"Honest to God. Can't forget the date or time. December the fifth, Nineteen Twenty-Nine, exactly six years ago. Twelve fifty-eight in the morning. A black night for sure, right here. That night, I lost my shadow to the lights."

"Too unbelievable, Ned. You hear me? An insufferable tale if ever I'd heard one." Clancy Stork leaned on the bar, gave Ned Moore the old eye roll and sucked up the fragrance of a Camel before sniffing at the intermittent groupings of patrons at Brothers Den. Fire burning cozily. Writers sitting in half darkness debating character conflict resolution. Researchers pining behind stacks of yellowed newspapers. Painters staring at the night sky and whitened ground along the Schuylkill River outdoors. "You said when we got here you'd never been to this place before, that this was your first time in Philadelphia." He rubbed expensive cufflinks, pure silver rectangles picturing pyramids giving off rays of lustrous aquamarine, let their wealth comfort his ego.

Ned thumbed for the bartender. Another double shot of Scotch was sorely required. "You're not listening, old man."

Clancy huffed. He had known Ned since the days of college football, but never enjoyed his friend's arrogant Mid Atlantic accent. "Dear sweet Lord, what side of the Revolution are you on, man?" They had been companions ever since those heady days before the Sky War, Germany's glory, through law school at Hamilton and Clancy's failed marriage. Those issues were easily comprehended, more so than this wild tale.

The huff failed to quell Ned's corrective mood. "I said I had never been to this inn or Philadelphia since then. And, given the circumstances, why would I?" Ned got the requisite shot and absorbed it to great relief. He tinkered with the leather strap of his Dimier Brothers and Company wristwatch, Clancy's gift from way back. The cad always came back from the finer corners of the world lavishing his sole pal with material wonders Ned felt awkward wearing.

Clancy noted the tension. "No regrets, my good man. We're just country lawyers out of Claymont who stole north for some city excitement is all. Delaware held no spice for us, so that's why you dragged me here in the snow, yes?" Catering to the boredom of Clancy Stork proved to be sound business. A blasé hedonist has all the makings of chaos and financial ruin imprinted on his every cell. Ned, more accustomed to a more humble outlook, kept the reins on such compulsions held tight. His bad nerves slackened the hold.

"Excitement will come in apt proportion, I assure you. But the tale..." Ned held up his arm over the bar counter. Sure enough, no shadow was cast. He glanced at Clancy, brow lifted higher awaiting an apology, recognition. Something.

Clancy sipped on a mug of warm beer. "What of it? You've shown me this trick many a time." He had, too. Six years of the illusionary feat bored Clancy to tears. He hated parlor tricks and word games, artsy folk and sculptures sold at high prices. Museums took up precious space. Art movements were merely attempts by the lonely to foster attention. This ancient inn with art deco touches epitomized all of those animosities.

Ned slapped the counter, and then raised a submissive hand toward the approaching bartender. "It is no trick. It is theft. Theft most dire!"

Clancy took him by the arm. "Pipe down, friend. These starving artists are taking notes, you know? Might steal your story and make millions from the book sales. Desperate times and all that." He caught sight of a dangling pair of brass goggles behind the bar. Pointing to it, his gilded Dimier wristwatch catching the light to showcase its expensiveness, he posed, "Speaking of tales, didn't you say along the way that this inn has a storied history?"

With anxious breath, Ned tried again. "Yes. Yes! That's the ticket! If I explained the tale of the Brothers Den, of Mister Kestrel and its inhabitants, then you'd see how my hardship is a reality and not some cheap amusement. I came here this night to get it back, finally worked up the nerve after certain encounters, but until I figure out how..."

Clancy groaned, insisted the bartender give him a bottle of brandy, Laird's Applejack, adjusted his haughty black herringbone suit cut from Leo and Jimmy's back in Wilmington. Then he noticed the kerchief in the pocket of his dress jacket. Buff, as in the buff and the blue, the colors of Hamilton. The good old days. Friendship. "My goodness, I've let loose a monster. Very well. As this evening has been bereft of females worth being near and poor weather for gallivanting, have at it, Shakespeare." He let the left hand make circling features at his friend.

A head bobbed away from the bar by Ned directed Clancy to follow, both men quick to swipe up their black fedoras by the brims. Clancy snatched the Laird's and a glass, lifted his body and puffy earth tone eyes and dragged his damp spats behind his old chum, whose weathered hobnail boots banged along the old tawny maple floorboards. They strolled, as gentleman lawyers are wont to, across the breadth of the Brothers Den, a cozy, expansive hearth highlighted in the various works of artists who made the place a haven for the unusual, the weird. Along its white stone walls and extensive mantels were the surreal glass sculptures of Rawle, boisterous limbs of diverse colors lined with 'stardust', lacking hands that intertwined as they rose up to just an inch from the thick joists in the ceiling, forming a crystalline forest of unidentifiable anatomies. Its Grecian title, etched into a metal plaque, eluded translation. Clancy moved beyond them as fast as he could. Ned admired them with a sigh, as if he knew the women, if they were women, the arms were modeled after.

The old but reliable Stockwell cold lamps remained after a renovation decades back, their only update being the addition of lampshades. These lampshades were tall, conical, made of aluminum, their bottom inches were circlets of stained glass, the shapes forming the name of their creator, the enigmatic poet and author Jorgensen. They offered a cinematic glow to the inn, and each bulb and its mutant algae inside them was guaranteed for twelve years, a dozen years of ambient radiance.

A plaque educated Clancy on swords crafted by the female blacksmith K.E. Philbrick. A female blacksmith! Clancy had to pause there, for his knowledge of women never graduated beyond pubescent lust, hence the divorce. The swords, nine in total, were displayed in a crystal case, the body framing the crystal glass carved from elephant tusks. Eight seemed to be, if college history lessons were remembered right, in the shape of sabers from the age of buccaneers, curvy, infamous. One, rusted and hiltless, ancient almost, as if it must be from long before the time of a lass who pulled metal from fire in the late Victorian Era, caught his eye. A sign at its base bore the enigma:

FORGED BY HAND SOAKED IN DREAMS DO NOT USE TIL THE MORROW

"Artists," Clancy uttered it as a curse. Ned looked back.

"Do not dismiss the words so easily as you do my dilemma, brother. We live on a world once beset by monsters from Jupiter, where some men fly and women walk through walls. Mister Kestrel foresaw the shape of things to come, I believe, when he opened up his doors to those of a more radical viewpoint. I met these artists in their advanced age those six years back. Their tales of adventure were...illuminating." Ned put his fedora on his head tight. No shadow, not even a dull one, appeared over his face from it, even with the cold lights shining downward on him.

Clancy waved his hat about, considered the lesson, but... "My dear fellow, Missouri and their masks are far from the doldrums of the Delaware Valley, I can assure you." He stuffed his hands into his pants pockets.

"Can you? Every city seems to have a mask these days." Ned resumed his walk.

Clancy paused. The look in Ned's eyes. He had been through alot with him, they were brothers, thick and thin. But that glare. It was inscrutable. Ned at most times possessed a cynical, joking, boyish flare. But as this night crawled on, he took on a new persona. He became, for the first time to Clancy Stork, a serious man. Too serious. Deadly even. Clancy left the swords for his friend, piercing silk lined pockets for a case of Camels.

Last, they moved toward an enclosed veranda of exposed stone wall accented by golden wainscoting, decked in black and white checkered tile, copper end tables beside black leather chairs detailed in faux Egyptian motifs. Spidery plants bloomed up and out of a quintet of extravagant Chinese vases. A chess table lacking pieces sat on a coffee table next to a diorama. At least, Clancy assumed it must be a diorama, for it was an open box, made of onyx or obsidian perhaps and depicted an intricate scene therein. Of all the artistic pieces, the confusing, clashing objets d'art the Brothers Den offered, it was here, before the box, that Ned sat down, placing a hand holding a Camel pointed at the thing.

