although, he wasn't particularly good at it and he never seemed to have a camera whenever an especially noteworthy bird arrived on the scene. A few years ago he'd been at his usual park business, raining handfuls of birdseed over a swarm of sparrows, chattering madly in appreciation. By chance, he looked elsewhere and noticed an odd bit of reddish brown amidst a sparse gang of blackbirds who were snailing in the grass nearby.

An American robin!

A vagrant! Peter couldn't believe his luck, a feeling that quickly inverted itself when he'd searched his pockets and found them devoid of anything resembling a camera. Naturally, when he returned to tell the tale without any photographic evidence, his coworkers had no interest beyond a few wisecracks about how the bird must've hitched a ride on Lindy's plane.

He sighed at the memory. It somehow felt relevant to his current predicament in a way that he could not adequately describe—some fluff about the general trajectory of his lived experiences, especially whenever he attempted to share them with someone else. Peter's gaze—really, his whole head—had gradually slumped further downward leaving him with nothing to stare at but his boots.

Oh, dash it. That left lace was always loosening itself. As he moved to redo the knot, he heard the sudden susurration of wings on the retreat. Someone was approaching, and before Peter could fully right himself into a more sociable position, a pair of old brogues stopped just short of his.

Someone cleared his throat. "Excuse me, young man," he said.

"Uh. Good day," Peter returned, sheepishly unfurling. He was greeting an elderly chap, elegantly dressed in a black car coat and homburg, with a silk umbrella hanging over the crook of his arm. While obviously aged, he was not frail but quite tall with broad shoulders. Nevertheless, and perhaps a mite oddly, his posture seemed to twist like a hollow frame threatening to crumple beneath the weight of his outerwear.

His eyes, milky with cataracts, beheld the world through a pair of round-framed tortoiseshell spectacles, slightly tinted in amber.

"Yes, good day. Perhaps you may be able to help me," he went on, his voice rasping but well-articulated, with an untraceable accent. "I am looking for the Council of Venice Press & Publishing Office."

"Ah! Say no more. You're nearly there." Peter pointed towards the park gate from whence he'd arrived earlier. "Across Ealdwic Square, through that side of the park. The office is on Redcrosse, on the left side from that direction."

The man nodded. "The left side."

"Yes. It's a brick building with a little statue out front of a griffin." Frequently vandalized. Peter wisely kept this observation to himself.

"I see. Thanks ever so. By the by…"

"Hm?"

"You would not also happen to know if I may find there, a man by the name of Peter Jacob?"

Peter's eyes widened, probably to comical proportions. "Oh! Well, yes! But no, not at the moment," he stammered as he rose to his feet. "Depending on one's outlook, I am either very pleased or very sorry to say that you have already found him."

"Hah! What a curious thing to say!" The old fellow smiled and laughed, but this too had an odd hollow quality to it. "If only I had known that today I would be dealing with such a rara avis. Believe me when I say, you have not been easy to pin down, Mr. Jacob."

He had no idea how to respond to that, beyond: "I apologize?"

"No need, young man, no need. Ah. The color of your eyes tells me that you are utterly confounded. Perhaps a proper introduction is in order."

"Err—yes, considering that you evidently know of me, while I certainly cannot say the same about you."

"In that case, Mr. Jacob, I am confident that this will satisfy your hunger for knowledge." The man produced an engraved silver card case from somewhere within his coat and carefully surrendered a single specimen.

Despite assurances to the contrary, Peter would remain sateless. "Mr. Agnelli…?" he read.

"At your service, monsieur." He bowed as best as he could, with a little tip of his hat. "Yes, you may be wondering why a Frenchman has such an Italian name. It is not a terribly interesting story. My family moved from San Marino to France when I was very small. In fact, I have lived in Amiens for most of my life."

Ah ha, there's the bunny. The smallest text on the bottom of the card held the clue. Peter squinted and moved it a little closer to his eyes. "I say, I should've brought my cheaters. So you're from Amiens?"

"Yes, Mr. Jacob. Though my trade normally sees me travelling all across the continent," said Mr. Agnelli. He recommenced his plod down the footpath, giving Peter no choice but to follow. "And you are still a journalist, no? As you were during the war?"

"Yes. Sort of. Well, no—I suppose I'm more of a photographer these days than anything else. Suits me well enough." Peter shrugged. "They say a picture is worth a thousand words, which works out just ducky because I frequently find myself at a complete loss for them."

"Oh? You seem loquacious enough to me, Mr. Jacob."

"For now. It's a most frustrating whim my wretched little brain picked up, ever since I returned from your Amiens, in fact." He exhaled, forming a faint white plume in the frosty air. "War has a rummy way of, uh. Well. There you have it."

As the two strolled along, Peter noticed that while most trees in this park had yet to shed all of their leaves, several of them were already completely bare, moodily foreboding silhouettes against a grey sky, a challenge to discern one tree from the next.

A barren stand in a nameless forest, and murky like an antiquated photograph…

"Indeed." Mr. Agnelli tutted; his breath formed no plumes. "We mustn't linger overlong on those unhappy bygones, though I fear some recollection may be necessary in this case. Surely you must know by now what I seek from you."

"I'm afraid not, and I really do wish you would let that poor moggie out of the bag. Those days are a trifle hazy for me."

"Then allow me to refresh them for you. An incident, involving Oublie Cathedral, and you, Mr. Jacob, its sole survivor. The Black Guardian." Mr. Agnelli uttered these words slowly, savoring each syllable.

"No, I…" Peter's pace stuttered to a dead stop.

"You survived your ordeal, badly injured yes, but with an object cradled in your arms, swaddled in your coat like a newborn babe," Agnelli went on, looming around Peter's shoulder, a mite too close for comfort. "Do you truly not remember this?"

Peter whipped his head around to glare at the man, dumbfounded.

Mr. Agnelli regarded this with an air of kindliness. "I understand how you feel, Mr. Jacob."

"With all due respect, I'm not sure that you could."

"The memory of the Black Guardian must feel as fresh as the October air. You must know, Mr. Jacob, that while your ordeal lasted but a single night, the people of Amiens—my people—have been tormented by that vile monstrosity for ages." Mr. Agnelli's voice bubbled with old rage, fermented to the point of acridity. "For as long as we have known about that thing in the cathedral, we have tried to put an end to its demonic schemes. We even asked the Templars to help us. We begged them!"

"Indeed," Peter mused. "So that's how the Templars knew about it."

"Of course they knew about it. They have known about the ancient evil in Amiens for hundreds of years and they did nothing. But then, during our darkest hour, the feeble light of dawn at last shone over our poor city. The arrival of a saint." Mr. Agnelli laughed, revealing his tiny, sharp teeth. "Like George and his dragon, no?"

Peter's face felt hot; he was not used to such uneasily high praise. He cleared his throat. "I'm not sure I'd go that far. Ah, never mind all that. I must ask, how ever did you know that I was the one who…?"

"Why, I was there myself! That very night!"

"In the cathedral?"

"No, no. As I told you, I have lived in Amiens nearly all my life. By the time the war came to us, I was far too old to become a soldier so I volunteered with our YMCA instead," explained Mr. Agnelli. "Surely you recall our hut in Amiens—that is where you arrived with that thing in your arms, all but collapsing at the threshold and babbling about the monsters in the cathedral. We patched you up as best as we could, but you were very poorly."

"I do remember that much, at least."

"I must tell you, Mr. Jacob, that the bundle you protected so dearly was in fact a priceless antique. A holy relic dating to Biblical times! And it belongs to the people of Amiens as much as it belongs to the Catholic church."

