Visitation by Haeron

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Chapter 2

Thank you to everyone who suggested I write some more of this! A few more chapters are planned; the story's just begun.

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His name was Glorfindel.

 

Erestor had asked him on a whim one day when he was in the shop - browsing for another god-awful plate to add to his growing collection. It sounded foreign, and more so to Erestor’s tongue when he said it aloud to test its consonants. Glorfindel had smiled and brought a pair of slightly tarnished silver sugar tongs to the counter.

 

‘Do you drink tea?’ Erestor had asked.

 

‘No, no, I’m a coffee man.’ Glorfindel said with a smile, producing the golden pen and cheque book from his interior coat pocket once again.

 

And from then on he became a regular customer. He came by most days to paw over the new relics and from time to time he would bring some abomination of glassware or porcelain to the desk. After a few weeks, Erestor had a suspicion he did it, at least in part, just to see his reaction. It was flattering, in a surreal who-was-that-sort-of-money sort of way, but Erestor did enjoy his visits and their airy chatter about nothing and no one. Glorfindel was a pleasant conversational partner and blessed with effervescent social graces. When Erestor told him so, he’d laughed. ‘My Mother once called me a gob-shite.’

 

It was a dour pre-spring morning when Glorfindel made his next appearance. Erestor heard the chime above the door and deigned to finish reading a particularly morbid paragraph about the local beekeeper’s untimely death (though not, as Erestor had feared, at the hands (stings?) of his own bees). There was a chill in the air that made the skin dry but there would be a sprinkling of dew over the daffodils in the morning. It was a transitory phase of the season, and Erestor favoured it not one bit.

 

‘Erestor!’ it was Glorfindel’s voice.

 

‘Mmhm,’ he said, taking a sip of the milky tea he had brewed himself.

 

‘Erestor,’ said Glorfindel again, more stringently. His tone made Erestor lower the paper to cast a glance above it. He was surprised to see Glorfindel already at the counter and not dallying about, rummaging through the pots and pans and priceless silvers. He had a dusting of rain on the shoulders of his thick black coat and a slight flush in his cheeks. He suited the cold. He was bracing.

 

Again; get a grip, Erestor.

 

‘Is everything alright, Glorfindel?’ he asked.

 

‘Yes, I just need your attention for a moment.’ he smiled, and Erestor refrained from rolling his eyes. At least Glorfindel was candid enough to request it as so. He nodded, made a gesture with a hand and flicked over the page of the paper idly.

 

‘I’m listening,’

 

‘Come out with me.’

 

Erestor looked up. Glorfindel hadn’t quite gotten the hang of using his inside voice yet, never mind his antiques shop voice.

 

‘I’m running the shop,’ Erestor replied with a bemused smile.

 

Glorfindel raised a brow.

 

‘I meant tonight, you dolt.’

 

Dolt. Dolt?! Erestor should have been affronted, but coming from Glorfindel, pure sunshine and powershakes made flesh, it was near downright affectionate.

 

‘Is it a date then?’ Erestor jested, turning his attention back to the obituaries, gleaning quickly that the priest-turned-extreme-skydiver’s career had not quite lifted off. Erestor laughed inwardly at his own pun and then felt guilty.

 

‘Yes.’ Glorfindel said. It was sultry, and blunt.

 

Erestor met his eyes and Glorfindel winked, waiting on an answer with a patience that suggested neither confidence or anxiety, merely... patience. Erestor took the time to take another hearty sip of tea, warming his fingers around the cup. He’d put too much sugar in the brew, he could feel it on his tongue. The truth was he had prior engagements and he regretted, almost, that he could not turn them aside in favour of a date with a dashing stranger.

 

It was the other half of his job - buying. He would meet and greet with sellers in places of varying cleanliness and security and, if the Gods or the stars or whatever other eyes were out there cast a glance down at him, he’d walk away with some prize pieces for the store. He was good at it, it was why Elrond had hired him. You’ve a silver tongue and steel eyes, he had said to him at the end of their trial week together back in 1998. Erestor was still figuring out if it had been a compliment or not.

