It's an old house on a street of old houses. This one is two storeys, with a shingled roof and a withered garden in the corner of a small, snow covered lawn. It reminds me of the house my grandfather lived in, back when he was still alive. A house for lonely men, and I picture Nathaniel inside, sitting by himself in a dimly lit room as what's left of his life is parceled out in the precise ticking of a clock; Taylor rings the bell, and the girl who answers the door is gorgeous.
She is wearing a pair of tight jeans and a black tank-top. A wave of glossy, ink-black hair falls to her shoulders, and the tattoos covering her bare arms are a complex exercise in fractal geometry. Her lashes are heavy with makeup, but beneath them it's still possible to make out the green of her eyes. She regards us both with a look of boredom so complete it borders on disdain.
"What's with all that shit on your face?" she asks Taylor.
"Art project," he tells her, which elicits a laugh, but grudgingly, as if she only has so many to spare. She steps to one side and holds open the door.
"You're just in time for dinner."
She moves before us down the hall. On the left is a small dining room, where Nathaniel Parker and the bartender are seated at a wooden table.
"We've been expecting you!" Nathaniel proclaims, raising a glass of wine.
"We know," says Taylor, his voice modulated very low. "You invited us."
"Right you are my boy," replies Nathaniel. "Sharp as a fucking tack, as usual."
"He's drunk," the bartender informs us.
"It'll just be a minute," says the girl, disappearing into the kitchen. Taylor and I sit down at the table; the place setting could have been ripped from the pages of a home and design magazine: gleaming, porcelain dishes are laid out next to fluted wine glasses and polished silverware, immaculate napkins folded in the shape of swans. Above us is a wrought-iron chandelier, its bulbs tapered in the shape of candles, and in the center of the table is a centerpiece of cut flowers.
"What are you doing here?" I ask Nathaniel, but it's the bartender who answers.
"This is my sister's place. After we saw what those agents did to the bar, it seemed like a good idea to lay low for a while."
Nathaniel is nodding heavily.
"Lauren has been most gracious," he says. "Some wine?"
He tips the bottle over my glass and fills it to the brim.
"For you Taylor?"
Taylor shakes his head.
"Our friend Taylor is self-conscious," remarks Nathaniel. "And somewhat rude. Drinking together is a kind of social glue. Hard to trust a man who won't drink with you."
The bartender smiles faintly.
"I wonder if he ever takes off that mouthpiece," Nathaniel muses.
"If I've got something worth replacing it with," says Taylor. The bartender snorts.
"Dinner," says the girl, arriving from the kitchen with a large, steaming dish.
"Lauren has impeccable timing," says Nathaniel. "A good thing, but as you'll see, not nearly her best quality. Her casseroles are legendary."
She smiles, setting the dish down on the table and taking my plate with her other hand.
"Local legend," she demures.
"One of the very best kinds," Nathaniel answers. Lauren serves us each in turn, working quickly, as if she's used to having company for dinner or has spent the past several years working at a catering company. Nathaniel's face is flushed, and his wide nose is marked with the faint purple trace-work of burst capillaries. The bartender smokes quietly, and behind his glasses Taylor could be anywhere, looking at anything; it's a scene composed of spare parts, an absurdist tableau with more shock value than artistic sense; none of us should be here, or at least not altogether. Slowly, I start into my food, a delicious, a cheese-rich casserole that's about as good as anything I've ever tasted.
"As far as I'm concerned people ignore legends at their peril," Nathaniel continues.
"I've had to listen to a lot of them lately," I say.
"Have you?"
"A girl I know is studying myths."
He nods.
"Myths are even better," he says. "A far more reliable vehicle for truth than a newspaper, or any other work of fiction. Myths are the playground of symbols, and symbols don't lie. They get at the heart of things. Take that line on your face."
"What about it?"
"You don't know the story?"
"Should I?" For some reason the question elicits another snort from the bartender. Nathaniel frowns. The girl doesn't appear to be paying attention to us, or to anything else; I watch as she shovels food into her mouth with the plodding, stubborn intensity of a condemned prisoner.
"It's the mark of the Beast," Nathaniel remarks. Idly, he swirls what's left of his wine in his glass, the red liquid rising and falling in regular, elliptical orbits. "The mark of the end of time."
"I thought it was the mark of an outsider."
He shrugs.
"That too, maybe, although from what Taylor tells me their lines are a different shade. Colours carry their own meanings too, of course, but I'd rather not have to speculate on that."
"It's a mark of displacement." The voice, that of a much older man, belongs to Taylor.
"Certainly it is. But not all displacements are created equal."
Across the table, the girl is rolling her eyes.
"You don't agree my dear?" Nathaniel asks her.
"Agree with what? You're not saying anything. Boy here has a yellow line on his face, but it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference as far as his personality is concerned. Personally I find the whole thing boring."
"Boring?" Nathaniel says. "Boring? You're living at a time when visitors from beyond are walking among us, when people like our friend Isaac here can find themselves outside of themselves. I hardly think that's boring."
"Is that what I'm doing?" I ask.
"You're on your way. Besides," Nathaniel says, turning to the girl. "You wouldn't say it was boring if you'd just try it."
She sighs, and looks at me directly.
"He wants me to eat a fucking mantis," she explains.
"Maybe you should," I tell her. "It could be a life-changing experience."
Nathaniel brightens.
"You see?" he says. The girl shakes her head.
