[Sodium_noir] Happy Returns

[Bill]

John, Abby, Mike
Sorcerer, Bastet, Dog
Mike's Place

The basement vault of John's store was quiet, his treasures and personal possessions sitting in the soft light waiting for their owner to return.  A stranger wandering through might be reminded of a private museum, but that suggested that these were just objects.  Truth was, each one, from the Roman gladius to the paintings to the notebooks and poetry collections, were symbols of various points in Carthephius' life.  Taken together, they formed a timeline of everything he had done in the world for the last 2,000 years.  It was for this reason that few were allowed to enter, and the security, both mundane and mystical, were of the highest quality and danger.

And despite this, Mike still found a way in.

The Grey Mastiff, through a type of luck that would have a Master of Entrophy going into fits, calmly entered the room and weaved his way past the collection, finally settling on a warm spot not too far from the wall length mirror.  Curling up into a ball, the silence of the room was soon pierced by his snoring.

He didn't seem bothered when the glass on the mirror seemed to ripple slightly, as if a pebble had been dropped into a pond.  Five minutes later the mirror seemed to bend inwards, as if someone's finger was pushing it back into a space that shouldn't exist.

Mike's eyes opened curiously as John's leg emerged from this recess, his foot firmly planting itself on the ground before he leveraged himself into the world.  He paused, and then turned and extended his hand, helping Abby off the King's Highway and back into his home.  As her foot cleared the edge of the mirror's frame, the surface seemed to bend back, like water filling a hole.  In moments, it was just a mirror, and nothing more.

Mike noticed that John's mood was not as light as it had been when he'd left.  He was hiding it well, but something had obviously happened that had surprised him.  The man went and took a seat on the couch, pouring two more drinks and handing one to Abby, continuing a conversation that must have been started on the other side.

"I don't know what to make of it.  I have this nagging feeling, a tickle in the back of my mind, that it should be familiar, but I honestly can't think of when I might have heard of it before."

He laughed softly.  "Not exactly the high note I had hoped for to end the evening."

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