Travelogue II: Recycle Park

I'd just been sacked from my job with the Movers and I found myself drifting aimlessly around. I'd leave home early in the morning so that none of the neighbours would realise I'd lost my job and spend the day wandering around the neighbourhood, finding new places to visit and while away the hours while I tried to work out what to do next. Of course, I picked up a job as an insurance agent not long after that, but in those few weeks in the middle, I stumbled across Recycle Park.

From a distance the park looks like any other I've been too: the edges delimited with box-hedges and railings in places, gates at several entrance around the edges, and signs just inside the gates to tell you something of the history of the park. There are lots of trees at the main entrance to Recycle Park, mostly sycamores and beeches, with a couple of stands of Silver Birch a little way in. In summer it looks verdant and wonderful; in winter I bet it looks bleak and isolated.

I didn't bother to read the signs in the park at first, I just wandered around. Then I came across the children's play area, and paused for a moment. The play area was a roughly oval open space, with bushes and shrubs thickly lining most of it, and a single tarmac path winding through. It was clear that the intent was that anyone visiting the area or leaving it would have to use the path. The ground was covering in soft wood chips, favoured for play areas these days. Out of that rose a white climbing frame, but the frame was constructed out of large, curved beams that were shaped like bones. Where the bones weren't long enough, two were articulated together, with what could be mistaken for tendons of some kind.

The roundabout was similarly organic looking; the swings looked for all the world as though they were suspended from long strings of muscle, again from a bone supporting frame. Everywhere I looked, the play area looked surprisingly organic.

After the play area I started noticing other oddities. The park benches were all metal, but when I looked closer, they appeared to have been made by compressing beer cans. The bandstand appeared to be constructed from compressed stacks of cardboard, and the roof was insulated with what looked like shredded carrier bags. The name of the park started to take on a new resonance.

Back at the park entrance, I found my suspicions were correct. The signs informed me that the park had been built on top of a landfill site using mostly items found in the landfill, from bones from a previous era when a slaughterhouse had stood here, to non-obviously toxic non-biodegradable waste such as carrier bags.

I didn't go back to the park again, but I did go home and shower for nearly an hour until I felt I'd manage to wash the taint of the place off my skin.

Travelogue I: The Elder Kitchen

I was driving down the old coast road towards Dunwich late one afternoon when I realised that I was getting low on fuel. Not wanting to spend the night in Dunwich again, I pulled off at the first exit and drove another mile or so to a small village with a single petrol station. Just behind the petrol station was a restaurant, with the odd name of the Elder Kitchen. I was just starting to feel hungry, so I decided to give it a try, and see what it had to offer.

I walked in and was immediately greeted by the Maitre'D, a squat little man with warty skin, a squint, and a clammy handshake. I recognised this as the Dunwich taint, that set of slightly squamous characteristics that affect the inhabitants of Dunwich and a couple of the surrounding smaller villages, and pretended that I hadn't noticed any of it. He was smartly dressed in a white ruffled dress shirt and a tuxedo that looked strangely damp, and asked me if I had a reservation. I conceded that I hadn't, and he smiled and said he was sure he could find me a table anyway. Looking around me at the dining room, I was sure he could too, of about twenty tables, only two were seated.

My table was against a wall of the restaurant, well away from the other two seated tables, and afforded me a view of most of the dining room and the entrance. The door to the kitchen was behind me. The table was well-laid with a crisp white tablecloth and sparkling silver and glassware. In the centre of the table was an off-white ceramic vase filled with a fragrant oil that held a floating wick. The Maitre'D was quick to bring me both the menu and a separate wine menu, and lit the wick. Almost immediately a rich, spicy scent rose from the liquid candle, reminding me of my time in the Middle East as a temple inspector.

I opened the menu first, wondering if the quality of the food would live up to the expectations set by the restaurant decor, or those set by the Maitre'D and the Dunwich Taint. The menu was short, with only two starters, five mains and two desserts offered, which I felt boded well: this allowed the chef to concentrate on producing quality food. As I read through the choices though, I was surprised to find that I had never seen any of them offered anywhere else before.

