Dawn came outside the window of his mystery.

A single bird, a dumpster crow, cawed in the alley beyond.

A car door slammed shut—as lonely as the crow—in the street toward the other quarter.

He rose from his kneeling sweat. Numb with his dream walking, lost in the cavern she had visited, lost to the submission that was due upon the woven mat even no adhan called in this quarter.

The pressure from the door opening to the school on the ground floor caused a creak in the duct work, a groan in the old bones of this house, which he had so lovingly repaired even as he had further ruined the hulk next door to serve as his aerie.

The White Devil trod the floor below, hand-in-hand with the Black Snake.

Poet descended the stair to the gym, entering the sacred combat space from above even as the Devil and his slithering pet rose from the school below.

It was the intelligent devil, the non combatant, who seemed to be Mister Noble’s brain trust. The man seemed harried, panicked, hunted, more ghostly pale then even a white devil should be, its blood seemingly all occupied in considering whatever dread lurked in that out-sized Caucasian brain.

Akbar seemed to be mumbling as he slithered about in his tawdry suit. The words came only vaguely, eluding Poet as did this man’s name.

The End was near.

The entire encounter consisted of locking eyes with the pleading soul of thios turncoat devil, apparently escaping his handlers to sell the world-rending secrets in his outsized mind to enemy devils of the Russian variety he supposed, though he could not know, only appreciated the broad strokes of the play that occupied him like a puppet on a cruel stage. The devil held his eyes with great, sympathy, with a seeming interest in the man that withered here behind the construct that was Poet.

For his part, Poet now found himself unable to have social intercourse, to speak to and fro with another human, least of al the groveling fussing figure of Usef—who might have employed a ‘Y’ at the beginning of his name if not for his eye to marketing to the unlettered masses…

The eyes of concerned seemed to comprehend before he spoke to the serpent that wore a leash so slavishly.

“Yes, Usef, the Big-Headed, genius Devil deserts from his Master—I am your man, will take him into exile and die defending him. But you must accompany us for the first leg of the descent in case of foul play on your part—you damnable serpent.”

Pathetic titterings and garbled objections, frantic attempts to salvage a disintegrating façade of humanity came numbly to his ears as he intoned, “Meet me around back. I must collect my things.”

He ascended the stairs to his sanctuary one final time, his every ruined part subdued to his dark will, feeling himself the automaton of Fate—and she was a ruthless harlot of Hell as every man with sense knew…