Another piece of the jigsaw, sliding into place. So, this Mr. Agnelli was an antiquarian, seeking his professional quarry. This was all well and good on the surface, but something below continued to gnaw on the fringes of Peter's thoughts…

"I see. Yes, it would make sense that a cathedral would be housing some sort of reliquary," he proceeded with care.

"You told us what you had done, about the Black Guardian. We never would have thought such a thing possible. Perhaps, the fevered ranting of a man driven mad by the war, but the relic in your arms proved your deed," Mr. Agnelli continued. "I had hoped to thank you personally for such bravery, such selflessness. Alas, by the time I mustered up the nerve to do so, they had already sent you away and the relic left with you." He grinned again. "I am certain it was not your intention to steal such a thing, of course…"

Peter picked up the tale where Mr. Agnelli left it. "Of course. They told me I had trench fever, but after what happened that night in the cathedral, my mind was in even more of a state. Irreconcilable, we all feared. So they sent me back home, to Rickmansworth. I lived in a sanatorium for three years. The first year, I could hardly speak at all, not a single word most days. I couldn't look at another human being, not even my own parents! Their eyes, I couldn't bear to look at their eyes, as if it was all too much…"

"Naturally. You had seen beyond the veil."

"More than that. I had been pulled through the veil, changed by it. I was no longer the same person who once lived on the outside, and that world no longer had a place for me. That's how the Templars put it, anyway."

His mention of the word Templars seemed to take Mr. Agnelli aback. He tilted his spectacles forward with a questioning leer. "The Templars would have nothing to do with us, but they came to you…?"

"A Templar visited me at the sanatorium. One of their headhunters by the name of Cherrydale. He actually had the gall to ask me if I would be willing to do for them, the same ghastly sort of thing that landed me in the sanatorium in the first place. Can you believe it?" Peter stoppered his rambling, wondering vaguely if he hadn't already said too much. "Well, never mind all that—hardly germane to your business. You're here about the relic, then?"

"Yes. While my personal interest in the matter is that of an antiquarian by trade, I am speaking to you today on behalf of the Friends of Oublie Cathedral Historical Society. Over the past decade, we have successfully funded numerous projects to restore the cathedral to its original splendor," declared Mr. Agnelli. "I am honored that they selected me, a lifelong resident of our fair city, to recover this relic. The final touch."

"Say, what is it, anyway, Mr. Agnelli? This priceless holy antique relic of yours? Precisely why is it so important?"

All of a sudden, the old man snapped back like a triggered mousetrap: "That is not for you to know!"

Oh dear! The sudden change of demeanor took Peter aback. "My apologies, Mr. Agnelli! I-I'm a bit of a stickybeak, usually at my own peril. Odd quirk of the occupation, I suppose."

"Your occupation, Mr. Jacob?" He glared down the length of his nose. "And what exactly are you doing these days that would require such impropriety?"

"As I said, I'm a photographer. Of a sort."

"Of a sort…?"

"The Council hired me as a photographer. When I took the job, I expected that I would be spending most of my time snapping portraits of white suits and blue hats," said Peter. "Not, uh…"

Once again, he stopped himself to question how much more of his hand he ought to reveal.

This time, Mr. Agnelli would be on the probe. "Then tell me, Mr. Jacob. What business would this mysterious Council of yours have with a venerated relic of the church, such that the likes of a humble photographer would rather pry into its holy mysteries rather than surrender it to its rightful owners, immediately and without further complaint?"

"Mr. Agnelli, I'm not a spy, for heaven's sake," Peter gently argued. "Are you at all familiar with our organization?"

"I have heard the name, naturally. And I know that you are tasked with the impossible. To ensure that everything in the Secret World remains just that, a secret." Mr. Agnelli loftily directed his nose towards the air. "And you are based in Venice? I mean no offense by this but you do not strike me as the continental sort. And I doubt I have another Roberto Bianchi on my hands," he muttered, more to himself.

Roberto Bianchi…? Peter narrowed his eyes. That thing nagging his thoughts started to coalesce into a more recognizable shape. The Tome of Eternal Darkness…? No, its amorphous Author, omniscient, omnipotent, yet bound to moulder for eternity in a forgotten temple in a forgotten jungle. Its viscerally disgusting form, teeming with eyes unable to see beyond the decaying walls imprisoning it, and hearts cursed to drown in its own effluvia.

Even then, Mantorok—the cosmic force of Chaos—could not be denied. What it could not deploy itself, it would simply borrow. Peter shuddered at the sensation, an outer god using his eyes to assess the situation.

It lasted only for a second or two, Mantorok's presence fleeting as quickly as he detected it. But within that moment, Peter understood.

Mr. Agnelli peered owlishly through his spectacles, perhaps with a hint of amusement. Perhaps he understood too. "Dear me, Mr. Jacob. Is something the matter?"

"That name…"

"What about it?"

Peter shook his head. "I know who Roberto Bianchi is. Why do you…?"

He spared a glance that betrayed full comprehension, an accurate prediction that this would be the last time anyone would see "Pio Agnelli". The old man's relatively palatable visage shimmered and dissolved, and reformed into that of the Lich of the Hour: Pious Augustus himself, donning the familiar beetle-black lorica segmentata and galea. His previously benign silk umbrella, now the grotesque, magicked staff of vertebrae that he always carried in his right hand.

As for the left hand, he raised it towards the crux of Peter's neck and jaw and grasped, wrenching it, forcing a meeting of eyes.

"And so, Mantorok has blessed yet another one of his drudges with second sight." Pious loured, his contempt pure and potent. "Or perhaps you are unworthy of the mercy that Pio Agnelli was willing to provide."

"Never mind that—you were the one who gave yourself away. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the effort," Peter croaked. "You put up a good show."

Well. At least his predicament put paid to the question as to whether or not a Lich offended. With all five senses working overtime, Peter engaged his sixth to observe something else, something about his armour specifically. Of the three golden medallions conspicuously adorning the centre of his breastplate, one of them—an amulet engraved with an image of a skull—radiated a detectable, if very faint aura of displaced life. A single fragment of a soul. No doubt Pious's own…

"Likewise. Your time beyond the veil has been well spent. Even my master has been following your exploits with some interest—personally detached, mind you, for he has no need to entertain himself with mortal bathos," he said. "I must say, you have led an exceptionally charmed life thus far, to have survived an encounter with a basilisk, of all things! Not even I would be so foolhardy to attempt such a feat."

"A-anything for the shot," Peter quipped painfully, trying to ignore the sensation of those dreadful fingers boring deep into his flesh. A chance few blinks, brought about by a whiff of mold wafting about his eyelashes, redirected his line of sight towards a distant grove of dormant oaks. How uncanny. Haven't we met before? he thought, regarding one particularly leggy specimen.

"Alas. As far as the Sigil of Xel'lotath is concerned, I am afraid your well of luck has at last run dry." Pious, perhaps noticing that his victim's gaze had started to shift, readjusted his grip. "You will surrender the essence to me at once, if you have any interest in surviving to see the sunset. And make no attempt to misdirect me! It is futile! My master knows that you still have it. He can sense that—I command you, look at me!"

Peter, his mien rapt yet drained of all color, did not respond. No doubt Pious only saw a meager mortal vainly calculating a means of escape. He could not know that the thief of Peter's attention was now wombling around directly behind his own shoulder.

He tightened his grasp, enough to distort Peter's cheeks. "You—look at me when I am speaking, worm!"

"Yes… It dwells exclusively in forests and will return to the nearest wooded area if displaced…" Peter whispered to himself.

"What?" Pious did not understand.

"Oh my god. Practically the only place with trees in all of Ealdwic. Of course it would've come here, of course…!"

Confusion loosened the Lich's grip, allowing Peter to slip away with minimal effort.

"Badly burnt, yet still mobile," he continued his pointed mumbling. He stumbled forward, hardly paying Pious any mind now. "Could it be, fire only strengthens the bark?"

