I've been away longer than I realized and it's important to me to keep this updated, so I make amends with a gift to the reader.

Here is the opening chapter of my most recent journey, "Foreverotica." It is the second book in a trilogy that began with "Calliope" which is yet unpublished, but this book will be a voluminous dark fantasy that while in no way unconnected will surely stand on it's own. So here you go:

Richard Ambry couldn't say why, exactly, but he was terrified for his life the moment he heard the knock at his door.

He was disoriented, woken from sleep, and stared across his flat with blurry eyes. He did not want to wipe the sleep from them. He did not want to stand. And more than anything he did not want to open that door. None of this made the knocking stop. It was cold knuckle on hard wood, there were few more unsympathetic sounds. Finally, he swallowed. Dry. Richard was cold and shaking and he began to feel sick. But there would be no running. Not from this. He spoke slowly and softly, as if remembering how, "who... who's there?"

Whatever it was on the other side of the door, if it was in fact someone, did not give a vocal reply. They simply continued to knock.

Richard looked down, said a silent prayer, and went to the door. He closed his eyes, grabbed the cold steel of the knob. Even though a booming voice inside his skull bellowed for him not to, he looked out and opened the door.

Nobody there. An empty hallway, its emptiness so much more amplified by the expectance of a someone or even a something. And yet, nothing. So he closed the door.

It took no more than a second and a cold chill to realize there was someone inside his flat with him the moment he closed the door.

He turned. In the chair by the bed, there sat a young man. In his twenties, Richard would guess, although gauging age had never been his strong suit and had gotten him into trouble on more than one occassion in the (increasingly distant) past. The man was young, he could guess that much, or at least he looked it. Dressed in a fine, white Italian suit. He was tall and thin, and his eyes, cold and gray.

Richard was surprised not only to find the intruder but, doubly so, not to know him. "Who are you?" he said, confusion washing away the fear in his voice. "I know all of my assassins by name."

"You live here by yourself."

"What?"

"Do you live here by yourself?" the man said again, with a directness only the young possess.

Richard nodded. "Yes..."

The young man simply made a clicking sound in the back of his throat. "Do you like it?"

"I don't... understand."

"I suppose it suits your needs," the young man said, glancing around, studying the furniture, the books, running a finger along the armrest of the chair, as if each of these things held a vital clue to the man possessing them. "It suits your needs, all right," he said again. "Unmarried. No children. No friends. Be hell for me, but for you it's... I don't know. Quaint."

"Who. Are. You."

"Sorry. Manners have a tendency to escape me. The name's Englehart. Caluwyn Englehart."

"Englehart," Richard echoed, struck by the familiarity of the name. "Good God. You're Benedict's boy."

"How right you are."

"Then you are an assassin, after all."

"Please," Englehart said with a hint of distaste. "I am so very much more than that."

"Such as?"

"You know that old saying, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same?'"

"Of course."

"Well," Englehart said, the temperature--it seemed to Richard--dropping five degrees every time he spoke, "I am here to do everything in my power to prevent that, and I'm afraid it starts with you. I'm here to take charge of change, to grab what has happened to the world before it has time to think about even trying to return to anything that has come before, and keep it rolling. Until what is left no longer resembles anything that used to stand as truth and reason."

Richard took a deep breath. Somehow, the closer he came to the moment of death, the more the terror seemed to subside. "And this has to start with me?"

"As it happens, yes."

"Why?"

"Maybe if more people had asked themselves why we would never have found ourselves in this mess to begin with. But here we are, so what does it matter? You're cursed with knowledge, Richard. Don't burden yourself with anymore."

"The other members, the other men and women of the Kalla Sho'El, they'll hear about this. They'll know what you've done."

"Don't worry," Englehart said, pale eyes shining through the darkness. "I'm coming for them too."

Terror bled back into Richard's face. His life was one thing, the world's another. "And you know what that would cause? Have you even stopped to think about the repercussions of what you plan to do?"

"Oh yes. It will only further something that has already been set in motion. A ticking bomb, reignited. But it has to be done." He smiled at Richard, wide and gleaming, like an excited child before he said, "I have to start with a blank canvas, before I can begin to paint."

Silence for a long time. Richard wondered how much magic was left in his old body. If anything he started now would even have time to look like a fight, or would just be an old man fooling himself. And far too late.

That smile came again and told him, no, there would be no fight. It appeared only as a warning, and quickly faded again. "I have one more thing," Englehart said. "Just a curiosity before I reach the end of my visit."

"Yes?" Richard's voice was weaker now.

"Did you ever meet her?"

"Who?" A half-second before dumb realization as he caught Englehart's look. "Oh. You mean her. Calliope." He finally forced himself to sit down, to give in, and let his ending be conversational. "No. Nobody did. Nobody had seen her for centuries, not since she'd put together the Kalla Sho'El in the first place."

"Well," Englehart said, "given recent events, I'd wager somebody must have seen her. We must not be the among the select few who got a glimpse before she'd gone off again." He paused here, looking out the window, off into the night. "I would have loved to see her, just once. Before the end. She's the reason, after all. For poetry and songs and smiles. For everything. And nobody ever gets to know."

"That's why we exist," Richard said. "That's what the Kalla Sho'El is. Not a secret society, the secret society. Built to protect the only secret that's ever mattered. Because that's how it has to be. It's the only secret that needs to be kept."

"Is it? Sometimes I wonder."

Richard's brow furrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"I should really get on with killing you," Englehart said. "I've wasted much too much of your time."

"How?" Richard asked, weak. "How are... are you going to do it?"

Englehart simply shook his head. "You've been a generous host. I'll spare you the pain of knowing."

And with that, the end began.