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  I see my intestines droop.

  So stupid. So stupid

  The tarot had told me. The letter had told me.

  The High Priestess. Superficialities were a danger, and I had to get in touch with femininity.

  The letter never said it was a warlock. Just that the name was Shen Fin. And though Shen is a very male name, the Chinese list their surnames first. So in American parlance – or French – the name is really Fin Shen. A male surname – not unusual – with the first name Fin. Perhaps a misspelling of Fan, a definitely feminine name.

  This is a woman. I am facing a woman.

  Merde. Merde, merde.

  I stumble back. Clutching at my innards.

  Fin/Fan/Shen laughs. Throaty and beautiful. The laugh of someone I would bed in other circumstances.

  “I don’t know who you are,” she says, “but this is the last mistake you will ever make.”

  She steps toward me.

  I draw a sigil. This time I am not tracing invisibly. I draw it in my own blood. The most powerful sigils are drawn with fluid – tears, semen, urine, blood. I draw it automatically, falling back on the things I know best. But it should work here. Should work perfectly, in fact.

  I draw the sigil that will cause any woman to fall in love with me. Head over heels. And with my blood as the power source it will not be a one-night stand. This woman, this deceiving bitch, will be my love-slave for eternity. I will make her heal me, I will take the florin piece, and I will use her in the most painful ways and delight as she loves me for it.

  The sigil finalizes.

  She sighs. Her dagger falls from nerveless hands.

  “Come here, mon ami,” I whisper. My strength ebbs.

  She dips down. And picks up the dagger.

  Her hair is short again.

  What is happening?

  The High Priestess. Hidden agendas, things unknown, superficial understandings.

  And the Hebai: half-white, half-black. Certain physical qualities required to be members.

  “Mon Dieu.”

  I understand at last. Shen/Fin is both woman and man. Some sort of hermaphrodite, with properties of both – and of neither.

  I have nothing to combat her/him. My mind locks up.

  I black out.

  When I wake up I think for a moment it has all been a dream. I am on a bed, soft and comfortable. Laying on my belly.

  But then I try to turn over, and cannot.

  I hear footsteps approach. They sound strange. I realize they sound like hoof beats. But only two. Clop… clop… clop… clop….

  My hands are tied to something, as are my legs. I am spread-eagled and nude. When I try to move my limbs something bites into my wrists and ankles and I feel purest agony. I scream.

  Clop… clop… clop… clop….

  The sound is at my head. Something grabs my hair and yanks it up and it is agony and for the first time in my life I wish I were bald.

  I scream again as I see the… thing… looking at me. Smiling at me.

  What is this? What’s happening? Where am I?

  But I know. The Hebai are white and black. Male and female. Guardians of Heaven and Hell. And they take the dead to their just desserts.

  I always thought I would go to Heaven.

  The demon in front of me laughs. Its teeth are huge, its mouth so wide it disappears around the curve of its misshapen head and I am sure it will consume me. Then it stands. Like me, it is nude, and I see its most prominent feature dangling in front of my eyes.

  It moves behind me. Gets on the bed.

  I wish it had consumed me.

  Before it starts, it whispers in my ear with a voice soft and terrible.

  “Do you love me?”

  The Story of Simon Borger by Glynn James

  Centuries ago, people like me could hide themselves away, if it was necessary. We could escape from trouble, or just from other folks, by hitting the road and just moving on. Distance back then was equal to anonymity if you really wanted it to be. Sure, rumors and myths could spread across vast distances over time, but you were talking about years, not the few seconds that it takes an email to blast along the veins of modern technology and arrive at its destination thousands of miles away.

  As I sat there at my dining table, reading the letter from a man whom I both feared and admired, it occurred to me that even so far away from every other member of the organization that my life was tied to by a very thin pulse, I was still never far enough away to be out of the politics that come with the covens.

  I also realized that if I didn't think of a plan, and soon, I was fucked.