For a starter then, I had a choice between Mi-go Salad and Zoog skewers. The menu described the former as delicate pieces of Mi-go lightly fried in lemon and olive oil served on a bed of conventional salad leaves and the latter as three individual zoog roasted alive and skewered with peppers and onions. The mains were no more helpfully described; I was offered Roast young of Shub-Niggurath in an Abhoth sauce with no further explanation, Leg of Leng Spider served with your choice of vegetables, Tindalos steak with Dijon mustard and sour cream, chunky chips and black pepper served on a perfectly circular plate, Shoggoth shoulder with wilted vegetables from Leng, and Shocked chicken a l'Hastur. I was certain I didn't want the spider's leg, and a little curious as to how big the spider was that the restaurant could offer just one leg as a main course. The roast young of Shub-Niggurath sounded interesting, but I thought I would probably go with the safe sounding option of the steak.

For dessert I had a choice of Color Essence and Chocolate Nemesis. I was fairly certain I'd had a chocolate nemesis while in London a few years back, and the Color Essence didn't sound all that filling -- very avant garde I thought.

A waiter now appeared carrying a bread-basket and asking if I was ready to order, so I asked him for more information about the starters. He told me that the Mi-Go were also known as the Fungi from Yuggoth, but that they were a lot more like lobster than any earthly fungus. The Zoog he said, were rodent-like creatures that they had to source especially. Deciding that lobster sounded better than rat, I opted for the Mi-go salad. When I asked for the Tindalos steak though, the waiter turned pale. I pressed him on this, and he finally admitted, with a lot of reluctance, that they obtained the steaks 'very fresh' and that this was 'a little dangerous.' I insisted on the steak, and decided to defer choosing a dessert until after I'd eaten these.

I opened the wine menu at this point, and found that there were only two items listed: Ulthar Riesling and Fischwasser. I asked the waiter if this was a misprint for Kirschwasser, a spirit I found a liking for when posted in Mannheim studying the sewers there, and the waiter shook his head. This, he suggested, was not really suitable for me, and that I should try the Riesling. I accepted, not quite graciously, and the waiter disappeared with the menus and my order. I tried the bread.

It was extremely good, a little malty, and had a flavour that was almost meaty. Little seeds crunched when I chewed it, and it was moist and light. I ate all of it ravenously, only realised when I'd finished it that I was probably making a pig of myself. I sat back and looked round, and was relieved to see that the other diners had paid me no attention. My attention turned back to the odd listing in the wine menu; my German was good enough to translate Fischwasser as Fish water, and I now wondered if perhaps this was reserved for the locals from Dunwich, and maybe this was why it wasn't suitable for me. I'd never heard of Ulthar, but a Riesling is a hard wine to spoil in my opinion.

I heard the door to the kitchen open behind me, and for a moment I heard hysterical shrieking and a deep growling that seemed to vibrate in my bones, and then my waiter was placing my salad in front of me. He looked a little shocked, and there were two deep wounds on his arm clearly visible through a torn sleeve, yet neither was bleeding; they seemed like something has punched cleanly in and out, pulling away a plug of flesh and sealing off the surrounding tissue in the process. I opened my mouth to ask him about this, but was distracted by the rattle of a trolley across the floor, and saw a silver-cloched platter being delivered to a table across the room. The platter was the size of an occasional table itself, and my question became asking what was.

Chocolate Nemesis said my waiter quietly, and quickly left. I watched as the cloche was lifted off to reveal a large, deep pool of chocolate above which small twists of steam seemed to writhe. Around the edge of the pool were designs in some rich red sauce that seemed almost runic, and from where I was it was hard to focus on them, they seemed almost to be squirming beneath the weight of my gaze. I had turned my attention back to my salad -- glistening green leaves with succulent lumps of something pink, not unlike lobster nestled in it, and a fragrant aroma mixed with something vinegary rising from it -- when the two waiters that had brought the trolley in started chanting. My fork, raised halfway to my lips, slowed and halted and my gaze was pulled to the table as strongly as though someone had seized my head and were turning it for me. My lips started to move of their own accord, and I found myself chanting strange words I'd never heard before in time with the waiters.

A strange somnolance seemed to come over me then, and though I still chanted I felt drowsy and my body felt heavy, too heavy to stand up or move. A slight chill came over me, and my fingers, toes and lips went numb, but this didn't stop me chanting. I could see across the way that the diners who had ordered the Chocolate Nemesis were also lolling back in the chairs, seemingly dazed. One of them spasmed for a moment, his eyelids fluttering, and a hand lifting, stretching out towards the platter, but then it fell back and he became still again.

