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Thank you all so much for your continued support. A noise brings me wide awake. "Hello?" I say and reach for my bedside lamp. It won't turn on no matter how many times I twist the switch. "Shit." I'm about to pull the sheets away and get up when I see something at the end of my bed. A pair of eyes. "What the fuck?" I shout and shove my back up against the headboard. "It's all a lie." A voice hisses as fingers slide up onto my bedspread. "So many lies."

The voice is like a snake's, but somehow familiar. The fingers become hands, and the eyes reveal a face and a head, and then an entire body is sliding up from the foot of my bed, slinking over the covers and coming right for me. "Get the hell out of my room!" "Lies!" it says. "We do not live here. We die here. We die for them." Then a slice of moonlight that is coming in through a slit in my drapes reveals the face fully.

"Mr. Ansel?" I say. "What the hell are you doing? Lies!" The old man shrieks, and he moves at a speed that has me screaming and clamoring out of my bed. I race to the bathroom, slam the door and lock it, throwing my back against it. "They lie! We die! They lie! We die!" He screams from just outside the bathroom door. "Lies! Dies! Lies! Dies!" Then it all goes silent.

I wait for several minutes before I call out quietly. "Mr. Ansel? Are you still out there?" No response. "Mr. Ansel?" I wait. Still no response. "Mr. Ansel?" I count to a hundred, then push away from the door and slowly open it. There's no one in my bedroom. I step out and move quietly to the front room. No one there. Then I run to my front door and check the locks. All are in place. Even the bar and chain.

How the hell did the man get into my apartment? And why did he leave his post to scream at me about lies and dying? I take a chair from the kitchen table and jam it under the handle of my front door, hoping that will keep Mr. Ansel or any night visitor out. When I crawl into bed, I'm sure I'll never sleep again. But the next thing I know, dim light is filtering in from behind my drapes as my alarm goes off.

"Were you in my room last night?" I snap at Mr. Ransel as soon as the elevator door slides open. His eyes meet mine. They are bloodshot and he has blue veins streaking across his cheeks. His skin is sallow and hangs loose from his jaw. I ease into the elevator and give him some space. "You don't look so good." He doesn't respond as he slides the door closed and presses the lobby button. "You also didn't answer my question," I say. I think I hear him whisper something.

"What was that?" He shakes his head, and if I wasn't so focused on him, I would have missed it. "Mr. Ansel, were you in my room last night?" The car stops, and he slides the door open. "Your shift starts soon," he says without looking at me. "Answer the damn question!" I snap at him. "Is there a problem, Mr. Pritchard?" Miss Grace calls from the front desk. "You are about to be late for your shift. We'll talk later," I say to Mr. Ansel. He only grunts.

I go through the clocking in motions, still a little unsure about the black box, then return to the elevator. Mr. Ansel isn't there. "Did he take the stairs?" I ask Ms. Grace. "Mr. Ansel's whereabouts are not my concern, Mr. Pritchard," she replies. "Nor are they yours. Please focus on your job." "Right, sure," I say and take my place inside the elevator.

The morning rush comes and goes, and soon I find myself doing absolutely nothing, just waiting at the lobby level, the elevator doors wide open, ready for a resident or anyone to step on. I lean my back against the elevator wall and sigh. I study the ceiling and count the holes in the tiles. I get bored and use the sleeve of my uniform to wipe down the handrails that surround the car.

I even start wiping the buttons down. Although I have to be soft and careful so I don't accidentally push one. Then I see it. "No way! What was that, Mr. Pritchard?" Miss Grace calls out from the front desk. "Speak up if you want to converse." It takes a huge effort to tear my eyes away from the bank of buttons. "I was just talking to myself, Miss Grace," I say. "Please refrain from that activity if you will, Mr. Pritchard," she says with a huff. "We have standards to maintain here at the Third Arms."

"Right. Sorry." I say and return my attention to the bank of buttons. Number 13 has appeared, and not just tacked onto the end, but in its rightful place between 12 and 14, as if it's been there all along. Even all of the other buttons have shifted their positions to accommodate the newcomer. My eyes go from the mystery button to the front desk.

"Miss Grace is busy doing some sort of paperwork, but even though this is only my second day, I've figured out that she is intensely tuned into my every movement." "Is there something you need, Mr. Pritchard?" she asks without looking up, proving my suspicions. "No, Miss Grace," I say. "Sorry if I was staring. Just a little slow right now. It will pick up," she says and as if on cue, she looks toward the lobby doors. "See?

