The End - Visions of Apocalypse

I shoved my chair back from the table and stumbled to my feet, feeling the hot rush of the whisky slam up and into my forebrain all at once. I wobbled on my heels, holding on to the edge of the table to keep myself upright.

“Steady,” said Wormwood’s minder.

I took a deep breath, my guts twisting into a sick knot as it sank in. I’d lost the hand, I’d lost my warpstone, and now I owed Wormwood big time.

“I’m all right,” I muttered. “Just need some air.”

“Right you are then,” said the minder, affably enough for a nine foot monster with horns.

“Go home, Drake,” Wormwood said as he lit yet another cigarette. “I’ll be in touch. Like I said, I know you’re good for it.”

* * *

I wasn’t good for it. Not by a long way. I was so not good for it, in fact, that I had to walk home from the club. It comes to something when you can’t even afford a pissing taxi.

South London is bloody awful at three in the morning when it’s cold and raining, but at least this part of town is so bad even the muggers don’t dare go out after midnight. I had the pavement to myself, and I weaved my way down it with my hands buried in my coat pockets, collar turned up and my hair stuck wetly to my forehead. The cold rain was starting to sober me up, and that was the last thing I wanted. At one point I felt something watching me from the darkness of an alley, but it kept to the deal and stayed out of my way.

I’d made my deal with the night creatures of this part of South London when I first came here, and the terms of that deal were pretty simple. So long as they didn’t bother me, I wouldn’t come and bother them. They were more than happy with that.

I made it home in the end. Home was my office, above a Chinese pawnbrokers. At least I had my own front door at street level, with my own sign on it and everything. The sign said “Don Drake, Hieromancer,” in nice big gold letters. Well it had done, anyway - some wag had spray-painted out the word “Hieromancer” and written “wanker” underneath it instead. I kept meaning to do something about that, and I kept not getting around to it.

I leaned my forehead against the door as I fumbled through my pockets for the key. It went in the lock at the third attempt, and I opened the door and stumbled up the bare wooden stairs to my office. I had a couple of rooms out the back where I actually lived, and another where I worked, but I kept the booze in the office. I sank down into my chair and opened the bottom draw of my desk.

There was a half-empty bottle of whisky there, much cheaper stuff than Wormwood served, and a couple of relatively clean glasses. I ignored the glasses and drank it straight out of the bottle, which, when you thought about it, was glass anyway so what the hell difference did it make? It’s not like I had anyone to share it with.

I swallowed and let my eyes close. Damn it!

* * *

The phone woke me up. I was slumped over my desk, my fingers still curled around the empty bottle. I fumbled out with my right hand, realised that was the one holding the bottle, and winced as it rolled off the edge of the desk and shattered on the hard wooden floor. I groaned and let the machine pick up.

“Good morning, Mr. Drake,” said a woman’s voice. “This is Selina from Mr. Wormwood’s office. Mr. Wormwood would be pleased if you could telephone him this morning to discuss your repayment terms. Good day.”

I frowned. Wormwood? What the hell did he want… Oh no… My sodden memory turned over in the throbbing mess of my head, and I suddenly felt like crying. My warpstone. I had gambled away my warpstone, I remembered now, and I owed Wormwood the equivalent value of an angel’s skull to boot. The warpstone had been the last artefact of power I had left. The rest… well, I’ve always been better at drinking than I have at playing Fates, if I’m honest about it.

I slowly hauled myself up into a sitting position, and had to clutch a hand to my stomach as an acid rush of half-digested whisky burned its way up my throat and into the back of my mouth. I gave serious consideration to throwing up before I winced and swallowed it back down again. Maybe I’ve never been that good at drinking either.

Of course the warpstone wasn’t exactly the last artefact I had left, but if I ever consider gambling away the other you have my permission to shoot me though the head on the spot. I dragged myself to my feet and shuffled through to my work room to look at it.

My sign downstairs wasn’t entirely truthful, of course. Well, the wanker part might be I suppose, but not the Hieromancer. Hieromancy is divination through reading the entrails of a sacrifice, in case you didn’t know, and while I could do that it wasn’t exactly my main line of work. A man would struggle to earn a living looking at the insides of a pigeon, after all. The real money was in Sendings.