Prologue

Prologue

Gabriel Porter and several other characters are mine, the rest belong to BtVS

Contrary to the cliché, the song didn’t come out loud and strong; on the contrary, it sneaked slyly low to the ground, like a prowling serpent, interweaving itself, disguising itself, with the howling of the wind, with the rustle of the rubbish, with the crackling of the yellowing leaves, even with the silence. Everything is safe here, it seemed to whisper, no claws are waiting to snatch you, no teeth to grab you – come forth down here!

The song sneaked. Gabriel, despite the singer’s intent (hopefully, not intentional – he so didn’t need it right now), didn’t follow the song to the source, even though his face grew ridged from anger and his eyes – glowed golden yellow. “Mindfuckery,” he growled to the unseen and yet unknown singer. “I hate mindfuckery.”

At this moment, it should be pointed out that Gabriel Porter was in a bad mood to begin with – he hasn’t been in Cleveland far longer than a coon’s age, as one of his children (long dusted by now) was fond of mentioning. Not that he wanted to come here – when he left in 1914 it was in a wake of a scandal – but a misread map here, a rumour of particularly tasty hitchhikers there – and here Gabriel was, in a place of bad memories and now... something else.

“I really don’t know who you,” he promised to the unseen singer with a growl, carefully circling around the utter limits of the song, determining its’ range, “but when I’ll catch you, I’ll introduce to saws, spikes and a lot of cold water, or I am not Gabriel Porter!”

To be continued