"What is the meaning of this? Do you truly not recognize the very Spectre of Death? Not even as it beholds you in its mortifying gaze?"

"Talk about death! By Jove, it's standing right over there, look!"

"That you would dare defy me—!"

Peter Jacob would dare, in fact, and anyone who had known the man for any meaningful amount of time would know that much about him at the very least. His nerve was the stuff of legends in either sense of the word, usually both at the same time: A man of pure, understated "moxie" as they might say in exotic snowy Maine, yet liable to go to pieces at the drop of a hat. A paradox in a nutshell, fit to be cracked.

"Look!" he urged the Lich again, and he meant it.

What did Pious see as he begrudgingly turned around at Peter's behest? Nothing in particular? Or one out of a dozen trees, its bark burnt as black as his armour, its ragged canopy swaying to and fro despite the quietude of the air? Its roots, unearthed and poised to scuttle about like the legs of some unimaginable crustacean?

"A monster…?" he guessed.

"A Fata Pădurii," Peter indicated, grimly. "And I believe it has spotted us."

"Fata…"

"Pă-du-rii. Double-i, breve over the a," said Peter. "Have you never heard of these?"

"Of course I have, worm," Pious lied with absolute confidence.

Say what one will about the manifold virtues and flaws of skin and bones—specifically skinny photographers and bony avatars of ancient evil—the two must be commended for remaining remarkably calm and still as Fata Pădurii lurched towards them, hefting one massive root-foot after another, its pace achingly slow but steady.

At its flanks floated two incorporeal, incandescent orbs. Those must be the Suflete, Peter noticed, now quite grateful he'd taken a moment to peruse its entry in the Universal Codex of Cryptic Creatures. And how had Arbogast described its condition earlier? Dead as a dog biscuit…? And that was the "straight gen" from Temple Hall? Really?

"Splendid, then," Peter muttered. "I say, those Templars are absolutely bootless sometimes."

To his surprise, Pious agreed. "Before my enlightenment and ascension, I toiled mindlessly beneath their wretched banner. This was eons before the rise of the Knight's Templar as you know it. Since my transformation, I have slain many of their despicable ilk."

"Knock me down with a blanket! You were a Templar!" ventured Peter. He was not expecting a response.

Instead, Pious mused as he sized up the towering foe: "Does it truly intend to do battle? With me…?"

"Between you and me and that lamppost over there, I'd rather not find out." Besides, what of my photograph? Peter gnawed on the self-memo, much in the same way that a senior editor might gnaw on the red rubber end of a pencil. Ah, now wouldn't that be a riot? Pasting a new photograph of a Fata Pădurii to that blasted CoV-191029-H.2.2 when everyone was currently expecting nix?

"Then yield, coward, and bear witness to how the dregs of this veiled world tremble before the transcendence of my master's might," Pious declared, head held high as he advanced. "This is but an interlude, of course. Do not assume for one moment that I have forgotten about the artifact."

"Oh, hang your artifact! That thing's going to kill us!"

"False supposition! It certainly cannot kill that which is already dead!"

"Perhaps not, but it can kill me," Peter reminded him, tersely; the Lich's own phylactery was not far from his mind or his eye. "And if I die, you'll never find the artifact Ulyaoth seeks so badly, for the secret of its location shall die with me!"

"Is that supposed to be a threat?"

"No. It's supposed to be a promise."

Pious eyed the man up and down, disbelief somehow evident in his skeletal visage. "Then I promise you, Peter Athanasius Jacob, that once I have dispatched this monstrosity and saved your craven hide, you will be compelled to surrender the artifact to me!" he hissed. "Your debt of gratitude will be your master's undoing!"

"But I don't want you to kill it!" Peter was not expecting the Lich to respond to this either. "Besides, there's a truce! You mustn't!"

Alas. What would Pious Augustus know (or care) about the Bacaş County Accord? Not even Mr. Arbogast knew about it, and clearly nobody at Temple Hall had given that whopping 10,000☧ fine so much as a passing regard lately, given the recent and now terribly relevant actions of one Lord Dibblethwaite.

Peter could only watch in futile dismay as Pious raised his staff and began to chant. His words of power manifested as a swirling array of sigils, seared into the ground around his body, etched in pale blue flame to match the concentric bursts of energy radiating from the staff's rattling head.

Antorbok, Pargon, Redgormor, Ulyaoth, Pargon!

Straight away, Peter recognized the formulation as the kind of magick employed by the Ancients and their servants, including Peter himself at one point. This was an offensive spell crafted with five points of power and aligned to Pious's master Ulyaoth. However, the Tome of Eternal Darkness once revealed that Pious Augustus had the capacity to cast such spells with up to nine points of power, at least; the Lich was holding back, perhaps wisely.

Or perhaps unwisely; his gambit failed to impress. Fata Pădurii only reeled backwards from the shock, then immediately countered by plunging one of its root-legs into the ground. The air around them vibrated while a sepulchral groan started emanating from deep beneath East Enson Park. It grew in intensity, fast becoming nerve-rattling enough to shatter the glass on a nearby streetlamp.

With keen eyes honed on the unfolding tussle, Peter brushed his fingers against the Elemental Focus on his chatelaine. He felt its familiar warmth through his glove—a comforting sensation, but nothing reinforced one's self-confidence as well as the knowledge of what's coming next.

Pious cackled and charged into melee range, spurred on by the prospect of legitimate combat. "Ah hah! So, you have chosen violence! Very well! Have at thee—!"

Meanwhile the Suflete, chiming in dreadful chorus with Fata Pădurii, bounced around it in circles, tethered to the thing in twisted mockery of a maypole. A mesmerizing spectacle of sight and sound. From Peter's vantage—just the right distance, he thought—they would provide adequate light and frame the portrait beautifully from any angle…

Yes, now. Take the photograph now! Hurry!

His hands trembling and numb, Peter slipped the VPK from his coat pocket and attempted to prepare for use, but engaging the bellows proved impossible.

Come on…

Pious moved to strike just as Fata Pădurii reared up on its hind legs, its groaning culminating with a hideous keening and a clap of supernatural energy coming from the very heartwood of the creature, strong enough to generate a blast wave of dirt, grass, pebbles, even shards of glass from the broken streetlamp.

As prepared as he was, Peter barely held his ground against the debris pelting his body and face, with nought to protect his eyes but a good squint. Jolly good, if only he hadn't tripped over his loose shoelace and fumbled his grip on the little camera; the impact sent it into a soaring tailspin, up and away in the general direction of a nearby thicket.

Pious fared only slightly better than the camera; the weight of his armour seemed to be the only thing keeping his skeletal body from becoming airborne as well. He tumbled to the ground, swearing numerous oaths too terrible to repeat.

"That it would dare—!" he seethed.

So long as he remained prone, Fata Pădurii would press its advantage, heaving forward with its crown of branches, battering them against Pious's armour and helm like a cat-o-nine-tails against the back of a penitent. Pious sounded a guttural yawp, laced with pain and determination in equal measure. However, within seconds he had clambered back onto his feet, supporting himself with his staff which started to rattle and shimmer again in that eerie blue color.

Surely the old bag of bones wasn't going to try another spell! Didn't he know…?

Of course not! Peter gasped. Of course he didn't know that Fata Pădurii was currently invulnerable. Why would he?

Antorbok, Pargon—

"No!" yelled Peter, breaking Pious's concentration; the spell fizzled to nought. "I told you, you can't—!"

"You cannot stop me!"

"But you're only making it worse for yourself!" Peter gestured to Fata Pădurii's incorporeal minions. "So long as it's channeling the energy from those Suflete—"

"Then kill them!"