"Aha! The Devil remains,even after all this time, to taunt me." A quiver disturbed Ned's voice. "See for yourself." He patted the smoking hand on the hardened leather cushion.

Clancy, his face contorted into a look as if he had been suckerpunched, sat. The fedora, Laird's and the glass he slapped on the table as if none of them mattered to him. But he found his monogrammed silver case, took comfort in that as he opened it for a smoke, and gave the work of art a cursory stare. Camel to mouth. Zippo lighter with initials 'C.A.S'. Flame. Inhale. Exhale. Stare. "Well now..."

What he studied at first bore nothing worth seeing. Some person, a fool he supposed, decided to waste precious time in their life to build a box holding nothing but empty space. Black within black, as if it were a symbolic wake for the depths of outer space. This Mister Kestrel, the deceased owner of the Den, had, according to another convenient piece of signage, bought the diorama for five hundred dollars in 1890, and lifetime boarding free of charge to the maker, one Demora Chowdry.

"Aha! Now we're getting somewhere! This involves a woman, of course. Tell me, old man, was she an ample creature?" Clancy tapped his pal on the chest in the way men do to bring on home a vulgar meaning. "Eh? That's the type to weaken a man, steal more than merely a shadow!" He expected Ned to reply in a snicker, or raising his manicured eyebrows to signify in the affirmative. But no.

"Keep looking." It could not have come out any colder. Even the snow ladened world out the window suddenly appeared a humid jungle by comparison. Nonetheless, Clancy leaned into the diorama, taking occasional side glances at his chum to send out waves of sincere doubt. He huffed out smoke at the diorama, as if it were a tool for gauging authenticity. He glared. He stared until his eyes blurred. "Am I seeing this right?"

Indeed he was. In the ink, spheres were moving. Spheres of varying sizes travelled in long, inchworm ellipticals about some center. Yes, there existed a central mass, a black globe darker than the surrounding space, a mass or hole Clancy could not be sure. He moved closer. The largest roving sphere had a reddish hue, painted clouds...

"No. No! Really? My goodness, man! This is some craftsmanship. I may like art, well, this art at least." He gave Ned a naughty smile. "Clever boy, you. Dragging me hear for yet another Ned Moore parlor trick. Each one better than the last! My, the circus has nothing on you." He returned to the point of his rant. The red sphere, a planet he was certain, had clouds moving. Oh yes. Climate. Clancy giggled. "How long did it take to build this, this..."

"Seven years to completion," a woman's granite voice uttered. Clancy, shook, looked up and behind the sofa to find a female who without a doubt paid the bill on ampleness in full. She was swarthy, a round face and long lips and nose. Her eyes were cut square, chiseled from an emboldened shade of chalcedony. Glistening mahogany hair sat on her head at the top, swirled into a rose-shaped bun, the style allowing her swan neck to be exposed, along with the amber choker that highlighted it so well. She wore a dress of chocolate velvet, hugging her broad breasts and the ever slight bump of her lower abdomen that ended at her exposed, smooth calves. A white satin shawl adorned the dark arms, draping over cream gloves and pearl bracelets, small pearl earrings to match. She had height to her, just under six foot to Clancy's salivating peepers. A tall, hot, smooth dame to light up this cold, confusing evening. "My name is Demora Chowdry. Hello, Ned. I see we meet again. Fate is kind."

Ned just about choked on his Camel. Clancy managed to let his dangle from the bottom lip of his fallen mouth. Stupefied, they got up in clumsy fits. "Demora..." Ned whispered, or rather, he choked on his own voice box to produce a low, guttural mumble. "I...still so young."

Good thing for him his chum possessed an unwavering ability to overcome stupidity by sheer force of libido. He put out his Camel, got another, lit it, and stalked. "My dearest, Demora, is it? Clancy Stork, of the New Castle County Storks." He let out a tittle of a laugh, stopping his approach right smack into Demora's personal space. He gave an ominous stare into her eyes. "Would you, eh, care to join us, my lovely?" He motioned at the sofa.

"Only if Ned approves." She slithered around Clancy with ease, not an easy task in white shoes, dark brown bow at the centers and high Spanish heels. "After all, this is his tale, yes?" She folded her hands in front, they holding a resplendent clutch purse of ivory fish scale design, and waited.

Ned eyed the floor, the sofa, the rest of the inn, walked away, and then said a prayer before returning. The cold lamps were not the reason for his abrupt perspiration. "Ah, yes. Yes! It would be, um, unbecoming of us if we were to decline the company of a woman of your...reputation."

That got Clancy making the big-eyed, wrinkled chin gawk. "Reputation, you say?" He had few uses for loose women. Well, he had one use, and this evening he was reaching close to desperation in letting out the 'old vibes' as he liked to call them. Demora walked around him, meeting with Ned, kissing him on the cheek, to Ned's surprise and Clancy's jealousy, before sitting down. The men flanked her. Clancy sat in haste, made the cushions bob up and down. Ned, still at a loss, sank into the furniture.

"Poor Ned and I met six years ago right here. We were both here by coincidence, so he thought. Does he still, I wonder?I had premiered the Onyx Diorama that night, based on Raffle and Moore's work, no relation to our Ned, mind you. Six years! It passes by so fast. I suppose he is still upset about the shadow loss." She spoke these matters to Clancy in a serene way, as if people drop off shadows on a routine basis at their nearest automat only to grab a new model for a nickel. Poor schmuck like Ned wouldn't pay the bill, or so Clancy supposed. He would have supposed, had he really heard the words. But his eyes gazed down at Demora's figure. The ears were closed for the night, but not for lack of hearing. The accent was killing him dead.

"Where did you say you were from, my sweet?'

Demora grinned, a welcome smile on a stiff face. "I didn't. But if you must know, India. Jaipur, in the northeast to be precise. I came to America in the summer of Eighty-Eight, after the Jovians destroyed much of the land. Mister Kestrel offered me a job. Here I learned of art beyond what anyone was doing elsewhere. Fabulous things crafted by unique artisans. I so wanted to be in their class. But the Onyx is my sole gift to that world. Life had other things in store for me."

Clancy leaned around the front of the lady to tap his chum on the knee. "Back in Eighty-Eight she says! A real storyteller! Luscious and charming. She's a keeper, old man!" He winked and, on the return, let his fingers glide over Demora's thighs. She offered neither protest nor evil eye. Cold as abandon. Clancy slid over, his shoulder against hers. She smiled in a slow, rueful way.

"It is ah, agreeable to see you tonight, as I've met Mister Raffle during his final days. He told me how to regain my shadow, and I have come here this very night to do just that. So..." Ned paused a long time, wiping sweaty palms on his trousers. Clancy started to whistle while eyeing the lady ever more as Ned continued. "Can't get over your youth for you were older...it's...I...I figured you might be here. Shall we begin?" He now worked up the nerve to look her square in those gemstone optics.

"Begin what, Ned?" Demora graced his chin with her fingers. "The shadow had to go. It was never yours."

"You impertinent--!" Ned shoved his body away from her, from the table and the bizarre diorama and Clancy. He wandered off to where the glass bay doors revealed the darkness of the outside world, noir sky over blanc ground, only the presence of a silver hat rack supporting nothing but outdated fancy goggles to keep him company.

Clancy kept Demora with him, holding her hands in his. "Listen, darling, this isn't the Ned Moore I know. Trust me. Man is as humble as can be, must be the Jew in his bloodline. This game he's playing has gone too far, but eventually--"

Demora leaned in close, lips almost touching. Clancy liked it very much, though her forward manner startled him. Her breath carried a hint of vanilla spice.

"There is no game, Mister Stork. Six years ago, while he charmed me, and I had more age upon me, I stole Ned's shadow and sent it back to where it needed to be." She dropped her eyes after a right solid staredown before sliding to the other end of the sofa. Her eyes welled up with tears. "Then again...'sniff!'...stole isn't...quite right..."