Then the deep, dark pool of chocolate rippled, and rippled again though nothing was touching it. The ripples grew into small waves, which became choppy and splashed, growing taller and taller, until suddenly a tower of chocolate rose from the platter, formed itself into a tentacle, and seized one of the diners, wrapping around his neck and snaking down his body. It reached his waist, and then retracted, pulling him out of his chair and down into the pool, impossibly swallowing him inside the dessert on the dish. Something in the back of my mind screamed and howled, thumping mental fists on whatever it was that numbed and bedazed me, but I couldn't stop chanting or turn my gaze away, watching at that dreadful dessert formed another chocolate tentacle and ensnared the other diner.

Something broke in my mind, and my fork fell from my hand. It tinged brightly against the plate, and the numbing oppression lost its grip on me, and I could turn away from the abominable dessert at last. I found my waiter stood on the other side of me, looking at me appraisingly.
"Only one diner has ever survived to eat that dessert," he said quietly. "It's a bit too extreme for most people."
"Bill please!" I said brightly, suddenly desperate to get out of the restaurant.
"Just go," he said.

I left as fast as I could, and made no note of the roads I took to get back to something approaching civilisation. I had no wish to return to the Elder Kitchen again. Though to this day I still wonder about that Leng Spider. Perhaps if I see they're offering a take-away and delivery service I might order it out of curiousity.

Playfair continues

Interview Room A was on the ground floor, and Detective Inspector Playfair's office was up two flights of stairs, along an uncarpetted corridor, past the canteen and at the end of the short corridor that broke off to the right. Playfair, a tall, athletic man, stamped his way along the corridors back to his office. People in the rooms and offices nearby flinched at each heavy footfall and were relieved to hear them going past. Everyone, it seemed, had at some point or another been under fire from an enraged DI Playfair.

As Playfair flung the door to his office open wide it bounced off the doorstop and juddered on its hinges, twanging gently. Behind him, another door opened, and Miss Flava came out the office she shared with two secretaries and a Rottweiler. Playfair stamped across the threadbare carpet in his office to his desk and sat down heavily in the huge leather chair behind it. Miss Flava came in behind him, closed the door gently, turned to face him, and put both hands on her hips. She was quite angular, and this made her look like she was constructed out of triangles.

"Well?" she said, tapping her foot.

"It's the Usual Suspects," said Playfair, pulling the brass Newton's cradle across the desk.

"What? Maggie and Thora are behind this? That's ridiculous! I know they successfully hid their heroin smuggling ring behind the WI's jam competition for years, but mass murder? In a small flat near the town centre? Playfair, are you completely off your rocker?" Miss Flava flushed dusky rose, her chin jutted out towards Playfair, and her voice reached a contralto, as high as it ever got.

"No, Miss Flava, it's the Usual Suspects. The film," said Playfair, setting the cradle in motion. The little brass balls clicked rhythmically. "Nnnk-thss gave me a garbled version of the plot of the usual suspects, right down to a mastermind called Cesar Sausage, if you can believe it. I've put him in the cells and told him to have another go at it."

"Oh! Right, well that makes a little more sense," said Miss Flava, standing down slightly and letting her arms drop to her sides. "Wait, I thought we'd put the severed heads in the only spare cell?"

"We have," said Playfair, his eyes watching the cradle. "And now we've put Nnnk-thss in there as well, to have a think about things."

Miss Flava's eyes widened, but she said nothing. She knew what her boss was like, and how many times he'd been hauled in front of the police disciplinary committee. She also had a good idea that he was bribing people near the top of the police hierarchy in order to keep his job, but had decided that was something she didn't need to know any more about. She looked at him, his head bent, watching the cradle demonstrate physics, and knew that he was letting his instincts have their way.

"What else should I be worrying about today, Miss Flava?" said Playfair, not looking up.

