fuck this job.com

The commotion outside lasts into the night. Stern male voices shout orders over loudspeakers. Nobody comes into the shop, although a couple of guys wearing motorcycle helmets jump down into the stairwell for a moment and then climb out. Simon finally regains the ability to open his eyes, and sees the half-empty bottle. He doesn't usually drink, but he wonders if the alcohol might have an anesthetic effect? He takes a drink and coughs, then gags. Lord, it tastes worse than he had imagined. He tries a small sip. He discovers that if he let's it stay in his mouth for a moment, saliva dilutes it so it doesn't burn so much. The two women don't seem to mind if he drinks it. By the third or fourth sip, Simon is staring to feel the effect. He now finds that he can stand up, open his eyes and speak with some measure of control.

"Thank you, Patty. You've rescued me twice in one day." Patty looks rather blankly at him.

"No sweat," she replies. The two women are discussing politics--a subject that Simon is only mildly interested in. They are also discussing conspiracy theories. Simon is amused by them, most of the time, but right now, with his face still burning and several ounces of expensive vodka burning a hole in his stomach and lighting up his brain, he finds the subject very interesting.

"Forrestal," says the old woman. "You figure out why they murdered James Forrestal and you've got something." Patty looks thoughtful. Simon has no idea what they are talking about. He takes another sip of the vodka. It no longer tastes like gasoline and hate. It's starting to taste okay. Almost drinkable. Simon noticed that the old woman is looking at him in very peculiar way. Looking down her nose, really. Sizing him up. Evaluating him. She reaches into the glass case.

"Young man. You look like you need some protection. I've never seen anyone who looked like they needed protection more than you." Simon looks over at his reflection in the shop window, now darkening as the sun has set, and notices that he does, indeed, look like a mess.

"Here," she says. She holds something in the palm of her hand, wrapped in white tissue paper. "I'll trade you for the bottle." Simon hands her the vodka and takes the object from her. It's surprisingly heavy. He pulls away the paper and finds a pentagram. A metal five-pointed star that looks as if a blacksmith had taken one long metal blade and twisted it back again and again until the pentagram was formed, then polished and ground it until the shape was right. But something about it is deeply unsettling. It is far too heavy for it's size. Simon thinks it must be made of lead. That bothers him, because he knows that lead is toxic. The five points and the satanic connection don't really enter his mind. It's just the danger of lead poisoning that bothers him a bit. When Patty holds out her hand, he gives it to her without thinking, then feels ashamed of himself. After all, if it's poison, she shouldn't be holding it either.

She gazes thoughtfully at it. She and the old woman exchange glances. "It's old," Patty murmurs.

"Very old," replies the woman. "Some say...some say that this was made..." the woman lowers her voice to a whisper "...from the very nails that held Jesus Christ to the cross." Creepy shivers run up Patty's spine and down Simon's. She smiles at him and he tries not to wobble as the vodka takes effect.

"Simon--I'll buy it for you!" Simon wants to protest but he can't seem to find the words. The old woman looks at the price tag. It clearly says $500, written in blue ink years ago when the strange artifact first appeared at her door. But, for some reason, the old woman hears her own voice saying clearly "One hundred dollars. Plus tax." She pulls the sticky price label from the pentagram and calmly give Patty an 80% discount. Until the end of her life, she will never know why she did it.

When they get out on the street, Patty can see that the situation is still tense downtown. She turns to Simon. "Where do you live?"

"Up on the hill."

"Do you have a car?"

"No."

"Okay. Well, you can't walk home like that. I think you drank too much. Look, you can crash at my place, okay?" Simon can scarcely believe his ears. She's taking him home. No woman that wasn't a blood relative ever did that! She leads him by the hand down darkened streets, careful to avoid the police or anything suspicious. Eventually, she walks him down an alley and between a lot of parked cars and then they are at the door of a funky apartment building. All the while they are walking, she can feel something radiating from the heavy metal object in the pocket of her jacket. Maybe it IS protecting them?

When they go inside, a cat leaps to floor with a thump and startles Simon. "Quiet, Checkers!" Patty says. Checkers begins to meow for food. He starts to entwine himself around Simon's legs as Simon tries to find a place to sit down. The room is spinning. Patty switches on a light and Simon can see that he is in a small one bedroom apartment with a large, cat-hair enhanced sofa. "You can sleep on the sofa or the floor. Whatever you like." Patty seems a little more rattled than when they were out on the street. Her hands are shaking. She takes the pentagram from her pocket and hands it to Simon. "Here--keep this on you." She's not sure why she does it. She switches on the stereo--a CD of old Police tunes. She smiles at the irony. The song Synchronicity II begins to play. Simon gratefully lays down on the sofa. He takes one of the crumpled tissues from his pocket and begins to polish the pentagram. He notices that Patty slips into her bedroom and closes the door. He can smell hemp burning. He rubs the dull metal surface of the pentagram and it begins to shine--just a little. Sting is singing passionately about a dysfunctional family.

"Many miles away, something crawls from the slime, at the bottom of a dark...Scottish lake."

And, just at that moment, in Scotland (coincidentally enough), by the shore of a lake near a trendy castle retreat, an American tourist of Scottish ancestry sees something odd in the water of Loch Cullen, but it's too dark to be certain. Anyway, it's Loch Ness where the monster is, right? He takes a sip of whisky. But he can't deny that something seems to be swimming out in the lake. Probably a bird. A duck or goose, maybe.

Simon rubs the pentagram nervously. Patty is still in her room. Is she going to stay in there? It's okay if she does, but Simon wants to say goodnight! So what if she is smoking a little reefer? But it bothers him a bit that she is hiding in the bedroom. He keeps rubbing the pentagram intently, trying to decide if he should say something to her or not. Should he offer to buy dinner? It is all so confusing and his head is so fuzzy.

Meanwhile, back in Scotland, the tourist decides he's seeing things and turns his back. But then, just for just a moment--he imagines he hears something. A spoken word.

Summoned.

The word, spoken in the voice of Micha-el, Commander of the Armies of Heaven, rings within the aethers. A thing--a peat-stained bundle of leather and sticks long not man nor corpse, hears the command of the General of God and plants its elbow bones into the muddy shore of Loch Cullen, and pulls...itself...up. Its old frame is dragged, and it plants its elbow bones again and pulls, again.

Summoned.

It pulls itself up through the muck. And rests. And pulls again. And with each pull, a creature until recently reposed among the dead returns to the land of life and air and singing birds.

Finally, dripping filth from the last remnant of the robe worn in life, the abomination stands and gazes round with empty sockets at the world gone mad.

Summoned.

It recalls a name. Orlando de Balistica, last true Grand Master of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, and, not incidentally, last Emir of Alamut, stands, for the first time in nearly seven hundred long, long years.

And, back at Patty's apartment, Sting continues to wail...

"Many miles away, something crawls to the surface, of a dark... Scottish lake."

(TO BE CONTINUED)