Out went the lights, the glitz, the glam. Even the unnatural gritty red glow of an indeterminate building-blocked horizon faded, subdued by underworldly darkness. A chill ran through his fabric as he wrung himself dry, the piss pool beneath him extended over ancient alabaster pavers. The strange graffiti-stained city fell silent, tumult made of the soft urinal paternoster he futilely gargled.

God was neither there nor elsewhere.

Barely, he saw. Not with eyes, for none adorned him, a fallen soul, an infernal revenant; rather, by quasi-spiritual receptors sewn in the dyed wool banners and tabards of his person. As for light, evil eyes glinted malice in the dark, but he also possessed his own queer source: polonium threads that hissed away and vaporized the last particulates of piss that perfumed his person. On him blazed the crests of Óengus, Fidach, Ce, and Fib — tell-tale signs of his mortal betrayals.

[i]“By Eóganan mac Óengusa’s florid taint and Saint Andrew’s merry horn o’ mead, ta’ch mad realm o’ despair afronts mae poo’ over-burdened senses!”[/i] he bellowed.

Words swallowed by night, he peered around horrified. Then he remembered the only grand scene he noted before his filthy bath. Foreboding faint footfalls gave him a wide berth as he rolled and tumbled theretoward, in his mind, the castle of this realm; or, of it, what he last saw before night settled sudden and sharp over the unfamiliar landscape: the Pleiades Casino & Resort.