"Well, you have an internal meeting in a few minutes to discuss the Christmas menu for the canteen," said Miss Flava. Playfair humphed, sounding dispeptic. "Your last memo to the committee for this," she continued serenely, "suggested that they roast anything they could find in the evidence locker and treat the result as a suppository. I amended that to something a little more constructive; your new suggestion is the menu on your..." she paused, her eyes scanning Playfair's desk, "... under your coffee-cup.
Other than that, you've been asked not to help with the interviews for the break-in on the Highbury estate as the arresting officer is scared of you; the community liaison officer wants a word with you, probably to ask you not to liaise with the community again; there's been a break-in at an antiques shop that no-one can be bothered with and has been pushed to you, and at some point you'll have to re-interview this man with the usual suspects story."

"Nnnk-thss," said Playfair. "That's what he's calling himself at the moment."

"Right," said Miss Flava. "I've got his description circulating already."

"When have I liaised with the community recently?" Playfair looked up, frowning.

"Technically," said Miss Flava, trying not to smile, "you were liaising with the community when you punched the paramedic who was trying to get Mr. Nnnk-thss into the ambulance to go to the hospital and knocked him into the traffic cones."

"Ah," said Playfair.

Detective Inspector Playfair wonders

"So," said Detective Inspector Playfair, "this 'Cesar Sausage' killed all of these people?" He sat behind a thin plywood desk in Interview Room A looking at a thin, snake-like man squirming on a hard wooden chair opposite. "It seems like a lot of effort to go to. We removed 33 bodies from that flat, and, for some reason no-one has yet been able to explain, 41 heads."

"That's Cesar for you," said the snake-like man. His tongue flickered barely out of his mouth, wetting his lips, and DI Playfair noted that it had been split. "When he makes a statement, everyone hears it." His s's were sibilant.

"So it would seem," said DI Playfair. "Only this is the first time I've ever heard of him, and I've been working here now for five years. So has Mr. Sausage been keeping quiet for a while?"

"I can't speak for Cesar," said the snake-like man. DI Playfair noted that the man's eyes were slightly yellow, but whether that was coloured contact lenses or jaundice he couldn't tell in the dim electric lighting. The energy-saving bulbs in the police station seemed to take hours to warm up enough to be useful.

"You're here speaking against him now," said Playfair. "I have three pages that you've dictated, here in front of me." He tapped the pages for emphasis. Minute black handwriting covered them densely, making them seem as though they'd been attacked by mould. "What I don't understand yet is why you're speaking out against him."

"I told you already!" said the snake-like man, sitting up in his chair. He seemed to be almost vibrating, his back was stiff and straight and his shoulders thrust out. Playfair thought that if the little man were actually related to a snake he'd be a cobra, his hood now rising up to make his head seem bigger and more of a threat.

"Yes, but you've also told me that your name is 'Nnnk-thss,' that you're an acolyte of some Mesopotamian snake-god, and, as best as I remember, most of the plot to 'The Usual Suspects.' Including 'Cesar Sausage,' which is a reference so unsubtle even the desk sargeant out there --" Playfair pointed with the fine-nibbed pen he'd used to write the statement, "-- got it. Which means I had to put up with him leaning heavily against my shoulder and whispering to me that he thinks you might be a little bit conservative with the truth, only in words that the Sun uses for its headlines, and in breath smelling strongly of the all-day breakfast the cafe round the corner does. Which, for the record, I did not appreciate."

Nnnk-thss slouched back in his chair again, and his eyes half-closed as his mouth half-opened. Playfair cut him off.

"So, Mr. Nnnk-thss, I'm going to put you in a cell for a while to think about this. And the only cell I have available at the moment is the one containing the 41 heads we removed from that flat. So you'll have plenty of familiar faces to talk to, while you sort your next story out."

Playfair stood up and pushed the next firmly back, pinning the snake-like man against the wall. The breath gasped out of him, and Playfair leaned harder on the desk, making it hard for the man to breathe in.

"The next story had better be a good one. I like originality in my plots."

Take two goblins before breakfast with water...