"Nothing doing! We've got to—"

Fata Pădurii unleashed another earsplitting peal and the telekinetic burst to match. Peter flinched away from the shower of dust, while Pious once again bore the brunt of the creature's thrashing.

"Aaurgh!" he moaned, countering with an ineffectual strike of his staff against the creature's stony bark.

Without that critical knowledge of Fata Pădurii's defenses, the Lich was not going to be of much help at all. And perhaps he could not be truly defeated here, but incapacitated for sure, and then what? What would Ulyaoth do in the absence of his agent? Without his one functional connection to the mortal plane? Without Pious Augustus serving as his eyes, his ears, his hands, his mouth?

How difficult could it be for an unfathomably powerful outer god to replace its favored doormat…?

Better the devil you know, than…

Oh, dash it all, it's up to you now, old duck, Peter groused to himself. Nothing to it but to give his knuckles a good, wizardly crack. Now, what would do here? He scoured his memory for the relevant bit of gen from his Elemental Focus training.

A spirit like a Suflet may be rooted in place via extreme cold—only briefly, but perhaps long enough to lure Fata Pădurii far enough away from them to break their connexion. Then, a strong enough magickal binding, say nine points of power, Mantorok-aligned, could keep the creature subdued, hopefully long enough to return it to Bacaş County, from whence it came and never should've been taken…

"I'm going to freeze them!" Peter announced.

"What?"

"The Suflete! I'm going to freeze them on the spot!" He raised his arms, fingers fanned and crackling with gelid air. "When I do, lure Fata Pădurii away from them! Away!"

Pious snarled. "You would dare give orders to me?" Far too many things had dared today.

"Oh, Hell's bells! I'll do that too then, just—" Peter's exasperation gave way to a blizzard in miniature, whirling white winds and snow centred around the bounding Suflete, encasing them in a thin coating of ice. They stopped moving, which was Peter's cue to start.

He turned his attention to Fata Pădurii—as much as its towering presence filled him with dread—and waved it on as he ran, leading it away like a kite in the wind. A palpable diminishing in its aura informed him that the time was right for the coup de grâce, so to speak.

"Now, Pious!" he shouted, dodging the creature's flailing branches as best as he could. "Hurry!"

"Now, what?"

"Its defenses are down! Bind it! You've got to bind it!"

"Bind it—?!"

"I can't do it myself! I don't have the Tome anymore, you've got to do it! Nine points!"

The Lich, routed and limping, finally caught up to his foe. "Are you mad?" he returned. "Bind it? Bind it?? To what end?"

"The treaty—we've got to take it back to Romania—ahh!" Peter wailed, taking a glancing blow to the left shoulder. The Universal Codex of Cryptid Creatures had unhappily failed to mention that the pain inflicted by a Fata Pădurii was unreal, teeming with a psychic darkness he could not possibly comprehend.

He clenched his teeth and swallowed it down. This sort of thing was the second worst part of his job—the first, of course, being all that rubbish mentioned in an earlier episode involving (the Hon.) Rupert W. Cherrydale's "glamour shots".

Never mind all that. Somehow Peter knew that just like his former cohorts of the White-and-Red Cross, Pious Augustus would also be wholly unmoved by the prospect of being on the hook for 10,000☧.

What now? Begging? "Pious, please!"

"Silence! This abomination dies today—!" The injured Lich had a lot of bottle left in his bones; he feebly hoisted up his staff and recommenced his chanting.

Antorbok, Pargon, Redgormor, Pargon, Pargon, Ulyaoth, Pargon!

Seven points this time; now he was serious. A powerful wave of eldritch energy bolted from the apex of his staff and enveloped the Fata Pădurii. This time, the creature screeched as it tottered backwards to a point of near-collapse, while cracks, faintly glowing, began to stretch across portions of its bark.

Enraged, Fata Pădurii reciprocated the assault with more fervor than ever. Pious ably attempted to defend himself, but not even he could withstand its maniacal onslaught. He collapsed to the ground, forced to resort to defending his ancient corpus by blocking blows with his staff.

And yet, then, even then, he continued to chant, to cast!

Antorbok, Pargon, Pargon, Redgormor, Ulyaoth, Pargon, Pargon!

Another magickal attack! Fata Pădurii stomped hard into the earth, which began to quake as it had earlier, anticipating another telekinetic shockwave.

What have I done? Peter felt faint. A cold sweat beaded along the band of his beret. A Lich and a Fata Pădurii were going to fight to the death here and now and he did not know who to pull for. More than anything, even more than getting that bloody photograph, he wanted to run. More likely, he would simply pass out on the spot.

What have you done? Peter?

That voice was not his own. Nevertheless, he recognized it instantly—that uncanny sensation of innate knowledge, like reading his own juvenile handwriting on the back of a forgotten photograph.

A divine intervention. Just as well.

What should I do?

We must save the Lich. It is not yet his Time.

I know.

Then why do you hesitate?

…

We are beyond the agency of understanding, Peter.

Mantorok left those words echoing about the tunnel of Peter's mind. He felt the Ancient's will, unseen and unknowable, entwine itself around his arms, his fingers, manipulating, maneuvering. He felt it coursing through his memories, his knowledge, seeking, suggesting.

Fire only strengthens its bark, and now the entity is drying out from within, Peter reasoned uncontrollably, although some distant part of him continued to struggle against Mantorok's intrusion. Ah, I know. A voltaic detonation ought to do nicely.

Excuse me? Hello? I don't need you to think for me.

Evidently you do. Onward.

Peter was moving forward, arm outstretched and scintillating with a static fulgurance that was altogether familiar and frightening—a spell he had learnt years ago in the Council Lyceum, being coerced through his body on the behalf of a higher authority.

His fingers burned with the impending release. It was all he could do to bleat a warning: "Look out!"

But he had neither the time nor the presence of mind to see if Pious heeded his words and rolled out of the way. A pure white bolt of lightning issued from his right hand, connecting him with Fata Pădurii—a psychic leash, not at all unlike the ones that previously connected it to its Suflete.

The leash began to resonate, to charge with potential; both he and Fata Pădurii writhed with each shocking pulse. Although he rarely had to resort to such measures, Peter knew how this spell worked well enough. He knew he had to endure about ten seconds of this before the actual detonation; he felt the flutter of his heart, the febrile sweat pooling along his forehead, and he began to doubt that even he would survive the aftermath.

Please…

What was that? A separate consciousness melded with Peter's own, as if being channeled through the power line. It was not Mantorok; he did not recognize this voice, so small and pitiful, so heavy with sorrow.

Nine seconds.

What have I done?

What should I do?

Why am I here?

Five seconds.

The trees look wrong here.

These are not my birds.

"I'm sorry!" Peter cried out loud, overcome with horror.

Two seconds.

He saw Pious, stunned, locked in place, his dead eyes wide as saucers. "Ulyaoth preserve me—!"

At one second, Fata Pădurii screamed, piercing the ears of all present.

At zero seconds, the whole world went white.

According to the Council of Venice's Magickal Catechism (1929 edition), a single, fully-charged bolt of the spell Voltaic Detonation will instantly generate tens of thousands of volts of electric energy and corresponding heat in degrees Celsius. It is prescribed as a particularly effective "banishment device" against eidolons and revenants, but the manual says nothing about its application on something like a tree (or on a tree-like something). However, one can reasonably assume that the effect should be identical to any other natural lightning strike, i.e., the sublimation of whatever liquids are currently coursing through the tree's innards—sap, water, blood, ectoplasm, quantum foam. In an instant it all becomes steam, and sometimes far too much pressure.

Tomorrow's papers would describe the noise that sounded from East Enson Park yesterday afternoon as "like a bomb".