Clancy watched Ned in the distance, smoking deeply enough to cut off all brain function. He grew a tender spot for the lady in distress. The libido resigned. "There, there, my lovely. Here." He took out his monogrammed kerchief of silk for her use. She dabbed it at the corners of her eyes. "This affair the two of you had was quite severe. But, steal a shadow? Come on now. Fess up. What's the real damage? 'Stole his shadow'? Is this catchy lingo for an illegitimate child or something?"

Only to Clancy Stork would there be surprise that his question elicited a negative response. Demora ceased her crying.

"It didn't belong. It simply didn't. It's hard, so hard to do something right in this world!" She punched the armrest in a feminine way, bent wrist and everything. Clancy smirked.

"Well now, the ridiculous seems to be a contagion in this establishment. Alright then. I'll bite. Tell me how you stole it, and what it has to do with this art piece of the planets that go in and out of...heh. Where do they go into?" He went to leaning again, looking behind the diorama to its lid. The arc of the little planets would, by process of common sense, take them several inches beyond the lid. But they did not ride some mechanical wire. No. They vanished upon rounding the blackest edge ever seen, only to reappear, seconds later, on the other hemisphere of the blackest center mass.

"There. I took it there. Where else should it have gone." Demora pointed to her work, her singular legacy, as if she knew it not. "In there is out there."

Well, skeptical Clancy offered her a look of disbelief. "This whole thing is out of control! You're serious? Really, truly serious? I doubt the exact same form of madness can afflict two different people, but..." he hitched up those expensive trouser legs, grabbed the fedora and popped it on his dome, face fully shaded. Things were real now. "Do you mean it?" Clancy put a fist to his thigh and moved in on Demora, a hardened, lawyer gaze.

Perhaps the sudden fatigue of this brief interlude brought her down, or enraged her. Whatever the case, Demora Chowdry faced Clancy Stork in a most dire way, a way that made him begin to retreat. "The shadow wasn't his. It could never be. A hitchhiker at best. I...did him a favor. I think I did. They said it would be better. But he's so angry..."

"Who said? A conspiracy, eh? Well, I'm a true-to-life lawyer, miss! No one prosecutes like old Clancy! Spit it out! What sideshow trick have you and some enigmatic foreign gypsies played on my man?"

She seemed startled. "Gypsies? Foreign? I've lived in the States for forty-seven years, Mister Stork, and my origin has nothing to do with Ned's emancipation!" She removed herself from the sofa, walked to the other end of the veranda, away from Ned and his pal. Clancy watched her strut, how her body moved, forgot the deep tone of the conversation for a time. Then, he rose up, and pounced.

"Now see here, madam!" Clancy played the battering ram again, got even closer to Demora than on the first charge. "I'll have none of this game where it concerns my friend, my brother! Get to the point! How have you and these others harmed him? Hmm? Confidence scam? Narcotics? Talk!" His chest leaned on hers. She turned her face away, and angst ridden face, white teeth revealed from a mouth pulled back in grief. He felt hot from her form and his pursuit.

"You wouldn't understand." She felt trainloads of weight on her, but it was the sight of the artisans in the Den, watching, that really got to her. Demora shoved Clancy back, both hands, and fled for the semicircular warmth of the cerise bar.

"Problem, pal?" The bartender viewed the spectacle, and had no problem yelling across the way. One hand reached under the bar. Heads turned.

Clancy shrank, his bravado only roared against the female of the species. "Not a one, my good man. Carry on." He lifted his head, smiled out of fear. He took his mind off of the woman and returned to his ally, a man still looking out into the night.

Another Camel became an urgency. Clancy seized upon one. He caught wind of his shaky hands. "Hmph! Fancy that. This travesty is starting to get to me. Holding up alright, Ned?"

"A wake's what they called it." The words had little pitch, a hair's breadth under a whisper.

"What's that now?" Clancy found invading another's personal space to now be a prerequisite.

"A wake," Need looked at him square and dour. "A wake under the art deco lampshades for my shadow. The Onyx Diorama. It was under there before, where the swords are now. Fun and games," his laugh originated more from bad nerves than enjoyment, "or so I thought. But as the night sped past, I didn't see it anymore. No matter what light shone on me."

"Ah, yes." Clancy thumbed his Italian leather belt, plucked the fedora up and away from his temple. He watched as Ned lit up his umpteenth Camel, noting not even a sliver of pale gray shadow from the cigarette fell on his chin. With the light above, there should have been something. Should. Clancy pulled himself together as best he could. "These, ah, people. Who were they exactly?" Ned looked like the Sky War had returned, with trench fighting just like in the Carolinas. Ned had, back then, volunteered to be an ambulance driver to cart the wounded and desiccated to field hospitals outside of the wreckage once called Charleston. He was a teenager at the time, a snot-nosed grub who learned how to jury rig steamwagons and Indian gas autos to go joyriding. Years later, a somber Mister Moore took his best pal from Hamilton College to those overgrown trenches to show the gentleman how cruel life could be. "See that skull of a German soldier to your left, blown up remains of a doomsday device on the right..."

"Artists, for lack of a better word. More like incognauts, to coin a term, travelers into the unknown. Heh." Ned's laugh had as much resolve as Clancy's backbone, but he tried. Clancy, for his part, moved in on his pal again, this time noticing that not even his shadow appeared on Ned's face. Clancy's eyes bulged as Ned went on. "Friendliest people ever. Not since the war had I met nicer folk. Well, I apologize. You're my brother, Clancy. But, you have a certain way about you..."

"I'm a cad. No worries." The words were mechanical. He couldn't take his eyes off the lack. He even waved his hand over Ned's distant eyes, looking for shade. Nothing.

"David, Al, John and Lee. The Vagabonds of the Outland!" He made a fist and pushed it ahead, an effort to put some zing back in his stride, but it faded right away. "That night was majestic. I stopped here on a whim. No. I thought at the time it was a whim. My hunting down Raffle in the Yukon was beneficial, to say the least. Caught the old man before his demise. 'No such thing as coincidence'. Vagabonds died with Paris, sad to say. Very, very sad. I was rather drawn here, if you know what I mean, a destination I had to come to for, something, as if it were a cure to a disease I never knew I had. But, what disease?"

"We know." Again, Clancy uttered robotic statements as he stared. "Gravity bombs. No London. No Paris. No New York. Hudson River might as well be the Hudson kiddie pool. We're a third world nation. Scarred South, dilapidated North." He waved the hand again, but Ned caught it.

"What are you--?" He paused, suddenly aware of Clancy's deadpan glare.

"Impossible," Clancy muttered it for the eighth time, but now it reached Ned's ears. "It's not possible. No illusionist is that good!" The Camel fell out of Clancy's gaping pie hole and struck the tile floor, bright ashes sprouting away quickened to gray. He backed off.

"What's impossible?" He pursued Clancy, got him by the biceps. "You're staring at my face. What is it? What's wrong? Has something else been taken from me? What did she do this time?" Ned's form, from tone to wrinkles to the grinding of his teeth between words bore all the pressure of a man about to unhinge. Every piece of him bore it, but none of the parts contained a single, solitary...

"Shadow! Not even my own shadow falls on you! How? Why?" Clancy shook off his friend's hold, looked at him as if he'd never known him. "What the devil are you pulling off, and for what reason?" He got away from Ned, made tracks back to the bottle of Laird's and downed it, forsaking the pittance of the glass. This change of events demanded a full-on knockout to the brain. After the second ominous swig, he saw Ned wavering, sinking down to the floor, defeated and near to crying. Bottle down, Clancy returned to him. "There, there! Come on, man! This situation is, well, I haven't the words for it. But you can't let it defeat you. As a matter of fact, I won't let it get to you or me! Is there a men's room in this Wonderland?"

Ned nodded.

