Evening, New York City. "Don't tell me," he murmured as he took a seat in the backrow of the small theatre. "You were never here, we never talked?"
Virgil took off
his cap and glanced at the well-dressed man in the seat next to him, whose smile was about as dry as the Tonopah Observatory
[1] desert. The dim lights were on, theatre-goers still streaming in to take their seats closer to the stage. It was a good place to meet without being overheard.
Some awful off-broadway take on
Guys & Dolls that they would have to suffer. A sparse audience.
"I was here and we certainly talked," Carmichael Rosier clarified.
"But you don't have to go around volunteering that information, do you?"Unspeakable business was secretive by nature and so they straddled a line in which their secrecy must seem reasonable. Rosier had every reason to be here. Not that Virgil thought anyone was watching right now. In fact, as far as he could tell, nobody had spared him a glance since that awful night
[2] in August.
They waited until the lights dimmed and the opening number of the musical began.
"He's gone cold," V began, referring of course to Cyrus Hawthorne. "It's like I don't even exist."
"Do you suppose you're still in any real danger?" "Doesn't seem it. Seems more..." he hesitated, eyes on the colourful stageset. "Seems more like he got bored of me."
Rosier passed him a bag of boiled sweets, which they probably weren't supposed to bring in. Virgil took one.
"Perhaps he has," the older wizard remarked, matter-of-fact.
"What do I do?" he unwrapped the sweet. "Talk to him again?"
Barley sugar. It tasted mild and mellow, it tasted of childhood memories in a corner tuck shop. He felt a pang of homesickness.
"Nothing," Carr spoke after a long pause filled with soaring music.
"Do your regular work, be careful. If he's turned, he won't reach out through you. If he hasn't, someone else has caught his eye."Virgil was caught between relief and irritation. He wanted to be useful. But relief won out in the end, remembering Hawthorne's grip on his neck - an ache that outlived the bruises Silas healed.
"I can do nothing," V rolled the sweet around his mouth as he sunk back in his seat. "I'm great at doing nothing."
End
[7 September 2017] Never Let Anyone In