But today, for now, the feather-light flakes of a former Fata Pădurii would drift through taciturn air, dusting its own shattered, molten husk.

Along similar subject lines, Pious Augustus still sprawled wherever the detonation had deposited him, his void-black armour now grey with a thin coating of fallout. The ornaments that once shined brazenly on his chest, reduced to shards of scrap metal; the golden skull medallion, blown out from within and stained with fading ectoplasm.

A dry, sepulchral wheeze would be his first indication of rousing, but what was the first thing he saw? Most likely, he saw a terribly bedraggled Peter Jacob standing but a few meters directly in front of him. He wore a complicated squinch in his eyes, angled downward as he balanced a curious little black box against his upper body. To those unfamiliar with the modern-ish (circa 1915) pocket camera, it might appear as a telescopic contraption with a bellows and a panel at the end of it. There one could find the lens, among a few other jiggery-pokery things (including a few "after-market modifications") that characterized the arsenal of today's occult photographer.

Peter momentarily disengaged his left hand to snap his fingers; a small orb of white hot light whizzed overhead and popped precisely seven seconds later with (thankfully) no more fanfare than a harmless flash. The moment it did, and with obviously experienced timing, he depressed a tiny lever mounted somewhere behind the lens.

It winked.

And that did it. Pious floundered and choked on his own consternation. "What have you done?" he snarled through his cockeyed helm. "Foul sorcerer!"

Peter had nothing to say to that. He could not even watch as Pious struggled to assemble his battered body into an upright position. Rather, he flipped open the camera's back flap and, with a small wooden stylus in hand, began to jot something down.

"I must do as my master bids. I must retrieve the essence. Failure is not an option! But now I am routed. Too weak—" Pious choked on a mote. "I never should have underestimated the one who defeated the Black Guardian."

Peter regarded him with face smudged, nose bloodied, eyes brimming. "Well, wallow all you like. I've got to get back to work," was all he said. Resigned to a job done (well had yet to be determined), he folded up his camera and tucked it into one of his coat pockets.

Likewise, Pious no longer had the wherewithal for snappy returns. Only exhaustion remained in his skeletal visage. "Work. Yes, there is much to be done. For I fear that my master has also underestimated yours."

"My master?"

"Your master. Mantorok." Pious suddenly questioned this. "Unless this one indeed sups from her hand, and not Mantorok's? I wonder what the Corpse God makes of the madness on display here? Of you, rara avis…?"

"How should I know? By the by, I do expect the Templars should be arriving any moment now," noted Peter, "if you fancy a reunion with your old comrades-in-arms. I'm sure they would be over the moon to see you again."

"Impertinent fool." Pious reached for his staff and raised it as high as he could, showing off the extensive damage to its vertebrae. "You had best stay that tongue and make prudent use of what little time remains to you," he warned. "Once my powers have returned to me in full, I will return to your forsaken Ealdwic and reclaim what is rightfully ours. You have a decision to make, Peter Jacob—I trust I do not need to elaborate on the details. But know that next time, I will not show you so much as a crumb of the mercy that I showed you today. I go now to Ulyaoth!"

Upon the final utterance of his master's name, Pious Augustus became nothing more than a waning handful of white embers, scattered into the winds.

Peter coolly lowered his gaze, taking in the emptiness where once laid the Lich. "Rather. Be sure to tell him who sent you," he uttered to nobody, nobody at all.

Enough of that.

Nature abhors a vacuum, even one as welcome as the absence of Pious Augustus. The smoldering remains of a Fata Pădurii only served to enhance the desolation of dusk in an emptied East Enson Park. What time is it, anyway? Peter wondered as he reached for the chain watch dangling off his chatelaine, still slightly hot from its prior excitation.

5:40 PM, roughly. The office proper would be closing soon, but this meant very little to those in the sleepless business of journalism. Peter, at least, had something on his plate at long last. He had a photograph to develop, a form to complete, and he had a proposal to reconsider.

And yet, that Fata Pădurii continued to linger, not only physically but in Peter's thoughts, as if it still had some point to impress upon him, something he needed to understand before abandoning it. He knelt beside its blistering corpse and drew one bared hand nearer, as close as he could endure.

If displaced, it will attempt to return to the nearest wooded area. That specific passage from the Codex, stuck in his craw.

Why?

Perhaps that's all it wanted—to go home. To find a place that it recognized, that it loved, that loved it in return.

Well, isn't that what we all want? he concluded, and he apologized again even though he knew it was too late.

Peter exhaled and rose to his feet. He was beyond ready to put this mess behind him, though each new step felt as leaden and cold as the pit of his soul.

Despite tonight's unseasonable chill, there was still something about a sunset in autumn that made Peter Jacob's oft-troubled heart catch in his throat. Something about the way the sun's rays filtered through all those red and yellow leaves on its way down, setting the world ablaze—a last hurrah before the ascension of stars. Even while the sky was overcast, like how this evening would be dominated by forbidding pillars of cumulonimbus clouds, Peter still cherished its beauty, the waning light of day bursting through the seams, as if it could not be contained by something as trivial as darkness.

He once made a habit of capturing such vistas for posterity, but the photographs never came out quite right. He had long since stopped trying.

East Enson Park was not a terribly large expanse; only a short walk to its entrance on the Redcrosse side, and the presence of a lamplighter reassured Peter that the gates were not already locked. However, the spectacle that awaited him at footpath's end renewed his dread.

Templars! As predicted, a whole ruddy contingent of them—literally ruddy, clad from head to toe in those spiffing red uniforms of theirs—milling about Ealdwic Square with their sabers and rifles and Blood Focuses and their muzzled dogs and their gleaming Silver Ghosts (also red, despite the model name; the Templars were in fact the only party authorized to operate red vehicles of any kind in Ealdwic, a law that extended even to bicycles as Peter himself once unhappily discovered).

Peter greeted the lot politely, albeit with his beret rolled up in his hand. He knew he surely looked a fright, but perhaps the cover of dusk would hide his more conspicuous injuries.

"Evening. Evening. Gentlemen. Ladies. Lord Plimmswood. Evening," he muttered while navigating the small but bustling crowd, as swiftly as he could manage.

Never swiftly enough, alas.

"Mister Jacob!"

Contact was unavoidable; Peter crashed into man sidelong thanks to his blinkered meandering. He could identify the victim from that rooster-crow alone, and turning around to behold him delivered the expected sight of Temple Interceder (The Hon.) Rupert W. Cherrydale in that ridiculous raccoon coat of his.

"My my! Where's the fire?" he jested.

"Good evening, Cherrydale," Peter returned the greeting, feigning cheer.

"I wish it was. No doubt you've heard the news. We're on the lookout for a…" He lowered his voice, conspiratorially. "A Fata Pădurii."

"Oh no! A Fata Pădurii! Here in Ealdwic?"

Cherrydale nodded. "One our scouts spotted it wandering towards the park a few hours ago. Apparently it's causing quite the ruckus in there—surely you must've heard the explosion? Seen the flash?"

"Explosion?"

"Sounded like a bloody Zeppelin raid!"

"Really?" Peter shrugged. "I must've missed it. I've been a trifle busy today."

"Perhaps a trifle too busy if you managed to miss all that. Well, now we're waiting for the final nod from Honesty Yard to go in there and rout the beast for good. Bit of a holdup, really. Something to do with some rubbish about some old treaty—well, you know how we love our red tape. Everything has to be absolutely, unquestionably official, double-approved, triple-stamped, God Save the King and all. I expect it's the same for you Council lads, hm? Hm." At this, he finally took the time to give Peter Jacob's appearance the full amount of scrutiny it deserved. Suspicion warped his tidy mustache; he plumbed a handkerchief from the depths of his coat and proffered it. "Your nose is bloodied, dear chap."