"Go in there. Wash your face. Have a solid, masculine pep talk in the mirror. Take all the time you need. I'll be at the bar. When you're ready to come out, we'll hit this thing full force, just like in the courtroom, remember? Judge Willoughby hates when we're on point, heh! The tour-de-force, he calls us! Just like then, it will be tonight." He got Ned to his feet and shoved the old man in the right direction. Ned vanished around a bend. Clancy ran to the bar in due haste.

Of course he was lying to Ned. Clancy had no clue, nary a one, on how to prosecute such a case. Stolen shadow! What's the crime? How can it be handled? What was the statute of limitations? Could the Sun be called to the witness stand, dead artists as well? He didn't know and didn't half care. Only glorious liquor behind the bar did. "Bartender! Your strongest whiskey. I need a fatal blow!"

The bartender looked as if he could deliver such a blow on his own, meaty as he was. He gave Clancy what he begged for. "You, uh, doin' okay? Seems you've got a knack for upsetting people."

Shot down. One gulp. "Now see here, ah, what's your name again?"

"Zeitstuck."

"Right. How could I forget a name like that? Cursed Pennsylvania Dutch. No offense." He slid the shot glass ahead and tapped the bar for a refill. He got it fast, and drank even faster. For a split second, Clancy let the burn/cool take him away to a meditative place. "Yes. Now, I am in serious need of knowing what goes on here. Shadows vanishing. Women getting younger. Cosmic art displays that go to who-knows-where and pop back in again. Confound it! Answers, man! I need answers!" The whiskey and Laird's were coming back up. Clancy saw two Zeitstucks. Hopefully, two would be better than one.

"Sure, pal. Once upon a time, the Brothers Den catered to merchants. That was the bread and butter, you know? But Mister Kestrel, he saw something different. Them paranormals out in Missouri, the weird things happening? Well, he thought it meant there was more to life, and sought to find them. Secrets, ones tucked into the corners of existence. So--"

"Good God, man! I want the details about what happened six years ago, the shadow theft, not the Kestrel family lineage! Spit it out! Who did it, and who made Demora Chowdry younger?" He had drunk eye now, one wide open, the other closed and awkward, an index finger pointed with full accusation Zeitstuck's way. The other hand fumbled for the shot glass. Zeitstuck refilled it with serene calm, and gave what was asked for.

"Ned made her young, with a touch. Me too, and almost everyone here tonight was here then. We all got younger thanks to him. Too bad he's in a bad way over a simple matter."

Now, Clancy heard a truckload of tall tales prodding people in court over the years. But this. This flabbergasted him, and he tended to operate better with liquor in him than most. He almost fell when Zeitstuck uttered Ned's name, but grabbed the bar and did a miraculous, jerky, clumsy slide onto the closest bar stool. All the while, he gazed into this brutish barkeep, waiting to uncover the lie between the syllables, the telltale fidgets of a cornered rat fink.

"Uncanny! You're telling the truth? The whole truth? Or, you believe the deception so fully, like those who pay spiritualists to contact dead loved ones? Yes. That's it." But he scanned the other end of the bar. There were young, gorgeous men and women sitting with saddened Demora. Sad, young people talked about the war, how it affected them. But the discerning ear heard, not the Sky War that ended fifteen years back, but the invasion from Jupiter. Now that war was before their time. Before Clancy's time. "History students?" He aimed the shot glass at the people while asking the bartender.

"No. One's a sculptor. Two are painters of American Dada, whatever that means. Three are photographers. You know, Miss Henrietta Gildenstern will turn ninety-six next month." The bartender couldn't help but grin at Clancy as he said it.

Clancy jumped up. Maybe he would have thrown a punch. Maybe he would have snatched the whiskey bottle from the bartender's hand. Maybe. Instead he rubbernecked, got off the stool and slinked around the bar. "I shall go and interrogate them myself!" He strode a few steps away, stumbled, and then looked back. "Ninety six!"

Bartender nodded with certainty. "Next month."

Clancy performed a double look before continuing on his trajectory. The artists at the other end saw him approach, and one gentleman blocked his path. "Evening, friend."

"My good man, kindly step aside so that I might interrogate this clan of connivers as to what is wrong with my best and honestly only friend in the whole wide world." He put a hand on the man's shoulder. But a push was not needed. The man put up his arms, and stepped to the right.

"Have at it, sir. By the way, the name's Nelson, Nelson Hudson. This is Madame Henrietta Gildenstern, Clay Troop, Adelaide Carlisle, Clementine Keyes and Ryphna Peters. As for answers, ask and you shall receive. But you've been warned." Some giggled. In the back of this troupe sat Demora, shy as a newborn kitten. She didn't bat an eye at Clancy.

"Nelson, your manners," Madame Gildenstern chastised. She enunciated every syllable to exhaustion, wore an enormous whip of giant pearls wrapped about her graceful neck and chest, all of it shaded under a hat bearing more plumage than an entire species of bird could molt off. She carried a regal air, bright gray eyes, a large bust and slim body, perfect posture. "Meeting a new face in the Den should come with welcome, not sarcasm. Pull up a chair, Mister Stork. We'd absolutely adore getting to know you, especially tonight."

Clancy curtsied. He curtsied a great deal once alcohol entered the picture. Galloping over to a cozy sitting area, he apprehended a sumptuous chair, black lacquered legs and palatial seashell back. Chair acquired, he dragged it over to the mysterious entourage, partook of another fine Camel, and commenced with the berating.

"Now see here you, you bag of vandals! I've a great friend, a brother, a royal chap who's solid gold to the core, you know. Exactly six years ago to date, he lost his shadow, and apparently, if madness be reason, he affected a veritable Fountain of Youth on you relics. Have I misspoken?" He gripped the chair in comfort, waiting for them to finally let loose the punchline to a very poor joke played upon him.

"Truer words were never spoken," Clay Troop popped Clancy's bubble with glee and a coarse Texas accent. I'm actually only fifty two." Clancy blinked twice. Clay had all the vim and vigor of a teenager, even a fading pimple on his virgin chin. "I had finished my newest collage that night and came down for a drink. Saw the Vagabonds and two young bucks at the piano, then under the lights. Demora and Ned. Him and her got to kissing, set off the lights. Folks went crazy, some ran outside, checked on the Automatic Engine out back by the garden. Everybody inside got the jitters, you see? Shaking all about, I'm talking fear out the wazoo! But once we got up and running, things went south real quick like." He raised a shot glass to Clancy. Clancy winced.

Snap! Adelaide Carlisle took Clancy's photograph. He barely caught sight of the brown casing of the Rolls camera before its pop-click blinded him. "Now see here, madam!"

"This will be perfect for the wall by tonight's end," she beamed. "Oh! Shall I finish the tale?"

Madame Gildenstern rolled a thin hand at her. "Proceed."

"Once the lights returned, Ned wasn't himself. Oh sure, they sang songs by the piano later, but he slowly noticed the lack of shadow. It got to him." Every three words she pushed back a pair of copper pince nez spectacles closer to her humongous hazel eyes.

"You don't say?" Clancy rubbed his eyes while smoking.

"Eventually our dear Demora fessed up to the deed, he barked some awful words, grabbed his coat and fled off into the night. Haven't seen the man 'til tonight. More's the pity."

Clancy shoved his Camel at the entourage, opened his mouth, but then forgot how to proceed. He counted to regain focus. "Where was...oh yes. And the whole getting younger part?"

"We noticed it gradually over the course of the evening. All of us got younger. It was an eye opening experience to say the least. With vitality came, what would you deem it? Added awareness? A notion of the fallibility of coincidence? Yes, I think that sums it up. We received a second chance at life from your friend. Sadly, we've nothing to offer him in return. I suppose that's your job tonight." These remarks hailed from Clementine Keyes, a frothy adventuress decked in safari shirt and a long olive green skirt with riding boots. Hair red as sunset, cut into a flapper's bob, played cushion for a pith helmet.