The lunch rush hits, and I'm soon going up and down, up and down, my fingers pressing buttons, my arms sliding the door open and closed, over and over again. After dropping the last resident off at their floor, which is the 18th, I slide the door closed and let out a long, deep breath. Then I glance at the new button,

If any of the residents noticed its appearance, they didn't mention it. But most of the people I shuttled to and from their floors were in too much of a hurry to notice me, let alone a sneaky little button like 13. The elevator is descending, and already at the 11th floor when I realize that I need to call Peyton, I find the phone hatch and open it, pulling out the handset. "How may I direct your call?" an operator asks. "Um, room 1015."

"Please hold." The line clicks several times, then there's only a half ring before it's picked up and Peyton says, "Is it time?" It showed up this morning. "And you're just calling me now?" He snaps then sighs. "Sorry, not your problem, I get that. You had a job to do." "Yeah, I did," I say. "So what now?" "Now you come pick me up," he says and hangs up. I hold the silent phone for a second, then put it back and close the hatch.

The bell dings and I slide the door open, checking to see if anyone is waiting at the lobby. No one is there and Miss Grace doesn't even glance my way. The bell dings again and the 10th floor button lights up. I shut the door and head up. "We don't have much time," Peyton says as he steps onto the elevator the second I open the door on the 10th floor. "So listen carefully, alright?"

"You bet," I say, and put my finger to button 13. "Do I press it?" "Yes," he says then whips his overcoat to the side and pulls out a sawed-off shotgun. He snaps open the gun and checks that he has two shells loaded, then he snaps it shut and rests the barrel up against his shoulder with one hand while he fishes out a pistol with the other. "Here," he says and holds the pistol out to me. "Just in case."

Just in case of what? I ask, not taking the pistol. Just in case something tries to get on the elevator. What the fuck does that mean? Exactly what I said. If something tries to get on the elevator, then you shoot it.

"Shoot it? Shoot what? I don't know!" he shouts. "Whatever it turns out to be, it could be a troll or a vampire or ghoul. Although it's unlikely it'd be a ghoul since they don't go for fresh energy. There could be any number of types of fey on the floor. Just be ready and do not let anything on the elevator." "What exactly is this debt you have?" I ask, still not taking the pistol. "Housekeeping," he says as the bell dings and the elevator stops.

"Thirteen," I say and grab the door. "Here we go," he says and readies his shotgun. I slide the door open. The floor is pitch black. A black so dark, so completely void of any light, that it almost seeps into the elevator like thick, foamy ink. "Crap," Peyton says, and fishes out a pair of sunglasses from inside his coat. He puts them on. "Better, but not good. Take this."

He pushes the pistol against my chest. No, I'm not taking... A low, menacing growl echoes out from the darkness, followed by several hisses. I take the pistol. Nothing gets on the elevator, Peyton says, and then steps into the darkness. I'll be right back. Before he's completely lost in the dark, he turns and narrows his eyes. I do not let the door close, you hear? That door closes and I'm trapped, understood? I nod. Say it!

He barks. "Yeah, understood," I say and shrug. "It doesn't close on its own anyway. I have to close it." "No, someone or something has to close it," he argues. "Do not let anything even get close to-" Peyton screams as a thick, black tentacle wraps around his waist and yanks him into the darkness. "Peyton!" I shout and bring up the pistol. Then I look at the weapon and frown. I don't know how to shoot a fucking gun.

I quickly lower it. "Payton!" There's nothing. No sound. No sign of movement. Then two shotgun blasts roar out of the darkness, and for a split second I can see the 13th floor. It's a wide open space with something huge at the center. And that something huge has Payton gripped in several tentacles. And there may have been a wide mouth full of teeth, but it's all just a flash of memory as the whole floor returns to its pitch black state. "Payton! Open!" He yells back.

Then there are two more flashes and booms from the shotgun. I see him being flung across the floor before I'm blind again. "Payton?" He doesn't respond. But the floor is no longer silent. I hear little noises. Like a constant ticking and tapping. The noises grow louder and I ease back against the elevator's far wall. My eyes on the thick blackness, my useless pistol at my side.

