Uncle Neil and the Yellow Sign

What starts as just another ordinary day in life for Uncle Neil soon turns into a race for life or death.

Characters belong to the awsome author Serra Elinsen. Pleeeze don't sue. :-)

Neil awoke with a snort in the battered armchair by the basement window. Well, "awoke" may not be the best term since he was not sleeping as such. He had been transcending time and space, and now he returned to the "here" and "now" (for a given value of these qualities). He still did it with a snort, though.

Golden sunlight from the dusty old window bathed the armchair in a warm glow, and the old man contently stretched his arms. As he did, a cascade of dust was released from the brown jacket with worn leather elbow patches and gently floated away in the beam of sunlight in patterns one would do good not to look to closely at. Neil looked closely at them and smiled. Today would be a good day.

As he rose from the chair he became aware of eyes watching him intently. He looked up and smirked at the Queen of Sheba who regarded him from her regal position high on a book shelf.

"What's the matter, your highness? Did someone take a nap in your favorite spot? Such a shame, don't you agree?" With a mocking salute he raised the cup of coffee he had picked up from the small side table where he left it, and it was not until a fraction of a second too late that he noticed the slight trace of triumph in the cat's aloof expression.

Neil threw away the cup just as ink black tendrils shot up from it in attempt to engulf him. He flung himself behind a bookshelf and didn't see the complex pentagram painted on the floor until he landed right in the middle of it. Bright green flames shot up and the floor opened up to drop him through eldritch dimensions to a no doubt horrible fate. With a grunt, Neil managed to grab hold of the bookshelf and heave himself up. He bellowed in fury and flung out both his arms in a gesture of power that scattered the tendrils and propelled him over the floor, towards the unflinching cat, and right into the perfectly mundane pile of cat poop that had been placed in the way. Neil slipped and with a last curse he crashed into a table of antique ceramics. The cat smiled and, with a delicate flick of her tail, jumped down to the sunlit spot in the armchair.

The shop bell rung.

The thin man in neat costume looked around with curious interest at the many dusty, uncatalogued treasures that filled the labyrinthine store. He stretched his pale arm towards a grotesque, toadlike figurine when Neil stormed into the shop.

"I will kill that cat," he roared and patted his still burning beard. "What do you want?"

"Er... I believe we were in agreement of this time being opportune for an appointment?" The man held up his large suitcase as proof. "To discuss the possibility of commerce?"

"Don't just stand there then, man. Let me see what you have to sell."

"I recently came into an inheritance from my aunt who lived alone in a dreary old mansion in the outskirts of Arkham - said building being being rumored to once have harbored the degenerate descendants of a doctor of prestigious family who..."

"I don't have all day, you loathsome individual."

"Hrrm... I have a number of rare and ill reputed books that..."

"Any of them heavy enough to crack the skull of a cat?"

"There is also a collection of disturbing paintings depicting secret lore from..."

"Does this lore tell you how to best dissect felines?"

"And from a vault built into the very foundation of the building, found among the bones of a humanoid being with deformed features, a ceremonial dagger wrought in unearthly metal and stained with long dried blood from..."

"That is just the thing, sit down, have a drink." Neil pressed the faintly protesting man down to a chair and put a glass in his hand. He picked up the dagger and started towards the back door with a bloodthirsty grin.

"I will not be more than a minute. There are more than one way to skin a cat, but this time I will stick to the classics."

Before he had time to leave the room, however, the little bell by the door tingled and a woman entered. She walked almost doublebent over a cane, and was dressed in layers upon layers of articles of clothing in various shades of brown, grey and mud. She stood up as much as she could and knocked on the floor two times with the cane, nearly knocking over a vase with marine motif.

"Neil," she screamed. "Where are you, boy?"

"I'm here, Mrs Ivanovna." He eagerly rushed forward and helped her down the steps into the store."How are you today?"

"Terrible. My legs are going and my back is hurting and I will probably be dead soon." She peered nearsightedly at him. "Is that a dagger I see before me?"

"Just commerce," he replied jovially and gesticulated vaguely with the dagger at the man in the chair, who hesitantly waved back.

