“Dead, Marty? Kinda relative thing round here.”

I paused, looked around me. Chaz, wasn’t here. I touched the mirror, the cold surface nearly freezing my fingertips.

“What?”

“Heh. Don’t try to figure it out Marty, I’ve been working on theories for over three hundred years.”

I extended the blades from my fingers, struck the glass with a slashing stroke that brought a burst of sparks to the dry air.

Other than a thrumming numbness in my hand nothing changed.

“So you are dead, Chaz. This is your Hell.”

“Almost right,” Chaz gave one of usual, superior grins. ””Cept it don’t seem like Hell. Not when you’re the boss of everything here.”

I saw them then. Fading in, into the background. Creatures small and large, ugly and beautiful. Monsters we used to call Daemon. Hundreds, thousands, millions of killers.

“Beautiful bunch, ain’t they Marty, and they all obey me.”

“Huh, you couldn’t command a mouse.”

“Not so, Marty. These guys follow me ‘cos I know how to take them to your world.”