In the dominion of death

I pricked my finger and bled on the knob, letting the door know that I was alive. DNA and karma matched the key and I stepped in. The man who lived in the room was sitting in an armchair facing the door, a gun in his hand and half a dozen small bags of cocaine discarded, unopened, by his side.

The man shot over my shoulder. I didn't bother to pretend to flinch, but if he was trying to kill me he was losing his aim, and if he was trying to kill something at my back he was losing his grip on reality.

The things roaming outside couldn't be killed - not unless that was an unauthorized Sacred Weapon in his hand. It looked like an old Colt, but you never knew with him. He could always, would always come with the idea that was obvious, no, necessary, but that nobody else could have thought of.

"Mr. King," I said as the door closed between me and whatever nameless thing he had shot at. "We need you to keep writing stories."

The man spat at me, reaching perhaps half the distance between us. Impressive, for somebody who had been through what he had.

"Stories? You are making me write nightmares."

"Yes," I said.

"Nightmares." It wasn't like him to repeat a word. I wondered what he had been dreaming about. I made a note to watch the tapes. "And then you make them real and give them to innocent children." His voice broke before the end of the phrase.

Denying the facts wouldn't have worked with him and wasn't my style anyway. Arguing goals was another matter entirely. "I train them."

"You break them!"

"Yes, I make soldiers out of them."

He pointed the gun straight at my face. If he had indeed acquired or made a Sacred Weapon (unnamed gods, could he do that?) then there was a chance a shot could kill me.

"They are children."

I shrugged as carefully as possible. "Children are the only ones who can fight monsters. And you know " -I nodded to his cane and his broken body- "what happens when nobody fights."

He shook his head, but lowered the gun. "I already got my revenge on the bastard. I have no right to use..."

"This isn't about revenge," I lied. "It's about survival."

He wasn't crying, but his clean eyes were perhaps worse. "And kids having to face monsters."

"It's about their survival, too, Stephen. Write more. We need heroes, and we need them soon."

Outside the walls, the wards and the spells, inhuman things walked the night.

But I had my weapon, and I was forging more.

.finis.