"That looks like a terrible specimen of a human being," Mrs Ivanovna remarked, and the neatly dressed man's wave stiffened. He swatted away a tendril from the potted plant that had started to edge its way up his arm.

"Oh, most terrible," Neil agreed. "What an unexpected honor of having you visiting, Mrs Ivanovna. What's the occasion?"

"Don't flatter yourself, boy. I'm here for the cat."

"Of course you are," he muttered, but he still held out his arm for support and led her towards the back room.

The Queen of Sheba smiled smugly as Neil helped the old lady to a chair next to the armchair. Mrs Ivanovna politely greeted the cat and looked up at Neil again.

"Get us tea. Two spoons of sugar and a drop of whiskey for the cold. And some cream filled cookies as well."

"Meow!"

Without a word, Neil went back to the shop, past the well dressed man who was now half engulfed by plant tendrils and rather urgently sought to catch Neil's attention, and on to the little kitchenette. He prepared the tea, brought out the cookies and put it all on a little silver tray. When he returned, the old lady was cackling wheezily at whatever anecdote the cat had shared (Neil had a strong suspicion that it had been at his expense), and he put the tray on the small table. He pulled out a chair to sit down, but Mrs Ivanovna firmly put her hand on his and shook her head.

"No time for tea, boy. Things are in motion, and I hear people have been asking about you over in Carcossa. I would suggest you head over there without any more delays."

"..." he muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, I'll go."

"That's what I thought I heard. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Grumbling, he rammed his hands into the pockets and walked over towards the back door. of the shop. "We will talk comerse later," he growled to the well dressed man who was now almost completely devoured by plant material. Then he opened the door and went out.

The air was clear and crisp. A young man stood outside staring moodily into the gloom that surrounded him in a local fog bank.

"Morning, 'thulhu, how is it hanging?" Neil asked, already in a better mood, and wriggled his right hands fingers under his chin to indicate facular tentacles. The young man turned his deep, green eyes towards him and sighed.

"Uncle! I have come to bid thee farewell. I am now to leave the land of sunlight and green pastures to return to my dark abode in the freezing waters, there to wait for untold eons until this sad world has ground itself to dust."

"Uhuh... Lovers' spat, eh?" Neil fished out a silver key from his pocket and unlocked the door the the small shed where he kept stuff. It opened with an ominous creek.

"Love is not for beings such as me," the mopey youth confirmed. "Only one taste was given to me, enough to for ever taunt me with its sweet lure, forever out of reach. Loneliness and eternal regret, that is all that awaits now, deep beneath the waves in dreary R'lyeh where enterally I will lay, dreaming bitter dreams of loss and absence."

Neil struggled with a heavy stone slab that covered a dark pit in the middle of the shed.

"Help me with this, will you? What happened?"

Riley lifted the slab in one hand without any visible effort whatsoever and held it in the air so that Neil could climb down the pit and out of sight from the world of the living.

"Dark deeds were done, one horrible action led to the next in an spiral of blaspheme and evil. Things were said... Dark things were... Terrible things... Petty things... The universe itself does not mean for me to experience love, or any other thing of value above despair and sorrow, and the universe reached out and tore me and the one person I ever thought I were to be happy with, apart from each other, for ever to fester in the dread abyss of black water that..."

"Have you talked to her?" Neil's voice was muffled and was cut short by a metallic clang. Riley shook his head in despair.

"There is no use. She thinks I am a monster... I AM a monster. Andromeda, my Andromeda, deserves something better than me. She deserved a man of her own kind, a happy, carefree man who is not a dark god destined to destroy the universe and who does not have ugly tentacles in the face. I will not stand in the way for her happiness. I will let her free, even if it means my eternal banishment to the subzero waters of a cyclopian city of non-euclidan black stone where I eternally will wallow in remembrance of what I had but lost."

"That's the spirit boy, now STAND BAAAAAACK!" and with a roar of engines Uncle Neil emerged from the pit, riding a vintage motorbike, seemingly straight from a steam-punk fetishists wet workshop. It was mostly made of brass and behind the rider's seat was an enormous boiler that bellowed green and red flames. The sidecar was adorned with a metallic face with distorted proportions and stubby, mechanical tentacles emerged from the frame at random intervalls.