"Thank you, kindly. This weather sometimes, it…"

"Say no more." Cherrydale furrowed his sandy brow. "Though somehow I sense that I ought to remind you: Those participating in unauthorized combat, magickal or otherwise, within the boundaries of East Enson Park, may be prosecuted under the authority of Temple Hall."

"Prosecuted!" Peter laughed nervously. "As in clamped in irons, escorted to the family dungeon?"

"As in fined! Up to 10,000 Pax Romana these days."

"10,000? Bit steep, that."

"Indeed." Cherrydale leaned in. "I doubt you make that sort of lolly as a photographer."

"Certainly not. 10,000 Pax Romana? Gosh, you don't say."

A grin, unrepentantly smug, stretched the corners of Cherrydale's mouth. "I most certainly do say, Mr. Jacob! I say!" he exclaimed. He blinked. He shouted after Peter's rapidly diminishing back. "I… I say! Where are you going?"

The Council of Venice Press and Publishing Office (Ealdwic satellite) kept its business hours on a pretty tight schedule, or at least where the general inquiry bureau on the ground floor was concerned. Peter eyed a clock on the wall as he entered the building, and realized that if he had tarried but a minute or two the front doors would've been locked, and that would've meant having to try his luck with the rear entrance.

The post room occupied that side of the building, and the preeminently sessile Welton Updike occupied the post room.

Normally.

"Petey! Petey!" His querulous tenor burst from behind the stairwell and the rest of him soon followed, still clad in his white corduroy uniform jacket and Council blue bowtie, as if he had just returned from one of his own missions. Although the lad primarily handled incoming and outbound letters and parcels, Weltsy occasionally had to be coaxed out of the building to distribute their produce to the neighbors.

Peter regarded him (and that loathsome nickname) with a spent half-smile. "Hullo, Weltsy."

"Am I ever glad to see you!"

A wave of dread washed that smile clean away. "Oh no, why?"

"It… It's Winnie! You've got to help! She's gone completely mad, she has! Absolutely potty! Bananas! Cocoanuts, even!"

"Oh?"

"She's asked me to marry her!"

"Oh!"

"It was right after I delivered a fresh stack of letterheads to our reps in Temple Hall. I came in through the back door as usual, and there she was, eh? Like a great big bat, danglin' over the other threshold! Or so she appeared to me at first. S'ppose it's 'cause she's wearing that frock today, the white and blue one with the sort of flappy bits flappin' off the arm holes," Weltsy went on with his usual standard of repartee. "Oh, and the hat! The one with the flippers sort of pokin' out the sides and all—oh, you know the one!"

Peter, normally given to precision of language, often found himself at a similar loss when it came to describing today's millinery. "I shall take it at your word," he said.

"And she said she had something to say to me, and dashed if she wasn't going to say it before the end of the day, but I told her I had an awful lot of work left to do and if we could maybe talk things over at The Rex later, you know, because it's a Friday night and we always go to The Rex on Fridays, because that's where we like to make conversation, if you know what I mean, in the back stalls, right, 'specially during the newsreel."

So that's what normal people did between the features. Peter nodded politely as he tried to keep up.

"But she said she wasn't talkin' about that sort of conversation, but that she had something to say, a real something-or-other! And that's when she sprung the question on me! Popped it like a jack-in-the-box!" Weltsy flopped in place like a beached flounder, too flustered to consider breathing. "I'm done for, Petey! What should I do?" he croaked.

"What should you do?" Peter repeated, blinking incredulously. "That's the woman you love, man! Say yes!"

"I…" The lad overcame his own stupefaction after a mighty gulp. "I say yes?"

"Yes."

"That's all, then?"

"That's all you need to say."

"Are you sure?"

Peter nodded. "Positively."

For perhaps the first time in this exchange—possibly even this after-noon—Weltsy exhaled. "I say yes… Yes! Yes! I… I will! I'll say yes! Easy as, isn't it? Hah hah!" As the lad repeated it to himself, he seemed to become more comfortable with the notion. With his step re-sprung, he bounced towards the post room, calling out the name of his paramour. "Winnie! Oh, Winnie! Er—I mean, yes! I-I'm saying yes!"

"Young love in the springtime…" Peter sang under his breath. "…no, not quite right, is it? Ah, well." He quickly binned the hearts and flowers as he commenced the usual trudge up the stairs to the main office.

"My giddy aunt! You look like hell itself warmed over!"

"Good evening, Mr. Arbogast," was the best response Peter could conjure, as he dragged his feet towards the coat hooks. "I'm surprised you're still here. Well past six, isn't it?"

Indeed, when Peter completed his climb upstairs and entered the office, he was immediately greeted by the sight of his boss, obviously headed in the opposite direction, clad in his derby and moleskin ulster coat, gloves in hand.

"Never mind me! Where in the devil have you been?" he sputtered as he surveyed the sheer state of his wayward employee.

"I told you, I was going to the park, to clear my head." Peter patted his right cheek and felt the raw sting of abraded skin. I must really look dreadful, he concluded internally.

"A walk through the park, old chap?" Mr. Arbogast nearly popped his eye-glass. "Did you feed the birds or did they feed on you?"

Peter waved his hand; this too displayed some degree of purpling about the joints and fingertips, a natural consequence of his spellcasting. "It's a bit of a long story. Maybe more like a tall tale…"

Well, you'll have to save the yarn spinning for tomorrow, I'm off to see the usual man about my usual horse." Mr. Arbogast leered. "You look like you could use a nightcap yourself."

"I'm afraid we'll have to save it for another night. I've got work to do," said Peter. With his coat now hanging off a hook, he rooted through its pockets until he emerged with today's VIP.

Rather, the VPK.

"Oh! You're still here! Strike me pink, I thought you would have gone off to the races by now, Mr. Arbogast." This time, it was Winnie's turn to add her voice to the rhubarb of this cold October night. She flapped through the office door with her hard-won fiance in tow.

Weltsy, dazed with the grin of a goof, seemed content for now to let his sweetheart do all the talking.

"Ah, Mr. Jacob! You've returned? Oh, I see! Did you get a photograph for me at long last?" she presumed when she noticed the camera in his hand.

"I did, and how!"

Mr. Arbogast crinkled his brow. "Not the Fata Pădurii!"

"No," said Peter, "it was a Lich."

The very mention of the word Lich was enough to ignite a minor tizzy, a disquieted melange of shock and doubt.

"A Lich!" Winnie scoffed. "Oh do pull the other one, Mr. Jacob, it's got bells on!"

"No need. You'll see him for yourself tomorrow," he assured her, perhaps a bit rosily.

Meanwhile, poor Weltsy had already started sweating through his starched collar. "Crikey! You mean there's a bloomin' Lich in East Enson Park?"

"Well, not anymore."

"Strewth, we haven't seen a Lich around here since…" Mr. Arbogast had to think back quite a ways. "Oh, I don't know. Nearly 400 years ago, during all that rotten business with Oliver Cromwell, I should think."

"And you remember this first-hand, yes?" Winnie smirked.

"Saucy lass. Never you mind—this is splendid work, Jacob. Absolutely first-rate. You might have missed the Fata Pădurii, but those toffs in Central Publishing ought to be very pleased with a Lich, assuming your photograph turned out."

"One can only hope it did," agreed Peter. "I doubt I'll ever get an opportunity like that again. Certainly not in this lifetime!"

"Oh no, I don't fancy the idea of a Lich creepin' and crawlin' about," said Weltsy. "Petey, what is a Lich, anyway?"

"It's a sort of revenant. A reanimated corpse, if you will. He keeps his soul separated, squirreled away in a phylactery—or several," he explained. "That way, even if his body is destroyed, his soul may live on. He can always make a new body for himself, so the only way to destroy a Lich for good is to destroy every container containing his soul."

