Playing With Fire

Chapter Forty-one BILLY-RAY SANGUINE'S ERSTWHILE EMPLOYER

Billy-Ray Sanguine sat in the shade and watched the pretty girls walk by. The square was alive with people, with chatter, with the glorious aroma of food. It was a beautiful day, and he was halfway up the mountains in the walled town of San

Gimignano, enjoying a fine cappuccino.

A pair of stunning Italian girls walked by, looked at him, and giggled to each other. He smiled and they giggled again.

A man sat down at his table. "Behave yourself." Sanguine grinned. "Just admirin' the scenery." The man put a thin envelope on the table, placed one manicured fingertip on top of it, and slid it across.

"Your payment," he said, "for a job well done."

Sanguine looked inside the envelope and, quite unconsciously, he licked his bottom lip. He put the envelope in his jacket.

"It worked, then?"

The man nodded. "Bid Vengeous suspect?"

"He hadn 't a clue," Sanguine sneered. "Guy was so caught up in himself, he never imagined he was bein' played. Not for a moment."

"He used to be a fine ally," the man said sadly.

"Yet you had no hesitation in lettin' him take the fall for you and your little group."

The man raised his eyes, and Sanguine forced himself to not look away. "The Diablerie needed to remain unseen," the man said. "We have too much at stake to risk being uncovered so soon. However, now that the Grotesquery has fulfilled its purpose, that need is coming to an end."

"You knew Vengeous wouldn't succeed, didn't you?"

"Not at all, and we did everything in our power to help him."

"I don't understand," Sanguine said, leaning forward slightly. "The Grotesquery didn't open no portal. It never got the chance to bring the Faceless Ones back. I mean . . . didn't your plan fail?"

"The Baron's plan failed. Our plan is quite intact."

"I don't. . .how?"

The man smiled. "It called to them. Its death scream called to the Faceless Ones. Our gods have been lost for millennia, barricaded outside our reality, unable to find their way back. Now they know where we are." The man stood and buttoned his jacket. "They're coming, Billy-Ray.

Our gods are coming back. All we have to do is be ready to open the door."

The man walked from the table, and the crowd swallowed him. A few moments later, through a brief gap, Sanguine saw him standing with a woman, and the gap closed over and they vanished.

Sanguine let his cappuccino go cold. Once, he had worshipped the Faceless Ones, but eighty years ago he'd realized that if they returned and took over, he wouldn't particularly enjoy it. Still, a job was a job, and he didn't let his own political or religious beliefs interfere; and besides, the Diablerie was a group who paid well. His hand drifted to his jacket pocket, to the slim envelope secreted there, and all misgivings fled from his mind. He stood and left the table, walking in the direction of the two pretty Italian girls who had passed him.