"No, no. No, Kenneth, you don't understand. Do you even know what they could do to you?"

"I'm not going to ask them for favors, I'm not stupid."

"If you aren't, then you shouldn't be trying to contact them at all. This isn't a crime syndicate. This is worse."

"You're the one who doesn't understand, Ray! I need to do this! I don't know where this life is going, but I'm a fair bit certain that it ends up...in some gray patch, just a dingy old spot, do you understand? My life is going nowhere and I'm so bored of everything."

"So attend parties! Find some ladies of the night and buy three for a week! Anything but using this book..."

"You're a real lecherous man, Ray. I'm shocked at you. I'm not stupid enough to ask for that, either. Blimey, what kind of offspring would that produce? I just want to see them. I just want some kind of proof that we aren't all living on a hollow shell of dirt."

"Trust me, your life will be easier wandering in endless miserable agnostic ignorance than to have the existence of anyone in his book proven to you."

"No, I doubt that. I'll die if I don't do it."

"Do you think death is really the worst possible fate for you, Ken? You still don't understand. You're not trying to talk to a pack of wolves. You're not even going to see the wolf-man. They're not animals. They're not people, either. They're the worst aspects of both and they're not what you need. Pretend that this silly idea never crossed your mind and go back to your normal human life, Kenneth."

"Give me that book! Give it!"

"Oy- stop it! I'll take it to death! Get back or I'll throw it in the fire, I will!"

"You can't, you can't! That book is priceless to me! It's everything!"

"It's not brownies and leprechauns in here, Ken, it's monsters who'll eat you from the inside-out starting with your soul! Get back, stop, I'll drop it in right now! RIGHT NOW!"

"It must be fate, fate that you didn't do it earlier! Why did you keep it so long? It's...my fate to have it! NO! GOD what have you DONE?!"

"No, stay back! You insane--don't, you'll catch fire--! It...it..."

"Not even burned."

"It's an evil book. It was printed on a press of brimstone and inked with blood, and it's immune to fire because it was burned while written. It's a Hellish artifact."

"Not even burned...no, it's not Hell, it's fate. It means I'm meant to--"

"FOOL! Give it back before it steals the life from your fingers! Give it back, Ken-- Ahuh!"

"I'm...so sorry, Ray. but you wouldn't let me...live. So...well, I guess, I couldn't let you, neither? ...Are you really?... God, you really did. I only hit you once, Ray... I need to get out of here..."

And he tried that book for a good long time and he didn't understand why the names he called didn't call back. He felt fear when he saw the police pass by but they never learned of his murder of acquaintance Ray Ewer by means of a single blow to the head with a very heavy book. That book had fallen into Earth's hands only a short while ago, in 1896, and no one knew where it came from. Ray found it, or bought it, he never said which; he was a casual passerby friend to Kenneth Walters but one day while they were at an intensely boring art showing Ken began to lament on how tame and colorless life was in the end and Ray dropped mention of having a rather extraordinary piece of prose that may or may not be fiction. After some brief perusing of its pages, paragraphs describing Fauna Behavior, and Experiment Details, and Subject Anatomy, and the accompanying sketches, it became apparent that it was some sort of otherworldly zoologist's logue of the supernatural.

And each of the magnificent and horrible "subjects" were listed with a name. "Some names gained by force," noted the ironically nameless author. Ray always shuddered at that. And he had learned after trying to destroy the book many times by many means it was dead-set on not leaving Earth. It wasn't made of Earth's wood, wasn't pressed from Earth's trees under Earth's air, its paper came from trees from the dirt of some other far off place and so it would not go Dust To Dust on this fine foreign planet it came to live on. Its dust was not Earth's dust. Its ashes would never be seen here. Ray had tried so many times, yet never fire until the day Kenneth tried wresting it from him, and then he had no choice. Into the fire and it didn't burn, as he expected it not to. And then he'd been beaten to death with it, and it was stolen by his murderer.

The whole point was, Kenneth contained a book with a list of names of strange beasts with a note mentioning that they "seem to know in the mind exactly whenever and wherever their name is spoken; they are generally apt to respond with a psychic message when called in this way. They are loath to reveal their names for the very purpose of not wanting to be bothered." Naturally, Ken spoke aloud every one of the names. He didn't know they were dead by now, or afraid of anything that knew how to call them. Though horrible they were, there was always something worse and they had a keen awareness of that. They didn't know it was only a human who used to listen to UFO stories in rapt and gullible fascination and then devoured up some tarot lessons and bought some cheesy warlock kits that never did anything. If they'd known, they would have torn him a new one for being so cocky.

But one wasn't afraid and it wasn't dead either. It was, however, growing annoyed by the time Kenneth went through the names for a third time. So it dropped by the apartment building Kenneth lived in to tell him not to meddle in its affairs.

