Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

XCVIII. Red Leather Booths & Steak Knives (A Bloody Breakfast)

17
LOUIEʼS CAFÉ
Scott
Shreveport, LA
Caddo Parrish
November 1st, 2014
Present Day
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"Oh, smokestack lightninʼ..."

Two pieces of butter hit the pan, hissing, clawing at the edges of the metal. Coffee brewed, sloshing into the pot, and where Olʼ Man Louieʼs knife hit the meat, blood-like juices oozing from the flesh, Scott felt that simplicity in the kill. Howlinʼ Wolfʼs Smokestack Lightning was the only thing that filled Louieʼs café: a ramshackleʼd café emptier than hell. Scott and Wil had recruited Lafayette for the drive down to Shreveport, a hellish town where the devil made its last mark, and for how colorful Lafayette described it, Scott craved the kill even more.

There was a simplicity in killing monsters.

"Sazerac and two coffees for the house, chief," Scott told Louie, picking out a quiet corner for him and Lafayette.

Olʼ Man Louie raised his eyebrows at the trio, wincing as the silver hit his meaty brown fingers.

"Itʼs only nine oʼclock."

The bacon fried and the glaring sun stabbed at their faces. Scott waved him off, lighting a joint.

   "Reckon itʼs five somewhere."

"Aight. Get on ʼem, Roderick."

Wil and Lafayette sized up Scott. Louieʼs was a hideaway of wolves, with caféʼs furnishings of bloody steak knives, red-leather boots, old-school cigarette ash trays, newspapers with the beowulfʼs memory littered the floors, gone with time. The rye whiskey, absinthe, and bitters choked against the coffee, and Scott inhaled sharply to that.

He would be in the business of making it bloody again.

"Aight. What we got, killas?"

"Well, as I was telling Robin, the wolf targets children. Reckon they canʼt be no older than twelve. Always and only boys. At the same time, the Order issued warrants for arrests and I think they mean to silence witnesses. Itʼs always a tell with those bastards; when the supernatural attack, the Order looks to start a bloody body count. But why, this time, do they need a wolf to do their dirty work? They only ever enlist their own."

"Scott?"

"What you thinkinʼ, playa?"

Olʼ Louieʼs was as trashy as they came and trashy as they went. A mecca of crap beer and dry humping, Scott listened as the highland wolves came into the joint. Cheap records blared, the crowd flocked to every corner of the bar and there, Scott saw it. Among the mountains of cakes, wines, coffees, and Sazeracs, by the shelves stacked with lacquered liquor and the forests of smoke, meat, bread, and onion, Scott sat in silence, watching, waiting, hungry to feed his appetite for a...darker meat.

Hair the color of flames.

"Iʼm thinkinʼ we have a bit oʼ fun, boys," Scott proposed, announcing it to bar. "First roundʼs on me."

And there, in the corner, a Dogged Man ate on.

Four pieces of butter hit the pan, snarling.

The emptiness became a gaping hole with only anger ready to swallow him whole.

Scott followed the wolves as they stared on hungrily, sizing up Scott and company like fresh, raw meat. As he sat, the crowds got rowdier, angrier. Stomping their feet – inhaling through their mouths, exhaling with breathy growls. Screaming, crying out in harmony. Scottʼs eyes wandered with delight, flitting across the faces of the red-haired wolves that were f*cking and fighting like wild dogs.