"You've got that right. Clancy Stork may be a lot of things, but he's no fink when it comes to defending his friends!" Clancy held up a thumb of surety pointed back at himself.

"We're certain of it," assured Ryphna, a tan woman, smoky voiced, lean and shaded under a hooded dress of black sequined velvet.

"Without a doubt," Nelson added.

"Mister Stork, might we ask you a question?" Gildenstern became her own lawyer, questioning the prosecution.

"Of course." He rolled his eyes, and then closed them, expecting the inquiry to follow along the lines of sawing a woman in half or making Egyptian mummies get up and dance the foxtrot.

"Why does Ned Moore matter to you?"

Eyes wide open. Clancy reacted as if he'd been socked on the nose. "Ned? Why, ah, well, we're like brothers. Thick as thieves! Bartender! Another drink, if you please!" That should calm down the nosy horde.

"But why?"

Clancy stood only long enough to get the latest liquid gift coming his way. "Why? Why not? Some people hit it off is all. No great thing to it, is there?" He sat back, and swilled.

"Really? He hardly seems to be your, eh, type. Very responsible, thoughtful. You, Mister Stork--"

"Clancy, please. After five minutes, we should be on a first name basis, yes?"

"Clancy, you're rather more, exotic. I mean, the world holds no charm for you, aside from the occasional physical sensation. Ned is more, how would you say, devotional? Yes."

"Madame, apart from some Jewish heritage, I've never seen a menorah or even a candle in Ned's possession, much less anything remotely acquainted with religiosity." Alcohol had begun its amazing ability to make a man more emotive. Clancy felt it. The past crept up from the hinterlands of the mind to the busy highway of the conscious. He had it all under control. No worries. A task must be performed. Ned needed to be rescued from, whatever was going on.

"But what makes you cling to him, and have no other friends, or even family?"

He made fists again. "How do you know I don't--? Hey, what's going on here?" He got riled, and jumped into Nelson's face before pacing like a bulldog around the entourage.

"Calm down, Clancy," Nelson remained pastoral. "We're friends here. Getting to the bottom of this will smooth out the things needing to be done later on."

Clancy turned, in the sudden, foggy eyed way drunks tend to do. "Huh? What things? Hey!" He leaned on Madame Gildenstern's shoulder, giving her quite a giggle. "You said before that you wanted to get to know me, especially tonight. Why's that?"

She touched her heart. "My dear man, every point is relatable. Can you not see it? Raffle knew. Oh yes, he did." She nodded at her entourage and they nodded back. "Surely he informed Ned, but Ned lacks the sight to see it through. He isn't a--"

"Fighter? Of course he is!"

"I was going to say, prosecutor. A fighter must quit when he is too beaten. But a prosecutor, they don't know when to stop."

Clancy got up on his tippy toes for a second. "Well now, then I'm on track! I'm here to push the boundaries and get justice for my man. Let's have it, God's honest truth! How do we get the shadow back, and leave this two-bit house of hooligans in the dust?"

"You don't and only you will be leaving." The prophecy came out of the mouth of Demora, who faced Clancy yet again. She looked into him. He fought to look at her through whiskey eyes.

"Beg your pardon?"

She advanced, applying a welcome touch to Clancy's shoulders he rather enjoyed. "Clancy, listen to me very carefully. Coincidence is a lie."

He puckered his lips, nodded. "Sure, sure. Chance, luck, fate. Children's games."

"I'm serious. I had no idea how deep the universes went, how time is a spiral. What I mean is, Ned had a...sickness. Yes. a sickness in need of removal, and I had the means to remove it that night. Everything else, well, almost everything else, is a beneficial side effect of that."

"Aha! Sickening shadows. Very scientific. Remove one, whole room loses decades of time. Yes. Sensible. Right out of my old college physics textbook. Bartender, another round."

"You've had enough. Besides, it's almost time."

The stoppage of libation irked Clancy. "Excuse me? Time for what? Is there a prohibition after happy hour?"

"It's almost time for you to give Ned the push he should have had six years back."

"Now, Zeit, let us remember, nothing meant to be can come undone. Delayed, yes, but only delayed." Carlisle gave up the shoving and forsook the pince nez.

"A push, you say?" Clancy considered it but, "I'm coming up empty. I say, what do you mean by that? I'm doing all that I know how right this instance."

Gildenstern took Clancy by the arm. "We all mean the same thing, my good man. All those years ago, none of us had an inkling, only assumptions really. But hindsight is king. Now that we are aware coincidence is a fallacy--"

"Wait a minute now!" Clancy tightened up, again. "No coincidence?"

"None."

"Ever? Not even 'wrong place at the wrong time', that sort of thing?"

She held her head high. "Never, good sir."

"Well now, this is the sort of thing that could chafe many a legal case. Defense attorneys make their careers on coincidence. Accidents?"

"Oh, they occur, but for reasons both small and large." Enigmatic Ryphna chimed in, giving Madame Gildenstern time to whet her whistle on a glass of bubbly Bollinger.

"Reasons? Reasons! Oh, please! You people are incorrigible! First unnatural vigor, and now you're all wise men atop the mountain? Posh!"

Demora seemed to have all she could take. She sprang upon Clancy, took him by the arm, pulled him away from the gathering.

"Now, Demora, really!" He staggered behind her, looked back at the entourage, his eyes wild with confusion.

"Remember," Madame Gildenstern finished her drink, "Ned is too tied to the world to go without someone to encourage him. Like an old, dear friend."

"What the devil does that--" but Clancy got caught up in keeping his feet under him as Demora tugged at him with all of her might. "Demora! Stop! Stop this instant!"

By the time she brought the tug to an end, they were three feet from the Onyx Diorama. The inn went quiet. Everyone waiting for a show Clancy had never been clued in about. Demora, meanwhile, squeezed her hands together, bit her lip before giving Clancy the details.

"This will be said once." She moved into his space now, so close and smelling sweet as licorice and gin, and he found he disliked it for some unknown reason. "We were new people as of that night, Ned and I. There were, things about us, unusual traits, but we had no idea til then. I saw the invader with him, that's what set off my talent. The Invader. You see?"

"Invader?" He moved away from her, but for every step back, Demora countered. She remained in his area, radiating sweetness and dread. "The ah, shadow."

"Yes. Yes!" She nodded so hard he feared she'd lose her head. Then, Demora pulled on Clancy's tailor-made dress jacket. "He couldn't be himself with that thing on him. I had to take it. When we kissed, the bond...a first kiss...was eternal."

"And ah, afterward, Ned could have been, what exactly? More Ned Moore than before? Because if so, I don't think it worked." Clancy snickered but inside, the heeby-jeebies were taking hold. This cockamamie tale was stepping out of the realm of fairy tale and right onto snowy old Main Street.

"Because he wouldn't stay! He got so mad that he ran off. He felt the connection, a universal tug of our very souls. And I, I was left without my other half." She drifted away. Clancy felt something depart, as if Demora's soul condensed into a fluid, one that drained out from a secret tap on her body. He disliked the sensation.

Clancy gawked. "I wasn't made aware the infamous evening also contained a marriage." He fumbled for the case of Camels, only to find it empty. "Good God!" Clancy kicked the wall. "Can't this night at least keep its glamour? Take the rest! The women! Scandals! Passion, even! But a good snort of tobacco while taking in the scene, cool as a breeze regardless of what transpires. That. Just the glamour." He eased into a chaise of black and white stripes, claw foot, stared off into the abyss of life.

"Two essences becoming one doesn't need a ceremony or a ring. Once in awhile, the world revolves just right to bring the right ones within reach, like a spiritual form of gravity, I suppose. Had he stayed, he would have known," her eyes lit up, a rekindled flame. "Then, we would be out there, giving the universe an extra nudge in the right direction, leveling the scale of justice, even if a little."

"Oh, so now you and Ned are angels. This is sounding more and more like a cult..."