Neil smiled manically and donned a worn aviator's hat with green tainted brass googles. He gave the brooding man a thumbs up and shot away down the busy Portsmouth street with a roar that scattered tourists in all directions. He took a corner in an angle that would have been impossible for anyone that bothers about those pesky laws of physics and increased the speed.

"This is life!" he laughed. "Life, life!" the metallic face agreed with raspy voice. "I bet you can't squeeze by that truck in the tunnel," it added with glee.

"You just watch me, tincan."

With the suicidal speed they were driving in, Neil and his motorcycle had soon left the state altogether and headed north. It wasn't long until Neil started cheating and they found themselves driving under an alien sky with triplet moons hanging heavy and boding over them. Screams from unknown critters meeting unknown fates were heard in the distance, highlighting the dreary emptiness of the place.

"We've got company," the metallic face warned. Neil glanced behind them, and in the pale glow of the moons he saw the motorbikes emerging from the gloom. Five, twelve, eighteen... More and more of them came rushing up the desserted road. He grinned and slowed down somewhat to allow the riders to catch up.

They were flabby and slippery with unhealthy pale green skin and large, bulging eyes. Their teeth were long and pointy and their moths slobbered with sickly saliva. On each of their forehead a dirty, yellow rune was painted.

"Hello there, kids," he screamed over the deafening roar of multiple engines. "Nice night for a race?"

"No more race for you, old man," the closest rider hissed and, without any further ceremony, rammed her bike towards him. He kicked at it, but still had to make a quick swerve to the right. On all sides of him the other bikers closed in. Some of them carried spears or tire irons or weird shaped guns, but most seemed content to just crash into him, seemingly with no sense for self preservation - which was lucky given what the next few moments had in store for them.

"Ready," Neil counted, "set... NOW", and as the metallic tentacles shot out and swept away the closest riders he throttled the motorcycle as much as he could, and with a gargantuan bellow they hurled down the road as if shot from a volcano. They other riders followed though, and kept their loose formation around him. Neil leaned to the left side of the road and almost crashed into two of the reptilian bikers before he could sweep them out of the way with the help of the tentacles, but at the same time three other riders swept in from the right and he was forced to turn back towards the centre of the road to avoid being forced out among the ragged rocks that surrounded the road. The riders worked as a pack in perfect synchrony, and soon enough they would wear him down. All it would take was one mistake...

"Oh no, you don't!" The metallic face screamed, just as Neil turned sharply to the right, crashed into one of the pale riders who hit the road with a satisfying smack, and flung the bike out into the ragged wasteland of sharp rocks beside the road. He landed on the ridge of an old lava stream and shot away over the bleak stone, navigating an impossibly narrow path over the landscape. The pursuers only hesitated for a moment before they lept off the road and followed him, but by that time Neil had already built up distance, and as they raced over the wasteland - many of them falling victim to ragged rocks or geysers of boiling water that shot up from putridly smelling hot springs - Neil stopped the bike and pulled a more than six feet long brass blunderbuss from the sidecar. He took aim and even allowed himself to wait a few precious moments for the pursuers to come close enough to see his manic grin, and then he pulled the trigger.

The world shook as pure blue flame shot out of the blunderbuss with a sound that kept echoing over the barren landscapes for more than a minute. The closest riders simply evaporated or burnt to crisp before they could even start to fall over. The ones further back were flung from their bikes with such a force that they were torn to shreds when they hit the ground. Some actually managed to avoid the blast, but few of them managed to keep their bikes upright in the general chaos, and those who did had suddenly lost their appetite for racing over an alien wasteland. With a theatrical gesture Neil lifted the now half melted weapon to his lips and blew away a cloud of black smoke that billowed from it.

"Showoff," the bike remarked as they drove off.

"Everyone is a critic."