  So, we were all to be brought together in one place for the first time in years, at least that was what the letter said. I vaguely recalled the last time - was it ten years ago already? I couldn't remember exactly how many people ended up dead at that meeting, but it was too many for me to be enthusiastic about being there at the next. And it wasn't even a general everyone invited, no, this was sent to me specifically. That was not a good sign, not a good sign at all.

  As I leafed through the few pages, my eyes pausing for a long time at the signature at the end of the letter. It occurred to me that the old man must be getting old. Hell, he was already old when I met him. He must be ancient. Something didn't feel right, didn't feel right at all. A successor? Like the guy was ever going to stand down, or roll over and hand the leadership to anyone else. The idea that Levi Phillips would voluntarily step aside - even nominate his successor, was so far off the radar that I wondered if it was some kind of joke. But there it was, written and signed.

  Something definitely wasn't right, and I felt the pressure of an unresolved mystery pushing on my temples. I wished that I could see beyond the smokescreen.

  Trust me when I say - with warlocks there was always smokescreen.

  Levi Philip's was a conniving, heartless, plotting son of a bitch, and probably one of the most dangerous individuals on the other side of the pond - quite probably the most dangerous if you were only counting those who still had a pulse. People like that don't stand down. For him to openly tell the entire coven - or at least the portion going to do his little errand - he was getting old and weak, was nuts. It was suicide. Personally, I wouldn't have given a flying rat's ass for the leadership of the coven, but the others would kill for it, and they'd kill me if they so much as suspected I was interested, which they now would since I was one of those chosen to play Levi's little game.

  Damn it. I liked it over in London, and not just because I was born there. It was far away from the in-fighting and the power play in the USA. In London, I was the frontier of the coven, the outrider, the adventurer living on the borderlands, not to mention the envoy to the old world. Or maybe I was just a token gesture. It didn't matter - it meant no local competition wanting to knock me off a non-existent perch just to go imagine standing upon it themselves. Okay, so there was only me and a few hundred vampires...and maybe half a dozen truly ancient mages…and sure, at least one lich. That was irrelevant. They left me alone. The most dangerous thing to a warlock? Other warlocks. I don't know who it was that once said if all the warlocks in the world were to work together, the world would be ruled by them, but on the rare occasions where I've seen cooperation on any level, the results were always staggering. Fortunately for the rest of the world, warlocks were often far too busy wrestling with each other to consider everything else.

  Witches? Sure, there were a bundle of those over here, thousands of them, actually, scattered all over every town in every county, and that was without stepping over the water to Europe, where their numbers were unimaginable. But they were no problem, none whatsoever. In my whole life I've been in one conflict with a witch. I got on extremely well with a number of others.

  The coins. They worried me. Nine pieces, all to be retrieved by a member of the coven and brought to one place. If the coins were part of something so powerful that they had to break it up and keep it separated in the first place, then why in the hell
had Levi never done it before, and for himself? Abramelin the Mage was one crazy old guy who created things that don't even bear thinking about, let alone meddling with. Sure, by the nature of our kind we're apt to dabble in the dark arts, conjure a few unpleasant things, and maybe poke a hole that probably shouldn't be poked - it's part of the job, or the compulsion, obsession - whatever you want to call it. But that Abramelin guy took it to a whole new level of crazy-as-a-motherfucker. Maybe that coin should just stay right where it is?

  I always did wonder how Abramelin passed away.

  So I was to go to North Carolina. Raleigh to be specific. I'd never been there before - been to many of the cities in the US, but not that one. I was to seek out the relatively unseasoned Jackson Taylor, top him, and take my piece of the coin. Simple, it sounded. Except that Jackson happened to be not only a relatively new member of his coven, he also happened to be the only son of that particular coven's leader. The guy was guarded like he was a new born.

  See? I was fucked. I needed a plan, and I needed one yesterday, or so I thought at the time.