 

‘I’m acting as buyer tonight, Glorfindel, I’m sorry.’ he said.

 

‘Then we can go out earlier, when your shift ends but before you need to go and play Deal or No Deal with David Dickenson.’

 

Erestor smirked. ‘It’s nothing like Deal or No Deal, and you’re thinking of Noel Edmonds.’

 

‘I meant Flog It.’ Glorfindel winked. ‘I’d just like to take you out of this shop, you know, outside.’

 

‘This from the man who watches Flog It, yes?’

 

‘Well, I just thought that seeing as I’m now an integral part of the running of this shop that I should do my homework.’

 

Erestor had to laugh, he put his mug down and traced a finger around the rim. It was smooth and warm with the ghost of his breath. He nodded, he mulled it all over. It was an opportunity to learn more, he told himself, to pull at a thread of the mystery and unravel it strand by strand.

 

And the idea of a date was never wholly unappealing. Erestor could always get behind free drinks and appetisers.

 

‘I’ll even drive you to where you need to go, later.’ Glorfindel added. Erestor made a noise of faux appreciation.

 

‘Oh my, in your fancy car? The one you park illegally outside the shop every day?’

 

‘That very car, Erestor, that very car,’

 

He was a good sport. Erestor smiled, lowered his eyes. The day had been a smog where time shifted lazily from one hour to the next. A shipment of coins from the war had been delivered and had needed sorting and Erestor’s hands still smelt faintly of copper and polish from where he’d spend the morning moving coins into piles. He tapped his nails against the mug. Glorfindel was sweet, infinitely so.

 

It couldn’t hurt, could it? It was a question to which Erestor full well knew the answer and the reality of it was a dead weight at the back of his mind. Glorfindel was a sweetheart - whereas he, Erestor - reader of obituaries, drinker of tepid tea - was less so. A no danced on Erestor’s tongue for a fraction of a second before he swallowed it with his heaviness.

 

‘Okay,’ he said, feigning defeat. Glorfindel grinned but the smile became demure quickly.

 

The clocks were ticking at the back of the shop.

 

‘Thank you,’ he said, softly.

 

Erestor could not reply. He hadn’t expected that.

 

Glorfindel cleared his throat.

 

‘Has anyone I know popped their clogs?’

 

-

 

The stacks of trinkets, odd and ends and the occasional piece of crockery piled up over the dresser turned Erestor’s reflection in the mirror into a fractured mosaic. He could see just enough of himself by the ambient glow of a battered old lamp and the laptop screen, a bright blur in the glass behind him. Erestor was brushing his hair listlessly, looking, via the mirror, out of the window on the far wall. There was a row of apartment buildings, some windows were lit and were neat rectangles of luminescent yellow, but most weren’t. Erestor blinked - and another went out.

 

There was a smudge on the glass hovering over a section of his face and as he combed, he watched half in a trance the way the mirror warped the shape of him, gently. It was dark in his bedroom save for the little light of the lamp and laptop, but such was how Erestor liked it. There was a comfort to be gleaned in such ambience and many a night had he spent lain abed, listening to naught but the cars below and their muted cacophony of transit. It was life, below him, and he above. It spelled safety.

 

He looked away from the mirror when his bedroom door creaked open. A small white ghost padded into the room to perch where she would upon the dresser in a gap that seemed made for her. She meowed. Her eyes were large.

 

‘I think you’re right, Barbara.’ said Erestor, resigned.

 

Barbara did not deign to respond. She was always right, after all, and black did seem like too much of a morbid colour to wear to a date, in hindsight. And Glorfindel hardly needed to think Erestor even more morbid than the probably already did; what with the obituaries, and all. Erestor tried to mentally envision his drawers, to pick out a shirt more, what, lifelike? Instead, he fell to listening.

