“Like it turns you into a giant snake or something like that?” Jason asked. He appeared to be only half joking.

“Well, I can’t say that it hasn’t ever happened,” Henry conceded. “But I’m not talking about a superficial transformation. I mean a more fundamental change, an effect that reaches all the way down to your soul and slowly distorts your whole being. You already know that magic can alter how you perceive the world around you. It can show you things that almost no one else can even understand.”

Jason’s expression went serious. Yeah, Jason understood that part all too well.

“Wielding that power removes you from the rest of humanity even further. You do it long enough and you can become alienated from all those mundane experiences of life that allow people to understand each other. The things that make us feel connected to each other and help us give a damn about our fellow human beings. And once you stop caring, once the only thing left in your life is power itself, you become capable of sacrificing even those people who you once thought you loved just for the sake of more power.” Henry tried not to sound bitter, but it was hard. “Believe me, the greatest magic always comes at a cost. Often as not, what you sacrifice is your humanity.”

“Something like that happened to you, didn’t it? You had to pay a price for your power?” Jason asked suddenly and softly.

“What? No—I mean, sort of, but not like you’re thinking.” Henry shook his head. “I wasn’t the guy who went questing for power over life and death. I wasn’t so smart or ambitious. I was just too naive to realize that he’d kill me to fulfill his aspirations.”

Jason blanched slightly at Henry’s words but then asked, “But you’re alive now. So what happened?”

 “It went wrong.” Henry hadn’t spoken of that cold April morning since his debriefing ninety-four years ago; it had always seemed too soon. He wasn’t really certain why he was talking about it now, except that Jason made it feel like such a long time ago. “The officer in charge, the one who wanted to claim power over death—”

“Franklyn Fairgate, right?” Jason asked. “The man who recruited you.”

Henry hadn’t expected Jason to remember that. How strange it seemed to hear Frank’s name spoken by someone else, and in that unconcerned tone.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Henry couldn’t meet Jason’s interested gaze. He stared down at the stained counter in front of him. “Frank was no slouch. He just got one little detail of the ritual wrong. The incantations, the bronze knife, the symbols of binding—he had all that dead on. But he hadn’t understood what it meant to make a willing sacrifice of precious life. He hadn’t realized that immense power only gives itself to those prepared to lose everything for its sake. He figured that it would be enough to sacrifice his…friend.”

Henry swallowed hard against the tight feeling in his throat. He wished Sorcha would hurry up with his drink. “Long story short, he miscalculated and ended up getting himself and about a hundred other guys killed. I was the only one of Frank’s crew that walked out of the compound more or less alive.”

“That must have been really hard…” Jason sounded at a loss. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, everybody’s got a sob story.” Falk glanced across the bar to see Sorcha gliding silently toward them with their drinks. Last thing he needed was for her to see him going soft and self-pitying.

“Looks like we’ve got company,” he warned Jason. Then he raised his voice in greeting to Sorcha. “And speaking of angels. Sorcha, you’re a vision of lovely mercy for a thirsty man.”

“If flattery were cash, you’d have made me a wealthy woman a hundred times over, Half-Dead,” Sorcha replied with an amused smile.

Jason accepted his pint of luminous gold cider. Henry exchanged his blood-red whiskey shot for a gold goblin’s coin and didn’t ask for his change. In return, Sorcha told him a room number and withdrew to tend the other patrons gathered around the bar and slouching at the shadowy tables.

“Here’s to walking away.” Falk lifted his whisky.

“More or less alive,” Jason finished.

Henry tossed his Rotten Rye back and felt it burn down to the pit of his belly.

Jason took a more measured taste of his cider, but after his initial swig, his face lit up like he’d just discovered jacking off. Then he all but dived into his pint.

“This stuff is amazing. It’s got to be the most delicious thing I’ve tasted in my life,” Jason informed him. “Have you tried it?”

“I’m more of a whisky man, myself,” Henry replied. That was when he wasn’t swigging back poison to keep himself on the brink of the shade lands.

“Yeah, but this is…I can’t even think of a word beautiful enough to describe it. It’s like drinking Vivaldi’s ‘Autumn Allegro’.” Jason clutched the glass between his hands, cradling the last inch of radiant liquor. Then he thrust the glass toward Henry. “You have to try it.”

“Don’t you want it?” Henry asked.

“Of course, but I want you to taste it more.” Jason slid the glass over to Henry.

There had been more than one story of drinking buddies beating each other nearly blind over a bottle of this goblin cider. And yet here was Jason, willing to relinquish it to him.

“Don’t tell me you’re weirded out by drinking out of the same glass because—”

“That’s it exactly. I’m a clean freak.” Henry actually laughed at the idea. Then he lifted the glass and drank.

Jason was right. It was delicious, beyond mere taste. Golden light of a fall afternoon spread through Henry. He smelled sweet, ripe fruit and brilliant fallen leaves. He faintly heard a bird singing. And in the midst of it all, he tasted just a hint of Jason’s warm lips. Henry allowed himself to savor it for only a moment.

He wasn’t here to daydream about Jason’s mouth or the comfort of his company. And it wouldn’t do him or Jason any good to linger on either thought.

“It’s good. Probably too good to be true,” Henry said and set the glass aside. “Now come along, Agent August. There’s a man in room ten we need to talk to.”

***

A narrow stairwell led them down what felt like fifteen floors and then opened into a hall cramped and corroded enough to look like it had come from a sunken submarine. The air felt thick in Jason’s lungs and tasted like seawater. Out of the corner of his eye Jason even thought he saw a school of silvery fish drift by. Above them, clustering around the lights fixtures, clouds of jellyfish appeared to be feeding on the insects drawn to the diffuse light.

Suddenly Jason wondered if he could be drowning and not know it. He crushed the thought. Falk wouldn’t let that happen to him.

Still, only a decade of practice in halfway houses and psychiatric assessments allowed him to keep calm and simply follow Falk through the curving hallway while green-eyed sharks swam past. Keeping his gaze focused on the vision his glasses offered, Jason saw only a series of heavy hatch doors, each bearing a painted red number.

They reached ten, and Jason realized that they weren’t the first ones to come after Phipps. The heavy metal door bore deep dents had obviously been forced. A thick fungal stench poured out into the hall. The voices that rumbled from behind the battered hatch sounded as low and deep as an avalanche.

“Troll,” Falk mouthed and he moved quickly between Jason the door. He dropped one hand into his pocket and Jason wondered if he was going for his badge or his knife. But Falk just pulled out his flask and took a swig. Then he edged the door open with his foot. It swung in, exposing the cramped room within and its three occupants.

A withered, leathery man the size of a child spun on them. He wore nothing but a pair of knee-high black socks and held what looked like a soldering iron in his bony fist.

The other two occupied a half-collapsed bed. Jason hardly recognized Phipps from where he lay, gasping beneath what looked like a rockslide. Then the lichen-speckled, stone-gray creature holding Phipps turned its head to glower at Falk and Jason. Its eyes were pits, and when it opened the ragged chasm of its mouth, a sound like cracking boulders rolled out. Jason guessed that was the troll.