Kenneth came home from work -- money work, boring numbers stuff, and so hot in that workplace, really! -- and he shed his top hat in an instant as he entered the apartment building. He pulled the cloth from his front jacket pocket and wiped the sweat from his face and out of his beard and then shoved it back in untidily. He couldn't wait to strip down his skivvies once he was in his own home.

"Mr. Walters," said the young man at the desk.

"Oh, hm, what? I'm very tired."

"Oh, you just got a message is all, sir."

"A message? From whom?" The police, could it be? His stomach and throat and hands all knotted up at once like someone was tugging at his muscle cords with a hook. No, wait, that wasn't logical. If they wanted him, they would just wait for him. They'd arrest him. Still, he felt nervous; he always was. He'd felt watched lately. The walls had felt like falling sheets of water around him, only cold and transparent. He'd never been so paranoid in his life and he couldn't explain the chilly sweat that washed over him sometimes...It was only since...only since...

"Erm...M'fraid I didn't catch his name, sir..."

"What did he look like?"

"Uh...Irish."

"That's so massively helpful," Kenneth said with a dour snide sigh. "What's the message, then?"

The desk boy handed over a small hand-written note. The script was fluid, flowing, not quite delicate but definitely the work of a well-blooded man. No signature. Of course, that would be to easy. But it looked like an educated fellow wrote this. Perhaps some new business deal. Mm.

"Thank you muchly," Ken said but went straight to bed even though the note said to meet its author immediately at the hotel in the upper-class side of the city.

Kenneth awoke the next day and gasped when he realized he'd forgotten to meet the stranger who'd left the note. He then entirely forgot about going in to work and irrationally thought that the poor gentleman must have waited at that hotel all through the night and fallen asleep in the lobby waiting, and must still be there, and that Ken must go see him right away! He pulled on the first assortment of pieces of a three-piece suit he dug out of his closet and dashed down many flights of stairs, hailed a horse and buggy, and went right to the hotel.

It certainly was the grandest place he'd ever seen; it even had a water fountain in the lobby and murals on the ceiling. Ken ignored all of that and went right up to the desk, ringing the bell frantically. "Ohh!" he moaned. He kept thinking of newer and better reasons why anyone would've wanted to meet him, and then feeling horrible for missing out on each bigger opportunity that made itself up.

The bellhop stomped up to the counter with an irritated grimace and put his own hand firmly on the bell to shut it up. "How may I help you, sir?" he said with a sneer Kenneth found he didn't much care for. He straightened up and then removed his hat with a pang for missed etiquette and straightened his bow tie and straightened his buttons, oh, blast it, he'd missed a button entirely! He's been riding through town with his jacket off by one whole button!

"Oh, someone came here to see me, I mean, he left a note where I live, he should have been here last night..." he said while redoing his jacket buttons entirely.

"Who?"

"I didn't catch his name, some Irishman I suppose, probably rich and educated. Very nice handwriting." Drat, his fly was undone! He fixed that before the bellhop noticed. Hopefully.

"Oh...yes, I think I know who you mean. He's...still here. In there." The bellhop pointed to the entrance to the hotel restaurant. Kenneth entered, bypassing the server who desperately pleaded to seat him later because all the tables were full. He looked around with a fluttering feeling, not knowing if it was more smug pleasure at having made someone wait for him, or dread fear for what the reaction would be. Then he realized he didn't know what the fellow looked like and that everyone in the restaurant was looking at him queerly for bursting in like a madman.

He started to withdraw, pulling a handkerchief out to give his hands something to wrestle with nervously, and he muttered apologies to the angry server, and he was almost gone from the place when he heard a rich male voice say pleasantly, "Mr. Walters, good of you to arrive," without a hint of scorn or sarcasm.

"Oh! You..." Ken turned around. There stood a handsome ginger-haired, dark-eyed man dressed in a perfectly-tailored dark green frock coat; peering out from where the collar crossed was a fetching bola tie made of scintillating fire agate; it gleamed like a drop of starry night sky against the man's white shirt.

"Let's sit before we talk, hm?" he said. His voice just tumbled out like smooth water. No, he wasn't from Ireland after all, that hair was so misgiving; his accent was local (though unusually deep for any breed of Anglo).

They sat, Kenneth suddenly feeling that rumbling, troubling cold paranoia in the bottom of his bowels again. He didn't know what to say, because somehow it occurred to him that this was all very odd...

The waiter came then, and took their orders. Ken went for a full breakfast, eggs, bacon, pancakes, and orange juice, not thinking about the bill yet. The other man ordered just some bread and salad and water. He watched Ken keenly but lightly. When the food arrived he ate with impeccable manners. Ken felt self-conscious. He wasn't very classy, in contrast to this fellow.