 

There was simply something about the rush of cars, the blaring of a horn being stretched into distance and speed. Movement, in the night - where were these people journeying to at such a late hour? Erestor blinked, he saw himself in the mirror, moving only barely. He envied them, really, but roused himself from his daydreaming. He had a date to prepare for. A date, the word was a chime in his head, rebounding again and again. A date, with Glorfindel.

 

Erestor set the brush down and might have smiled if not for the pleasant lethargy. There was a calm within him he’d never felt before, an assurance. He toyed with the idea of perchance wearing something nicer than a shirt, some sensible dress pants and a heavy coat - but the meeting with the seller loomed overhead like an inky, peripheral precipice. There would be no point to it. He could not appear to be anything more or less than he was - so it was with the antiques, so it had to be with their handlers. Of course, it wasn’t a rule that everyone played by.

 

Lights danced on the mirror’s surface. It was a beautiful night; the air was bracing but still for the world was at her rest. Erestor could have spent the hours sitting and doing no more than watching or making a few errant notes on the back of supermarket receipts. He wondered then if Glorfindel would like nights like this? He thought so, though it might have been easier to suspect the opposite.

 

He was not all he seemed, and he seemed to be a great deal many things at once.

 

Erestor stood and fell to accosting his chest of drawers, digging through piles of black clothes for a speck of colour. He could barely see but came across a formal jumper that was a hue lighter than the black garments he’d pulled free. With a salute to the heathen hedonistic Gods, Erestor pulled it on - it’d either be a nice surprise, or a reason to keep his coat on and guard himself from the chill; winter’s last, it would seem, if the lengthening days were anything to go by. The clothes he’d removed from the drawers he left on his bed, apologising to his future self half-heartedly, and as he crossed the room again, picking up his coat, Erestor chanced to take a final look in the mirror.

 

A dissatisfied sigh escaped him. His skin was not at its best and the dark circles had returned somewhat under his eyes, making him seem almost a hollow thing. And then it came, that familiar twinge of unworthiness, the urge to hermit and hole up and ne’er dare the outside again, but no, Erestor tore himself away. I have to go, he told himself, I want to go.

 

Barbara sat up. Erestor scratched her behind the ears.

 

‘Wait up for me, old girl.’ he said.

 

She watched, with glassy eyes, as he bent to turn off the lamp.

 

-

 

The Palace restaurant was the kind of high-class building that Erestor walked past sometimes when on a stroll (or a quest for decaf). He’d paid it little notice besides wondering at the rich sots inside, eating caviar at 10am and drinking his year’s wages in a single bottle of wine. And yet now, As Erestor smoothed down his jumper (that thankfully had proven to be a deep, navy blue) and slipped inside the large, arched glass door - he realised that he was now one of those rich sots! Or rather, he was on a date with one.

 

Erestor stepped into the palace from the cold and from one world into another. Expense radiated from the marble floor, the white walls and columns and the golden ceiling - certainly, tonight he’d be dining on something a world away from the soup and rich tea biscuits he usually feasted on. Erestor looked around as he walked the length of the foyer (he’d never been to a restaurant that had had a foyer before). His step of his shoes rang out, clear and crisp, but he walked cautiously so as not to bowl himself across the length of the room like a trussed up curling stone. Thankfully, Glorfindel’s calling of his name spared him from further wide-eyed gawping. Upper-class diners did not, after all, gawp.

 

He spied Glorfindel loitering near the reservations podium, a vision in a white (slightly too tight) shirt, pressed trousers and shoes that shone pleasantly. He’d let his hair down for the evening, literally, and looked half a divinity and half a wild thing. Erestor met his summons.

 

‘You look wonderful,’ said Glorfindel, beaming as Erestor came to him.

 

Erestor doubted it. It’d been windy outside and he hadn’t thought to bring a comb, so a quick brush with the fingers before he’d entered the building had had to suffice. But he accepted the compliment with a coy smile - he remembered some of his date-time etiquette.

 

‘And you,’ he said, in way of reply, ‘you look - different.’

 

Glorfindel laughed and it filled the foyer.

 

‘In a good way, I hope?’