Carcossa was a beautiful town of plazas and fora, small canals and a vague Mediterranean renaissance feel to the architecture. It was a scenery remarkably ill suited for a chugging and spitting brass motorcycle, but this did not do anything to deterr Neil. He left the bike alongside some rather confused horses by the plaza and strolled up the worn steps of yellow stone to an ancient building that served as a cafe. He sat down by his favorite table that overlooked the sickly yellow ocean, and almost reflexively started to put the yellow chess pieces in place.

"Good afternoon to you," a metallic voice greeted him. "Long time since, and all that. King pawn to E4, if you please."

"Evening, August," Neil said and moved the pawn to the indicated spot. He made his own move, and then the one dictated by the voice. This was obviously a game they had played many times before.

"I here there is trouble brewing," he casually remarked and glanced and the metall cylinder on the other side of the table. With a buzzing sound they eyestalks that were connected to the can moved to regard him.

"So I hear," the metallic voice answered. "White bishop to B5."

"Would you like to tell me now, or would you prefer to wait until our game presents us with a fitting metaphor?" Arthur laughed with the sound of an old trashcan falling over.

"There are always metaphors if you know where to look. Why don't you move your pawn to block the retreat of my bishop, and I will share what I know." Neil obliged him.

"There are so many strange news lately, The old family banding together to prevent the awakening of their father, the Mad Priest falling in love with a mortal trollop. The alignment coming and going with the slumber undisturbed... Move the rook two step if you please. Now your pawn stands threatened by two pieces."

"Is that the metaphor? It lacks a certain umph, I feel."

"Umph can be arranged," a deep, rich voice said and Neil looked up to meet the eyes of a large man with a confident smile and almost golden skin. He was dressed in expensive clothing, which included a chef's hat and apron. He held a yellow writing pad in his hand and put a yellow pen to it.

"A certain 'umph' for mister Nyarlathotep... and a longing reminiscence for times when he still could feel taste - or indeed indulge in the act of consumption at all - for mister Derleth, is that right?"

"Just the usual, indeed," August Derleth rasped in confirmation. Neil smiled, a hint of a challenge to his expression.

"Hastur..." he slowly said, tasting the word. "Hastur..." and just to annoy him he repeated the name a third time. "Hastur... What a pleasure to see you. Am I to understand that you are one of the pieces that threaten me?" The large man chuckled.

"Threaten you? Why, would the crawling chaos feel threatened by his recent string of embarrassing failures? Would the emissary of the Outer Gods feel insecure in his position after so blatantly proving unable to perform his function? Would the herald and son of Azathoth himself feel the need to defend himself after betraying everything that very identity entitles?"

"I rather think so, yes." August answered. "Queen to H1."

"That move doesn't really have anything to do with the threatened pawn, has it?" Neil mused as he moved the piece to its assigned position.

"I thought we agreed it was a bad metaphor to begin with. Let's avoid stretching it."

"By all means." Neil made his move and turned back to Hastur again. "I was attacked on the road as I came here." The large man shrugged.

"So? It is not as if Nyarlathotep would have any trouble with a school of Deep Ones, is it?"

"Not normally, no - but these rode under the yellow sign. I don't suppose you would know anything about that?"

"The yellow sign... A powerful token indeed, and rare to wield. They must have an influential backer, these attackers, and it would have to be someone with a motive... someone willing to move in and take advantage of perceived weakness in one so mighty as yourself... ideally someone in position to know when you were approaching Carcossa..." his smile widened. "I don't see why you would suspect me of such a thing."

"For starters, I didn't mention the Deep Ones." Hastur laughed. Arthur joined in.

"You got me there. Now, what do you intend to do about it."

"Nothing much," Neil relaxed and moved a piece. "I just came here to find out what the fuss was about. If you make a move I will crush you, of course, but until then I see no reason not to enjoy your pastries and a friendly game."

Hastur laughed again, and as from thin air he produced a tray with small, sickenly sweet and sticky cakes in different hues of citrine, cream and cognac. "On the house then. And I will most likely try to kill you before the day is over."

"You are welcome to try," Neil said, but since his mouth was full of cake it came out more like "echom-schy".