But Ned's reappearance, worse for wear, stymied Clancy's derisive comment. He had degraded down to a stagger, his face devoid of color. Yet, even walking out from the side hall to the men's room, the dim lighting offered not one hint of eclipse anywhere on or around his form.

"Ned!" Demora rushed to his aid. Her presence, or her touch, revivified the flesh tone of Ned's cheeks. He rested his temple upon hers.

"Oh, darling," his chest heaved, "I shall never distance myself from you again." Ned paused to cough, hoping it would strengthen his depleted speech. "Leaning on the sink like a sick child, all I could think of," he looked into her eyes. "All that mattered was you.. Raffle was right. I did need to come back and take back what was mine. But I think...I know...he really meant you." The kiss he planted on her looked, to Clancy's cynical eyes, flat and lifeless. But Demora gained possession of what lay beneath and returned the favor with one of luscious embrace, an immaculate suction of air from Ned's lungs. His face flushed, shoulders straightened. Seconds elapsed. Demora seemed to brighten as Ned strengthened.

Clancy flung himself out of the chair, his engine running on a hate-filled gasoline. He charged the bar, giving the entourage the evil eye, demanded a smoke, got it and lit it fast as possible. He inhaled the first, tantalizing dose of fragrance when the crack hit.

"What the Dickens?" Clancy exhaled and took in a second huff as he rotated to scan Brothers Den. the crack came once, twice. Thrice. A vacuous thud heard by all. Clancy wandered about, noticed the entourage giving him festive toasts, hearty grins.

"Ah! Is this the moment when I meet my Fate?" Clancy smirked. Dolts. As if all of a life could ever be quantified into one action, a single battle royale.

"No, Mister Stork. This is the moment when Ned meets his." Madame Gildenstern wasted no time in summing up the situation.

He made a pained face. "Of course."

"And you either help him to see it, or perish, I'd very well imagine." She finished off her drink.

Clancy nearly fell over as he made arrogant strides away from the bar, imbibing huge breaths of cigarette smoke. "Perish!" He barked. "Death, and a cheap cigarette!" He got back to the other side, determined to connive Ned and his instantaneous girlfriend into catching the fastest auto Drive-by-Vert could dispatch. Yes! Forget the noises from nowhere. Give the past the middle finger, and away we go!

It was when he reached the sofas that he saw the diorama on the floor. Cracked open as a fallen egg, bleeding out roving, petulant strings of stygian dread that penetrated the grouting in the tiles. He followed some of those erratic tendrils along the floor, back towards the wall. There, his optics encountered Demora, the lovelorn heat faded, her face twisted into knots of horror. Demora the frightened. Demora, encircled by the tendrils rising from the floor. Demora between the two Neds.

Indeed, Ned had multiplied. Not in an osmotic way or by use of a trick mirror. No. Clancy's eyesight had the scene in perfect alignment. At Demora's back, his age-old chum, the essence of mature manhood. Before her, an image in three dimensions, in full possession of Ned Moore's combed back mane, his sideline profile. But this man, this mobile thing, had no definition, no reflection of light. The cigarette fell from Clancy's dead lips.

"As I live and breathe, a shadow man..." Clancy took three steps back. He had to. For on opening his mouth, the shadow turned toward him. To be more precise, the shape of the face vanished from facing Demora and morphed to facing Clancy, the body still facing the other way. "Oh, oh, oh," was all Clancy could mutter as he fell over the coffee table and crawled backward.

"Get away from him, you beast!" Ned rushed his midnight twin. He went through the creature without disrupting its form in the slightest, but in some way, damaging his own. He fell straight down, a knockout blow without a single hand being raised.

"Ned!" Demora was beside herself, sliding down to the floor, the ring of shadow formed a netting around her body. "You can't fight it! It's known you for too long! Absorbed you!"

Clancy brought about an end to his cowardice when Ned went down. He rebounded up from the floor into a football hunch, and from there, had no idea how to proceed. He fell back on the last weapon of the helpless. "Hey! You ugly bastard! You wanted old Clancy? Come and get me! See if you like the taste!" He made with the fisticuff stance, fists up, juggling before his cold, sweaty face and disheveled fancy suit. He prayed to God the thing would jump out the nearest window.

"Clancy!" Demora, encased in a fishnet shroud, battled with her voice. "It wants us to feed! My darkness and Ned's light! It can stop me because my talents are similar to its own, but not as potent! It fed off of Ned for years when it reached Earth, as some things find themselves! Separated, Ned can blossom! If it wins--!"

"Woman, I have no idea what you're going on about!" Clancy took swipes at the shadow, which moved without a hint of sound. It lunged. It evaded, tried to figure out the erratic spasms, the irregular fidgeting Clancy Stork termed combat. Nonetheless, False Ned proceeded as Clancy divided his attention between the melee, and bumping into random objets d'art the Brothers Den took such delight in.

"We're paranormals! Latent ones, but nonetheless..."

"You two have powers!" Clancy swung at False Ned's jaw. The impact had no feeling except for an abject cold. He shook his hand and hissed. "Then why am I the one doing the fighting?" He swung and swung again, hands stung by a cold lacking visible air, ashamed at being useless, inspired by holding down the fort. For once in his life, Ned Moore needed him. He knew not why, and it didn't really matter. His chum was down, so Clancy was up and at the ready.

False Ned shifted, right to left, left to right, wanting to get into Clancy but trying to figure it out. How. When...

An umbral arm whipped out and into Clancy's abdomen. The connection made. Into his navel it went. They were linked. Clancy, going arctic internally, felt his knees lock. He fell back flat, knocked his thick head on the tile floor and, for a second, saw the numb black of concussion almost swallow his view. He heard undecipherable whispers emanating from his gut, conflicting debates from the entourage and bartender as to whether they should alter his fate by interceding. Life came and went. False Ned hovered, in and out of his perception.

Above his head, the miserable piece of sword by the female blacksmith called to him. Not in a spiritual, dignified summoning as in the days of legend. It called to him from the tar pit of survival, the animal in Clancy striving to find a weapon, any weapon, that might cut his opponent and save his frigid life. He got on his side as False Ned entered him even more, half its body in his. Clancy lost the ability to breathe. Arthritic fingers touched a glass case they had not the strength to break. Clancy felt close to crying, but his eyes lacked the strength for that too.

The glass shattered with great ferocity. Zeit, the bartender, had lobbed a bottle of Jack at the case, knocking it so hard the rusted sword tumbled off the support hooks and into the weakened hands of Clancy. It clanged with an abrupt brilliance. Clancy felt a supple warmth. He felt it must have been the weapon. No. False Ned had abandoned him. His blood regained its course through the veins, rushing to generate sweet, vibrant heat. Clancy took the snail's path to sitting upright.

"Why?" The entourage peppered Zeit with the universal question.

"I had to! If a cad like him displays heroism..." He even left the bar to pitch in, seizing a pair of bread knives. Not mean weapons, but in his thuggish hands, they took on a harsh gleam. "Clancy! A change of one moment is a change in ten! I'm with you!"

The world had a lean to it as a child's top from Clancy's beleaguered view. He gazed at False Ned, watched it retreat a few feet, the face aimed at the thing in his hand. "This? This wretched bit of slag." He rolled it around, examined it, found it lacking in every way imaginable. "This thing hurts you, 'friend'?" Clancy held it up high, an effort considering his weakened state. From the periphery he caught the sign:

DO NOT USE TIL THE MORROW

It smacked his sensibilities, three-hundred and sixty degrees. "Oh, I may have to complain to whoever set up this cosmic conundrum. Such an obvious warning, and in writing! I mean, really?"

"That would depend on how hard is the head of the one the message is meant for," Madame Gildenstern had not lost an ounce of prideful scolding during this dire hour.

Clancy gave her and her entourage a soft, brief glimpse. "Touché, madame." Taking a wobbly step ahead, Clancy swung. He missed by a mile, striking the case with the other eight, much more refined, swords. Glass everywhere. Crashing. Breaking. False Ned kept its distance as the Ned of flesh and blood finally came to, a groggy mess of a man.