 

‘Of course,’

 

Glorfindel smiled fondly at him and Erestor noted that he seemed palpably relieved. Had he thought that he might skip out on him? ‘Right, shall we find our seats?’ Glorfindel asked and Erestor said it would be a fine idea. Glorfindel rung the small bell on the podium and then they waited, side by side, in an amicable silence.

 

Erestor took a breathe, an inhalation that Glorfindel noticed with a smile and a reassuring tap to the crook of Erestor’s elbow. He so easily could have put his arm around his shoulders or his waist...

 

Would you have let him? asked a voice in the mists of Erestor’s conscience.

 

He thought about it, looking idly at the etchings in the golden panels of the ceiling that were lavish mimics of the frescos ofItaly, daubed in gold instead of paint. He thought about it and concealed the bemused smile that threatened to peak.

 

Yes, thought Erestor. I would.

 

***

 

Glorfindel’s conversational confidence was brilliant. Erestor wondered how many times he’d done it before, the whole wining and dining experience, but thought it impertinent to ask at such a preliminary stage of their date. And what did it matter, truly?

 

He was a glistening conversationalist and sat upon his chair with an easy comfort. Erestor was listening though he pretended that he were only half-listening, and eyeing up the menu where most of the food was unpronounceable - and yet undeniable appealing, even so.

 

They were sat amid a cluster of other diners, at a small, circular table covered over with a pristine white cloth and decorated with a few shining salt shakers and such. Glorfindel had made a  japing comment about how well they’d look amongst his own kitchen utensils and Erestor had to laugh - such was usually the first thing he thought of, too. Away from the main traffic of the restaurant, their table afforded them a quiet and a privacy that Erestor had not anticipated. The neighbouring diners spoke softly and their chattering buzz was a warm current abounding them

 

Erestor felt a little out of place, in truth, and often found himself sitting too rigidly or with his shoulders tensed. But Glorfindel and his gentle conversation proved to be a balm to Erestor’s frayed nerves. Breathe, he told himself often, breathe and say something if he prompts you.

 

Glorfindel certainly had an abundance of stories, and of all the things he might have expected him to be talking about that evening, his uncle’s puppy farm up in the grasslands of Caernarfon would have been the last. It was sweet; sweet talk, and Glorfindel said nothing overly bawdy or provoking - and Erestor wondered why he had even thought he might? Because he seems the sporting type? The gym type? Because he bought that god-awful plate? He’d been unfair, for Glorfindel was a doe.

 

And the jokes, by god, the were really quite awful.

 

But Erestor laughed.

 

Glorfindel was good at this.

 

He kept his eyes on the menu for the most part, sometimes flicking his attention to a waiter or a diner risen to visit the powder room. The food was as lavish as the decor and Erestor could not say he knew entirely what any one dish consisted of. Music tinkled overhead, some classical piece that was largely lost in the hum of the event, save for the occasional piano refrain or warbled note. He scanned a couple of dishes and spotted the word légumes amid a wadding of French descriptives and remembered, faintly, a New Year’s Resolution that had already fallen to the wayside.

 

Eat better, drink less.

 

Tonight’s meal would be a homage to the optimism he had evidently had on New Year’s Eve, then?

 

‘Are we ready to order?’ asked Glorfindel, setting his own menu down.

 

‘I think so,’ he handed Glorfindel his and Glorfindel took it, gently, and made a gesture to flag down a passing waitress.

 

His every action so far had been gentle, his voice, though voluminous and bold, was gentle and Erestor wondered if he were truly such a passive, bridled creature? The thought suddenly gave way to another, far more provocative, and Erestor inwardly cursed and was glad that Glorfindel was already preoccupied with nattering with the waitress.

 

She laughed at his jokes, but then she was getting paid to do so, and read back their orders to them and, in her impeccable French accent, made them seen infinitely more enticing. She bowed and departed, leaving the pair alone. They waited then, glancing at one another and sharing a smile of mutual excitement (that was, at least on Erestor’s part, dappled with just a touch of anxiety).

