The Lucifer Messiah by Frank Cavallo

sipped his tea with the hand of a connoisseur. In his elegant, but uncommonly tiny suit, he sat quietly, feet dangling from the edge of his chair. There were only a few others in the diner to notice him. A cabbie with a day-old beard growth sat nibbling on dry toast at the end of the counter.
A lady of the evening,
still done up for a night on the town, waited for her late-night snack as she counted her trick money before calling it quits.
    It was quiet, almost surreal for Manhattan, a town that was buzzing seemingly at all hours. Outside the slightly steamed restaurant windows a few trucks made their way through mostly empty streets, accompanied only by the rush of the sewer vents and the occasional homeless straggler. It was Argus’s favorite time of the day.
    During the dawn hour, when the moments seemed to stretch longer than at any other point of the day, he often found himself drawn back over the many years of his long, long life. The older he grew, in fact, the more he enjoyedcasting his thoughts backward, rather than forward.
    The child-who-was-not-a-child had seen that sun rise more than five hundred thousand times. And with each one there was a memory.
    Prague, December 1923 was the one that drew his attention this morning.
    He could still hear the icy water rushing over the rapids of the
Vltava,
just beyond the Charles Bridge. He could almost see the battlements of the castle_
Pražský Hrad,
bastion of ancient Czech kings, rising defiantly through the early day’s haze. And he could still smell the pungent odor of a man who had not bathed; a stink that he well recalled had carried downwind from where the disheveled figure sat along the riverbank.
    He had been huddled, wrapped in a urine-stained cloak beneath a barren tree. A steaming mess of yellowish puke had oozed over the near cobblestones, an empty bottle of vodka at its center.
    Argus had approached him carefully, for he had walked with a cane in 1923, a thing he distinctly remembered, perhaps better than any of the other details of that day. His thin, withered legs had not been able to carry him swiftly in those days, and he had several times brushed long, white hair from his eyes as he neared. Charybdis had been at his side then, and he well recalled how his loyal aide had looked in those days as well.
    1923 had been a good year for Charybdis.
He
was strong then, tall and broad-shouldered, with the Nordic features of a Dane or a Swede. An aristocratic beard onhis chin lent him the bearing of a noble in exile. A perfect watchman for the
little old lady
named Argus, as
she
neared the drunk at the edge of Prague’s central river.
    â€œAre you certain of it?” Argus questioned, his voice the shrill whine of a hag.
    â€œAs sure as I can be without seeing him myself. The owner of the bar described the scene to me personally. If his memory was even close, then we may be in luck,” Charybdis answered.
    â€œWhat did he say again, exactly?”
    â€œThat a woman wandered into his beer hall three nights ago, tall, beautiful, and speaking English with an American accent. Every man in the place bought her a drink, and by midnight she was utterly drunk. One of the bolder of the patrons retired with her to the rear of the hall, to a private room.”
    â€œNot much to speak of so far, Charybdis,” Argus interrupted as they neared to within several yards of the tree where the lone beggar sat.
    â€œIt will be. Only the girl and the man, a regular at the tavern, entered the private room, and the owner assures me that no one else was back there. Then, about five minutes later, after some loud and unusual sounds echoed from that area, a single
male
stumbled out of the room, half dressed in the clothes of the man who had entered. The second man, who no one had seen before, ordered a drink and secluded himself in the shadow of a corner booth. A few minutes later, someone checked the room and found—are you ready?
    â€œThe man who