It was not until a few hours later (for given values of "few", "hours" and "later" of course) that Neil returned home. He left the bike to graze in the gloomy back streets of Portsmouth and walked down to his small shop, having as always to use his shoulder as a ram to open the stubbon door. He went down the steps and found the well dressed man sitting in the chair as he left him. His sickly pale was now intermixed with sickly green tendrils where shoots was growing from his flesh, but most of the plant lay withered by his feet. He dabbed ineffectively at one of the tendrils that grew from his chin with a stained handkerchief. On both sides behind him stood a grinning, muscular brute with large canine teeth and dirty fur, dressed in nothing but tatters.

"Good evening again," the man said and offered his hand to Neil who didn't shake it. "I was in a bit of a predicament there, for a while, but as luck would have it these gentlemen came by and gave me a hand." He gestured vaguely at the ghouls behind him. One of them seized the waving hand and, ignoring the man's faint protests, eyed it critically, the way a chef picks and choses between slabs of meat.

"Ah, anyway. As we were discussing I have in my studies uncovered traces of blasphemous rites and heathen ceremonies that..."

"Shut your trap, you horrible creature," growled the other ghoul as Mrs Ivanovna hobbled in from the back room. Neil rushed forward to help her and she waved at him with her cane, giving him a whack in the head as thanks for his trouble.

"Oh no you don't, young man. I'm not dead yet, even if I'm so horribly old that I may well be. Help me out, don't just stand there. And you, you needlessly disgusting person, you can as well make yourself useful and find my coat." The well dressed man paled even more under her onslaught. He glanced back at the ghouls for moral support, but finding none he stammered an apology and bowed his way over to the closet next to the door. Neil helped the old lady up the steps.

"I hope you had a nice time."

The old lady sneered at him. "Of course not. I can't stand cats. Nasty buggers every single one of them. And I can't stand you. Where is my coat?"

A desperate, bloodcurling scream was heard from the closet where the pale man had disappeared. It went on for well above half a minute, after which it slowly died out in a wheezing hiss, and then went out entirely.

"You didn't have a coat on when you came here," Neil said in apologizing voice. "The air is still warm."

"Hmmpf. I certainly hope so. Now, a good day to you." And she hobbled out the door and went down the street, muttering to herself all the while.

Neil waited until she rounded a corner, and then slowly and carefully shut the door. He jumped down the steps and started towards the back door with both hands formed into fists. The ghouls regarded him with interest.

"I got you this time, 'your highness'," he snarled, but as he threw the door open he stopped in his tracks. The armchair was empty. The tray stood where he left it, except that all the cookies were eaten, but there was no sign of the cat.

He carefully looked around, weary eyes tracing the bookshelves full of dread tomes of forbidden lore, the closets packed to the brim with statues of unholy idols from degenerated parts of the world, the tables heavy with tools of blasphemic trades, still stained with blood and worse, the ceiling...

He jumped to the side and just narrowly avoided being crushed by several tons of chandelier that impacted with the sound of a mighty organ chord on the spot where he had stood a moment ago. He landed painfully on the floor and rolled out of the way just in time for the gigantic jaws that emerged from the wall to only gain a hold of his clothes, that ripped and tore to shreds, rather than tear his limbs from his body. He rolled over to the door, and then stopped, hovering a fraction of an inch above the floor and the multilayered, dimension transcending magic circle that was painstakingly drawn there.

"Hah! Hah, hah, hah! You didn't expect that, did you?" he cried to the cat that he now could see sitting on top of one of the bookshelves, hidden in plain sight amongst a collection of antique cat mummies. "I outsmarted you at last, you royal fleabag. The trap won't spring unless I touch it, so now I can..."

The door flew open and slammed into him. Frictionless as he was, Neil flew like a projectile straight into the bookshelf where the Queen of Sheba sat motionless. It toppled over and crashed on top of him with the sound of china in a blender. The cat waited until the very last moment, when her resting spot on the falling bookshelf was just in line with armchair, until she with minimal effort could make a small skip and landed comfortably in the middle of the chair, and sat down to rest in the sunbeam. She started to purr.

Rubble and shards of invaluable antique statues flew in all directions when Neil emerged from the pile like a bearded Venus in tatters. The woman who had slammed open the door ran over to him.