 

They were plunged into a sudden quiet wherein Glorfindel’s fingers tapping against the tablecloth became little drums, jarring with the music, stirring the buzz of conversation. A dozen more looks they shared and each was a silent communication, a bond to be made. Erestor was about to dare breaking a conversation of his own when suddenly there came the dreadfully iconic sound of a glass smashing to a thousand pieces somewhere. Whether due to nerves or a macabre sense of humour, Erestor had to contain his amusement. The restaurant quieted, Erestor heard a few muted gasps from the dinner goers beside their table.

 

And when he looked at Glorfindel, he was smirking.

 

They saw one another’s expression, and succumbed to a silent, shared laughter.

 

***

 

Erestor smelled the food before he saw it, and each sense of his was bathed in a luxury that surely must be paid for in diamonds. His plate was set before him and he was pleased to see he had ordered some kind of chicken dish with, of course, the légumes. He caught Glorfindel’s eye through the gap between the waitress’s elbow and body.

 

He had a stare that made him shiver.

 

When she left them to their meals, Erestor approached his delicately - testing a mouthful of each beautifully presented piece. The chicken was good and rich and the vegetables did not leave a bitter twang at the back of his tongue. That’s because it’s proper food, Erestor, you dolt.

 

Dolt had become a featured part of the language of Erestor’s internal monologue ever since Glorfindel had said it that morning. And just as Erestor was daintily spearing at his food, Glorfindel ate more confidently. He’d ordered a seafood dish, and was cutting up a piece that looked to be perfectly Erestor-sized.

 

He pushed his fork into it and leaned forward a little to offer it to Erestor.

 

‘Here, kitten.’ he said, and Erestor smiled.

 

Kitten?

 

He knew what he was supposed to do, of course. He was supposed to lean forward too and take the morsel by mouth, to claim how good it was and how grand a decision Glorfindel had made by bringing him here, to this centre of eloquence and fine dining. And a part of him did want to do so, to give in to a side of wantonness that threatened every now and then to rise (and, by God, in public too!). But no, Erestor succumbed instead to the cool touch of modesty.

 

Not today, loverboy.

 

He smiled, and took the fork from Glorfindel by hand. He ate the bite. And it was good - but Glorfindel’s overly dramatic faux-disappointed moan was even more so.

 

***

 

It was only when Erestor felt a warm knee press tightly against his own under the table that he realised they were flirting, and it was only when he pressed back that he realised that they had been flirting all night. Glorfindel was finishing off his plate and Erestor watched, sated by his own meal. That word, that affectionate kitten word had come up again a number of times - and Erestor had liked it.

 

And now Glorfindel knew.

 

The thrill of the evening’s events turned a deathly pale as time ebbed by however, and Erestor became aware very suddenly of the span of time that had passed them by. He would need to go, soon, though he could not bring himself to want to go. He told Glorfindel that time was running short and though he saw clearly that the blonde bachelor understood and knew the severity, he smiled all the same and said: ‘but we have not even had dessert!’

 

‘Another day, another night,’

 

‘Is that a promise?’

 

Erestor lowered his eyes, his smile was abashed.

 

‘We should get going.’

 

Glorfindel nodded and set down his cutlery, crossing them over one another on the plate. ‘Then,’ he said, flagging another waitress with a wave of a hand. ‘we should come back when we’ve both more time. And put your wallet away, you’re not paying for this.’

 

‘But-’

 

‘It’s a thank you, kitten.’

 

Erestor smiled and conceded. The deal awaited and heralded the end of a night where bliss and dread had combined, he sat and allowed it to wash over him like so many tides lapping at his ankles; the music, the voices, Glorfindel’s light banter.

 

It will all come again, you’ll come here again, Erestor told himself in the hope of waking a flame of hope even with such sparse kindling. He watched Glorfindel pay (by card - the pen and cheque book hadn’t been brought along on the date) and sign away on a neat square of paper. They were thanked for their custom and given complementary mints that brought a fresh beaming smile to Glorfindel’s mouth.

