Wonder Made

Eight, Part Two

Gideon took the seat saturated in the most darkness, furthest away from the overhead swaying light, and the loosely slatted Song's entrance. Stormholden sat opposite him, but not before undoing his belt and holster and setting both upon the table within reach.

"Now, Cap," the boy said, leaning into the soft leather back of the seat, "Must you threaten me so blatantly?" He tapped the table with two of his fingers. "When I only mean to engage you in idle chit chat?"

The captain was in no mood to play a devil's game. He went for his pistol, checked the rounds - the barrel still filled with the silver bullets he'd used to put down the werewolf tribe hidden in Lucifer's Reach. "If you can recognize my threats, you can take them seriously," he replied. "I know not what this is," Stormholden narrowed his gaze, "nor what you are," his voice stern, solid, unmoving, "But if given a reason to seek a path of violence, it is one I will gladly tread upon."

Gideon sighed and waved a hand. "Yes, yes. Typical heroes and their empty threats. Listen," he kicked up his boots and set both on the table, arms folded behind his head, "I get it. You'll kill me. But let's enjoy the time we have now. Share a drink, chat, laugh. Get to really know one another."

"And why's that?" Stormholden's brows knit over his eyes like gathering dark clouds.

"Because I'm lonely." Gideon smiled.

Stormholden released his pistol, letting it clamor to the table with a dulled thud. "Loneliness can make one desperate."

Gideon shook his head, hair shielding his face from Stormholden's gaze. "I'm not that lonely."

"I wouldn't believe you to be the type," Stormholden agreed. This musing seemed to amuse the boy as his lips parted into a half-grin that favored heavily the right side of his face. Back in the captain's world, such expressions had a name, a Cheshire's Grin, worn by those governed by mischief and deceit.

"Here ya go."

Barnabones placed a large skull on the table, causing the wood to bow. Stormholden had never seen its likes before. Gray as rat spit, scenting the air of rancid waste. Every so often it wheezed thin wisps of green smoke. Gideon smiled as he eyed the concoction, the fire raging on its surface reflected in his gaze. 

With greed and glee, the boy took the hulking skull with ease and brought the drink to his lips. The captain watched on, mesmerized, as so frail in appearance he'd taken Gideon to be, the boy finished his libation in two minutes. He showed no signs of illness, no sickly pallor or watery eyes, no distended stomach, or desperation for a nearby water closet.

Instead, Gideon frowned as he lugged the skull to his mouth one final time and tapped the bottom, the drink's brownish dregs dribbling down his shirt and onto the table.

Where the few drops landed, an immediate sizzle began as the liquid burrowed through the wood on contact. Stormholden watched in horror as the table took on the appearance of swiss cheese in a matter of blinks. If a few drops could obliterate something so completely, the captain wondered what it would do to a man's insides?

Barnabones, standing there with ink and parchment, ready to jot down a drink order should the need arise, turned his attentions to Stormholden, and asked if he too would like something to wet his whistle.

The captain responded, "I have no need of your caustic brews, mustachioed cadaver, though it is kind of you to inquire."

If the bartender still had eyebrows to raise, he would have done so now. But having his eyebrows long since eaten off by decay and worms, Barnabones did the only thing he could do - he shook his head, which wobbled back and forth precariously atop his vertebrae, dust shedding off him like a second skin, if he'd had his first skin still attached. "What a life ye've lived," he concluded.