"So, right, erm, what's your name? Pardon..."

"Dechaerrim."

The blood dropped out of Kenny's upper body and gathered all up in his stomach where it wanted to get out with the rest of his food. That was one of the names. He'd said that name aloud three times. It was in the book. But this was a human...right? The book was probably a prank, then. Whoever got it...they got a visitor pretending to be one of the named subjects. Yes, that's it, just a prank. Terrible sort of joke, and Ray died over it, too. That didn't disturb him as much to think about as it did to think that he'd come so close to reaching some other side only to fall short as always...

"You've been calling me a lot, Mr. Walters."

"Ohh...yes...I suppose I didn't really...think..."

"Now, don't be so nervous. You seem like you've seen a monster." An inside-joke grin passed Dechaerrim's fair face. "I'm only wondering how you learned my name."

"It was in a book...just a book...it had quite a many names in it..."

"Oh?"

"Um...yes. That's all."

"And so, randomly, this book containing nothing but names...fell into your hands?"

Kenneth stared at the tablecloth darkly. "Not...exactly."

"So did you pen it yourself?"

Ken said nothing.

"Who owned it before you, hm? And how did you get it?"

"Nobody. I mean, just...a collector, of that sort of thing. He liked...old books. I mean, he likes them. I...bought it from him."

"My, isn't your wit quick. Aren't you so fortunate I'm not with The Yard."

"Oh God, you are, aren't you?!" Kenneth trembled in fear. That's what this was! It was a police officer come to trick him into admitting to Ray's murder!

Dech winced a bit. "Calm down, and mind your language. We're in a fine establishment, I won't be embarrassed by you having a tantrum at the table."

"Rrm..." Ken played with his fork, mangling up his eggs.

Dech learned forward a bit but was still mindful to keep his elbows off the table. In a quieter voice, he said, "Tell me, Kenneth, what did you expect to happen when you said my name?"

"I don't know...nothing..."

"You know, this conversation will really be easier on the both of us if you can be honest with me. You must have expected something to happen, or else poor Mr. Ewer laid cold next to the fireplace for no reason at all..."

Ken sank into his chair. "Uhmm."

"I'm not here to judge you, Kenneth. Nor to report you. But you know my name, and my privacy is something I highly value."

"Can we...not talk here?" Ken looked around at everyone in the room. He glared at them with sudden suspicion. Though he'd never been quite paranoid until recently, he'd always been suspicious of strangers' judgment. He'd told no one but one close friend, Monica, about his experiments in the magical and occult. She always looked down on him though. Always thought of him as a bit off, he knew, though she never said, she just smiled and was kind to him in a way that grated on his nerves for being so false. And he couldn't stand the thought of anyone else knowing his secret hobbies.

"Of course. Let's walk, shall we? The fresh air will settle your stomach," Dech said. He summoned the server and paid for the full meal himself. Ken hardly noticed.

They strolled along the early morning street and the air was crisp and damp at the same time, and rather chilly. Dew was on everything still and a pleasant kind of quiet was on the city. Ken wondered a little bit how Dech wasn't bothered not wearing gloves at this time of day. But unphased by the cold, the man charmed everyone they passed with the most dashing smile and greetings and tip of his head. It almost made up for the way the stray dogs scattered before his passing and flocks of birds parted overhead like they were a sea and he were a lighthouse splitting the waves, and the horses on the street rolled their eyes and whinnied nervous foam when they were forced by their drivers to trot too near. But the humans at least were really very impressed by his dignity and politeness and of course his looks. What a keeper. Ken noticed with a little bit of surprise a lack of a wedding band on him.

Dech looked at him suddenly with both brows raised in muted surprise as if Ken had just said something stupidly shocking. Before he could ask about the look, Dech said with a strange and oddly feral grin, "Did you not read the rest of that book?"

"I...what? Yes..."

"And do you think that any of the things described in it would ever be wed off to a sane woman?" As if fated, or in direct response to this line of conversation, the aching drone of hymnals rang out from up the street, an organ underneath the many voices.

"Oh, uh, no, but you, well, you're not really...I mean your name's in it but you're pretty obviously human. Oh...wait...how did you..."

Dech stopped walking abruptly as if he'd encountered a fence. Kenneth stumbled, thinking that either a land mine was on the ground, or that he'd somehow offended his walking partner.

"Hm. We can talk here." Dech took a few paces back. "I'm going to be very frank with you, Ken, and I know how much you hate to be criticized."

"Then I don't think I want--"

"You are a lonely, unhinged, desperate and stupid man to have said a single name in that book."

"Now wait here. Just wait a minute! I'm not lonely, I have friends."

"Lovers?"

"I would never...not with anything in that book..."

"And with humans?"

"Well, I..."

