A million flies whined and that whine resolved to a terrible voice roaring my name. It sounded a lot like Badja Adeyemi on an infernal bullhorn. The voice drew my astral self over a despoiled expanse of burnt stumps, toward a forbidding peak, and into the lambent pink eye socket of a titan’s skull. I entered the banquet hall of an old-timey stone longhouse. Fire pits, heads on spears, animal skins tossed like throw rugs, and violent murals daubed in red and yellow ochre.

Whiro, dread god of the underworld, reclined at the end of a banquet table. He wore a black suit and a spiked Rolex. His features roiled; a thundercloud constantly reshaping itself. My grandfather’s eyes; Dad’s hawkish nose; the Croatoan’s barbed grin. He inspected platters heaped with human limbs, ears, and eyeballs. Music filtered in from a nearby oubliette; damned souls shrieking.

Welcome to the black kaleidoscope. You can see it all from here. Whiro daintily selected a severed thumb and popped it into his mouth. He chewed. Dexter Smith, mobster CPA. You commended his soul to my banquet in 1998. He snapped a radius to expose its marrow. Nigel Cooper, money launderer, also in ’98. Too bad—the punk could’ve helped you unload that cursed treasure you’re sitting on. He slurped from a clay bowl. Your blood, Isaiah, is sweeter than the rest. I love your style, kiddo. You make me proud. Truly, don’t go changing.

Charnel rot wafted from the pit. My gut churned.

What do you want? I feared I already knew.

We’re peas in a pod, Isaiah. The whine of the flies increasingly tinged his voice. Flesh of my flesh. A finger-puppet acting out my whims on earth. Your man-at-arms is a savvy fellow. Whip smart. He says you’re dead. Dead man walking, perhaps. Angels and devils circle you like vultures. The vultures as well, soon.

I reached for a weapon, like scratching an itch. No luck—I wore boxers and was empty-handed. Ash smeared my body. Ash clogged my nose and throat. Cherry-bright flakes of ash floated into the longhouse. The moas cried on the wind as they burned.

Whiro’s laughter snarled in my right ear, then the left, then both at once.

O, to become an old man bent double by guilt.

Achilles, my loyal hound, crept from the wings and crouched near the black god’s feet. The dog’s regal skull was caked in blood and cleft by the impact of a long fall onto rocks. He’d died as a consequence of my negligence, my arrogance. My good boy showed his broken fangs and drooled. Lose the love of friends and family, alas, alack. Lose the love of your dog, you’ve lost everything.

The floor crumbled; I plummeted through cotton clouds toward a lake. The lake was a shimmering opal. A shadow at the bottom of the lake solidified into my mother, large as a goddess. Half a lifetime ago, Dad brained her and claimed self-defense. Kill or be killed, he’d said. I couldn’t be certain of the truth. Both were capable of violence. They’d made me, hadn’t they?