'You're overworked,' said Doctor Melchitt in grave tones. 'You need to get get some better brownies. Have you checked to see if the ones you have have --' and here he lowered his voice and continued in a conspiratorial whisper '-- communist sympathies?'
'I think my brownies are entirely normal, Doctor,' I said meekly. Doctor Melchitt had long grey sideburns that cascaded down his face and fell off the bottom of his jaw and deep-set eyes that were so shadowed by his brow that I've never managed to make out their colour. He scared me, with his authoratative manner and huge, huge hands that palpated and prodded and made me squirm.
'You should check anyway,' he said. 'Perhaps you could leave a little extra milk out for them, or if you're feeling generous add a small amount of cream to the milk before you put the saucer down.' He leaned forward and whispered again 'And you could leave some squares of red cloth around the house. If they disappear...' he leaned back and tapped a knotty finger against the side of his nose.
'Thank-you Doctor,' I said meekly, and got up.
'I'll give you two prescriptions,' he said, turning back to his scarred metal desk and pulling his presciption pad forwards to the edge of it. 'One is for two dozen fresh brownies, in case you find that yours are... somehow, shall we say, defective. And the other is for 200 valium tablets to help you relax somewhat.'
'Thank-you, Doctor,' I said with feeling, sitting back down while he wrote out my prescriptions. I'd been running low on valium all week, and had been extremely worried that the Doctor would refuse to renew my prescription. I left his office quite cheerfully a couple of minutes later with both prescriptions.
I was overworked, or at least I would be if I worried about the housework, but I didn't; I left that kind of worry to my sister. She had a doctor of her own, thankfully not Doctor Melchitt or even one associated with his practise, and I'd been careful never to mention to Doctor Melchitt that I had any kind of family at all. She fretted over the lack of brownies that we had, that she was unable to attract any, and that any she was prescribed seemed to just evaporate in less than a week. I'd sympathised with her, and told her that I suspected the house was simply ill-aspected and no self-respecting brownie would stay put for longer than a few days, but she was growing more and more resistant to the idea. So lately I'd been telling her that I'd seen goblin-spoor in the garden, which had triggered a mild anxiety attack that goblins might be hunting down her brownies and eating them.
Though goblins were indeed the most cannabalistic of the fey races the truth was somewhat more prosaic. I was crushing the valium that Doctor Melchitt had prescribed me and dissolving it in the milk that my sister put out for the brownies each night. Each morning I would find comatose brownies strewn around the kitchen, depending on where they were when the valium had kicked in. I gathered them up, inspected them and kept the ones that I didn't already have in my collection, and sold the rest on to other collectors. My collection was very nearly complete, I was missing only a mottled-red brownie that was typically only found in Hungary, and a large greenish coloured brownie that constantly oozed ichor and was normally only found near the seashores. Each of them were pinned down beneath large glass display plates with magnetised iron pins that stopped them using their fairy powers to escape. The collection was worth several hundred thousand pounds to the right person, and would land me in gaol for ten to fifteen years if discovered: ever since the fairy races were accorded the same rights as humans collecting them has been illegal.
Prescribing brownies wasn't illegal of course, as the prescription was just for chemicals that brownies found very attractive, and were regulated to stop collectors from using them to gather brownies up en masse. Every year it seemed another mass grave of brownies would be uncovered from the days when they were considered to be little more than helpful butterflies.
I was confident that with a prescription for two dozen brownies and 200 valium tablets that I could either ensnare the last two brownies I needed, or at least gathe enough of the other kinds to be able to trade for them. Then the collection would be complete, and I could start on goblins. I'd been planning this for a couple of months now, when it became obvious that I was nearly there on brownies. Goblins aren't protected by law, or by lore for that matter, even the fey races consider them to be vermin, so the collection would be legal this time, and I could exhibit it and take pride in it. I was getting quite excited by the idea. The downside would be that I would need to attract goblins, which would probably mean that my sister still wouldn't be able to keep any brownies for any length of time. I shrugged to myself, and wondered if goblins could be trained to do the housework.

Ugly is the new black

I've never considered myself to be an avid follower of fashion; if anything, I prefer to set trends than follow them. This isn't particularly easy either, as the best way to set a trend is to be visible in the public eye, and immune from ridicule. Consider David Beckham at his peak (rather than his bottle-blond, what-is-he-married-to current state of decay) when even wearing a skirt wasn't enough to have the whole country (deservedly) laughing at him. I hate the limelight, it's just not my colour, so setting a trend for me means that I have to appear in the right places at the right times and catch the eye of the right people. It's tough, but I usually make the effort once or twice a year.