 

‘Time to go,’ he chirped, pocketing a few more mints.

 

Erestor masked his solemnity, and rose with Glorfindel to leave.

 

He followed Glorfindel outside where the bite of the wind’s chill was as sharp of a reminder as he could have asked for; nature’s morning-after coffee break. It’s all business now, he told himself. Elrond would be counting on this new stock, the shop would be counting on him. ‘Nervous?’ Glorfindel asked, pulling on a pair of gloves.

 

‘No, not exactly.’ Erestor replied, thinking it over. No, the emotion was harder to place than that and less concerned with the impending deal and more concerned with their walking away from the Palace. It was a kind of melancholy that came with old memories, ones turned to sepia, and it was a feeling that resided in Erestor’s bones and brain and conscience all at the same time. He thrust his hands in his pockets and his fingers found the mint from the Palace, still wrapped in foil.

 

‘We’ll have to come out again,’ Glorfindel reiterated, but his voice was largely lost to the night. ‘Soon, if you’d like.’

 

Erestor nodded, there didn’t seem to be words apt enough to convey his agreement - but Glorfindel understood and deemed that matter settled with a levity that called a small smile to Erestor’s lips.

 

The stars were pricking the sky in the inky spaces between the buildings and wires and the wind brought a golden lock of hair before Glorfindel’s face. He brushed it away with a gloved finger.

 

People rushed too and fro in coats and hats and scarves that would soon be discarded as the spring woke, day by day, and brought the warmth back with it. They rounded a street corner and another, Glorfindel walked fast and Erestor had to pace a little to catch up - but the exertion kept him warm. They passed under streetlights that cast everything a tarred orange, a swathe of electric and fog and Erestor could not remember the last time he had wandered out at night like this, but it was good, and Glorfindel walked close to him.

 

Glorfindel had had to park a few streets away from the restaurant and now Erestor saw it - a boys toy in all its decadence. It was an emerald green Jaguar and Erestor could have laughed. Certainly, the man who bought that fucking awful plate off of him in the antiques shop would have a sparkling, metallic convertible like this. Glorfindel saw his smirk, and asked what? with one of his own.

 

‘Oh, well I was expecting it to have tiger stripes or leopard print or a spoiler and go-faster stripes.’ he said. Glorfindel laughed, unlocking the car with a click of a button on a key clutched in his palm.

 

‘Sadly, they were all out of leopard print the day I bought her, but don’t think I didn’t ask,’

 

Erestor’s laughter came out as a dry bark as the wind seized his breath. He slid himself inside the car, it was cosy and clean despite its flashy exterior, and smelt faintly of vanilla scented car air fresheners. Glorfindel shut his door and then Erestor his, and for a moment they sat stationary whilst the world carried on outside the doors.

 

They shared the quiet intimacy, separated only thinly from the hubbub outside, and Glorfindel pulled off his gloves, tossing them over the dashboard display.

 

He slid the key in the ignition.

 

‘Are we late?’ he asked, poised. There was half a shadow cast across his face and when he leaned forward to rouse the car to life with a twist of his hand, he basked himself in light. Orange light, grey shadow - it split him half and half.

 

Erestor checked his phone.

 

‘No, not yet.’

 

‘Then we’ve some time.’

 

For what? Erestor might have asked, but he dared not. It was simpler to melt into the thrum of the engine that was a buzz in the ear as they began their little journey. Erestor sat back and Glorfindel drove them out of the city centre down the roads that turned this way and that, twisting between high-rise buildings and under bridges where went other cars - a line of electric wisps. Glorfindel turned the steering wheel with the palm of his hand and his face was a picture of contentment.

 

There was something else there, though, but Erestor couldn’t place it.

 

Glorfindel put the radio on, quietly. The music was a light lilt of a woman’s voice and a synthesiser beat, a song Erestor could just as easy imagine himself listening to as he sat at his window on the fifteenth level of his apartment building, watching, watching...