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Payton on client endorsement. Compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Tier one compensation provided. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC. An SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash nosleep. The noises grow and multiply until all I know, all I can hear is that ticking and tapping. Then it stops. Payton! I call out again.

The darkness breaks and about a thousand spiders the size of small rats burst into the elevator. "Oh fuck!" I scream and open fire with the pistol. I hit nothing as the spiders flow away from the bullets. I throw the pistol into the darkness.

"Ow!" Peyton shouts. I don't apologize. I don't have time as the swarm of spiders comes for me. And that isn't the worst part. No, the worst part is, as they get closer, I realize they all have faces. Little grimacing faces with very, very sharp teeth. I scream. Then I look around for a way out. Then I scream some more. Then I watch as dozens of the spiders climb the frame of the elevator door and squeeze themselves into the gap.

In a second, the door starts to slide closed. That gets me moving. "Do not let the door close!" I shout as I lift a foot, then bring it down onto the backs of half a dozen spiders. They burst open under my soul, and every spider in the elevator freezes. All of their tiny little nightmare faces turn and look up at me. "It dies now!" they say in unison and leap as one. I'm covered in nightmare spiders, and nothing but screams erupt from my throat.

I thrash about the elevator and slam my body against the walls, squishing spider after spider after spider. The elevator door is halfway closed, so I throw myself that way and wedge my spider-covered body in the frame, stopping the door from closing all the way. More spiders come out of the dark, their mouths open wide as they screech, "It dies now!" The new spiders don't attack me. Instead, they stream up the door and squeeze into the crack.

The pressure from the door increases and I gasp as the breath in my lungs is slowly pressed from my chest. A spider bites my ear and I slam my head to the side, squashing it dead while also nearly giving myself a concussion. The pressure from the door gets worse and I struggle to breathe.

"Here!" Peyton shouts, suddenly by my side. He reaches out and grabs the door, shoving it back open with all his strength. I slip free and fall into the elevator. Then I scramble on my hands and knees and slam my hand on the open button. The door creaks and groans, but slowly begins to slide all the way open. Guts and goo squirt out of the frame as the spiders inside are mushed and mashed into yellow-brown pulp. "Here!"

Peyton says, and hands me a shotgun with a handful of shells. "What about you?" "I have the pistol thanks to your throw," he says, frowning and pointing at the huge bruise in the middle of his forehead. Then the tentacles are back, and Peyton is yanked into the darkness once again. I get to my feet and plant my back against the far wall again.

But this time, as the spiders come for me, I take aim with the shotgun and squeeze the trigger. The shot obliterates half of them, which is not how I think shotguns are supposed to work. But who am I to argue? I break open the shotgun and yank out the spent shells, replacing them with two of the extras Peyton gave me. A phone rings. I look at the hatch, then at the bank of buttons. Floors 6, 4, 14, 17, and 9 are all lit up. The phone continues to ring.

"Don't answer that!" Peyton shouts right before he cries out in pain. "Son of a griffin!" The darkness lights up as Peyton fires five rounds into the huge, tentacled thing. The spiders start pouring into the elevator again, and several of them head for the bank of buttons. "No!" I shout an open fire. I wipe out the spiders, but I also destroy half the buttons. Most of the ones for the upper floors are completely gone. The phone continues to ring.

Peyton fires over and over. Spiders keep coming at me. I fire and reload, fire and reload. The phone now sounds like it's muffled by a pillow as my ears ring from the shotgun blasts. Realizing I have only two shells left, I try not to panic. All the spiders freeze, turn and look into the darkness, then scatter as fast as they appeared, leaving me all alone once again. I rest my back and head against the far wall and take several deep breaths.

which is what probably saves my life. Not the deep breaths, but having my back against the wall. It's how I feel the first thump, then the second, then the third. Footsteps, large footsteps, coming right for me. I lift the shotgun and take aim as something slowly appears out of the darkness. "What the fuck are you?" I mumble as the huge thing fills the elevator door.

It's all grey and clumpy. Two arms, two legs and a head. No eyes, no mouth or nose. No features at all. It looks like a kid's art project that hasn't been painted yet. Just a blob of clay molded into the shape of a man. Then it hits me. Not literally. I just figure out what the thing is. "A golem!" I say then look at my shotgun and sigh. "Fuck!" Pretty sure this won't do much against clay.

