The Hanging Hill

24

“Soon,” he hears them say.

“Soon!” It is hissed by a hundred voices slithering around him in the swirling cesspool of disembodied demons and devils beneath the theater, all yearning to live once more.

“Soon the moon grows full!”

“The portal begins to widen.”

“The two children have arrived!”

“Soon we shall see the red moon!”

“Soon comes the lightning moon!”

“The dog moon!”

The demon spirits howl and cackle and hiss again in harmony: “Sssooooon!”

Diamond Mike Butler, the Butcher Thief of Bleecker Street, feels hope swell once more in his decay-riddled soul.

Soon the full August moon will rise in the sky. Soon he will rise as well.

And, if all goes as promised, this time he will also cross the precipice to life, where he will once again pillage and plunder and cause more people to die!