"You sell yourself so well, Kenny! Now what made you think that it was at all safe to begin sending the otherworldly equivalent of a phone call to dozens of demonic monsters? Did you think you would wrest control over a fiend with wit and grace? Did you think of making friends with a nether world spirit and impress the world and join a circus with your new pet, and have thousands fall dazzled at your feet, and women be amazed at your sorcery as they paw your pants off hourly? Do you think you're special? Listen to me, Ken. You're one more mote of dust crying for attention, the brat that breaks the vase even when he knows he'll get the rod because at least it's something, isn't it?"

Kenneth just withstood this all sulkily. He had indeed broken a vase as a boy. He didn't exactly know it at the time, but it was to get attention. She'd been ignoring him and he wanted her to notice him so he broke his mother's vase just after the fresh roses had been put in. He hadn't sat down for a week after his father came home and found her crying over it. He'd stopped feeling so smug about drawing a reaction out of her then, but somehow a grim satisfaction remained because he learned at a tender age that he could control his parents through misbehaving. Then, to counterbalance it, he became impeccably polite and almost aristocratic in action. And then they loved him.

Dech watched him as if reading an open book or viewing a play. Kenneth felt suddenly self-conscious about his own thoughts and imagined burying them in a treasure box on a tropical island, to keep them safe.

"I see," was all Dech said at first.

"See what?" Ken asked uncomfortably.

"You do think you own me, don't you? That by summoning me here you somehow have some power over me?"

"N-no, of course not. I know you came of your own accord..."

"Oh? And what if I decided of my own accord to incise your soul from your body and consume it while you watch?"

"I...oh...um..."

"You are the snowy peak of the tallest mountain of utmost tomfoolery, my dear Mr. Walters. I should hurt you in some way you've never conceived and I should leave you crying in the street for all to see so that no one will ever look at you and think of how dignified you are anymore. And then perhaps you'd learn to never bother us again."

Kenneth was taking the threats seriously though Dech's voice wasn't taking on a very threatening tone. He looked around frantically, planning an escape route perhaps, and Dech was just watching him again, and Ken felt immensely and terrifyingly aware of his mind itself being looked at. Whatever plan he made would have to be instant or, he knew, it would be countered and parried before he could even act it out. The choir dimly singing in the cathedral at his back...

Ignoring how sick scared he was to do it, Ken seized Dech by the coat collar and spun, pushing the man ahead in the direction he'd balked at before, because Ken had realized why: a church in active Mass was there. He'd stopped walking right at the property line.

Dech gave a shiver from head to toe and Ken was first disappointed and then terrified into his bones to notice that besides some moderate discomfit, being on holy ground wasn't much effecting Dech.

Instead, the man strode right back onto normal ground again and took a fear-paralyzed Ken by the shoulders, uttering in a low and deadly tone: "You will never own me, Ken, because as of this day, I own you. And I'm going to bring you down back home with me in a week and I'm going to show you what the Hells are really like. And then when your body can't take it any longer and your bones are all broken and your skin is all torn, I will not let you die but keep the thread of your unworthy life unsevered for as long as my magic can sustain you. And only when I grow bored and you finally learn your lesson, I'll send you to the real Hell your religion knows you'll go."

Ken couldn't take those words, and he also couldn't take this crumbling, toppling, folding loss of power, loss of control, loss of dreams he'd been reaching for his whole life. He began to weep and plead. "Oh God, no, please, don't, anything, anything..."

And Dech's cold frown turned itself into a more chilling cold smile. "Unless, of course, you can place a suitable sacrifice in your place."

Ken sobbed, not hearing him at first, then stopped and sniffled pathetically. "S-sacrifice? Like a lamb?"

Dech scoffed. "A human. Preferably a woman." And there was that grin of ice again, and his eyes were cruelly alight. "Young, beautiful, maidenly."

"You...you don't mean to...you wouldn't..."

"I have and I will. And if not her, then you, just to give you a lesson in pain and what it really means to not be able to sit down for a week."

Ken squirmed and whimpered at the thought. "A-alright...alright...I...how long do I have?"

"A week."

"A week! But I hardly know any eligible debutantes!"

"That's pretty shitty for you then, isn't it Kenny? Maybe you'll use a little more discretion in your demon-summoning next time. Toodles!" And Dech dropped Ken who fell on his rear like a sack of potatoes, having gone rubbery in the feet and knees a while ago. Ken scrambled to stand up and backed away, but Dech had turned and walked off down the street, on the opposite side from the cathedral.

"Ohgodohgodohgod..." Kenneth pulled at his hair and squeezed out a few more tears before realizing that the mass exiting the services were seeing him now, and he quickly straightened up and wiped off his face with his handkerchief. Tipping his hat rather clumsily at the crowd, he turned around and abruptly stalked in the other direction.

Hmm.

Maybe Monica would do.