Bogdan dropped Nathan at his own shitty rental cottage where his brother—Sonny Brant—watched the car through the window, vague orange light from the kitchen pouring in behind him. Alan was gone already, they'd driven him far out into the country, and then slowed the car down until the janitor's eyes went wild, and he flung open the door and leapt out. They'd slowed to maybe ten to give him the idea, and after crumpling into a dusty dirt track the poor kid sprang up in an instant, pumping his feet hard until he collapsed among the bushes. Bogdan stopped the car, and Nathan opened his door and shouted.

"Fuck!" to make it look like it was strictly the kid's idea to escape, and they weren't actually glad to be rid of him.

Crashing of a terrified body slipped away further and further into the woods at Brant's howl. The kid thought he'd made good on an escape. Nathan chuckled and pulled the door shut before Lusk tore off down the road.

Now alone Bogdan pulled back into the driveway of Thwaite's little country house and found the other guard—Roger—leaning by the front door. Face downcast but still watchful, he peered up at the car and didn't look away until Lusk stepped out. It was after midnight, and Lusk knew it could mean only one thing if he was out here.

"Thwaite in the basement?"

Roger paused before answering, but eventually said, "Yes."

"Alone?"

"Of course."

"You should be in the living room," said Bogdan, examining Roger. "Might be strange if you were spotted by a passing car—you're not even smoking."

Roger nodded glumly. Was it really possible he'd only just found out the rumours were true, tonight? Lusk examined him a moment more and then stepped into the house—he was greeted by a spicy, sulphur-tinged smell of charcoal. It was drifting up from the basement with Thwaite.

Roger stepped in behind him, shut the door hard, locked it, and dragged an armchair near to the window—to watch. Opened it an inch before sitting—couldn't stand the smell. Lusk frowned.

"I'm going into the kitchen for dinner," said Bogdan.

"Even with that smell?" complained Roger.

Lusk ignored that, and instead said, "Switch the light off in there so no one sees you."

After a second's hesitation Roger stood again and slapped the switch. His face was tight, Bogdan knew the man was afraid to be in the house when Thwaite was working in the basement.

Fucker must not have had to guard the procession in Belgium or he'd have known about Thwaite before then—Bogdan's mind stopped at the thought. Roger had never guarded the procession, had he? Couldn't have, if all this still scared him. He'd been newly promoted then and sent off on a job like this straight away. That's why he'd never seen him before. Someone was playing at something.

Bogdan smirked and began to think of the odds as he pulled various items from the fridge to leave on the table so that his lie would not be immediately apparent if Roger glanced in. He decided as he finished that odds were that Roger was in some way a threat to him and his job. Too new. Promoted too fast.

Found himself wondering how things would go if he just walked back in and slit Rogers throat with a kitchen knife? But it was possible Thwaite was the one up to something and had placed Roger here. This seemed likely in fact, becuase he took the service of an apparent stranger too easily for other possibilities to have real force.

If it was Venner who planted Roger, things would get complicated. Because why have two spies on Thwaite? The thought reminded Lusk of his own job for Venner. He glanced across at the basement door, listening.

Led down a dreary wood-panelled shaft—vintage 1970—to another door that would be locked from the inside. But Bogdan only needed to overhear what was happening, and then report it back to Mr. Venner if didn't sound above-board.

Bogdan switched off the kitchen lights—Thwaite's work could be interrupted by even a tiny bit of wayward light entering the equation—and then slipped onto the stairs, closing the door behind him with the gentleness of a thief. Crept down the wood with care—he'd practiced and memorized which were the quiet steps every time Thwaite left him alone in the house. At the bottom he placed his ear against the door and listened.

Thwaite was working with the bones. The sound startled him—made his own hair stand on end. Lusk possessed a vague notion of what was happening—yet the reality of it always took him aback.

"Sotor the Second!" boomed Thwaite, his voice raspy with the effort and smoke in his face. "Dead by beheading! Left to rot in a gibbet! Head on a spike! You failed to retrieve your namesake's treasure and died by the effort! Your followers killed or scattered—thugs routed like peasants you pathetic failure of your line and name! Wretch—pretender!"

"No! It is not me—I swear it—I am not he!"

