While Blake’s voice leapt across the aether and over the nodes of cellular providers, Alexandru Constantinescu (b. 1427, d. – kinda – 1461) considered scooping a handful of stinking, stagnant alley water to gargle with. He’d drunk worse things during the war with the Turk, and the sour-milk smell of the puddles had to be better than the taste of her.

“thp What the – green?” he asked, purely rhetorically. What he was spitting out was green like reactor four at Chernobyl was green, green like mutant slime in those 3D movies he’d so loved in the 50s.

“Ichor. Christ!” he said, and doubled as a railroad spike pierced his sinuses. “Ow! Now look what you made me do!” he shouted.

“It came out of your mouth, toots,” she replied, pressing a hand to the holes in her neck. “You some kind of fallen priest or what?”

“Please. This is a rental. ptui Long as I stay away from kids, no one suspects a thing. ptah It’s even worth losing my deposit if I spill on it.”

“I’m Simone,” she offered.

“I’m Alec, pfth.”