"Oh, Uncle Neil," Andi cried. "It is so horrible. I will die. I want to die. I welcome my obliteration in the cold clutches of death, my release from the cruel fate of being separated from the man I love. Riley, Riley, Riley," she wailed. "If I ever could unsay what I said. Where it so that I never spoke at all." Neil nodded encouragingly. "It's all my fault. How could I ever be so stupid as to speak against someone as perfect as you. I know that you know best in everything. Uncle Neil, what shall I do?" Neil gently tried to pry himself loose from the wailing teenager while picking through the rubble at his feet. He glared at the purring cat. If he could only find a weapon...

"Have you talked to him," he asked as his fingers found a nice heavy piece of rubble. He lifted it and took as threatening a step towards the cat as he could with the girl still hanging from his arm.

"There is no use! He thinks I am a monster. I AM a monster after what I did to him. How could I ever think that such a perfect being, that a GOD, would ever want have anything to do with such a terribly disgusting, horribly mortal girl such as me? I want to diiiieeeeee!" And breaking into a new fit of sobs she threw herself 'round Neil's neck, forcing both of them down to the floor with a thump.

"That's the spirit," he muttered as he, finally free, jumped up towards the cat with his club prepared to strike. That was when the sound of broken glass was heard from the store.

"Now what?" he screamed and, with a withering glare at the unflinching cat, stalked out towards the main room.

The Queen of Sheba started to wash herself. She didn't look up as Neil stepped into the magic circle and released the trap. But her purr grew louder.

Heavily bleeding, with skin scorched as by acid and with the beard on fire again, Neil stumbled out into the main room. The remains of the two ghouls laid scattered over the floor. Large, shadowy creatures loomed all around, and in the middle of the room stood a tall, rakishly thin man, dressed in a twenties style outfit that would have made Al Capone proud - if Al Capone was to dress entirely in different hues of bright yellow, that is. When he saw Neil he touched the brim of his yellow fedora with two fingers in a mock salute and smiled with golden teeth.

"Nice store you have here," he drawled. "Wouldn't it be a shame if something were to happen to it."

Neil just stared at the man. A sickly yellow light lay like fog over the room.

"Paper burn, statues break, antediluvian curses wear down, you know how it is."

"King? Are YOU in on this?"

"'fraid so. You know how it is. Standards are slipping, chances are opening, the money is too good to pass...?"

"And you have brought the heavies this time I see," Neil looked at the Nightgaunts in disbelief. In sharp contrast to their shadowy outline, he could see the yellow sign burning on them. "Wow, you must really mean business."

"Commerce..." injected the once well dressed man faintly as he painfully crawled out of the cupboard by the door, his clothes in shreds, his eyes twitching nervously.

"Hush, you notoriously insignificant little thing," the King in Yellow smiled, and as he did he turned his face away from Neil, just a fraction, which was of course an extremely foolish thing to do.

Neil took a short step backwards, into the corner between two bookshelves, and melted into the geometry of the room. He felt his essence pouring through the angles and lines, and from that vantage point he bore down on his foes. The yellow fog repelled him somewhat, but there were so many nooks and crannies it had yet not reached. The Nightgaunts rushed forward and he went down the parallel lines to the hypotenuse. He turned around to meet them, he lifted his arms, blazing with eldritch fire and that's when he heard the growl coming from just behind him.

There was hot breath, sticky tongues, and teeth. Lots and lots of teeth.

"It's so not fair to bring Tindalos into this," Neil complained when he fell back into the more usual dimensions, bleeding from dozens of fresh wounds, his right arm missing entirely. The surviving Nightgaunts materialized around him. The King in Yellow strolled over, casually aiming a golden tommygun at his face.

"She owed me a favor. Any other little trick you'd like to try, has-been?"

Just then, Andi ran in, still crying.

"Uncle Neil, you HAVE to talk to Riley for me!" At the same time, the front door opened and Riley walked in.

"Uncle Neil, I would request your assistance in convening a message to Andromeda."

They both froze as they saw each other.

They both started forward, eyes lost in the other's gaze.

"Andi..." Riley said.

"Riley..." Andi breathed in answer.

"Andi."

"Riley."

