In the dark room, wreathed in cigarette smoke, the smell of whiskey and sour dreams, the man looked up from the lines of cocaine on the desk. There was another figure in the room. Some whispered it had antlers, others horns. Still others said it was just an idea given form. The man at the desk saw his father’s casually cruel smile, and eyes as cold as a banker’s soul.
“It is time, then?” he said, distantly pleased his voice didn’t shake; he had little to be proud of any longer, save for small glamours of pride.
The figure inclined its head and handed a piece of parchment — no, paper, a mere trick of light, the same that made a hand seem a claw had befuddled him and the man took it.
“Why this one? Why in person?” he said, unable not to speak. He felt as if others were speaking at the edge of hearing, that he was part of some ancient tradition stretching back across time and space.
The figure said nothing, the silence deafening.
The man quailed back in the seat and took the paper, signing his signature in an untidy scrawl.
And Barney was renewed for another season.
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