 

But no, tonight he was part of the life, rather than an observer of it. A tingle of excitement tickled his fingers.

 

They drove away from the skyscrapers and towards flatter horizons, peppered by telegraph poles and weathered lampposts, and it occurred to Erestor as he watched them tick by, that he could hold Glorfindel’s hand if he wished. It was right there, loosely ghosting over the shift stick. Erestor looked at it and then to Glorfindel’s face. He didn’t look back, but blinked.

 

He could touch his leg, rest his hand on his thigh.

 

Somehow, Erestor knew Glorfindel’s body would be warm.

 

And he was humming along to a Bryan Adam’s power ballad when they turned down a side road and slowed to a veritable crawl. Gravel crunched under the wheels and Erestor saw Glorfindel’s cautious glance at the multi-storey car park they’d journeyed too. Erestor checked his pockets, ticking off a mental checklist; phone, wallet, keys, lighter - and a mint. He couldn’t fault Glorfindel’s politely masked judgement - the building looked the perfect place to shoot one of those ghost movies Erestor could never sit through. It was a bulky, square construct made of grey steel and grey brick. The cars parked inside were few, but it was a well known “business” ground.

 

It looked dark, and Erestor had a wish to tell Glorfindel to turn the car around.

 

Let’s get dessert.

 

But he could not shirk his duty to Elrond. He had a job to do, and it should be as simple as that. Erestor inhaled. Glorfindel tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, he looked at the speedometer and then out of the window, and then to Erestor, with half a brow quirked.

 

‘Tell me: why aren’t you making a business of picking out wedding venues?’

 

Erestor laughed grimly.

 

‘Believe me, it wasn’t my idea to meet here.’

 

Glorfindel didn’t like that; his suspicion was growing rife. Erestor found it oddly quaint.

 

‘I’ll wait here for a little while, just in case.’ he said, fixing Erestor with a look that brooked no arguments. Erestor smiled, a humble assurance, and opened up the car door.

 

The wind had gathered again and struck him quick. Night-time had her own scent, tonight it was heady; cold air and high skies. Erestor stood and cast a look over to the car park, spotlights and creeping shadows spilling over the parking lines. He spied a few figures, roaming. Bending slightly to look inside the Jaguar, Erestor said his farewell to Glorfindel.

 

‘I’d like to do this again some time,’ he said.

 

For a moment, it seemed as though happiness would overcome the apprehension in Glorfindel’s eyes. Almost. But he bowed his head a fraction and when he looked up again, he was smiling - for both their benefits.

 

‘Call me,’ he said, and winked.

 

Erestor closed the door and pulled his coat tighter about his body lest the wind tease it from his shoulders. It blew against him, and Erestor prayed it was not an ill omen. Omens somehow always seemed more prevalent in the moments before a deal. Never when I’m picking my lottery numbers, Erestor jested internally, but it did little to lighten the sudden heaviness.

 

It was like he were walking through a bog.

 

The walk was long. His pants rippled around his legs as he strode through the gusting tide of twilight’s wind and the approaching car park did not seem as though it were like to give him any apt shelter. The few men and women who loitered under the light were sharing a cigarette and none, save one or two, looked up when Erestor walked past. He was glad for that, and even more so when he spotted the licence plate he had been told belonged to the seller.

 

Erestor’s every footstep rang out into the car park like a fracture, echoing in the hollow spaces. He cast a giant’s shadow on the far wall as he approached the car and bade himself not fidget - not when his silhouette was painted half a mile high. Suddenly he felt vulnerable - as though he should have a gun secreted away somewhere, or at least a few more hair slides to fall back on. The concrete ceiling felt too low.

 

He had never liked it here, but if there was a deal to be made...

 

Just as Erestor approached the Mercedes, a man in a slightly unfashionable brown suit exited from the passenger seat. A pale, rotund man in the autumn of his years, Jonas, the mononymous seller from two cities over, smiled to see Erestor approach.

 

He reached back into the car for a briefcase.