"Did you do all that?" Weltsy, while squeamish, looked eager for more details. "Destroy his soul, I mean?"

"Possibly, but only a very small part if so."

"Well, either way! Looks like he kicked up one heck of a row, but I expect you made short work of him!"

"Weltsy's got the right of it," Winnie put in. "Whatever would we do without you?"

"I'm afraid you're about to find out." Peter pivoted towards his boss, his bottle-green eyes shining decisively. "Mr. Arbogast, is that offer still open? For the transfer, I mean?"

"Transfer? Surely you don't mean St. Helena?" Mr. Arbogast curiously stroked his chin; the look on Peter's face provided sufficient confirmation. "I'm certain it is, but what about that photograph of yours? Assuming it's everything you claim it to be, surely that will be enough to please the Council and then some."

"Even so, I think I'd rather take the transfer. Actually, I think I need to leave," he insisted. "As soon as possible, in fact."

"Very well. It may be some time before they can ship you out to Cape Town, but we'll start making the arrangements on Monday." Mr. Arbogast hesitated, while a slowly spreading smile betrayed his relief. "You have given the matter enough consideration, yes? Bear in mind, old chap, it is an awful lot of stamps…"

"Oh Peter, you can't leave us! Not so soon, you're going to miss the wedding!" Winnie lamented.

However, she understood just the same as the others that Peter Jacob was practically as good as gone. He was already making his way to the office's photographic darkroom, towards what he hoped would be his final, and perhaps his greatest contribution to The Universal Codex of Cryptid Creatures. "I'll send a card. I'll send flowers!" he offered. "No, surely they'd all be wilted by the time they reach England…"

"Send us some stamps!" suggested Weltsy.

"Stamps?"

"St. Helena is a pretty big deal for us philatelists. My own collection is woefully inadequate, especially for the original Victorian key types."

Until this moment, Peter had never been able to ascribe the quality matter-of-fact to Weltsy before. "Is that so? Alright, stamps it is," he concluded, eyebrows raised. "Well then, I suppose I'll be a while here. Good night—and, uh, no need to wait for me."

"Good night, Jacob. And don't you forget to lock up the office after you've finished, hm?" warned Mr. Arbogast.

Peter responded with a smile and a nod as he slipped into darkness, closing the darkroom door behind him.

Stillness descended as gently as the few flakes of snow flurrying into the window, melting as raindrops. Winnie heaved a hopeless little sigh to match. "A real rare bird, that one," she remarked.

"Too right," Mr. Arbogast muttered in agreement. "I wonder what made him change his mind like that? All of a sudden? It was very sudden, don't you think?"

"You mean when he actually agreed to your ridiculous little transfer scheme?"

"None other. I say, when his poor handler rang last week and begged me to sell the chap on the idea, I'd anticipated one hell of a battle! Oh, you know how Peter is. Tenacious like a bathtub ring. He takes a scrubbing and carries on, until he's finally scrubbed out—that's the bit that worried me, to be frank. But! He took the bait, swallowed the hook, and now we may all rest easy, and I may enjoy a nice stiff drink at the Horned God."

"Ah ha! So you were conspiring to get rid of him, just as I suspected. For shame."

"Now now, Miss Rampaul. No need for the po-face. I mislike the idea of ensnaring my employees like this, but it was for his own good," Mr. Arbogast explained, wistfully. "In truth, circumstances were such that the Council was never going to allow him to stay in Ealdwic, but they wanted him to come around to the idea of transferring to St. Helena on his own. It was never a matter of punishment, but of protection. Surely you can understand."

"Surely I cannot. What did Mr. Jacob do, anyway?" she probed. "And spare me all that jazz about the diplomat's automobile. What is this really about?"

"His handler was mum on the details—only that he'd blundered across some sort of something-or-other that nobody is supposed to know about. No harm there, really—this sort of thing goes on all the time in this little Secret World of ours," said Mr. Arbogast. "But then those frightful chaps in Internal Affairs somehow found out that he still has something related to the something-or-other in his possession, a whatever-it-is or some such… Who knows? I certainly don't. But evidently that is what did it for our Peter Jacob."

"Some sort of…?" Winnie raised her eyebrows. "Something to do with the basilisk, perhaps?"

"I would imagine so, but then…" Mr. Arbogast settled a fresh pencil in his mouth and took a long, contemplative—if totally imaginary drag. "Well, it beats the devil out of me. And we shan't press the subject with the Council either! No need to go looking for trouble when we already know where to find it."

"Say," Weltsy finally spoke up. "Do either of you ever get the rummy feeling that some great cosmic drama is constantly swirlin' all around the place, and you can't really see it but you can tell it's makin' a right terrible muddle of everything?"

Winnie did, and she nodded. "On a stage like this, I'm glad to be nothing more than a bit player…"

The man in the mirror also remained blessedly silent, his eyes narrowed in purest concentration while his bruised hands applied what he hoped would be the final sticking plaster to his freshly washed, if careworn face. Never a good sign when Peter's reflection in the basin mirror started speaking for himself. Usually it meant that his nervous state had declined beyond something that could be repaired with a hot drink and a good night's rest.

But thank goodness, only the wireless spoke up now. Good old Secret Radio London, with its last broadcast of the day: The Shipping Forecast, now as full-voiced as the slightly dilapidated little receiver would allow.

Satisfied with his medical handiwork, Peter emerged from his bedsit lavatory, wrapping himself in that ghastly toucan-colored tartan dressing gown that he liked to wear as a reminder of the fundamental absurdity of the universe. He paddled across the small sitting room to its lone window and pulled down the shade, as if doing so could perhaps curtail the encroachment of the strange, small hours of the night.

Alas. It was always 3 AM somewhere.

Beneath the window, a coiled iron radiator, roughly the same age as Peter himself, generated adequate steam heat, but only just enough to sort of warm the humble room and dry off, say, a puddle-soaked stocking, though it would take the entire night and most of the next day to do so. It was the precision of knowledge that one could glean only through experience, through a decade of enduring the many vagaries of life in Littlechap Close (Ratcage Lane's state-of-the-art, upmarket tenement house of choice for poorly compensated Council photographers).

And now, only now, only after completing his work and returning to his flat at such an hour, only after a cold dinner and a tepid bath, only after switching on the wireless and waiting for the valves to warm up and sticking all those plasters to his face in the meantime—only now did Peter understand the reality of his situation. That this curious little life of his was coming to an end.

No. A change. For worse or for better or for curiouser.

And curiouser! While assessing the state of his stockings (sadly still soggy), Peter happened to espy a white envelope that someone must've silently slipped through the crack beneath his door, probably while he was preoccupied with the plasters.

It read:

Unsigned, but he recognized the handwriting enough to confirm the identity of, indeed, his handler. As for the double underlined TAKE IT WITH YOU in question, of course Peter understood. No need to identify it by name. It was currently safe. Hidden. There.

It was there, right? Still?

Peter clambered to the ground and stretched one gangly arm under his bed, blindly searching for a handle he knew was still there. He took hold of it and, after the expected struggle, dragged out a well-travelled and substantial steamer trunk, seasoned lumber painted black, with two heavy metal draw bolts and a spring lock.

Littlechap Close rarely saw any meaningful crime, but best to keep the trunk locked anyway, considering its contents. Peter wore the key on his chatelaine with the others; when not needed, he would mount the entire thing—his elemental focus, his actual keys, his watch, and a pocket billfold—onto a nail that a previous occupant had banged into the wall near the front door.

When he returned with the key, he discovered straight away that he didn't need it after all.

Enough of that. He disengaged the draw bolts and lifted the lid.

