Yesterday, upon the stair,/I met a man who wasn’t there/He wasn’t there again today/I wish, I wish he’d go away...

When I came home last night at three/The man was waiting there for me/But when I looked around the hall/I couldn’t see him there at all!/Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!/Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair/A little man who wasn’t there/He wasn’t there again today/Oh, how I wish he’d go away

-Hughes Mearns, 1889

"Do'ye ever get the feeling when you walk into a room, and everyone stops talking, like they know something about you? More about a situation than you do? That's pretty much my life." - Sean Finn O'Keeffe

It isn't often when even someone as old as I am can say that I saw a mortal be born twice. But, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven", as the Christians say. As I say, if you live long enough, you can't fail to see a bit of everything. Who am I? Eh, I've had far too many names to list them here, not that I would. You understand. Names, power, the whole roast and cabbage. You can call me Flynn, but don't call me unless you mean it, and more importantly, are prepared to deal.

So where was I? Oh, yes, the boy. The second time I saw him born, it was on the floor of a dirty warehouse in one of the choicer sections of old Belfast town, on a winter solstice eve in the year of Your Lord 2020. He was a lot bigger this time around, but no less bare as his Creator made him, mewling and crying and shaking all about. You ever see a boy full grown wailing like a newborn on a cold concrete floor? You don't want to. By rights I should have interfered, should have picked him up and given him enough good thoughts to quiet him, but... well, we all have our parts to play. Instead, I turned and looked up to the man at my side and simply said, "It's him."

Dominic. Or David, as his dear departed mother called him. What can I say about the man who pulled down the land and sea and sky to break this dear child out of the hellish heaven in which he was resident? Well, for one thing, it's a good thing his dear departed mother was dearly departed, or he would have found a good price for her in an hour and a day. Like a tall, frosty Guiness, or a maybe a particularly crisp pounder. David O'Bannion was one of the Called, a warlock of the first order. Old as a thrice worn penny, and meaner than a treed manx was our David. And this boy was to be his masterstroke.

I must say, David looked good for a man of one hundred a twenty two. All slim and trim, his nose and high forehead giving him the air of a hawk on the hunt. He wore his black coat trimmed with ermine for the winter, his bowler cap and cane with the hidden blade set aside for the ceremony. He affected the air of a gentleman of an earlier age, but the avarice that his fever bright eyes looked down on his prize was pure 21st century. As he lowered his hands, he looked about the room, a small, half-mad smile playing along his thin lips.

In the darkness, eyes were watching, glittering like wolves around a campfire. The boys who shifted silently in the shadows of the warehouse weren't boys, not strictly speaking. They had more in common with your common houseplant, truth be told, than they did to any real boy in his private school duffs sneaking a drink of his father's barley malt. But, they were vicious, disposable, and none too bright. Changelings are fun that way.

Crossing the circle of salt for the first time, his patent leather shoes clicking against the grease stained concrete, David approached the boy, whose wails were high and choking, a sound so close to a banshee that it raised the hackles on my arms. The warlock seemed unaffected as he circled the boy, who clutched his arms and legs in a fetal crouch, shivering and wailing without seeming to catch a breath. He poked the child with his silver tipped cane, tracing the outlines of the woad blue tattoos that encircled his arms and crisscrossed his back, picking out a lineage of ancient Kings of Tara. When the boy on the ground shied from the cold silver, O'Bannion pressed a switch, and with a little click, a thick needle of iron emerged from the point of the cane, iron that, on contact, burned the fae-touched moisture off the boy's shoulder and left a smoking welt on his skin. The brief contact with the iron finally interrupted the boy's infernal wailing, seemingly shocking him into silence, his eyes widened with pain and looking on his summoner for the first time.

I noted with satisfaction the cross colors of his eyes, green as summer heather and blue as the frozen sea. Dominic noticed too.

"You promised me a prize, Imp. You promised me a mortal of worth," Dominic spoke with his cultured tones into the winter brittle silence. "It appears that what you have delivered is a half-feral beastling. Your debts to me are considerable, and I bear the weight of your name. Do you wish to explain, or should I simply proceed to Unnaming?" As he spoke, his eyes never left the prone, silent child at his feet, but I could feel the eyes of his pack of Lost Children on me, hungry and empty and cruel.

Dutifully ignoring the mad eyed stares of the changelings all around us, I affected a calm I truthfully didn't feel as I lit a cigarette from the little silver case in my breast pocket. "The Crossing," I said as the golden flame lit up my bearded features,"is insanely difficult, as you well know. Made all the worse by the sheer length of time this one has been on the other side. Don't play games with me, Dominic. You can read the runes on his back as well as I. He's the one you wanted and you'll not squeeze another promise out of me beyond our original deal. If you want me to help the boy, as we agreed, then break the salt ring so I can get at him. If you don't, then by all means keep playing at prod the princeling. I've got all the time in the world."

The silence lengthened. Affecting an air of nonchalance, knowing how many hopes rested on this moment, on a fulcrum across the shoulders of this madman's caprice, I waddled myself over to a discarded wooden box and hoisted myself to sit on top of it. As I did, I watched as Dominic slowly, almost gently touched the iron tip to boy's back, his arm, his neck, each time leaving an angry red welt. The whole time, the boy stopped flinching, and simply watched him with those unnerving mismatched eyes.

Finally, seeming to come to some internal decision, Dominic turned and strode toward me, his back to the summoned child. With a deliberate motion, he smudged the salt ring with the toe of a patent leather shoe. I hopped down off the box and gathered up an old moving blanket. Entering the ring, I helped the boy right himself and draped the scratchy wool thing over his shoulders. I know I was saying something, but I don't remember now what it was, probably something comforting. As I did though, I followed the boy's gaze to across the room to where Dominic was putting on his hat.

As his "children" disappeared into the dark, he looked back at us and seemed to meet the gaze of my new charge one more time. "Make him useful, Flynn. Or we will be renegotiating your deal," and with that, he turned, his cane striking once against the concrete floor, before, with a suddenness that surprised even me, I felt the wave of power roil outward from the no longer shaking boy beneath my hands. Dominic's cane shattered like glass in his hand, shards exploding in every direction and lashing into the warlock's tailored pants and coat, leaving rents and even a bit of blood.

Despite my near certainty that the boy was now going to be exiting the world as soon as he entered, and possibly me along with him, I saw to some surprise as Dominic simply stood for a moment, his gloved hand clutching the air experimentally, before he turned and fixed the child with his cold, killer's gaze, and smiled ever so slightly before turning and exiting into the driving snow. Mortals.