The creature takes a step into the elevator, then turns its featureless head and looks at the bank of buttons. It slams a clay hand against the buttons that are left until it gets the desired result. The door begins to slide closed. "No!" I shout and lunge for the button bank. The next thing I know I'm crumpled in the opposite corner of the elevator, my head swimming and my eyes unfocused. But I'm aware enough to see that the door is still closing.

Use the shotgun! Peyton shouts from somewhere. The shells are hexed! That's easier said than done, considering I'm no longer holding the shotgun. I look all over and see it on the floor a few feet away. The golem looms over me, not moving. I start to reach for the shotgun, then yank my arm back just in time before the golem's massive clay foot stomps down on the spot where my hand had been. The phone is still ringing. I scramble to my hands and knees and faint to the left.

The golem follows my movement, its leg drawing back for a deadly kick. But I juke to the right and crawl past it, grabbing up the shotgun in both hands. The world spins and I'm lifted into the air, my face slamming up against the elevator ceiling. Then I'm thrown down to the floor and all the wind is knocked out of me. I gasp for breath as the golem reaches down and its clay hands grip around my neck. I put the shotgun to its head and pull the trigger.

Clay explodes across my face and the hands around my throat fall away, and the rest of the golem topples and lands across my body. I grunt as the crushing weight pins me to the floor. "Coming in!" Peyton yells, and I see his shoes as he sprints into the elevator. "Ah shit! Hold on!" He does something, then the golem is rolled off me. Peyton pulls me to my feet and points at the door. "Close that and get us down to the lobby now!" he says, then crouches over something on the floor.

The phone is still ringing. I slam the door closed, smash my thumb against the lobby button, then yank open the hatch and answer the phone just as Peyton screams, "No! Don't!" "Mr. Richard, this is management." A million voices say and scream and whisper and yell and call and cry from the phone. "I am afraid you have been terminated. You are no longer employed at the Third Arms, and all rights and privileges have been revoked. Goodbye."

The phone goes dead, and I pull it away and stare at the handset, before letting it fall away to clatter to the floor. "I just got fired!" "Fuck!" Peyton says. "I should've warned you about that." The elevator stops and there is a loud clang, followed by a second, third, and fourth clang. "Not good!" Peyton says and stands up. That's when I get a good look at what he was crouching over. It's a small girl! No, wait, it's a small boy.

"No, hold on. It has wings. Small, translucent wings." "Pixie royalty," Peyton says. "Lost to the juice," the pixie king called in my debt. "Lost to the juice?" I ask. "What does that mean?" "The thirteenth floor," Peyton says, looking up at the ceiling. "It's a drug den for non-human creatures." "Drug den? What's the drug?" "You," he says and shrugs. "And me."

Anyone who rides in this elevator is slowly drained of its life force. When the 13th button shows up, that means there isn't enough juice for all the junkies who have slipped in from different cracks in the city. It used to allow the more aware ones to leave quickly, but there are no aware ones anymore. So the button goes unused, never to be touched by human fingers. "But I touched it!" I say. "What's going to happen to me?"

"Nothing. It's all mumbo jumbo bullshit, made up by management to keep the curious at bay," he says then nods up at the ceiling. "We'll have to climb." "Climb?" "Yeah, climb." The clanging starts again followed by a loud scraping. Then the walls of the elevator defy physics and start to slide inward from all directions. "Climbing is good," I say.

Payton takes the empty shotgun and reaches up to shove a ceiling panel aside. "I'll give you a boost, then hand the pixie up to you, okay?" he says as he drops the shotgun and crouches, lacing his fingers together. "Step in." I do, and he boosts me up so I can grab the edge of the hole and pull myself on top of the elevator. I gasp as I look around. The entire shaft is lined with skeletons. All human, many still with some flesh on them. "Here!" Payton shouts.

I feel the elevator walls shifting under me and I hurry to reach down so I can take the pixie. It weighs less than air and I almost overcompensate as I lift it up out of the elevator. Setting it down carefully on top, I reach my arm down in. "Take my hand!" I say to Peyton. A voice whispers. I look over at the pixie but its eyes are closed. "Hey!" Peyton yells up at me. "Pay attention!" I look back at him and he's trying to grab my hand but I'm waving it all over the place.

"Sorry!" I say and steady my arm. He grips my hand and I pull as hard as I can. I don't think I have the strength, but I manage to get him up just enough that he can reach the opening with his other hand, allowing him to pull himself on top. "Help me!" the voice says again and I whirl around. "Ignore them!" Peyton says as he lifts the pixie up into his arms and throws it over one shoulder. "They're lost!" "Ignore who?"

