Night Thoughts from a Day Job

by Rachel Green

If pressed for a description of his lover, just one thing that he adores about her, Harold will rest his chin on his fist and stare into the middle-distance before fixing you with a grey-eyed stare and a half-smile. Her cold hands and her warm heart, he'll say, shifting position so his knuckles now press against his soft lips. He'll close his eyes for a moment and you'll guess that he's thinking about her as his lips flicker against his fingers in a kiss to his absent beloved. When his eyes open and he sees your expression he'll shrug and laugh. Her hands are as cold as the grave she sleeps in, he'll say, but her heart is as warm as the blood she's drinking. He'll smile then, reaching forward to clap you on the shoulder with one hand while the other pushes a syringe full of paralytic poison into your bloodstream.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.