“I beg your pardon?” asked Celia.
“King Diamond, madame,” said the man. “Your shirt. Is this not a reproduction of the Abigail artwork?”
“I suppose,” said Celia.
Celia had no idea about King Diamond, the eponymous vocalist of the heavy metal band King Diamond, or the band itself, or the band’s 1987 AD concept album Abigail.
As with every other day, magic had chosen her outfit.
Through the coincidental power endemic to fiction, the man was also not wearing an outfit of his choice.
He was wearing a pair of banana-yellow shorts with a fringe trim.
And, like Celia, he was also wearing a T-shirt.
Unlike Celia, his T-shirt did not advertise a heavy metal band from the 1980s AD.
His T-shirt said this:
The man’s T-shirt was very long.
That morning, with his body smarting from the previous night’s Abu Ghraib-themed BDSM/taqiyya session, HRH had done a Skype interview.
The journalist was from Portland, Oregon. The interview subject was the Klaus Mann Center, a homeless shelter in Portland that HRH had opened in 2007 AD. The shelter had a specific focus on LGBTQIA+ youth.
“I believe,” said HRH into a laptop that displayed the computerized face of the interviewer, “that it is our duty to protect the least fortunate of society.”
“It’s very unusual, though, isn’t it?” asked the interview.
“I should hope that this belief is universally held,” said HRH.
“You’re a Saudi prince,” said the interviewer.
“The royal flesh is my own,” said HRH. “Yet do not forget, I am a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis.”
“I was only curious if things like the Klaus Mann Center made family reunions awkward,” said the journalist.
“Whenever is a reunion of family not a-drip with awkwardness?” asked HRH.
“One last question. Why name a shelter in America after a German writer?”
“I had wished to christen the enterprise after Annemarie Schwarzen bach,” said HRH. “An advisor warned me against both the length of her name and its linguistic closeness to that of film star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In her stead, I opted for that friend of her bosom, Klaus Mann, a man whom I rate as a personal hero. He was tortured by his father. When the Nazis willed themselves to power, Klaus fled into exile, and beyond the snug confines of the Weimar Republic, he found that his fey lust for the bodies of other men caused great pain. He committed suicide. Yet I consider his life a triumph. Through the torrents of suffering, he authored several brilliant books and one unvarnished masterpiece. He inspires us all.”
After the interview, HRH went to a board meeting at the Venice Beach offices of Snapchat.
Snapchat was a smartphone app that had achieved a long-standing dream of corporate America: cornering the ever elusive market of child pornography.
Following a tip received at an orgy full of unattractive men and female sex workers, all of whom were in the thrall of MDMA, HRH had gotten in on the Series A funding of Snapchat.
Snapchat was a late-period capitalist innovation: a corporation either worth nothing or everything, and one with such a complex relationship to money that it was impossible to judge the company’s failure or success.
The Series A funding had earned HRH a seat on the board.
HRH arrived wearing a suit that’d been tailored in London by Gieves & Hawkes.
By the end of the board meeting, the suit was so stained that HRH had to borrow clothes from an employee of Snapchat.
“There is a curious lacuna in Abigail, and one that is never revealed through the stylized vocals of King Diamond,” said HRH to Celia. “Speak not of the ludicrous sequel. We are not barbarians, madame. We consider texts unburdened by a priori knowledge. As King Diamond sings, we meet the ghost of Count de LaFey, and also his unfaithful wife, and their descendant Jonathan and his wife Miriam. One almost need not even mention Abigail herself. The stillborn child of de LaFey’s wife, conceived in the sullen pits of adultery. Although the main thrust of the album concerns itself with Abigail’s attempts to possess Miriam, represented as the symbolic transition from eighteen to nine, I remain struck by our ignorance of Abigail’s father. Her sire is the one player never identified. I wonder, madame, have you any theories as to the identity of this unfortunate progenitor?”
“I beg your pardon?” asked Celia.
“Is this swine bothering you?” asked Rose Byrne.
From her bench in the open-air room, Rose Byrne had been keeping an eye on Celia.
At first, she wasn’t concerned when she saw Celia talking with HRH.
She’d seen Celia speaking with a legion of meat-market men.
But then she noticed HRH’s face pushing too close to Celia.
Celia was inching backwards on her stool.
Rose Byrne decided to intervene.
Her broadsword was in a scabbard.
The scabbard was hanging from her battle belt.
Throughout their journeys across Los Angeles, the broadsword had occasioned enough comment that Celia had cast a spell making the weapon invisible to mortals.
But it was always there.
HRH turned to Rose Byrne.
HRH looked Rose Byrne up and down.
“If there is any one thing that I am able to recognize within an instant, it is a servant,” HRH said to Celia.
“Her name is Rose Byrne,” said Celia.
“Wonderful!” cried HRH. “A dwarf with a broadsword! Straight from the pages of John Ronald Reuel! Madame, you offer no end of surprises! Where did you find such a creature? I must have her! Another blinkered specimen for my menagerie of the damned! How much must I offer to purchase this beauty?”
“We have no use for money,” said Celia.
“I am not for sale,” said Rose Byrne.
“Sir, I know not how it is that you see the broadsword,” said Celia. “I suggest that you leave us in peace. Rose Byrne is disagreeable and her weapon was sharpened this very morn.”
“You issue threats, madame?” asked HRH.
“A statement of reality,” said Celia.
“Are you as unpleasant as she claims?” HRH asked Rose Byrne. “Your apple face betrays no wrath. I see only dwarven mirth. Sing me a song of the misty mountains cold!”
“I am a whirlwind,” said Rose Byrne.
“If I fluster your companion any further, you will use this sword on my person?” asked HRH. “You will murder my body in Tenants of Trees?”
“Without a doubt,” said Rose Byrne. “Your head will roll on the tiles.”
“Wonderful!” cried HRH. “Wonderful!”
HRH jumped off his bar stool.
HRH kneeled on the ground before Rose Byrne.
HRH bent his head.
“Come now, you broken creature of Khazad-dûm! Here is my neck! Make swift with your cut. Pretend that I am the bastard offspring of Charles the First and the Great God Pan! I will be the martyr of the people! Chop, chop, cut, cut, make your haste!”
Rose Byrne’s previous murders in Tenant of Trees had required a great deal of magic.
Many lives had been erased.
Celia saw no need for the bother.
She cast a spell to transport HRH out of Tenant of Trees.
But the spell fizzled.
Rose Byrne stood over HRH.
Rose Byrne ached with the ideated reality of a serial killer.
She moved her hand to her broadsword.
But she could not remove it from its scabbard.
HRH rose from the ground.