Then I see them. The skeletons that still have flesh on them aren't exactly skeletons. They are people who are wasting away in the elevator shaft. I see several eyes looking at me. Their whites yellowed and their lids pulled back, stretched so wide that the eyeballs are about to pop out of their skulls. "Residents," Peyton says as he reaches out with one hand and grabs a rung of the ladder that is built into the side of the shaft. "Former employees."

The long timers who have been drained of their energy and stuffed in this shaft until they slowly expire, then rot away into dry husks. I gag a little. "Get it together," Peyton says. "We have a long climb." I don't even question what he says and just fall in behind him as he starts to climb up the shaft. Hand over hand over hand I go. Peyton's shoes only inches above my face. Down below I hear the walls of the elevator begin to groan.

Then there's a deafening pop and a geyser of clay shoots up past us. I'm very glad I'm not in that elevator. My arms tire quickly and I have to stop and rest every few seconds. "Better keep moving!" Peyton calls down to me. "You don't want to be in here when they recall the elevator." "Why? What happens then?" I ask, my chest heaving from the climb. "They release the hounds!"

As soon as the words leave his mouth, the elevator below us creaks, groans, then drops so fast that I don't even see it leave when I glance down. It's just gone. "Three more floors!" Peyton says. The sound of hounds from below fills the shaft. "How can they get up here?" I ask Peyton as a sweaty palm nearly slips off a rung. "They can climb." "Oh."

I put all of my remaining strength into my climbing and focus on Peyton's shoes as the sound below gets louder and louder. Then we're at the top. A single, normal door just above us. "Climb past me and open it! Do what?" I ask. But I do as he says after glancing down and seeing the first hound as it climbs its way up to us. It has a lot of teeth. Why does everything in the city have so many damn teeth? I somehow manage to get past Peyton and the pixie and onto the very small ledge in front of the door.

My hand grips the knob and slips as I try to turn it. Wiping my sweaty palm on my uniform, I try again and the door cracks open. Sweet, fresh air, or as fresh as the air gets in the city, blows into the shaft. "Tag it!" Peyton yells up at me. I scramble outside onto the roof, then turn and squat so I can lift the pixie up off Peyton's shoulder and lay it on the cool tar paper. Peyton hurries up out of the shaft and slams the door closed.

"It won't hold them long," he says, and lifts the pixie back up. "Come on!" He hurries to the edge of the roof and looks down. "This should be fun. What should be fun?" He waves me off, then pulls a bag out of his coat. With his teeth, he tears open the bag and the stink from whatever it is inside hits my nose in seconds. "Oh, fuck," Peyton says and gags a few times. "Damn kobold blood!"

Payton steps back from the edge of the roof, takes the bag in both hands and squeezes, spraying the blood out into the air as he waves the bag back and forth. The door to the elevator shaft booms and the slamming echoes out from behind it. I turn and see the hinges begin to strain and push outward. "We have to jump!" "Jump? Where?" He points out to the open air, and I see it's not as open as it was. The kobold blood has created an opaque platform.

"Are you shitting me?" I shout at Payton. "You're welcome to stay here and wait for those assholes to break through that door," Payton says. Then he looks past me and sighs. "Were those assholes to come crush your skull?" I look over my shoulder and see four large shadows lurching across the roof. Just as I'm about to ask what they are, I see wings unfurl. Stone wings. "Crotesks," I say.

"Good on you for remembering their real name," Peyton says, "but they don't really care. They'll still crush your skull. Okay, what do we do?" I ask as I hurry up next to Peyton. "Jump like I said," he replies, then steps up onto the roof's ledge, hangs a foot over the side, and pushes off with his back foot. He almost doesn't make it, but as soon as his toe touches the platform, the kobold blood swirls up around his shoe and pulls him all the way on,

I follow, and as I'm about to make my jump, a stone claw grips my shoulder and yanks me back onto the roof. "Where do you think you're going?" a rumbly voice asks me as I'm suddenly nose-to-nose with the grotesque. "I, uh, got fired," I say, "so I'm just leaving." "No," the grotesque says, shaking its head back and forth so that the tip of its stone nose rubs the skin right off the tip of my nose.

