The Fear You Know

2. Bog Lilly

As the doors swung inward, he was greeted by the musty tang of old paper, which cut a welcome dichotomy with the rancid malaise outside and granted him welcome reprieve. It smelled old, and moldering: not in the way of rot, but in the way of decaying books and old wooden shelves.

The smell was familiar to him, and comforting as he stepped over the threshold and onto the, surprisingly, clean floor.

He became acutely aware of his feet as they trailed in the refuse from the street, a pinkish brown sort of sludge which left sinful footprints on the aged marble. No sooner had he stepped into the large spacious atrium, than a young man appeared from the darkness laboring under the weight of a mop and full bucket.

The young man made quick work of the floors and waylaid Eli with a pleading expression pointing to his boots before motioning him firmly, but not unkindly to a nearby chair.

Pleasantly surprised, Eli took a seat in the chair accepting the proffered rags, for which he used to delicately clean the grime from his feet. The young man hovered nervously nearby glancing at intervals towards the doorway.

The young man was probably no older than Eli, somewhere around twenty summers, and compared to the other residents of Veerus city, he was remarkably unblemished aside from a sheen of sweat that slicked his skin and a feverish puffiness that marred his face.

When he looked up, Eli noted his bright blue eyes, the color of a crisp noon sky. The color would have been beautiful, if not pleasing were it not for thin spidering veins of red that splintered across his yellowed sclera. Sensing Eli's eyes, the young man ducked his head nervously and proffered the bucket to which Eli returned the rag.

The flustered man bowed low to the ground and scurried off to the corner of the room, though even from a distance Eli could still sense the presence of his piercing crystal gaze.

Eli ignored him, stepping across the open floor and over to the circulation desk where a gaunt woman sat, what remained of her hair tied up into a tight bun, so tight he half expected her scalp to peel away.

"Your name?" The woman asked sharply.

"Eli Collins."

"And your title?" the woman asked.

"Information Broker" Eli watched the woman's eyes as they fell to his skin and traced their way up to his face.

Where the young man had looked at him with an expression of deep abashment, this woman gave him the expression of a hungry vulture. "And your recommendation?"

He smiled slightly as if to ease the situation but realized his mistake too late when he saw the woman's teeth: rotting and blackened inside her mouth. He quickly closed his lips and nodded, reaching into his bag and holding up a clean piece of parchment.

"This is my broker license. I am sure that is authentic enough for you."

She narrowed her eyes and reached over to take the paper. He held it back, "If you don't mind."

Her clammy talons closed shut on thin air, and the look on her face almost withered the skin from his bones. He had worked very hard to forge this seal, and he was not going to allow her to get her disease all over it.

Her lips twisted together like the writhing bodies of two pale worms, but finally she spoke, spitting the words out through what remained of her clenched teeth, "Go on then."

He nodded, and carefully folded the letter back into his bag, turning and walking around the circulation desk, feeling her eyes pacing steadily at his heels.