Written by Nohbodee
Jacoby Greyson
Detroit, Michigan
Jacoby’s Saloon was located on the basement floor of an old decrepit apartment building on the south side of Detroit, near Oakwood Heights. The emerald, green door had a dragon face painted menacingly in the center, earning the nickname, Dragon’s Saloon.
It had also developed a rather unsavory reputation.
There was a metal slot that would snap open when someone knocked six times and was given a once-over before admittance. Anyone who tried to go in despite had Johnny Walsh’s rage to contend with.
He was sometimes called, Jonesie, for his love of cigarettes. He was always jonesing for one. He also had a fondness for snapping necks and falling in love with prostitutes; indeed, he did both with great pleasure and without regret.
Jacoby hired Johnny after he left the Marines and appreciated the way he’d toss a man out into the alley for the rats to eat without question. He wanted to surround himself with men just like Johnny. Determined but distracted by life’s hot and when it’s good — wet gifts.
Jacoby Greyson, the owner of the underground bar, walked off the main street and into the alley. His hood was pulled up over his head and he walked with a slight limp in his right leg.
Steam billowed up out from the abyss of his hood, while he brooded over his unlucky night. Something bad was growing in the city, he thought. And Johnny’s obedience and strength weren’t going to be able to stop it.
He was careful, though, not to speak the thought aloud. He felt that there were some things people should just keep inside, because once you said a thing out loud, it was as if the Universe was listening and such things always came to pass.
Jacoby slowed to a stop just before he got to the emerald door. He pulled back his hood, exposing the handsome face of a tired, old man. His short graying, brown hair was lazily combed back, revealing gray eyes that turned to scan the alley behind him.
He saw no one. Shrugging, Jacoby leaned against the brick wall beside the door and breathed out heavily. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a silver lighter that had a great basilisk engraved on the front.
He knew what he had to do. He knew it was the right thing to do. He also knew that doing the right thing sometimes felt like the wrong thing — and that gave him doubts.
Nevertheless, he needed to speak with Father Uraei. He needed to pray. He was going to have a woman killed, and the more Bear revealed things about her — the more Jacoby believed she was innocent of her parent’s crimes. It.. wouldn’t change a thing, he thought, even if she was a good person…
He knew what he saw in that vision-
Jacoby’s back stiffened and he kicked away from the wall. He looked around, but he still saw no one. He was alone. He just didn’t feel like he was. There was a crash to his left and his head snapped toward the direction. The cigarette dangled between his lips, dangerously, as he watched the movement behind the dumpsters.
He took the cigarette from his mouth and tossed the butt onto the wet ground. He stared at the dumpster and before he could react, there was a knife at his throat. A hiss tickled his ear with a chill that crawled up his spine.
“Long time, no see, gatekeeper,” the man wielding the knife at Jacoby’s throat growled through rotted teeth. He smelled like death and Jacoby could feel the man’s filth smudging his own flesh with cold, dead hands.
“You look good,” the man said, dragging a hand across Jacoby’s face, breathing like a dog in his ear. “Did you forget about me?”
“Jorgie,” Jacoby said, “indeed.”
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” Jorgie went on, pressing the knife in deeper. “I plan on cutting you up into pieces and spreading them all around the country. A kind of eternal imprisonment, for you I think, old man.”
Jacoby twitched in annoyance and rolled his eyes. He slid a gun from his jacket, pulled back the hammer, and shot Jorgie in the chin — the bullet exiting the top of his skull.
Brain matter splattered black and green on the alley walls. The blade in Jorgie’s hand still executed a perfect cut to Jacoby’s throat. Though the pain was great, Jacoby had been through worst torture.
His blood spilled from his open throat, as Jorgie dropped dead to the ground behind, but in less than thirty seconds, Jacoby’s wound had resealed itself.
He looked down at the front of his shirt and glowered at the bloody mess. He rose his hands up in a that’s-just-fucking-great kind of gesture and let them drop to his sides where he pulled out another cigarette.
“Just another ugly thing trying to get the Gatekeeper,” he shook his head. You think they’d ever learn. Jacoby knocked six times on the green door, but the metal slot never opened. Johnny just simply knew.
Instead, the door flew open and Johnny beckoned Jacoby in. When Jacoby was gone, Johnny looked out at the body, grunted, and went and lifted the ugly thing up onto his big shoulders to carry it inside. They didn’t bother cleaning up the blood on the ground. Blood painted the streets of Detroit, every day. It just was the way it was.