Back when I first started doing this the intoxicating rush I got from watching as the trend took hold was incredible; I literally couldn't believe how exhilarating it was to see people copying the way I dressed and the way I accessorised. Naturally as soon as the trend was clearly taking hold I stopped wearing it, as I have no wish to appear to be the same as everybody else. Underneath everything we are all the same, but that doesn't mean that I want it to be obvious. Friends and acquaintances (you know, those people who know you and think they can talk to you and don't realise how annoying you find them) would come up and comment on that fact that I wasn't following the fashion, and I would smile smugly and point out that I'd been wearing it half a season ago and was over it now. Shortly after that I had to find new friends and acquaintances, but I've been doing that all my life anyway.

I am tempted occasionally to see how far I can push it, but having done it once I won't do it again. As entertaining as it was to watch a ballroom full of fashionistas turn into a conflagration due to my having set a trend for highly flammable wispy fabrics and their industry awards having gone for the faux-romantic look of real candles, it was expensive in many ways and the thrill was remarkably short-lived. I kept the newspaper cuttings though; everyone should have some record of what they've achieved in life.

I entertain myself now by watching the trends, and rarely nudging them when I feel they're getting too ridiculous, or when I think that someone is attempting to exert the kind of influence that I once did. The current fashion for declaring whatever is in this season to be the new black is irritating me intensely though. The only circumstance under which pea-green can be the new black, for instance, is if a particular fashion designer is colour-blind. And to declare red to be the new black is simply to show a fundamental lack of understanding of the basic colour palette. To take out an entire primary colour like that leaves you in a drab, vaguely aquatic world. It makes me feel asthmatic, not uplifted and enlivened.

However, looking around the breakfast salon of my 5-star hotel this morning (not one of my choice I feel I should say, I am here at someone else's expense, though I feel as though I am here at the expense of my taste and sensibilities) I wonder if perhaps it would not be hyperbole to declare that ugly is the new black. It is surely the only explanation for what I see in front of me. Since when have wrinkles been fashionable? Yet everywhere I look I see them, on faces, on arms and legs, and even in the tablecloth in front of me. That at least I can smooth back into something more acceptable. The only place that wrinkles absent themselves from is the folds of fat on obese people who wobble into breakfast and collapse onto a chair which creaks self-pityingly as it strains itself to support the corpulence of its occupant.

Between the fat and the ugly I am left looking most incongruous indeed, being thin and easy to overlook. I would never dare to praise my looks, for the chorus of voices to contradict me would deafen me for life, yet here I am most out of place. I have no unsightly facial hair, I have no large boils or pimples. My features are mostly symmetrical and inoffensive. I am almost everything these people are not, and yet I am the exception to the rule, the odd one out. The odd dogma of fashion dictates therefore that I am unfashionable and out of place. Ugly is the only acceptable way to be.

And so, if ugly were to be the new black I would be terribly relieved, as black belongs in the shadows and at night, when the lighting is poor and dim, and what in plain daylight is seen to be something so hideous as to make you feel obliged to book an appointment at your own expense with a reputable plastic surgeon is at night only intriguing and mysterious. This then I shall tell myself, that ugly is simply the new black, and that I am doomed to be unfashionable for another season.

Only Michael vibrates this much

It is dark in the workshop but I am unwilling to light the gaslamps because they will wake Michael. He is sleeping in a long, narrow cage underneath a side-bench, and though he will be in shadow still when I light the lamps the hissing will wake him. His senses are all much more refined than those of other people, and what he can hear and at what distance I am still determining. He is too clever to just tell me, and I must devise ever more sophisticated experiments to deduce what he is keeping from me.

Michael is my favourite too, another reason why I would not wake him yet. He did not get to sleep until after the sun had come up this morning because I had been running the aether-condenser all night and I did not know that it generated a high-pitched tone that he could hear. I have applied myself diligently with an oscilloscope for most of the day so that I may determine the frequency of this tone when Michael wakes and I switch the aether-condenser on again. It will give me another measure of Michael's sensitivity to sound.

I am sitting in near-darkness contemplating a way to generate a silent beam of pure light for occasions such as this when Michael wakes at last. I cannot see him, but I hear him moving as he turns over a couple of times in his cage. He cannot stand up while in the cage, it is a similar shape to a coffin, but wider. Then there is a sharp buzz on the very edge of my hearing and I know that Michael has started to vibrate. Then a patch of darkness in the workshop moves and becomes man-shaped and I know that he has stood up, through the bars of the cage and the worktop, and anything I might have carelessly left there, and is moving away from them. He pauses for a moment, and I know that he can see me far better than I can see him, and that he will smell the labours of the day on me too. Then he turns back to the wall, and emits that sharp buzz again. Some thirty seconds later he has lit the first of the gaslamps and is proceeding around the workshop to light the rest.

