Rapturous Ascendancy

Agent Lee sat at the bar of the Cafe Rouge et Noir and listened to the convoluted whispered conspiracies about the collapse of the Fourth Decadency and the potentially terrifying rise of the Rapturous Ascendancy that eddied through the crushed velvet atmosphere. As he sipped glass after glass of whiskey he kept one eye on the variously coloured images of the passing trade reflected in the wraparound mirror behind the two bar-tenders. He had mastered several techniques over the years in revealing auras and mirrors were an invaluable aid, though of course it was an art, not a science, and the conditions had to be just so for him to get an accurate read.

Conditions in Agartha necessitated that Agent Lee always be on his guard. Not only was there the possibility that an informer might be a double agent for The Angle aka Al the Angle aka Alabama Al aka Birmingham Al, there was the indisputable fact that the controlling authorities and the forces they in turn answered to would be keeping a very close eye on his every manoeuvre and movement. Besides, as the major industries (apart from the administration of interstellar bureaucracies) in Agartha was the production of illusion, maintenance of egregores and the distribution of deception he couldn’t absolutely trust the evidence of his own senses. Beneath his breath he muttered garbled charms and counter-spells while his finger traced sigils with the drops of spilled whiskey on the wooden counter top. For more flesh and blood enemies he had full confidence in the heat nestling snugly in his shoulder holster.

He had just ordered another whiskey from the dead-eyed blonde barmaid when he saw a violently violet aura glowing incandescently in the mirror. It had to be her, his only lead to The Angle.

(Although the above can be read as a miniature stand-alone story, it is a direct follow on from Oblique Angle, which in turn is part of a larger series of loosely connected fictions, starting with Showtime, (though several characters and locations had made prior appearances) and carrying through Territory, Eden Falls, Uneasy City & X Marks the Spot.)