  You see, years ago - when I was but a fledgling warlock, untrained, and wandering around doing stupid things - I had an encounter. One that I will never forget. Mainly because back then I thought I was the big guy, the best. I was stupid, very stupid, and full of confidence. I had no idea I was a bug that could be squished in an instant. I'll get to that one soon, but first let me tell you how I ended up in this gig.

  I was recruited straight off the streets of London. I was homeless and living out the back of an old warehouse that happened to be reasonably intact and kept the rain away, and it was far enough out into the older industrial district that folks didn't wander around there unless, like me, they had nowhere else to go. A dozen of us stuck together back then, all jobless and destitute. But we had each other, and unlike a lot of folks wandering the streets we looked after each other and shared whatever we found.

  One night one of the guys shared a little too much.

  I didn't know how the visitor spotted my friend heading back to the warehouse, or how long the visitor watched us, but at some point in the evening, while we were all sitting around our campfire and eating the few things we had managed to steal during the day, I started to feel dizzy.

  I blacked out. How long? I've no idea, even to this day. But when I came around I looked straight into the eyes of Levi Phillips, who was standing over me and peering at me with that nasty trickster gleam in his eyes.

  “You're not like them,” he said, indicating the bodies of my friends, every one of them now a thin, ragged corpse with skin stretched over skeletal features. The only reason I recognized some of them was because of their clothing. He'd murdered all of them while I was unconscious. But when he got to me he hesitated. He'd seen something that made him reconsider killing me too.

  That was my introduction to Levi Phillips. So, yeah, a murdering, nasty piece of work. But the man taught me a hell of a lot, and if there was any kind of redemption for what he'd done to my friends, he revealed to me a few weeks later that my friend had sold us out to the warlock, promising nearly a dozen people that wouldn't be missed by anyone. When Levi drains a person, he sees into their thoughts. He went on to tell me how every one of the others had considered sticking me with a knife at some point.

  When Levi came to me, he couldn't read a single thing from my mind. That was one of my talents, you see. They call it static mind, or haze. It basically makes it nearly impossible for anyone to read my thoughts. And you know what? Bonus points for this talent. I didn't even have to concentrate for it to work.

  Anyway, enough of that particular piece of my past. It was a significant moment in my life, which led me to become a warlock, and discover all the scary-as-shit things most people don't want to exist, really do exist. But it wasn't the most important moment, the one that changed everything - the encounter that changed my life wasn't the day that I met Levi, or my introduction into the coven of warlocks. No.

  In the early days I spent a lot of time over in the US being taught by different members of the coven, but I still mostly stayed in London, which was right where Levi wanted me. I was to be his watch dog on the old world, to keep him updated about the movements of those who lived in the shadow world hidden away from the bright streets of the city.

  Over the centuries since the west was colonized, many of those who wanted to escape from Europe, and specifically London, headed out on the ships to the new world, and when they got there they just kept on going, right out into the wilderness, where it would be decades before civilization caught up with them.

  But not everyone left. Some were so entrenched in the old world, they just stepped back into the shadows and vanished.

  Levi wanted someone there to watch the movements of those who stayed, for they were among the greatest powers on the planet, and I'd bet a lot of money that Levi wanted them to stay right where they were, out of the way of his conquering of the new world.

  For a couple of years I watched, learning to pick up on where they were, but still keeping myself hidden away. I used the talent I was born with to hide myself from them, to go undetected while I watched, but I got careless one night outside a bar, after I had drank one too many beers, and successfully conned nearly five thousand pounds from some guys too rich to worry and too stupid to realize that they'd been had. I was only outside for a minute, stepping into the alleyway at the back of the bar to make a quick exit before one of my victims came to their senses. I staggered along the darkened street, pleased with my first, early use of persuasion cantrips, and nearly walked straight into a figure standing in the middle of the alleyway.

  He was not an old man, at least not visibly, until you got up close, right where I was at that moment. I stepped back, frowned, thinking it was just another drunk heading in the opposite direction. I was ready to wobble sideways and move on, but I looked up into his eyes and saw the centuries looking back at me.

