•••

Gideon's memory, much like his time, runs immemorial, but as he nurses his libation, it's as though he hadn't recently strangled the captain with his magic.

His companion, however, remembers and vows neither to forget nor forgive. Instead, Stormholden's demeanor leans toward the defensive, his fingers prodding at the weapons strewn across the table, ready at a breath to slash, stab and shoot.

Stormholden, doing exactly as he is written to do, disappoints Gideon greatly. The captain offers no more amusement than your average story hero, his threats dispassionate, trite, and recycled. His reactions predictable and contrived, but necessary to give the plot forward momentum. 

Gideon sips on the remainder of his noose, emanating the menace required of his as the story's antagonist. The alcohol helps dull his senses, and makes the situation tolerable. Someone of Gideon's caliber, someone who manages to be both terrifying and compelling deserved better company than some Retelling trash like Stormholden, but he has no choice. He has been designated to wait, and so he does. His opportunity will come, chillingly, soon enough.  

• Keep It Dark •

"Captain." Gideon ran a finger along the rim of his noose, eyes glued to Stormholden's trigger finger. "Don't be like this."

Stormholden raised his pistol, cocked back the hammer. One bullet, that's all it would take and he could do as much before Gideon's devilry killed him.

"I told you," Gideon ran his sleeve across his mouth, wiping away the few speckles of black sludge and tattered beetle's wings that stained his chin, "I'm not going to hurt you."

The red imprints left around Stormholden's neck throbbed in protest. The dryness of his mouth, the rawness of his throat screamed otherwise. "You said you wouldn't kill me yet, which means you will eventually. I've been foolish, yes," the captain sank his bootheels into the wooden floor, green dust rising around his ankles, "but I will not be foolish again. You throw your sorcery at me, boy," he growled, took the shot Barnabones had brought him, and without looking away, threw it over his shoulder. The glass clanked when he slammed it back on the table, the remains of its ruby contents glistening like blood, freshly spilled, "and there will be no hesitation from me. These hands," he flexed his fingers, "have shed blood, and though I find murder repugnant, if provoked, if presented with the sole choice between my life and yours, I will lodge a bullet between your eyes and feel no remorse."

Gideon studied the captain, his gaze a restrained, tempered blue-gray like a cloudy day at sea, the thoughts behind those impenetrable eyes, unfathomable.

"You know," Gideon slid a piece of paper from one of his Altoid's tins, flattened it on the table, "you are making it very hard for us to be friends." The fingers of his gloved hand worked as if separate from his body sprinkling tobacco and rolling the paper tight all while Gideon's gaze lingered on the captain and his all-too eager trigger finger.

His thumb rose to his mouth, and he ran a tongue over it, wetting the leather so he could seal his cigarette. Stormholden's gun barrel sized up every movement, the captain's gaze as judgmental and wary as most were after they'd seen Gideon for what he was. Too bad for the captain what Gideon wanted was a smoke, and not something which would excuse a shot fired in his general direction. He stuck the cigarette in the crook of his mouth and let it dangle.

"I desire no further acquaintance with you, devil, than I've already suffered." Stormholden shifted, his back straighter, his shadow falling across the table and melting into Gideon's own.

Gideon nodded, the cigarette tip bursting into flame, flashing first a bright orange before settling into a warm glow.

The captain recoiled at the conjured flame. Gideon smiled and leaned back in his seat, tucking his arms just below the beak of his bird skull adornment. "You're making this a lot less fun than it has to be."

"I've never been one for fun."

"Ah," Gideon leaned forward, "Ain't that the truth." Fed up with Gideon's mind games, Stormholden thrust his pistol across the table, pressing it firmly against Gideon's forehead.

He chortled. "But, you did have fun, didn't you? Running around like animals in those woods with—" The boy wrinkled his brow, reached up, and slapped the gun aside as though it were no more dangerous than a child's toy.

Stormholden lunged for his saber, a whirlwind of fury and limbs. In one breath, he drew the sword. In another, he aimed it at Gideon's chest, level with the smirking bird skull's eye socket.

Gideon eyed the sword, the captain and shrugged. "Matilda, wasn't that your love interest's name?"

Stormholden gulped, his sword arm trembled. "You have no right to speak her name."

"Because she's so angelic and I'm so cursed?" Gideon threw himself back and picked up his noose. The captain remained of rigid posture and predictable mind, his sword wavering in the space between them.

"Precisely." Stormholden growled. "I will not have you besmirch her name by letting it fall from your poisonous lips again." His eyebrows knit together, his jaw set, unmoving like a mountain. Fortunately, Gideon had power enough to move ranges. "Tread lightly," the captain finished.

Gideon took a gulp of his noose, exhaled the bluish smoke, and looked around. "Poisonous?" He chuckled and pointed at the creatures being served at the bar. "Nooses are poisonous, Cap." He threw his elbows on the table, jostling his Altoid tin. "I'm acidic. Corrosive. Deadly."