 

‘What do you have for me?’ Erestor asked, coming to stand a little ways away from the seller, and his words were rich with reverberation. The car park warped his timbre but the effect was power. Jonas sighed, contemplating like he had not a clue where to begin describing the wonders he had to offer. It was a game, a charade. Erestor allowed him his theatrics, though the thought that he might close a deal before Glorfindel drove away was a tantalisation he knew he should not be considering.

 

You can’t rush a good deal.

 

‘Where to begin!’ Jonas clucked, tapping his briefcase with a hand decorated with a number of “gold” rings. ‘Where to begin?’

 

There was a gap of four or so feet between them.

 

‘The carpentry you got for me last time went down well,’ Erestor said, quite truthfully, there were always folks in want of chairs and tables. ‘More of the same would be appreciated. And gold and silver are always nice. Shiny things, you know, to bring in the magpies.’

 

Jonas laughed with far more gusto than the jest had warranted, in truth.

 

‘Gold, yes, well then, I might have something to whet your whistle indeed.’

 

Erestor said nothing though the idiom inexplicably rankled him, but lifted his chin a fraction.

 

‘We’ve some plated playing card holders come in recently, pretty little things that the old dears go mad for - somewhere to store their sewing bits and pieces. Gold, gold, ah, let me think... There’s a picture frame and a nice one too, a huge thing - and that’s got gold embellishments, and as always there’s the usual tableware-’

 

A twang of disappointment crossed Erestor’s face.

 

‘And this is why you wanted to meet here, in practically the dead of night? Jonas, I never knew you to favour the mundane.’

 

Jonas laughed, but not as merrily. ‘Mundane,’ he said, tasting the word. A touch of businesslike severity could do wonders to cut to the quick with these doddering sellers - but there was a line, and Erestor knew better than to cross it.

 

‘We’ve already enough picture frames to rehouse the Louvre.’

 

Jonas’ stood upright, adjusting his jacket. The light that glared down on them both from a faltering spotlight built into the heavy, solid ceiling cast a geometry of sharp shadows on Jonas’ face; around his eyes, under his nose. He looked like a morbid caricature of a skull.

 

Erestor hoped it was not another omen.

 

‘There is... something.’ Jonas said.

 

That’s more like it.

 

‘Something?’

 

‘Quite something, indeed.’ and he smiled, a slow reveal of teeth.

 

No.

 

Erestor took half a pace backwards and liked not at all the grin curving Jonas’ lips, nothing at all like the bluster he had sported not moments ago. Erestor noticed the number of cars, parked oh so nonchalantly around them. He noted the tinted windows. He noted the figures behind the glass shade - shades themselves.

 

‘Smell a rat?’ said Jonas, pulling something out of his suit pocket. It was a gun, an antique pistol. ‘Do you see it? Do you like it? What would you give to get your paws on it? Oh, it’s a vintage model alright - fromAmerica, you see. Gilded and in perfect working order.’

 

It was a beautiful gun, that much was true.

 

Erestor could feel nothing save for the heartbeat under every inch of his skin. He felt the beat of it in his mouth, in his neck...

 

‘Do you think it’ll devalue the price if I were to shoot you with it? Or do you think you’d make me a tidy profit? Shall we take a risk?’

 

Jesus Christ,

 

Erestor blinked just as he saw Jonas point the gun at him. Time became a thick haze and slowed to a dull, dull slog. There was static filling Erestor’s ears. The light above them was afire and Jonas’ smile was replaced with the barrel of the gun as he brought it to bear upon him.

 

What the fuck!

 

Jonas’ face twisted in disgust. There were shouts behind Erestor, the sounds of a clamour and the sounds of bodies thwacking against the ground; a flat, bass thud that was entirely mortal. Erestor tried to turn but saw suits and suits and white collars abound. Someone shouted his name and he looked, but could see nothing beyond his own dizziness.

 

Don’t let me die in this fucking car park, thought Erestor to himself, he turned, he saw the gun, and then Jonas pulled the trigger.