The gaslamps cast a warm golden light about the workshop which reflects back softly from the beaten-copper vessels on the long workbench at the back, and dances happily amongst the glassware on the shelves above all of the workbenches. I am sat in a high-backed armchair with wings such that I can sit back in the shadows and be indistinguishable even in good daylight. It was once upholstered with good red velvet and gold beading, but it has seen better days, particularly the days before I discovered that even when he vibrates Michael disturbs liquids. Michael has healed, but the chair was equally doused in a mixture of corrosive fluids and has failed to heal even slightly.

'You have been working all day, and will continue into the night?' says Michael, a frown creasing his high forehead. Soft black hair falls over his face as he frowns, and he pushes it casually back with his left hand. His eyes, yellow as a cat's, glitter in the gaslight.

'Work always continues,' I say, 'whether I participate or not.'

'Will you be needing my blood tonight then?'

'No.' This is the first night in three weeks I have not needed blood samples from Michael, but this is the first time that I have had a notable success during the day. 'I have three vials of elixir that when poured on something solid will make it vibrate as you do,' I say. 'I think that tonight we shall attempt to improve our fortunes instead.'

Michael smiles, sensual red lips parting enough to reveal that his teeth are naturally sharply pointed, almost triangular, and his tongue pokes out, long enough for me to notice that it is forked at the end. I have known this ever since I caged him, but it surprises me everytime. I suppress my shudder though, as I am aware that it would only excite him.

'Can you show me?' he asks, his smile turning into an impish grin.

I nod, I had been expecting him to ask, and in truth, I would prefer to test the elixir before we reach the bank. I turn to the long workbench, and in passing turn on the aether-condenser. If tonight is a success I shall be needing much more aether. It burps rudely, then settles down emitting a low, rumbling chugging. Michael winces as it does so, and reminds me about the oscilloscope. I flick another switch to turn it on, and leave it to settle while I pick up the half-bottle of elixir set next to three full ones. I uncork it, and pour the contents out onto a twisted lump of iron, salvaged from an experiment some months ago that set the workshop on fire and necessitated a complete rebuilding. The iron, blackened and warped, nonetheless seems to glitter where the elixir has pooled. I slip a stiff leather glove on, and rub the elixir over the iron completely. Everywhere the elixir touches starts to glitter, clearly an effect of the elixir itself as the iron is as dull and unreflective as ever.

Michael reaches out a hand, and it passes straight through the iron. His heavy eyebrows rise in startlement.

'You see,' I said, 'I think that this elixir confers the properties that you can induce in yourself at will. It causes the iron to vibrate as fast as you until it evaporates.'

Michael shrugs, and seems to blur. That irritating sharp buzz pulses through my head again, but now Michael can pick the iron up and heft it in his hand. 'And if I threw this at someone now?' he says.

I shrug. 'If the elixir were to evaporate in mid-flight I dare say that it would hurt, or kill, when it struck. If the elixir did not, then it should pass straight through them, and give them naught more than a nasty shock.'

Michael hefts it thoughtfully once more, then turns towards the doorway of the workshop and throws it. As soon as the iron leaves his hand it seems to contract becoming impossibly thin and then disappearing altogether. It certainly does not fly across the workshop as I had expected. Michael smiles, and for the first time since I have caged him, I find his smile oddly sinister.

'It seems to work perfectly,' he says, and I find myself nodding in agreement with him. His voice is rich, mellow, and has undertones that seem to ring in harmony with my soul. I know he has this ability too, and I have earplugs set aside to protect me from its effects, but I am not wearing them today, foolishly. I have grown trusting and believe that Michael and I are working towards the same goals.

'Let us go then, and liberate gold from the vaults of the bank,' he says, and I turn to the bench to collect the vials of elixir. I have no choice, and for all that this was ever my plan, I am wondering if perhaps Michael has a plan after my plan that he has not yet divulged to me. I must leave the workshop in the mundane fashion, by the door, but Michael just walks through the wall. For in this world only Michael vibrates that much.