“What do you reckon happens to them people that don’t come back?”

“I don’t rightly know.”

The wood of a rocking chair creaked wearily in the dust on the porch, a voice of dry wood and old earth. A tired voice. They looked out across the wide, flat land that was yellow in the daylight and brown as the sun set behind the old house and beyond the far side of the town there. Out across that thirsty expanse on the bow of the horizon lightening jabbed dryly here and there, illuminating the hot clouds that rubbed together out that way without rain.

“Why you reckon they try to leave in the first place?”

“I don’t rightly know. It has always been good enough for me to stay. Was before, is now. So I’ stayin’. Been a long time, though, since anyone come back from out that way. From out any way, way I see it.”

“At least the post still come.”

“Yes sir.”

Between the cry of a locust out in the lonely field, the thunder rolled gently over the plain to settle on the porch between them with the dust and the tired creak of the wood.

“Sterling.”

“Kassei.”

The grey ghost materialized out of wind, becoming visual in such a subtle way as to appear as if she always had been; as if that great movement in the air had strokes and tones that the eyes could perceive all along. Faintly, his eyes adjusted to the faint sight of Kassei’s face, staring out over the steppe with empty eyes and unsmiling lips.

“You waited a long time, up here.”

“Yes. There’s nothing else on the map.”

“Look,” I continued after the brief interruption of being seated by the hostess. “I have no idea what to do about him. I don’t know what he’s thinking, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Can’t you usually tell? I mean… you two are, ah… pretty close.” Moore looked at me uncertainly, punctuating his words with a draw off the freshly poured coffee. I rolled my eyes.

“Not apparently like I thought we were. I mean, it’s not a relationship that brooks much close scrutiny, you know what I mean?”

He nodded and stared into his cup before adding more cream with a slight grimace.

“That bad?”

“Oh yea.”

The waitress wandered over, flipping a lock of over-processed flaxen hair over one shoulder and popping her gum in the most horrifically stereotypical way I could possibly imagine. I eyed her and looked away before my dubious expression was misconstrued as a nasty look.

“You guys doing ok? Need a minute?” she asked cheerfully, topping off Moore’s coffee which he’d just finished bringing to the correct alchemical balance of cream and sugar.

“Yes.” I paused to smirk at my friend. “I think we’re ready to order.”

“Denver omelette,” said Moore. “Home fries.”

“Bacon cheeseburger,” said I. “Extra pickles.”

She jotted some notes, nodded, smiled for her tip, and left. Moore grimaced at the coffee, and then at me.

“Isn’t it a little early for that greasy monstrosity?”

“It probably won’t be any greasier than your denver omelette. Can we get back to the matter at hand?”

He nodded and reached for my hand across the table. His fingertips were still warm from clutching the coffee cup. Turning my palm up, he glanced at the faint but discernable circular mark in it, like a very old scar under the skin. Nothing fancy, no glowing arcane symbols, no commonly considered ‘mark of the beast’, just a smooth, perfect circle about a quarter inch thick and an inch in diameter, lighter than the color of my calloused skin but not by much.

“I still can’t believe that’s real, sometimes,” he whispered, shaking his head.

“A demon’s brand isn’t something you see very regularly,” I whispered back, glancing around defensively out of habit.

“So you haven’t talked to him in… what, how long?”

“A week maybe?” I replied as he released my hand and we both leaned back into the opposite sides of the booth. I propped my arm up on the back of the seat, glancing out the window to the street and the theatre beyond. The Winter Garden. Mama Mia. The woman on the poster for the play was ridiculously happy; it made me want to stick something in her wide open, laughing mouth. Not something unpleasant. Maybe… a grape or something.

“Mel?” Moore said. I snapped my eyes back to his raised eyebrows and pursed lips and apologized quickly.

“You don’t think he could be off with someone else, do you…?” he continued hesitantly.

I shook my head. “No, I mean… I don’t think so…”

The clicking of the waitress’s heels interrupted me. I glanced up to her expectantly, out of habit, as she popped her gum and topped of Moore’s coffee again and set down a backup glass of iced tea for me. I reached for the bright pink packets of sacharine or sucralose or whatever non-sugar came in the pink packets, and looked back up to find her not only still present, but gazing down at me sympathetically.

“Look honey, “ she started. “If he’s gone and taken off on you, he probably is with someone else.”

Horror struck me immediately. How much of our conversation had she heard? And how was it possible that she knew he could be gone? I lived with a lesser demon imprisoned inside of me; supposedly, in some crappy former life, I was some kind of angel and was condemned to service containing this other critter. He’d always been with me, and except for this last week of weird silence, there was a regular peanut gallery chattering away in the back of my head and the occasional nightmare of Hell. I didn’t mind too much, not having ever known any different; but the whole point was that he couldn’t go possess anyone else, and I did have a profound internal knowledge that this was terribly important. For some reason. Moore and I were still working on why, just in case.

Several very long seconds passed in stunned silence as Moore and I stared at the girl, totally dumb. She popped her gum again. She popped her god damn gum. And rolled her eyes.

“Look, I had this same situation before, with a boyfriend. He sort of fell of the map, and I kept thinking it had to be… you know, whatever. Work stress or whatever. But then I got to talking to this other friend of mine, who told me… that I have good instincts about people. Because, I mean, I do… I have totally great instincts about people. And that if I felt like he might be off running around with some other girl? He probably was. And you know what? He was totally right. You just need to kick that guy to the curb and get on with your life.”

I chuckled and looked down at the not-sugar packet I was clutching between white fingers.

“Uhh…” Moore said.

“You don’t understand,” I said.

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. But I wouldn’t hang on of I were you.”

Just then, the cook behind the counter called out our meal and she left to collect it.

Damn, nosy bitch, said Zerix. As if I would ever cheat on you.

“I’d wager this is the furthest we can travel on the road.”

The desert unfurled around them in all directions like a hostile flag reflecting the tawny, late- evening sunlight. Their horses stamped anxiously as they perceived their riders’ uncertainty, both looking back and forth between the warding beacons that sheltered both sides of the road. Plans could be laid until the end of the ages within the safety of tavern or fortress walls, where the ale flowed freely and talk of the Ta’raj lingered around most people’s unwillingness to travel even the relative safety of the lantern-bound track. Out here, however, to go too long on the road was folly and to venture beyond it to meet with a certain demise.

The sound of the desert intensified to fill the silence, a constant sussurus of wind and sand and insects whining a hole in the wide, unkind space.