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series of boarded-up storefronts and a huge lot of bricks and debris that had once been a building.  The street was filthy, cold and lifeless.  No cars out in front of the restaurant, but the sign in an otherwise dark window blinked: Dante’s .  There was no one else around, and the second floor above the restaurant appeared deserted, most of the windows blown out or boarded up.  Rooster looked to the end of the block, checking the corners in both directions.  If he was being watched or tailed, they were the best he’d ever encountered.
    He moved through the door, which alerted those inside to his arrival with the jingle of a little bell.  His eyes slowly adjusted to the dim lighting as he was met with a blanket of thick, oppressive heat.  A series of tables with red-and-white checkered tablecloths and small candles encased in glass orbs at their centers lined the walls to his left and right.  The open area between them provided a path through the narrow restaurant to, he assumed, the kitchen in back, but it was so dark he couldn’t make out much beyond the first few tables.  The smell of burned food hung in the air, and although there was a podium for a maître de the restaurant appeared empty, perhaps closed.
    “Here,” a voice said from the rear of the room.  
    Rooster casually slid a hand to the gun in his belt and moved down the center aisle toward the direction of the voice.  As the shadows parted, the candlelight danced along the floor and walls, flickering about, alive in the dark.  As he cautiously approached the only occupied table in the place, the silhouette of a man’s head and shoulders emerged.  
    “Mr. Cantrell.”  Not a question.  Said with what almost sounded like adoration.  “Nasty rain out there this morning.”
    “Who are you?”
    “My name’s not important,” he said.  “Call me whatever you’d like.”
    Same aged and drained voice as on the phone, Rooster was sure of it.
    “Mr. Snow seemed fond of Poindexter .”  The man motioned to the chair across from him with a spindly arm, his hand brushing through the circle of candlelight cast across the table.  Skeletal and liver-spotted, his pale flesh was laced with bulbous blue veins, the fingers gnarled with arthritis.  “Not terribly original, but we can go with that if you’d like.”
    “Snow’s dead.”
    “Yes.”
    Rooster looked behind him.  He could see the front door and the light beyond, though it seemed farther away than was possible.
    “It’s all right, Mr. Cantrell, you’re safe here.  Please.  Sit.”
    He pulled the chair out, slid it to the side so he could still see the door then took a seat.  He’d never cared for sitting with his back to doors.  “Who are you?”  Rooster pulled his gun and laid it flat on the table, barrel pointed at the man.  “I’m not asking again.”
    Until then the man’s face had remained in shadow.  He sat forward enough to allow the candlelight to reveal a glimpse of a loose-skinned face ravaged by age, his features sharp and birdlike.  A pair of eyeglasses with black frames sat high on his needle nose, the flickering flame from the candle reflected in lenses so thick they might have been comical under different circumstances.  “Don’t be an ass,” he said wearily, “put that away.  Our time together is limited.”
    Rooster reluctantly returned the gun to his lap.
    “Are the headaches getting worse?”
    He nodded.
    “It happens as the mind recovers and remembers more and more.  Truth always comes with some measure of pain.”  He folded his damaged hands before him on the table and sat back, his face again engulfed in darkness.  “Does The Kingdom Project  mean anything to you?”
    Faraway screams tore at him.  “No.”
    “Named for the famous Eliot poem ‘The Hollow Men’ which speaks of ‘death’s other kingdom’ compiled with numerous books on demonology and the occult that consistently referred to the darkness on the other side as a