The Dog

By The Shadower

Epilogue

AN: This is the epilogue, and I don't intend to do any more work on The Dog, as it is complete. As I said before, the previous story in the Napier saga, The Boy, should be posted tomorrow.

As for when I'll be posting later updates, I have to go stay at my great-grandmothers from this Thursday to this Saturday, something we do every year even though it's a seven hour drive. There's a slim chance I will be able to review other works while I'm there, but I wouldn't count on it and I certainly won't be able to post anything.

Also, it's unlikely I'll write anything Wednesday because it's the last episode of Angel and I won't be in a good place emotionally.(The WB are idiots).

Also, next week I have to go to something else from next Tuesday to Wednesday, so I probably won't post next Wednesday and definitely not next Tuesday. So all in all, I should be able to post tomorrow, Sunday, next Monday, and from next Friday onward and possibly on Wednesday, Saturday, and next Thursday.

Sorry that was so long, just thought I should let you know.

Epilogue:

Napier stared out at the ocean and contemplated death. Not his own, that was a tendency long defeated, but that of others. The boat swayed beneath him, to a degree that might have made an inexperienced man sick. But Napier was not inexperienced in any area, even if he had never done anything to gain any experience. He just knew.

He noted that once, he might have felt some revulsion about the death of a man who was, for many intents and purposes, innocent of any crime. But then, he might not.

This was The Travel Agent, he reminded himself. One of many people who assisted, knowingly or unknowingly, in that unspeakable Crime that occurred so many years ago. Decades, in fact. But time, as humanity measured it, mattered less now.

All that mattered was finding The Woman. And The Mission. He didn't really know what The Mission was yet, but he knew it was very important, that it involved a goal that he would cherish above all else. The Woman and The Mission seemed connected somehow, as though the finding of the one was necessary for the completion of the other.

No matter. He would see to all of that soon enough, when he had made all those involved in The Crime pay. When he had sipped their death agonies, and found them to his liking.

He smiled at the thought, and sat back in his chair, stroking the large brown dog that sat curled next to him on the deck. He watched the flies moving in the storm, following the boat. Not so many now, as their hunger was sated for a time, and so all that drove them now was the knowledge that he was The Master and that he might provide them with more food. Strangely, the dog did not growl at them, seeming not to even notice them. He was, like his master, strangely not quite noticed by them. Only a handful were like that, and they were scattered all over.

And miles away, shivering in the pouring rain, Terrence Holdstock clutched his board, watching the night sky shift and change with the passage of hundreds and hundreds of flies, none of whom seemed to notice him.

AN: The name Terrence Holdstock is taken from F. Paul Wilson's epic novel, Hosts. The Terrence Holdstock in Hosts is a very different character and plays a very different role than the one portrayed here. The name is repeated only because I had already named this character Terrence, and the name "Holdstock" is stuck in my head with reference to "Terrence". As you know if you've read Hosts, the characters have nothing in common and there is no possibility that they're even different versions of the same character.

The Shadower