"It's really not that bad Laur," puts in the bartender, before he's silenced by a look from his sister. She gets up and begins to clear away the plates. Nathaniel takes a package of cigarettes from somewhere and lights one, humming to himself under his breath. Taylor leaves the table, and a moment later the bartender excuses himself and goes after him.
"Just a minute," Nathaniel interrupts him. "Could you help me upstairs before moving on to whatever it is you're about to move on to?"
"This is the last time tonight," the bartender warns him. "If I take you up there I'm not dragging you back down again."
Nathaniel waves the remark away like an annoying fly.
"You come up too," he says to me. "There's something I want to show you."
The bartender stoops to lift him, and I follow behind them with the wheelchair. On the second floor, I help the bartender to get Nathaniel seated again.
"Thank you, as always, for your kind assistance Jared."
"Just remember you're up here 'til morning," the bartender says. Nathaniel nods and waves, and Jared retreats down the stairs. Nathaniel's room is at the end of the hall. It is very narrow, with a low ceiling and the feel of a converted storage closet. The little space not taken up by the small bed and night stand is crammed with fish tanks.
"It smells like a fucking zoo in here," I say.
"I hadn't noticed."
Leaning forward in his chair, the old man taps delicately on one of the tanks. Inside, a mid-sized lizard is basking under the orange glare of a heating lamp.
"You eat those?" I ask.
"Her eggs," he replies. I sit down on the bed with my back against the wall, watching the slow movement of o
ne type of animal or another in the tanks. One of them is even filled with fish; mid-sized and glinting silver, they pace lazily through the clear water above a bed of plasticized rocks.
"I lost a lot of tanks at the bar," Nathaniel says. "It was a hard thing, having to choose which of them to save."
"How did you know the agents were coming?"
"I got a call yesterday," he responds carefully. "From someone named Auld. Told me someone had tipped the Institute off about my work with powder, and that there was going to be a raid. I didn't believe him at first, but he told me some other things that no one should have known, not unless they had a different means of sight. Figured he had to be an outsider."
"Auld huh?"
"You know him?"
"We've met."
The old man seems to consider that for a moment, and then he turns to another of the tanks.
"See this?" he asks. The interior is unlit, with a dark mass of water rising about a third of the way from the base. A mossy formation of rocks has been placed in one of the corners, along with a layer of what might be dirt or sand. Something is moving in the water, but without standing up and going closer it's impossible to tell what it is.
"Newts," Nathaniel informs me. "Saving this one from the bar was never a question. If the Institute ever got its hands on these..."
He trails off and shrugs, and then he laughs.
"I've been using the powder longer than anyone," he continues. "I was the first to try it. Or anyway the first person I know. First or second or tenth, makes no difference. I was on the crew that discovered the vein. You know I worked in the mines?"
"No."
"Years ago. Before my accident."
"What happened?"
"Nothing glamorous. A support beam gave way and I happened to be under it. The beam was old, and it should have been replaced, but it wasn't and now I'm better off."
"Are you?" I ask the question without thinking, but Nathaniel doesn't look up, continuing to stare at the tank of newts.
"The settlement package was more than generous, and now I have the chance to focus on the things I actually enjoy. Running the bar, putting on shows. And all this," he says, waving his hand vaguely at the tanks. "I miss walking. But I wouldn't trade what I've gained for what I lost. You'll see what I mean."
Saying this, he picks up a small net from the nightstand. Placing it softly into the near-black water, he waits for one of the newts to wander inside it; with a flick of his wrist and a single, sudden jerk, he pulls the newt from the tank. It splutters, its body contorting wildly, and then Nathaniel tips the net over and it drops into his palm. He cups it gently, and with his free hand he produces a small pocket knife from his jeans. Fumbling, he finally manages to open the knife, and then casually, as if he's done so a hundred times before, he slits the Newt's throat; blood spills over his fingers, and in a very short time the thing is dead. Deftly, Nathaniel turns it onto its back and draws the tip of the knife along its chest. He works quickly, and in short order he has removed a small, bloody chunk of flesh from the newt's body.
"What is it?" I ask him.
"The heart," he says, handing it to me.
The lump of flesh is still warm. It rests in the center of my palm, dark and glistening, and there is no question of my not eating it. I put my hand to my mouth, closing my eyes as I bite down; the heart breaks open in a pulpy spray of blood.
"The newt is a fast one," Nathaniel is saying. "Deep. It gets in the bones. For a while you'll be gone. You understand? The body stays here but the mind is gone. You'll find you won't remember yourself."
"Wait..." I struggle with the word, my tongue grown thick in my mouth. "What is this?"
"You'll see," he says. "But it won't be you who sees it."
He laughs then, his face shining in the cheap, yellow light suspended above the tanks. The air of the room is vibrating, the connections between each object falling away.
"What's happening?" I hear the words but I don't remember saying them. A fist of pain tightens in my gut.
"Almost there now," he whispers.
"Almost," I say, the word stuttering over deadened lips; suddenly I'm very cold, but that doesn't seem right - the room had been warm. I am aware of a cool, damp scent, like the inside of a cave.
"Goodbye Isaac," says someone, and my eyes close. When I open them again I am lying beside a man with a bloody hole in his chest; a wave of vertigo passes through me. The chamber is awash in a blue, shimmering light. The dying man reaches for the detonator, and I push myself upright. I run, and the black mouth of the pit looms up before me. I jump into a darkness that is swallowed in light. I tell myself that it's only a dream, but I don't believe it. There is only the fall and the horror and surety of death until the light takes me and I wake up someone else.