"Clancy...no..." he tried to hold out a hand, one of bright resonance at that, but failed to let whatever lurked within find its way out.

Clancy hefted the old sword from dragging on the floor. He stared at the ruined case. "Ned, old chum, I feel I'm soon to pay off my many debts to you." He felt it. The first swing did something to him. He remembered the thrill of helping an old woman cross the street way back at the tender age of twelve. A pulsation of vital heat came with it to invigorate the muscles. The sword raised high again, he remembered. Teaching fencing for a summer to the his neighbor, Eldridge, the young lad with the club foot. The boys pushed him around. Clancy gave him enough lessons to ensure Eldridge commanded respect.

The heat brought up his feelings. The adulterous actions of his marriage to a darling bride. He stormed ahead and thrust the sword, cutting False Ned. It made all the outstretched motions of a man in agony, minus the outcry. Wisps of shadow were shaved off. Clancy saw the figurative blood, and caught a stroke of frenzy.

Swing! Every weekend he raced to spend time with his precious daughter, Melody. Even after the terrible divorce, Clancy wiped away every tear, pushed her on the swing. "Daddy!" Over and over in his head, the happy cries of a beloved offspring.

False Ned lunged, but the swing took off its arm. Capsules of black slinked as slugs off into oblivion.

Thrust! The Carringdon Blackmail Case, five years ago. Oh, how Lucius Carringdon, darling chiseler of Wilmington, bled uneducated people dry with fake grave scams and outright threats. He walked so tall, booshwashing ingrate! He acted so haughty to Clancy outside of the courtroom. "Whatsamatter, 'lawyer'? Can't find a witness?" He and his asinine attorney laughed it up. Clancy went to work hitting the beat, upturned every stone from Fourth Street all the way up the length of Governor Printz Boulevard to find one victim with the backbone to speak up. On the final day of trial, he found his one. Take that, bad apple! He made sure to show up days later, to see the pathetic look on Carringdon's face as the galoot was loaded into one of Wilmington's shiny new paddywagons.

The thrust cleaved False Ned at the torso. The legs devolved into silent mist at Clancy's feet. Clancy felt emboldened. He saw Ned in the distance getting brighter, the shadow crawling towards him.

"Uh-uh!" He leaped, sword out.

Impalement! The final remembrance, as vivid as if today, the flushed cheeks, tears in his eyes. The people he hurt being a professional jackass. The few he raced into Hell to aide. The memory of the scuffle, the lads of the Purist Society versus he and Ned, in their college days, "You're a good enough sport, Clancy. Why do waste so much energy on being a toad? You simply don't seize your better qualities and take hold. Yours is the easy route, the path of the bum. But I see what's deep down."

"Oh? You're my blinding conscience, eh?"

"If you'd listen to your own, you'd have no need of me, chum. Let's divest ourselves of this scene. Care for some backgammon?"

They won that fight, defended a lady's honor. And, over time, he'd forgotten it. How could one forget such an act?

The shadow recoiled into many shapes and sizes. It spread out, contracted into a heteromorphic mass of incoherent figures. Zeit entered the fray, cutting at the thing with the knives, doing little, but never surrendering. Clancy held on via the blade as if he were riding an enraged bull. He saw glimmers of Ned lighting up. Literal illumination stemming from his skin. To his disbelieving eyes, Demora darkened as the tendrils receded, originating from her teeth. A black gauze of ink deepening her melatonin, while Ned sparkled as a rocket's red glare.

Then, the impact of dreaded cold. False Ned took its last gasp to shove itself into Clancy, burrow into his arms, the darkest of ticks. Clancy heaved, dropped the sword which hit the tiles with a double ting, showering wax in ferrous chips and blue dust. Clancy rolled over on his back, heart slowing, eyes bulging, as the false thing vanished into him. Two spots appeared on Clancy's arm, bite marks from beyond. Blood flow became as sludge. Zeit performed every first aid procedure he knew, but Clancy turned an unbelievable shade of blue.

The lights went out inside of Clancy Stork.

Gothic veils of raven silk wafted in a boreal gale. Clancy had no sense of movement. Time was deceased, buried next to its bride, Space. Women's voices went from one ear to the other, who spoke of molding, firing, hammering something. An element, negatrite, into an old blade, pouring good thoughts into it as she worked it. Properties kept secret and passed down for ages by warrior women from Out There. Peace instead of war. Conquering with joy instead of hatred. Female prowess impressed into a male weapon. A conversation at the gate of Death he could not grasp. Then, nothing. He drifted in solitude and hated its secrecy. This is it. Oh God, I've done nothing with myself! This is...

His eyes burned though they remained closed. A radiance pierced his very brain all the way down to the hippocampus. Chemical interactions increased exponentially. Blood coursed as a wildfire in a dry wind. Toes wriggled. Fingers twitched. The veils burned up.

Clancy came to in a startled gasp of bamboozlement, blinded by the outline. He had been resuscitated by the sun in male form. Ned Moore had him! Holding Clancy up on his feet, steady, he gazed into his pal with all his might. Clancy could not look upon him except in flashes by blinking, for Ned maintained a magnificent corona. In those flashes, he beheld Demora Chowdry beside her man, black as pitch next to the rays of light, her hand holding Ned's. Clancy found it better to look down, keep his eyes working for future use. A jet black cord of vitality emerged from Demora, mingled with Ned's beautiful illumination and entered Clancy's forearm.

"Yes! Remove the negative spite that went in, while I patch the damage!" Ned uttered words into the mind, vocalization compressed onto patterns of emergent light. Clancy knew it was done this way. He had a bond with his chum, one stronger than titanium, extending into Demora. They had become a unit, familial down to the last cell.

And then it ended, an abrupt closure. Clancy went from being on his tiptoes to standing flat and assured. His eyes had no sting from the burning light. He felt nothing but...

"Improved? Yes. I feel new and improved! Even the bad ankle from our football days is a goner. Heh!" He patted his chest. "Well Ned, old chum, I--" Ned's solar eyes gave him pause. He appeared normal to Clancy in every way save for that. Demora as well, regained her classical appearance and stylish apparel, but her eyes were black with white irises. "So, this is the, eh, paranormal lifestyle, is it?" Clancy tried to joke it off.

Ned hugged his friend. "I suppose it is, though I've only realized it in the last minute or so. Demora?"

"Had you remained here years ago, we could have instructed you. But now I see. Clancy! Your brother was missing from the equation. I saw the gap in the equation back then, but did not know the proper variable. Clancy's assistance was needed to use the Philbrick."

"We had often debated who would be its rightful heir, so's you know!" Madame Gildenstern interrupted, with chimes from tapping champagne glasses toasted by her know-it-all crew.

"Thank you, peanut gallery," Clancy demanded the last word. He wasn't sure what to make of people who held deep answers while sitting on their duffs, but at least one of them reached out. "Zeit, my good man," he offered a solid handshake, "you're a good egg! Never had a stranger jump in to, ah, help me when I'm down, save for Neddy here." He returned the hug to Ned.

"I'm ecstatic, Clancy!" Ned embraced Demora, kissed her on the cheek. "Things worked out, right on schedule. I...feel it now."

"The pull, you mean?" Demora tucked her head under Ned's chin. He gripped her as if she were a long lost love, returned from a perilous ordeal.

Clancy saw something else he didn't quite get, but he found the mysterious feeling it gave him to be endearing. He bent down to pick up the 'Philbrick' as Demora termed it, studied its tarnish. "Glad someone is in the know. What's this about a schedule?"

Ned left his woman to take Clancy at the arms. "Friend, it's been a swell time. But, this is the last time we get to rendezvous. This talent within is, more than what others like me have. There are, other places, you see, apertures which could open and things such as the shadow me might--"

Demora covered over his inadequacy. "What Ned means is, our powers are tied to pinholes in the universe. Doorways, to be precise. We feel them, especially the ones which open into the Onyx Diorama."