  I don't know how else I could describe it, other than just that. Centuries, even millennia looked back at me through those keen, bright, green eyes - eyes both far younger than I and much older at the same time.

  “You are troubling,” said a voice that didn't fit the figure standing in front of me.

  I had no words, finding myself frozen with sheer terror as it gradually dawned on me that one of the most venerable and powerful denizens of the old world had caught up with me - an ancient Magi. Had it been by accident? Had we really just stumbled upon each other. No, I didn't think that at all. He had come looking for me, and right then I felt my bladder weakening. I didn't piss myself, but I came close. Thinking back, if the man had acted aggressively after that first moment, I would have soiled my pants.

  “And yet you are not,” he said.

  He glared at me, drilling into my eyes.

  “I can see your past, and your future, in a manner, but your present is closed to me. An interesting talent.”

  Still I had no words, so I stood there, waiting for judgment, and my fate.

  He continued to bore into me, and I felt pressure on my temples like someone was squeezing my head. Then his eyes grew wide. Something. He had discovered something. I was sure I was about to die.

  “Oh now, this is most interesting,” he said, titling his head to the side. “Maybe I will leave you to continue your work.”

  I was staggered, and confused. I was a spy, watching these people for a man who lived thousands of miles away, and yet this most ancient and powerful stranger was letting me continue?

  “I don't understand,” I said, finally breaking my silence.

  “No,” he said. “I don't suppose you do, and in a way that is probably best.”

  He stepped forward.

  “Here,” he said, grasping my wrist before I could react and back away. I tried to pull my hand free, but his grip was so tight I may as well have been trying to move a building. A burning pain followed, sharp and spasmodic, and the smell of scorched flesh filled my nostrils. A
taste of acrid smoke. I felt my knees buckle, but I didn't go down, willing myself not to show weakness. Finally he let go, and I staggered backwards, winded and out of breath.

  My heart thumped with fear and panic as grasped my wrist, examining the damage. My skin was burned, but not blistered and red as I expected it to be. Instead an intricate pattern of blue sigils, interlaced with thick, black lines, was etched upon my skin. The flesh around the pattern was sore, and throbbing, but even as I watched the irritation slowed and then ceased, leaving only the perfect, incredibly detailed tattoo.

  “When that has fulfilled its purpose, I will seek you out once more.” Those were the last words he spoke to me.

  By the time I got a hold of myself, and looked up, the alley was empty.

  So, that was maybe ten years ago, and apart from some rumors that I've picked up, that ancient stranger has never moved from his home underneath the streets of Soho.

  I didn't just gain a nice tattoo that night.

  The sigil on my wrist fascinated me. Before then, I had no idea power of any kind could be burned into your skin in such a way. But as I thought back to the encounter, and pictured the man more clearly, I began to recall more detail about him. He had no hair, maybe preferring to be clean shaven, and was covered in the same sort of bright blue and black sigils now permanently marking my wrist. In the gap just below his neck, where his shirt was buttoned up, was yet another sigil, also blue and black. As my mind raced to put the whole image back into place I discovered the man had these…tattoos almost everywhere not covered in cloth.

  So I started to poke around in the few places in London where old scriptures could be found. I asked specialist book dealers about old tattoos such as the one on my wrist. But I came up with nothing until I visited the British Library. You would be surprised what can be found among the archives of that place - I certainly was.

  And so I slowly gained an obsession with skin enchantments, and over the years that followed, I dug deeper, finding more and more examples of skin enchantments. The war paint of the Celts applied by their shamans, the delicate swirls of the tattoos worn by Maori, the Sak Yant of Southeast Asia, scarification from Ghana, and the scrying of a cross with holy water upon baptism. Everywhere I looked opened my eyes to something vast and formidable, something with a potential the enchantments taught by my brethren couldn't even touch.