By the time Hector rounded the corner to enter the kitchen, the smell of sizzling bacon had already hit his nose. But instead of a 'good morning,' he was greeted with a concerned question. “What happened?”

Hector froze in place, expression blank, trying to force back any nervousness that might have crept into his voice. “...Did something happen?” ( Read more... )

Lacroix was absent this evening, sent away on an educational sabbatical for a few days, far enough from home so that there was no risk of him popping back in unannounced. On any normal occasion, Hector would not feel comfortable leaving his apprentice alone for so long in a foreign place, but this was no normal occasion. His health had declined the ( Read more... )

With soft footsteps, Hector came to stand outside of Lacroix’s bedroom door, his arms full with a brand new blanket, still wrapped in its firm plastic sheath. This might have looked like an ordinary duvet from the outside packaging, but the fabric was weighted, twenty pounds heavy, a tool for those who experienced sleep issues like Lacroix so often ( Read more... )

Hector looked forward to new movie releases -- and moreso those nights he'd spend watching them with Corbin. The drive to the theater was twenty minutes from Hector's home but it was well-worth the wait, both because the theater offered intimate pods for couples, and because he could spend even more time with Corbin in transit ( Read more... )

Hector sat hunched back against the sofa in Ghede’s sitting room, staring at the familiar mural on the wall: three skeletons tending to flowering greenery in Hugo Simberg’s Garden of Death. He listened as his mentor prepared Turkish style coffee in the kitchen adjacent, the smell of cardamom almost stronger than the scent of the coffee itself. The ( Read more... )

Relaxing on the couch, engrossed in novel about a tiny, African death cult, Hector barely registered Grim jump up into the couch beside him. Nor did he pay any mind to the two tentative paws resting against his thigh, or when the feline grew bolder and shifted onto his upper legs to leech his body heat, settling in and dozing off for a catnap as ( Read more... )

After a week at the beach without a single strange night terror, Hector’s paranoia had waned, his mood lightened. Lacroix had seemed excited for the change of scenery too, so the trip had worked out well for the both of them. But he could only stand so much water and sunshine before he started craving certain comforts of home... and certain people ( Read more... )

After listening to Lacroix's cat yowl inside the carrier for four hours in the back seat, Hector was well ready to be out of the car. The noise he'd endured on the drive to the beachside town of Yarmouth, Maine had given the elder mage a dull headache, but the pain was well worth being able to escape the oppressive weight of paranoia that came with ( Read more... )

Hector awoke to a heavy pressure on his chest. Confused and groggy, he tried to sit up and found that he didn’t have the strength to move, tried to open his lips to speak but was unable to do anything but listen and watch. In the darkness of his bedroom he could make out little; the form on his chest was cat-like in size with eyes an unnatural ( Read more... )

Hector never missed an opportunity to attend a Catholic mass on Good Friday; it was a grim celebration of the death of a king - a giant crucifix on display, a god adorned with a crown of thorns, blood dripping in rivulets from his forehead. Thick nail wounds punctured the wrists and ankles, a ragged gouge in the ribs from the sharp end of a spear. ( Read more... )