"Vile words to speak," Stormholden said. "But I expect no less from the likes of you."

Waves of determination and resolve rose from the captain's aura. "What a heartless comeback. And spoken so scathingly, too," Gideon said. A shadow spilled across the table, darkening his expression. "It almost gave me chills." A snarl, a peek of teeth, bone-white and too sharp to be human.

Stormholden did not back down. "Do not dare mock me further, monster. I--"

Ash rained down on the table, as Gideon took another inhale of his cigarette. "You know," he began, his tone wistful. He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and watched it burn. Fire hungrily bit at the paper, charring its edge, though the cigarette remained whole. "We used to look at the stars together."

Stormholden cocked his head, confused at the odd turn of conversation. Could a devil recall memories with such adoration and fondness? Were they capable of such reverie while longing resided in their gaze? Stormholden thought not, though the boy before him, mouth tight, shoulders slumped, eyes saddened—yes, undeniably saddened—said otherwise.

"She did it with her dad," Gideon continued, "so I always made sure to have a few stars on hand when we met. I canned them to keep them fresh and bright."

He nodded toward the Song's ceiling, reached up, and closed his hand around air. When he brought it back to his face, a yellow glow poured between his fingers. He opened his hand – a tiny ball of gas hovered above his palm. Pure, brilliant, wondrous. The captain's eyes widened. Though he shouldn't be surprised by Gideon's trickery, he was.

"You're thinking about how I can conjure something so beautiful while I, myself, am so abhorrent." Gideon snorted. "Just like everyone else." He waved his other hand over the glowing orb and it disappeared. "Not her though. Not Nep," he leaned over, sunk his entire hand into the emptied noose. Sparks shot into the air, "She let me call her that, Nep. No one besides me and," he tsked, "him." Coils of black rose off his shoulders and began encircling his head like vultures come to feast. Stormholden's breath seized, his heart broke into a wild frenzy. He tightened his grip around both pistol and saber. "And then I was erased."

The noose exploded into a thousand pieces and stilled, frozen the way everything had been the moment Gideon arrived in Stormholden's world. Smoke wrapped around Gideon, shrouding him from the captain's gaze. "It wasn't enough to be sent away, to be locked up because of what I am, what I can't," his voice thunderous, boomed, "control. Because I'm something those council assholes can't control. No, they had to take away the only friend I had. The only person who didn't look at me with disgust."

The smoke hissed and writhed and through a break, like clouds parting, Stormholden spied Gideon, a cruel smile carved upon his face, the color from his eyes running down his cheeks like perverse tears.

"Now don't start sympathizing with me, Cap." Gideon snarled, turned to the rest of the bar's patrons. "In fact, none of you feel bad for me." The cloud grew above Gideon's head, thick, heavy, smothering. "She tried to remember, but memories are fickle, and trying to suppress them with magic, well, it's not science. She wrote about me, about our times among the stars. About me calling her Nep, about the way she told me I had the prettiest eyes, when I complained about not being able to control my color. She showed me her magic, light purple. Smelled of lavender and honesty, and an unpolluted desire to create for the sake of creating. No gilded greed or grandeur in its weave. And then," Gideon whipped around, turned to face the captain. Ripples of black slithered off him like agitated eels, "and then, she wrote you."

Behind Gideon, Barnabones made for the door. Gideon's eyes turned black, his hair unraveling to the floor. "Now, where do you think you're going, Barney?" He slowly side-eyed the skeleton. Every bone of his body clamored for an exit. "You're not planning on leaving before the fun starts?"

Captain Ire Stormholden, relying on reflexes well-honed from his years as a servant to His Royal Highness's army, flew to his feet like a trap sprung. Gideon whirled, held out his hand, but the captain was too fast, and Barnabones had provided the distraction he needed.

He pushed down on the trigger. His pistol went off, sending a bullet the size of the captain's thumb to rest straight between Gideon's eyes, only the bullet never found its target.

Gideon's fingers tightened around the bullet before plucking it from the air. Flesh bubbling and oozing over his clothes like molten lava, he looked every bit as wretched as a devil should.

"Always so quick to react," he spat, and then, he crushed the bullet in his palm. Powder fell through his fingertips.

"Barney, do make like the kindly sack of bones you are and let Mr. Pale know his bar will be closing, indefinitely."

Barnabones scuttled up the stairs at once, like a spider scared. The Proprietor's door obliged after a rap of knuckle and the skeleton slipped inside. After all his bones had disappeared, the door, and its subsequent stairwell popped out of existence.

Gideon returned his attention to Stormholden. His darkness had grown, and though nebulous before, had solidified around Gideon's shoulders. "You will not die here," he assured. "But they," Gideon, and his darkness, smiled, "like so many, are expendable."

Like an inky mass, Gideon's darkness spread out, sliming every surface, trekking up table legs and walls. It lapped like angered waves at the feet of the Song's patrons who were too frozen by their own fear to fight back. The boy's strange magic had them all enthralled, and doomed.