Bogdan almost jumped. The responding voice sounded as though speaking through water; garbled, small, and pathetic. A drowning animal—a child.

Bogdan tried to picture the scene beyond but failed. All he knew was that beyond this one locked door of wood lay another wood-panelled room. Empty except for Thwaite's things. There'd be a summoning circle of chalk. Sulphur candles. A brazier. Books and blasting rods and a silver mirror. Bogdan carted most if down himself—but never had Bogdan ever been this close when the things were in use. For all his scorn of Roger the processions were as close as he'd been to it before, and this new closeness was terrifying. Only steel resolve born of intense training made him remain.

"It is your name!" roared Thwaite. "You are he! These are your bones—all the remains of you in this world! I have drawn you here with them! In the circle with me here also is the stake they drove through your head when they buried you—I would give your spirit freedom if I destroyed it."

"No!" moaned the voice once again. "Not me! Not me! Those are my bones but not my name! Mistaken!"

"You lie!" said Thwaite—something chimed like metal or a very small bell, and the sunken voice shrieked. Thwaite's voice boomed over this "Deceive me no more, wretch!"

The chime came again—so did the terrible shriek from beneath a creek—but that descended to a murmur before changing pitch with the rapidity of a knife being drawn.

Something was snarling in the basement now—a lion perhaps—but the chime came once again, and so did the shout, "Deceive me no more! You are man—not devil—and your form is spawned from these bones once encased by flesh—infinitely weak—whereas I am infinitely strong. I draw you to me, and I bind you by the might and name of Sotor the Third!"

"Are you he?" hissed the Lion.

"I am Adrastos—his Left Hand!"

"Liar," the Lion snarled, and then spat, "Leave me be! I am not what you seek!"

"The mystic and holy rite of Rocofale showed us your bones!" responded Thwaite, all the bolder and defiant. "The lightened might of Pan's dark arrival showed us your treasure, and I would gain both. Step before my gaze and be bound! Your successor demands service, and I cast this spell in his name!"

Two hits of the chime came in rapid succession, and the Lion groaned, and the pitch changed once again. It was the voice of a man now, old and defeated.

"I yield..." it mumbled. "I yield. As you wish... Adrastos the Grand."

"There is a ring on the floor," rapped Thwaite. "Outside of my circle. Kiss it and call Sotor the Third your master for as long as we possess your bones and the stake the false-holy men insolently bound you with—swear you will take the commands of that Grand Final Third of your name as well as Adrastos the Grand. With that action you are his subject—mine too—and bound to any command either of us bestows upon you."

A rush of air beyond the door followed this. There came a small clink of metal—the ring hitting the ground.

"Thou art bound! Turn your spirit-eyes to the treasure denied you in life and follow it wherever it goes. I would know whenever it is taken to a new location," said Thwaite. "Now leave my sight and bother me no more until called upon!"

A final chime of metal came, and Bogdan stared at the wooden door for a moment before he realized it was time to go, right now. Before the first step up, the noises changed to a light metal tapping, like a hammer beyond. It drifted through the wood. Repeated and never-ending—still going when he reached the top of the stairs with the same silence that he descended them with.

Bogdan opened the door and at the top there came a click from deeper in the kitchen. Another door—the one to the living room had just shut. Roger.

Stiff and ready for attack Bogdan shut the basement door with due care, and then reached out and slapped on the kitchen light. Roger wasn't there—but he had been. Seconds earlier. Monitoring him as he'd monitored Thwaite while he dabbled in his Satanic thrills.

Seems they had a problem after all.

The door down below unlocked with a click, and Bogdan heard heavy, tired steps coming up the stairs. Thwaite would sleep until at least noon tomorrow—recouping his terrible energies after such an exertion. The man would then eat an enormous breakfast to aid in regaining that power.

Lusk slipped into the living room before they could meet, and Roger glanced at him with an unreadable face—Lusk ignored this and slipped upstairs to the second floor without a word. He reached the guest room allotted to him and sat on the bed in the darkness. He'd have nothing bad to report to Venner—at least regarding Thwaite's behaviour—but something had to be done about Roger now. The guest-list expanded in Bogdan's mind as he sat on the bed, switched out the light to face dark thoughts of murder.

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1670 words.

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