77 Shadow Street

One

I can sing or speak from within the walls in any of billions of voices, in any of numerous languages, for I contain the memories of all whom I have killed. Their souls, should they have any, are gone, but their memories are forever suspended in me, in time, in the moment of their death. Memories are data. Souls are less than vapor. I offer the only kind of immortality that matters.

Time. I pause in all my manifestations. Across my world, the killing stops and nothing is reborn. For a moment, I cannot attend to those functions as I consider the ways of time.

Time is a treacherous thing. I exist here in my time, but the steps necessary to ensure my creation have not yet been taken in your time. Although killing has always abetted my plans and has thus far ensured my dominion of the earth, I suspect that I should spare a few more of the current crop of Pendleton residents than I had intended. The boy will still be mine to devour, and the ex-marine. Perhaps a third. Even I, the prince of this world, must in this situation proceed with caution, for all is at stake.