More and more poured out from Gideon, its need to conquer, its appetite to devour, insatiable. Gideon took a jaunty tour through his villainous muck, inspecting the creatures now covered by it. Small whimpers reached the captain's ears. "This is the true extent of my power, Cap," Gideon said. "And it is far worse than any devil's." The boy's black neared Stormholden's toes, but just as the captain rested a hand on his pistol, it ebbed away. Gideon smirked. "You'll stay just as you are."

He stepped up on the bar top, raised his hands, and released a primal scream. It tore into the captain's ears, threatened to rip his eardrums apart. The sound reverberated inside him, traveled through every bone, burrowed deep in his muscles, lodged itself in his throat. His head felt as though an ax had split it in two.

He fell, shrieking and crying and pleading with every sob for it to end. He dragged his knees to his chest, dug his nails into the leather of his boots. Prayed, though he'd never allied himself with the gods, for them to show mercy just this once, and let his life end. Everything around him undulated, cresting with each wail Gideon wrestled free from his accursed, rotten depths. Bottles exploded. Booths tore themselves asunder. Wood sizzled before dissolving into the black mass.

Chaos gripped the captain, plunging him back to the days of the war. Hunkered behind enemy lines, starving, and dying from a round to his gut. He'd offered up prayers to the gods then too, and they'd gone unanswered. His only mercy had been the fever, when his wound turned septic. He'd blacked out and then awoke four days later, bandaged and alive. Shortly after, he'd learned of Matilda's death. His being alive was heralded as a saintly miracle, Stormholden could only see it as a curse.

Cruel, unjust, damnable gods. Every one of them.

The unearthly screeching stopped. Stormholden's subsisting head-throbbing subsided. His tears dried up as though they'd never been shed. The tremors that had overwhelmed his body began to cease. His breathing calmed, his heart steady and strong.

"Up you go." Gideon's voice, returned to normal, no venom, no fury. Stormholden tried to free himself from the monster's touch. He fumbled at his waist for a weapon of any kind, but all had been lost to Gideon's madness. "Don't squirm. I'm only trying to help." Gideon's face flew into focus. His appearance, too, had returned to normal: hair, long, gathered at the nape of his neck, bird skull dangling at his chest, black attire.

Stormholden blinked. No darkness, no darkness anywhere.

A building of polished stone now surrounded the captain instead of the dust-covered, cobweb-clad walls of the Song. It had the appearance of a kept study, shelves upon shelves lined up like soldiers along the walls, pregnant with leather-bound tomes. Long tables spanned the center of the room, piled with books. Men and women, of the normal variety, clad in cream-colored garb, sat at these tables quietly attending to their studies. No excessive eyes, horns or snouts anywhere.

"Like what I've done?" Stormholden shook his head, too unsure of what he was seeing to offer a more substantial response. Gideon waved his arms. "I've turned vagrants into learned scholars," he exclaimed.

The robed figures seated around the tables shot Gideon stern glances of reproach, but the boy seemed not to mind. "I've perverted their nature," he whispered, threading his arm through Stormholden's. "I know it doesn't seem so bad, but trust me, these scum are living in their personal hells." He grabbed a book off a shelf, riffled through the pages with abandon, snorted and then tossed it over his shoulder. "Book on virtue, written by one of the Song's most requested escorts. You see?" He pointed at a man furiously scrawling a doctrinal about the importance of a practice known as fracking. "He was an Oxman, a son of Gaia. Tended the trees in Reason and now he actively seeks out its destruction."

His grip tightened around the captain's wrist. They strode toward the exit, an archway of exquisitely lacquered dark wood. Gideon raised his gloved hand and the doors blew outward. "What I do, Cap, is wonderful."

Beyond the Song's doors, Stormholden greeted a familiar sight, a dusty landscape, violet sky, a few crumbling walls in the distance. Dirt was quick to lodge itself in his nostrils and down his throat upon first inhale. The Song's sign swung overhead, though no breeze blew, its picture of a skull-shaped mug replaced with a flouncy cursive that read, The Lively Man's Dirge. A place of Records and Reflections.

Stormholden understood. Gideon had changed the Song, its patrons, turned them into something they would abhor and condemned them to eternities wallowing and helpless in a world where they lacked the agency to do anything. He retched, stomach acid coming up in frothy spittle alongside pale, yellow liquid.

"Now you get it." Gideon cackled. "I am a villain to be feared and loathed. I am repulsion and perversion made flesh and I will be nothing less than great." He stood the captain up, and smoothed out the front of his tunic, soaked through by vomit and rancid liquor. "We ought to be off, Cap," he pointed north, where a moon stood waxing over one of the dirt walls, "There's a train I need to catch and I hate being late." Wrapping an arm around the captain's shoulder, he continued, eyes sparkling, "just think, by this time tomorrow, we'll be in Potter Oaks."