"Excerpt 1" by Baz ´Jinx´ Dwornik

A rich, comforting aroma wafted in from the kitchen. Serine slowly crossed the living room of her apartment, tall bars of red light peeking through the blinds and stretching across the flat grey carpet from the newly risen sun. She passed the threshold into the kitchen, the linoleum, counters, and table top glowing white in the lifeless flourescent light from the ceiling. She paused, taking in a silent breath.

The strange man sat at the kitchen table facing her, as if expecting her entrance. A cup softly steamed in his hands, raised from his elbows resting on the table. His blue-grey hair, freshly groomed and shining cleanly, hung down nearly to his waist, with not a single strand out of place. Now dressed in the soft, grey turtleneck shirt and blue jeans she had found for him, he seemed so casual, so friendly, that she felt her shoulders ease uncontrollably. Upon meeting her eyes, he smiled, a touch enigmatic, but genuinely warm. The expression accented the perfect features of his face so well that, despite the strange colored hair, the head and a half he stood over her, and even the clawlike blood red tattoo over his left eye, he seemed perfectly natural. And in that gentle smile, his whole being glowed.

"Good morning," he greeted, his words slightly tinged with an English accent. His voice, while not particularly deep, seemed to grow out of the farthest depths of his being, speaking words eternal.

"I'm sorry for the disturbance last night," Angelice continued. "Things... have been a little rough lately." The calm, mysterious smile widened just slightly for emphasis. Gazing into his still, ice blue eyes, only flashes of memory from the previous night flitted across Serine's mind. It seemed impossible that this essence of serenity before her was the same haggard, black-clad rat she had invited in from a week of rain in the alley beside her apartment building. Certainly he couldn't be the monster last night that had been screaming in the living room and swinging at open air with enough force, she had thought, to crumble the walls. Serine couldn't even count how many faces she had seen to him, and yet, somehow, the way she saw him now seemed the only way he could be.

Angelice paused to take a sip from his cup, and Serine's eyes fell to fix on it, bewildered. Catching her expression as he pulled the cup away, he added, "And I'm sorry for rummaging through your kitchen. I'm glad I didn't wake you."

Serine, in a daze from the calm way Angelice appeared this morning, forced her gaze away from him and over his shoulder. Her eyes widened when she saw the source of the delightful scent filling the whole apartment. Half a pot of freshly brewed coffee sat hot and dark in the coffee maker on the countertop.

Approaching the appliance slowly in shock, she uttered, "That coffee pot's been broken for months! How did you fix it?"

"I didn't."

A gasp escaped from Serine and her eyes grew large. Standing just in front of the automatic coffee maker, beige with age and stains, she discovered that it was not even plugged in. She spun in her place to face the back of Angelice's head.

At her reaction, he turned his head slightly to the side, though she still could not see his eyes, and asked, the smile in his voice, "Would you like some?" Serine's attention snapped behind him as a cupboard door over the counter swung open of its own free will. A clean coffee cup slid out of the cupboard and floated over to the coffee maker, which responded by removing the glass pot from the base. Serine backed against the wall next to the refrigerator, rendered immobile by the sight before her. The coffee pot, hovering beside the cup, gently tilted to fill the cup with steaming coffee before replacing itself on the coffee maker again. Then, the sugar bowl on the counter opened its lid unassisted and a stream of sugar, about a tablespoon of it, lifted out of the bowl and arced over the counter into the cup, stirring itself into the black liquid.

The coffee cup lifted off the counter again and flew over to her. With a gasp, she stepped back another few steps. The coffee cup defeatedly set itself on the table opposite Angelice. When it was still, Serine snapped her gaze back to him. His smile melted as he stared into the cup in his hands. An expression of remorse now marked his face, and he didn't look away from the cup he lowered back to the table.

Serine's attention was interrupted as the chair before the coffee that had just been prepared for her moved silently away from the table.

"Please, have a seat," Angelice offered, his earthly voice now quiet and serious. As smoothly as he spoke, his words seemed to struggle to come. "There are many things I need to tell you."