"Andi!"

"Riley!"

"Oh, my Andi!"

"Oh my Ri..." It was at this point one of the Nightgaunts happend to bump into her. Things got very messy very fast.

After a while Neil managed to prop himself up on his remaining arm and got to his feet. He strolled over to the King who watched the carnage in fascination.

"You sure brought a lot of Nightgaunts," he said after a few minutes.

"A whole fleet of them," the King answer as Riley devoured the last shadowy specter.

"And a swarm of Mi-Go as well?"

"I thought they would be useful for backup."

They stood silent and watched as Great Cthulhu in all his terrible might, now in his natural, winged and tentacled shape, tore the screaming monsters from the sky.

"And how many Ghouls?"

"A few hundreds at least, but I did not bring them. They just showed up on their own."

"We like to be in on a new thing," one of the ghouls explained as he was crushed beneath a giant green foot.

"Oh my Riley, you are so sexy right now," Andi whispered. Riley bent down his gigantic head towards her, a tentacle as broad as herself grabbing hold of her arm.

"So I am, diminutive one," he rumbled.

"I am so sorry," she said, tears forming. "I will never disagree with you on anything, ever again."

"You wounded me deeply, minuscule lover."

"Then perhaps I need to be... punished?" she said hopefully.

The King in Yellow shook his head in wonder.

"Are they for real?"

Neil nodded. "Strange as it seems, yes."

They eyed each other for a moment, and then they both took a step backwards, body language alert again.

"Just you and me, then." The King in Yellow raised his tommygun and moved it in a complex pattern. In the very air around him the familiar glyph of the yellow sign formed.

"Just you and me," Neil repeated. He raised his one arm and tendrils of green energy formed around it, a strange, unearthly music suddenly audible.

They stood like that for a few heartbeats, neither blinking, neither breathing, and then they both started to laugh.

"Good one. You gave me the run for my money," Neil said and patted the King on his back. "The bikers were a nice touch."

"All in good fun, I wouldn't want to make it easy for you." The King grinned his toothy smile again. "And next time I'll get you."

"Sure you will," Neil snorted. "Pizza night on Thursday?"

"You can bet your life on it."

They strolled towards the door, ignoring Andi and Riley who were standing with their heads very close and whispering words of comfort to each other. The pale gentleman sat in a pile of dead Mi-Go, apparently trying to sort out which limbs were his own.

"You," the King in Yellow said and gave him a hand. "You I like. Come with me, boy." The pale man hesitantly took the offered appendage.

"I was here for an appointment..." he protested without much conviction as the King led him firmly towards the door.

"Nonsense. Here, have you ever seen the yellow sign?"

Neil closed the door behind them and walked back, past the lovey-dovey couple, past the mounds of carnage and his broken store. He flicked the light switch as he left the room, leaving them in darkness.

From the armchair the Queen of Sheba regarded him silently, with only the slightest of tension visible in her expression. He towered over her and held up his one good arm.

"I should have done this a long time ago," he hissed, and he snapped his fingers.

The sunbeam abruptly disappeared as if by flicking a light switch. The cat looked up at him in annoyance. Then she slowly got up, making a point not to rush, and haughtily left the room. The door closed behind her.

With a sigh Neil sank back down into his armchair. As he did, his tattered clothes were whole again, his wounds healed as if they never had been there and his arm was back in place. For a moment he just sat there and enjoyed the peace, then he brought out his pipe and slowly, carefully tamped it with selected leaves and twigs from the old tobacco case. He lit the pipe and drew a long, gratifying breath. A loud explosion shook the house. Neil exhaled a cloud of whispery, green tainted smoke.

"What is the matter, your highness? Did someone boobytrap your litterbox. What a shame." Another explosion was heard, followed by the hissing of a high pressure fire hose and a very muffled meow.

"What a shame," Neil repeated with a smile and - turning on the sunbeam again - he took a sip of the perfectly brewed cup of coffee he had just summoned.

He settled down in the armchair with a contented grunt. For a moment or two he fidgeted with his cup and his pipe, but it was not long until he put them down and closed his eyes. A light snore was heard as the man went back to transcending.