"The, um, world in a box you made?" Clancy pointed at it using the sword. The diorama was closed and locked. He realized no one, so far as he knew, went over and touched it. Strange.

"Back then, it was all I could do. The shadow found Ned when he was younger, fed from him, kept his talent from emerging. I trapped it the only way I was able at the time, but my talent was brought forth by presence to Ned. Two halves of a whole. Ned's disbelief in what happened stymied him still, but now we know why. Another part was required. Your light, Clancy."

Clancy found the last bit to be pure hogwash. "Ha! Flattery! Late in the hour for it, isn't it? Now, let's forget the leaving to other apertures or whatever and--"

Ned illuminated again. He filled the Den with his brightness. "Another has appeared. Larger. I see...castles. Scotland, maybe. Demora."

Demora kissed Clancy. "I owe you one, my new friend!" Her skin darkened again. "We must go. If it stays open..."

Ned gave the nod. "I feel the pull, chum. Such a force! A certainty unlike anything. Whenever I feel these apertures rupture, I'll become ablaze. Normal life is over. There's a higher purpose now that--"

Clancy held his hand up to the light, saw he had faint gray bite marks in his arm. "Now wait just a minute! I fought in this war so I should get some sort of say! Ned, you're my best friend. My only friend." He saddened hearing his own words. "Why can't you leave when this duty summons and return to Clayton? Demora could move in with you. Our firm needs..." He left it alone, for he saw Ned's brilliance, Demora's inky aura, and realized the truth. "You...have to do it, don't you?"

"Yes. I won't allow others to be hampered by the Dark using their abilities in malignant ways to hinder as was done to me. As was done to you."

"I've no missing shadow!" But then he thought it out, figurative as opposed to literal. "Oh. Yes. I get you. It's just, well, loneliness..." Clancy suddenly hated himself for feeling like some weakened patsy, the scared little boy he suppressed coming to the fore.

Demora held Ned close. Correction. She seemed to Clancy's eyes to meld with him, a spinning vortex of golden wisps and crow feather imagery. Clancy's eyes couldn't take it. He and Xanthe backed away.

"Ned!"

"Clancy!"

"I always saw your inner light, chum."

"And I yours. Goodbye, Clancy."

Burn marks scorched the exhausted tiles. Black worms added marbling to their decor. The glass appendages shuddered. In a mesmerizing flash, Ned and Demora were gone.

"Goodbye," left Clancy's lips late and too low for anyone to hear.

Zeit returned to the bar, uplifted. Champagne glasses tinkled. Exuberance shattered the quiet and some members of the entourage took to playing celebratory music. Bass, piano and trumpet were brought out to improvise a jazz set sounding like Porter's 'Night and Day'. Drinks were poured out, given free of charge. Folks who stayed upstairs came down to see what all the fuss was about. They found the remains of a battlefield that startled them. But, on seeing free drinks, partook and gave in to their bodies crying out to dance and be liberated.

And, what of Clancy Stork? He behaved as an automaton. He gained his fedora from the coffee table, dusted particles of black whatever from the crown. Next, shambled to the bar, retrieved his wool overcoat and put it on. Pulled out a black rectangular box, a '35 Palas vertograph, flipped it open. He stared blankly at the letter dial, the black-and-white screen saying HI CLANCY from the cartoon image of Pally, a large round smiling head wearing a top hat. He turned the MOST USED dial to the desired business and sent out a pickup signal to Drive-by-Vert. Clancy did it without thinking, too stunned, too inoculated by the evening's curing events for thought. He never noticed Zeit take the Philbrick from his hands, slide it into a sheath of thick leather, riveted all the way down its length, and set it on the bar.

"It came in this, originally," Zeit whispered, giving Clancy a China cup filled with harsh coffee. "Take this to pep up. You did great. Real great. Keep it with you. The Phil. Close. You're going to need it."

Clancy nodded, not hearing really. Not feeling really either. He was there. The world became the black veils. Bereft of someone to take him by the hand through life, he had gained purpose only to lose direction.

"Time to...mature...I suppose."

"Different for everyone, but sooner or later, the time arrives."

Clancy downed the coffee. The bitterness of the whole of mankind went down his throat. It reminded Clancy of life. His daughter. She was coming up in this dark place, ignorant of what lurks behind the corners. So were others. Men. Women. Clients.

"Thank you, Zeit . Thank you all!" He found strength to vocalize to the shuffling entourage, busy kicking up their feet in step with the raucous tunes. Those who heard him waved, grinned.

He headed for the door. Cold. Ironic he felt more cold, this time from the climate, would be perfect for waking up his weary soul.

"Clancy." The bartender put down his own vertograph, an older, wooden model boasting long antennae, spitting out a ream of dictation.

"Yes?"

"The owner verted me, says you've always got a place here, and a room. Free of charge."

"That's...exceptionally generous. I didn't--'

"You saved Brothers Den. If that thing had won, it would have expanded. Taken us out, the power too. You're a bona fide hero, my friend."

Clancy offered what equated to a pained quarter smile, and opened the door to the snowy exterior. "Wait." He returned to the bar. "One final shot, please."

Zeit poured Krug '28 into a champagne glass. "You should be celebrating, my friend. America has lost so much, but tonight is victorious!"

Clancy heard him, the words didn't pierce the heart, but he heard. He cleared his throat. "To Ned Sidney Moore, an exemplary model of humanity. May we all strive to be...as gracious as he." Whether Clancy had given Ned a latent send off or a grim eulogy, he wasn't sure. But, it felt appropriate. He obliged one sip before setting the glass down, tipped his fedora, and returned to the door.

"Well, goodnight." Fedora pulled down snug, he went out.

The Philadelphia air ruined his senses. A reddened, stuffy nose and watery eyes occurred immediately. Clancy took in the purity of snowfall, how it silenced a world accustomed to various noises. Skyscrapers in the distance let out soft white lights in the darkness, enough for him to witness a comet passing. A mixture of yellow and tar sped off toward the wilds of the West. Unlike Halley's, this particular phenomena arose from the Earth and projected up, up and away. Clancy observed it in a mood often foreign to him. Peaceful.

A sharp bleat from a honking horn brought him back to the physical. At the edge of the street, a regal behemoth, '34 Lincoln in mauve paint and black fenders, headlights lighting the way. Clancy slid down the angled driveway, enjoyed the breeze. The comet left and took his sadness. He hopped into the automobile.

"Evening. I see after decades of steamheart power, diesel autos are beginning to catch on."

The driver, a black man in a debonair red suit sporting and bold enough to wear sunglasses after dark, looked at Clancy via the oval rear view mirror. "Yessir! They sell 'em cheaper to compete. Competition's good, so they say. I say it depends on who you're competing against, and why." He chuckled, pulled down the red flag to start the fare and drove off.

Clancy considered the night, the Philbrick in his hands, still warm, his entire life. He determined to contact his child, make arrangements to have her visit more often, be more helpful to the ex-wife and so forth. Yes. Small, positive changes. Long overdue, but not too late. "One day at a time."

"Say something, sir?"

"My apologies, my good man. Merely thinking out loud. Say, mind if I ask you a question?"

"Shoot."

"What's your take on this paranormal situation, the masks and all? Do they do all right by your account, in your neighborhood? I hear they scattered long ago, popping up in a lot of cities, countries. I assume Philadelphia has one or two."

The driver burst into riotous laughter as he drove on. "I'm sorry, sir! Sorry!"

"If it's a joke to you then nevermind. I simply wanted to know where I should...where a friend of such nature might go to proceed on such a route. If you know anything of the subject."

The driver gazed into the mirror. He lowered the sunglasses, revealed to his rider a set of iridescent pink eyes. "Must be kismet, 'cuz, brother, you don't know the half!"

He drove Clancy Stork to his future.

                                                                                     END