Lazarus

The window stood open and Irish rain splattered on the sill forming a puddle beneath the window. Air smelling of the Atlantic blew through the window ruffling the pages of the books scattered across a desk with an arm chair sitting escew from the table. Loose parchment scattered across the floor like autumn leaves caught in a gale rolled and cavorted across the marble floored room under an oak table which stood laden with a breakfast of toast, jam, and tea which had long since gone cold from disinterest from the man who stood with pursed lips facing a half done portrait of a young woman. A brush hung unattended from one hand as paint dripped unnoticed on the floor. The mans eyes focused on the portrait though anyone who could have looked into them would have known he was not staring at the portrait so much as at the woman who he held in his minds eye trying painfully to remember every detail, every curve and line. The way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled and the dimpled that went along with it. The mane of fiery red hair that spilled over her shoulder in ringlets. 

A piece of the parchment in its roll was plastered up against his bare foot on the left side as it waved in the cold wet wind from the window. The rain had been insesent for almost three full weeks now. Blown in off the Atlantic the cold drug its ragged fingers into the man’s bones trying to wrench them free of his body, but the sensation seemed to be lost on him as he was lost in another time and another place. 

The fire in the workspace had long since guttered to coals but the man had yet to pay it any head as he had been wrapped up in the painting for the better part of three hours working with an mania that bespoke his mental state when genius gripped him. The painting to the casual observer would have appeared to be an almost life like rendition of woman in it. Anyone who could see magic would have been able to tell that the man was folding strands of essence into the painting, stands of beauty, grace and lust. All the more to impart the feeling of being in the presence of the subject to the observer. If one had looked even closer into the stands being woven into the painting the threads of pain, and love were woven just below the surface of lust while joy and sorrow were intertwined with the beauty and grace. The painting was not simply a work of a masterful painter but it was also a work of magical beauty designed to impart the feelings of the painter towards the subject directly into the observer if they cared to gaze long enough. 

The man himself was of an unassuming height with long hair confined in a ponytail, jeans frayed at the bottom from years of service to a man who rarely purchased new clothes. A too big T-shirt hung on his oh so average frame with a scarf carelessly wrapped around his neck. The only ward against the cold wind from the window. To most people the man would have appeared rather scrawny however a closer inspection of him would reveal wiry muscles that sat just beneath the surface of his skin. Closer inspection of his hands would reveal calluses many of which could be explained by the half finished sculpture of a massive bear in one corner of the room, or even the guitar and violin which wrested on stands near the guttering fire. However many of the calluses were a swordsman’s calluses, the saber and rapier resting in one corner attested to this however still others could not be explained without the knowledge of the Wing Chun dummy and accompanying punching bag in a room several floors down. 

With a sigh the man finally wiped his brush on a towel stained with paints and turned rolling out the kinks in his shoulders before pulling the arm chair over and flopping into it in a rather undignified manner. A puff of dust accompanied his impact as he scooped up the cup of cold tea. Without paying the temperature mind he gulped down a profuse amount before making a face at the tea and setting it back on the table. The man bit his lip in concentration as he continued to bore holes in the painting with his stare. With a final agitated sigh he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. The spark was gone, he’d lost it and the project would have to wait for another day before he could finish it properly.

While most would have written this man off as an eccentric manic genius had they know who he actual was they would have given pause. As much of an artist as he was, as great of a swordsman or martial artist as he was he was something else above all else. This strange, slightly ragged man was the Warlock known as Lazarus, one of the most powerful and skilled human practitioners currently alive. 

Lazarus stood and stretched looking at the grandfather clock pushed into a corner with his bookshelves. “Dear lord is it really that far on in the day? Where could Mary have gotten off to?”