Upon beholding its interior—its contents—he drew a deep, unsteady breath. His heart, fluttering in a net. Easy now, he tried to calm himself. But what ever is that noise?

Blood? Blasting through the narrow space between his ears as the Strid of the River Wharfe?

Or was it only the wireless? Peter realized that the Shipping Forecast had long sailed away into its sea of static. A flick of a knob on the instrument rectified that problem, but immediately introduced another.

The stark understanding that he was alone with it. Transfixed by the sight of it, Peter stared until his eyes felt like sheets of glass. It stared back, with those goo-goo eyes—

On the little hat case, naturally, into which he had entombed the Sigil of Xel'lotath. Peter purchased it from a second-hand shop while specifically hunting for a reliquary of an appropriate size and shape. The case probably belonged to a child once, with its glossy red leather body and the colorful image printed on its front of a "kewpie" baby at the seashore; tacked to the baby's face were those so-called novelty "goo-goo eyes" that lolled about wildly at the slightest provocation.

A ridiculous looking article, completely on the button for its occupant.

Peter inhaled once more, preparing himself to…

He reached for the case's metal latch, and…

With a flick of the wrist, he turned the latch and opened the case in one stiff, cringing motion.

He immediately withdrew his hand, fearing the possibility of contact with the Sigil's accursed embodiment. Even though he—while wearing no fewer than three pairs of gloves—took the time to wrap it in as many tea towels before cloistering it in the hat case, he could see that its wretched essence had already started to seep through the cloth, discoloring it, searing a dusky outline of its astral shape into the weave.

"Oh bother, I shall have to re-wrap you before we go," he realized, frowning. "Those were perfectly good tea towels."

"Oh? Good morning, Peter…"

"Tee hee hee. Good morning, good morning. A good morning for chaos."

"Sorry, but it's only midnight. You've several hours to go before all that."

"What meaning, Time? What folly? Mortals are obsessed with measuring the immeasurable."

"Oh my, yes. How I adore them for that. So futile! So absurd!"

"So rare, to be graced by the visage of our champion. What manner of occasion returns Peter Jacob to our sublime embrace?"

"I know! Oh, I know! Tee hee hee."

"Perhaps he has at last come to express his gratitude?"

"Yes, his gratitude! So very thankful to us."

"I am not your—oh, sod it. What am I being thankful for, precisely…?"

"For what? Tee hee hee. For everything, for everything…"

"Who do you think warned you about the basilisk in the envoy's automobile? Only we had the capability to see such a thing, even while the veil of Mantorok remains to obscure our vision, our power…"

"Our eye! Our eye yet transcends all!"

"But… But there wasn't any basilisk! I'll have you know, I got into an awful lot of trouble because of that!"

"Trouble? You look flushed. Oh my, I really do think you liked it."

"He liked it, he liked it! Setting that automobile ablaze!"

"I liked it too. It felt good. The thrill of all that power coursing through your body. Didn't it feel good? Peter?"

"Tee hee hee. I knew it, I knew he would enjoy it. That's why I made him do it."

"I most certainly did not enjoy it. And whether or not you forced my hand is immaterial—"

"Forced? Oh. Peter, you wound us. We have nothing but faith in our champion."

"Never, never forced! We are not like your master. How quickly this one forgets!"

"He has already forgotten the vile feeling of the Corpse God commandeering his body, his mind, all for the sake of protecting some other god's pawn at the expense of an innocent life. Incomprehensible!"

"Yes, yes! Mantorok himself must be going insane in his decline! Tee hee hee. But never have we violated you so. Never have we forced you to do anything that you yourself do not already yearn to do!"

"We know you better than you think you know yourself. We understand what it is that made you this way."

"With all due respect, I'm not sure that you could."

"No? Not you, conscripted to the front lines of Mantorok's futile war, to deliver victory unto something that you know is beyond salvation…?"

"Mankind, mankind! Warmongers, plunderers, murderers, zealots to mammon and hatred! Filth, filth! Woven into the very fabric of Mantorok's veil! Unfit! Undeserving! Unworthy of existence! Tee hee hee."

"That isn't true! Well… Perhaps. A little. To an extent, but—"

"But you remember, you remember! The Black Guardian. Feasting on the souls of the doomed, the spoils of war!"

"You remember realizing. That the Great War continued for years after the Black Guardian's death. To what end, now that Ulyaoth had no more reason to perpetuate it…?"

"Mankind wages war, yes, against itself, against nature, against everything that moves and even a few things that don't. But we also have the capacity for peace, for love. There are people who care enough to try. I fight for them—don't you see?"

"Impossible. Meaningless! Tee hee hee."

"You do not get to choose which threads to pull from the veil, to save from the fire. Better to see the whole thing burned."

"Burn, burn! Yes, burn it all! Burn it to the ground, to ash!"

"Why do you continue to resist? All you need to do is touch the Sigil. All you need to do is let us in, Peter."

"Yes! Let us in! Let us in! We have your mind, now let us take your soul!"

"And then you, our champion, shall take the town."

"I am not your champion, and I'm not taking the town because I'm leaving the town," Peter, steadfast, stammered anyway. Every single time he opened that blasted hat case, he would find himself ensnared in the same rhetorical glue traps, Xel'lotath's soft soap and pretzel logic, calculated to fill the hours with her brand of insanity until the bleary light of dawn started to press its own agenda against the window.

By some miracle however, it was still dark outside. There was still time. He could still sleep tonight.

Maybe.

"Leaving? Our champion thinks he yet has the agency to abandon us?"

"Oh my! Sweet fool, darling puppet! But what chaos we shall render in his stead! What must you do with us, Peter Jacob? Must you lock us up in a vault? Bury us in the cold ground? For the next champion to stumble across? To touch, to touch…? As you so cruelly denied us? Tee hee hee."

"No, not at all," he said as he reached for the lid to the hat case. "Sorry to say but you're coming with me. So there isn't going to be any tricking unsuspecting pigeons into touching the Sigil of Xel'lotath for anyone."

"What? He lies!"

"He truths! But where, where are we going—?"

Click. He closed the lid and latched it. Enough of that.

Finally, Peter Jacob sets sail! The RMS Muriel Castle, embarking from beautiful sunny downtown Southampton, will be his vessel on a long voyage to practically the other end of the world—Cape Town, South Africa. However, his ultimate destination is the Council of Venice's Observations outpost on the isolated islet of St. Helena.

Assuming all goes well. Thankfully, we already know otherwise:

The unexpected, and admittedly unnerving reunion with his Templar friend is only the beginning. The two begin to notice a rash, rapidly spreading around the RMS Muriel Castle. No, it's nothing that can be cured with an ointment or a good wash or an embarrassing visit to the ship's infirmary. This is a rash of disappearances, and not of people or of cargo, but of words.

The further discovery of two other Secret Worlders on the ship—a Dragon and a Phoenician—only puts a new complexion on the mystery, with the former insisting that he's only there for a good time (on a cargo ship?), and the latter serving as an armed escort for a shipment she refuses to name, but describes as "too precious to leave unattended". At least our Peter is able to identify the Monster of the Week in due time:

When the Nergalworm's semantic binge goes out of control and the creature evolves into something much larger and much more dangerous than just a few tiny squishable grubs, drastic measures must be taken. To wit: The ship going down into the abyss of the Atlantic after being devoured by filth-worms is a best-case scenario.

But how does one combat a churning morass of ideas, constantly consuming, digesting, excreting salience as mutated nonsense, toxic and existentially fatal? Must one poison the well with the remedy? Must one deconstruct the incomprehensible…? Who, or what, could possibly stand a chance against the ancient and virulent grammar of the Dreamers?

Find out in "The Waiter Apologizes For the Worms in the Wine", available soon from Skump Publishing.