"You were terminated, not fired. Does the little human need a thesaurus so its tiny mind can understand what other meanings there are for the word 'terminated'? Oh shit." "Hey Rocky!" Peyton yells. "You got some lichen on you!" "What? Where?" The grotesque cries out, dropping me instantly. "Come on, kid!"

I scramble up and leap off the roof, my arms outstretched. Just when I think I'm not going to make it and end up a Tony Pancake down below, the tip of my left middle finger touches the bloody platform and I'm pulled all the way onto it. "Grotesques aren't just nosy bitches, but extremely vain," Aiden says, kneeling next to me. "Now hold on. To what?" I ask, as he makes a sigil with his right hand, then presses it against the platform.

My stomach lurches as I begin to fall. I almost start to scream, thinking I'm now going to plummet 20 floors to the street below. But the scream is knocked out of me as I only fall about 6 feet and hit cold, hard industrial tile instead. Peyton extends a hand and helps me up. "Is this a dry cleaner's?" I ask, looking around at what is obviously the back room of a dry cleaner's, answering my own question. "Who the fuck is back there?" a woman shouts.

"Just me, May!" Peyton calls. "Dropping off the pixie so you can give it to the king then leaving." "Good!" The woman yells. Peyton sets the pixie down on the tile, then grunts and arches his back. "Gonna be sore tomorrow, that's for fucking sure." He says then looks at me and laughs. "Hey, May!" "What do you want now, Peyton?" "Can my friend borrow some of the lost and found clothes? He's not exactly dressed for the street." "I don't care! Just get out!" "Thanks!"

"You're not welcome!" "Strip," Peyton says, then disappears into the racks of clothes. When he returns, he has a large, sweatshirt in one hand and a pair of bright green slacks in the other. "It's all I could find that looks like your size," he pauses. "Why are you still in that uniform?" "Oh," I say and strip down to my undershirt and boxers. Peyton tosses me the clothes and I get dressed quickly, barely getting my shoes tied when Peyton says, "Let's go."

He leads me to a back door, and we hurry out into a dank, piss-stinking alley. "This way," he says and jogs to the end of the alley, where he pauses and looks left, then right, then steps out onto the sidewalk like he has no care in the world. I join him and we just walk for a few blocks before I ask. "Where are we?" "Close to my office," he says. "We can lay low there for a day or so. By that time, the Third Arms will have regrouped and forgotten all about us puny humans.

"But you live there." "Not anymore," he replies and shrugs. "I can stay at my office." "Yeah, well, I don't have a job," I say. "I don't have a home." "You never really did either," he says and shrugs. "That apartment was just a holding cell, while the Third Arms slowly drained you until you looked like that Ansel guy," he chuckles. "Guess how old he was?" "I don't know," I say, annoyed at being asked the question while I'm worrying about where the hell I'll live. "Come on, guess."

"60? 70? 32?" Peyton says with a self-satisfied grin on his face. "I would have tried to recruit him, but he was deteriorating too fast. Plus, I overheard him say he hated Chinese food. What does that have to do with anything? You think I let you order on my tab just out of the kindness of my heart? No, you said it was because I forgot my leftovers." "Wrong. It's because Joanie knows how to add a little protection in each bite.

"I got to you before you started your first shift, so the third arm hadn't gotten its, well, tentacles in you yet. Add in Joanie's special sauce and you were able to fight off the effects." He smiles at me. "You're welcome." Before I can shout at him to go to hell, we reach a building. "This is my office," he says. "You proved yourself tonight, kid. I know it's part of our deal, but you really deserve this." "Deserve what?" I ask. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The first part of our deal," he says. "I'm offering you a place to crash and a job, once things die down a little." "A job? A job," he says, then looks up at the sky as a far-off cry echoes over the city. "We should get inside. The grotesques hold grudges and are probably flying around looking for us after that Lycan fakeout." He unlocks the door and walks inside. I see a long staircase just past him.

"You coming? Or do you want to find out what herbs feel like in a mortar and pestle?" He makes a crushing motion with both hands and I get the picture. "A job and a place to stay?" I ask. "For how long? 'Til we find you a new place of your own." He says and nods. "But the job you can keep for however long you want. I make a deal, I stick to it." I look back over my shoulder at the dark street. Then I hear the grotesque's cries getting closer. "Sure." I say and step over the threshold.

Why not?